Nathan Newman reminds us that the Bill Buckley who controls the Republicans' flagship magazine National Review today is the same Bill Buckley who in 1957 wrote that American Blacks should be disenfranchised wherever their votes might matter:
The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.
National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.
Of all the deeds done by Richard M. Nixon and his henchmen, perhaps the most evil was their decision that the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s offered a political opportunity that could be seized by changing the Republican Party from the Party of Lincoln to the Party That Doesn't Like Black People. They have labored and continue to labor under this self-inflicted curse--viz. the recent retirement of the talented J.C. Watts. And this flaw alone makes most of the flaws in the Democratic Party look like small potatoes indeed.
Posted by DeLong at December 03, 2002 06:45 PM | TrackbackSo I assume a conscientious person couldn't be a democrat because the patriarch of the Senate Democrats Robert Byrd vowed never to fight "with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." No to mention his filibustering of the '64 Civil Rights Act.
The point being that a lot has changed in 40 years. I hope I'm not vilified in 2047 for what I say today.
Suggesting Watts quit, when he has stated several times that it was due to the fact that he would like to see his children more than once a week, because of racism in the GOP is lamentable.
I also caught a sound bite of Clinton addressing a group of blacks at a rally yesterday. He claimed that Democrats lost because too many white men voted. The implosion of the Democrats is bringing out their most vile tendancies. Race bating being one of their favorites.
Hey, Brian. Show me any place that Buckley (unlike Byrd, Hugo Black, and even Strom Thurmond) recanted this disgusting opinion.
Posted by: Andrew Lazarus on December 4, 2002 11:48 AMThis is the same Senator Robert Byrd who talked about "niggers" only about six months ago. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have much to be proud about regarding their distant past. The National Review is today a multi- ethnic and multi-racial publication. Oh what the heck, take a look for yourself. You don't need to take my word for it:
http://www.nationalreview.com/
Posted by: David Thomson on December 4, 2002 11:52 AMConservative defense tactic #67: in response to a offensive past opinion never recanted, find a comparable recanted opinion on the other side.
Byrd also isn't a Democratic party "leader" in any real sense.
'He claimed that Democrats lost because too many white men voted.'
100-1 the actual quote is something like "too few minorities voted." Hmm, I can't find any rally; just the 12/3 DLC address, which doesn't have a transcript up yet.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 4, 2002 12:14 PMtwo names: Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. Do they dislike black people too?
I am surprised a person as intelligent as Brad falls for this "stereotyping" of Republicans without any RECENT evidence rooted on actual policies.
In fact, one could make the opposite argument that Democrats' opposition to vouchers, support for misguided and divisive affirmative action policies, etc. have done more damage to African American recently than any 40-years old Republican statement.
Lapo
Posted by: Lapo Corsi on December 4, 2002 12:53 PMWhy anyone would call themselves (as opposed to voting with them for pragmatic reasons) a Republican or a Democrat is beyond me, given that to do so is to associate with all manner of vile behavior. I hold no brief for Buckley, other than to note that he was among the most consistent opponents of totalitarianism, when many, mostly Democrats, were accomadationists, particularly from 1968 on. The widely held fiction is that all now on the scene were vehement opponents to mass murder on a scale that makes the Jim Crow racists pale in a comparison of evil. This is patently false, as is evidenced from the NYT winning a Pulitzer for concealing Stalin's abattior, many referring to the butcher Mao as a benign "agrarian reformer", and then, more commonly from the 60's on, excusing or denying the slaughters of Castro and Pol Pot. Hell, prominent people STILL traipse down to Havana to kiss the mass murderer of Havana's ass, and then sing his praises. No, to belong to a political party is to associate with knaves and thugs, so if it must be done (as sometimes it must), it should be done in the same manner that one urinates in public; when there is no other option, and with some degree of furtiveness and embarassment.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 4, 2002 01:02 PMAlong the same lines, what are proud Democrats to make of two Congressmen of their party, one recently in a prominent leadership role, traveling to Bagdhad to proclaim that city's torturer and murderer to be more credible than the President of the United States? What do you suppose those sort of pronouncements do for the spirits of people who are having electrodes applied to their genitals, or undergoing near drownings, or being forced at gunpoint to rape their daughters, at the behest of the monster that morally bankrupt dolts like Bonior and McDermott find preferable? Wanna make a contribution to the DNC?
Posted by: Will Allen on December 4, 2002 01:22 PMIf the only way you can defend your own bad behavior is by pointing to someone else's bad behavior, then you've effectively already conceded defeat.
How about a deal? Liberals will stop talking about the civil rights struggle if conservatives will stop talking about the struggle against Marxism. And to stop pretending that Marxism is the only alternative to laissez-faire...
Posted by: RC on December 4, 2002 01:53 PMI'm not defending anybody's bad behavior; I'm attacking pious pronouncements as to why someone would not belong to a particular political party, which usually ignores the moral bankruptcy existent in the party the pronouncer DOES choose to belong to.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 4, 2002 02:04 PMNO question but that Bill Buckley, Robert Byrd and lots of other people had positions on civil rights and race back in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s that were wrong-headed. But the idea that one shouldn't vote Republican because of Bill Buckley's ancient attitude on integration or because of something Richard Nixon did (as I recall, he resigned in part because the Republican Party was helping to impeach him) is not a very well-considered opinion.
Both parties have their share of wacko's, from Pat Buchanan (is he still a Republican?), Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on the right to Reverend Al Sharpton, David Bonior and Teddy Kennedy on the left. Should liberals not vote Democratic because some members of the party hold neanderthal views?
Besides, on the specific issue of the Civil Rights Act and race relations in the 1960s, the Democratic Party has just as much to be ashamed of as the Republican Party - after all, Southern Democrats such as Byrd, Senator Al Gore, Sr., Senator William Fulbright and Senator Sam Ervin all actively opposed the Civil Rights Act.
In the House, 40% of the Democrats VOTED AGAINST the Civil Rights Act, while 80% of Republicans SUPPORTED it. And Republican support in the Senate was even higher.
Happy not to be a Republican because of Buckley? Please.
Posted by: Anarchus on December 4, 2002 02:28 PMBut only Daniel J. Mitchell is an idiot. Yeah, right.
Posted by: Steve on December 4, 2002 02:32 PMFunny Will should bring up those 2 Congressmen; I was just thinking about them today.
Clearly, traveling to Baghdad to criticize GWB was bad form, to say the least. However, can Will or anyone else actually deny what they said?
"I believe that [GWB] would mislead the American public" about the situation in Iraq.
It has been documented that GWB and his administration have done just that. So what's the complaint? Talking about them as traitors is a misdirection intended to distract from the truth of their key statement.
GWB Lies:
M Atta met with Iraqi agents in Prague.
Int'l Atomic Weapons Agency (that's not quite the right name - sorry) report states that Iraq will have nukes within months [the report he cited was old, and said no such thing; when called on it, Ari cited another, older report, which also said no such thing. The closest anyone could come was a suggestion that, in 1988, Iraq was potentially within 1-5 years of developing the Bomb; if I'm not mistaken, circumstances have changed since then.]
Iraq could attack the US with airplanes or missiles.
Al Qaeda is in Iraq (yes - in small numbers, Kurd-controlled areas of Iraq, beyond SH's range of power)
This is not a complete list, but is a good sample of the most egregious instances of GWB misleading the American public to stir up sentiment in favor of war.
Posted by: JRoth on December 4, 2002 02:32 PMYeah, yeah- the Bob Byrd card. Guess what, all his fellow Dixiecrats like Thurmond defected to the GOP and, if you go back to the original post that Brad linked to, I pointed out that even today GOP leaders like the new governor of Georgia are campaigning on restoring the Confederate flag.
GOP leaders still generally vote against civil rights bills when they come up-- always saying well, we maybe shouldn't have opposed the last one, but this one goes too far. They vote against funding for black communities and vote to imprison and TAKE AWAY THE VOTE from large proportions of the black community.
So tell me-- what has changed in the POLICY of the GOP from the days when Bill Buckley was a respected editor of a flagship conservative magazine. Oh yeah, he still is, and still writing to denounce immigration and promoting the BELL CURVE and other racist tracts.
The language changes but the racist goals remain.
Oh yeah, a few black faces in the White House proves nothing. Tokenism is hardly a revolutionary new concept.
Posted by: Nathan Newman on December 4, 2002 02:36 PMMcDermott and Bonior did more that travel to Baghdad to denounce Bush; they actively suggested that the mass murderer of Iraq was MORE trustworthy that the the President of the United States, which in effect lends moral support to mass murder and torture. Swell. As to Atta in Prague, or Al Queda in Iraq, you may wish to read some of the more recent reporting; these are NOT settled matters, no matter how much you despise George Bush.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 4, 2002 02:48 PMAh, Mr. Newman raises the flag of tokenism, which of course, denigrates people such as Powell and Rice. Can the invective of Uncle Tom, or Oreo, be far behind? Now, exactly, who is the racist here? By the way, how many prominent Democrats have taken Buckley's stance in opposition to the War on Drugs, which does more to stupidly make black people felons than any other laws? Do you have ANY idea of what you are talking about?
Posted by: Will Allen on December 4, 2002 02:58 PM"By the way, how many prominent Democrats have taken Buckley's stance in opposition to the War on Drugs, which does more to stupidly make black people felons than any other laws? Do you have ANY idea of what you are talking about?"
I also have long argued against our nation's stupid drug laws. My guess is that perhaps half of all conservative thinkers desire to decriminalize drugs. It behooves me return to a point I made earlier concerning the racial and ethnic mix of neo-conservatives and mainstream conservative publications. Many of theses writers and editors are Jewish, Indian, Hispanic, female, and everything else you can possibly imagine.
Posted by: David Thomson on December 4, 2002 03:14 PM'In the House, 40% of the Democrats VOTED AGAINST the Civil Rights Act, while 80% of Republicans SUPPORTED it. And Republican support in the Senate was even higher.
Happy not to be a Republican because of Buckley? Please.'
I'm not sure why you're saying this, as I'm certain you know, like the rest of us, that virtually all the segregationist Democrats moved to the Republican party post-civil rights act.
'But the idea that one shouldn't vote Republican because of Bill Buckley's ancient attitude on integration or because of something Richard Nixon did (as I recall, he resigned in part because the Republican Party was helping to impeach him) is not a very well-considered opinion.'
Why not? It's an example of bad things the philosophy and thought process can produce, the same way the AFDC welfare was for the Democrats.
'McDermott and Bonior did more that travel to Baghdad to denounce Bush; they actively suggested that the mass murderer of Iraq was MORE trustworthy that the the President of the United States, which in effect lends moral support to mass murder and torture.'
No they didn't (ignoring the silly fisking in the transcript.) They say the President has been misleading the american people, but at no point do they say or imply that Saddam or Iraq is trustworthy, or more trustworthy, than the president or United States.
This is coming from someone who favors invading Iraq without bothering with inspections, mind you. They're wrong, but they have good intentions; someone disagreeing with you doesn't make them a traitor, Will, and calling them so treats politics as a zero-sum game. The point is to *convince* them, right?
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 4, 2002 03:25 PMThese are the names of the writers listed at this very moment on http://www.nationalreview.com/:
William F. Buckley Jr.
John Derbyshire
Rod Dreher
Jonah Goldberg
Victor Davis Hanson
Dave Kopel
Larry Kudlow
Stanley Kurtz
Michael Ledeen
Mark R. Levin
Kathryn Jean Lopez
Rich Lowry
John J. Miller
Stephen Moore
Joel Mowbray
Deroy Murdock
Jay Nordlinger
Michael Novak
Kate O'Beirne
John O'Sullivan
John Podhoretz
Ramesh Ponnuru
Dave Shiflett
AT WAR
GOLDBERG FILE: Religion of peace? Prove it. 12/4 4:10 a.m.
STEPHEN SCHWARTZ: Here are ten hard-hitting questions the Saudi’s should be asked. 12/4 8:30 a.m.
JOEL MOWBRAY: The White House moves toward a tough stand on Iraq’s Dec. 8 deadline. 12/4 8:40 a.m.
LAW
ALLISON HAYWARD: McCain-Feingold goes to court. 12/4 8:30 a.m.
ROD DREHER: Is nonviolent civil disobedience headed for a deep freeze? 12/4 9:00 a.m.
RACE
JOHN DERBYSHIRE: Here’s lookin’ at you, kid…not. 12/4 8:55 a.m.
WENDELL COX: What should we make of the new census-segregation numbers? 12/4 9:05 a.m.
POLITICS
MARK R. LEVIN: The (U.S.) Democrats need regime change. 12/4 11:40 a.m.
BYRON YORK: What the Esquire article says about the Bush White House. 12/4 10:50 a.m.
DAVID FRUM: If you were a Democrat, wouldn’t you just want to shake Bill Clinton? 12/4 9:07 a.m.
STANLEY KURTZ: Again, Andrew Sullivan contradicts himself on gay marriage. 12/4 8:45 a.m.
HANNA SKANDERA: The faith-based moment has come. 12/4 8:55 a.m.
ERIC PETERS: Should the government restrict how warm your house is? 12/4 9:10 a.m.
EUROPE
ILAN BERMAN: European leaders are realizing that missile defense is a necessity. 12/4 8:30 a.m.
OUTDOORS
JAMES SWAN: It’s time to shoot Canada geese. 12/4 8:30 a.m.
NRO Financial
TAXES & POLITICS
BRUCE BARTLETT: The Democrats still don’t get the tax issue. 12/4 8:30 a.m.
INVESTING
JAMES GLASSMAN: Few managed funds can beat the index funds. 12/4 8:30 a.m.
Dittohead response #2: "Everybody does it". As if that were true; as if that excused Buckley & co.
Still and all, it's important to realize just what tremendous courage Hubert H. Humphrey had in dragging the Democrats from their racist positions into a more enlightened, liberal, era. The shift for the Democrats to Civil Rights/Woman's Rights/Free Speech during the 50s culminated in Strom Thurmond leaving the Dems for the goppies in 1964.
Race and prejudice are underrated as political forces in the history of the US. Hatemongers find their own, and the label of the party is unimportant.
Posted by: Dave Romm on December 4, 2002 03:41 PMI didn't call them traitors, Jason, I said they suggested that Iraq's dictator had more credibility than the President of the United States. This is evident when, I believe, McDermott states that Iraqi statements (which, of course, are Hussein's statements) should be "taken at face value", but that the President of the United sates will lie to get into war. Why not say, "Hussein will lie to avoid detection."? Why the neutral stance taken vis-a-vis Hussein's statements, while Bush's are seen in the most negative light?
Posted by: Will Allen on December 4, 2002 03:46 PM'I didn't call them traitors'
Excuse me, then, but lots of conservatives have.
'Why the neutral stance taken vis-a-vis Hussein's statements, while Bush's are seen in the most negative light?'
I have no idea why they're so neutral on Hussein; maybe it's a "we know he's Saddam's a bastard but Bush can do better" thing. However, that does *not* change that they do not say "Saddam is more believable than Bush"; they make no linkage. In fact, the closing statement summarizes pretty well (referring to the administration):
'It would not surprise me if they came with some information that is not provable, and they, they shift it, first they said it was Al Qaeda. Then they said it was weapons of mass destruction. Now they're going back and saying it's Al Qaeda again. When will that stop? Why don't they let the inspectors come, so that we can disarm Saddam Hussein? Both David and I want to disarm them. That's got to be very clear. He's not a good guy.'
Now, they do dodge a "didn't Iraq kick out the inspectors" line, but that's a complicated "they were spying/no they weren't" avenue of discussion.
The reason they see Bush's comments "in a negative light" is because Bush has repeatedly lied about the situation, as documented all over the place.
I think the unspoken subtext of the two's objections is that a) we're trying to get into an Iraq war by pretending we really care about the results of the inspections, when b) we clearly don't. Misleading the US public is unnecessary and counterproductive.
Dragging this back onto topic: I have no idea why Democrats should be embarassed about this except from a PR standpoint, as Bush really is lying to the public about Iraq. That Saddam lies too doesn't make it ok.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 4, 2002 04:28 PMSorry, Jason, to adopt neutral language regarding Hussein's statements ("take at face value"), while casting Bush's in the most negative light, makes it quite reasonable to say that they are inferring that more credibility is due the statements of Hussein. It is inexcusable, but most politicians at one time or another engage in inexcusable behavior. My point in this thread is that those that belong to a political party while sniffing that they could never belong to the opposition's, due to many in the opposition's party having taken their morally inexcusable position on issue X, are usually blind to the morally inexcusable position that members of their own party have taken on issue y. To belong to a political party is to associate with vile positions, which is why it should only be done with great circumspection, like all necessary acts of an unpleasant nature, if not acts of necessary evil.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 4, 2002 04:52 PMBy the way, I'm not a conservative, at least not in the modern sense, so it is kind or pointless to associate their statements with mine.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 4, 2002 04:56 PM'Sorry, Jason, to adopt neutral language regarding Hussein's statements ("take at face value"), while casting Bush's in the most negative light, makes it quite reasonable to say that they are inferring that more credibility is due the statements of Hussein.'
Including when they call Hussein a bad guy?
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 4, 2002 06:02 PMLet's get back to the important point, everybody: how racist is the GOP NOW? (In 1978, National Review was still publishing cute little poems by W.H. Von Dreele comparing Martin Luther King to Father Divine -- but by the early Eighties, Buckley himself was supprting the idea of making King's birthday a holiday.)
I think the GOP is now making the transition back from being a party that openly appealed to white racism to win votes (Goldwater's famous "Let's go hunting where the ducks are") to a party based entirely on (1) the interests of the higher-income half of the country, and (2) the interests of rural as opposed to urban regions. Of course, since a hugely disproportionate share of nonwhites in this country are in the lower-income half, and they're also disproprtionately concentrated in the inner cities (which is largely why the GOP has abandoned the cities in the first place), this produces effects which might be called "effectively" racist as opposed to "explicitly" racist.
As for the Democrats, before the Sixties they suffered from an acute case of political schizophrenia: they were still the party of white Southern racists, but they were ALSO (after the Depression) the party of American blacks, for economic reasons. After the early Sixties, the GOP was much purer-minded in its pursuit of white racism; it didn't give a damn about the black vote, and by and large it still doesn't.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on December 4, 2002 07:20 PMWill Allen wrote, "The widely held fiction is that all now on the scene were vehement opponents to mass murder on a scale that makes the Jim Crow racists pale in a comparison of evil. This is patently false, as is evidenced from the NYT winning a Pulitzer for concealing Stalin's abattior, many referring to the butcher Mao as a benign "agrarian reformer", and then, more commonly from the 60's on, excusing or denying the slaughters of Castro and Pol Pot."
That's silly. Buckley's stance on race in the US isn't comparable to the comsymps stance on Stalin, Mao, etc, because Buckley's position potentially had a far greater impact. There was little anyone could have done about the slaughter conducted by Mao or Stalin.
Anarchus wrote, "Both parties have their share of wacko's, from Pat Buchanan (is he still a Republican?), Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on the right to Reverend Al Sharpton, David Bonior and Teddy Kennedy on the left."
You really mean to tell me you think Bonier and Kennedy are as looney as Robertson and Falwell?
Best,
Posted by: Stephen J Fromm on December 4, 2002 08:21 PMBruce's question about how racist the GOP is now has a simple answer. Too racist. I give the Bush administration full credit for the smart hiring of Colin Powell and Condi Rice. I think the President and his administration are modern Americans when it comes to race. However, at the state level and particularly in the campaign in Georgia, Ralph Reed and others used racist appeals couched in the symbolism of the confederate flag to turn out the vote that dumped Max Cleland and Gov. Barnes. There were plenty of other sleazy tactics as well, but Georgia will suffer for this embrace of a discredited past, and Ralph Reed deserves to be vilified for his tactics. The last decade saw too many people stir passions in people by playing on their hatred and bigotry. From Milosevic to the Rwandan genocide leaders, pitting tribes against each other was bloody work for political advantage. It doesn't belong in America or the Republican Party.
Posted by: Dave Roberts on December 5, 2002 01:07 AMThe last decade saw too many people stir passions in people by playing on their hatred and bigotry. From Milosevic to the Rwandan genocide leaders, pitting tribes against each other was bloody work for political advantage. It doesn't belong in America or the Republican Party.
Your comments on the NAACP / James Byrd ad in the 200 presidential election race (roughly, "when Bush wouldn't sign the hate crimes bill, it was like my father was being killed all over again")? Or the Louis Farrakhan / Al Sharpton phenomenon. I don't believe Republicans are alone in inciting and appealing to racial hostility.
Also, when a white fellow scores higher than an ethnic applicant on a civil service exam, but is denied a job due to Affirmative Action, I am not sure that the resulting ill-will can be attributed entirely to racism.
Tom--
Is Farrakhan even a Democrat? Sharpton isn't as mainstream in the Democratic party as Ralph Reed is in the GOP.
It's worth noting that in the most recent Republican presidential primary, the winning candidate spoke at Bob Jones University, which at the time banned interracial dating. Obesiance to neo-Confederate sentiments is still routine for many mainstream Republicans; it's part of getting out the base. Ashcroft's praise of Southern Partisan springs to mind, and he's not even from a Confederate state.
Perhaps Bruce is right, and the GOP's policies are changing their racial base. But at the moment, its national strategy still is far too similar to the Southern Strategy, which is what angered Brad in the first place.
How is J.C. Watts resignation any implication that Republicans are "The Party That Doesn't Like Black People?"
Please explain that one.
Posted by: drew on December 5, 2002 05:19 AMI know that all reasonable parties agree the racist attitude expressed in 1950's was wron; there are some white supremacist who would disagree.
The political question as framed by Buckley is still applicable to debate though. Does a minority group who is more organized than the numerical majority have the right to impose their standards on the majority if they(the minority) win the elections?
Elections have consequences.
Posted by: Jon A on December 5, 2002 05:30 AMWhat Bruce said.
A British friend once told me that if class was the albatross of Great Britain, race was America's. We get distracted when the issue of race gets thrown into the conversation, because it has so many hot buttons for so many people.
It's the economics, stupid. The Republican party has constituted itself into the party of the corporations, for the corporations. The use other issues to mobilize folks into the voting booth. It is done deliberately and cynically. The working classes (and in here I include the professional classes earning mid-rank incomes, like me) are being skinned--and it doesn't matter if the skin is white, brown, or black.
Posted by: Emma on December 5, 2002 06:57 AMMr. Fromm consigns to irrelevancy the accomadation of the murder of tens of millions of people, because there was "little that anyone could have done". Go tell it to the Cambodians, although there are several million fewer to tell than there should be. You may also wish to have a discussion with former Soviet dissidents regarding the effect of accomadators of murder, and totalitarianism in general, upon the morale of those who sought to resist the murderers and tyrants. The behavior of those who accomadated the mass murderers was not irrelevant, and they deserve to be seen in the same light as those that accomadated Hitler. As to modern Democrats and and race, perusal of campaign ads, like the James Byrd ads mentioned above, or the ones that associated Republicans with church burnings, or even Democratic Presidents who lie about their boyhood experiences with church burnings, demonstrate that Democrats have no inhibition from engaging in the most vile race baiting for electoral adavantage. As stated previously, to associate with a political party is to associate with all manner of vile positions and behavior, so pious sniffing about how one could not possibly belong to party X, due to party X's moral bankruptcy on issue Y is just that, pious sniffing.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 07:16 AMJason, they may have said Hussein was a bad guy, but he was a bad guy who deserved to have his statements taken at face value, a courtesy they were unwilling to extend to the President of the United States. When one cannot afford a President of a democratic Republic moral equivalency with tyrannical mass murderer and torturer, one has become morally bankrupt. As to Emma's comments, the implication of this theory is that a very large percentage, if not an outright majority, of the people Emma classifies herself with are too stupid to perceive their interests. Except for Emma , of course.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 07:27 AMJesus, you are a republican. If someone disagrees with you you resort to the ad-hominem. Just like rush and annie....
And I did not say a damn thing about the two congressmen who went to Baghdad. Or about GWB. Or even about you.
See the difference?
The previous post got attributed to Will. It's mine. To Will. OK? EMMA
Posted by: Emma on December 5, 2002 07:39 AMUh, Emma? My comments regarding the two Congressmen were clearly addressed to Jason. Furthermore, I made no ad hominen remarks towards you, since I attributed no qualities other than non-stupidity to you. Of course, it is possible, if somewhat strange, that you consider an attribution of non-stupidity to be ad hominem in nature. Oh well. The point was that your theory assumes that millions of people are so easily and continually deceived that a major party can consistently solicit their votes with success, while actively working against their interests. It is you that has come closer to the ad hominem. Switch to decaf.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 08:09 AMHey, Matt. I will concede that Farrakhan is "out there", although Joe Lieberman did arrange to meet with him after his selection as VP candidate. As to Sharpton, we will see how far out of the mainstream he is when he runs for the Dem nomination for the Presidency in 2004.
I am of at least two minds about this debate. A (lefty) frined of mine had a bit of an epiphany, prior to the election, in fact. His observation, paraphrased, was that, as much as liberals complain about white males dominating the power structure, it was still a fact that white males are a political force to be reckoned with, and the Democratic party needs to think about its dismal appeal to that particular constitutiency.
With that in mind, in my Republican partisan mode, I love to hear ostensibly mainstream Dems explain that all Republicans are racist. For permanent minority party status, please exit stage left.
But in a different mind, I wonder just what alternative political evolution of the two parties might have been expected? It is difficult for a party to contain two large factions with wildly differing agendas. So, post Civil Rights Act in 1964 - how was the political process going to move forward? The level and structure of welfare benefits, school integration through forced bussing, selective hiring and selective school admissions through Affirmative Action - how were these issues to be debated in the political arena?
Or is anyone opposed to the liberal agenda on these issues "racist"? OK, there are racists opposed to these programs, but that does not make every opponent a racist. The idea that the Democratic party could have resolved this conflict internally seems to be improbable. For example, there was a time when pro-life speeches were given at the Democratic National Convention. No more. I expect that there are pro-life Democrats, but the official position of the party is clear.
Posted by: Tom Maguire on December 5, 2002 08:11 AMWill,
Jesus, you are a Republican. You began your post (December 5 7:27 AM) "Jason, ..." After two sentences, you said, "As to Emma's comments, ..."
But you didn't precede that third sentence with a paragraph break so Emma (December 5 7:37 AM)thought the first two sentences also applied to her.
When will you learn how to write clearly?
Posted by: Roger Sweeny on December 5, 2002 08:11 AMWell goodness, Roger, I apologize for the lack of paragraph break. I am sorry that the phrase "As to Emma's comments, the implication of this theory is..." does not clearly indicate that I am addressing Emma's comments. Please advise where I made an ad hominem remark.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 08:33 AMWay up there, somewhere, was the suggestion that tokenism accounts for the choices of Powell and Rice for positions in the Bush administration. As I recall, the elder Bush hired Rice, who works on issues far more familiar to the elder Bush than the younger. The story at the time she was hired was that elder Bush, and lots of younger Bush advisors, were comfortable with Rice. That matters a great deal in the early days of an administration - boss is new at the job, very exposed, that sort of thing. Similarly, Powell was a known quantity, and assumed to be controllable by hawks who would have to deal with him. He also enjoyed higher poll ratings than either major party's candidate for the presidency. That popularity works, I suppose, in the same way as tokenism, but in this case had less to do with his race than with the admiration he inspired among those who car about foreign affairs, as well as the general public.
Just to keep things straight, I am not trying to associate myself with any party to the above "my dog's bigger than your dog" debate, which has gotten down right silly. There is plenty to debate between the two parties, but none of it is featured in the tussle over who added the most hominems.
Posted by: K Harris on December 5, 2002 09:11 AMSince this has devolved to a pissing contest. (weren't we warned earlier about public urination?)and has ostensibly moved from politics to writing style/ability I'll make a writerly, non-political comment.
To Will: I think you write superbly. Reading this thread through at one sitting, I was struck by your succinct, clever style. Maybe you're just having a good day, but you might consider writing for a career or at least a serious sideline.
Posted by: Robin R on December 5, 2002 09:15 AMBuckley's stance on race in the US isn't comparable to the comsymps stance on Stalin, Mao, etc, because Buckley's position potentially had a far greater impact.
A cartoonish media chat-boy's stance on US civil economic and political rights "potentially had a far greater impact" than the western world's media elites standing silent as scores of millions of innocents were murdered?
Posted by: George Zachar on December 5, 2002 09:22 AMTom:
My prediction is that Sharpton wins no state primaries in 2004. (Unlike Jackson in 1988.)
I don't think all Republicans are racist; what I would say is that (possibly unconscious) racists are part of the Republican base, and that Republican candidates sometimes play to this base. How else to explain speaking at Bob Jones?
Affirmative action, welfare, and forced busing (these days largely a dead issue, I think) are issues on which reasonable people can disagree. It's the neo-Confederates, the opponents of intermarriage,* and the Jesse Helmses that I have a problem with. It may be inevitable that one party decided to go for these votes, but that doesn't make it honorable. Better the GOP should oppose affirmative action and forced busing while also condemning, say, use of the Confederate flag.
*In addition to the Bob Jones ban on interracial dating, CalPundit observes that, two years ago, 40% of Alabamians voted to keep a symbolic ban on intermarriage on the books. His post also gives a good defense on affirmative action, but I won't call you racist if you disagree with him. :-)
Posted by: Matt Weiner on December 5, 2002 09:27 AMBroadly speaking, the white vote splits between 50/50 and 65/35 between the two main parties, while the black vote tilts about 8:1 for the Democrats.
It is hard to make a case that this proves white racism is behind one particular party.
Posted by: on December 5, 2002 09:40 AM"His post also gives a good defense on affirmative action, but I won't call you racist if you disagree with him. :-)"
I have also defended affirmative action policies in principle. It's so nice that Matt will not condemn me to the everlasting fires of hell.
Matt exaggerates the importance of the Confederate flag issue. This is tatamount to blasting Martin Luther King for having a few Communists in his organization. A bone may have been thrown to the crazed Old South nut balls, but nothing more than that. The main thing is that life has greatly improved for minorities living in the south.
Speaking of Bob Jones University. What about Harvard's invitation to Tom Paulin?
Posted by: David Thomson on December 5, 2002 09:43 AMThanks, Robin; I'm sorry the thread went off in a wrong direction, but I try to refrain from the ad hominem, so it bothers me to be accused of such remarks. Heck, I can even tolerate being called a Republican, although I am not.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 10:31 AMI have my own apologies to make to the group. The "republican" crack is one I try to stay away from, as I have a few Republican friends and they are all decent human beings...But Will, maybe next time, you can clearly state when you are going to be sarcastic...Because what you said sure as hell "sounded" sarcastic to me!
And as far as people being deceived, well, maybe it's my former profession that makes me a little jaded. I was a historian, once upon a time...And history can be a catalog of political Big Lies employed to trigger masses into action.
I have my own apologies to make to the group. The "republican" crack is one I try to stay away from, as I have a few Republican friends and they are all decent human beings...But Will, maybe next time, you can clearly state when you are going to be sarcastic...Because what you said sure as hell "sounded" sarcastic to me!
And as far as people being deceived, well, maybe it's my former profession that makes me a little jaded. I was a historian, once upon a time...And history can be a catalog of political Big Lies employed to trigger masses into action. And I don't see anything in this administration that leads me to believe that they have the best interests of the working class at heart.
I have no doubt that large masses of people can be deceived into taking action. I have great doubt whether the same people can be deceived in regular two year cycles, over a period of decades, to consistently choose political leaders that actively work against the choosers' interests (to "skin" them). Hitler only had to fool people once, and then his monopolization of violence was so complete that dissent was no longer viable. Thankfully, that isn't the case here, and people aren't as dumb as we sometimes lead ourselves to believe, out of frustration that so many disagree with our views.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 12:36 PMI have apologies to make to this group too. I try to stay away from easy "republican" cracks, as I know a number of decent republicans. And, Will, maybe next time you can clearly state that what you said was not intended to be sarcastic, because it sure as heck "sounded" like that to me!
If you are serious about the question of large groups being misled into acting against their own self-interest, my answer would be that history seems to be full of them! Heck, the news seem to be full of them. I'll give you one example: Palestinians. Did you know that back when the state of Israel was founded Palestinians were offered their own country? The Arab newspapers and the arab governments went to town, assuring Palestinians that, with their help, they would drive the jews out of Palestine in months. And here we are...
I'll give you another. At least once in the last century, Ireland was within spitting distance of achieving home rule. You know how they lost it? Because the one politician seemingly capable of getting it was named in a divorce suit. You should read some of the sermons. And here we are...
I'll give you another closer to home. Southern poor whites have again and again voted against their own best social and economic interests because it makes them feel superior to a dark skinned race. And here we are...
And by the way Will? If you ever find a decaf that doesn't taste like dishwater I'll switch :-)
Posted by: Emma on December 5, 2002 12:56 PM
I think I'll stop posting until I can figure out what the heck is going on with my pc... My next to last posting was meant to be a working copy, not to go out...
Posted by: Emma on December 5, 2002 12:59 PMEven if I accept your characterization regarding poor Southern whites (it is, after all, another large group, which makes broad generalizations suspect),if feeling superior to a dark skinned neighbor is what is most important to you, then it is entirely in your interest to take those actions that satify that desire, just as gluttony is is in your interest if eating provides more pleasure than anything else, including the prospect of a longer life. Since Palestinians have always lived under tyranny, it is difficult to say what they would have freely chosen over an extended period of time, but it can be said with some degreee of accuracy that many of them find the prospect of living alongside a Jewish State to be intolerabe. We may view the pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish State to be against the Palestinians' interests, but many Palestinians define their interests differently than the way you define their interests. I can say with some confidence that millions of non-wealthy Republican-voting people in this country have their family's prosperity to be an important goal. It is your position that they are too dumb to understand what you assert; that the Republicans are actively attempting to "skin" them. Could you at least consider the possibility that those people are every bit as bright as you, that they simply make different assumptions about the world, or intepret history in a different manner, and thus are drawn to different conclusions as to what best serves their interests? I bump heads with Jason in this forum regularly, and although we have areas of agreement, our areas of disagreement are far larger. I don't for a minute attribute our differences to Jason being unable to perceive what is best for him, or to my being more insightful regarding observable phenomena. He and I start with differing assumptions, assumptions that in the final analysis don't lend themselves to empirical proof, which accounts for the vast majority of our different conclusions. I enjoy this forum particularly for those people who tend to have different assumptions about the world than I do. It is my hope to occasionally cause some of them to reconsider some of those assumptions; heck, believe it or not, some of them occasionally cause me to reconsider mine!
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 01:30 PM'Jason, they may have said Hussein was a bad guy, but he was a bad guy who deserved to have his statements taken at face value, a courtesy they were unwilling to extend to the President of the United States.'
From the transcript:
'They said they would allow us to go and look anywhere we wanted, and until they don't do that, there is no need to do this coercive stuff where you bring in helicopters and armed people and storm buildings. I think you have to take the Iraqis on their face value. They did not take the, they did not drive the inspectors out. We took them out.'
Right, that paragraph just screams "we trust Saddam." Will, I give up if you can't see the point of their statements: that if we're going to try inspections, we have to make a serious good-faith effort, which means not storming buildings with troops.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 5, 2002 02:04 PMIf only they could have adopted the same neutral language regarding the President of the United States, or treated the mass murderer of Iraq with same lack of neutrality. How about saying this: "Saddam Husseim will lie and cheat to achieve his goals, but we will have inspections to reveal his lying and cheating."? This would have at least put the President of the United States on the same level as Iraq's tyrant, instead of below him.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 02:21 PM"You may also wish to have a discussion with former Soviet dissidents regarding the effect of accomadators of murder, and totalitarianism in general, upon the morale of those who sought to resist the murderers and tyrants."
You might also want to look up what parties were in power in the US and UK when the primary Western institution of the cold war, NATO, was set up.
I never said that all Democrats were accomadationists to mass murderers; I hope none in this forum were saying all Republicans were racists. It is true, however, that the Democrats, particularly from the mid-6os on , had substantially more accomadationists. I would never use this fact, as a Republican (as an example; I am, in fact an independent) to proclaim that I could not be a Democrat, due to some of their members accomadating mass murder.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 5, 2002 04:54 PMAnonymous 9:40 am poster--
I wouldn't say that those splits prove that white racism is behind one party (I have other reasons for thinking so), nor would I say that they disprove it. Since not all white voters are racists, an appeal to racism might only pick up a few percentage points nationwide.
How about more proof that the rightwing hasn't changed a bit, just whitewashing the past to cover their crimes. Here's the National Review's tribute to Strom Thurmond at http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-edwards120502.asp
"[Strom Thurmond] opposed the liberal civil-rights movement because it sought to force radical change. He opposed not its goals, but its tactics . . . It forsook the legislative route of state legislatures and ordered, measured, consensual change for the heavy, centralized hand of the federal government and the courts."
Yep-- the same magazine that advocated stripping blacks of the vote in the South dares to condemn the civil rights movement for not pursuing change in those racist states.
The rightwing were racists then. They are racists today.
Posted by: Nathan Newman on December 5, 2002 09:06 PMMW: One racial cohort splits its ballots nearly evenly. The other splits 8:1. Yet it is the former that is presumed to have a racially motivated bloc. Logic?
Posted by: on December 6, 2002 05:52 AMAnon (by the way, it would help keep things straight if you made up a name for yourself):
What's a "racially motivated" bloc? The Democrats certainly have a racially motivated bloc. Because of their race, black people are frightened as hell of the party of Thurmond, Helms, Trent Lott and his ties to the Conservative Citizens Council.
The question is which party appeals to racists, not people of a certain race. Check the original post about the GOP's southern strategy.
An analogy: Suppose that in the Civil War, about equal numbers of white people fought on either side, while black soldiers were overwhelmingly pro-Union. (That's a hypothetical, I haven't looked up the numbers.) Would that prove that the Union was racist? You'd have to look at the merits of their cause. And no, I'm not saying that the GOP is as bad as the Confederacy.
Posted by: Matt Weiner on December 6, 2002 07:10 AMThe question is which party appeals to racists, not people of a certain race.
Is there any polling data to suggest white racism is extant in the GOP while black racism is absent from the Democrats?
Democratic strategy is quite focused on black turnout, so it is hard to make a case that the GOP is unique in fixating on voter race.
Posted by: on December 6, 2002 07:22 AMTrue: Some right-wingers are racists.
True: Some left-wingers are socialists.
False: All right-wingers are racists.
False: All left-wingers are scialists.
There are (or were) decent Republicans. Not too long ago, iirc, the GOP candidate for governor of Louisiana dropped out of the race, ensuring a victory for the Democratic candidate, because otherwise David Duke might have won.
But I don't see any examples of that kind of courage on the right anymore, as they have to pander to their extreme elements. We see that courage from the Dems, as Clinton famously criticized Sister Soulja (sp?).
Republicans follow Nixon's cynical guideline: Shift to the right to win the nomination, shift to the center to win the election. That's how W did it; that's how the GOP won their bare plurality this year. This requires a lot of moral relativism and spin control.
And the right relies on hours and hours of hate radio and a very conservative news media to stir up the froth and control the discussion of the issues. We've gone past the Big Brother stage to the Nehemiah Scudder phase.
Posted by: Dave Romm on December 6, 2002 08:37 AMAs to the question of whether anyone attempted to characterize all Republicans as racist, I will point to the original post:
Of all the deeds done by Richard M. Nixon and his henchmen, perhaps the most evil was their decision that the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s offered a political opportunity that could be seized by changing the Republican Party from the Party of Lincoln to the Party That Doesn't Like Black People. They have labored and continue to labor under this self-inflicted curse--viz. the recent retirement of the talented J.C. Watts. And this flaw alone makes most of the flaws in the Democratic Party look like small potatoes indeed.
Emphasis added, if the text appears to be overly subtle at first reading.
Great weekend, all.
Posted by: Tom Maguire on December 6, 2002 09:29 AM'from the Party of Lincoln to the Party That Doesn't Like Black People'
This isn't incompatible with "only some Republicans are racist." It's entirely possible to not be racist and simultaneously stoke fears of black crime for votes.
Lee Atwater made some pretty unethical political decisions, as an example, but I wouldn't call him racist.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 6, 2002 12:17 PM"Here is what Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, said yesterday at Senator Strom Thurmond's birthday party, according to ABCNEWS' O'Keefe. 'I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had of followed our lead we wouldn't of had all these problems over all these years, either.'"
Certainly, not all Republicans are racist. The Republican leader in the Senate, however, is proud of having voted for a segregationist for President. Yes, both were Democrats at the time, but now they're Republicans, thanks to Nixon's Southern Strategy. QE freakin' D.
(The Note entertains the possibility that Lott was joking. Even if he was, it makes no difference. If you think something someone did was utterly dishonorable, you don't bring it up at his hundredth birthday party, even as a joke. So, at best, Lott thinks Jim Crow was funny.)
Posted by: Matt Weiner on December 6, 2002 02:29 PMTom--
I read the quote you highlighted as saying that, in 1968, the GOP committed the original sin of deciding to appeal to racism, and that the party is still affected by that decision; as witnessed by, for instance, Perdue's use of the Confederate flag in Georgia, and the obesiance to Bob Jones. This doesn't mean all Republicans are racist. My complaint is that too many pander to racist elements, while others stand by and let this happen.
I wish some brave Republican leader would have a Sister Souljah moment of outright and consistent challenge to the neo-Confederate elements in the party. (No-name, you'll notice that Clinton attacked black racism, and he still overwhelmingly carried the black vote. As I've said, you can't prove anything by seeing who appeals to which voters, you have to analyze how they do it.)
Roger S.--agreed, but kind of moot; the Democrats don't appreciably pander to socialists, and the Republicans (so the claim is) do pander to racists. Anyway, socialists are much nicer than racists.
Dave R.--In Louisiana, if nobody wins a majority in the first round of voting, there's a runoff between the top two candidates. (This may sound familiar to today's election watchers.) In the Louisiana governor's election (of 1991), in the first round the GOP incumbent (Buddy Roemer) finished third behind David Duke and Eddie Edwards. So Roemer didn't drop out but was bounced.
A quick google doesn't reveal whether Roemer endorsed Edwards (a crook as well as a Democrat) against Duke, though. If so, he would deserve some credit, though not that much, since Duke is really beyond the pale. GHW Bush did endorse Edwards.
Posted by: Matt Weiner on December 6, 2002 02:55 PMApropos the more recent quotes by Lott (which the moderator has wisely disabled comments too).
I suppost the defense goes like: Is that the best you can do, dredging up some ancient comments from December of 2002 by some figure who is barely associated with the Republican Party (is Lott even a Republican?).... Besides Condi works in the whitehouse... did I mention that Condi is black, and is a Republican... and so is Colin Powell, sort of...
Jason:
'from the Party of Lincoln to the Party That Doesn't Like Black People'
This isn't incompatible with "only some Republicans are racist."
I suppose it is not incompatible with "I had spaghetti for dinner", either. But my point was, a very compatible interpretation is "Republicans are the party that doesn't like black people, which is racist".
Now, as to evil Nixon and his Southern strategy. Goldwater in 1964 against (Texan) LBJ won about five Southern states and nothing else. In 1968, George Wallace as a third party candidate for President won five or six Southern states outright, gaining 46 electoral votes. Nixon won the rest of the South, I believe. The notion that the Democratic Party was sailing smoothly along in the South until Tricky Dick upset the apple cart is a bit light on history - the Dems were already a mess and unhappy whites had defected in droves. McGovern in 1972 did not exactly refurbish their appeal.
And was the Republican appeal strictly to racism? Even then, a big part of the sales pitch was a strong national defense. Evidently, this is more important in the South then elsewhere, although we Yankees whipped 'em a while back, and the NY Yankkess whip the Braves now.
Currently, I imagine that defense and gun control are more important than the Jim Crow racism being discussed here.
And give us a break with Clinton's bold moral courage in his Sister Souljah moment. His scheme was to show a hint of backbone in order to appeal to moderate whites and demonstrate his "New Democrat" credentials. As blacks found out, who else could they vote for?
Om the right side, Republicans have watched Perot and then Buchanan appeal to unhappy righties. And Pat got kicked out of the party, for which Republicans seem to get no credit - when do top Dems start dissing Farrakhan and Sharpton? (Sorry, I am repeating myself now).
Oh, final repeat - I don't care. My original point was, I love to hear ostensibly mainstream Dems insist that all Republican are racist. Live it up, gents.
Posted by: Tom Maguire on December 6, 2002 05:46 PMWill, maybe you are right. Maybe I have no right to assume that losing your job when your company moves to Indonesia or some other country where wages are 2 dollars a day with the active tax assistance of your government is a bad thing; or that having no health care for your child is a bad thing; or for that matter, that peace instead of war and life instead of death are good things.
(Sigh)
Never mind.
Well, Tom, I wasn't there. But I would speculate that the Democrats' advocacy of civil rights broke up the Democratic solid South. It was pro-civil rights Texan LBJ who lost five Southern states to Goldwater.
But it took the GOP's pandering to racists to make the south solid Republican. That may not be the heart of the appeal now, but it's original sin. Also, check the last Georgia governor's race; a big issue was Sonny Perdue's desire to hold a referendum to restore the anti-civil rights state flag.
Again, I don't think all or even most Republicans are racists; just the Senate majority leader. Let me know who condemns him.
Posted by: Matt Weiner on December 7, 2002 06:13 AMGosh, Emma, maybe we oughta declare war on Indonesia, so those nasty people will no longer sell us things; who are those bastards, to actually improve their standard of living at our expense!!!! And really, it is so obvious that those you disagree with actually prefer death to life. Thanks for confirming my point, further discussion is pointless, and now I must go back to shining my cloven hooves.....
Posted by: Will Allen on December 7, 2002 07:01 AMWill, you must be very young, to make such leaps at a single bound...
I am in fact very much in favor of EVERYONE improving their standard of living.I put my money where my mouth is and support several groups that provide low-income women in the Third World with loans to start their own businesses or improve their farms. I just happen to believe that the US government's first responsibility is to find ways to improve America's.
Let's agree to disagree and go our own ways. It's the American thing to do. And, please, don't bother with hooves. I would never attribute evil to such mild disagreements. Besides, God's mercy is infinite; and She loves you; and nothing you can do will dissuade Him from that.
Yet you do attribute to your opponents the preference of death to life. Now, exactly, who is young here, politically speaking?
Posted by: Will Allen on December 7, 2002 09:20 AMSpeaking of a preference for death, in this instance death by murder on a titanic scale, and given Prof. DeLong's desire to continue explaining the moral bankruptcy of being Republican, as opposed to the implied moral superiority of being a Democrat, let us examine this statement by a former Presidential nominee of the Democrats, one Sen. George McGovern...
""The growing hysteria of the administration's posture on Cambodia," declared Senator George McGovern, "seems to me to reflect a determined refusal to consider what the fall of the existing government in Phnom Penh would actually mean.... We should be able to see that the kind of government which would succeed Lon Nol's forces would most likely be a government ... run by some of the best-educated, most able intellectuals in Cambodia."
McGovern, of course, was speaking of turning the population of Cambodia over to the tender mercies of the Khmer Rouge. McGovern's position prevailed, and a few million Cambodians, with the aid of Democrats like McGovern, proceeded to have their skulls caved in, to be tossed in the air (in the case of infants) and impaled on bayonets, buried alive, and even fed to crocodiles. Give me the phone, I think I want to make a contribution to the DNC!! To any who say the it could not be forseen what the Khmer Rouge had in mind, please quit lying; any who weren't ideologically driven to ignore the plain evidence of impending slaughter knew exactly what was likely to happen. Does Prof. De Long need to have the tributes to McGovern, that took place upon his retirement, reproduced here, in order to understand the utter moral bankruptcy of the Democrats on this issue? Or does accomodating the impalation of Cambodian babies on bayonets count for less in moral calculations than the accomodation of lynching of American blacks? Of course, now that hardly anybody in the world identifies themselves as Communist anymore, the issue is largely forgotten, unlike the vestiges of Jim Crow, which is rightfully still a raw memory in this country. To say, however, that the Democrats have done penance for the accomodation of mass murder is plainly dishonest. I am probably more attuned to the moral bankruptcy of the Democrats, since by time I reached adolecence Jim Crow had been largely outlawed for nearly a decade, and I was a young adult during the Cambodian genocide, and later visited the killing fields of Cambodia, and have spent time among the brutalized victims. But to have Democrats smugly declare that they could not be a Republican, due to it's moral bankruptcy on the race issue, while ignoring their preferred party's accomodation of outright slaughter on a titanic scale, would be laughable, if not for the subject matter. Both parties operate from a position of moral bankruptcy, which usually is the case with large political parties, given the desire to build large coalitions of morally flawed human beings.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 7, 2002 10:18 AMWill,
I attribute to my opponents the preference of death to life????
Look don't even bother to explain. In fact, I'm putting you on notice that I'm not even going to return to read this thread. I cannot hold a conversation with someone who insists on hearing what is not being said...And attributes evil to disagreement. BTW, Will, that is why I cannot be a Republican.
Well,Emma, you may not read this, but lest I stand falsely accused of not representing your remarks accurately, you did say above that I may be right in stating that you have no right to assume that preferring life to death is a good thing. Thus, you have inferred that your opponents (me, in this instance) do not make the assumption that life is prefereable to death. Then, to top it off, in your last post, you say that you cannot be a Republican, due to their tendency to atttribute evil to disagreement! Does the irony of attributing to me the position that I have made the claim that you are wrong to assume a preference of life to death, while asserting you cannot associate with those who attribute evil to disagreement, escape you? Might it have occurred to you that I would not contest your assumption of the preferability of life to death? How on earth could you arrive at the conclusion that your assumption of the preferability of life to death was being contested, if not for the inference that at least some of those you are in disagreement with actually prefer death to life? I apologize to Prof. DeLong for consuming his bandwidth on this ridiculously obscure matter, but I am truly curious regarding the logic involved here .
Posted by: Will Allen on December 7, 2002 12:03 PM'And Pat got kicked out of the party, for which Republicans seem to get no credit - when do top Dems start dissing Farrakhan and Sharpton? (Sorry, I am repeating myself now).'
Well, I'd say Buchanan was too protectionist to have a chance in the GOP. He also wasn't booted out until he declared WW2 a mistake, if you'll remember; up to that point, apparently he wasn't too bad.
'My original point was, I love to hear ostensibly mainstream Dems insist that all Republican are racist.'
Uh, has anyone here done so?
'and a few million Cambodians, with the aid of Democrats like McGovern'
Jesus christ on a pogo stick, Will, this is slanderous. Here's an interesting question for you: which nation finally took down the Khmer Rouge?
Posted by: on December 7, 2002 04:27 PMWhat happened in Southeast Asia after the US pulled out? Literally millions of people were slaughtered by the victorious governments. That is an inescapable fact that those who opposed the Vietnam War have never atoned for.
Posted by: on December 7, 2002 05:41 PMIt would have been a slow motion slaughter had we not pulled out, but it would have happened nonetheless
Posted by: on December 7, 2002 06:16 PMit would have happened nonetheless
Here's a question: Can you find ANYONE from the anti-war movement in any country at any time prior to US withdrawl who made that statement?
If not, it must be characterized as a post hoc rationalization.
Posted by: on December 7, 2002 06:43 PMWhy I can't be a democrat:
Because 2/3 of political donations from trial lawyers go to Democrats.
I don't care if Republicans become the party of beating old ladies and dead horses, the fact that the democrats are supported by the lawyers is the most evil, super vile thing ever. Plus one time in Kindergarten, my teacher, who was a democrat, made me stand in the corner.
Krugman and Bradford, sittin' in a tree,
two super smart dudes with phds,
First comes prestige,
then comes reverence,
then comes asinine political commentary.
I can no longer over look the stupid statement of Trent Lott concerning the 1948 presidential election. Initially, I was willing to cut him slack for trying to be nice to an old man on his one hundredth birthday. It’s not unusual for someone to say something dumb in such circumstances. However, I am stunned that he did not clarify his remarks immediately after the party. Didn’t his advisors sense that a major crisis was brewing? What planet do they live on? I have no problem whatsoever arguing that Strom Thurmond has done much to improve race relations in the last quarter century of his life. But in 1948?
Posted by: David Thomson on December 8, 2002 07:47 AMHell, if Prof. DeLong had simply said that Trent Lott was a irredeemable creep who should have never been afforded a leadership position in the Senate, and really should have tossed out on his ass by his constituents 15 years ago, I would have agreed whole-heartedly. He is the worst kind of cynically racist, thievingly pork-barrellin' scum; Robert Byrd without the need to adhere to the changed demographics of his party. My dispute with Prof. DeLong's comments has to do with the pious pronouncement that he couldn't be a member of a party with such a history of accomodation of racists, when he is able to stay a member of a party that has a recent history of accomodating mass murderers. This forces me to conclude that Prof. Delong's statement is at least a bit disingenuous, since I suspect that Prof. Delong condemns the accomodation of mass murder as strongly as any in this forum. He is willing to tolerate the Democrats' history of accomodation because to be politically relevant in this nation, one must align with one major party or another, which inevitably means tolerating the morally bankrupt nature of large political parties, and overall he is in much stronger agreement with the Democrats' ideology.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 8, 2002 11:46 AMTo the poster who says I have slandered Sen. McGovern; I concede I should have used the word "accomodated", not "aided". The terms are not synonymous, and certainly to actively aid mass slaughter is worse than accomodating it by the sin of ommission, but the latter sin is quite horrible enough in this circumstance. Again, I direct you to Sen. McGovern's remarks, made prior to the Cambodian genocide, when all who were not ideologically driven to ignore the plain evidence of the impending slaughter predicted what in fact occurred. A substantial element of the Democratic Party stared into the maw of mass slaughter, shrugged their shoulders, and let it happen, due to their inclination to give the benefit of the doubt to such butchers. This happened with Stalin and Mao (to a lesser extent; the anti-Communist wing of the Democrats once was dominant), and then the phenomena accelerated with Castro and Pol Pot. Democratic accomodation of totalitarinism was also prominent during the Reagan Administration, when many Democrats bought fully into the notion of moral equivalency between the vestiges of a Stalinist regime and a republic with democratic processes. Once the U.S.S.R. imploded, of course, everybody pretended that they had been staunch anti-communists all along, but the statements that show otherwise are on the record, and if you really need me to, I'll produce them for you. Most of the people who were accomodating of communist butchery have never atoned for their behavior, and certainly were never held accountable in the way Nazi accomadators were in the wake of WWII.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 8, 2002 12:10 PMWill--
Minor point: Prof. DeLong couldn't have said that Lott was an irredeemable creep in this post, because Lott's most recent comments took place (or at least were publicized) after the post. Lott did show himself to be an irredeemable creep long before, IMHO, but that wasn't timely.
McGovern didn't "accomodate" the Khmer Rouge either.
The McGovern quote: 'The growing hysteria of the administration's posture on Cambodia,'' declared Senator George McGovern, ''seems to me to reflect a determined refusal to consider what the fall of the existing government in Phnom Penh would actually mean.... We should be able to see that the kind of government which would succeed Lon Nol's forces would most likely be a government ... run by some of the best-educated, most able intellectuals in Cambodia.'
Note that he's defending Lon Non here. Now, from encyclopedia.com:
(lon nol) , 1913-85, Cambodian general and political leader. He became defense minister and army chief of staff in 1955 in Norodom Sihanouk 's government. He served as premier (1966-67) under Sihanouk. In 1970, he led the coup that deposed Sihanouk, and assumed control of the government. He attempted unsuccessfully to suppress the Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas, and his efforts plunged the country into civil war. After temporarily relinquishing power, he seized control in 1972 and suspended the constitution. Due to his inept leadership and anti-Communist fervor, he was forced to leave the country in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge advanced on the capital city. He settled in Hawaii.
In other words, McGovern was defending an opponent of the Khmer Rouge. What on earth is the argument you're making here?
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 8, 2002 02:57 PMUh oh, I completely misread McGovern's comment; he's actually arguing that the government replacing Nol won't be that bad. Never mind!
So your argument, I take it, is that it should have been obvious to McGovern that the killing fields were the alternative to Non. What's the evidence for this?
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 8, 2002 03:00 PMMinor points:
As to the timeliness of the Trent Lott comment: Prof DeLong has added parts 2 and 3 to "Why I Can Not Be A Republican", but has kept the comments sections closed, presumably to focus discussion here.
Secondly, Will, if you are interested, Emma is continuing her discussion with you over at the comments section of the Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/archives/000651.html#000651
I have the impression that your absence is not hindering her from presenting her side of the argument.
Posted by: Tom Maguire on December 8, 2002 03:34 PMTom, I have had a very difficult time following the logic employed by Emma; we appear to be speaking different languages,so further dialogue would appear to be pointless.
Jason, the reason McGovern was making his argument was because people on the other side were predicting mass slaughter if the Khmer Rouge came to power, and given the undeniable Maoist leanings of Pol Pot's band of butchers, any who weren't ideologically driven to ignore the evidence plainly saw what was in store for the population of Cambodia, at least in the general sense, if the Khmer Rouge came to power. Democrats like McGovern looked into the maw of mass slaughter, and out of ideological hatred or distrust of anti-communism, shrugged their shoulders and let it happen. When McGovern left office, he received the tributes from his fellow party members normally allowed in such events, and his history of accomodation of mass slaughter was overlooked. A similar phenomena, from the other side, happened with Republicans and South Africa. Strident anti-communism (which, in my opinion had far more basis, from observable phenomena, than distrust of anti-communism) led many Republicans to give far too much leeway to the Apartheid regime, out of distrust of the Communist elements in the ANC. Of course, given that communism had been so widely discredited by the time Apartheid ended, it is not knowable whether the typical communist mass slaughter would have occurred if the ANC had come to power in, say, 1979. When the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, however, it was no suprise to anyone with any degree of objectivity that Cambodia was in short order transformed into a horrific abattior.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 9, 2002 01:35 PM'Jason, the reason McGovern was making his argument was because people on the other side were predicting mass slaughter if the Khmer Rouge came to power, and given the undeniable Maoist leanings of Pol Pot's band of butchers, any who weren't ideologically driven to ignore the evidence plainly saw what was in store for the population of Cambodia, at least in the general sense, if the Khmer Rouge came to power.'
Fair enough. I'll have to do more research, as there appears to be a big conflict between this theory and the "Nixon's carpet bombing destruciton of Cambodia led directly to the rise of the Khmer Rouge" line.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 9, 2002 02:46 PMThere is no real conflict between those versions. Whether or not one concedes that the bombing of Cambodia led directly to the rise of Khmer Rouge (an argument that has always struck me as entirely speculative, without empirical basis), it is still nearly indisputable that, by the time McGovern made his remarks, the advent of Pol Pot coming to power plainly meant slaughter on a massive scale, so, as is nearly always the case in human affairs, there was not a choice between moral purity and moral horror, but one between degrees of moral horror. McGovern and company (which, unfortunately, by then had gained dominance over the anti-communist wing of the Democrats) chose the far worse moral horror, and, no, they have never atoned for that choice. When the U.S.S.R. disintegrated, and China began trying to achieve communism with some degree of market freedom, everyone pretended that they had been staunch anti-communists all along, which the record shows to be false. My dispute with Prof. DeLong stems from my suspicion that he has always been a fairly staunch Democrat, so it is quite evident that he is able, like most pragmatic folks, to align himself with the major party that best fits his ideology, regardless of the morally bankrupt nature of that political party. That's kinda how life works in this Vale of Tears. As I said above, I am more attuned to the bankrupt nature of the Democrats, due to my age and life experiences, but I wouldn't for a moment attribute any moral superiority to the Republicans, and if the Democrats were more likely to reduce taxes, and thus reduce the amount of revenue directed to the state, I'd be more likely to vote for them, instead of the Republicans I usually cast a ballot for, when the race is competitive.
Posted by: Will Allen on December 9, 2002 03:55 PMThe following recently went up at National Review Online, the web affiliate of Buckley's National Review:
http://www.nationalreview.com/george/george121002.asp
The opening and closing:
Can George W. Bush and the Republican party really afford to have Trent Lott (R., Miss.) be its face in the United States Senate? ... Ultimately though Bush, Rove, and Co. have to ask: "Do they want someone who deserves to be Senate Majority Leader — or a man who seems to continually fantasize being white majority leader?"