Cold Turkey
Published September 1, 2016
by Thomas Mills, Politics NC, September 1, 2016.
Regardless of whether they were Democrats, Republicans, or some other party, conservatives in this country have been consistently wrong on matters of race for the entire history of our nation. They opposed ending slavery when our Founding Fathers wrote the constitution. They brought the country the Civil War to keep slavery in the South. They established Jim Crow and the one-party South at the turn of the 20th Century. They opposed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s. And today they are wrong on voter suppression laws targeted primarily at minority voters.
Sometimes, the Supreme Court has sided with conservatives on these matters. That didn’t make them right. Dred Scott and Plessey v. Ferguson are two of the best known misguided court decisions. The court got it wrong but history eventually caught up.
Throughout history, conservatives have used various justifications for their opposition to civil rights. They’ve also come up with euphemisms to defend their positions. We heard about states’ rights, separate-but-equal, and now voter fraud.
To be clear, they argued that states had the right to discriminate against black people. Separate-but-equal was always separate but never equal. And today, voter fraud is rare enough to be virtually non-existent but disenfranchisement has been used as an ugly political tool since the beginning of the Republic.
Modern conservatives need to take a look at the principles of twelve-step programs to get off of their addiction to using racism as a means to an end. They need to admit their complicity and publicly disavow the tactics. They need to admit that a higher power, democracy, can help them solve their problems. They need to admit their past transgressions (i.e., own up to the Southern Strategy). They need to apologize to minority populations they’ve harmed and then make amends by helping them recover from institutional racism. And they need to re-educate the people they’ve exploited after feeding them a diet of fear and loathing to secure their votes.
The biggest threat to Democrats and liberals is conservatives disavowing racism as a political tool. Many minority voters would be drawn to a number of conservative positions like school choice, fiscal responsibility, and freedom of religion. But they aren’t going to side with conservatives when their rhetoric is filled with dog whistles and derogatory comments.
It’s not going to be easy. Republicans have built a 50-year electoral strategy based on maximizing the white vote. Now, the scared and angry white voters outnumber the small-government, fiscal conservatives who used to drive the party agenda.
The Supreme Court ruling yesterday is just more evidence that it’s not going to work for conservatives to ween themselves off of racial division as a political tactic. They need to go cold turkey. A twelve-step program might help.
http://www.politicsnc.com/cold-turkey/
September 1, 2016 at 2:28 pm
Tad Richard says:
And here comes the backlash and defensiveness in 5...4...3...
September 1, 2016 at 3:10 pm
Richard L Bunce says:
Political hack alert! There was no Supreme Court ruling... it was a 4-4 tie so the lower Court decision stands.
I suppose Conservatives were behind the NC Sterilization Program too?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_Board_of_North_Carolina#Justification_of_Eugenics_Policy
September 3, 2016 at 10:58 am
Norm Kelly says:
Libs just can't help themselves. When the truth and facts are NOT on their side, they lie. And they know they lie. And for some reason, their allies & supporters CHOOSE to ignore the lie. Or, their supporters and allies are ignorant; what's rightfully called 'low-information' types. What explains media allies being willfully ignorant? What explains supposedly smart college/university supporters being so willfully ignorant?
Need an example of re-writing history? How about we call it what it really is?! Need an example of libs TELLING MAJOR LIES to their supporters? Check out this whopper. It's such a big lie, it seems like it should have come from one of the Clintons! 'They opposed the Civil Rights Act'. Was the lib-supporting author of this post writing about the Democrat party? Was the lib-supporting author of this post writing about the 'color blind' Democrat party? Was the willfully ignorant author of this post clarifying history to educate otherwise low-information demon voters? No to all of the above.
The author is willfully telling lies to supporters for the sole purpose of boosting votes for the demon party! Why do I refer to them as 'demons'? Because they so often, blatantly, and willfully lie to their supporters for the purpose of getting more votes, and keeping their supporters in the 'low-information' category.
Which party is responsible for the coal ash spill? Libs say it was Republicans who reduced regulations on Duke Progress. The facts, as documented by the never-right-wing N&D of Raleigh. The N&D let it slip that the coal ash ponds were KNOWN to have been leaking FOR DECADES! Decades when libs/socialist liars RULED Raleigh. Decades when the regulations were supposedly strict. Yet the FACTS prove that the strict restrictions were NOT enforced by libs!
Which party is responsible for preventing Civil Rights from passing back in the 60's? The demon party! Who is telling a whopper of a lie in this post? Is it HilLIARy? Or is it Bill? Both KNOWN well documented liars!? NO. This time it's one of their sycophant supporters who knowingly misleads anyone who chooses to read drivel!
Not only was it the demon party that prevented the Civil Rights act from passing, but Algore's dad was a major OPPONENT of the act. Algores dad did everything in his power to prevent passage. The same Algores dad who 'hired' black help to support his family, raise his kids, treat them like second class underpaid borderline slaves! And Algores dad wanted to keep blacks in second class status by the force of government! It was DEMONS who prevented the Civil Rights act from passing. And the demon president who signed it was virtually forced to by Republicans!
And no amount of lies told by libs and their allies will actually change history!
So, author who I know nothing about, stop telling lies! Stop trying to rewrite history! And, yes, it's true that I wouldn't want to know this author. I still get to choose those I associate with, so far central planners have not taken this away from me. And so far I'm not forced to associate with those so willing to 'mislead'. (i figure using 'mislead' is better than saying 'lie' since i'm describing a lib. libs don't lie. they either 'mis-speak', 'mislead', or are 'taken out of context'. but sometimes a lie has to be called a lie. especially when it's lib doing it!)
September 22, 2016 at 6:23 pm
Elizabeth Bennet says:
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution officially abolished slavery in 1864. Of the 118 Republicans in Congress, all 118 voted in favor of the legislation, while only 19 out of 82 Democrats voted in favor of it.
The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments guaranteed rights of citizenship and voting to black males. Not ONE Democrat voted in favor of either the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments.
