“Should the Catholic Church…”

January 8, 2012 | Filed under 2012 Presidential Race,Media,Meme Watch,Mitt Romney,Newt Gingrich | Posted by Rick Rice

Newt Gingrich asked some tough questions of his own last night to counter the obvious bias of ABC’s George Stephanopoulis:

“I just want to raise a point about the news media bias,” Gingrich said after a rhetorical skirmish about gay marriage. “You don’t hear the opposite question asked.
“Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?”
“The bigotry question goes both ways,” Gingrich added. “And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media.”
[Mitt] Romney seconded Gingrich. “As you can tell, the people in this room feel that Speaker Gingrich is absolutely right and I do too,” Romney said after the former speaker’s comments earned him a loud applause.

Hammering the main stream media on their obvious bias is a winner in my book.

Keep it up Newt.

Next time, bring up what Stephanopoulis did before taking up his current gig.

I consider it relevant.

Shortlink:

Posted by Rick Rice on January 8, 2012.
Filed under 2012 Presidential Race, Media, Meme Watch, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich.
I blog more regularly at my own place where plain thoughts are delivered roughly. My about page gives you more on who I am.

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GarandFan
About time the MSM’s hypocrisy was shoved in their faces on national TV. Maybe people will start to wake up.
jim_m
The message is lost on the left. They believe that religion is something that happens inside a church and that the law requires that you forget everything about your religious convictions once you walk out the doors (that is unless you are a muslim, in which case it is perfectly OK to threaten to cut people’s head’s off for perceived insults to a dead prophet).

Brucehenry
This has been another edition of “Outlandish Interpretations of What The Left Is All About” by Jim M.

jim_m
Then perhaps the left should do a better job actually showing tolerance for belief systems they disagree with. Maybe people would not have such an impression of them.
Just to be explicit: I agree with Newt and Mitt that the left is full of bigots, who viscerally hate and discriminate against Christians and that they applaud public displays of such bogotry and that is why ignorant a-holes like Stephanopoulis are on TV.

Brucehenry
LOL, “discrimination against Christians.” I got a side-splitting laugh when Newt whined that line last night, and a pretty good chuckle just now.
Here’s a partial list of ways in which Christians are PRIVILEGED, not discriminated against, in this country.
If I’m a Christian,
I can wear a symbol of my faith without being judged negatively. Indeed it is seen a sign of good character. If I display it on my car, it probably won’t be vandalized.
I can be fairly sure that my friends and co-workers will treat me the same if I make my faith known.
I’ve never had anyone try to exorcise or rebuke me upon learning of my faith.
I don’t have to worry that people will try to convert me.
People don’t tell me my faith isn’t a “real” religion.
I can refer to my religious teachings as “truth” without people thinking I’m deluded or presumptuous.
Other people of faith don’t inform me that my faith is superstitious or backward, or call the founder of my faith vile names.
I can be pretty sure I won’t receive death threats because of my faith.
My faith is taught as “theology,” not “mythology.”
I can expect to be given the day off for my faith’s religious holidays at nearly any job I take.
People won’t think I’m a freak or a Grinch if I don’t celebrate the holidays of another faith.
I can go into any Barnes and Noble and find fiction, music, and self help books aimed at people of my faith.
I can be sure that if someone is found murdered in a more gruesome manner than usual, people won’t assume the murderer is someone of my faith.
I don’t have to worry that people will assume that I’m likely to murder or do violence to someone because of my faith.
My faith often appears in fiction, movies, and TV, and usually in a fairly accurate or positive manner.
I can assume most authority figures I meet will be of my faith.
To be called a “devout Christian” is a compliment, while to be called a “devout Muslim” means you are suspected of terrorist sympathies, and to be called a “devout Jew” means you are stingy. And of course to be called an “atheist” is the worst kind of stigmatizing.
There are so many hundreds and hundreds of ways, both consequential and inconsequential, in which Christians are privileged in the US, that to whine about “anti-Christian bigotry” is a fucking joke.
Sorry, you can’t be a victim this time, Jim.

jim_m
Just because the left is losing their fight does not mean that they are not bigoted and offensive.
Brucehenry
Boo freaking hoo, Jim. Crybaby.
jim_m
I’ll take that as an admission that you are a bigot and hypocrite since you have not disputed it in three consecutive comments.
Brucehenry
There is no need to “dispute” it, Jim. I debunked it.
Sure there are people, like me, who think of ALL religions, including Christianity, as superstition or at best, unproven assertion. But there is not much evidence that there exists much “anti-Christian bigotry” as a practical matter in this country.
Your insistence that there is, despite all evidence to the contrary, is more boohoo-I’m-a-victim conservative whiny ass mythology, in my opinion.
jim_m
I am perfectly fine with your believing hat. You have done nothing to establish that there are not people, like Stephanopoulos, who seek to deliberately exclude from participation in society some people based solely on the fact that they hold Christian beliefs, nor have you established that they are not representative of the left in general.
The fact that the MSM and Hollywood are chock full of these kinds of people is manifestly evident and you have done nothing to suggest that the majority of the left does anything to repudiate such a position.
Brucehenry
LOL Jim. I’m under no obligation to refute an assertion that is ridiculous on its face, or to “establish” something patently obvious. You, or Newt, claiming a conspiracy by the media based in “anti-Christian bigotry” doesn’t make it so.
What I have done is to demonstrate some –just a few– of the thousands of ways in which Christians are routinely privileged in this country. You admit that this is the case, do you not? Can one be both privileged and discriminated against?
And no one is under any obligation to go about “repudiating” your strawmen, Jim. Jesus.
jim_m
I never claimed a conspiracy but I have claimed a consistent pattern of behavior.
Your response is alternately, “It isn’t the way I am” and “So what if leftists are anti-Christian bigots? Boo hoo!”
Not terribly convincing that the left is not indeed filled with anti-Christian bigots and not terribly convincing that you are not one of them, frankly.
Brucehenry
Too skinny, go to bottom.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_W6UJJOM4PP4XLSBG6N4LROVSQE Retired Military
Bruce Henry
3 posts above
“If I am a Christian…
People don’t tell me my faith isn’t a “real” religion. ”
Bruce Henry Above
“like me, who think of ALL religions, including Christianity, as superstition or at best, unproven assertion. ”
Nice proving yourself wrong so quickly Bruce.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_425GVKQCLFZMQYYENR7CJBRDVA jb
Bruce was clearly referring to the majority of Americans when he said “most people”.
Sheesh.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_W6UJJOM4PP4XLSBG6N4LROVSQE Retired Military
Just about everyone of those ascertations are wrong Bruce.
In fact Liberals violate about half them of in just about any given month.
Joe_Miller
I’m fascinated by this ability to know what people are thinking about your hypothetical faith. How does that work exactly? What am I thinking right now?
You really don’t have as many Likes as this shows. I hit a Like when my mouse jumped while clicking on Reply.
Brucehenry
Give me a break. Are you seriously claiming that Christianity isn’t the dominant religion in this country, that Christians don’t occupy a privileged position, and that all those points I mentioned are mere conjecture?
Joe_Miller
No, yes, and yes. As government gets bigger the places where religion can function gets smaller (with the exception of Islam). Government is not merely indifferent to religion, it is outright hostile to it. And I say this as someone who is not religious at all.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_W6UJJOM4PP4XLSBG6N4LROVSQE Retired Military
Truth hurts Bruce. What did Gingrich say that was incorrect?

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914
Steffitupagus needs to go back to beauty college!
jim_m
Here’s a question for George: If the Catholic Church started advocating the violent murder of people and politicians who spoke against its beliefs would the left support and cover for it as much as they do islam? Islam is far less accommodating to the rights of women and gays than is the Catholic Church yet you never hear a peep from the left about it. A muslim can throw acid in the face of a woman because she isn’t wearing a burkha and that’s a cultural thing, but if the Catholic Church says that it won’t pay for health insurance that covers contraception and abortion and it is an affront to human rights. The bigotry and hypocrisy of the left are epic on this score.

mikegiles
The Left are cowards. They are quite “brave” when fighting against the “Theocracy” (read Jews and Christians pretty much wanting to be left alone). But the are scared sh*tless that some wild eyed IslamoNut will give them the Theo VanGogh treatment if they don’t bend to there every command.

Brucehenry
So, Jim, you agree with Newt that “the left is full of bigots….who hate and discriminate against Christians,” but cannot deny how Christians are not only NOT discriminated against, but indeed occupy a position of privilege?
Because Stephanopoulos asked a question you consider offensive, or failed to ask a question you consider pertinent, “the left is full of bigots”???
I say you are looking for reasons to feel offended, much like the imaginary “War on Christmas.”

jim_m
Ummm. I would say that obama’s position on healthcare organizations being forced to pay for insurance coverages that violate the religious beliefs of Catholics is clear evidence of leftist discrimination against Christians and their religious viewpoints.
That pretty much ends that discussion. The left is trying to make illegal Christian religious conviction. Your counter to that I am sure will be to say “Boohoo!” or something else of similar intellectual value.

Brucehenry
I’ll tell you what I WILL cop to, Jim:
There IS such a thing as “anti-Christian bigotry.”
To the extent that it exists, and has adherents on the right and the left, I’d wager that there ARE more “anti-Christian bigots” on the left than the right. So, you may be right about those things.
To suggest that there is some kind of major problem in this country with “anti-Christian bigotry,” that Christians are somehow disadvantaged as a result of it, or that Christians are persecuted by a powerful minority of these so-called “bigots” is ridiculous. That this supposed bigotry is a threat to America is so outlandish as to beyond even YOUR usual paranoid ramblings.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_W6UJJOM4PP4XLSBG6N4LROVSQE Retired Military
”
Because Stephanopoulos asked a question you consider offensive, or failed to ask a question you consider pertinent, “the left is full of bigots”???”
No becuase the left proves it just about every day Bruce. Stephanous questions are just another example.

ackwired
When LBJ got the civil rights bill thru congress he told an aide that the democratic party had just lost the South. He was quite right. Within 10 to 15 years the Southern Democrats who had opposed civil rights had all left and become Republicans. Southerners became Democrats because the Republican carpetbaggers went south after the civil war and they hated Republicans for almost 100 years until the Democrats gave blacks civil rights, and now they will hate Democrats until Republicans do something that they consider to be equally distasteful. Now that is bigotry.
There are bigots on both the right and the left and arguing over who has the most is not of any particular value.

herddog505
ackwired – Within 10 to 15 years the Southern Democrats who had opposed civil rights had all left and become Republicans.
dems love to repeat this meme as though it excuses what their loathsome party was, is, and always has been.
(A) Johnson won the South handily in ’64. So much for Southern backlash;
(B) Who are those nasty ol’ Southern democrats who allegedly became Republicans? Robert KKK Byrd? No; he died a democrat. Al Gore, Sr? Ditto. Richard Russell? Ditto. William Fulbright (Slick Willie’s mentor)? Ditto. The only prominent, anti-Civil Rights democrat I can think of who switched parties is Strom Thurmond. There may well be others; feel free to name them;
(C) The South, while it had been a democrat stronghold since before the Late Unpleasantness, had been trending toward the GOP since the ’30s (for example, Ike, Tricky Dick, and Goldwater all did very well in the South). This has more to do with Southern conservatism on economic and defense issues rather than race. We Southerners have never been friends of the union hoodlums who make up the democrat base in the northeast or the Rust Belt, nor are we simpatico with New England / Left Coast libs who imagine that peace through disarmament is a great idea.

ackwired
I think this may be the most well reasoned response I hve seen on this blog. Well done.
________________________________
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To: ackwired@yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, January 8, 2012 11:30 PM
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herddog505 wrote, in response to ackwired:
ackwired – Within 10 to 15 years the Southern Democrats who had opposed civil rights had all left and become Republicans.
dems love to repeat this meme as though it excuses what their loathsome party was, is, and always has been.
(A) Johnson won the South handily in ’64. So much for Southern backlash;
(B) Who are those nasty ol’ Southern democrats who allegedly became Republicans? Robert KKK Byrd? No; he died a democrat. Al Gore, Sr? Ditto. Richard Russell? Ditto. William Fulbright (Slick Willie’s mentor)? Ditto. The only prominent, anti-Civil Rights democrat I can think of who switched parties is Strom Thurmond. There may well be others; feel free to name them;
(C) The South, while it had been a democrat stronghold since before the Late Unpleasantness, had been trending toward the GOP since the ’30s (for example, Ike, Tricky Dick, and Goldwater all did very well in the South). This has more to do with Southern conservatism on economic and defense issues rather than race. We Southerners have never been friends of the union hoodlums who make up the democrat base in the northeast or the Rust Belt, nor are we simpatico with New England / Left Coast libs who imagine that peace through disarmament is a great idea. Link to comment

herddog505
Thank you kindly.

Brucehenry
(A) Wrong. Goldwater (a conservative Republican who opposed the CRA) won GA, SC, AL, MS, and LA in 1964. There’s your backlash. And Wallace won most of the South in 1968. Nixon won the rest.
Liberals of both parties supported the CRA and the VRA. Conservatives of both parties opposed them. (Yes, there used to be such things as “liberal Republicans.”)
(B)Your list of dead racist Southern Democrats is accurate, but remember, all of those guys are DEAD. Many of them retired long before they died, once their hope of retaining (white) power had died first. And some of them, like George Wallace and Fritz Hollings, eventually recanted their racist positions, even if, like Byrd, they couldn’t quite shed their ingrained attitudes. Thurmond never did, AFAIK. Some weren’t powerful in the 1960s, like Jesse Helms, who was a TV news guy and a racist Democrat, but rose to power as a “who, me? Racist?” Republican in the 1970s. Or Trent Lott, former Democrat who seemingly endorsed a time-traveling Dixiecrat ticket while Republican Senate leader.
(C)The fact is that the Democratic party, AS A PARTY, shed its racist platform planks in the 1960s, while the Republicans cynically adopted the Southern Strategy and the Atwater program. You can tell yourself that this Road to Damascus moment has little to do with race if you wish. I, a 57 year old lifelong Southerner, remember it differently.

herddog505
Say, wasn’t George Wallace a democrat? Why, yes he was! Thank you for proving my point.
As I remark below, the problem I’ve got is the attempt – successful, I’m sorry to say – by democrats to whitewash the sordid history of their criminal party, latching on to JFK and LBJ and forgetting all about Bull Connor, George Wallace, Russell, Fullbright, and racist Southern democrats going back to Reconstruction while at the same time perpetuating the disgraceful lie that Southern Republicans – hell, Republicans in general – are the racists because… um… er… they won’t vote to hand out more food stamps?
Credit where credit is due: Truman desegregated the military, JFK did much to break up the klan, and LBJ pushed for the CRA and VRA. But don’t pretend that there weren’t a LOT of Republicans – continuing the GOP’s platform that started with Lincoln – who weren’t right there with them. And especially don’t pretend that all those nasty racist Southern democrats weren’t democrats until the day they died.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_425GVKQCLFZMQYYENR7CJBRDVA jb
re: (A) – the backlash started **after** LBJ instituted Civil Rights bills and his “Great Society” programs. It was at this point Johnson himself said, “We have now lost the South for a generation.”
(b) Robert Byrd repudiated the KKK and went on to vote for Civil Rights, as you should well know. So including him in a list of racist Southern Democrats doesn’t work after 1966, when he changed not only his words but his deeds.
Jesse Helms should also be on your list.
But more importantly, ackwired isn’t talking about politicians. He’s talking about **voters***. And the Southern Strategy existed and succeeded because it was (and is) about **FEDERAL** elections.
re: (c) You’re entitled to that opinion – but don’t you even remember the 1960′s, and the race riots and murders that occurred in the South with the passing and enforcement of Civil Rights legislation?
Was there anything appraoching the same level of vehemence and violence in the South regarding Unions and defense issues?? Obviously not.
I can understand it being painful to admit that the South is very racist, more racist than the North in nearly all ways, and still attached to this worldview to such a degree that it influences voting **more than** unions, defense, etc.
But looking at the facts, that is objectively the case.

herddog505
Yeah, whatever. I’m quite aware of the South’s disgraceful history with regard to racism (slavery, Jim Crow). However, I find it insulting that dems can give Robert KKK Byrd a pass but smear the rest of us in perpetuity. Worse, they can smear Republican Southerners as racists with the sham that they (we?) are actually old-time democrats who switched parties.
Bah.

Brucehenry
You’re “quite aware of the South’s disgraceful history” but were blissfully UNaware of the fact that Goldwater, and then Wallace and Nixon, carried most of the South in 1964 and 1968. So unaware, in fact, that you claimed that Johnson won the South in 1964, thus “debunking” the backlash from the CRA you claimed didn’t exist.
And you find “insulting” the actual FACT that racists left the Democratic party in the 1960s and 70s and joined the Republican party, where they remain today? I guess you’ll just have to feel insulted then, ’cause facts is facts.
herddog505
1964 Presidential Election Results in former CSA(1):

LBJ – 6.307M popular votes; 81 electoral votes

AuH2O – 5.993M popular votes; 47 electoral votes(2)

So, it’s a “fact” that racists left the democrats (where they’d been at home for a century) and became Republicans, eh? Who are these people? As I noted above, most of the big-time racist, anti-civil rights Southern dems were dems until the day they died.

—

(1) VA, NC, SC, TN, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, AR, TX

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1964
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_425GVKQCLFZMQYYENR7CJBRDVA jb
First, Robert Byrd isn’t getting a “pass” – he **publicly changed his mind**, repudiated his former beliefs and associations, and then **Proved** himself by voting FOR Civil Rights legislation.
Second, the Southern Strategy is a ***recognized historical reality***. It is as established in history as Nixon’s second administration.
We are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. Please recognize facts.
herddog505
Robert KKK Byrd was a member of the klan who actively recruited other men into the odious organization. He fillibustered the CRA and voted against the nomination of Thurgood Marshall. A couple of years before his death, he yammed about “white niggers” on national TV. But, because he “atoned” (i.e. was a reliable democrat vote in the Senate), he’s OK.
I call that getting a pass.
But don’t feel bad. The dems have succeeded in not only burying their odious past but even in transfering the blame for it to the GOP. Not a bad trick of propaganda. It won’t surprise me in a few more years to know that school children are taught that Lincoln was actually a democrat.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_425GVKQCLFZMQYYENR7CJBRDVA jb
Because Byrd was a reliable Democratic vote on Civil Rights issues, including passing the Civil Rights Act, yes.
Sorry that actual actions that redeem people seem like “getting a pass” to you. And somehow makes them worse than people like Strom Thurmond or Jesse Helms. I don’t know how to straighten that out for you.
Also sorry that your own personal rewriting of history has you clinging to Byrd = once a racist = Democrats are the real racists = conservatives aren’t ever racist = the GOP isn’t racist, rather than acknowledging the reality that the Democrats as a party have trended towards civil rights just as the Republican party has trended against it.
This trend is due to the fact that the Republican party has changed since Lincoln. The biggest change came after Teddy Roosevelt, who started the split of progressives from the GOP when he ran as a third-party candidate. The trend came to a head when Herbert Hoover fired loyal black Republicans and hired whites to replace them. And it continued from there, as first FDR and then Truman worked towards civil rights while Republicans increasingly worked against them. Note that WIlliam F. Buckley was a pro-segregation conservative. Why was that? Well?
It is a shame that I and others have to tell you the history of the GOP. This is all readily available information that is confirmed by non-partisan historians and a simple look at the actual record. But believe the facts or don’t, it’s all your own choice.
herddog505
Oh, good heavens. Robert KKK Byrd FILLIBUSTERED the CRA. Jebus…

Dodo David
“. . . until the Democrats gave blacks civil rights . . .”
When Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 82% of Senate Republicans and 69% of Senate Democrats voted in favor of the Act. 80% of House Republicans and 63% House Democrats voted in favor of the Act. So, who gave blacks civil rights? (Information Source: Wikipedia)

Brucehenry
Answer: Liberals, of both parties.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_425GVKQCLFZMQYYENR7CJBRDVA jb
Which party’s President pushed this, and then signed this bill into power?
Thank you.
Which significant Civil Rights 20th civil rights action came from a GOP President? Pretty much Eisenhower and then nothing. So Eisenhower vs. FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson.
There you have it. That is why people **accurately** view the Democratic party as having supported Civil Rights, and the Republicans having been against it. Yes, there were liberal Republicans, almost all in the North, who supported it; and conservative Democrats who opposed it.
So if you wanted to admit that it was liberals who passed Civil Rights and conservatives who were against it, fair enough. But you should also acknowledge the reality that Civil Rights wouldn’t have passed unless the Democratic party pushed for and passed this bill.

herddog505
I was curious about Southern voting patterns in presidential elections since 1932, so I tabulated the popular vote for the following states: VA, TN, SC, AL, TX. I find that, on average, these Southern states voted overwhelmingly democrat from 1932 until 1952, when the fraction of the vote going to the GOP candidate more than doubled and remained stable at about 50% for all subsequent elections. Some data:
1940 -
avg GOP vote for the five states = 20.3%
HI (TN) = 32.4%
LO (SC) = 4.4%
1952 –
avg GOP vote for the five states = 48.7%
HI (VA) = 56.3%
LO (AL) = 35.0%
1964 –
avg GOP vote for the five states = 51.1%
HI (AL) = 69.4%
LO (TX) = 36.5%
1972 –
avg GOP vote for the five states = 68.9%
HI (AL) = 72.4%
LO (TX) = 66.2%
1976 –
avg GOP vote for the five states = 45.2%
HI (VA) = 49.3%
LO (AL) = 42.6%
GOP SHARE, 1932 – 1980
1932 – 17.6%
1936 – 17.1%
1940 – 20.3%
1944 – 23.2%
1948 – 25.0%
1952 – 48.7%
1956 – 44.9%
1960 – 49.0%
1964 – 51.1%
1968 – 34.6%
1972 – 68.9%
1976 – 45.2%
1980 – 51.1%
Problems:
1. I assume that these five states represent a good cross section of the South. I think that this is reasonable, but it may not be.
2. There are several elections (notably 1948 and 1968) in which a third party candidate made a very strong showing in the South, skewing those data.
3. I think it reasonable to assume that Watergate played a major role in the 1976 election, skewing those data.
These aside, the data shows a pretty clear increasing trend in GOP share of the Southern vote BEFORE 1964, with a very sharp jump in 1952. Further, the GOP share of the Southern vote has NEVER approached the democrat share prior to 1952, when the dems could count on something like 80% of the popular Southern vote (So. Carolina, for example, never gave a GOP candidate more than 5% of its vote until 1952). In effect, beginning with the 1952 election, the South became actually competitive. democrats, who reflexively villify anybody who doesn’t toe the party line and can’t stand the fact that they managed to lose an entire previously dead-solid block of states, ascribe this to racism. Can you say “sour grapes”? I am also curious to know where all the racist-former-democrats went in 1976, 1992 and 1996 when the dems won the South (based, that is, on the data I tabulated).
—-
Data from http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

Brucehenry
Reply below.

Brucehenry
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the Democrats were running a Southern candidate in those 3 elections. Maybe the jump in white Southern support for the GOP in 1952 (remember, blacks were largely unable to vote until at least 1964) was due to anger at Truman’s racial policies and Stevenson’s support of them.
Anecdotally, I heard this sentiment many times during the 1972 campaign, despite the conventional wisdom that the election was about Vietnam; “I’m votin’ fer Nixon, cuz that damn McGovern wants to take a thousand dollars of MY MONEY and give it to a ni***r!”
I don’t know who wants to “whitewash” the history of the Democratic party, Herddog. Maybe your strawman? What I’m pointing out is that LIBERALS — of both parties — were responsible for the CRA and the VRA. CONSERVATIVES opposed them both. Subsequently, one party became pretty much “all-liberal” and the other pretty much “all-conservative.”
You do the math.

herddog505
It strikes me that you’re not pointing out the virtues of liberals, but rather repeating a base, dishonest smear both of Southerners* and of Republicans as a pack of racists. If you want to give credit for passing the CRA and the VRA to “liberals” OF BOTH PARTIES, that’s fine: credit where credit’s due. However, I think that I’ve demonstrated two key points:
1. Southern voting patterns had started to shift away from the democrats and toward the GOP well before 1964;
2. Goldwater did well in the South in ’64, but not significantly better than Ike or Nixon had in the previous three election cycles and not as well as future GOP candidates would do.
So much for the idea of civil rights causing massive numbers of democrats to suddenly become Republicans in and after ’64. And, aside from Strom Thurmond (who I named), I’ve yet to see a list of prominent, racist Southern democrat politicians who magically became Republicans after 1964 despite it being presented as a “fact” that this happened.
It’s all part of the same whitewash job. I understand it even though I detest it. If I was a democrat, I’d say just about anything to stop people remembering that guys like Ben Tillman, Woodrow Wilson, Josephus Daniels, Theodore Bilbo, Bull Connor, Herman Talmadge, William Fullbright, Robert KKK Byrd, and George Wallace were leaders – GIANTS - in my party.
—
(*) Yeah, Southerners have much to blush for. But ain’t it funny that the democrat party, which LED the South in slavery and Jim Crow, has “redeemed” itself while the South apparently never has and never can.

Brucehenry
Hit “new comment” when I meant to hit “reply” again. Answer below.

Brucehenry
You know what strikes me? How you can blithely assert things that just factually AREN’T TRUE, and then build an argument around them, saying that those who disagree are “smearing.”
For instance, a few comments back you claimed that “Johnson won the South handily in ’64. So much for Southern backlash.”
Umm, not true.
Looking at an electoral vote map of 1964, we see that Johnson won a few Southern states ( I venture to guess because Goldwater was a NUT) but Goldwater won the Deep South. Wallace won most of those same states in ’68 (as the candidate of the American Independent — read segregationist– Party). Since then, the Dems have won more than a couple of Southern states only in elections in which a candidate FROM THE SOUTH was the Dem nominee. And only 3 out of 5 of those!
Again, THERE’S yer backlash, dude. Plain as the nose on your face.
Then it’s “Goldwater did well in the South in 1964, but not significantly better than Ike or Nixon in the previous 3 election cycles…” And,”So much for the idea of civil rights causing massive numbers of Democrats to suddenly become Republicans in and after 1964.”
Again, let’s go to the maps: in 1960, Nixon carried VA, TN, and FL. The rest of the South went to Dems — either JFK, or to racist Democrat Harry Byrd, who ran on an “independent Democrat” ticket that included Strom Fucking Thurmond as VP! In 1956, Ike carried those same 3 Southern states plus LA. Adlai Stevenson, a liberal, carried the rest of the South because the South was still “solid.” And in ’52, Ike carried the same 3 as Nixon got in 1960 — again, the Solid Democratic South.
So, you see, by claiming Goldwater didn’t do “significantly better” than Republicans in the previous 3 cycles, you asserted another, ummm, false factoid. Goldwater DID do much better. And Wallace, in ’68, did better still. So, it looks like to me that “massive numbers” of white Democrats did indeed become — and start voting as– Republicans AFTER the CRA was passed.
If you build an argument on false premises, you reach erroneous conclusions, there, Dawg.
And, as ackwired and jb have pointed out, the Southern Strategy wasn’t conceived as a way to get “prominent” racist Democrats to switch parties. It was a way to get racist white VOTERS to switch parties, genius. And it worked!
When Democrats DO win in the South these days, it is because of coalitions of white liberals and blacks. They are nearly always opposed by conservative Republicans brandishing dogwhistle phrases like “forced busing” and “neighborhood schools.”
You used the phrase, “we Southerners” above. But I’ve lived in the South for 57 years. Went to segregated schools until the 10th grade. Been a member of the working class, pretty much, all my life. If you tell me the average Southern white good old boy ain’t at least a leeeetle bit racist, I’ll tell you you’re full of shit. Sorry if that’s a “smear.”
herddog505
This is getting ridiculous. I was aware that you democrats feel a basic need to smear other people to feel better about yourselves, but I never imagined it could be quite so contemptible or obvious.
1. Johnson won the popular vote in the South and scored 81 electoral votes to Goldwater’s 47. That’s a pretty handy win in my book. You, in contrast, asserted that Goldwater “carried most of the South.”
2. The data support that theory that the GOP had been improving its electoral share in the South since the New Deal, with a huge “bump” coming in 1952. Are we to believe that all those democrats in all those elections were abandoning their party because it just wasn’t racist enough to suit them anymore?
Brucehenry – by claiming Goldwater didn’t do “significantly better” than Republicans in the previous 3 cycles, you asserted another, ummm, false factoid. Goldwater DID do much better.
You really, really need to do your homework. GOP electoral votes in the former CSA by year:
1952 – 57 (of 128)
1956 – 67
1960 – 33
1964 – 47
Goldwater did better than Nixon, but worse than Ike. Had Goldwater gotten Texas (which went to Ike both times), he would have picked up twenty-five more electoral votes and hence done marginally better than Ike in ’56, but all those bigots in Texas voted for the dem in ’64 (as they also did in ’60).
3. The idea that Southerners went over to the GOP strictly due to race presupposes that the GOP was hanging out a sign “Bigots Welcome”. Are you seriously suggesting that Ike was a bigot? Or Nixon? Or Goldwater? Did the GOP announce that its platform was to overturn the Reconstruction amendments and bring back slavery? No.
4. Even if we accept that the election results in the South in ’64 were strictly due to RAAAAACISM, it doesn’t explain subsequent elections. Did Southerners embrace Carter over Ford due to racism? Or were they, like everybody else in the country, disgusted by Watergate? When the South chose Reagan over Carter, was that due to racism? Or was it because Carter was an incompetent boob? Etc. And that leads us to…
Brucehenry – conservative Republicans brandishing dogwhistle phrases like “forced busing” and “neighborhood schools.”
Now we come to it: the race card. You know, when I posted above that Republicans are supposed to be bigots because “they won’t vote to hand out more food stamps”, I thought I was being facetious. I ought to have known better: for dems, ANY opposition to the welfare state is motivated by racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred of older people, etc. Because Republicans don’t support getting their children up an extra hour early to bus them across town to a lousy school so that rich, white liberals who send their own kids to private schools can feel virtuous, they MUST be racist.
Your race card has expired.
Brucehenry – If you tell me the average Southern white good old boy ain’t at least a leeeetle bit racist…
You forgot to throw in sneering references to NASCAR, guns, and religion, you elitist snob.

Brucehenry
I don’t think one can be derided for “playing the race card” in a thread ABOUT RACE. But hey, if you say so….. guilty, I guess.
Teehee, “all those bigots in Texas voted for the dem in ’64″ — a Dem FROM TEXAS, genius. One who had been their Senator, and Senate Majority Leader, for years.
In 1952, Eisenhower was elected, with much Southern support, as the hero who had won the war 7 years earlier, over an egghead Dem liberal who supported Truman’s racial policies. Wow, what a surprise. But, even so, he never won the Deep South, as Goldwater did. Just the slightly LESS benighted states, as it were.
Ike was no bigot, just rather indifferent. Credit where it’s due, he did the right thing in Little Rock,and he did push the CRA of 1957 — although he allowed that to be watered down pretty badly. Nixon, though — haven’t you heard about any of the tapes? Not only was he a racist fuck, he was an anti-Semite to a pathological extent. And it was his people who came up with the Southern Strategy, which was intended to lure racist Southern whites from the Democratic party into the GOP over the long term. It worked, as evidenced by your own “research.”
Or are you going to be one of the revisionists who claim there was never such a thing as the “Southern Strategy?” That it’s a myth made up by liberals to smear conservatives?
And no, in 1964, the GOP didn’t announce bringing back slavery — but they DID run a nominee who had helped lead the Senate fight AGAINST the CRA. Are you claiming that had nothing to do with his being the first Republican EVER to sweep the Deep South?
The South “embraced Carter over Ford” in ’76 because he was a Native Son (see also Johnson, Lyndon B., 1960 and 1964, which accounts for a goodly number of your “electoral votes from the Old Confederacy,” BTW.) In 1980, Carter lost to the man who began his campaign in Philadelphia, MS, where Goodman, Schwoerner, and Chaney had been murdered 16 years before, with a speech about (tweeeet) “States’ Rights.” Oh, and yes, also because Carter was indeed an incompetent boob, haha.
Again, maybe you were being rhetorical when you said, “we Southerners.” Do you really live in the South? Go to public schools here? Send your kids to public schools? Work with people, listen to their “jokes,” have lunchtime conversations with other Southern co-workers, etc etc? Because you don’t have to be an “elitist snob” like me (LMFAO, I’m a bug man without a college degree!).to see it. It’s there, in your face, every day.Just because Billy Bob doesn’t casually toss around racial slurs anymore doesn’t mean he’s free of bigotry. I will admit it’s been getting a little bit better, every day, for, say,the past 40 years or so — until 2009!
Little testy since then.
I hate to say stuff like, “It’s real simple,” but it’s, umm, real simple. Before 1964, almost all Southern whites were Democrats. After 1964, and especially after 1968, very many Southern whites became Republicans. Those people vote for candidates like Jesse Helms, Newt “I’ll Tell The NAACP To Get Off Food Stamps” Gingrich, Rick Perry, and, while he was alive, Strom Thurmond. You’re telling me that it’s not because they’re racists. I say it’s plain that they are. All you gotta be to see it is awake.
(BTW, for another day, we should discuss: “Forced Busing” The Best Thing That Ever Happened To The South.)
Another day.

herddog505
So, let’s sum up:
Having had your “facts” debunked, you are reduced to:
— Barry Goldwater was a racist!* And he did too win the South. He did! He did! He did!
— Richard Nixon was a racist!
— Ronald Reagan was a racist!
— Ike wasn’t REALLY a racist, but…
— White Southerners are racists!
— The current GOP nominees are racists!
— The Republican Party is racist, and ignorant white Southerner good ol’ boys vote for the GOP candidate because they are racists (except when they don’t). Government spending, welfare, unions, and national defense have NOTHING to do with white Southern voting patterns: it’s all RAAACISM!
— The democrat party used to be a teensy-weensy bit racist, but they’ve TOTALLY gotten past all that and it’s ridiculous to bring it up because all the racists in the democrat party became Republicans. The South, however, is, was, and always will be racist.
And, yes, I am a Southerner, born and raised in the South. The South of today, that is: NOT the South of fifty years ago. To borrow a phrase, I – like the South – have moved on.
—–
(*) AuH2O desegregated the AZ Air National Guard two years before the rest of the US military. Not sure how that makes him a bigot, but I’m sure that your (ahem) agile mind can work something out.
His opposition to the CRA rested on his belief that it was unconstitutional because it violated states rights. You know: concept mentioned in that musty old document we call “the Constitution”, especially in Amendments IX and X? In other words, his opposition was based on principle, something democrats wouldn’t understand.

Brucehenry
Never said Goldwater was a racist. I said he helped lead the fight against the CRA. And he did. But I cop to conflating “the South” with the “Deep South.” Goldwater was only the very first Republican EVER to carry the Deep South, months after losing the CRA fight. Johnson did not, however, “win the South handily in 1964,” the factoid you asserted that first caught my eye. He won his home state (a big one, with lots of EVs) and a couple others, Goldwater won the rest, and the Democrats have never really been competitive since, unless they ran a Native Son — and that has only worked part of the time.
Nixon WAS a racist, and the tapes prove it.
Never said Reagan was a racist. My implication was that he was following the Southern Strategy, and it worked. Doesn’t make him a racist, it makes him a canny, cynical politician.
I said WHAT I SAID about Ike, not what you said. Please quote me claiming Ike was a racist. I believe, “Ike was no bigot…” was my phrase.
Many white Southerners are, indeed, racists, and vote for guys like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, and Trent Lott because of it. To deny it is to deny the sky is blue. Do they also like strong defense and keeping “entitlement” spending low? Sure.
The GOP doesn’t have a nominee yet, but guys like Gingrich and Santorum make me snicker with their “paychecks, not food stamps” dogwhistles. You can claim rhetoric like that has no racial component all you like. Doesn’t mean it’s so. Romney, I’ll concede, doesn’t seem to hate black people especially — he has equal contempt for ALL non-millionaires LOL.
Never really said the Republican party was racist, exactly — I said it is the party of the Southern Strategy, and it uses certain wedge issues to get bigots to vote Republican. It’s moved beyond anti-black bigots, though. Nowadays it needs voters who hate Mexicans, Muslims, and gay people, too. Think about it. In 1964 their nominee stood for the “principle” that merchants could keep people whose money was as green as anyone else’s out of their businesses and on the back of the bus. Noble principle, indeed! Today the candidates stand for “principles” just as lofty: that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry or adopt children, that giant electric fences are what this country needs to keep Mexicans out, and that the rule of law shouldn’t apply to certain folks (umm, Muslims). Do I think Newt or Rick PERSONALLY hate gays, Mexicans, or Muslims? Nope — but they’ll damn sure pander to voters who do!
NEVER EVER said the Democratic party “used to be a teensy-weensy bit racist.” Indeed, I’ve said NOTHING to defend the racist Democrats of 50-60 years ago. If it makes you feel better, I’ll give you Byrd, even.
What I DID say was that the Democratic Party, as a party, dropped their racist platform planks in the 1960s, causing racist voters to bolt. And those voters wound up voting Republican, dude, if not in ’68 (they had Wallace and the AIP), well, pretty much ever since.
Look, I don’t know where in the South you live. In my state, I’m sure there were some who voted over and over again for Jesse Helms because he was such a fiscal conservative, or commie-hater, or whatever. But to say that many, if not most, of his reliable voters weren’t dyed-in-the-wool racists is nonsense.
But you do have a point about the South “moving on.” It IS getting better, it really is. What started me on this argument was that one thing that Wizbangers, even ones as smart as you Herddog, can’t sem to let go of: conflating the racist Southern Dems of 50 years ago with modern liberalism. It’s specious and you, at least, know it.

herddog505
1. Of course there are racists in the South. They are a dwindling breed.
2. The democrat party was the party of Jim Crow. This is no longer true.
3. LBJ, a democrat, signed the CRA and the VRA… after it was passed by the Congress with enormous Republican support. These two acts are good examples of bipartisan legislation.
4. Goldwater did better in the deep South than any Republican in history, breaking the democrat monopoly on that region. However, I suggest that his success was more evolutionary than revolutionary as the South had been increasingly Republican since at least 1952.
5. Just as Goldwater opposed the CRA on constitutional grounds and NOT because he was some sort of bigot, so many Republicans oppose such things as busing, the open border, welfare, etc., because they think them bad policies in general and NOT because they are bigots.
Brucehenry – Nowadays [the GOP] needs voters who hate Mexicans, Muslims, and gay people, too.
You actually believe this garbage??? That GOP voters:
— Don’t worry about border security, drug smuggling and terrorism but simply “hate Mexicans”?
— Don’t think that, in accordance with their religious beliefs, marriage is and ought to be between a man and a woman AND dislike the idea that their children are being taught – brainwashed – to believe that homosexuality is perfectly normal and moral and that anybody who thinks differently is some sort of a monster but rather simply “hate gays”?
— Don’t want to wake up one morning and find that another Mohammed Atta or Nidal Hassan has killed a few dozen (or few tens of thousands) of their fellow Americans but simply “hate Muslims”? Did Republicans support the Reagan defense buildup because they simply hate Russians? Or the invasion of A-stan because they simply hate Afghanis? Jebus…
Brucehenry – In 1964 their nominee stood for the “principle” that merchants could keep people whose money was as green as anyone else’s out of their businesses and on the back of the bus.
Yes, personal liberty really sucks. Why, people might actually choose to be a**holes if allowed! Thank heavens that we’ve got a wise, benevolent, all-powerful central government to tell us how to run our businesses and how to live our lives just like the Puritans had. Who needs a church or even a personal sense of ethics when you’ve got the democrat party and the federal government to tell you what’s right and wrong and the power to punish you if you don’t behave – hell, THINK – the way that they say you ought?
Brucehenry – conflating the racist Southern Dems of 50 years ago with modern liberalism. It’s specious…
Is it? A Jim Crow democrat told people where to send their children to school due to racial politics. A modern democrat will tell people where to send their children to school due to racial politics. A Jim Crow democrat would tell people who they could and couldn’t allow in their shops and businesses. A modern democrat will tell people who they must allow in their shops and businesses. Jim Crow democrats had “seperate but equal”. Jim Crow democrats preached the idea that the Negro was not the equal of the white man and had to be “taken care of”. Modern democrats preach that, because blacks have been the subject of slavery and oppression for so long, they must be made wards of the state and given special consideration in hiring, education, etc.
Liberty had no place for the elite Jim Crow democrats, and it has no place for the elite democrats today. Jim Crow democrats divided society by race, and so do modern democrats. Not much difference from where I stand.

Brucehenry
4. Goldwater’s sweep of the Deep South was historic. He didn’t just “do better” — he was the first Republican in history to carry those states. This was widely attributed AT THE TIME to his opposition to the CRA. In other words, EVERYONE KNEW THIS WAS THE CASE, and this has only been disputed, ummm, recently, by certain wingnuts such as Jim M, and, apparently, yourself. This is similar to the new insistence that “the Nazis were a phenomenon of the left’ and similar topsy-turvy revisionist historical claptrap.
5. It’s my opinion that the “principled opposition” to things like “busing” (read “school integration”), “the open border”, and welfare is often rationalization for the racist attitudes the opponents already hold. This is based on 57 years of living, working, and interacting with white folks in the South. Are there people who hold such principles on an intellectual level because of deep thought and study? Sure, probably. But it’s my belief that most of the opposition to these things is more emotionally based than not.
The remark about hating Mexicans, etc, was meant to be funny, somewhat. But, in regard to gay rights, I suggest that if your religious beliefs preclude you from granting basic human rights to people different from yourself, you probably should rethink them. A bigoted belief is a bigoted belief, no matter for what reason it is held, religious or otherwise. For instance, if a fanatic Muslim thinks homosexuals should be beheaded, while a fundamentalist Christian thinks they should be denied the right to marry or adopt, the difference in religious bigotry is a matter of DEGREE, not kind.
And with regard to Muslims, I suggest that fear, played up by cynical politicians and pundits, has more to do with certain peoples’ “deeply held beliefs” than does reality.
Gotta run, wish I had more time.

herddog505
Until next time…

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