I don’t know who those people are. Perhaps you could provide a cite?
In any event, when the chairman of the party that cures cancer, obtains world peace, lowers taxes, etc. comes right out and says “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization,” it’s probably a legitimate concern of African Americans to say “thanks for the apology. Now let’s see if your actions match your words.”
God made men Colonel Colt made them equal, huh? You really think that blacks feel the need for looser gun control laws? Enough to vote for racists?
I am fairly pro-gun rights (mostly because I don’t think I can pick and choose the parts of the bill of rights I like and ignore the parts I don’t like, even if I really, really want to) but for every example you give me of someone who was saved by their gun, I can provide you with about a dozen examples of someone who was killed by a gun.
Outlawing guns would mean only criminals have guns you say? Korea was practically littered with AK-47s and M-1s after the Korean war, then they made guns illegal and do you know how Korean gang fights are fought? With swords. Compulsory military service means that every one of those gangsters knows how to use a gun but they just don’t use them because the penalty for carrying a gun is too severe.
Why is it that Republicans that a severe enough penalty can deter everything from smoking marijuana to rape and murder but don’t think they can craft a penalty severe enough to deter illegal gun ownership?
True, and which party do you think the people they were protecting themselves from belong today?
Well your original reply that started this tangent was that blacks should vote Republican because Republicans have done so much for the black people, and then proceeded to list a few things that they did for blacks 40 years ago but couldn’t name anything they did specifically for blacks after they adopted the southern strategy. Aside from the fact that irresponsible tax cuts are not good for anyone, they are not good for blacks in the same way that the Emancipation Proclamation or the Voting Rights Act was good for blacks. Its not enough to overcome the fact that most of the racists seem to be on the Republican side.
The question of whether Republican policies are good for Americans is still a v ery unresolved issue. The question of whether the Republican party is where the racists hang out is not.
When the Republicans cure cancer, obtain world peace, manages to magically lower taxes without cutting programs that are important to the black community, then come back to me. But so far I have seen gun rights and tax cuts for the rich.
Of course not but you need more than tax cuts for the rich and deregulation of industry to promote more diversity among the Republican ranks.
Because of some phone call by JFK apparently :rolleyes:
some of my post didn’t make it through.
So being good for America while the Democrats are bad for America aren’t enough (I mean who can argue with tax cuts and deregulation of industry). 
Its not that stark, only SOME of the laws they support are directly against the interests of the black community. Mostly what Suanananan seems to be saying is that Blacks should vote Republican because Republicans are good for the country (and presumably Democrats are bad for the country) and therefore good for blacks in America as well. She points to a few areas where the black community is pretty ambivalent (gun control, really?) and ignores the areas that directly affect the black community. The Republican party is never going to win the black vote because everything they do is geared towards pretending that whatever may have happened between slavery and segregation… well thats water under the bridge, noones racist now, ESPECIALLY not the Republicans who want everything to be race neutral./QUOTE]
If they actually cured cancer and obtained world peace, I say we all give them another look.
As to the premise of your question, I don’t support the Republican Party myself, so I definitely don’t think anybody else should support it enthusiastically. There are a few obvious reasons why the Democrats get most of the black vote, such as their support for the affirmative action (people do vote in their self-interest) and the virtuous/vicious circle effect ever since the Democrats supported the Civil Rights Act and got a lot of the black vote.
I wouldn’t say ‘never’, because I believe at some point in the next 20 to 50 years the Republicans, because of their current self-destructive trajectory, will see the light and change their ways, if only to prevent their ultimate annihilation. However, I don’t think the GOP’s diminishingly small number of black voters has as much to do with the 200 years before civil rights than with with the direction of rhetoric of the party for the last 40 or so years.
In addition, Republicans seem to believe that blacks vote for Democrats because of promises made, whether they’re kept or not, thereby ensuring blacks are beholden to the party. Contrary to this belief, blacks don’t consider Democrats to be the best thing since sliced bread; they’re just not as bad as Republicans on matters that directly impact blacks and other groups the GOP typically demonizes for political gain.
The Democratic party could be much better for blacks, hispanics, muslims, gays, and women than it currently is, but the organization and its leadership is too weak; crumbling at any opposition, too willing to compromise on its convictions, and too naïve when dealing with the Republicans and other conservative groups.
But nothing based on the positions or actions or even common attitudes of the Republicans since their enactment of the Southern Strategy? Nothing?
I don’t think the Republican party survives until the day when whites are no longer a majority (the largest minority but no longer the majority) and I’ll tell you why. In order for them to change, they would have to turn their backs on the pillars of their core constituency, racists and the ultra-rich. The Republican party cannot survive without their support.
Today the GOP keeps the light on for racists, but I believe the party, at some point, will have no option but to evolve beyond the expediency of hitching their wagon to racists and religious extremists if only to remain relevant as a party. They won’t be the GOP of today, just as the GOP of today is not the same as that of the 1950s, but I’m confident the party, even if in name only, will survive.
That would fall under what I wrote about “the virtuous/vicious circle effect ever since the Democrats supported the Civil Rights Act and got a lot of the black vote.” No mystery here, since the vote distribution became very polarized, both parties started to pander to their voters. Whether it was a political mistake or not is a different topic.
No, the Republicans’ active courting of racists would not fall under what the Democrats have done. That’s why I’m asking - do you think that’s been real or don’t you?
That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard!
It would be an impossible nightmare to trace, and then prove, and then separate out, by states, everyone’s genealogy.
Of course, everyone who has ancestors that immigrated to the United States, AFTER slavery was abolished, would pay nothing, and get nothing. Likewise, those who had ancestors that were slaves before 1789 would have to go to Great Britain if they want financial damages.
However, it would not be as simple as seeing who came here after the 1860’s, but you would certainly have to do it by state. If Michigan never had slavery, then people who have ancestors from Michigan get nothing, and they pay nothing.
If half of your ancestors were slaves, and half were slave owners, then you pay yourself. For example, the simplist example is that if Tom Jefferson and Sally Hemmings had a child, then that half-white half-black child would simply pay herself, and we would then call it even - the child would net not paying anything, and would not end up with anything either.
I wouldthink, to be fair, that if your ancestor was a black slave owner, then you would have to pay the special reparations tax to a white decendant of a Union soldier who fought to end slavery.
Certainly people who had no ancestors who were either slaves or slave owners, dont pay or get anything, regardless of when they came here.
The farther you get from 1865, or 1789, the more difficult it would be to determine who would pay who much and who would get how much. IF you are 1/32 a decendant from an ancestor who was a slave, then although you get 1/32 of the reparations, you also have to pay 31/32 of the special tax bill which means you might be paying a LOT more than you would be getting .
If you really want reparations, then come up with a workable computer program that will correctly process all possible conditions.
Until you can correctly figure out how to do it, then the “reparations” that you talk of is just a “red herring”.
The Democrat Party has been considered the “Black Party” for decades.
The last Democrat candidate to win the “white vote”, was Lyndon Johnson back in 1964.
Yeah, I know, its obvious racism. It is as bad as what some people accuse Republicans of. Like it or not, that is what it is.
This does not mean what you think it means. Yes, a majority of blacks vote for Democrats. That does not mean that blacks make up the majority of the Democratic Party. I don’t know who considers the Democratic Party “the Black Party”. Can you name names? Because it’s certainly not something that I’ve ever heard it called outright.
And it is, for at least the third time, the Democratic Party. That is the official name of the party. Using the construction that you have been using pretty consistently in this thread is a positive signal of Republican or Tea Party affiliation. So don’t try to pretend you’re “not a Republican”. Your own words betray you.
Opppp, you got it backwards! Republicans get most of the credit for the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
Go back to the earlier posts.
I thought we all agreed that the Civil Rights act was supported MORE by the REPUBLICANS!!!. It was the Democrats, including the late Senator Byrd, who tried to stop passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Abuses of black people, denying them rights and equal treatment, has historically been a Democrat Party trait.
On the other hand, the Republican Party consistently and overwelmingly have been for civil rights for blacks. More than 80% of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act. It was the Republican Party that stopped the Democrat fillibuster.
And I repeat, have you been in a coma since 1964?
Originally posted by Susanann:
The Democrat Party has been considered the “Black Party” for decades.
The last Democrat candidate to win the “white vote”, was Lyndon Johnson back in 1964.
It means exactly what I said I said.
The Democrat Party has lost the white vote in EVERY!!! presidential election since Lyndon Johnson way back in 1964. The majority of whites have voted AGAINST!!! the Democrat Party since then. That is pretty clear.
YOU dont need to try to change it, or try to cover it up. Fact is fact.
I’m struggling to find a way in which pointing out that white people vote Republican is somehow a defense against accusations of racism for the GOP.
I know what I am , and I am not a Republican. NObody knows better who I am than me, so stop with the Off-topic personal remarks!!!
YOu can stop with the personal attacks, and stop with your innuendos and false implications which add nothing to the subject matter.
Your name calling and your false accuations make it pretty obvious that you lack credibility and you are grasping at anything in an attempt to make a response, even if you have to make personal attacks and say things that are not true.
You’re very fixated on this “white vote”/“black vote” thing. Is there something more virtuous about the “white vote”? If not, then who cares? A vote’s a vote. If a majority of the overall votes are for the Democrats (as they obviously were in 2006 and 2008), then what does the color of the voter matter?
Again, the Republican Party of 2010 is a considerably different animal (you could almost say a different genus, not just species) than the Republican Party of 1964. For the entirety of my life, the Republican Party has been the party to which the racist southern Democrats of the early part of the 20th Century fled when the Democratic Party (as led by LBJ) decided to do the right thing. For almost the entirety of my life, and certainly for the entirety of my adult life, the Republican Party was the party that has used racist dogwhistles, racist images, racist rhetoric and tried like hell to woo racists, period. It. Has. Not. Ended. I don’t CARE what the Republican Party did 150 years ago, or 100 years ago, or 50 years ago. I care what they’ve been doing for almost my entire life. So I ask you again, have you been in a coma since 1964 and you just woke up from it last week or what?