From my own experience of working with people from Bob Jones it means you are only likely to. In the case of Bush he wants to affirm that he supports southern values like banning interracial dating, women who wear pants, and gays(the last two are from people I know who go to or got kicked out of Bob Jones).
Bob, I do not for a moment contend that bigots are anywhere near a majority of the Republican Party, either in voters or in candidates. You may find my three qualified contentions above: some elected bigots, too much pandering to racists, and an explicit strategy of the national leadership to achieve national power by (when tactically appropriate) appealing to white Southern bigotry. Your hypothetical would not dissuade me of any of those contentions.
Y’all are willing to give me the million-dollar research grant necessary to take on an ongoing project of such broad scope and methodological rigor, right?
minty, I understand the “some elected bigots.” Is “too much pandering to racists” the same as “any pandering to racists”? Would you assign this same descritption to the Dems?
And I’m still not getting the current evidence of “an explicit strategy of the national leadership to achieve national power by (when tactically appropriate) appealing to white Southern bigotry.” Again, if I’m being thick about it, this thread ain’t helping me see the light.
a)It doesn’t exist as a policy of the Republican Party as a whole
OR
b)Not enough evidence exists to make that kind of claim
OR
c)I think it’s the case but I can’t prove it, therefore I won’t make those accusations again until I can prove it.
I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all. In fact, to claim something without proof is downright dishonest, and that’s what bothers me about this whole thing.
By the way, Airman Doors, do you still contend that the “White Pride” movement is “a reflection of how sick and tired they are with the racist bullshit that invariably comes up, usually at the expense of whites”?
That “some of these ‘separatist’ groups are just doing what the Black leaders have advocated for Blacks since the 60’s. They’re choosing to live the way they want to, away from the racism bullshit. There’s nothing inherently ‘evil’ about that”?
That “I can’t think of a more racist group of people than the blacks”?
I don’t usually dredge up ancient history, but your current assessment of those statements would seem to be germane to your perspective on this discussion.
Hypothetically, any pandering to racists is too much pandering. But in terms of which party to support with one’s vote, demanding abolute purity isn’t really an option. Taken as a whole, the Republican party does too much pandering to racists, and too little condemnation of either the racists or the panderers, for me to support them with their vote (though I happily split my ticket for individual Republicans).
Touche, minty. It’s been a good long time since I wrote that. I read it now with no small amount of shame.
My circumstances, my attitudes, hell, my whole life has changed since then. Note the date: April of last year. That was when I was feeling bad about where I was, what I was doing, and I was looking for someone to blame.
For what I wrote then, I am indeed sorry. I would hope that as time has gone on, you’d note that the tone of my posts, even the language has changed substantially. I’d like to think I’ve matured since then, but that judgment is up to you.
Now that my credibility is totally shot, not that I ever had any to begin with, I’ll just melt away.
My cite does not say that liberals have spoken at BJU. It says that they are hypocrites for suggesting Bush is a racist or a homophobe for having done so.
BJU is a Christian School and Bush is a Christian. BJU has is also arguably anti-catholic in it’s docrine. I do not consider Bush anti-catholic for having spoken there.
If whether or not you are a racist or a homophobe is defined by whom you speak with, than I will certainly accept that Bush is a homophope and a racist for having spoken at BJU.
By the same token, during the 2000 Presidential election Bill Bradley, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore all publically met with the Reverend Al Sharpton who has repeatedly made anti-semitic and racist remarks. My favorite is when he said to a Tel Aviv heckler “I am in Hell already. I am in Israel.”
So I will gladly concede that if you’re tendencies are defined by with whom you meet and speak with that Bush is both a homophope and a racist. Of course that means Bill Bradley, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore are racist anti-semites by the same criteria.
We’ve backed it up. Just not with double-blind peer reviewed studies that instantiate our findings up to last Tuesday.
The rigor you’re demanding is unreasonable. It would, literally, be the subject of a sweeping grant. And given the muddiness of the data–what would be sufficient to constitute “an agenda of pandering to racism in the recent elections” to you? speeches? internal memos?–it might well be impossible to prove to your standards even if true.
For the record, I believe every word you just wrote, Airman. I’ve seen you grow and change more than a bit during your time here. That thread was my first encounter with you, and it’s stuck with me ever since. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you come back now and repudiate it. Thank you, and I apologize for the bad mojo of bringing it back up. For my part, I will be more than happy to have you rejoin this or any other discussion.
Scylla:I have stated in my Op that there are individual cases of racism or pandering in the Republican party. That is not for debate.
And I assume you’re also accepting that there was a cohesive Republican Southern strategy of, at best, soft-pedaling repudiation of racism, at worst, repudiating civil rights, in order to attract white conservative voters with racial prejudices. A very interesting study of this phenomenon is a recent book by Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans. Earl Black and other Southern political scientists are quoted in a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution article on Republicans and race:
The interesting question—and I wish you had asked it a trifle less belligerently in the OP, because it really is worth some considered discussion—is whether this strategy has now been repudiated in the Republican Party overall. The article linked above also discusses some hopeful signs in that regard:
So, is the Republican “Southern strategy” really dead? I may be being too optimistic, but I think it is. However—and this is where I think some of the heated conflict here is coming from—it didn’t die all that long ago, and it still twitches now and then.
Nonsense. An agenda of racist pandering and racism is a serious charge. It demands rigorous proof before it can be responsibly made.
Failure to do so leaves one open to my charge, which is that the current Democratic cries of “racism,” are being made simply to protect the black vote which the Republicans have been courting, that these charges are being made without regard for their substance simply for political gain. It is the most egregious form of mudslinging to cast such vile aspersions without proof, and for such petty gain.
It is pandering to fears of racism. It is deliberately maintaining the status quo of fear and race tension for political gain. It is the tactic of the worst kind of scum in the world. It’s what Bill Clinton did.
It would not take very much work to look at the Southern midterm Senate races and obtain overviews of the campaigns and issues to determine whether pandering to racism or overt racism went on. They are all recent news, and should be readily available on the internet.
If I felt that the Republicans were being racist, I could probably examine and collate the evidence in an hour to back up my assertion, and show the current form of the pandering “Southern Southern” strategy is alive and well, and racism and pandering to bigotry is part of the Repbulican agenda.
Doubtless, I could pull up as many individual Democrats doing or saying things that could be construed as racist as I would care to find. These incidents by themselves tell me nothing, no matter how many I find until by themselves. They need a context to interpret their meaning.
I have provided one means for a context, there are others. Individual dots by themselves do not constitute a scattergram. They have to be interpolated, scaled and related to one another.
So far all I’ve seen is dots on the wall, and many of them are quite arguable.
I don’t beleive speaking at BJU constitutes an endorsement of racism any more than meeting with Al Sharpton constitutes an agenda of anti-semitism.
What the Southern strategy was is really outside of the scope of what I’m trying to do here, just as the record of Al Gore’s father and other Democrats during the onset of the civil rights era has little bearing on the Democratic party of today.
It’s an interesting topic, but 'prolly for another thread.
I don’t wish to argue historic racism and pandering in either party.
I wish those that beleive that the Republican party is currently racist, or pandering to racism can demonstrate that this is so by an analysis of the current elected representatives and their most recent campaigns as compared to the Democratic party.
A simple systematic comparison of a sample of equivalent campaigns and representatives both Democrat and Republican would do the trick.
Do Senators Hollings and Byrd, combined with Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson and Al Sharpton, lead you to a similar assessment of the Dems? If not, please explain why these examples lead you to a different conclusion.
If I were to decide that Democrats were generally liars and had an agenda of lying compared to Republicans, and wanted to make that assertion, would you consider that assertion proven if I gave you 2 dozen examples of Democrats lying in the last 10 years?
If the answer is “yes.” let me know.
The fallacy is that I am not sampling representatively. I would just be looking for Democratic liars, and I would likely find as many examples as I cared to search for.
To make the assertion meaningful, I would need to put it into context, I would need to take the “dots” which are the individual examples and construct the scattergram. Dots by themselves are worthless.
Obviously to make a meaningful argument I need to compare and contrast a pool of Democrats and Republicans and see if a pattern emerges.
If I just search and select Democratic lies than I am creating the pattern.
You all are creating the pattern by selecting for it.
