What? The position you’re talking about is the opposite of that - that in this case one feels it’s an inappropriate use of force by an authority.
This is ridiculous.
First, what evidence do you have that they didn’t denounce it? Is someone supposed to call a news conference and say “hey, I’m not racist, but I don’t feel like this is an appropriate solution to the problem… oh and by the way, anyone who says the same thing is probably secretly racist - but not me!”
Secondly, you’re saying that they should’ve changed their tune when they realized they had racist assholes on their side. Why? If they think it’s an inappropriate use of government power, why should they change their philosophical positions because someone else, with different intentions, just accidentally happens to be on the same side (and “same side” only if you reduce it to a simplistic two sided issue) as them?
To make an analogy: Some neo-nazis want to march near city hall. The city tries to block them, but the ACLU takes up their cause to support their free speech. Wait! Now the ACLU is on the same side as the neo-nazis! Maybe they should totally change their ideas about civil rights!
The point being made, which you either miss again and again and again or simply refuse to acknowedlge because it demolishes your claim, is not that society had to become less civil to provide rights to blacks, but that the treament of blacks proves society was not more civil in the past.
A civil and polite society isn’t openly racist. A society where people are polite only to white people is not polite.
Do you actually expect anyone to believe such transparent nonsense?
Word. Thank you. I too marched, and was fire hosed, tear gased, billy clubbed, and arrested for my trouble. Repeatedly. In between sex, drugs and rock and roll, of course. You should have seen my hair!
Starving Artist, had the broadening of civil rights been left up to my conservative peers we might still have separate but equal water fountains. “Objecting to the methods” was bullshit code for “no change”.
Hmmmm… Conservatives still “object to the methods” of correcting, whatever the societal problem. Why am I not surprised?
To otracize it, to mock it, to boycott and refuse to deal with anyone who openly practices it. To attempt to win the hearts and minds of those who are open to change, and to belittle and reduce the influence of those who continue to practice it.
What’s ridiculous (and obviously so to an intelligent 9-year old, which I was) is the PTB reinforcing blatant discrimination against a race of people while arguing for freedom–of the oppressors, to continue oppressing–at least for a little while untl we’ve studied carefully the best way to proceed, if that’s what we do finally conclude. Don’t hold your breath waiting for us to leap into action on our own tho’.
You want me to prove a negative? No, I want YOU to provide evidence that hard-core conservatives clearly opposed racism, actively worked for some tangible and immediate redress to blatant racial discrimination, preferably in some way that would cause them, personally, to surrender some advantages that the discrimination had gotten for them and that they had long profited by. Until you show me that, they’re stone racists in my book.
I don’t want to gently persuade the Grand Klaxon living next door that I might not let my son marry his daughter when they grow up if he continues lynching and burning crosses. I want his ass in jail today, and for as long as a jury will put him there.
Maybe if you actually tried embracing a single significant expansion of rights to any minority, then this argument might ring a little true. Since you conservatives fought every suggestion tooth and nail, it sounds a bit hollow.
Or perhaps you can explain how y’all had “embraced” equal rights in the past.
Start with the sad case of anti-miscegenation laws, like the one struck down in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. Perhaps some conservative with an eye to justice could have perhaps introduced a bill to strike those laws instead of some liberal rabble having to sue for equality.
Why did it take until 1984 for all of the states to get around to ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment? The last six? from Wikipedia
[ul]
[li]Alabama (September 8, 1953, after being rejected on September 22, 1919)[/li][li]Florida (May 13, 1969)[/li][li]South Carolina (July 1, 1969, after being rejected on January 28, 1920; not certified until August 22, 1973)[/li][li]Georgia (February 20, 1970, after being rejected on July 24, 1919)[/li][li]Louisiana (June 11, 1970, after being rejected on July 1, 1920)[/li][li]North Carolina (May 6, 1971)[/li][li]Mississippi (March 22, 1984, after being rejected on March 29, 1920)[/li][/ul]
Or what about the repeal of Sodomy laws prior to 2003? I mean, at least Conservatives claim to support individual freedom. Why then was it a decade after Illinois first repeal those laws in 1962 before the next state did it. And why, six years after Lawrence v. Texas, three states still haven’t repealed those unconstitutional laws?
Again you’re doing the same thing I said you were in my first reply to you. Assuming that anyone who opposes government’s role in legislating social change is actually a secret racist and doesn’t hold that position at all, but rather gives lip service to the idea in order to cover up their racism.
I AM NOT DEFENDING THIS PRACTICE.
I am merely defending the position that one can at one time not be racist and also not think it’s the federal government’s place to enact this law. I know it’s possible because I myself hold this position.
And yet you want to group me with a bunch of racist assholes who shared little to nothing with me philosophically.
I’m not defending “hard-core conservatives” (the term itself is ambiguous - are libertarians “hard-core conservatives” to you?). I’m defending the position that not all opposition to the law is rooted in racism. I’ve already conceded that most of it probably is. But I refuse to allow you to lump in non-racists with a different philosophy on the role of government with racist assholes who want to use the government to assist in their oppression.
This is a ridiculous strawman. If he’s lynched, then he should go to jail for it. That’s an issue of rule of law. Am I advocating anything that even remotely contradicts your viewpoint here?
Sure you are. The same people who were advocating "Let’s think this stuff over for a few more decades"are the same ones who explained how difficult it was to change a culture, including the Klan, overnight. Do you know he’s lynched black people? Sure he’s said that he’s in favor of it, and we have witnesses, but how do you know they’re reliable witnesses? Why don’t we give him a warning this time? I know, we’ll put him through the inconveniece and expense of a murder trial, but we’ll put 12 rednecks on his jury, and that may scare him into lynching black people less frequently than he does now. We’re making slow but steady progress here.
Sure I am what? Maybe you could have some specificity rather than give an ambiguous reply to a post that made multiple points.
What the straw man?
What does this have anything to do with anything I said?
If someone broke the law, but weren’t convinced due to a racist jury, that’s a miscarriage of justice - and it’s irrelevant to the issue at hand. The civil rights act didn’t suddenly make juries unable to be racist.
You insult me with your nonsense. You keep trying to misrepresent my position as to be sympathetic or defend racists. This is not only wrong, but it’s an attack on my character. And it’s completely unsupported. At every step of the way I’ve said things like “this probably applies to most people espousing such views, but…”
Civil rights laws made many of the worst offenses federal ones, which could be prosecuted by people who actually gave a shit about defending rights.
How old are you? I’m old enough to remember the arguments at the time, and both the avowed racists and the states righters used exactly your arguments. George Wallace and Ross Barnett were racists, and made no bones about it, but I suspect Barry Goldwater wasn’t. But they all had to think about if their nice theoretical arguments about reduction of federal government power was worth the continued oppression of millions of people. Use of (state and local) government force was no problem for these people, as Bull Connor and his firehoses demonstrated. Local sheriffs bashing in the heads of “outside agitators” - cool. National Guard troops forcing the state government to admit a college student - no way.
It does no such thing. It does demonstrate fairly clearly and easily that your far to general statement about the 50s is doo doo.
Completely irrelevant. Polite discussion and good manners and a general facade of propriety, while suggesting the oppressed minorities just be patient until the ruling class is in the mood to grant them equal rights is clearly belligerent behavior. Do you have anything at all to support your premise here? Anything to show causality between the counter culture revolution and the things you’ve mentioned?
Until you have anything to back this up it’s meaningless and empty. Nobody is promoting any such notion. The problem is your utter failure to support your premise. Bad character permeates all classes and political leanings.
Personally I think we need honest conservatives and liberals to find the proper balance and move society forward. The problem is the dishonesty and general corruption and self serving BS that permeates both groups. BS political rhetoric from either side doesn’t serve us well. If you can look at our history honestly and claim the liberal lefty agenda has ruined this country you have some serious blinders on.
The example he gave had nothing to do with that. Lynching (murder is implied with the word, right?) someone is clearly a crime, without the civil rights act. The problem is that racist juries sometimes wouldn’t convict, right? How did the civil rights act rectify that situation?
I’m 27, so I have no personal experience with the issue.
I’ve already said 3 or 4 times that I’m sure a lot of people who were racist, but refused to openly admit it, hid behind attacks on the legal issues. They were liars because they hid their real motivation, and probably hypocrites because they probably didn’t object equally to abuses of federal power that served their interest.
I’m merely contending that there’s an intellectual honest position in which one can oppose the legislation without being a racist. FWIW, for some perspective, I oppose well over 90% of the laws the federal legislature passes.
If you can’t be bothered to read the question you ended your previous post with, and which “Sure you are” responds to directly, then I can’t be bothered explaining the world to you. You’ll have to be someone else’s pain-in-the-ass tonight.
Easy. How did the racist jurors get seated? Thanks to prosecutors who only prosecuted the crime when the criminal was so stupid that he got caught. How many black people do you think were on those juries? Federal prosecution, while tough, had some chance. Not to mention that these clowns weren’t even prosecuted on murder charges, not a federal crime, but on depriving the person murdered of his civil rights.
Today, thanks to people like gonzomax, you have the luxury of holding your position without it contributing to people getting beaten and killed. At the time this position directly supported and empowered the racists. BTW Skokie has no relevance to this discussion. The issue was not their freedom to say racist things, which I support, but rather their ability to exclude those they didn’t like from expressing their views (beating up marchers) or freely attending schools they were qualified to attend.
I don’t blame you for not getting it, since it is hard to imagine today what things were like 50 years ago.
Let me shake your virtual hand, sir. I was too young to march, and probably would have been too chicken if I hadn’t been. (Andrew Goodman lived not far from me.) You’re a hero in my book, one of many.
One of the most prominent proponents of such a position was Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for president in 1964. He opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but later admitted that he was wrong. He didn’t abandon his oppostion to ‘big government’, but he did conclude that the advancement of civil rights warranted intervention at the federal level.