# Resolved: Kevin Williamson is Being Dense on Civil Rights History **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 26, 2012, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143 "2012-05-26T05:36:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/21 "2012-05-29T23:31:02Z")
Which nuanced and intricate facet of the Civil Rights spectrum does [Lee Atwater](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#Atwater_on_the_Southern_Strategy) reside in? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/22 "2012-05-29T23:35:24Z")
From [_The Nation:_](http://www.thenation.com/blog/168097/conservative-media-try-reverse-racial-reality) > [@](#): > > The conservative media are happy to help burnish both white racial anxieties and the official story line that Republicans are the friends of minorities by trying to tell an oddly inverted story of race relations in America. According to National Review’s current cover story by Kevin Williamson, it is the Republican Party which has consistently supported civil rights and Democrats who have opposed it. Meanwhile, conservative blogs, talk radio and Fox News hype random stories of anti-white violence, creating the false impression that whites are more often the victims of hate crimes by blacks than the reverse. > > The National Review argument has been thoroughly debunked in many outlets. Over at Democracy Journal, Clay Risen demonstrates “Williamson’s embarrassingly basic misunderstanding of American history.” There used to be liberal pro–civil rights wings and conservative anti–civil rights wings in both parties, hence the misleading factoid commonly cited by conservative pundits that a higher proportion of Republicans than Democrats in Congress voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But it was the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, especially Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, who pushed the issue and got the law passed. Republicans nominated anti–civil rights conservative extremist Barry Goldwater in 1964 and thus began their conversion of the South. Goldwater carried five Southern states despite losing in a landslide. “For a variety of reasons—including, but not only, racial politics—both parties went through ideological realignments in the postwar decades, so that today we speak of Republicans as almost uniformly conservative and Democrats as almost uniformly liberal,” notes Risen. “The GOP of today is simply not the GOP of 1963.” That’s why anti–civil rights Southern conservatives such as Trent Lott, Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms became Republicans. Williamson is simply lying when he writes, “those southerners who defected from the Democratic Party in the 1960s and thereafter did so to join a Republican party that was far more enlightened on racial issues than were the Democrats of the era.” > > Most embarrassingly, Williamson starts his story by proudly proclaiming National Review’s history of debunking pernicious myths. (In this case, the myth is that Democrats supported civil rights more than Republicans.) But he makes no mention of National Review’s own history of opposing civil rights. As Jonathan Chait writes in New York, “conservative Republicans—those represented politically by Goldwater, and intellectually by William F. Buckley and National Review—did oppose the civil rights movement. Buckley wrote frankly about his endorsement of white supremacy: “the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically.” ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/23 "2012-05-30T00:08:15Z")
> [@Bpelta](#): > > I agree that figures in both parties have mixed records on civil rights, and so of course that storyline is a gross oversimplification. > > That wasn’t Williamson’s argument. ISTM he has two arguments: 1. "The belief that the two major U.S. political parties somehow “switched places” vis-à-vis protecting the rights of black Americans” is a “popular but indefensible belief,” indeed a myth that obscures much and which needs to be demolished. I think that’s a fair summary of his opening paragraph. 2. That in fact it is the GOP that deserves the mantle of “party of civil rights.” Based on your concurrence above, it then seems to me you _agree_ with his first point, but think he goes much too far in the second. (And if so, I agree with you on both counts). Since we appear to have reached agreement, I’ll just offer that if you’re a young guy trying to explore American history and seeking a vigorous debate on the SDMB, you’ll get a lot more discussion by agreeing with #1 than by disagreeing with #2; I’ve heard the former repeated here many,many times, the latter never. JMHO, YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/24 "2012-05-30T00:32:47Z")
So with this “great” record on civil rights, the GOP must be pushing hard to legalize gay marriage, right? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/25 "2012-05-30T02:00:41Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > So with this “great” record on civil rights, the GOP must be pushing hard to legalize gay marriage, right? Not at the moment. But rest assured that if their efforts to stop it fail and gay marriage is legalized in the next decade, the GOP will declare its full support for gay marriage sometime around 2040 and tell gay voters that the Republicans have always historically been the gay friendly party. On a serious note, this illustrates the real problem with this kind of revisionism. By never admitting they’ve occasionally been wrong in the past, conservatives don’t have to consider the possibility that they might be wrong in the present. Conservatives should have the humility to acknowledge they were on the wrong side of the black civil rights issue and ask themselves if they’re on the right side of the gay civil rights issue. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/26 "2012-05-30T04:36:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not at the moment. But rest assured that if their efforts to stop it fail and gay marriage is legalized in the next decade, the GOP will declare its full support for gay marriage sometime around 2040 and tell gay voters that the Republicans have always historically been the gay friendly party. And I’m sure they’ll point to the Log Cabin Republicans as proof: “Back in the 2010’s, the Democrat Party was so opposed to gay rights, they didn’t even have any gay members!” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/27 "2012-05-30T04:43:03Z")
Why can’t they just face it? This is **not** your grandfather’s GOP. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/28 "2012-05-30T05:14:52Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Nor was there any reason for Johnson to feel he had to “give something” to blacks because they now had “political pull”. Black people didn’t have political pull - that was the whole point. Johnson’s goal was to advance black voting rights so they would finally begin to have some political pull. Johnson said that if black people had voting rights that would give them the power to achieve all their other rights. > > And Johnson was reacting to the loss of a political base. He caused that loss by enacting civil rights legislation. That was what drove conservative white voters away from his party. Johnson sacrificed the Democratic Party’s southern monopoly for something he thought was more important - civil rights. Northern African-Americans were already enfranchised in the 1950s. This is where they had political pull. Democrats needed those votes to run the large Northern cities. Certainly fighting for Civil Rights was the right thing to do and LBJ and his cohorts deserve credit for doing so but it’s not as if there was no benefit to it. They were gaining the political power that came from the massive patronage that went along with reliable control of urban governments. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/29 "2012-05-30T07:27:10Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > They were gaining the political power that came from the massive patronage that went along with reliable control of urban governments. Which legislation did JFK propose in support of Civil Rights then? As far as I can tell, he gave no concessions. In 30 years time, they’ll point to Republican riders on gay rights bills intended to make them fail as evidence that the Democrats were being unreasonable in blocking their provisions. Or the fact that regulating business with anti-discrimination (equal protection laws) was unconstitutional. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/30 "2012-05-30T08:13:34Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > Which legislation did JFK propose in support of Civil Rights then? As far as I can tell, he gave no concessions. IIRC JFK gave African-American leaders some lip service but that’s about it. But I know little about the man. What has that to do with anything? > [@](#): > > In 30 years time, they’ll point to Republican riders on gay rights bills intended to make them fail as evidence that the Democrats were being unreasonable in blocking their provisions. Or the fact that regulating business with anti-discrimination (equal protection laws) was unconstitutional. Are you under the impression that I’m supporting the GOP? Hardly. People bring up the selfless sacrifice the Democrats made with the Civil Rights Act all the time but it’s a myth. Just trying to fighting ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/31 "2012-05-30T08:25:49Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > Northern African-Americans were already enfranchised in the 1950s. This is where they had political pull. Democrats needed those votes to run the large Northern cities. Certainly fighting for Civil Rights was the right thing to do and LBJ and his cohorts deserve credit for doing so but it’s not as if there was no benefit to it. They were gaining the political power that came from the massive patronage that went along with reliable control of urban governments. But the costs outweighed the benefits by what? A hundred to one? Blacks weren’t a majority in any northern state. But whites were the controlling majority in several southern states. There was no political advantage in alienating a strong majority in order to placate a weak minority. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/32 "2012-05-30T13:22:00Z")
My understanding is that the patronage created a lot of political power because the Democrats could reliably provide jobs for friends and nephews of local power brokers. Again, I’m no expert on this period of history. I can’t say if this political influence in Northern states outweighed or even significantly offset the loss of influence in the South on a national basis. Or, for that matter, if the Dems were losing their grip on the South already. I’m just saying that the Democrats had a political interest in Civil Rights. They wanted to maintain the advantage in the black vote that they had so recently gained over the Republican Party. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/33 "2012-05-30T16:54:04Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But the costs outweighed the benefits by what? A hundred to one? Blacks weren’t a majority in any northern state. But whites were the controlling majority in several southern states. There was no political advantage in alienating a strong majority in order to placate a weak minority. The problem facing LBJ was that the New Deal coalition of Northern urbans and segregationist southerners was breaking down. The great migration meant that blacks now had clout in Northern cities and the democrats needed their votes to hold onto those cities. The democrats were already losing the South, Texas had just elected the first Republican to the Senate since reconstruction in 1961. Racial appeals had kept the democrat party in power for almost a hundred years but they were losing effectiveness. So LBJ tried to knit the coalition back together again with a two prong strategy. Civil Rights legislation to placate the Northen cities and the Great Society programs to keep the south. As a new dealer LBJ knew that the best way to keep people voting for you was to give them money. The south was by far the poorest region of the country so the War on Poverty would be a massive redistribution from the prosperous north to the poor south. What sunk this strategy was the backlash against the antiwar protestors and activist judges drove people to conservatism and the economic growth of the south meant that people didn’t need the handouts they way they had during the great depression. After the racial appeals stopped working the South was up for grabs politically. During that time the south was even more rural than it is now. Conservative idealogy has always appealed to rural populations just as liberal ideology appeals to city population. Thus the GOP moved rightward to appeal to southerners. The Democrat party had to appeal to liberals or lose their base so the partys became ideological in a way they had never been before. Racial politics only played a part in this in that the abandonment of racial appeals to white voters freed up voters to vote according to ideology instead of race. If you look at where the Republicans had success first it was on the edges of the south first because that is where racial appeals first lost their effectiveness. Despite how they voted in Presidential elections most of the deep south still had democrat controlled state legislatures until the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/34 "2012-05-30T17:01:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Well, that certainly sounds like an unbiased source. > > However Robert Caro, who some recognize as knowing a little something about Lyndon Johnson’s life, has a different view. > > Johnson didn’t “water down” the 1957 Civil Rights Act - he was the one who pushed it through Congress. If he had wanted to water it down, all he had to do was nothing - they’re hadn’t been any civil rights legislation enacted since Reconstruction. It was in fact considered a major legislative accomplishment for Johnson that he was able to get the act enacted into law. > > Nor was there any reason for Johnson to feel he had to “give something” to blacks because they now had “political pull”. Black people didn’t have political pull - that was the whole point. Johnson’s goal was to advance black voting rights so they would finally begin to have some political pull. Johnson said that if black people had voting rights that would give them the power to achieve all their other rights. > > And Johnson was reacting to the loss of a political base. He caused that loss by enacting civil rights legislation. That was what drove conservative white voters away from his party. Johnson sacrificed the Democratic Party’s southern monopoly for something he thought was more important - civil rights. > > Johnson had a lot of faults. But nobody should falsify history and deny him all the credit he deserves for his noblest acts. In a time when so many other politicians - like Goldwater - were only willing to talk about civil rights, Johnson was the only major political figure who actually did something. If the 1957 and 1960 civil rights acts were not watered down why did there have to be a 1964 civil rights act? The reason was that those acts were watered down. Caro’s biography of Johnson is called Master of the Senate. Johnson controlled the Senate during that time and went along with the filibustering of the civil rights laws and even the anti-lynching laws. The only reason he changed was because he felt like he had to change to stay in power. If there had been more power for him in opposing civil rights he would have continued to do so just as he had done for the previous two decades. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/35 "2012-05-30T18:09:44Z")
Puddleglum, what you’re saying makes no sense. You’re claiming that the Democrats enacted civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 in response to growing Republican strength. And as evidence of this you offer the fact that Texas elected its first Republican - in 1961. Now I want you to go look at a calendar and do the math. 1957 and 1960 were before 1961. The Democrats were not responding to a Republican threat by enacting civil rights legislation - they created that threat by enacting civil rights legislation. It was exactly what they had worried about - Democrats enacted civil rights for blacks and white southerners responded by voting for Republicans. The Democrats didn’t support civil rights for political advantage because they understood that it would be a significant political disadvantage. And they were unfortunately correct. As for Johnson, he played both sides. The man had a lot of deceit in him. When he was in the Senate, he would tell conservative segregationists what they wanted to hear and pro-civil rights liberals what they wanted to hear. A lot of liberals mistrusted him, despite his civil rights record, because they figured he was a Southerner and his true colors must be racist. These liberals figured Johnson was only pretending to support civil rights in order to gain power. But when he gained power, he’d drop the mask and reveal himself as a conservative segregationist. A lot of conservatives believed the same thing but, of course, unlike the liberals they liked this plan. They figured a little civil rights was an acceptable price if it allowed Johnson to become President where he could take off the mask and reveal himself as a conservative segregationist. (Not all conservatives went along with this plan. But their objection was that they didn’t want even limited civil rights to happen.) But Johnson surprised everyone. When he finally reached the peak and became President, he no longer needed to conceal his real beliefs in order to gain power. So he took off the mask like everyone had predicted - and it turned out that the real Johnson was an ardent supporter of civil rights. He hadn’t been a conservative pretending to be a liberal in order to become President. He was a liberal who had been pretending to be a conservative in order to become President. ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/36 "2012-05-30T22:54:41Z")
> [@furt](#): > > [QUOTE=Wikipedia] > In the late 1960s, Buckley disagreed strenuously with segregationist George Wallace, who ran in Democratic primaries (1964 and 1972) and made an independent run for president in 1968. Buckley later said it was a mistake for National Review to have opposed the civil rights legislation of 1964–65. He later grew to admire Martin Luther King, Jr. and supported creation of a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day national holiday for him.[56] During the 1950s, Buckley had worked to remove anti-Semitism from the conservative movement and barred holders of those views from working for National Review.[56] [/QUOTE] Disagreed strenuously, yes, but about what? It seems like he was in a turf war over leadership in the conservative movement, and wanted to put down Wallace’s conservative-populist-racist message, but only for the “populist” part. Buckley and the _National Review_ under his editorship certainly didn’t cease defending South African apartheid well into the 1980s. Some transformation, huh? Look, I agree that it is a stretch to think Goldwater or Reagan held racism as a high priority or motivation, but Buckley buried his own legacy without any help. At best he is a racial opportunist - all full of “The South Must Prevail” when segregation still seemed impregnable back in 1957, then jumping ship after the 1960s but only when it concerned America, then, when pressed about it 30 years later, all he can come up with is equivocation to protect his ego and readership. That isn’t the kind of ideological forebear _I_ would want. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/37 "2012-05-31T15:03:52Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Puddleglum, what you’re saying makes no sense. You’re claiming that the Democrats enacted civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 in response to growing Republican strength. And as evidence of this you offer the fact that Texas elected its first Republican - in 1961. > > Now I want you to go look at a calendar and do the math. 1957 and 1960 were before 1961. The Democrats were not responding to a Republican threat by enacting civil rights legislation - they created that threat by enacting civil rights legislation. It was exactly what they had worried about - Democrats enacted civil rights for blacks and white southerners responded by voting for Republicans. The Democrats didn’t support civil rights for political advantage because they understood that it would be a significant political disadvantage. And they were unfortunately correct. The 1957 and 1960 civil rights bills were written and backed by Republicans. The were diluted by LBJ and his segregationist allies when it became apparent that the New Deal coalition was no longer tenable. It was the Republican Eisenhower who sent troops to Little Rock to integrate the schools and the Democrat Faubus who stood in the way. White southerners responded to this by starting to vote for Republicans starting with Tower in 1961. Even the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights act were supported by a higher proportion of the Republican Caucus than the Democrat caucus. If race had been a critical factor than southern whites would have stayed with the Democrat party. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/38 "2012-05-31T15:59:29Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Goldwater believed in non-discrimination for private organizations and in his own business was decades ahead of most of America. He did not believe the constitution gave the federal government the power to ban it. Goldwater also strenuously objected to the Supreme Court’s Brown decision banning segregation in public schools arguing that “the negro child does not have a right to sit next to a white child in school.” People can try and whitewash Goldwater’s record, but he was an opponent of the Civil Rights Movement. ---
**Author:** ![Randvek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@Randvek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randvek)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/39 "2012-05-31T17:20:32Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If race had been a critical factor than southern whites would have stayed with the Democrat party. So, in your mind, why exactly did all the southerners flee the Democratic party just after civil rights were enacted? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143/40 "2012-05-31T17:28:07Z")
It’s a pointless debate. Society has largely moved left, so comparing today’s conservatives or Republicans with yesterday’s doesn’t make sense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-kevin-williamson-is-being-dense-on-civil-rights-history/623143.md?page=3)