Which party is more bigoted?

Great Debates
1

Are the Dems or the Reps more bigoted? Or, if you prefer, the leftists or the conservatives?

First of all, anything I say is certainly not meant to apply to ALL members of either group. That, of course, would be bigoted in itself.

My experience tells me the Dems (again, not ALL Dems) are much more bigoted.

Dems are bigoted against southerners. It is acceptable within PC circles to insult anyone from the south as being uneducated and dumb. I was recently at a folk music concert where the performer told some stupid story about visiting Elvis’ birthplace and the idiotic southern woman who worked there. Everyone, except me and my wife, who is from the south, laughed. No one stood up and said “Shut up you bigot!” Imagine if he had made a similar type of joke at the expense of a black person, etc.

Likewise Dems are bigoted against Catholics, conservatives, religious people and pro-lifers.

Affirmative action is based on bigotry. I believe W referred to it as something like “the subtle bigotry of lowered expectations.” Conservatives believe that blacks will do just fine once they have to compete. Leftists don’t think they are capable of that.

I have never heard a racist comment from a conservative in my life. I’ve heard plenty from leftists. Admittedly, I spend a lot more of my time with leftists and look like I’m one of them, so they may let their hair down with me a bit more.

The Reps do not tolerate bigotry within their own party. When Trent Lott made a pro forma statement about Strom Thurmond’s presidential campaign that could be construed as bigoted he was forced to resign from a leadership position. But Robert Byrd is never castigated for his racist history and utterings. Likewise Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson and Michael (Americans are the dumbest people on this planet) Moore seem to get along fine with the Dems.

African Americans and Latinos are trusted with more powerful positions by Reps. Powell and Rice basically are responsible for American security. J.C. Watts, Larry Elders, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell are embraced wholeheartedly. Can’t remember the names right now, but the White House counsel (Alberto Gonzalez?) is Latino as was W’s favored pick for the Court of Appeals.

Historically, I don’t think there’s much discussion to be had. Dems are responsible for the Jim Crow laws, etc. Reps are responsible for ending slavery and reconstruction; Dems are responsible for resisting it. But it makes little sense to credit or disparage either group for actions committed by someone else a long time ago. I think that’s moot to this thread.

The question is: Which group currently is more bigoted?

2

Some Democrats make jokes about the South.

The Republican Party is gleefully seeking to destroy the life of every gay person in America with the America Hates Gays Amendment (FMA for those who drink the kool-aid).

And you think the Democrats are more bigotted?

Call me when the modern Democratic party organizes a drive to deny a swath of Americans basic levels of equality. Until then, ship the pointy white hoods to the GOP.

3

And what is this idiocy? How are Democrats bigoted against Catholics? Did John Kerry speak at Bob Jones? Did the Democratic House leadership pass over a Catholic candidate for House chaplain for no apparent reason other than his denomination?

Has the GOP even ever nominated a Catholic to our nation’s highest office? The Democrats have done so at least three times (counting this year).

The Republicans are bigoted against Catholics, liberals, liberal religious people and areligious people and pro-choicers.

4

DIdn’t we already have this thread?

5

“religious people”? How do you like Muslims? Pagans?

This is a rather stupid way to look at the issue.

Liberals believe that the socioeconomic standard that many minority students live with underprepares them for school, and their underfunded and poorly run inner city school districts are incapable of competing with the stereotypical white middle class suburbs, thus reducing their chances to get accepted into college.

I don’t agree with the solution (Affirmative Action), but I do see where the problem is. Righties tend to ignore little things like that and say, “if they were smarter they would get in.”

I dunno, you tell me.

6

Do you mean members of the party? The party leadership? Elected officials with that affiliation? Are all of your observation anecdotal, or have you attempted any sort of objective measurement of “bigotry.”

There are many wild speculations and questionable statements in your post–if I may restrict myself to the one that confused me most: “Affirmative action is based on bigotry.” I certainly understand why certain people feel this way, but it’s not the whole story. It also reflects a real ignorance about some of the current justifications for the practice. When’s the last time you examined them? These have nothing to do with lowered expectations. And how does affirmative action reflect a political party?

7

Puh-leeze. I don’t see many southerners jumping to my defense when the “making fun of California” jokes start coming out. Southerners must just be such bigots because they crack wise about hippies and movie stars. Poor, poor me… whoever shall save me from such insensitivity? :rolleyes:

This whole freaking country is too bigoted. Try visiting other countries where folks actually get along, and you’ll realize that the backward racial attitudes in the US have nothing to do with political parties, but deep-seated, irrational fears between the races in America.

That’s my two bits. Good night.

8

Not all liberals believe this, nor do they believe this is a justification for affirmative action. I’m not even sure many of them believe that students are “underprepared” for school. Underprepared to compete for admission on the limited measures like test scores? Sure. But not underprepared for school.

A completely different argument for affirmative action (whether or not you agree with it) is that many “liberals” have come to believe that their institution/corporation/organization cannot function effectively unless it has diverse viewpoints. So they lean away from hiring and admissions criteria that fail to yield diverse populations, and add weight to criteria that will yield a more balanced class or workforce. This rationale has little to do with feeling sorry for the underpriveleged or making up for past problems.

9

Funnily enough, I had to change my “location” on this board from Berkeley to what it is because I was getting sick and tired of every neocon asshat ignoring what I was saying and replying “Oh, you’re from Berkeley, you’re a crazy socialist hippie.”

Arguably true, but it gets tiring.

10

This can go nowhere good. Everyone knows that each political group and cause has some followers who are bigots. Breaking it down into percentages and numbers is ridiculous. Just because someone is a Democrat doesn’t mean they hate Catholics; just because someone is a Republican doesn’t mean they hate gays. There are Catholic Democrats! One of them was President, and another may soon be. There are gay Republicans, too.

Attempting to determine if Dems or Reps are “more” bigoted is absurd, just ridiculous. As is your OP.

Which is exactly what you do by repeatedly naming examples of what each party allegedly did in the past.

And then, there’s the “proof” of bigotry that’s nothing of the sort:

Well, yeah, some people think that. But many supporters of affirmative action do not support it because of the “subtle bigotry of lowered expectations” (I believe december started a thread on that a few years back; try a search), they support it because of what they see as bias in the system of, say, college admissions. However misguided you might believe their efforts to combat perceived racism may be, their position is not, in my mind, bigoted, and neither is yours. Affirmative action is far too complex of an issue to be called flat-out bigotry, or at least to call its supporters bigots.

Are they? Or do they simply disagree with the views of Catholics, conservatives, religious people, and pro-lifers? And, of course, you conveniently ignore Catholic democrats (Kerry), conservative Democrats (Miller), religious Democrats (almost all), and pro-life Democrats. This argument is easily turned against you – aren’t Reps “bigoted” against liberals, atheists, gays, and pro-choicers? But then, maybe they just disagree with the views of those groups, something that is far more likely. And again, this ignores liberal (for the party), atheist, gay, and pro-choice Republicans.

As for this:

I remind you that anecdotes != data.

11

So being demoted to the lowly position of United States Senator is the best punishment they could dole out? Calling this an example of not tolerating bigotry (and FWIW, I’m not even sure Lott’s remark was bigoted) is absurd; your attempts to extrapolate one example to cover the entire party are even more so.

12

And if you’re interested in reading the thread on “soft bigotry” I mentioned in one of my posts above, check it out: TSBOLE is real and pervasive. It has done major harm to minorities

13

This is a dumb OP. Not to sound like an Afterschool Special but political parties do not make people bigots, but the other way around…

14

It’s not even a debate. Just another partisan rant disguised as one.

15

Yes.

16

Word. So I almost don’t want to bump it any more, but I have an additional comment anyway (almost moot given the ridiculousness of the OP, but hey):

You run into trouble when you conflate the labels of parties and of “conservative/liberal,” especially when you’re talking about history. Like several have noted, as far as the present is concerned there are “conservative Democrats” and “liberal Republicans.” And resistance to change (such as, in that case, ending slavery) is a typically conservative quality. The liberal, or progressive, position at the time you’re talking about was to change the status quo and end slavery. The positions of the parties then were COMPLETELY different from now. Hell, Strom Thurmond used to be one of those Democrats, and then he became a Republican.

17

Never been called a nigger-loving Democrat? I have.

Yes, back in the 70’s a case could be made that Democrats was a party populated with bigots and racists(Dixiecrats), but the Republicans decided to woo them over to their side, they also realized that taking a stand against Abortion, and now Gays would woo the christians (with all their specially blessed blind hatred) over to their side. This, of course, was to garner more votes.

As a Democrat, I say good riddence for bad rubbish. You can have them. I would rather belong to a minority party that didn’t have room in it’s “Big Tent,” for those sorts.

Now, I understand the RNC is trying to paint Democrats as mean or what-ever, and you, being the good cog, is “innocently” posting this, but please, please, lay off it. It’s not working.

18

Which explains why the last three Democratic presidents (Clinton, Carter, LBJ) all came from the North. Oh, wait. :smack:

19

There is bigotry, Plan B, and there is justified bigotry.

20

Not to contribute to this inanity, but maybe someone ought to flag down a passing mod and lock this puppy before more megabytes are wasted on it.

(Plan B: “So, who’s more evil, the lefties or the righties? Based on my own experience… lefties! Debate that, you fools!” :rolleyes: )