Free Republic

In both of our political parties, activists talk about fighting for the "soul of the party." Do parties have a soul? Political parties are messy things -- coalitions, fueled by people of great ambition, scarred by the corrupt and the petty, lifted by those with vision. How could they possibly be said to have a "soul"? In the fall elections, candidates will run in different ways. Some Republicans will line up with President Bush; others -- many after voting his way nearly 100 percent of the time -- will run away from him, now that his poll numbers are down....

"For the past century-and-a-half, the Republican Party has proven to be the most effective political organization ever to champion equality and human rights in the United States and around the world."-- Michael Zak This weekend marks a proud milestone for Republicans, the 150th anniversary of the first Republican National Convention. Founded in 1854, the Republicans, distinct from Democrats, grounded their party on two noble convictions: that America was truly one nation, not a polyglot of regions, races, or classes, and that American identity was based not on blood or soil, but on its founding ideal -- the dignity, worth, and...

in my never-ending pursuit of "higher education" , I'm taking a civil rights history class. does anyone know some good books on the matter of Jim Crow laws and gun rights as it pertains to the matter of US civil rights movement from the turn of the 20th century till now? I believe Kopel has a book on the subject. Also , any insights/articles about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and who voted for what and why would be appreciated. I recall something about Al Gore's pappy being a racist and know some of the history of "KKK" Byrd....

White supremacists plotted an insurrection in one North Carolina city in 1898, historians now say. RALEIGH, N.C. - As a horse-drawn machine-gun regiment fired into crowds and frightened blacks fled into the cold swamps, the dream of a Reconstructed South died on the streets of Wilmington, N.C., on Nov. 10, 1898 - more than 30 years after Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox ended the Civil War. The uprising began a day after the election in Wilmington, then North Carolina's largest city. The city's Democrats, who regained power from the Republicans, proceeded to wrest control of the government immediately....

Rosa Parks and history Oct 27, 2005 by Thomas Sowell The death of Rosa Parks has reminded us of her place in history, as the black woman whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, in accordance with the Jim Crow laws of Alabama, became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Most people do not know the rest of the story, however. Why was there racially segregated seating on public transportation in the first place? "Racism" some will say -- and there was certainly plenty of racism...

Any day now the Justice Department will render judgment on one of the single most discriminatory pieces of voting legislation of recent years: a Georgia state law requiring voters to present one of only six forms of photo identification before they can exercise their right to vote. Before enforcing this statute, Georgia must get Justice Department approval by proving that the law will not put minority voters in a worse position than they were in before the requirement was instituted. The facts surrounding Georgia's voter identification requirement cannot be disputed. Virtually every black legislator opposes the legislation, and most black...

The Voting Rights Act, whose 40th anniversary we celebrate this month, has helped minorities elect 81 sitting members of Congress and thousands of local officials. But the rally civil rights groups held in Atlanta earlier this month to push for extension of the act's key temporary provisions downplayed those gains and instead pushed wild claims that some state laws requiring an ID to vote are the functional equivalent of Jim Crow poll taxes. Both Judge Greg Mathis, the star of a syndicated courtroom TV show, and California Rep. Barbara Lee claimed that the last two presidential elections had been "stolen."...

Shari'a Swimtime Mark Steyn's latest article in The Spectator, on the western liberal idiocy of celebrating the sociopathologies of foreign cultures, reminds me of a recent Seattle incident I've been meaning to blog about: government-funded Islamic apartheid. Steyn: [quoting steyn] By pretending that all cultures are equal, multiculturalism doesn’t ‘preserve’ traditional cultures so much as sustain them in an artificial state that ensures they’ll develop bizarre pathologies and mutate into some freakish hybrid of the worst of both worlds. [end qoute] Last month there was an article in the Seattle Times on a program where city public swimming pools have...

During a discussion with minority leaders and journalists on Monday, Howard Dean declared that Republicans are “a pretty monolithic party. They all believe the same. They all look the same. It’s pretty much a white Christian party.” He further stated that “the Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people” and Democrats are “more welcoming to different folks, because that’s the type of people we are.” Dean continued to defend his remarks as recently as Thursday. Dean’s comments clearly suggest that the GOP is, if not hostile to a demographic broader than white Christians, at least cool toward...

Tell me What I Say Department The Lord condones Retaliation and Divorce! "Hang all the Law and the Prophets." -- Jesus of Nazareth. We are forever in debt to Dr. diLorenzo. In his efforts to show that Lincoln was actually a not-so-crypto commie, he has provided us with a new exegetical technique which sheds light on, well, on just about everything! The left wing of the Supreme Court will soon be using diLorenzian interpretation to show that the Constitution mandates ex post facto law when it states, "Ex post facto law shall be passed." (It's in there, believe us: Article...

3/7/2005 GOP senator Graham rankles some over comments on Lincoln By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor Senator Lindsey Graham has ignited a new furor in Washington over comments he made over the weekend referring to his state’s difficulty in “getting over” President Abraham Lincoln, with apparent reference to Lincoln’s role in the civil war and the freeing of American slaves, RAW STORY has learned. “We don’t do Lincoln Day Dinners in South Carolina,” Senator Graham told a Lincoln Day gathering in Tennessee Saturday. “It’s nothing personal, but it takes awhile to get over things.” According to a Knoxville News...

Group trying to block building name change: NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- A state appeals court heard arguments Wednesday over whether Vanderbilt University can remove the word "Confederate" from a dormitory the United Daughters of the Confederacy helped build in the 1930s. The Tennessee chapter of the group claims the university's effort to drop the first word from Confederate Memorial Hall violates decades-old contracts, but Vanderbilt claims the contracts are no longer valid. The judges, who did not say when they will issue a ruling, had strong words for both sides. "You're arguing social values and making the courts be the tough...

This was a CSPAN televised event given by someone who has written the only book on this subject.

Bush Administration Files Another Partial-Birth Abortion Lawsuit Brief Email this article Printer friendly page by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com Editor February 12, 2005 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Bush administration on Friday filed another brief defending the federal ban on partial-birth abortions. The brief comes in an appeal of a Nebraska judge's decision overturning the ban in one of three lawsuits filed against it by abortion advocates.The brief is part of an appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging a September ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf saying the ban was too vague and would prohibit other types of abortions.The...

John Kerry's Jim Crow America... "The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights investigated these allegations over a six-month period beginning in January 2001. Its 200-page majority report, Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election, excoriates Florida's election officials for various acts of misfeasance. But the conclusions drawn by the report often bore little relationship to the facts contained therein. And media descriptions of the report did little to dispel the widespread belief among the black electorate that blacks had been systematically targeted for harassment, intimidation, and disenfranchisement."

Review of Unfounded Loyalty by Robert Oliver (thechicagocommunicator.blogspot.com) Unfounded Loyalty: An In-Depth Look Into The Love Affair Between Blacks and the Democratic Party Wayne Perryman (www.wayneperryman.com) Lantham, MD: PNEUMA Life Publishing, 2003 198 pp. $23.50 ISBN 1-562290-7-38 “Why are most Blacks in America Democrat?” asked a group of inner-city young people to Rev. Wayne Perryman of Seattle, Washington. Perryman replied, “Because Democrats have done the most for Black people.” They asked him for material find out exactly what the Democrats have done for Blacks. Perryman did not have any material to give them. He said, “I could see I would...

State GOP historically diverse By Sen. Charles Ford Leading Democrats and their pundits attempt to divide Oklahomans by painting a picture of elitism, exclusiveness and white male dominance among Republicans while promoting themselves as the party that embraces women and minorities. The notion that Republicans are anti-woman and anti-minority could not be further from the truth. The Republican Party in Oklahoma has a diverse membership and a long history of encouraging women and minorities to participate in the electoral process. Republicans have led the way to change and made the most remarkable inroads at a time when women and minorities...

No Excuse for the Black Underclass. 3/17/04 To say that racism doesn’t exist today is to put your head in the sand. But in spite of the existence of modern day racism, there is no reason for the existence of the black underclass. By 1975 the last vestiges of “Jim Crow” were gone. I have picked that year as the turning point for this editorial. If you were born in 1960 as I was, you grew up as “Jim Crow” was coming to an end and you remember the events on the day of the murder of Dr. King. In...

Defense Department officials tried to put DoD's best foot forward in attracting minority students to seek careers in the department at Florida A&M University here Feb. 18-19. DoD held a career exposition Feb. 18 for middle school, high school and college students to see presentations and visit exhibits set up by the military academies, ROTC programs and civilian internship programs. Feb. 19 featured a symposium, during which DoD officials discussed critical minority representation issues in ROTC and internship programs, as well as long-term concerns, with presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-education leaders. Charles S. Abell, principal...

ALBANY Oh, dear. It's that time of year again, when black folks have to be careful with one another. A simple invitation to your tree-trimming party can find you denounced for "capitulating to the master's culture" by the most button-down, suit-and-tie brother on the block. Asking the fellow preschool parent in kente clothing to make a Kwanzaa presentation can find you stammering your apologies when he thrusts his St. Christopher medal at you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer fending off the undead. Being black in December is almost as exhausting as being so in February, when it's taken for granted...