Posted on 12/12/2002 5:28:54 AM PST by A Vast RightWing Conspirator
I hereby suggest that FR starts a true debate on the merits of or problems created by our government’s forcing us (the people), sometimes quite brutally, to racially integrate. This is a very important issue and everyone else appears to be afraid to discuss this.
I’ve been watching Lott’s courageous and righteous stoning by the usual screamers of the media and here at FR which, for quite some time, seems to have moved far away from the avant-garde of political and social debate and join the ranks of GOP’s ‘followers’. In this particular case, the GOP got scared sh..less by the mainstream media’s screams for Lott’s resignation and many here ‘got the message’. After all, if the Beltway’s Buttboys doubt Lott’s future because he ‘said’ something, then Lott must go. Yes?
The media agrees that the public is outraged today. The ‘public’ is outraged, the media tells us, because Lott seemed to have suggested that the 40 year old official gov’t policy of forced racial integration created problems that a different policy might have avoided. The media, the political monkeys and many at FR now agree that Lott must be punished for what he ‘said’ or thought when he said what he said. Enterprising researchers now uncover evidence that this is not the first time that Lott said or thought that. He is a repeat offender. He dared to say thinks or think about racial integration/segregation more than once. This is viewed as so outrageous as to require his immediate resignation from whatever office he holds in the Senate.
I personally couldn’t care less if Lott gets to keep his current job or not. He wasn’t accused or raping anyone, he didn’t try to have sex with underage boys or girls, he’s not a drunk and he is no in front with the hystericals who are pushing for us to make the Middle East, or the world, safe for Israel by killing all of Israel’s enemies. On the other hand, he’s not at the forefront in the struggle to defend, preserve or expand our liberties – but who is in the GOP these days? What I do find interesting is the total and complete agreement that Lott’s ideas must not be discussed or debated. Just to create a frame of reference, the 10 Commandments and the Bible are subject to debate. The Bill of Rights in its entirety and its various components are debated and interpreted openly. The possibility of unisex marriages is discussed and considered. Assassinating dictators or other inconvenient people in other countries is calmly discussed in the media, with arguments for and against it. Euthanasia is being debated. Human cloning is considered. Evolution vs. creation is a continuing exchange of ideas. There is even a timid discussion on the merits of theories such as global warming. Nothing on racial integration vs. segregation. Not even a thought ABOUT having such a debate.
Okay, so…let’s begin to talk about racial integration which is supposed to be the opposite of racial segregation. And I am only going to offer some pointers here. Hopefully, we could have separate and multiple threads on each of these.
Who is for integration? – The federal gov’t and a bunch of totalitarians that work hard at engineering us (the people) into something that they view as ‘better’. The people are not. The people tend to naturally and voluntarily segregate in their neighborhoods, workplaces (if they are small enough to escape gov’t oversight), churches, cultural organizations, pressure groups, even Congressional caucuses. How effective is the gov’t in ‘integrating’ us? It seems to have happened in the larger companies, those that are the most regulated. The integration of ‘federal workers’ seems to have turned mostly into sending a discrete message to certain races that they needed not apply. Same result at the gov’t run housing projects. The integration of schools appears to be a failure due to unrelenting resistance from the people. The integration of housing produced racially and ethnically segregated neighborhoods. Political integration of races failed completely – the courts have segregated politicians into racially distinct districts and created such horrors in our vocabulary as ‘minority majority district’. The cities are in the process of becoming 100% non-white.
Is the government really committed to racial integration? – Not if one examines the current body of laws and regulation. It tends to be full of provisions favoring or discouraging certain races or ethnic groups from participating in the redistribution of tax funds – the white race is generally excluded while most other races, also called ‘minorities’ are encouraged to request tax funds. Again, people tend to voluntarily segregate even at the top of our government – see ‘black caucus’, ‘Latino caucus’ etc.
What do people have to say and what do they do in their private lives? – While it is true that there is a minority of ‘color blind’ people, and I happen to be one, most seem to feel comfortable and to want to be with ‘their kind’, whenever possible. The majority of people date and marry within their own race or ethnicity. People segregate themselves in their neighborhoods, social clubs and restaurants, schools, even professions and occupations.
Have inter-racial relations improved since the 60’s or not? - It is possible that inter-racial relations are worse today then in the 60’s. The college dorms are segregated. Most people would not even think into moving into a neighborhood populated by another race or ethnicity. Most small businesses are racially or ethnically homogenous. Political parties manufacture specific messages to specific races or ethnic groups.
Did forced (and generally phony) racial integration create problems? – Yes. Harlem’s Renaissance took place BEFORE forced integration, most urban slums appeared AFTER it. The government is less efficient and more costly today because poorly qualified ‘minorities’ may be hired to meet certain quotas (diversity goals). For the same reasons, some of our college graduates leave colleges ill prepared for a successfully professional life. Racial preferences in college admissions and in hiring many ‘minorities’ may cause ‘minority’ resentment for many being to advance in their careers when they are left ‘on their own’.
Is there a taboo on discussing the merits/shortcomings of forced racial integration? – Yes, no question about it. My theory: because the efforts at integration created problems of such an enormous scale, those responsible for taking our nation into the dumpster (who happen to also profit from it) would do everything in they can to stop any discussion else they would be revealed for the evil, incompetent impostors that they are.
Was Lott correct in stating that integration created problems that could have been avoided? – Yes (my view).
I see no reasons why any and all of this topics not be calmly and thoroughly discussed at a forum such as FR’s.
Merits? I don't got to show you no stinkin' merits.
No, he's a conservative politician facing a hostile press. He should have known when and where to pick his battles.
Might I ask why you are so strenously defending a man who sold the House Managers up the river? I wanted to tear his heart out and serve it to wild pigs for that offense.
Regards, Ivan
I am one half of an 'interracial' marriage. Enough said.
It seems to me that he went first. It's up to you to respond instead of question.
Victory by the North in the Civil War did not solve the question of what was to be done with the millions of Africans living among the defeated whites of the CSA.
There was an attempt at national policy from 1865-1877, but its premises were unsustainable at the time, and after 1877, the nation said to the recovering South-"y'all work it out, just keep it out of our faces".
A "system" arose to order relationships between the former slaves and their descendants, which worked tolerably well for a brief time but which by the 1930s at the latest was as unsustainable as Reconstruction was.
Segregationists like Strom Thurmond had no ideas about how their "system" should evolve to meet changing circumstances among the third and fourth generations of freed Africans. So they stood, boldly, for the proposition that since it could not change that therefore it must never change.
This was foolish, shortsighted, and wrong. So it was changed for them.
The new dispensation (1964-2002) has its own problems, of course, one of which is the destruction of what is perceived by many as kinder, gentler white and black societies in the states that made up the CSA.
I have not yet heard, however from anyone (maybe Trent Lott will step up), what could have or should have been done to modernize "race relations" which were arguably appropriate for 1877 but which became brutal, anti-constitutional, and unacceptable to the rest of the nation by 1940 at the latest.
I don't think electing Strom Thurmond would have done the trick.
AVRWC, I would say that legal segregation was the answer to a question, all right, but that it, as a system, had no answers to the new questions that it raised-so it had to go.
But racist Democrats have peered into the mirror of Lott's ambiguous words and seen a racist leering back at them. Their judgment is clear and unanimous: Lott must be damned.
Still smarting from the humiliating defeat they suffered at the polls on November 5, racist Democrats are grateful for this target of opportunity and are pecking at Lott's wound with a ferociousness not seen since they tried to bork a certain black American jurist's nomination to the Supreme Court.
Disgruntled libertarian-style whackjob conservatives who despise Lott for not daily caning his opponents like a latter day Brooks assaulting Sumner have smelled blood and gleefully joined in the peckfest.
Lott is being executed--not by men and women of good faith, but by an alliance of racists and intransigent ideologues of a most peculiar sort.
Personally, I have never been a fan of Lott's. I have always wondered why his collegues picked him to lead them in the Senate. If he were replaced tomorrow (or yesterday, for that matter) it wouldn't bother me. But the hypocrisy and viciousness of this particular attack disturb me.
Thus, Lott's comments are reprehesible. They were not merely stupid. They were not merely a bad choice of words. We shouldn't be pretending that they were not sufficient to disqualify him from leadersip. They were.
The Democrats are the ones that have created government programs that are based upon your race.
The Democrats are the ones that use race to divide Americans against each other. (Sen. Lott is an example)
The Democrats are the ones pushing for gun laws, in an effort to disarm minorities.
Actually Truman dragged the country out of segregation and not into integration. The Government was the author of state sposored and state mandated segregation. That is where the problem began. Truman saw that this policy was inherently anti-American. I only wish that FDR had his guts and vision. Strom Thurmond was not the answer in 1948. He was the epitomy of the problem.
And so are one of my cousin's children.
You still do. Obviously.
That's what this is about with you, and most of the FReepers on this board.
If Phil Gramm had made the statements Lott did, you and all the other hyenas on here would be much more understanding, wouldn't you?
But, because you now see an opportunity to get a pound of flesh from Trent Lott because you're still nursing your grudge from FOUR YEARS AGO, you'll join this maniacal lynch mob in calling for his head.
This is not about race, you're right.
It's about politics, as the Dems see a way to get virtual control of the Senate back by chasing Trent Lott back to Mississippi.
In your hatred of Lott, your judgment is just too clouded to see it.
Thanks, Ivan. Thanks a hell of a lot.
And that's the point--forced segregation was the status quo in 1948. That's why I asked the question about "separate but equal," which was the norm in education prior to Brown v. Board of Education. That's why I referenced Jim Crow laws. When we speak about forced integration, one should also examine the other side of the coin, which is forced segregation.
I hereby suggest that FR starts a true debate on the merits of or problems created by our government’s forcing us (the people), sometimes quite brutally, to racially integrate.
I disagree that this is what Lott said, or even meant. He was just trying to say something nice about an old dude. Now, if you want to debate whether he should ought to choose his words more carefully, I'll bite. Here is my opening statement:
Lott is a bonehead.
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