Posted on 06/28/2013 8:44:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Is the Second Reconstruction over?
The first ended with the withdrawal of Union troops from the Southern states as part of a deal that gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency after the disputed election of 1876.
The second began with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a century after Appomattox. Under the VRA, Southern states seeking to make even minor changes in voting laws had to come to Washington to plead their case before the Justice Department and such lions of the law as Eric Holder.
Southern states were required to get this pre-clearance for any alterations in voting laws because of systematic violations of the 14th and 15th amendment constitutional rights of black Americans to equal access to polling places and voting booths.
The South had discriminated by using poll taxes, gerrymandering and literacy tests, among other tactics. Dixie was in the penalty box because it had earned a place there.
What the Supreme Court did Tuesday, in letting the South out of the box, is to declare that, as this is not 1965, you cannot use abuses that date to 1965, but have long since disappeared, to justify indefinite federal discrimination against the American South.
You cannot impose burdens on Southern states, five of which recorded higher voting percentages among their black populations in 2012 than among their white populations, based on practices of 50 years ago that were repudiated and abandoned in another era.
You cannot punish Southern leaders in 2013 for the sins of their grandfathers. As Chief Justice John Roberts noted, black turnout in 2012 was higher in Mississippi than in Massachusetts.
Does this mean the South is now free to discriminate again?
By no means. State action that discriminates against minority voters can still be brought before the Department of Justice.
Even the "pre-clearance" provision of the VRA remains. All the court has said is that if Congress wishes to impose a pre-clearance provision on a state or group of states, Congress must have more evidence to justify unequal treatment than what "Bull" Connor did in Birmingham back in 1965.
Congress could pass a bill today authorizing Justice Department intervention in any state where the registration of blacks, Hispanics or Asians fell below 60 percent of that electorate.
What Congress can no longer do is impose conditions on Southern states from which Northern states are exempt. Washington can no longer treat the states unequally -- for that, too, is a violation of the Constitution.
The Roberts court just took a giant stride to restoring the Union.
Yet the hysterical reaction to the decision reveals a great deal.
What do critics say they are afraid of?
While conceding that immense progress has been made with the huge turnout of black voters in the South and the re-election of a black president, they say they fear that without the pre-clearance provision this would never have happened. And now that the provision no longer applies to the South, the evil old ways will return.
On several counts this is disheartening.
For what the critics of the court decision are saying is that, no matter the progress made over half a century, they do not trust the South to deal fairly and decently with its black citizens, without a club over its head. They do not believe the South has changed in its heart from the days of segregation.
They think the South is lying in wait for a new opportunity to disfranchise its black voters. And they think black Southerners are unable to defend their own interests -- without Northern liberal help.
In this belief there are elements of paranoia, condescension and bigotry.
Many liberals not only do not trust the South, some detest it. And many seem to think it deserves to be treated differently than the more progressive precincts of the nation.
Consider Wednesday's offering by Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson. The South, he writes, is the home of "so-called right-to-work laws" and hostility to the union shop, undergirded by "the virulent racism of the white Southern establishment," a place where a "right-wing antipathy toward workers' rights" is pandemic.
The South is the "the heartland of cheap-labor America. ... When it wants to slum, business still goes to the South." Then there are those "reactionary white Republican state governments."
Were a conservative to use the term "black" as a slur the way Meyerson spits out the word "white," he would be finished at the Post. Meyerson's summation:
"If the federal government wants to build a fence that keeps the United States safe from the danger of lower wages and poverty and their attendant ills -- and the all-round fruitcakery of the right-wing white South -- it should build that fence from Norfolk to Dallas. There is nothing wrong with a fence as long as you put it in the right place."
Harold looks forward to the day that a surging Latino population forces "epochal political change" on a detestable white South.
State by state or county by county maps may give a somewhat different picture. Maine, for example, had very high recruitment ratios that year, Mississippi and Louisiana relatively low ones. And there are changes over time.
"Us"?
The county-by-county electoral map shows a lot of Democrat counties in the South. If we take that map as representative of the country's inclinations, a lot more of the South is Democrat than, say, the Plains or Northern Mountain states.
They do spread out. Four places come to mind...
Ft. Hood, Texas
Ft. Bliss, Texas and New Mexico
Ft. Knox, Kentucky
Ft. Benning, Georgia
Along with III Corps, Ft Hood, Texas, 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, Ft Hood, Texas, Air Defense Artillery School and School of Fire for the Field Artillery, Ft. Sill Oklahoma, 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment (flying "armor"), Ft. Hood, Texas, 21st Cavalry Brigade (Air Combat), Ft. Hood, Texas, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Ft Hood, Texas, 1st Armor Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, GA., 1st Battalion, 64th Armor - Fort Stewart, GA., McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, McAlester, OK., Radford Army Ammunition Plant, VA, Fort Sam Houston, command headquarters for the United States Army North (formerly the Fifth United States Army), United States Army South, the Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) headquarters, the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) Center and School, the Fifth Recruiting Brigade, Navy Regional Recruiting, the San Antonio Military Entrance and Processing Station, and the Medical Education and Training Campus (METC). Joined Lackland and Randolph Air Force Bases to create Joint Base San Antonio, under Air Force administration, Red River Army Depot, Texas, etc, etc, etc.
Seems like all those places have something in common...
:-)
He could have had a mild heart attack, clutched his chest, passed out and recovered. Heart attacks come in many forms and symptoms. Maybe a mild stroke. All speculative, as we will never know.
I am talking about where they are built not stationed.
I just figured you got the DeLorean out for a quick spin ;-)
And it is impossible to build them here?
If we already have most of the production for the past 30 years and they are tough to kill I believe we would have plenty of time to whip out a manufacturing facility with few problems if they were actually needed. Which, apparently, they are not as JSMC is being closed sometime in 2015 to 2017.
Heck, we might come up with something even better.
.
That’s because the south is more black....than any where in the US
And you especially should know that
But you lie and misuse stats like the good little race baiting liberal you are
Southern whites are far and away the most conservative in the. Country
More than Utah or Idaho
Check exit polls
And whites are the majority in every southern state....
What do you care....the transformed America is perfect for you isn’t it?
BTW....where did I exclude other conservative areas in my post?
You assume too much
Anyone objective can tell where conservatism lives here
Do you ever leave DC area?
Will you ever get over slavery
...I mean really X.....do you point fingers over say Indian genocide......or Congo atrocities
I just spent 2 weeks from nashville to Portland and back...
I saw 11 blacks the whole time part KC....
No fault of their own but whites outside Dixie are naive and ignorant about black cultural issues
And you and folks like you feed on that...
Southerners don’t fall for it as a rule
And that bugs you
Little secret....let a Mexican majority get a full taste of black culture
And you guys will miss us..lol
I’m not aware of a southern city without at least a black plurality bloc on city council
Most are black Dem run
Cotton states for sure
Woods rule the burbs..lol
Though I think Atlanta even has black burbs now
Anyone who dismisses the anchor of conservatism, Texas, is ignorant, Nebraska with it’s fewer than 500,000 conservative voters is not going to save conservatism or lead it to the promised land, and I have no idea why you are throwing away North Carolina and Virginia, and Florida.
You seriously misread Utah, being at almost the bottom of states in military service should give you a clue, the state has it’s own political agenda, and Christian conservatism and traditional Americanism, is not it, they just line up politically sometimes.
Save conservatism? I thought we're talking about the partitioning of the country into 4 parts. In the country I'm thinking of there is no need to save conservatism. It's already well entrenched. We don't need any help in that area, thank you very much.
And I'm not throwing anything away. I just see no reason to join up with Texas or any of the rest of Dixie. There's nothing in it for us. They bring along an unhealthy number of liberal Democrats and urban cesspools like Atlanta and New Orleans. Virginia and Florida are Blue states and I have no desire to have anything to do with them. North Carolina is borderline blue. So if you think that y'all can save them and turn them around then have at it. I wish you all the best. We'll be watching with interest in the other CSA (Conservative States of America).
You seriously misread Utah, being at almost the bottom of states in military service should give you a clue, the state has it’s own political agenda, and Christian conservatism and traditional Americanism, is not it, they just line up politically sometimes.
For the umpteenth time don't worry about them. We'll be fine, I promise.
She just met with His Holiness The Pope and received communion at the Vatican.
Big difference in that the red states have a better handle on the blue cities.
Did you happen to notice x’s signup date?
You keep going after North Carolina when it had a 3 point difference from Nebraska in 2012.
By the way, Nebraska’s population is growing, so someday it may get more than 474,000 republican voters.
“”The new federal census shows Nebraska’s population increased by 115,078 in the last ten years. For the most part, the growth is all about Hispanics.
The just-released 2010 census says there are 1.8 million Nebraskans.
Hispanics accounted for 63 percent of the state’s overall growth. Nebraska has 167,405 Hispanic residents; that number is up nearly 73,000 since the 2000 census.””
Are these south hating baiters not beyond stupid?
Why Fresno has always tolerated them is a mystery
Folks can simply count where the electoral votes have come from recently
I’d wage 75% are southern
Maybe more
We hold up the dam and these black avenger jackasses are some major
Ingrates no,?
Which betrays why they are really here.
Nebraska still went GOP by a larger margin in both 2008 and 2012 than Texas did.
What is your problem? You're like the pretty girl at the prom who throws a hissy fit at the idea that not everybody is falling all over themselves worshiping her. I'm not telling you to stay with the liberal states in the Northeast and Midwest. I'm saying that I do not give a damn what you do. I just have no desire to do it with you. Are you truly that insecure? Do you think that your country will somehow be less credible without the conservative heartland? If so, then deal with it. Go establish your Dixie v2.0 if that's your ultimate dream. Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone. Don't want Utah? Fine, don't take Utah. Want Virginia and Florida? Great! They're all yours. I'll be perfectly happy with the territory I've outlined.
Yeah, insignificant Nebraska went GOP by 60% and the second most populated state in the union, the one that you claim will soon be blue, went 57% GOP.
You started posting to me when I posted this fact to someone else.
To: SeekAndFind
Utah doesn’t fit, they are at almost the bottom for military service.
66 posted on 6/28/2013 10:10:03 AM by ansel12
I don’t know what set you off, but you keep posting at me for some reason, like you are having a hissy fit or something.
You sound angry and personally jilted, are you Mormon ?
“Big difference in that the red states have a better handle on the blue cities.”
Yes, very true.
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