[dirtboy]

These acts extended Federal authority into private matters, such as the sale of housing, the rental or sale of real property, and the operation of common carriers such as bus lines. If one adheres to the original intent of the Framers, these acts were not justified under the Constitution.

I agree. Federal action seldom stops where it should - therefore, the states would have been better off reforming themselves rather than creating a situation where the feds were justified in acting. As a result, we are ALL paying for it now.

If you are embarassed by the Dixiecrats espousing states' rights, are you also embarassed by the Ku Klux Klan's support of the Second Amendment or the ACLU's defense of the First Amendment?

I would not stand with the KKK on the 2nd A - I would distance myself, because the gun-grabbers would use the KKK to paint us all as racist gun nuts. The ACLU is nowhere near the same as the KKK - I can agree with a group in some areas and disagree in others - it is not an all or nothing proposition, whether you try to make it such.

Because the People for the American Way support separation of church and state, would you call for a theocracy?

That's an absurd attempt at logic.

Should we have stayed out of the European theater of World War II because Joe Stalin was our ally?

Sometimes you don't have a choice. But it's silly to try to equate WWII with fighting segregationism and bigotry.

[tpaine]

Wallace T:
"These acts extended Federal authority into private matters, such as the sale of housing, the rental or sale of real property, and the operation of common carriers such as bus lines. If one adheres to the original intent of the Framers, these acts were not
justified under the Constitution.
-WT_

I agree. Federal action seldom stops where it should - therefore, the states would have been better off reforming themselves rather than creating a situation where the feds were justified in acting. As a result, we are ALL paying for it now."
-DB-

Yes, we are all paying DB. - Which, -- from my view, -- was probably more or less Lotts initial point, and is certainly Wallace T's.
The constitutionalists 'gave up' in '48, then were buried with Goldwater in '64.

[Wallace T.]

The ACLU has done plenty of damage to the body politic, for example, their relentless drive to purge any and all items even remotedly tied to the Christian faith from the public arena. This particular drive of said group is based on their extreme interpretation of the 1st Amendment's provision prohibiting Congress from establishing a national religion. The original intent of the Amendment was to prevent the meddling of the state in religious matters and the church in state matters, a source of much grief in the Middle Ages and Reformation era. How does putting a nativity scene on the court house square establish the Roman Catholic Church or the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod? The ACLU's extremist interpretation of the freedom of speech clause in the same amendment to incorporate protection of the vilest pornography has handicapped the ability of local governments to maintain a decent atmosphere in American cities and towns. The First Amendment was intended to cover freedom of political speech; pornography is not political speech.

Yet you regard the ACLU as more honorable than the Ku Klux Klan? The former may be more respectable in polite society, but are just as despicable as the latter, albeit in a different way.

Conservatives will win nothing if we live in fear of being ostracized by liberals. We should not strive to be PC-lite, but offer a true alternative to the Left.