[Chancellor Palpatine]

God forbid my profile seem [shudder] gay.

Here's the rewrite I'd been thinking of for a few days:

I'll let this be my set of defining sentiments on FR:

1. Trent Lott meant exactly what we thought he meant at Strom's birthday party, and confirmed it during his interview on BET when he talked of race, immoral leadership in the South and admitted that he was part of that.

2. There is no objective standard by which anyone can state that government imposed segregation and the Jim Crow laws were good.

3. There is no objective standard by which anyone could say that opposing the end of segregation and the Jim Crow laws was good.

4. There is no objective standard by which anyone can say that the systematic exclusion of a race of people from the economy was good.

5. There is no objective standard by which anyone can say that opposition to full voting rights by blacks was good.

6. That century of apartheid that followed the Civil War left a stain on our history - and there are many people alive today who remember what that was like. It isn't remote and long past - so when blacks cringe over the type of remarks made by Lott, or by talk of states rights, don't moan that they're being PC.

7. It isn't PC pandering to feel some sense of shame over the things people in our parents' and grandparents' generation did. My folks were Wallace voters in '68 - something they're not proud of now. I brought my own grandmother up short when she tried to support Trent Lott based on a very little knowledge and a lot of stored up racial vitriol.

[Jhoffa_]

God forbid my profile seem [shudder] gay.

I am sorry..

Lose the "puppy dog" stuff, talk about football and spit allot.

(I hate football also, but when in Rome..)

[Protagoras]

Golly I feel bad now that I know what a great person you are. Anything else you are against that breaks new ground? Like murder? Or the holocaust?

[Jhoffa_]

PS: I don't support discrimination based on race at all. Like I said, it's not consistent with the spirit of our constitution, the founding of our nation or even the BOR's own wording.

Something had to give, it was the elephant in the living room that can only go unadressed for so long.

That said though, I think allot of conservatives used the occasion of Lott's (admittedly stupid, no argument) comment as an occasion to lynch him for many other failings.

While these peripheral issues, in and of themselves might well constitute valid a reason for his removal, they weren't addressed. Just his comments on the Thurmond matter.

That's cowardly and dishonest in my opinion.

And I hate Trent Lott.

[driftless]

I basically agree with all of your remarks regarding Lott and the days of segregation. But as a Northerner I feel the whole country should be somewhat ashamed of those days. There was de jure segregation in the South, and there was de facto segregation up North. There was and still is plenty of racists in whatever part of the country. ( I might add racists of all colors). It does no good to ignore shameful conditions in the American past. To acknowledge them does not make one a liberal apologist today. But I think many Southerners feel that they are singled out and unjustly condemned as being the only group who had racists when it was a national problem.