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The Democrats and liberal media are trying to use the comments of Trent Lott and Representative Ballenger to smear all Republicans. They try and paint Republicans as being in favor of discrimination. This is not only absurd it is unconscionable!

History clearly reveals that it is the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, which maintains that discrimination is desired public policy.

It is the Democratic Party that advocated and maintained discriminatory "Jim Crow" laws in the South for many years. Not long ago it was Democratic stalwarts such as Senator Robert Byrd, former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan, who just last year used a racial slur for which he has never been held accountable and who the Democrats elevated to third in line to the Presidency, Senator Fritz Hollings, former Senator Albert Gore, Sr., and former Senator William Fullbright, who was honored by President Bill Clinton, who were in the forefront in maintaining discriminatory laws.

Today, Democrats are still advocating discriminatory laws. The Democrats, with the able assistance of the liberal media, continue to insist on numerical "quotas" in the guise of "affirmative action" The Democrats insist that special rights be bestowed on some Americans at the expense of other Americans and that government police powers be used to enforce the discrimination.

From the 1930’s when the Democrats enacted laws giving Unions extraordinary powers to the mid 1960’s after a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Unions had "whites only" clauses in their contracts and constitutions, effectively excluding Blacks from employment in those trades and industries controlled by Unions.

Today the "Environmentalists" Democrats enact laws to set aside significant acreage, usually next to lily-white enclaves, for "open-space" or to preserve the "fragile" environment, etc, thereby decreasing available land and increasing housing costs, which results in excluding the lower classes, mainly minorities.

Also, it is the Teachers Union, another wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party, which is preventing school vouchers going to those minority children trapped in failing, inner-city, ghetto schools.

It is Republicans who insist that the laws of the land be "colorblind". Republicans insist that the discriminatory "quota" laws, union-benefiting laws and exclusionary environmental laws be modified, repealed or overturned and that vouchers be made available to minority children trapped in failing, ghetto schools.

We sink into Orwellian "Newspeak" when a political party that advocates laws be "colorblind" and non-discriminatory is smeared as being racist and discriminatory because it refuses to embrace discriminatory "quota", "union-benefiting" and "environmental" laws.

The Legislative History of Titles VII and XI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 shows that the sponsors of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, such as Senator Hubert Humphrey, were explicit that the Act ",,,does not require an employer to achieve any kind of racial balance in the work force by giving any kind of preferential treatment to any individual or group…" That there must be an "..express requirement of intent…" before an employer could be found guilty of discrimination. They also stipulated that ability tests would continue to be legal, even if different proportions of different groups passed them. Another supporter of the Act, Senator Joseph Clark, pointed out that "…the burden of proof is on the government to prove discrimination…" And another supporter, Senator Williams of Delaware, stated that "…an employer with an all white work force can continue to hire only the best qualified workers even if all of the qualified workers are all white…"

All of these assurances from the sponsors of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are consistent with the explicit language of that Act. These sponsors did not intend to substitute discrimination by the federal government against whites in place of discrimination by local or state governments or by the private sector against minorities. The opposites of these assurances are the current requirements of the Civil Rights Act.

The original intent of the Civil Rights Act was to provide equal opportunity to all - a worthy objective. It has been perverted by non-elected and unaccountable bureaucrats and appointed and unaccountable Federal Judges into a law that requires equal results. Republican efforts to adhere to the original intent of the Civil Rights Act are characterized as discrimination - a return to "Jim Crow Law" days - by the Democrats and dominant media.

It is past time that our elected representatives took back their authority and responsibility from bureaucrats and federal judges as the ONLY officials who are to make laws.

And it is time for all fair-minded, truth-seeking citizens to speak out against the attempts by the Democrats and liberal media to smear those who will not accept institutionalized discrimination by the all-powerful federal government.

Part of your post needs to be repeated over and over and over:

"The original intent of the Civil Rights Act was to provide equal opportunity to all - a worthy objective. It has been perverted by non-elected and unaccountable bureaucrats and appointed and unaccountable Federal Judges into a law that requires equal results. Republican efforts to adhere to the original intent of the Civil Rights Act are characterized as discrimination - a return to "Jim Crow Law" days - by the Democrats and dominant media."

But the next line is wishful thinking:

"It is past time that our elected representatives took back their authority and responsibility from bureaucrats and federal judges as the ONLY officials who are to make laws."

There are not enough elected or to-be-elected officials alive who'd be willing to step up to the unionized bureaucracy, the entrenched leftists, and the activist judiciary to do any good. If they did recover their spine enough to override the system, they'd just keep on passing new laws that built on the bad precedent of decades.

It's a nice thought, but the battle is left and right, not just who gets to dominate the system.

PS: To Walt, this is a discussion of civil rights, Lincoln's reputation will probably survive without your "Lincoln is God" mantra fogging up the issue. Slavery was a secondary issue in his policies, right or wrong, his program was to keep authority in DC and to manage the rest of it as it might develop.

This discussion is all about what's happened since that came to pass and DC has issued multiple, but misrepresented, edicts involving 'equality', 'race', and now 'diversity'.