Blue Light Razz

There is one of the candidates on one of the debates who is getting a smattering of support from some Evangelical (mainly Fundamentalist) Christians. He is a dark horse in one of the major political parties. And it doesn't really matter which one, because debate season reminds me why I keep a safe distance from politicians.

In a speech on the floor of the House he had some things to say about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Three years ago he was the lone congressman to vote against House Resolution 676 recognizing and honoring the 40th anniversary of the Act.

Seems like politicians feel like they have to explain why they are idiots whenever it is an election cycle.

You will recall that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed "To enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity."

So among other things, it prohibited the use of Federal funds in a discriminatory fashion, barred unequal application of voter registration requirements, encouraged the desegregation of public schools and authorized the United States Attorney General to file suits to force desegregation, and banned discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other places of public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce.

Sounds like a good thing on the surface. But it seems we need at least one politician and Presidential-hopeful to tell us why it was not smart.

But first, let's back up. Here is the gentleperson's take on the Civil War: "Lincoln's original goal was to preserve the union NOT to free the slaves. He was only pushed to emancipation by the circumstances of a prolonged Civil War; if the North had succeeded militarily sooner the slaves would not have been freed."

Wow. He sweeps us off our feet with facts our teacher did not tell us. Yes, those statements about Lincoln and emancipation are true, historically. However, that does not mean that slavery was not the precipitating factor of the war, because there would have been no split from the union by the Southern states except for the controversy over allowing new states to become slave states if they wanted to. All you have to do is read the constitution of any Confederate state, and read the ancient "blogs" written by the Confederate leaders of the time, and you find them all saying the war is about slavery. It is only after they lose the "cause" that you find the South re-writing history to say that the "cause" was freedom, etc. Yeah, right! "States" rights.

Freedom to be a manstealer and own people as property.

Get this. According to this Representative and would-be Presidential nominee, it "did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty."

Hmmm. I don't think it forced integration. What it did was force de-segregation. He gets it twisted. Had southern states done the right thing and eliminated their own Jim Crow laws, there would have been no need for the federal government to "violate the rights of private property" by insisting that all states enforce observance of the constitution.

He says, "The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners [notice how he makes this a State's Rights issue, not a right-wrong issue—because he is in the moral wrong; people who are addicted to their sin always want to be able. . .] to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties [especially when one party can take advantage of another, because, for the other party the choice is to either agree or don't survive]. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society."

All right then. Let's respect the property rights of pedophiles. Read the last sentence of the previous paragraph again. Do you see how crazy politicians are? Decent people have always regulated abhorrent actions, and it has never been a threat to our freedom. Since when does freedom mean we must respect injustice and immoral actions?

Certain Southern states and communities had 100 years to make it so that no black woman had to stand up in deference to a white man who arrived on the bus, just because she was black. Instead, to defend their right to treat people as property, they turned fire hoses and police dogs on marching women and children who had been organized by the churches.

Even politicians, it seems, must at times deal in realpolitik. Hence this stark admission: "America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years." But wait, because he's not done yet. "However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act."

They lost the Civil War. They should give it up and get over it. A hundred years of Jim Crow proved that no changes in the law would have meant no changes in public attitudes.

The chicken party has two right wings.