Lileks finds an interesting quote from prohibition days:
There may be no clearer demonstration of the drys’ pragmatic acceptance of every variety of ally than a comment made by Mabel Willebrandt – a federal official, a feminist, a progressive – when she was asked about the faithfully dry Ku Klux Klan: “I have no objection to people dressing up in sheets, if they enjoy that sort of thing.”
I’m always amazed at how many “progressive” ideas (gun control, minimum wage, unionization) have their roots in racism (the fascist dictator Woodrow Wilson being a canonical example). People who want to call themselves “progressive” today (like Hillary Clinton) might be amazed too, if they knew their own intellectual history. Speaking of which, I loved this:
True story. A few years ago, when Katie first came to CBS News, I worked as the editor of her blog “Couric & Co.” One afternoon, I had a meeting with her in her office overlooking the CBS newsroom. Her suite of offices is gorgeous: white-on-white, with a marble desk and gorgeous black-and-white prints on the walls.
(Think “The Devil Wears Prada,” and you’ll get the picture. Staffers used to refer to it as “The White Palace” or, more derisively, “White Castle.”) On the back wall is a lovely, dramatic picture of Jackie Kennedy and her children. Other iconic women on the walls included Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Audrey Hepburn. When Katie arrived for our meeting, I was admiring the pictures, but noticed one woman who was unfamiliar to me. “Who’s that?,” I asked.
“Margaret Sanger,” she replied.
So is Katie into eugenics, too? Is she a fascist, or an historically ignorant dolt?
She supported the Immigration Act of 1924. Do you not think that act racist?
Leaving aside that the US Senate, Congress, President and, one assumes Supreme Court (on account of it not being struck down as un-constitutional) do you think the law was racist?
Plus the law stood for another 40 years. She was certainly in extremely good and wide company if she was a racist.
If so, which particular provisions?
I’m interested because reading about it online just now it strikes me as extremely tribalist – i.e. we’ll have whites from countries we approve of (Germany, Britain, Ireland) but not from ones we don’t (Italy, Poland etc…) isn’t technically a racist stance.
I also see that no limits nor provisions were made on Latin American immigration in the act.
I’m particularly interested in your answer after your comments about Arizona being let down by the Federal Government in not preventing their effective invasion.
Leaving aside that the US Senate, Congress, President and, one assumes Supreme Court (on account of it not being struck down as un-constitutional) do you think the law was racist?
What do you think?
I’m particularly interested in your answer after your comments about Arizona being let down by the Federal Government in not preventing their effective invasion.
That has nothing to do with excluding immigrants by race.
“Is she a fascist, or an historically ignorant dolt?”
Yes.
Daveon makes me LoL. He comes in here and proclaims this the “top 10 dumbest threads” Then admits he equally doesn’t know or understand the OP, “I must say thanks for giving me something to research today.” I supposed that sounds much more impressive and all with the fancy GBR accent behind it, “I MUST SAY DEAR SIR!”
Oh’s but I gots google and I google better than U, LOLZORS!
Oh’s but I gots google and I google better than U
[/start Hugh Grant mode] Err… well, indeed, yes. I, umm… well, to put to fine a point on it, well, er… rather thought that that was the point of doing some research. [/end Hugh Grant mode]
But hey, don’t let the facts get in the way of an argument.
So at the outset I did know who Ms Sanger was, particularly from the perspective of her relationship with Marie Stopes (you can Google that too if you like) but I hadn’t seen any of the stuff that Rand was referring to (Eugenics, Racism etc…)
So, Google was indeed my friend to show that Rand was talking total bollocks (as we say in the old country) and that the position being taken here by most of the regulars was one of ideology untainted by mere data.
As they say. JFGI.
Oh, and watch for the anti-abortion anti-Sanger Godwinised sites – the mixture of large Times New Roman fonts and exclamation marks is usually a clue about something.
What do you think?
I think it was a systemically racist act by a systemically racist society.
I don’t think that’s a particularly useful conclusion to draw though when trying to work out if Ms Sanger actually was a racist in the terms that we’d use today which is what it looks like you’re trying to do here.
Rand, you have a pattern, of which this is an example. You say “Person A (whom I dislike) is (somehow tangentally) connected to (possibly) bad Person B, therefore A is bad and/or stupid.”
Daveon attacked this from the relationship angle, pointing out that just because you hang somebody’s picture on the wall doesn’t mean you are ignorant of or approve of everything they said or did. For example, I admire Winston Churchill despite his screwups in WWI and post-war Iraq.
I attacked this from the point of view of pointing out that Sanger wasn’t actually bad. She in fact did massive amounts of good by helping women avoid unwanted pregnancies, and fought the government restrictions of her day.
But as is typical in these debates, facts don’t matter. The opinion of The Rand ™ (or, rather, the opinion received from Tim Graham, a Republican Party operative) are all that matters. This pattern makes me wonder how much of your space reporting is actually reliable or accurate.
You say “Person A (whom I dislike) is (somehow tangentally) connected to (possibly) bad Person B, therefore A is bad and/or stupid.”
Actually, he said person B was bad, and then asked the reasonable question of why person A would want to associate with person A. If you, Gerrib, had a picture of Sanger on your wall, most people would reasonable wonder why you thought it appropriate to have her picture on the wall. Newsflash, Gerrib, people do this all the time, not just Rand.
Here is why people question others relationships:
President Obama’s judicial nominees are getting more dangerous with each White House announcement.
If you don’t believe us, consider one judge’s opinion that the “sexual sadism” of a multiple rapist-murderer was “clearly a mitigating factor” that argued against executing the murderer and perhaps even against convicting him in the first place.
So this guy kills 8 people, raped 7 of them, and the guy shouldn’t be convicted because it was his sex addiction that caused him to do it, and for that reason should never have been convicted. That’s the rationale of Judge Chatigny, who Obama just nominated to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Pardon me if I wonder why Obama would want to associate with a Judge like this.