Jonah Goldberg on more whitewashing of “progressive” history:
I’ve long argued that there’s an infuriating tendency among mainstream liberal historians to take two approaches to evils in American history. Sins are always either the result of conservatives doing conservative things or they’re the product of America’s fundamentally bigoted nature. It’s just never, ever, the case that liberalism or progressivism has something to apologize for. Liberalism is never wrong, because essential to the concept of liberalism is the idea that it must always be right. The fact that racism and other evils were commonplace, even central, to much of the progressive project is simply too jarring to contemplate and so we get either a whitewash or blame-shifting. And with Boyle, we get both.
And we’ll continue to as long as people continue to take these people seriously. Meanwhile, here’s the real story of the 20s Klan.
They’re the party of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and segregation.
Countdown to Bob claiming the 60’s and 70’s really happened and pointing to an interview with Ken Mehlman. And the racism in criticizing Sharia law.
You’ve obviously forgotten Richard Nixon’s evil “Southern Strategy”! Through the use of still-patented highly secret government (possibly UFO-derived) technology, Nixon was able to change the party affiliation of all evil conservative Southerners to “R”, both before and after 1968. That is how it is possible for Democrats to believe that a united Democratic Party passed the Civil Rights act over Republican opposition. Clearly all those early twentieth century Klansmen were converted to Republicanism by Nixon’s strategy. Since we know anyway that “conservative” is just a euphemism for “evil racist Republican”, there is no point in mentioning the party affiliation of the KKK — it would only confuse the readers.
BBB
In 1968, George Wallace ran on a 3rd party ticket and did quite well in the south, getting some 10 million votes and carried 5 states.
He tried running again in 1972 but the assassination attempt in Maryland left him paralyzed.
I still remember the 1972 Mad magazine parody song about Wallace, sung to the tune of “Old Susanna”
“He came from Alabama like he did in ’68
With maybe just a little luck
He’ll carry his home state
He travels all thoughout the south making his attacks
We have a funny feeling that he won’t appeal to blacks
Old George Wallace, show them you can fight
And if you get elected you will keep the White House white.”
I have three reactions.
The first is to quote some guy named Titus: ” When one group is actually racist, it is sufficient for the anti-racist group to speak in color-blind terms of human brotherhood since the racism of the Others is obvious to all through word and deed. But when the Other is not racist, the accusations must be shouted from the rooftops.”
The second is specifically for Curt, and it is from Governor Chris Christie: “This Sharia Law Business Is Crap.”
The third is in response to the reason.com article Rand links to at the bottom of his post. I found it interesting that the 1920-1924 version of the Klan, the progressive incarnation, had one chapter that was labor-oriented and even had African-American members, while the El Paso chapter “largely ignored the Hispanic majority, never employed violence, and spent most of its time challenging the policies of fellow Anglos who dominated city government, focusing on such issues as better public education, honest elections, and road construction.” I found this quite surprising, but I guess it shows that adding progressives to the mix can improve just about anything, even bags of racist scum.
So the part of the 1st Amendment regarding recognition of a religion is now racist? To quote Jonah again for the win:
[Sins are] the product of America’s fundamentally bigoted nature.
Deuteronomy 22:22 “If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die.”
Leviticus 20:10 “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife–with the wife of his neighbor–both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.”
Deuteronomy 25:11-12 “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”
The difference between Judaism and Islam: Governor Christie could have rightly say the expectation that *any* religious Jew would follow his religious law to the letter is crap — none of them do (and they might provide a long convoluted explanation of why they won’t follow the law while denying they are doing any such thing). For Islam, on the other hand, there are fundamentalists who you really can expect all sorts of horrible law-following behavior. Fortunately, there are vast numbers of Muslims who are no more likely than a Jew to follow their own religious law, which is why Gov. Christie (who in fact was speaking about a particular Muslim judge) can rightly say that this Sharia law business is crap. And I’ll extend the sentiment to say that, regarding ALL Muslims, concern over Sharia law really is crap.
Wow. Nice straw man by both you and (if you characterized him accurately) Christie.
I said “Islam” (in the other thread) and Curt starts talking about Sharia law.
Christie had something to say about people who bring up Sharia law just because they hear that someone is a Muslim.
Here’s Christie, in context: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60734.html
The video speaks for itself — particularly from about 2:30 to the end (it is four minutes total), but I like Martin’s commentary just below the video too.
[I] hear that someone is a Muslim.
Carl Pham was right. You’re a script.
Ad automatinem.
It may have been a strawman, but Bob certainly is showing its accuracy.
Disclaimer: I am an evangelical Protestant.
Bob-1, if you are going to quote Old Testament scripture then you also need to read New Testament scripture.
In Numbers 15: 38-39 the OT clearly commanded the Israelites to wear blue threads in tassels on their garments. Did this law come from God or not? Answer: It did. Is this law obsolete? Answer: Yes it is. Who has the authority to declare a God-given law obsolete? Answer: Only God.
Same thing applies to the Scriptures you quoted. Check out Hebrews chapter 8 regarding the modern applicability of Old Testament law, ending with v. 13: “By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.”
I am sure you will claim “but the Jews don’t recognize the New Testament” which is true. But my point is that time and time again you think you are making some compelling and damning point about Jews and instead you face plant with an epic fail.
There is an Islamic elephant in the corner, dude.
You’re mistaken. I think my point about Jews not following God’s (supposed) law doesn’t damn my fellow Jews at all. It is to the Jews credit that we are smart enough to not blindly follow horrible laws like Deuteronomy 22:22 and Leviticus 20:10. Jews are doing just fine without the New Testament, and if you think otherwise, that’s your prerogative as a Christian, but don’t assume that I’m saying anything bad about the Jewish people.
Interesting response. How do those in the Jewish faith justify which OT laws are now obsolete? Are some scriptures considered to be instructions for governance to the ancient nation of Israel, or is there ongoing debate?
A very short answer is: look up the word “Talmud”. Also, yes, there is ongoing debate. Constantly. The joke is “Two Jews, three opinions”. I googled “Two Jews, Three Opinions” to see if I could find a funnier version, but I got this as a reference instead:
Can the Jews eat quinoa during Passover? Depends who you talk to. Or, as food scientist Arlene J. Mathes-Scharf puts it, “I went to hear two rabbis discussing the quinoa situation at my synagogue last week. They had basically the same information, but they came to opposite conclusions. Typical.”
But more seriously, regarding the death penalty in Leviticus, Jews over the centuries have come up with a set of criteria that must be met before someone can be put to death for adultery (and other crimes that we today don’t think of as worthy of the death penalty). For example, rabbis will talk about a hypothetical case of adultery, and a rabbi will say “well, there have to be witnesses, or how can we be sure?” And another rabbi will say “ok, so there were witnesses — there was a whole crowd of witnesses watching the couple!” And the first rabbi will say “Ok, but how could that happen?” “Well, they left the drapes open and everyone saw through the window”, the rabbi will reply. But then the first rabbi asks “Can we really be certain the window was washed? Perhaps there was dirt on the window….” And on and on it goes, the point being that clever enough rabbis can always create so many hoops that they can’t all be jumped through, and thus the death penalty remains on the books but is never used. Of course, some laws are fun, and other laws prove to actually be useful, so they get kept around and become traditional. And then there is a tension between people who want to stick to the old traditions ad other people who want to reevaluate them, and that keeps the religion vibrant.
That’s my take on it. Ask another Jew, get another answer (or two.)
Are you serious Bob-1?
What in particular are you wondering about?
Here’s what I’ve been wondering about.
How did Jews go from a rule against boiling a ewe in her own milk to not being able to mix meat and dairy? How can any interpretation of the will of God forbid cheeseburgers? What role did the Talmud have in exiling much of mankind to a cheeseburgerless existence for thousands of years?
So Jesus came riding into town on a donkey, stopped by a ride-thru window and got a cheeseburger (the wrappers are clearly visible in early paintings of the last supper). Everyone went nuts and had him killed, and it took almost two thousand years for anyone else to order a cheeseburger in a drive-thru.
How do Rabbis reconcile the Jewish role in suppressing cheeseburgers and drive-thrus with the fact that Jewish holidays are all about eating?
George, why are tuna melts and cheesy chicken sandwiches not kosher?
I believe you have discovered the real reason most Jews are not religious.
That’s what I’ve been thinking. I listened to an entire audio course called “Jewish Intellectual History – 16th to 20th Century” (
torrent for the type of people who save every penny) and nowhere in the entire course did Professor Ruderman mention the cheeseburger paradox and its theological implications. I was miffed.
Parli del diavolo e spuntano le corna…
Just don’t give them an entire state to play with…
Well, at least you didn’t say that Republicans started the KKK or are now the KKK. It is an interesting defense to say that the KKK is better because of the involvement of the progressive Democrats.
The rest of your stuff about Jews, Christians, and Muslims was probably the best OT derailing I have seen from you yet. Well done.
The KKK that was better ended in 1925 according to the article. The KKK of the Reconstruction era and the KKK of the 1960s were different organizations, not simply the ancestor and the descendent , which was news to me.
And comments about religion was thanks to Curt. I won’t speculate on why he wanted to derail the conversation about the 1920s KKK.
It isn’t clear to me what the point of all this finger-pointing at the Democratic party of 50 years ago, 90 years ago or more.
What I wanted to say to George in the pervious thread was that in a two party system, you’re going to get a range of opinions in both party’s membership. Regarding racism, some voters care so much about the issue that they’ll actually vote pro-racist or anti-racist. Other voters won’t care that much, and other issues will sway their vote, regardless of their mild feelings pro-or-against racism.
I’m one of the voters who whom treatment of minorities (racial, religious, and others as well) is a big issue, only national emergencies are going to trump it. If I lived in the South, I would have voted Republican in non-Presidential elections right up until the parties swapped positions on issue of race. If I lived in the North, I would have voted consistently Republican until some point (I’m unclear on when) and sporadically Republican until FDR came along. But that doesn’t change my feelings about today’s Democratic party. And I’m hopeful that it will cease to be an issue altogether for both parties.
Bob: Islam. There is probably a racial component here.
Jonah: The fact that racism and other evils were commonplace, even central, to much of the progressive project is simply too jarring to contemplate and so we get either a whitewash or blame-shifting.
… or disjointed derailment.
I don’t identify with the progressives of the 1920s. Why is this hard to believe? If you want to hit me where it would hurt, say something damning about Woody Guthrie.
And you are the one derailing the conversation. If you don’t want to talk about Islam, don’t bring it up. If you want to decrease the probability that I’ll comment at all, stop bringing me up.
OK, I kept waiting for someone to say they’d lived around the Klan SOMEWHERE, and here’s what I saw. Since no one did, I will.
I spent the first 13 years of my life in Louisville, KY. There was some Klan activity there, and they resembled the anti-Jew, anti-Catholic kinds of stuff in that article, they believed in segregation, but I don’t remember ever hearing of violence in the city from them. I do remember my family talking about them as WE were Catholic. I remember stuff in newspapers about them, but I don’t remember seeing any kind of presence openly.
We moved to NC when I was about 14. The Klan not only existed here, they were vocal. They too believed all the anti-Jew, anti-Catholic stuff AND they were right out there to see. I remember traveling in the western part of the state on a trip once and they were at stop lights in their sheets nd pillow cases, collecting money like Shriners for Burn Victims or Firemen for Jerry’s Kids!
The county seat for the county where I now live was a hot bed for them. There was a huge billboard at the city limits,
.
“Welcome to Smithfield, Nc, Home of the United Klans of America, Inc.”
.
On the sign it said, Fight against Communism & Integration. But there were other around saying Fight against Communists, Jews, the Pope, Race Mixing and Integration.
In other words, Anybody who ain’t us!
Periodically, they still pop up in the news. Most of them now are more young guys, with neo-Nazi tattoos, self proclaimed White Supremacists, who judging from the way they talk, put their words together and mispronounce the words they use, they’ve have never graduated 9th grade! It’s a dumber. less gentle Klan.
I’m not sure the newer guys know what ‘Inc.’ means, much less how it would apply. Regardless of that, the South, where the ‘racist’ Klan was, is STILL to most extents run by Democrats. The Southern Statehouses and General Assemblies that ADDED the Confederate Battle Flags to their state flags, again, ALL Democrats. The original Klan post the Civil War, was Southern, anti-Northern, rabidly racist, anti-Republican, and therefore Democrat.
IMHO, anyone who tries to split the Klan and the Democrats as being one in the same in many instances, is not a just revisionist, they’re outright liars. I’ll go further and say they KNOW they are liars. I don’t think anyone who knowingly lies to make, or create, their point in political areas, should be trusted. And while I know that there are Republican liars too, I see no broad system of lying to cover their tracks or change their true history.
Democrats, on the other hand, are better at propaganda than almost anyone in history. Dr. Goebbels would be proud to be a modern Democrat.
Bob-1,
you’ve gotta liked being kicked. It’s the only reason I can see that you’d come in here.
I almost replied to you in the previous thread but it was several pages back.
Your link against Reagan made a very weak case, amounting to “If you try really hard to look at the subtle subtext of one of his campaign speeches, and pretend that he was using code words, a couple of phrases could perhaps be construed as playing racial politics, as opposed to saying things that might appeal to some of his audience.”
In contrast, FDR, who the article compares him to, picked a KKK member as his Vice President (who Democrats overwhelmingly elected as President), turned away a ship full of Euorpean Jews who were fleeing Hitler, and never lifted a hand against the Jim Crow laws of his own party.
If a few of Reagan’s lines might sublty imply racism, what about Democrats like Obama and Hillary who go into a full on Fetch and Step-It routine when they speak in a black Baptist church?
The parties didn’t swap positions on race. When the public mood started becoming intollerant of the continued segregation everywhere and Jim Crow laws in the South, the Democrats desperately needed to buy absolution, and they bought from the only group that could sell it to them, the blacks they’d been oppressing.
A bargain was struck. They offered blacks a massive amount of free money from the public purse if blacks would vote for them instead. In essence, it was “Boy, I’ll give you double helpings of grits ever’ night if you’ll tell them Union soldiers I been a good master and dat you’re happy here.”
Republicans and conservatives don’t think that wealth redistribution from the public purse is the proper role of government and were naturally opposed to the scheme. That allowed Democrats, desperate to buy absolution, to point to the Republicans and shout, “Hey, they don’t want to help you like we do. They’re the evil racists!” The Huey Long variety of Southern populists had no problem with the DNC’s plan, as it just gave them more votes to buy and more pork to distribute, and kept them properly in charge of their historical dependents.
They could whitewash their own guilt by putting their former victims on the podium, and in a display of born-again zeal, claim they were the ones marching with blacks in Selma, instead of having manned the firehoses and unleashed the dogs. And to prove their sincerity and keep the scheme working, all they have to do is see what Republicans are willing to spend to help blacks, up it, demand more, and then turn the demand into an attack, crying racism all the way home.
That was Johnson’s “Southern Strategy,” and although it created dependency, severly damaged the black family, halted the rapid rise of the black middle class in its tracks, left a legacy of despair, failed to reduce povery, and ate the federal budget like a cancer, it achieved its aim. It allowed the Democrats to win the votes of their former victims by further victimizing them.
The non-Southern Democrats just viewed all this as part of their struggle to help the working class against the rich, allowing them to “get clean” after a century of being in bed with Southern racist segregationists. It still kept racial and identity politics at the core of their mission, but let them put a happy-face on it. It gave their traditional guilt industry a lucrative new advertising opportunity, almost a re-branding. Instead of “The workers are oppressed! except for black workers, who we really don’t want to talk about right now due to tactical political considerations” they could go the full Monty.
They had turned away Jewish refugees, who their left-wing had always seen as evil capitalist financiers and bankers anyway, but FDR stopped Hitler, so they claimed Jewish guilt points. They had kept the blacks in chains, then kept them segregated and stripped of voting rights. But Johnson was willing to spend everyone else’s money to buy the rights to Republican MLK’s legacy, so they claimed black guilt points.
Since then it’s been little but identity politics, group politics, union politics, and socialist politics, using guilt as a weapon to demand that the government spends other people’s money till it runs out. The weapon is so effective that it’s driven both parties into fiscal insanity, conservatives hoping to drive off the cliff a little slower, the far left thinking that the harder we hit the bottom, the easier it will be to divide up the wreckage so everyone gets a fair share of the car.