@wmwcjr,
I urge you not to consider your comments in this forum to represent "blathering" or the like. They are well thought out and expressed, and compare favorably to a lot of what is posted in this forum. Not only am I not
upset with your comments (and this BTW shouldn't factor in any way in what you choose to post), I welcome and appreciate them. Contrary to popular belief, I am not looking for a fight on every topic, and I don't think my views are incontravertable or even fully formed. I use this forum to develop and polish my views and any challenge of them is helpful in this regard, but it is always enjoyable when it can be done in a reasonable fashion.
That I may not agree with everything you write is by no means an indication of anything other than the fact that we see some things differently and have different opinions. If I think your views are based on erroneous information I will seek to correct you and if I ever think you are being foolish with what you think, I will tell you. Not because I, necessarily, wish to convert you to my view (and certainly not through any sort of rhetorical coercion) but because I think its important to point out foolish thinking. It's done for me all of the time, and a few times (very rarely of course) the person pointing out the foolishness is correct. It's then up to me, of course, to decide whether or not I want to continue to hold a view that is based on foolish thinking.
In any case here is
Part II of my response to your thought provoking comments:
Quote:Just look at history. From the inception of the civil rights movement through the 1970s, the political conservative movement defended Jim Crow and consistently opposed the civil rights movement. (I'm referring to the leaders of the conservative movement -- not indivduals unknown to the public such as my dear, sweet mother-in-law, a Herbert Hoover Republican who was courageously condemning racial discrimination in Texas before there even was a civil rights movement. She certainly was not a typical conservative Republican.) It's a matter of record. Just look at William F. Buckley's record, for example.
In 1964 almost every single one of the Republican members who voted for the Civil Rights Act were moderates or liberals. Today there would be no room for them in the Republican Party. They would be denounced as RINOs.
In the years that followed, conservative Republicans recruited the white conservative Southern segregationist "Democrats." Actually, most of them didn't need to be recruited. They flocked to the Republican Party. (Incidentally, my wife was very much a Republican ever since she was a kid. But a few years ago she finally left the party and became an independent because of all the "Southern Democrats," as she called them, who had taken over her party.)
I'm not going to strongly object to most of what you've expressed.
First of all, I agree that the Southern Democrats, many of whom were racists and who supported Jim Crow laws did flock to the GOP when it became clear that they were no longer welcome in the Democrat party. And yes the GOP welcomed them, not because of their racist views but in spite of them, because of the opportunity to develop the Southern Strategy that proved so effective. The distinction between welcoming Dixiecrats for their racist views and doing so in spite of them is not one that speaks tremendously well for the Republican Party. It was a cynical and unprincipled move and it has hurt them for decades. They're inability to recruit the black vote away from the Democrats is largely due to this terrible mistake.
That I’m not going to strongly object to what you’ve written doesn’t mean that I’m not going to push back. It’s true that Bill Buckley was flat out wrong on the civil rights issue, but he did not remain so until the end of his days. While his “clarification” of his hotly criticized 1957 editorial “Why The South Must Prevail” left few of his critics convinced of his conversion, it’s important to realize that Buckley had an enormous ego which was to some extent justified by his formidable intellect, and that, while he did run for Mayor of New York in 1965, he was not a politician. He was a very skilled debater and often tended to view issues in the abstract, without sufficient consideration for everyday reality, and the lives of the average American Joe and Jane. He was the type of person who would happily debate in favor of a position with which he didn’t agree simply because he thought he was that good. This is not to say that he didn’t believe what he wrote in the 1957 editorial but he didn’t really concern himself with how something he wrote or said might seem as long as it was technically defensible. A good example is this comment from the editorial which was seen as a sign of blatant racism:
Buckley wrote: "The sobering answer (to the question is White Supremacy in the South justified) is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race."
In his “clarification” almost 50 years later he connected use of the term “advance” to the name of the civil rights group NAACP and argued that this name alone proved that blacks themselves believed that at the time the organization was founded “colored people” required assistance in “advancing” and wrote:
Buckley wrote:"The call for the 'advancement' of colored people presupposes they are behind. Which they were, in 1958, by any standards of measurement."
This argument is classic Buckley and whether or not anyone buys it is a matter of opinion.
It is widely agreed (but not by all of course) that by the mid-1960s, Buckley had renounced his views that could be considered racist. It is said that this was due in large measure to his strong reaction to the violence used to suppress members of the Civil Rights movement and through the persuasion of his protégé and friend Gary Wills who was one of the rare conservatives who converts to liberalism. He opposed George Wallace during his run for the presidency and admitted that his magazine
The National Review was wrong in opposing the Civil Rights Act. He came to speak highly of Martin Luther King and was a vocal supporter of establishing MLK’s birthday as a national holiday. This latter action may not seem all that significant, but if people are going to be criticized for and defined by opposition to the establishment of the holiday (notably Ronald Reagan, and John McCain) then I figure supporting it should be a reliable indication as well.
I’m not a conservative who reveres Buckley as a god-like figure, and it’s certainly the case that he wasn’t at all on the right side of the Civil Rights Act at the time, but I also have to figure that if liberals are willing to acknowledge and appreciate Obama’s evolution of thought on same sex marriage, they should able to do the same for Buckley evolving on civil rights.
Part III to follow anon.
I don't accuse people of supporting President Obama (as if it were pathology) in response to an expression of an opinion. I at least try very hard to address the position expressed and should I think it is wrong or foolish, the first thing I think to write is not "And you must support Obama!" If someone expresses support for Obama, there's a good chance it will come up in my response, but I rarely go barking up that tree without a clear sight of the squirrel's tail. All I've done is to express my opinion, and I have nothing more to say.
