Monday, January 7, 2008

A Final Word On Liberal Racism

For the last few days I have been talking about Liberal Racism. As I have discussed over these last few days, Liberal Racism differs from “normal” racism in the fact that this type of racism stems from good intentions, just misguided ones. Most of the liberals who support such things as Affirmative Action and Hate Crime Legislation actually do think that they are doing the right thing. These people DO want to work towards eliminating racism and eliminating the economic disparities between the races. So why can’t they see that their actions are causing more harm than good?

Honestly, I wish I could answer that question. I can speculate – and I will – but I’ll be the first to tell you that all I am doing is expressing an opinion. This is really a mystery to me. At the same time you may ask why I would bother devoting the majority of a weeks worth of posts to the subject of racism. After all, I’m a middle-class white guy, and a conservative one at that, so how much do I really care about minorities. See, that’s part of it right there. I DO care about minorities and the under class in this country, yet because I am a conservative there is this myth out there that we are the enemy of the downtrodden and underprivileged, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Did you know that Republicans supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act overwhelmingly, and by much higher percentages in both House and Senate than the Democrats. Indeed, the 1964 Civil Rights Act became law only after overcoming a Democrat filibuster. Did you know that Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation in public schools, was written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the three-term Republican governor of California appointed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, and it was President Eisenhower who sent elements of the 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas to protect the black students and enforce the Federal court order into Little Rock to make sure that desegregation took hold. Eisenhower’s actions were necessary because Orval Faubus, the DEMOCRATIC Governor of Arkansas used the National Guard to STOP African-Americans from attending Little Rock Central High School.

It was Abraham Lincoln, the nations first Republican President, who ended slavery. Did you know that the two African-American women who were co-founders of the NAACP, Ida Wells and Mary Terrell, were both Republicans. The Environmental Protection Agency was signed into law by Richard Nixon. George Bush I signed into law the Americans with Disability Act. The only former KKK member in the senate is a Democrat.

So is what I am saying that Republicans have always been at the forefront of civil rights while Democrats have always opposed them? Of course not. Both parties have had both moments of shame and moments of glory. Yet somehow the left carries the banner of the party of civil rights. And you know what, that’s fine with me, as long as they do the right thing with that banner, and currently they are not. So far I have posted several commentaries addressing liberal failures with regards to racism, and despite the fact that I have several liberal readers, I have not had one comment that has shown any of my points to be incorrect.

Look, the presidency of George Bush has, for the most part, been a failure. I as a proud conservative can make that observation, and not have my conservatism shaken. Why is it that liberals are so afraid to acknowledge the failures on their end. Standing up and saying “you know what, Affirmative Action IS a bad idea, and we should be using the efforts that we have thrown behind that bad idea and instead direct them towards addressing the poor education system that caused the need for affirmative action in the first place” does not make you a bad liberal. It makes you a smart liberal.

And quit supporting and forgiving those on your side who say one thing and do another. The other day I talked about how Michael Moore claimed he was only going to hire minorities, and yet on his last several projects he has hired only three African Americans out of 134 senior staff positions.

Consider another left-wing icon: Al Franken. Franken once blasted fundamentalist Christian college Bob Jones University as a racist, bigoted and “nutty” school. Lets look at Franken's glowing record of commitment to diversity. At Air America Franken’s two producers and four researchers were white. When Franken wrote Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them he selected 14 Harvard undergrads from a pool of over 700 applications – all white. Likewise all of the researchers on his previous books were white, as were all the senior people on his feature film Stuart Saves His Family, his 2004 documentary Fox vs. Franken, and the entire crew of his Sundance Channel show, The Al Franken Show.

He produced three primetime specials for Saturday Night Live, on which all of his senior people were white. On his film When a Man Loves a Women, all of the producers, the director and all other senior administrative staff were white, as they were for his 1986 picture, One More Saturday Night. His short-lived series Lateline (which he starred in and created) included 25 senior slots – all but one of which were held by whites. During his days at Saturday Night Live Franken hired dozens of writers, none of them black.

Of 112 people we are talking about here, 111 were white. What this means of course is that Al Franken’s staff is actually whiter than Bob Jones University (which manages a one percent black enrollment), a school that Franken labels “Racist”.

And consider this gem: Here’s what Franken told the Harvard Crimson when he was working for Saturday Night Live: “I just don’t like homosexuals. If you ask me, they’re all homosexual s in the Pudding (Harvard’s Hasting Pudding Club, the humorous dramatic society). Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia.” It was in reference to the death of a Harvard Grad in that city.

And yet Franken continues to be accepted by the left, as a matter of fact he is currently campaigning for the Senate seat in the state of Minnesota. Oh well, if he wins at least Robert Byrd will have somebody to sit with in the Senate cafeteria.

And as long as liberals ignore the idiocy in their own party, they will continue to be a also-ran player in really effecting change. We hear the current crop of Democratic candidates shouting how it is time for change, and I couldn’t agree more. How about changing into a party that isn’t afraid to say when the emperor has no clothes, and quit pandering to special interest groups. The stage is yours: Show me that Change is more than a bumper sticker slogan. I want to believe in you, but words will only go so far.

3 comments:

Jody said...

I hear ya... Remember last presidential campaign when Al Sharpton (who was on the Dem ticket) lost so big in the Iowa caucus (no surprise) and said Iowa was full of racists who couldn't look past skin color? I'm pretty sure our demographic didn't change in 4 years. It's the person, not the skin.

Anonymous said...

"How about changing into a party that isn’t afraid to say when the emperor has no clothes, and quit pandering to special interest groups." WE DID! And our leader is Barack Obama. Nice post Bob but none of it resonates true with what is in my heart or the liberals I know. Are Michael Moore and Al Franken representative of grass roots liberals? Only if George Bush epitomizes what I should think of you.

Iowa Bob said...

Chris, I certainly hope your right, but so far all we have from Obama (and everybody else) is talk about change. I do honestly believe that he probably has the best chance of actually acomplishing change, and only time will tell.

So does George Bush epitomize what you should think of me? Probably not, but despite all of his shortcomings I'll take being compared to Dubya any day over being linked to Franken or Moore.

Now go kick ass in N.H. and lets see if we can ride Miss Inevibility out of town on a rail.