Dammit, I'm Sick to Death of This!

Again, the debate or claim that the Republican is the party of racists emerges. I guess that I can continue to expect that to happen.

On February 26, 2006 in our local dog trainer, Mr. Bill Minor had an opinion piece that was incredibly interesting to me in the fact that it was somewhat biased. Not that Mr. Minor was lying through his teeth, but obviously he kinda "forgot" the truth. His article was factual in its onset but the conclusions to which he arrived were false or dimwitted. Maybe the paper should try to get Mr. Minor to print the truth instead of rubber-stamping his obvious political bias. But I shall do their job for them, because I doubt that David Hampton, the Op-Ed editor, can police someone as powerful as Bill. One of my favorite pastimes is debunking Mr. Minor's articles and it requires very little time or effort. I guess that the Clarion-Ledger doesn't have that time, but if the paper continues its dive in distribution, they will realize that there are people that notice how far Left-Wing they have become.

Mr. Minor's diatribe starts with the facts about the documented racism of the Democrats. Just so you'll know, in 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer led a delegation known as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to the Democrat National Convention in Atlantic City. They were trying to force the Mississippi Democrat delegation to recognize the Black folks that the Democrats had always ignored and still do. And then quickly dissolves into innuendo as Mr. Minor states that this led to Whites fleeing the Democrat Party and hooking up with the Republicans and that is why the Republicans are now the racist party instead of the Democrats.

Remember, Mr. Minor is an opinion columnist. His is not a recounting of actual events, but just what he thinks and therefore wants everyone else to think. That First Amendment and all. I shall dissect his points here, which oddly enough is quite possibly the easiest thing that I have ever done. You see facts are easily discovered that completely PROVE that he is at best mistaken and at worst a big, fat, bald-faced liar. For perspective, keep in mind that Bill Minor has always been a Democrat and in my opinion a Socialist or even worse, stupid.

A brief background first for all of you that have been indoctrinated by the public school system. Way back in the early days in this country, slavery was legal. Not only were Blacks enslaved, but a good number of Whites were as well. The circumstances surrounding both races servitude were quite different however. Most of the White "slaves" were actually indentured servants that paid for passage to the greatest country on Earth by promising their services for a certain period of time. Blacks were sold by their families and captors into perpetual slavery with very little chance of gaining their freedom.

On with the show. Most people will recognize the name of Abraham Lincoln and also know that he was our sixteenth President. Most folks probably know that he was a Republican. What most folks fail to know is that he was not the person that freed all of the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation did not accomplish this feat. What the Emancipation Proclamation did was free the slaves only in the states that had seceded from the Union. Slavery was still legal in the border states and the states that stayed in the Union.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution freed ALL slaves with its ratification by thirty states on December 6, 1865. The amendment was subsequently ratified by a few other states after the fact with Mississippi finally ratifying the amendment on March 21, 1995. Yes, that IS 1995. Anyhoo, Andrew Johnson was President at the time of ratification and strangely enough, he was neither a Republican nor a Democrat. He was a member of a now defunct group known as the National Union Party. So technically neither of our two remaining (viable) parties can claim success for freeing the slaves. So both the Republicans and the Democrats can blow me if they want to claim that as one of their successes.

Now on to the race-baiting. One always hears that the Democrats splintered way back in 1948 into two factions. The Democrats nominated Harry Truman and the States Rights Party (Dixiecrats) nominated a little known guy named Strom Thurmond. The Dixiecrats carried four states and garnered less than three percent of the popular vote. The four states were Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. Every single person involved in the States Rights Party maintained their Democrat affiliation after the States Rights Party fell apart. Strom Thrumond went on to switch parties in 1964 to the Republicans, as did Jesse Helms and John Oliver Emmerich before that, but the remaining forty-eight stayed with the Democrats until death or are still Democrats.

A little side note: John Oliver Emmerich fought for Black students' enrollment to Ole Miss against the Democrat Party that was firmly entrenched at the time. And that was from 1958 until 1962 when James Meredith was enrolled.

As far as the 1964 Presidential election is concerned, there could be a myriad of different reasons that Mississippi voted overwhelmingly for Barry Goldwater and more than a few of them could be about race, but I tend to think that is not the case. You see, Mississippi is a relatively poor state and the Democrats and Lyndon Johnson were for redistribution of wealth. I find it really hard to believe that there were enough racists in this state to actually jump from the only party that had ever shielded racists to one that had never stooped to that depth. But, in the same vein, Mississippi's delegates voted for Harry F. Byrd, a known segregationist, for President in 1960. And he was a Democrat. And in 1968, George Wallace was our choice for President and he was a Democrat and a racist.

The whole country voted for Nixon (R) in 1972 except for Massachusetts (remember George McGovern (D) was a Socialist and he sucked, coupled with the fact that the frontrunner for the Democrat nomination was George Wallace, an avowed segregationist, and he got shot in May) and in 1976, Mississippi went for Carter (D). Of course, after Carter and his idiotic policies and statements about "malaise in this country", Republicans have always carried this state and I doubt that it has to do with race. Hooray for Mississippi and our above average intelligence!

Okay, Mr. Minor's opinion piece is now officially shot to Hell. And to add fuel to the fire, the only known KKK member that is still holding elective office is Robert Byrd (D) from West Virginia. What is perplexing about Byrd is that even though he was a Klansman and still uses the word "nigger", he receives a 100% rating from the NAACP. Bizarre.

Most "Progressives", like Mr. Minor, believe that this country has an obligation to make sure that everyone is equal in everything. What people like me believe is that everyone should have equal opportunity. Equal opportunity has not always been available to people of color, but in this day and age it is. For someone with the position of Mr. Minor to make assertions of racism in the political climate of today and not mention the FACT that the Democrat Party takes advantage of the overwhelming voting bloc of the Black race is dishonest. I firmly believe that for someone to see racism in everything shields them from the success that could be theirs if only for the removal of those rose tinted glasses.

If Mr. Minor can screw these facts around to state that Mississippi and the Republicans are the racist party today, I wonder if I can get him to invest in some property that I have. Candy from a baby, you know.