response 71 of 217:

Jan 25 20:36 UTC 2003

Sorry, rcurl.  That don't cut it.  The appearance of impropriety is 
there.  If the Dems had any guts, they'd get up and say that his ideas 
have no place in their party.  But, their need for votes is greater 
than their priciples.


Regarding succession to the presidency (just trying to keep you honest), 
I thought the following were the first 3 in line.  Note that #3 is not 
the senate Majority Leader, but the pres, pro tempore.  Until recently, 
that was Trent's friend Strom, based on # of years in the Senate.  I 
don't know who presently has that job.

The Sequence of Presidential Succession
          1.   Vice-President 
          2.   Speaker of the House 
          3.   President Pro Tempore of the Senate 

response 73 of 217:

Jan 25 23:52 UTC 2003

The Republicans eventually rejected Lott as Majority Leader, after a lot of
pressure was put on them.  Then, once the furor died down, they gave him a
powerful committee chairmanship.  It hardly sounds like a rejection.

As for other prominent Republicans, let's just say that when John Ashcroft
talks about the importance of "states' rights" concerning school
desegregation, he clearly doesn't have the same views on "states' rights" when
it comes to going after marijuana producers in California.

response 75 of 217:

Jan 26 20:55 UTC 2003

Not as long as the Democrats continue to treat him like a powerbroker.

response 77 of 217:

Jan 28 16:31 UTC 2003

Why Jews and blacks vote Democratic: Part I
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/dp20030121.shtml

Why Jews and blacks vote Democratic: Part II
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/dp20030128.shtml

response 79 of 217:

Jan 28 17:55 UTC 2003

Strange sense of humor you have.

As a member of one of the groups discussed, it made perfect sense to me.

response 81 of 217:

Jan 28 18:53 UTC 2003

I find a couple statements in his column to be pretty telling:  "As for Jews'
fears of American Christians, they are even less fact-based than blacks'
continuing anger at whites.  American Christians were never the anti-Semites
of Jewish memory.  Those were European Christians who persecuted Jews for all
those years, precisely the Christians that America's (Christian) founders fled
to establish this different society."  And, "regarding race, most white
Americans would probably like nothing more than to forget about race, as they
no longer deem either their own whiteness of blacks' blackness to be of
particular significance."

The first, that anti-Semitism never made it across the Atlantic is just plain
false.  The second statement, that most white Americans just want to forget
about race, is likely more true, but without the benefits he envisions.  With
much of the black population isolated in ghettos, with failing schools and
little economic opportunity, and much of the white population in relatively
affluent suburbs with no exposure to the poorer, blackers, parts of their
metropolitan areas, walking away now and declaring it to be time to forget
about race would amount to abandonment rather than help.

response 83 of 217:

Jan 28 19:22 UTC 2003

I think it's much more likely that ethnic groups tend to vote all one way is
because they are organized to do so.  So at present the Black and Jewish
leadership pushes the Democrats.  That might not be the best choice in every
single election, but overall the Democrats are presently a much better choice.

And if ethnic groups have learned one thing, it's that being imperfectly
organized is much better than not being organized at all.

response 85 of 217:

Jan 28 20:29 UTC 2003

Obviously if #83 confuses you then you haven't really experienced the problem.

response 87 of 217:

Jan 28 21:01 UTC 2003

Re #86: klg says "In order to keep it's black support, the Democratic
party must continue to claim racism.  Otherwise, it would cease to exist
in its current form.  They can't afford to claim victory." 

I say this is patently untrue. Racism exists whether one identifies it or
not, as seen by the inequalities that exist between groups, and the
many recorded instances of overt racism (many experiments have been
run comparing access to the same housing by economically identical black
and white couples, the effect of people having "black" names on loan
applications, etc, with the universal result that being identified as
black reduces opportunities). Claiming "victory" over racism would only
make the situation much worse for minorities - sweeping the problem
out of sight. Of course, a lot of people, especially of the "right wing"
do want to sweep the problem out of sight.

response 89 of 217:

Jan 29 02:58 UTC 2003

Re #87:  Inequalities between groups can result from many factors,
which can be exogenous or endogenous.  Racism is exogenous, culture
is at least partly endogenous.

response 91 of 217:

Jan 29 04:22 UTC 2003

Hmmm...I think current black voting patterns probably have more to do
with the civil liberty battles of the 60's and 70's than they do with
slavery. Free slaves originally voted very strongly for "Lincoln's
Party".  But the black civil liberties movement found by far it's
strongest support in the Democratic party.

Does black support for the Democratic Party still make sense in 2003? 
Well, obviously an awful lot of black voters think it does, and I'm
inclined think that they know where their interests lie better than I
do, or the author of the articles referenced above does.

What's funny about the articles is that they are basically saying "you
dumb blacks and Jews are just voting from habit.  If you had the brains
to come in from the rain, you'd vote for my party, because we're
obviously the ones who really respect you."  Boy, it's good to hear
really astute political speech like that.

Interesting that the article strongly identifies the Republican party as
the Christian party, indeed the party of all religions.  That's
nonsense. There are lots of liberal Christians.  I doubt if you can show
any strong statistics that say Christians are mostly conservative.  If
you could, then that last election shouldn't have been so close, because
Americans are mostly Christian.

response 93 of 217:

Jan 29 14:56 UTC 2003

Re #84: What about Henry Ford?  Definately an American, but he wrote fan
letters to Adolf Hitler and published an anti-Semitic newspaper.  He got a
fair amount of support from other Americans on that issue.

As for the "blacks don't vote Republican" issue, it's a bit of a vicious
cycle.  Blacks don't vote Republican because the Republicans make no effort
to reach out to them, and the Republicans make no effort because blacks
don't vote Republican.  I forget who said it, but I saw a Republican
politician quoted once as saying, "how much effort should we really go to
for people who won't vote for us anyway?"  This is starting to change
because they've figured out that eventually minorities, taken together, will
be a majority.  No one who wants to keep winning elections can keep ignoring
them completely with impunity.

Re #88: So you're saying, basically, "We'll never solve the problem
completely, so we should give up on trying to improve the situation"?

Re #91: Yeah, I agree...what bothers me most about articles like that is the
pandering nature of them.  I hear that from Rush Limbaugh a lot, too -- the
suggestion that blacks only vote for Democrats because they're too stupid to
know any better.