Talk Elections

Article. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/jon-hubbard-arkansas-slavery-book_n_1943661.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009)

Ah, Republicans.

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/10/05/republican-extremists-in-their-own-words#.UG8Wr-XNpyk.twitter (http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/10/05/republican-extremists-in-their-own-words#.UG8Wr-XNpyk.twitter)

Extremism is no vice among Arkansas Republicans. And, no, I'm not talking about neo-Confederate Republican Rep. Loy Mauch, who once tried to have Abraham Lincoln's bust removed from the Hot Springs Convention Center.

There's also Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro, famously unhinged, who's put some of his choicest thoughts on paper in a book available on Amazon, “Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative.”

...

“… the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.” (Pages 183-89)

District is in the east of the state. Is he being seriously challenged this year?

The Dem incumbent was unopposed in 2008, lost 58-42 in an upset in 2010. Someone looking serious is running against him.

I had no idea Phyllis Wheatley was from Arkansas.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america/

I'm hoping this guy is like those random NH legislators who get swept in on waves even when they're not ready for prime time. Does anyone know if he's likely to get entrenched in this district?

Jonesboro's congressional district is R+8. And Craighead County voted for McCain, 61-36.

Good God, what is it with these AR Republicans and their books?

Another legislative candidate called for all Muslims to be expelled from America and endorsed the death penalty for rebellious children  (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/08/charlie-fuqua-arkansas-candidate-death-penalty-rebellious-children_n_1948490.html)in his book.

Pingvin's an elected official? I never knew?

That man's name is all too appropriate if you pronounce it the right way.

And now a third Arkansas Republican chimes in:

anyone else having flashbacks to that interracial marriage survey that got posted here not too long ago?

No the South isn't more racist than the North... How could you come to that conclusion?

To be quite fair, I don't think any of these random NH legislators we elected are as batsh**t insane as this guy. Even these random no-names who come from districts with 2000 voters have either been all sane or smart enough to keep their mouths shut.


The South and racism is an interesting, complicated topic. Then again, [any region/area] and racism can be an interesting, complicated topic. I for one have only had very positive experiences with the American South (and experiences not necessarily as positive in other places). But then again, I'm not black.

The worst-case scenario would have been the guy who advocated shooting cops a few years ago.

Didn't New Hampshire have some GOP legislators who advocated that every new piece of legislation should cite the Magna Charta or something along those lines a while back?


Deep thinker this one.

From that guy's Wikipedia article:


What the...

I suppose it has a cross on it?

I mean, of sorts, but using that logic it'd be more a symbol of St Andrew than anybody else...

See, that's just wacky and strange. Not something horribly offensive that really makes me do a double-take.

Actually, I'm forgetting something. There was a Democrat who celebrated the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and claimed it as something good to do to more cities. But he was a Democrat, so I assumed everyone ignored it happened.

Another fun NH legislator: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/03/nh-state-legislator-resigns-after-remark-about-mental-illness-/1#.UHRx1BVJN64

Snowstalker isn't an elected public official.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/27/nick-levasseur-apology-an_n_516058.html

Ah. Good ol' New Hampshire.

I think this is being taken out of contest.  He wasn't saying that slavery was a good thing, he was saying that the former slaves would be blessed by being granted citizenship after slavery was ended, and that that was a great thing after all the adversity they faced.  Never mind that it was Republicans who fought to end slavery and grant citizenship and suffrage to former slaves, or that it was Democrats who fought against all of those measures.

Never mind that Lincoln was a Republican, or that it was Republicans who fought to end slavery and grant citizenship to blacks,or that it was Democrats who supported the Confederacy and Republicans the Union during the Civil War.

Never mind indeed. These people are Republicans today. They wouldn't have been a hundred years ago, of course, but that was a hundred years ago.

You are dangerously close to being on my ignore list. Do you have any legitimate points or can you not comprehend any events that have transpired in the last 140 years? Are you from some kind of time void that opened up and spit you into the present? Are you the reincarnation of Thaddeus Stevens?

I can.  The liberal agenda of cradle-to-grave welfare for racial minorities is the antithesis of civil rights.  The best way to advance civil rights is to increase economic opportunity for racial minorities by helping make them independent.  Welfare in its current state (or, as Clinton would say, "welfare as we know it",) is the slavery of the 21st Century.  We need to reform our social programs so that they make people independent rather than dependent.

I didn't know Bob Byrd was a Republican when he died.

A few of the racists and segregationist, like Strom Thurmond and David Duke, may have become Republicans, but the vast majority of them stayed Democrats for life.  Last time Bob Byrd and Fritz Hollings were in the Senate, they were still Democrats.  George Wallace, Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, George Mahoney, Herman Talmadge, Orval Faubus, William Fulbright, Sam Ervin, Al Gore Sr., and the rest all stayed with the Democratic Party for the rest of their lives.  And most openly white supremacist Republicans, like David Duke, are never accepted by the Party today.

Almost all of those people are also dead. Just as an FYI.

Oh Gawd.  Every single time with these right wing shills.  Seriously you have to go all the way back to the 1800s to find a Republican platform that is semicivilized?


Mmmm... George Wallace is dead.  Furthermore how are you so well versed about what was going on in Lincoln's day but have no clue about the 70s?  Just to get you up to speed...


How on earth do you not know this?  What are they teaching in schools these days?  Or are you a victim of home schooling?

Tens of thousands of African immigrants who did not have their family units destroyed and their cultural identity flushed down the toilet humbly disagree.  If you see the descendents of slaves celebrating Kwanza and think they are better off than African immigrants who have their language, culture, and identity intact you are even more delusional than we thought.

() (http://www.chron.com/news/article/Data-show-Nigerians-the-most-educated-in-the-U-S-1600808.php)

That's awful.  Thank God the descendents of slaves don't have to have a burden like that!

By Oldiesfreak1854 logic since a lot of Jews were allowed to immigrate to the US in the 30s and 40s we should all send a big thank you card to Hitler.

Disgusting.

Please name a former segregationist who is both still 1-alive and 2-of any influence whatsoever in the modern day Democratic Party.

You do realize that a huge portion of Democrats were in favor of civil rights by the time the Civil Rights Act was passed and that only a small portion of Dixiecrats were opposed, right?

lol

I did know that, but he stayed a Democrat even after that.  Those guys may be dead and gone, but doesn't it still matter that they were Democrats (and never became Republicans)?  I bet you wouldn't be excusing unsavory figures in the GOP by saying "those people are dead."

Yes.  But in terms of percentages, more Republicans supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act than Democrats.

No; I support keeping their cultural identity, but I'm saying that they have become dependent on welfare and that is keeping them down.  And a lot of other Jews weren't allowed into the US during the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.

No, it doesn't matter that someone decades ago was a Democrat and that his ideology has been completely rejected by the party.

Let's talk about Nixon, and how the GOP is the party of lying thieving scumbags. Doesn't it matter that Nixon was a Republican?

And most of the people in the Senate at the time are now dead and their ideologies gone. Where's your point?

Regardless of party, statements and sentiments like these are moronic to the point of being evil.

Jimmy Carter

Actually yes I would. I would consider it absurd to argue that someone should not vote Republican because it was the party of Joe McCarthy. Even Jesse Helms would be irrelevant today. I can think of hordes of living and still relevant people in the GOP that are the reason I would advise someone to never vote Republican and why I never would, just as you can no doubt name many modern Democrats you strongly dislike and would never vote for. And that's the only thing that should matter in modern day context. What you are talking about is about as logical as trying to organize boycotts of Germany because of WWII and the Holocaust. Modern day Germany bears as much resemblance to Nazi Germany as the modern day Democratic Party does to the party in the 19th century or the guys you are raving about.


The guy who declared in his inaugural speech when elected Governor that the era of segregation was over and he would do everything to prevent racial discrimination and appointed many blacks to offices? He might've been a State Senator for a couple years before the Civil Rights Act but he obviously wasn't someone out arguing and fighting for segregation like the guys Oldiesfreak keeps bringing up.

For the record the "Confederate Jesus" guy looks like his district might've voted for Gore, so he's likely done. The state party's already disowned him and announced he's not getting any money (along with the other two clowns who made the news lately, though I'm not as familiar with their districts.)

And how do you propose the descendents of slaves do that?  America already obliterated their families, eliminated their language, and destroyed all of their African traditions.  Do you think that may be why SOME of them are on welfare and African immigrants who didn't have all the glorious benefits of slavery and Jim Crow are at the top of the academic league tables?

Also, Al Gore Sr. was never a segregationist. He was one of only four senators from the South that refused to sign the Southern Manifesto.

No.  They should be allowed to keep as much or as little of their African and/or American black culture as they want.  And as for, "those guys are dead and gone now," would you give the same lenience to a now-dead Republican who did something like that (or anything else that doesn't reflect well on a person?)  I doubt it.

There have been plenty of lying thieving scumbags in the Democratic Party as well.  No party has a monopoly on that.  This exactly illustrates my point.  Nixon is dead.  But you are so quick to portray Republicans as liars, thieves, and scumbags because he was a Republican.  And aside from Watergate, Nixon was actually a pretty good president.

Hey may not have signed the Southern Manifesto but he also filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
I don't oppose the Democratic Party simply because they were the party of slavery and segregation, but it's certainly one reason I do.

I've never seen anyone cite Joe McCarthy as a reason to not support the modern GOP.

That's the point.  He realized he was wrong, changed his ways, apologized, and remained in the Democratic party... the other people simply left and joined the Republicans.

Will you please knock it off???  The only major segregatiomist who became a Republican was Strom Thurmond.  Fritz Hollings was serving in the Senate as a Democrat as recently as 2004.  Bob Byrd was serving in the Senate as a Democrat as recently as 2010.  In 1993, Hollings made a comment about black potentates from Africa at the Law of the Sea conferences getting a square meal in Geneva "you know, instead of eating each other."  He also has referred to Mexicans as "wetbacks" and a Jewish lawmaker as "the Senate from B'nai B'rith."  In a 2001 interview on Fox News, Byrd repeatedly used the term 'white nig**r."  The last time I checked, neither of them ever became a Republican.  And don t forget guys like Lester Maddox. George Mahoney, Ross Barnett, William Fulbright (Bill Clinton's political mentor), Sam Ervin, Herman Talmadge, Orval Faubus, and all the rest who stayed with the Democratic party their whole lives.

Byrd rejected his past positions and was both fairly liberal (for WV Democrats) and a strong Obama supporter.

Yes. And there have been plenty of segregationists in the Republican Party as well (see Mr. Thurmond). No party has a monopoly on them. You're illustrating my point by bringing up dead people and painting Democrats as (what? pro-slavery or something?) them.

If someone wanted to argue the Republican party is corrupt and scheming because of Nixon, I'd consider that absurd. There's hordes of modern examples though. Now can you name any active segregationists in the Democratic Party?

Yeah, but he repeatedly used the N-word in an interview with Fox News in 2001.
Actually, the vast majority of them were Democrats and stayed Democrats.  Even Thurmond was a Democrat before he became a Republican.  A few segregationists were Republicans, but they were still overwhelmingly Democrat.  I realize that both parties have had their civil rights failings and their civil rights triumphs, but Republicans were much stronger on civil rights for most of our history, and that is one reason (though not the only one) that I identify myself as a Republican.

Yes.  It is obvious to me no matter how many times we state this FACT he will just ignore it.  Further discussion is obviously pointless.

I personally feel he's the biggest partisan on the forum. Still thinks it's 1956 ffs.

It's not a fact.  In 2001, Byrd repeatedly used the term "white nig**r" in an interview on Fox News.  Here is an article from when it happened:

http://capitalismmagazine.com/2001/03/democratic-sen-robert-byrd-ex-klansman/

I'm not saying that Democrats still support slavery or segregation, but they did in the past.  And before you say that that was in the past: would you give the same grace to Republicans for some of the nativists in the party back in the late 19th century?

Yes.

I would.  The fact of the matter is, neither party really has a clean record in regards to race.  Even Abraham Lincoln's original views on race were pretty unorthodox in comparison to those of most people today, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery#Views_on_African_Americans) yet he is widely admired today and those things are frequently overlooked because of the good things that he did.  There were plenty of racist Democrats, yes, but the view of a social hierarchy that divides the races was a very common one in spite of partisan differences.

Oldiesfreak, do you believe the modern day German state and government is responsible for the actions of Germany in the past? Would you agree with someone boycotting Germany because of WWII?

No, but it certainly doesn't reflect well on them, just as the Democratic Party's long history of racism doesn't reflect well on them, either.  Does it not matter to you that Germany under the Nazis committed atrocities against Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other "inferior" or "unwanted" groups during the Holocaust?  If it does, then why doesn't it matter to you that Democrats committed atrocities against blacks through the Ku Klux Klan, supporting slavery, Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, etc.?

And even if Lincoln did have some racist views (which I still doubt), he still recognized blacks as people.

Does it matter, yes. Does it matter when judging modern Germany, no.

Exactly. And I seriously don't know where this guy is going from in saying that people hold the same standard toward Republicans, I have never heard anyone say the main reason they are a Democrat is the 19th century Republican nativists, or because of Joe McCarthy or Richard Nixon. With the hordes of reasons there are to vote against the modern day GOP I'd find anyone citing THOSE as reasons to be rather comical.

Stop being a pedantic partisan hack.

Only if you guys will do the same.

That's disgusting.  Get a passport and a clue.  If you bothered to travel and actually sit down with any modern Germans you would realize how offensive your comment is.  I have multiple friends that are German and Austrian and I even dated a couple of Austrian girls.  If you think concentration camps in any way "reflect" upon a 22 year old Austrian college student then you have issues that we simply can't solve in a single thread.

Heck, there are older Germans that still have their 1930's Zentrum or SPD membership cards. An event shouldn't reflect badly on those who weren't involved.

That same legislator compared Beebe to Hitler yesterday. (http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.aspx?aID=133261.54928.145403)

What I meant is that it doesn't reflect well on them, even if the younger generations aren't responsible for it.

Oldies, all white americans have a long history of racism - we live in a racist country built on genocide.  Every aspect of our culture, our identity, and all of our material possessions, land, and 'achievements' are blood-soaked and utterly spoiled.

Who is almost 91! :o

Stop with the flaming.  I'm white and I'm not racist, and I don't think most white Americans are racist now.  If America is a racist country, then why did we fight a civil war to end the oppressive treatment of a race (even if it was traded for another form of oppression)?  Republicans, both black and white, consistently fought to advance civil rights, and Democrats consistently fought against it.  And where is this genocide that America is supposedly built on?  Your statement is one of the most vile ant-American diatribes that I have ever seen.

Oldiesfreak, I'm going to give you a challenge. Go an entire week without associating Democrats with racism/the Confederacy. I honestly don't think you can do it. Please prove me wrong.

Also, isn't it Saturday or something and you can't post?

Sjoyce and opebo are right, though opebo goes a bit way too far, as usual.

I can't post until after sunset on Saturday.

The flag he's likely referring to, ironically, was never the Confederate flag - it was the Confederacy's Second Naval Jack flag which, nowadays, virtually everyone thinks was the Confederate flag.

This was the ACTUAL Confederate flag: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:CSA_Flag_2.7.1861-28.11.1861.svg&page=1

a) The motives of the civil war are significantly more complex than you suggest, and you know that.

b) It always mystifies me how readily Americans forget how they came to take over the land from the Indigenous tribes. Everyone just completely ignores it, on both sides.

That's ironic coming from a (white) Austrailian.

Who fully understands what happened in Australia.

People on both sides in Australia might approach the Indigenous situation differently, but everyone, from the least educated bogan to the History of Indigenous Economics professor, has an opinion. The opinions may be crude or unrealistically positive, but they exist, and indigenous Australia is nowhere near as completely ignored as in the US.

Yes, it's well understood to be the country's original sin, even if not always put in quite such negative terms.

Yeah, one would have to look high and low to find a meaningful population of Americans who don't believe Natives were royally cheated and mistreated by European and (later) American settlers. This isn't 1956 anymore. Even the occassional choad who might argue how slavery was ultimately "good" for Africans likely wouldn't stretch that analogy to Native Americans.

The thing is, for us, these were both part of our original sin.

Absolutely correct. Though would you agree that even while a substantial minority minimize the effects of slavery not many do so for the wholescale ethnic cleansing of Native Americans?

I think that has to do with the more politically-charged role of black-white relations in society compared to Anglo-Native relations. The debates (and occassional scapegoating) over affirmative action, welfare/government assistance, a black president, urban white flight, discrimination, poverty, etc. make it difficult for some to separate a rational historical analysis and discussion from these modern issues. Hence, we periodically find nimrods like this fellow from AR and his ilk who take minimizing the horrors of slavery as somehow being part and parcel with being politically "conservative" in 2012.

Conversely, in most parts of America there aren't substantial cohesive Native American communities that raise the same sort of hot button issues black and white relations do. Don't get me wrong--I'm fully aware that the same issues I previously mentioned infect Anglo-Native relations and politics in areas with large Native minority populations, like the Dakotas and parts of the SW. But those areas are far less populous in general--of both Anglos and Natives--than areas with substantial black minorities (i.e. most urban areas), just as Native Americans are comparitively only a sliver of the African-American population. Thus these hot-button issues tend not to pervade Anglo-Native relations at a nationwide level, but rather only a local or, at most, regional level.

Thus it's easier for whites nationwide to acknowledge the historical wholesale exploitation of Natives than it is to acknowledge the horrors of slavery, because relatively few whites are threatened by the perceived political and social encroachment of Natives the way some whites are threatened by black poltical and economic competition. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if there's notable minimization of the past wrongs perpetrated against Native Americans among whites in regions with substantial Native minorities. Maybe someone from such regions can shed more light here.

Whether or not it is acknowledged that it happened 300 years ago really isn't the point.

My point is that everyone ignores the current situation of native Americans. Sure, it's not a huge segment of the population, but it is a particularly important one morally.

All of the three assholes mentioned in this thread lost their election (http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Arkansas_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012). So some good news from Arkansas for Democrats (and sane people).

Given the mauling the Arkansas Dems took at all levels I was half expecting to see you reporting the opposite...

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.” - Lincoln at the fourth debate with Stephen Douglas, 1858

i'm not even going to begin to address how stupid it is to associate the modern day democrat party with its history prior to the 1960s.

The thing about natives in the US is that they had already been decimated by smallpox by the time settlements were created. It was easy to see a virgin continent becuase even in the 17th century the colonies did not have a very large native population.

Right. American civilization is built on postapocalyptic ruins, which status can be traced back to European contact, but a lot of it was unintentional (if welcome from the European perspective). This doesn't, of course, excuse the immense moral crimes that the settlement process did entail, any more than shooting somebody magically becomes less bad if they're dying of a heart attack that you somehow caused.

I actually had a discussion once with a Republican who had similar beliefs.  Basically, what he believed was that blacks shouldn't complain about slavery because their better off in America than in Africa and he used the fact that Africans migrate to America all the time in search of a better life. 
My counterargument was that the slaves didn't come to America because they wanted to, which he accepted.

Did you not see the 1964 map? Did you not see which specific states voted for the Republican in the race, and which voted for the Democrat? Think about it, why would the very deep South be the only states to vote for Goldwater?

Are you serious?  The murder of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans do not qualify as genocide to you?

Oh yes they would.

Considering that most of the so-called "Hispanics" are Native Americans or mestizos (part Native-Americans), I would say that they're a much bigger part of the population most are willing to admit they are.