Posted on 03/03/2012 11:13:29 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In a nutshell
In this book I systematically demonstrate the inescapable racism inherent in American conservatism. The argument unfolds in layers.
First, I show that ideological conservatism is everywhere and always the conscious and reflective defense of established institutions and ways of life.
In the United States this has meant a defense of racism and white supremacy. The first conscious conservative movement in America emerged in the South partly as a reaction to the movement to abolish slavery, and the modern conservative movement in America is rooted partly in opposition to the Civil Rights Movement.
Second, the substantive ideals of American conservatism—limited government, states’ rights, individualism, property rights, and the prioritizing of liberty over equality—when applied consistently inevitably result in racism.
Third, I show that the ascendancy of the conservative movement to national power with the election of Ronald Reagan was partly based on the Republican Party’s “Southern Strategy” of exploiting racist and white supremacist sentiments in the electorate beginning with the election of 1964.
I am acutely aware that the argument will strike many Americans—and not just conservatives—as outrageous. Therefore, I approached the analysis and writing with unusual care. I spend the entire first chapter defining the terms of the discourse—conservatism, racism and white supremacy. The remaining chapters are thoroughly referenced and documented. By design, the book combines philosophy, history and political science....
(Excerpt) Read more at rorotoko.com ...
The Dems are the party of racism, and always have been since the Civil War.
What a steaming pile of unmitigated cr@p. Yes, it will be the theme this election cycle. Already is.
Could gut the book. Just those few paragraphs have more racism, bias, and logical fallacies than the average NYT rag. And that’s saying a lot.
But why bother?
Both are entirely false.
The Republican Party started as the party who's primary purpose was to conserve the principles set down in the Declaration of Independence.
As Lincoln said in 1861:
I can say in return, Sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
The aim of the current conservative movement are exactly the same.
The Republican Party started as the party who’s primary purpose was to conserve the principles set down in the Declaration of Independence.
...and the founders of the Texas Republican Party were all Black Texans, but... I’m sure they were “racists” anyway...
ymmv
I did not write the following statement. It was posted on FR a few years’ back, I found it interesting, so I added it to my archives. Take it for what you will:
“Ultimately a Conservative must either be a racial nationalist or cease being a conservative.
The only logical reason for conservatism is to preserve a genetic entity, a race, or a nation, intact - all other reasons given are mere circumlocutions.”
The south went solid Democrat
Welfare was the most racist thing that was ever created
1. Why should I care what a San Francisco State U prof says? It’s not like he has a national audience. http://bss.sfsu.edu/rsmith/
2. As I recall my history, the Dems wanted us to launch a war to make Cuba and most of Central America in to American states — all slave states. There was actually an independent invasion force raised in the 1850’s that tried to do just that.
Given the history of the Dems until circa 1975 — including the racism of both Southern voters as well as union members — it would be easy to conclude that the Dems had their issues with racism. Given that Planned Parenthood was, in large part, founded with a belief that too many poor black people were having babies, it might be understandable if I think that such views are still in the Dem party.
3. I’ve been called a racist for years. I’m supposed to cowl in terror when I’m called a racist (or sexist, or some other -ist). Sorry, it long ago lost its effectiveness.
There! That is the baldest statement of White Supremacy that you are ever likely to find in your life!!!!
The key to turning America back to her principles, is in not only rejecting the fallacious arguments of the Left, but in taking them up analytically to demonstrate how those arguments lead to policies--such as the Obama call for "change," which are harmful to everyone but the demagogues & scoundrels, who employ them, in order to undermine existing societies & intimidate Conservatives into silence.
William Flax
They were the party of slavery before the Civil War. Now the only problem they have with slavery is that the slaves were privately owned.
to save you from going there...Smith is black...
Since when is conservatism “reflective”? I prefer mine in a matte finish.
In close, careful study of the biographical and historical records, I found no evidence that Reagan was a racist or white supremacist. It was Reagan’s principled, ideological conservatism that led him to oppose every civil rights bill enacted in the 1960s.Reagan’s opposition to the Civil rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was based on the conservative principles of limited government and states’ rights. In California he opposed the state’s Fair Housing Act on the conservative principles of individualism and property rights, declaiming that the right of an individual to dispose of his property as he wished was “a basic human right.”
Reagan prioritized these conservative ideological principles over the human rights of African Americans to be served at a Georgia BBQ joint, to vote for president in Alabama or to purchase a house in California. In doing so, he clearly made conservatism and racism the same.
This might actually be an interesting book -- wrong in its conclusions, but interesting. He at least has the intellectual honesty to admit that the man who is the central figure of the book and in his opinion the most important conservative figure in the post WWII era isn't a racist, and that conservatism can be rooted in principle and not racism. To me this is a guy who is dangerously close to having an epiphany. I'll bet there are more like him than we know. As such I think it could be useful to get inside his head.
The right of people to make personal decisions as to with whom they will do business is the human right; the right to force some one to serve you, is a privilege created by government that disparages the human right to determine with whom you will do business. In characterizing the basic right to determine with whom you will do business as simply "conservative ideological principles," the writer begs the basic question.
I am not suggesting that the writer is not trying to be fair; only that his perspective is somewhat distorted by what has been passing for education in America since the 1950s--as suggested by my prior post on this thread.
We have been conditioned, in large measure, to fear any sense of community identification that challenges the notion of human interchangeability (that appeals so strongly to the advocates of both World Government & the leveling of society.) See, for another example, A Conditioned Reflex.
William Flax
That is completely correct. That is EXACTLY what conservatism is. Those established institutions and ways of life are established because they've withstood the test of time. They are not will-o'-the-wisp fads or ill-thought-out pipe dreams but the tried and tested conclusions of countless generations. And where they have failed, they are legitimately rejected or amended. But conservatives do not believe in change for change's sake, nor do they reflexively discard the baby with the bath water.
It’s the theme every year. Nothing we haven’t seen a thousand times before.
“Ultimately a Conservative must either be a racial nationalist or cease being a conservative. The only logical reason for conservatism is to preserve a genetic entity, a race, or a nation, intact - all other reasons given are mere circumlocutions.”I think the center of the debate is the definition of “conservative.” In Why I Am Not a Conservative F.A. Hayek discusses conservatism at length and in detail.
I have my own Newspeak-English dictionary:
- objective :
- reliably promoting the interests of Big Journalism. (usage: always applied to journalists who are members in good standing; never applied to anyone but a journalist)
- liberal :
- see "objective," except that the usage is reversed: (usage: never applied to any working journalist)
- progressive :
- see "liberal" (usage: same as for "liberal").
- moderate:
- see "liberal." (usage: same as for "liberal").
- centrist :
- see "liberal" (usage: same as for "liberal").
- conservative :
- rejecting the idea that journalism is a higher calling than providing food, shelter, clothing, fuel, and security; adhering to the dictum of Theodore Roosevelt that: "It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena (usage: applies to people who - unlike those labeled liberal/progressive/moderate/centrist, cannot become "objective" by getting a job as a journalist, and probably cannot even get a job as a journalist.)(antonym:"objective")
- right-wing :
- see, "conservative."
As such I think it could be useful to get inside his head.
Conservatives, on the other hand point, assume that most (white) people will NOT discriminate if such laws were not in place — and, in particular, most businesses will not discriminate because they want and need customers. After all, it was Southern Jim Crow laws that kept State sponsored discrimination in place for years after many Southerners no longer believed in it.
Conservatives also believe that use of government force will have unintended negative consequences (e.g., forced bussing meant to mitigate racial disparities in schools led to white flight to the suburbs, which resulted in all black inner city schools; fair housing laws led to CRA laws led to the mortgage meltdown led to the bank meltdown led to the FED inflating the money supply; etc.) None of these things appear to be mentioned in the book.
The guy and his book reminds me of the interview some time ago of someone running a summer camp, who proudly mentioned that he taught all of the attendees how to shoot a rifle. The female interviewer became incensed, and told him that he was equipping the attendees to become snipers. He responded that she was equipped to be a prostitute.
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