[FreedomCalls]

By way of comparison, here is the Democrat Party platform from 1948 and here is the Republican Party platform from 1948.

[Karsus]

Damn, what happend to the GOP?

the budget balanced;
Administration of government must be economical and effective.

Government, as the servant of such a system, should take all needed steps to strengthen and develop public health, to promote scientific research, to provide security for the aged, and to promote a stable economy so that men and women need not fear the loss of their jobs or the threat of economic hardships through no fault of their own.

reduction of the public debt.

Small business, the bulwark of American enterprise, must be encouraged through aggressive anti-monopoly action, elimination of unnecessary controls, protection against discrimination, correction of tax abuses, and limitation of competition by governmental organizations.

[x]

Thanks for the link. I was looking for the other platforms just the other day. AmericanPresidency.org looks like a great site. I have bookmarked the archive of political platforms. Unfortunately the third party programs stop at 1924. It might be interesting to see just what more recent third party candidates have run on. There was a large reference set of volumes released by Arthur Schlesinger a few years ago, but library hours are restricted and the Internet is always open and searchable.

The thing about ideas is you can take them as units, as stackable black boxes; or else you can open them up and try to find out what's inside. Lott doesn't seem to be a very inquisitive fellow. He has these boxes like "Southern way of life" or "Limited Government," that he cares about deeply, but he's incurious about what may be "inside."

I'd say Lott was more of a spirited temperament -- or a manipulative cast of mind, than a reflective or analytical one, but I suspect we're all like that about some things. We can break down other people's basic ideas into what we take to be their components, but our own basic ideas are foundation or the indissoluble atoms of our mental world.

[amendment_x]

No, the rights of "states" were ultimately viewed as an extension of the rights of the citizens of that particular state. Therefore the term "states' rights" is not a misnomer. The idea was that the citizens imbued their state with far more power than the federal government, an idea which lost sway with the South's defeat, massive immigration, and the rise of the socialist juggernaut. The Dixiecrats were correct in their constitutional thought to the extent that segregation was a local issue that had never been previously thought to come under the aegis of the 14th Amendment. After all, the same Congress who passed this wonderful amendment also enacted legislation which continued the practice of segregation in the D.C. public schools. In a matter of speaking, then, Trent Lott was actually articulating the conservative position (although he might have added a disclaimer about his disagreement with segregation). Along the same lines, and although highly agitating when articulated, the notion that the Brown decision was intellectually dishonest arises from the same such adherence to law and Constitution. What I find disgusting in all of this is that mere words can be used to crucify a conservative, but truly heinous actions usually glorify a liberal (e.g. abortion). In conclusion, the strongest argument is that Trent was talking about "states' rights," a fact which has been almost completely obscured by the media, Occam be damned.