Posted on 12/16/2002 8:12:18 AM PST by Kay Soze
Hey,wait a minute.I live in SC and have voted against Thurmond in every election since I became old enough to vote back in 1978. My whole family voted against Thurmond. You know what,I think elections are rigged.
If Lott wanted a strong defense and fiscal responsibility in 1948, Tom Dewey and the Republican Platform were there for the taking. If you look at the Republican and Democrat platforms side by side, defense and fiscal policy were the only big differences. But on Civil Rights, the Republican and Democrat platforms were virtually identical.
Us 'paleo-conservatives' have nothing to apologize for on Civil Rights and it never ceases to frost my butt to hear the old-time segregationists of Dixie referred to as Conservatives. Hell, on spending issues and size of government, their is no damn difference between racists like Bill Fullbright, Orvill Falbus, and Strom Thurmond and Hillary Clinton. They all wanted more Federal tax money for pork and corruption and the power to ignore the Constitution when they saw fit. Their stock and trade then and now is dealing the class and race card --- just from the other side of the deck today. The tactics are exactly the same --- create division and hatred among non-thinkers, and then cash in on it to advance their own pitiful careers and to hell with the people who get hurt.
During the Civil War, some wag said that South Carolina was too small to be a republic and too large to be an insane asylum. ;~))
Let me put it this way - I think your statement is overly broad. You made it sound as if the man was a member of the KKK for some significant portion of his life. The fact is that although he apparently had some dealing with the Klan early on, he wasn't a member per se, as perhaps someone like Robert Byrd was.
It's a long way from saying HST talked to the Klan and maybe even joined briefly but left after he figured them out, to saying the man held an actual membership of any significance. From what I gather, after Truman attended a meeting and got the anti-Catholic tirade, he backed out. The membership fee he paid (like $10) was supposedly even returned, though factual support for that is a bit more wanting.
Let's also attend to the fact that Klan membership was far more socially acceptable and widespread back then than now.
In any case, it's a bit of rhetorical handwaving to bring up the transgressions of others when we're talking about Trent Lott. Yeah, you can talk about the hypocrisy of Democrats if you want, but it's still immaterial to the questions at hand, which are:
1. Does Trent Lott have inappropriate dealings with racist organizations?
2. Is he himself a racist, or just plagued by extremely poor judgment?
Snidely
I know of a Shriner club in a small town that began when ex-Klaners decided to meet together under a new name.
I am very amused as how the Canadian, and German ministers quit or got fired the next day after they made bad comment about Bush, and here we have an idiot, who is destroying the whole Republican Party, and still holding on to power with all of his life. What is the difference between Lott, and Saddam? Both are holding on to power regardless of the damage they are causing to their countries.
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