There are 37 comments.

1. Inactive
   James Gawron

   @JamesGawron

   8:00 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 22, 2019

   OldB,

   Surely you haven’t forgotten how the Democratic Party burst forward into the 20th century with that brand new concept Eugenics. Why the original Progressive President himself, Woodrow Wilson, didn’t allow himself to be held back by “old ideas”.

   Darn those stodgy old concepts like “all men and women should be free and equal under the law”. Yes, of course, the survival of the fittest, let the weak ones die off. We must let the Master Race unchain itself from all that morality nonsense.

   Truly it will be a brave new world and the Democrats will pave the way.

   Regards,

   Jim

    

2. Member
   Doctor Robert

   @DoctorRobert

   3:29 AM EDT ⋅ Aug 23, 2019

   Old Bathos (View Comment):
   “White privilege” is more about successful white people blaming the less successful white people for tarnishing their preferred self-image of enlightenment and sophistication.

   Talk about a truth that no one dare speak…

3. Inactive
   Bill Nelson

   @BillNelson

   12:52 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 23, 2019

   Hartmann von Aue (View Comment):

   Arahant (View Comment):

   Bill Nelson (View Comment):
   As a conservative, I think that trying to claim broad support for the civil rights movement for the republican party is a hard case to make.

   A higher percentage of Republicans in Congress voted for the Civil Rights Act than was true of Democrats, and it would not have passed without them.

   In terms of party philosophy and policy, the Ds were a good century behind the Rs on civil rights and were brought kicking and screaming to racial enlightenment only after the election of John Kennedy.

   Brown v Board of Education was in 1954. Many northerners of both parties were beginning to see the problem, and not just as a regional problem. Eisenhower was behind the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The bill passed 72-18 in the Senate, again with a majority of both parties (Republicans 43–0, Democrats 29–18). Lyndon Johnson being an advocate and with a real understanding of how this issue could effect his party. Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-SC) was a major opponent, with the longest 1 person filibuster.

   Democrats were starting to become “woke”, and they had a more intense response because of the party issue. Many republicans did do the right thing, I just don’t believe it is correct to claim a lio share of the credit.

    

4. Member
   Mark Camp

   @MarkCamp

   1:58 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 23, 2019

   Bill Nelson (View Comment):
   Many northerners of both parties were beginning to see the problem, and not just as a regional problem.

   I think that the Republicans saw the problem clearly, and not just as a regional problem, from the moment the party was founded. 

   The question for the Republicans was always “what should be the solution?”, given the eternal conflict between

   • the need for a division of powers (in order to perpetually harass government officials in their instinctive attempts to visit evil upon their masters)
   • the need for the central government to honor and protect the fundamental rights of the individual, which are, respectively, its most fundamental negative law and its most fundamental positive one.

   The first need had led to some of the subdivisions (certain States) deliberately defying the second requirement (equal rights under law).

   Republicans, unlike the Democrats, knew that a law or arbitrary executive action attempting to suddenly solve all the problems and right all the wrongs created by slavery

   • would fail
   • would compound the problems (though the social holocaust brought down on the heads of black Americans by the Great Society probably exceeded our worst fears).

   There was more to the race problem, in the view of the Republicans.  How could an American tolerate a cruelly segregated society of the sort that would apparently survive for a long time in the segregationist South even after blacks got equality before the law?

    

5. Member
   Ed G.

   @EdG

   

   3:50 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 23, 2019

   Bill Nelson (View Comment):

   Arahant (View Comment):

   Bill Nelson (View Comment):
   As a conservative, I think that trying to claim broad support for the civil rights movement for the republican party is a hard case to make.

   A higher percentage of Republicans in Congress voted for the Civil Rights Act than was true of Democrats, and it would not have passed without them.

   That is true (Strom Thurmond was opposed). But I do not recall strong support. Only Senators from southern states opposed the bill in 1965. It was very much regional. Sen. Dirkson was not going to support it until he saw the images from Selma.

   So yes, republicans can cite a % of votes, but real support to push it through and to enforce it are different. Just saying this is not something that the party can truly stand on.

    

    

   Bill, what would constitute “strong support” if an actual vote doesn’t count for much? 

   Also, if not % of votes then what are the Democrats standing on? If your argument is that no one was really thrilled about it then ok, I guess, but then Republicans shouldn’t be trashed while democrats are made out to be crusaders. The votes seem to tell a much different story – the story that actually matters IMO.

6. Member
   Old Bathos

   @OldBathos

   Post author

   4:24 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 23, 2019

   Bill Nelson (View Comment):

   Hartmann von Aue (View Comment):

   Arahant (View Comment):

   Bill Nelson (View Comment):
   As a conservative, I think that trying to claim broad support for the civil rights movement for the republican party is a hard case to make.

   A higher percentage of Republicans in Congress voted for the Civil Rights Act than was true of Democrats, and it would not have passed without them.

   In terms of party philosophy and policy, the Ds were a good century behind the Rs on civil rights and were brought kicking and screaming to racial enlightenment only after the election of John Kennedy.

   Brown v Board of Education was in 1954. Many northerners of both parties were beginning to see the problem, and not just as a regional problem. Eisenhower was behind the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The bill passed 72-18 in the Senate, again with a majority of both parties (Republicans 43–0, Democrats 29–18). Lyndon Johnson being an advocate and with a real understanding of how this issue could effect his party. Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-SC) was a major opponent, with the longest 1 person filibuster.

   Democrats were starting to become “woke”, and they had a more intense response because of the party issue. Many republicans did do the right thing, I just don’t believe it is correct to claim a lio share of the credit.

    

   The key difference is that there was no support for segregation within the GOP , only a debate about the appropriate scope of federal power. Democrats (as the party of Wilson) could care less about that issue. The Democratic segregationists essentially held states rights hostage forcing a choice between tampering with constitutional order or letting American apartheid continue. 

   I happen to think Goldwater and Bork made the wrong choice but it was unquestionably principled. Comparing the vote count of the parties is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison because every Democratic “No” was a vote expressly for segregation.

7. Coolidge
   Joseph Stanko

   @JosephStanko

   

   8:03 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 23, 2019

   Old Bathos (View Comment):
   I happen to think Goldwater and Bork made the wrong choice but it was unquestionably principled.

   Not to mention many of their concerns have been vindicated by subsequent events.  The civil rights laws passed during the period became the basis for everything from Affirmative Action, to schools dropping men’s sports teams solely in order to achieve numerical balance in the number of female athletes, to the federal government dictating gender policies for schools and bathroom.  It’s possible to believe both that desegregation was necessary and just (and long overdue) while also holding that the laws passed during that period were overly broad in scope and extended federal power to a dangerous extent.