No Blacks, Hispanics, Catholics Or Evangelicals Allowed
By Judson Cox (11/13/03)
Howard Dean wants to be "the candidate for the guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." Al Sharpton would rather confront people with Confederate flags. Senator Zell Miller claims the Democratic Party has lost the south because elitist northern and California liberals who view the south as a combination of "Gone With The Wind" and "Deliverance" dominate the party.
I'm weighting in on this kerfuflle because, I resemble that remark! I'm a white guy, born and raised in the south. I don't own a Confederate flag, but I do drive a truck and I am an avid hunter (Dean's original appeal was to "white guys with gun racks in their pickup trucks"). I live in North Carolina, went to school in South Carolina, and have lived in both Athens, Georgia and central Virginia. I come from a family of southern democrats, and have ancestors who served in both the Civil and Revolutionary Wars. I listen to country music, speak with a drawl, wear boots and a creased cowboy hat, I even (gasp) use tobacco products - I am a liberal yankee's nightmare!
You will find the occasional Confederate flag in any southern town. As strange as it may seem to yankees, southerners are proud of being southerners. Compared to most places, the laid back, polite and friendly atmosphere of the south is preferable. We have little crime and a moderate climate. We don't mind if the media portrays us as backward and a bit scary, that just helps keep y'all above the Mason Dixon line! Moreover, many southerners have ancestors who served in the Civil War simply to protect their homes. We are proud of the bravery of our families. Of the 5 or 6 Confederate flags you'll find, most of them bear the phrase, "Heritage Not Hate," which demagogues like Sharpton over look. Regardless, people who commemorate a war that ended nearly 200 years ago will not vote for a cut and run democrat.
The southern Democratic Party was, for all intents and purposes, the political wing of the Ku Klux Klan following Reconstruction. It opposed northerners and republicans (Lincoln was a republican), and supported segregation. The transition of southern politics is personified by Sen. Strom Thurmond. Thurmond began as a segregationist democrat, but evolved into a conservative republican who repudiated segregation. Thurmond ended his career as a leader of the Republican Party, who embraced minorities and received support from black voters in South Carolina. Simply stated, the south isn't racist anymore and it doesn't vote democratic. Southern democrats are now mostly high income white liberals and blacks. Low to middle income, white southern democrats are almost as rare as Klansmen (virtually non-existent).
If Dean wishes to find bigots, he need look no further than Senate Democrats. This group of white, wealthy elitists has blocked every black, Hispanic, Catholic and evangelical judicial nominee President Bush has sent up. All pending nominees have received either a well-qualified or qualified rating from the American Bar Association, which Senate Democrats have termed the "Gold Standard." Democrats claim their refusal to confirm nominees is due to their ideologies, but ideology is not a valid reason. In the Federalist, Hamilton wrote, "integrity, intelligence and temperament, and faithfulness to the rule of law," are the qualifications of a judge. The democrats refuse to approve minorities so that President Bush may not gain a record of advancing minorities. In other words, the democrats are judging minority nominees solely on their skin color. Catholic and evangelicals are blocked because of their religions. Although the Constitution forbids religious tests, Sen. Schumer and his ilk block approval because of their, "deeply held beliefs."
Segregationists have always claimed that they didn't have anything against black people per se, so long as they knew their place. Senators, Schumer, Kennedy, Leahy and Biden are Catholic, they claim that this negates the charge of anti-Catholic bias. This argument is akin to saying that Hitler was part Jewish; he couldn't have anything against Jews. The disturbing reality is, if Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, if he had a legal background and if President Bush were to nominate him to the judiciary, Senate democrats would block his nomination due to his religious belief and the "color of his skin" as opposed to "the content of his character."
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