posted
The DNC Website has been caught lying about the party's historical civil rights record.
Here are the claims on the website:
"For more than 200 years, our party has led the fight for civil rights .."
And:
"Democrats have a long and proud history of defending Civil Rights and expanding opportunity for all Americans."
quote:Specifically, neither the new history and issues sections of the Obama-controlled, Wasserman-Schultz-run DNC website, not to mention the video, ever whispers a hint that the Democrats:
Supported slavery in 6 platforms from 1840-1860.
Opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution that successively wiped out slavery and gave both legal rights and voting rights to black Americans.
Supported segregation actively or by silence in 20 platforms from 1868-1948.
Opposed anti-lynching laws, specifically supported by the GOP in four platforms between 1912 and 1928.
Opposed the GOP-sponsored Civil Rights Acts of 1866, which focused on legal equality for blacks.
Opposed the GOP on giving voting rights to blacks in the District of Columbia in 1867. The legislation was passed over the Democrats' objection.
Nominated an 1868 presidential ticket of New York Governor Horatio Seymour and ex-Missouri Congressman Francis Blair. The Democrats pledged they would declare the Civil Rights laws passed by the GOP "null and void" and would refuse to enforce them. They lost to Ulysses Grant.
Opposed the Enforcement Acts, three laws passed by the GOP between 1870 and 1871 targeting the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and making it a federal crime to block the right of blacks to vote, hold office, serve on juries and have equal protection of the laws with whites.
Opposed the GOP Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited discrimination of blacks in public accommodations.
Used the Ku Klux Klan as what Columbia University historian Eric Foner calls "a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party." Nor is there reference to University of North Carolina historian Allen Trelease's description of the Klan as the "terrorist arm of the Democratic Party." Nor is there mention of the infamous 1924 Democratic Convention -- the "Klanbake" as it is known to history because hundreds of the delegates were Klan members. The Klan-written platform mixed the traditional Democratic message of progressivism and racism in the Klan-written platform.
Repealed the Civil Rights laws enacted by GOP Congresses and presidents, already damaged by the Supreme Court. When Democrats gained control of both Congress and the White House in 1892, the Democrats' President Grover Cleveland signed the repeal on February 8, 1894.
None of this stark, vicious and frequently violent racial history, much of it detailed in Bruce Bartlett's Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past, is mentioned on the new website.
There is no polite way to put it. This DNC website presentation is a lie.
A deliberate, willful and very big lie. Hiding from the young, the innocent and the unwary the cold, hard and true facts of the Democratic Party's horrific racial history.
posted
Uh huh, and the rainbow coalition menagerie of gender and race that the GOP tried to portray as "the party" was totally reflective of reality?
You'd be better of linking to the actual DNC page that supposedly does this. But regardless, I'm not sure the point you're trying to make. If you're trying to argue that people who called themselves Democrats who lived a century ago did really douchey things regarding race relations, then you're totally right, but I'm not sure what the relevance is.
On the other hand, would you also like to point out that the entire South jumped ship to the GOP and left the Democratic Party when they started to include civil rights planks in their party platforms in the 50s and 60s?
Black America doesn't vote 100% Democratic for fun. They vote that way because of decades of bad treatment from Republicans.
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posted
You need to recheck your history, Lyrhawn. Just because some facts are not welcomed by your preferred world view does not mean they are not entirely, 100% correct facts.
President Dwight Eisenhower (R) tried to get a Civil Rights Act passed, because of his military experience with blacks serving in the militar and acquitting themselves well, but he was opposed too strongly by the southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats"). I was alive then, and remember those times from the news, not just from history books. Dems fought against the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights bills. They were pushed through under Everitt Dirksen, the GOP minority leader, because the political right believed in doing what was morally right. When President Lyndon Johnson finally gave in and signed the new Civil Rights bill in 1964, here is his cynical comment: "I'll have them n###ers voting Democrat for the next two hundred years." Link: http://racismwatch2012.wordpress.com/
[ September 04, 2012, 06:20 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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posted
Pretty much what Lyrhawn said. That's just a stupid as when Republicans call themselves the party of Lincoln. Only ignoramuses think Jacksonian Democrats were anti-slavery.
Also, I too would like to see a link to the original site.
Edit: I've visited the site, they are idiots. I don't suspect anybody at the DNC will be parroting that lie. I doubt Ron cares if they don't seeing as he praises Paul "I ran a marathon in under 3 hours" Ryan and Mitt "I'm the best choice for LGBT rights" Romney.
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posted
Republicans are the party of Lincoln. That is also an historical fact. The same Lincoln who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, that freed the slaves. No matter how you try, you cannot remove that fact from history.
Nor can you remove from history the facts of who the Southern "Dixiecrats" were, and how for decades they supported the Ku Klux Klan and fought to maintain segregation.
It is also historical fact that most of the anti-segregationist activists who were slain were Republicans.
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quote:It is also historical fact that most of the anti-segregationist activists who were slain were Republicans.
Where exactly does one find a breakdown of how many total activists were slain and what their political affiliations were?
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quote:Republicans are the party of Lincoln. That is also an historical fact.
The historical fact is that Lincoln *was* a Republican, not that Lincoln *is* a Republican. He's not alive currently, so you must use the past tense when referring to the parties that dead people were when alive.
And for **** sake, yes, of course the Republicans were the abolitionists back then. The Republican party was pretty much founded for the purpose of being the abolitionist party. You could pretty much name them "The Abolitionist Party".
Back then. It has diddly-squat to do with anything right now.
quote:No, southern politicians voted against the civil rights bills - the Republicans at a higher percentage than Democrats.
Northern politicians supported it by a vast majority, though most of the opposition there was from Republicans.
Your words seem to seek to disguise the fact that the South mostly elected Democrats and hardly any Republicans.
It's so convenient when a single Southern Republican voting "no" can be made to mean "100% of Republicans in the South voted no", eh?
And it doesn't take into account at all *why* the South voted for all those Democrats.
But one thing we should focus on -- the Democrats were the party of the South then, they're the party of the North now. The Republicans were the party of the North then, they're the party of the South now.
So, any argument by Ron about how Lincoln was a Republican is of course true, but irrelevant -- the real significant part is that he was of the Party of the North.
And the Party of the North is nowadays the Democrats, not the Republicans.
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posted
Ron please listen to Aris. The Republican and Democratic parties of today are basically divorced from their predecessors of yestercentury. Unless you want to also argue that they are both the party of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party. In which case I weep for you.
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quote:And it doesn't take into account at all *why* the South voted for all those Democrats.
Nope. But the fact that the the Democrat votes are basically inverted in the North suggests that there's something unique to southern politics rather than the Democratic party which caused politicians of both parties to campaign and vote in certain way there.
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posted
Tell us more about how Lyrhawn should study the history of civil rights in American politics, Ron. I'm all ears!
-----
Could've sworn the Emancipation Proclomation was (as much as I'm a fan of Lincoln's) a bit more complicated than 'freeing the slaves'. Could've sworn Southern Democrats can't be neatly folded into the wider national Democratic party without some difficulty, a legacy of among other things a civil war ruinous for the South that established ripples felt even today.
Could've sworn-and this is where it gets fun-that minorities might have another reason besides stupidity, greed, hatred, incompetence, or blind loyalty for tending to vote Democratic.
Guess I'm wrong about all of that, and Ron is right as usual-regardless of the facts! Hooray!
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posted
You know, I want to cut Ron some slack on this one. It is absolutely false that the party called the Democratic Party has been tirelessly fighting for civil rights for 200 years. And it's completely deserved to point out that, at best, the Democrats have been the Civil Rights party only for longer than most of our lifetimes.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You know, I want to cut Ron some slack on this one. It is absolutely false that the party called the Democratic Party has been tirelessly fighting for civil rights for 200 years. And it's completely deserved to point out that, at best, the Democrats have been the Civil Rights party only for longer than most of our lifetimes.
posted
I'll just put this here just to back-up the shooting down of that 200 years thing:
quote:In 1879, advocates of immigration restriction succeeded in introducing and passing legislation in Congress to limit the number of Chinese arriving to fifteen per ship or vessel. Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed the bill because it violated U.S. treaty agreements with China. Nevertheless, it was still an important victory for advocates of exclusion. Democrats, led by supporters in the West, advocated for all-out exclusion of Chinese immigrants. Although Republicans were largely sympathetic to western concerns, they were committed to a platform of free immigration.
posted
*If* Ron were only saying that, Tom, I would agree.
I think everyone understands he's not only saying that, though, and in the course of doing so makes his usual blend of distortions, exaggerations, or frankly wacky far right conclusions.
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posted
Hey, if Ron uses the same logic to be in favour of a platform of free immigration, I could live with that Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You know, I want to cut Ron some slack on this one. It is absolutely false that the party called the Democratic Party has been tirelessly fighting for civil rights for 200 years. And it's completely deserved to point out that, at best, the Democrats have been the Civil Rights party only for longer than most of our lifetimes.
Everybody here agrees on that point. But it's galling that having said that, he honestly believe Lincoln belongs to today's Republican party. I mean, Stephen A. Douglas his major opponent was a Democrat, and he caused a split in the Democratic party because while opposed to slavery, he felt the states should be able to sort out their own approach to that issue, instead of government grabbing the reigns. He also refused to adopt the Dred Scott Decision into the Democratic platform, causing a mass walk out by Southern Democrats. But Noooooo, there's this perfect line of succession from Lincoln all the way to Mitt Romney. In fact if they could have lived at the same time, they'd be on the same ticket!
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: If you want to tango on racism in the 1960s, that's fine with me.
It's literally what I do for a living.
I'm trying to imagine how tangoing on racism in the 60s could literally work. Some kind of game show mixing trivia and dance?
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What do previous party platforms have to do with current beliefs and actions?
So because some people 50-100 years ago were racist, and called themselves "Democrats" then ex post facto Democrats of today are racist? And obviously bigoted and racist Republicans are free and clear because some of their ancestors made the correct choice?
The truth is no matter which party (or people in that party) supported what, the correct side of history was the civil rights movement, and the end of slavery.
Washington, and nearly all of the "Founding Fathers" were slave owners, so if we're going to do this 'tie everything to history' bit, than we're all a bunch of racist slave owning idiots. Since they started the parties, it must then mean that all parties are therefore inherently racist, and their misdeeds follow us through history.
Yet we don't do that, heck we even hold the founders up on some magical pedestal and claim they were never wrong, and knew what they were doing. All the while ignoring the fact that they were all for the most part racists. (Not every founder believed in slavery.)
It sounds like someone (Ron) is attempting to stir up controversy where there previously was none.
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quote:The premise of this thread confuses me. What do previous party platforms have to do with current beliefs and actions?
Thesifer, at http://www.democrats.org/about/our_history it says "For more than 200 years, our party has led the fight for civil rights, health care, Social Security, workers' rights, and women's rights."
That's a false statement written by some present-day person. One can honestly argue that the history of the party doesn't matter, but one can't honestly LIE about said history.
Condemn the lie, and save your own integrity. It won't *damn* you to criticize a modern-day Democrat. And whoever wrote that stupid note about the Democratic Party history pretty much deserves a LOT of criticism.
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quote:The premise of this thread confuses me. What do previous party platforms have to do with current beliefs and actions?
Thesifer, at http://www.democrats.org/about/our_history it says "For more than 200 years, our party has led the fight for civil rights, health care, Social Security, workers' rights, and women's rights."
That's a false statement written by some present-day person. One can honestly argue that the history of the party doesn't matter, but one can't honestly LIE about said history.
Condemn the lie, and save your own integrity. It won't *damn* you to criticize a modern-day Democrat. And whoever wrote that stupid note about the Democratic Party history pretty much deserves a LOT of criticism.
I wasn't arguing that it was a lie or not, it's obviously not true. Which is true anytime you try to say "All" in any situation. The writer should have known better, I'm not entirely sure they were trying to "White wash" history, as some claim, but possibly.
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quote:I wasn't arguing that it was a lie or not, it's obviously not true. Which is true anytime you try to say "All" in any situation.
The false sentence I quoted didn't contain the word 'All', so what's the relevance of this remark?
All as in the party as a whole. "Our" party. There has never been a time when every Democrat supported slavery. There have always been those that opposed. Their mistake is the same mistake the GOP.org history makes. It's a revisionist view of history.
Posts: 164 | Registered: Sep 2012
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quote:All as in the party as a whole. "Our" party. There has never been a time when every Democrat supported slavery. There have always been those that opposed.
Wow, if that doesn't bloody well seek to distract from what could have a simple condemnation of a simple falsehood.
Let me give you a quote from Isaac Asimov "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
Perhaps you should therefore seek to distinguish statements that are false in the sense of being "generalization that are accurate on the whole but not entirely" and statements that are false in the sense of being "not even remotely close to the truth any way you might look at them"
But no, you sought to weasel out of such a simple matter.
I came here largely from Ornery, where it's the rightwingers that tended to have a problem with plainly dealing with plain truths, and they squirm squirm squirm so much in order to avoid truth and excuse away lies -- then when I visited Hatrack, I find the leftwingers experiencing the same problem here.
posted
Oh, I feel so ashamed as your pointless judgement of me. Let me go cry in corner mister high and mighty.
Posts: 164 | Registered: Sep 2012
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posted
But back to the point at hand, I still believe the "controversy" is worthless drivel. An attempt to distract maybe? While the GOP claims to be the peoples party while also hating gays, Muslims, atheists, and the list goes on.
Posts: 164 | Registered: Sep 2012
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posted
None of that matters in this issue. It's a pointless, obvious lie. Why is that okay with you?
Honestly, I think the truth is better than the lie anyway. "The party with our name was for some pretty terrible things when our base was in the south. Moving away from that base largely coincided with us promoting and protecting civil rights. Those people now form the base of the Republican party, who has had a pretty bad record on civil rights for as long as that has been true."
posted
You can call what I'm doing whatever you want. But I don't call it defense. I've already stated it was a lie. But I also said I'm not sure it has malicious intent. As put forth by any site that has covered said lie.
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posted
And as put forth by Ron in his quotes in the first post. Along with a second sentence that's not a lie, but called a lie.
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posted
On the honesty front, Paul Ryan apparently subscribes to the Kim Jong Il school of athletic achievement. He totally used to run sub 3 hour marathons all the time when he was younger. Also, he had a sparring match with Mike Tyson and forgot to hold back and put poor Iron Mike in the hospital.
Little known historical fact. During the late 80s, the U.S. and Canada had a joint effort to break the USSR's vastly superior methods of vodka and beet production. Their top operative, a world renowned master of disguise, legerdemain, and polite dinner conversation, was discovered by a rising star in the USSR intelligence apparatus, Vladamir Putin, who tied him to a railroad track. That would have been the end of him, if a plucky young American hadn't parachuted in to Siberia then skied like 100 miles in totally under 2 hours, punched Vlad in the face, and untied the agent with only seconds to spare.
And that was the first time Paul Ryan met Pierre Trudeau.
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quote:Originally posted by Thesifer: You can call what I'm doing whatever you want. But I don't call it defense. I've already stated it was a lie. But I also said I'm not sure it has malicious intent.
If the author isn't speaking form ignorance, then the statement is designed to deceive, and not for virtuous motives.
We aren't talking about some dude saying Santa Clause is a Republican as evidenced by his free market approach to gift giving. We're talking about somebody trying to give the Democratic party a lengthier legacy on civil rights than it deserves.
That particular lie might not be the most egregious one, but lies are greater than the sum of their parts. Make enough lies and tell them enough, and pretty soon you have something people believe is a philosophy, and the lies reinforce each other. Or in other words, the current Republican party.
quote: Has the Democratic Party Always Championed Civil Rights?
I don't care which party did what one hundred years ago or ten years ago. When one party is trying to repair the injustices done against a minority due to bigoted prejudices and the other is openly against it, all that matters is that those who are willing to fight for equality are allowed to do so to the best of their abilities.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: On the honesty front, Paul Ryan apparently subscribes to the Kim Jong Il school of athletic achievement. He totally used to run sub 3 hour marathons all the time when he was younger. Also, he had a sparring match with Mike Tyson and forgot to hold back and put poor Iron Mike in the hospital.
Little known historical fact. During the late 80s, the U.S. and Canada had a joint effort to break the USSR's vastly superior methods of vodka and beet production. Their top operative, a world renowned master of disguise, legerdemain, and polite dinner conversation, was discovered by a rising star in the USSR intelligence apparatus, Vladamir Putin, who tied him to a railroad track. That would have been the end of him, if a plucky young American hadn't parachuted in to Siberia then skied like 100 miles in totally under 2 hours, punched Vlad in the face, and untied the agent with only seconds to spare.
And that was the first time Paul Ryan met Pierre Trudeau.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Whether the author is just ignorant, or dishonest the statement is designed to deceive, and not for virtuous motives.
Well, no. If the author is just ignorant, then the statement isn't designed to deceive, it's just wrong.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You know, I want to cut Ron some slack on this one. It is absolutely false that the party called the Democratic Party has been tirelessly fighting for civil rights for 200 years. And it's completely deserved to point out that, at best, the Democrats have been the Civil Rights party only for longer than most of our lifetimes.
And if the Republicans were still the party of Lincoln and Bob La Follette, I would still be voting for them. But they aren't.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Whether the author is just ignorant, or dishonest the statement is designed to deceive, and not for virtuous motives.
Well, no. If the author is just ignorant, then the statement isn't designed to deceive, it's just wrong.
Quite right, logic break down in my post. I've edited to fix it.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
You know, there is a lot of truth in the idea that the Republican Party was the Party of Lincoln. (Of course, Lincoln wanted to buy all the slaves and ship them off to Liberia, but that is another story.)
They gave minorities the right to vote regardless of race.
They were the party of Teddy Roosevelt.
They were the party of limiting monopolies and big business trusts.
They were the party of Ronald Reagan.
They were the party of small Government.
They were the party of the devout and the Religious.
I miss that grand old party.
Now they want to remove protections of the people from the companies that date back to Teddy. The fear of those too powerful business bosses has been replaced by the toadying to the job creators.
Now they want to limit the number of poor minorities that can vote. If they vote against us, they want them to get ID's they can question and delay and use as excuses to keep them from voting.
Now they want small government when it comes to taxes, but big government tracking our GPS, controlling whom we can and can't marry, determining who can and can't get birth control, coming between a pregnant woman and her doctor, ordering children to be born even at the cost of the health of the mother--they say NO EXCEPTIONS. They even want to decide when we can and can not die.
Now they want to promote Christianity over all other forms of religion, deny the building of Mosques out of fear and stupidity. They want to post the Protestant 10 Commandments on every public building (Slightly different that the Catholic or Jewish versions. Its all in the numbering) while breaking them left and right. They covet, steal, and mostly bear false witness all in the name of politics.
Yeah, if the Democratic Party wasn't great 100 years ago--and is proud to leave its roots, the Republican Party really needs to take a step back and see what they've become, and perhaps go back again.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Whether the author is just ignorant, or dishonest the statement is designed to deceive, and not for virtuous motives.
Well, no. If the author is just ignorant, then the statement isn't designed to deceive, it's just wrong.
Quite right, logic break down in my post. I've edited to fix it.
And you're right, it's entirely possible that for whatever reason, they wrote that intending to deceive. I don't know their motives, since I don't think anyone will DECIDE to vote for them because they "changed" their record from the past. Possibly, but I doubt it. Whether the Dems were previously a party about civil rights or not, well we know that isn't the case.
But I'd stake a claim that currently, they are that party. And the Republicans do not appear to be. Although the GOP does claim they are the "People's Party", I just don't buy it.
For the record I was a Republican at one point, well really to be more accurate I was a moderate Republican. Mostly during the time I was in the Military.
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posted
The Democratic party was, as far as I can see, the greater of two evils for much of its history, and if they're really trying to say they were champions of civil rights for like 200 years I am going to laugh at them and call them idiots.
If the Republicans want to try to champion a history of the party that they are not, or pretend that their current incarnation is more tolerant, non-exclusionary, and better at civil rights, though, I am going to laugh at them harder. Like was said, blacks don't vote democrat for fun any more so than gays do.
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The Corwin Amendment is still pending before the state legislatures for ratification. It would need 35-37 ratifications to become part of the Constitution, depending on the validity of Ohio's rescission and of Illinois's questionable ratification. In 1963, more than a century after the Corwin Amendment was submitted to the state legislatures by the Congress, a joint resolution to ratify it was introduced in the Texas House of Representatives by Dallas Republican Henry Stollenwerck. It was referred to the House's Committee on Constitutional Amendments on March 7, 1963, and received no further consideration.
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