Michael Zak does what all too many on the left fail to do:  crack open some history books and take a real look at the history of the Ku Klux Klan.  Zak correctly notes that when the Klan was at its zenith during the 1920s, it was a terrorist wing of the Democratic party, and that since its inception, Republicans were at the forefront in trying to take it down.

It would have been far more truthful for the congresswoman to have admitted the fact that all those who wore sheets a long time ago lifted them to wear Democratic Party clothing.  Yes, the Ku Klux Klan was established by the Democratic Party.  Yes, the Ku Klux Klan murdered thousands of Republicans — African-American and white – in the years following the Civil War.  Yes, the Republican Party and a Republican President, Ulysses Grant, destroyed the KKK with their Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

How did the Ku Klux Klan re-emerge in the 20th century?  For that, the Democratic Party is to blame.

It was a racist Democrat President, Woodrow Wilson, who premiered Birth of a Nation in the White House.  That racist movie was based on a racist book written by one of Wilson’s racist friends from college.  In 1915, the movie spawned the modern-day Klan, with its burning crosses and white sheets.

Inspired by the movie, some Georgia Democrats revived the Klan.  Soon, the Ku Klux Klan again became a powerful force within the Democratic Party.  The KKK so dominated the 1924 Democratic Convention that Republicans, speaking truth to power, called it the Klanbake.  In the 1930s, a Democrat President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, appointed a Klansman, Senator Hugo Black (D-AL), to the U.S. Supreme Court.  In the 1950s, the Klansmen against whom the civil rights movement struggled were Democrats.  The notorious police commissioner Bull Connor, who attacked African-Americans with dogs and clubs and fire hoses, was both a Klansman and the Democratic Party’s National Committeeman for Alabama.  Starting in the 1980s, the Democratic Party elevated a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), to third-in-line for the presidency.

I have one quibble with all this.  It focuses too much on the partisan aspect of the KKK and not enough on its ideological drive.  After all, modern day Democrats could just claim that the Klan represented the conservative wing of the Democratic party.  This would be an error.

While most members of the Klan held what would be termed conservative views on social issues, they were hardly purveyors of Burkean conservative values.  In fact the Klan typified the Progressive/Populist movement to a tee: “conservative” socially but decidedly left-wing economically and politically.  They supported government intrusion into the economy and were backers of the New Deal.  Jesse Walker explains some of the areas of overlap between the Progressive movement and the Klan:

1. Progressivism had roots in the Protestant pietist tradition, and its partisans were frequently interested in reforming individuals as well as institutions. It’s a quick jump from there to the moral authoritarianism described in Charles Alexander’s books. Jane Addams, the Social Gospel activist who played such a big role in passing protective labor regulations and compulsory schooling laws, was also a critic of the “debased form of dramatic art, and a vulgar type of music” that a young person might find in the five-cent theaters, writing that it was “astounding that a city allows thousands of its youth to fill their impressionable minds with these absurdities.” Prohibition, that Klan kause kelebre, reached its height as a cause during the Progressive Era, complete with muckraking exposés of the “whiskey ring” and culminating with the passage of the eighteenth amendment in 1919.

2. Racism also had a foothold among the progressives. It might be tempting to argue that bigots like Woodrow Wilson, who introduced Jim Crow rules to the federal government, were merely progressive in some areas and reactionary in others. But the American eugenics movement was tied closely to the progressives’ drive for “scientific” reform, and its heyday covered both the Progressive Era and the ’20s. Politicians offered eugenic arguments not just for laws that banned miscegenation and allowed authorities to sterilize the allegedly unfit, but for restrictions on immigration from southern and central Europe.

3. The progressives and the Klan shared an interest in mandating public education and eliminating urban political machines. The civic-activist historians tell us that the rank-and-file Klansman’s interest in such reforms was frequently a sincere response to corruption and inadequate schooling, though it’s clear that their urban proposals owed at least something to their fear of immigrants, and that their education proposals were transparantly anti-Catholic. If the Klan’s motives were not purely nativist, then neither were the progressives’ purely benign: Just as the Klansmen sometimes shared the progressives’ hopes, the latter sometimes shared the Klansmen’s fears.

4. In the late 1910s the Klan was a small regional organization. In the early ’20s it was large and national. There’s a number of reasons why it made this leap, but the biggest may be the effects of World War I. This too marked a connection with progressivism.

As the historian William Leuchtenburg and the economist Murray Rothbard have argued, Wilson’s wartime policies were an outgrowth, not a negation, of Progressive Era politics. During the conflict, government planners and “enlightened” corporate leaders replaced a relatively free market with a heavily regimented economy, while intellectuals hoped, in Leuchtenburg’s words, to adopt “the same sort of centralized directing now employed to kill their enemies abroad for the new purpose of reconstructing their own life at home.”

Jonah Goldberg discussed some of the nastier, racist elements of the Progressive movement in Liberal Fascism. Justin Logan also has taken a look at the links between the Klan and Progressives, and there is other literature that touches upon this phenomenon.

Long story short, the Klan were largely comprised of people we would term statists.  This is not to say, of course, that all Progressives were racists or klansman, but the idea that the KKK was some kind of right-wing group is not anywhere near accurate.

I just wonder, does this include getting all their members out of the State as well? Because of so, then I see a lot of compatibility between the Arizona law and La Raza objectives:

The nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights group announced Thursday that it has organized a boycott of Arizona in the wake of the state’s new lawtargeting illegal immigrants. The National Council of La Raza, along with 19 other labor and civil rights groups, will pull money and meetings out of the state and are asking all companies and organizations to move major events and conferences planned there to other venues. Specifically, La Raza wants Major League Baseball to renege on its promise to hold the 2011 All-Star Game in Phoenix.

As a Hispanic American I’ve never, not once, found that La Raza could properly identify me. Their name is a non-starter. Imagine if a bunch of white dudes started an organization called “The Race.” Yeah. That doesn’t sound extreme…at all….Do Boycotts like this ever work?

I’m interested in what the legal eagles here have to say about this recent post at the American Thinker:

A young mother finds that the IRS has withheld several hundred dollars from her paycheck as a “penalty” for not having health insurance. (Despite whatever incentives are in the law, this woman did not want to fill out the forms or apply for aid, or she had other more pressing financial problems to address. In short, she simply didn’t want or perhaps did not have the time and resources to purchase health insurance.)

Because of the IRS “penalty,” the young mother cannot pay her rent. She and her child are suddenly without a place to live.

Constitutional legal foundations (and perhaps some state attorneys general) step in to represent the young mother. Their argument should go something like this: The woman’s constitutional rights under the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Amendments have been violated . . .

Courtesy of Yahoo news, the billboards in Georgia are getting people to talk among African American women. My personal favorite is the woman who claims that taking away the right to choose when to have children hearkens back to slavery.  She makes me laugh.  Way to play the race card, lady. You know white people can’t fight the slavery card.

From today’s NRO editorial:

A bill expected to pass the House today with overwhelming Democratic support would accomplish something peculiar for a liberal republic in the 21st century: It would partly disenfranchise a portion of one state’s residents, create a parallel government for those meeting a legislated criterion of ethnic purity, and would portend the transfer of public assets, land, and political power from those who fail to satisfy the standard of ethnic purity to those who do. For these reasons and many more, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act richly deserves opposition.

Apparently, this one doesn’t. Democrat Mass. Senatorial candidate Martha Coakley’s aide pushes Weekly Standard reporter down, then continues to assault him as he seeks to question Coakley. Story here.  Let’s see, assault and battery, civil rights violations . . . yes, yes, all kinds of fun things to consider here. Has Coakley fired this thug? No, she’s blaming the incident on “Republican stalkers.” Good grief.

The reporter thinks this might be the perp.  Hey, Chicago style politics is all the rage these days! And Coakley is the Mass. AG! Holy, Moley!

**UPDATE: BigGovernment.com is saying yes, Michael Meehan is the perp. And surprise, surprise, he’s an Obama appointee – for the Broadcasting Board of Governors which oversees federal news operations like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe no less!! He also worked with NARAL – hey, he’s used to violence. And, you gotta love this line by BIG G:

“His (Meehan’s) Senate confirmation hearing should be a hoot.”

I could not make up much better stuff than this. Thank you Mr. Meehan, you may have just handed the election to Scott Brown.

“Education, after all, is typically described as a core, and possibly the core, state responsibility . . . Homeschooling is now such an entrenched practice, recriminalization is not a viable option in any event.” ~ Robin L. West, Georgetown University Law Center

Not a “viable option?” Well at least I can rest peacefully tonight knowing that jack-booted thugs won’t be knocking my daughter’s door down any time soon to arrest her for teaching “the state’s children.” (My daughter would want to know where the state was when she was going through those labor pains to deliver “their” children. By the way Professor, the youngest one has something stinky in her diaper – could you lend a hand here?) Professor West thinks that more government regulation of homeschooling is a good idea:

As the political philosopher and homeschool critic Robert Reich has persuasively argued, curricular review would give the state a way to ensure that the academic content is such as to protect the children’s interest in both acquiring the necessary skills for active, autonomous, and responsible citizenship in adulthood, and in being exposed to diverse and more liberal ways.

Well, gee whiz, that approach certainly has worked wonders in the public schools, hasn’t it? Diverse and more liberal – that’s what this is really all about. Professor West doesn’t like the fact that “the state” is losing the opportunity to indoctrinate OUR children.  Maybe she’s bucking for Secretary of Education in the Obama administration. More here.

According to MSNBC, the gay community is divided on Obama, as he has given them nothing but promises so far.  Earlier this week there were rumblings about The Powers That Be ending the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy for gays in the military.  At this very moment (I think), people are marching on the Mall in DC in support of gay rights.

I’m curious to know other peoples’ opinions.  I have yet to make my own, for a number of different reasons.  Is the gay community doing the same thing feminism did, where “equal rights” really meant “the same as”?  In more urban/progressive places, are there really levels of discrimination that merit a march on the Mall (the ultimate form of protest)?  Someone once voiced the opinion that feminism was a way for ugly women to feel important about themselves and get laid.  Is all this gay activism a chance for, in a similar manner, legalized licentiousness? That same (gay) person opined that the only people who would benefit from gay marriage is divorce lawyers. Does the right to marriage (complete with white dress and cake topped with cheesy plastic figurines) constitute as a civil right?

Thoughts?

Ken Connor makes the “law and justice” case for conservatives to stray away from tort reform and make sure that it stays on the level of the states:

The truth is that corporate moguls push for tort reform because they have little use for a civil justice system that puts the little guy on the same plane as the rich and powerful. These so-called fiscal conservatives don’t like equal justice.  They want preferential treatment—something they are accustomed to getting from politicians because of their hefty campaign contributions.

Conservatives need to educate themselves about the importance of a civil justice system that protects everyone and treats all litigants—rich and poor alike—as equals before the law.  Furthermore, true conservatives ought to resist attempts to federalize tort law and impose one-size-fits-all solutions to “problems” that are, in large part, the fictional creations of special interest lobbyists seeking to enrich the coffers of their wealthy clients.  Any change in medical malpractice laws should occur at the state level and be tailored to meet conditions in the individual states.  The people in Topeka may approach the same problem differently from the folks in Tallahassee.  They may be experiencing different problems, or perhaps, none at all.  In any event, the residents of Attapulgus, Georgia don’t want Chuck Schumer and Olympia Snow dictating the remedy they can pursue when a doctor leaves a pair of scissors in the site of their incision or causes avoidable brain damage to their newborn.

Tort reform subsidizes wrongdoing by shielding wrongdoers from accountability for the consequences of their misconduct.  It is an affirmative action program for corporate miscreants.  Incorporating tort reform into health care reform will do nothing to cut medical costs.  It is, however, guaranteed to result in more, not fewer, cases of medical malpractice. Furthermore, federalizing tort laws will only result in the accretion of more power in the hands of the central government and the emasculation of the rights of states and individuals.

Oh, it’s on Page One of the Obama playbook. The NYT Magazine ran “The Mellowing of Bill Clinton” a few months ago:

And the man once called the “first black president” remains deeply wounded by allegations that he made racially insensitive remarks during the campaign, like dismissing Obama’s South Carolina win by comparing it with Jesse Jackson’s victories there in the 1980s.

“None of them ever really took seriously the race rap,” he told me. “They knew it was politics. I had one minister in Texas in the general election come up and put his arm around me.” This was an Obama supporter. “And he came up, threw his arm around me and said, ‘You’ve got to forgive us for that race deal.’ He said, ‘That was out of line.’ But he said, ‘You know, we wanted to win real bad.’ And I said, ‘I got no problem with that.’ I said it’s fine; it’s O.K. And we laughed about it and we went on.”

Well, Bill laughed, I guess, but it was Hillary who took it in the pantsuit.

I was a little surprised the elites and mainstream media didn’t pick up on this, but the answer’s obvious now—they intended to use the same slimy tactic again, this time at the real enemy, the right. If they pulled it on Bill Clinton, what chance do the rest of us have?

No doubt some people are serious in calling Obama’s opponents racist, like that unfortunate puddinhead Jimmy Carter, but for the rest, it’s all just part of the game.

There are A LOT of good, good polices officers out there. But this officer (in a rather calm and matter-of-fact manner) basically abuses this man’s free speech by forcing him to take down a sign he was holding up at last week’s town hall meeting with Representative Jim Moran in Virginia. Do I think the sign is particularly effective or in good taste? No. But I don’t think the officer had any right to actually ask this man to take the sign down or leave or even threaten arrest. My only sympathy is that the officer was just “doing his job as he was told.” But that still ain’t mean what he does is right:

Whenever freedom is lost, wherever tyranny is found, there are three accompanying factors: religious oppression, economic depression, and a culture of death.

Orwell’s 1984 provides a vivid example of this principle. Religion in Oceania has been wholly abolished, the people live in government-induced squalor, and the state routinely comes between children and their parents, and is working on preventing marriage altogether.

But there are ample historical examples as well. (more…)

Ramesh Ponnuru has an op-ed in the New York Times today in which he criticizes conservatives for having a blind spot with respect to judicial activism involving racial issues.  I disagree with many of his arguments. However, I’ll set aside, for the moment, the propriety of conservatives using the New York Times to argue with their own, and move on to a good ol’ fashioned fisking:

[W]hen it comes to the race cases before the Supreme Court, too many conservatives abandon both originalism and judicial restraint.

The Voting Rights Act decision was a case in point. Eight justices avoided weighing in on the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that certain jurisdictions, mostly in the South, get Justice Department permission before making any changes to election procedures. Instead they ruled that a utility district in Texas that wanted to be freed from the provision should have an opportunity to try.

But Justice Clarence Thomas went further, declaring the provision unconstitutional. Congress, he argued, was justified in the 1960s in responding to the denial of the voting rights guaranteed by the 15th Amendment, but things have changed and the provision is no longer needed.

Justice Thomas is, in my view, right to consider the law outdated. But is that really for him to say? Congress is the proper body to make that judgment. In 2006, it decided to renew the law for 25 years. Its determination that the law was still necessary may have been mistaken, but it is not clear that the Constitution authorizes judges to second-guess it.

Well, if one believes in judicial review, the Court will always have the authority to “second guess” laws when it believes they potentially conflict with any provision of the Constitution. Treating a subset of states according to different, more onerous standards is at least dubious under basic principles of federalism. I’m not entirely familiar with the jurisprudence or the history with respect to the federal governmnent discriminating against certain states, but I’d wager it’s a great deal more complex and more enlightening to this discussion than Ponnuru lets on. (more…)

The Boy Scouts are being sued again, and the Ninth Circuit has invited everybody to play:

The City of San Diego leases portions of Balboa Park and Fiesta Island to the San Diego Boy Scouts, which use the land to operate a camp and aquatic center. The Boy Scouts use the leased areas for their own events but otherwise keep them open to the general public — and have spent millions of dollars to improve and maintain facilities on the properties, eliminating the need for taxpayer funding. While the Boy Scouts’ membership policies exclude homosexuals and agnostics, the Scouts have not erected any religious symbols and do not discriminate in any way in administering the leased parklands. (more…)

As I’ve said before, I’m originally from Samson, Alabama, where the majority of the victims of Michael McLendon were killed last week. While following the story, I saw pictures of troops from nearby Fort Rucker Army base patrolling the streets of the town in the aftermath of the killings. I’m not a lawyer, but I realized that that was not a good thing, constitution-wise. Now, an investigation has been launched into the use of federal troops. (Hat tip: Capstonereport.com.) (more…)

Our new Attorney General, Eric Holder, echoed Barack Obama’s earlier call for a national conversation on race this morning at the DOJ.  Americans, saith Mr. Holder, are a “nation of cowards” when it comes to racial issues and average Americans “simply do not talk with each other about race.”

I, for one, have to give my mulish second to his appeal.  We have wasted far too much time in this country meditating on the Federalist Papers, Aristotelian ethics, and Picasso’s Blue period.  The deafening silence on race over the past fifty years simply must end.  Then we can move on to other neglected topics like gender and class.

A UN bureaucrat has let the cat out of the bag! Liberals really do want to destroy the family (H/T: Pro Ecclesia):

Speaking at a colloquium held last month at Colegio Mexico in Mexico City, UNFPA representative Arie Hoekman denounced the idea that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births represent a social crisis, claiming that they represent instead the triumph of “human rights” against “patriarchy.”
(more…)

The Obama Campaign has recently adopted a truly frightening tactic in Missouri. Obama’s campaign is assembling a group of sympathetic prosecutors and law enforcement agents to “target” anyone they think is lying or misleading the public about Obama and his positions. If this intimidation tactic didn’t smack of fascism by its very nature, the title of this group, The Barack Obama Truth Squad, should dispel any lingering doubts. You can watch a local news report about the group here.

The brazen nature of Obama’s ploy is amazing. There is only one reason why Obama would want to assemble a “Truth Squad” comprised solely of prosecutors and law enforcement agents: he wants to quash all dissent through naked intimidation. If all Obama wanted was volunteers to engage the public and challenge the assertions of the opposing candidate he could do so with anyone. But that is not what Obama wants. He wants people with a badge, gun, and/or the power to prosecute going after anyone that says something critical of of the Obamessiah. I find it amazing that liberals will go in to spasms of rage over supposed threats to civil liberties in The Patriot Act (a law designed to stop terrorists) yet have no problem with the “Truth Squad’s” attempt to crush political dissent.

At least the Governor of Missouri gets it. Read his statement here.

Talk about liberal fascism. Sieg Heil, Big Smile.

I am a sorry excuse for a Protestant, but a Protestant nonetheless. I was raised among the frozen chosen Methodists, but I have always liked the idea of the Southern Baptist Convention even though I wear shoes and believe the Earth has been around a good deal longer than 6,000 years. How can you not love a dogged commitment to principles backed by the orotund strains of The Old Rugged Cross?

Unfortunately, my anarcho-libertarian distaste for things like Jerry Falwell and Intelligent Design has recently tainted my view of the SBC, so I am thrilled to find something on which we can both agree: CNN commentator Roland Martin is an idiot. According to Mr. Martin, Lifeway Resources, the Southern Baptist-owned bookstore chain, has just banned Gospel Today magazine for doing a cover story on female pastors, which is contrary to Southern Baptist doctrine. (more…)

I’m having a Gollum-like internal struggle over the polygamy raid in Texas.  On the one hand, I’m a firm believer in the rule of law and protecting the innocent, so I can get behind the idea of saving all the children from general religious craziness.  I’m also not overly religious, so I have no sympathy in their “moral” defense.  And yet . . . isn’t there something inherently disturbing about law enforcement and child protective services storming the bigamist beaches, as it were, ripping dozens of children from the breasts of their mothers and fathers on nothing more that the fact that they all live in a town where a couple of people have been accused of rape?

I believe in statutory laws, to some extent (I have problems with the application more than anything else).  I understand that polygamy is, at least, a statutory no-no.  But this one is not passing the smell test for me.  I don’t want 13-year olds forced into marriage with 50-year olds.  I don’t want children brainwashed into some sort of mindless, communal servitude.  But I also think that parents should, within bounds, be able to raise their children as they wish.  And I certainly don’t think that the police should be able to take my kids away solely based on the fact that one of my neighbors raped a girl and we just happen to go to the same church. 

If the authorities had arrested just the specific alleged offenders and taken them to jail, I’d be all for it.  But to sweep through an entire town on the accusations of a few people is a bit much for my conservative anti-authoritarian streak. 

So, what say you, dear reader?  Is this just a visceral response to polygamy?  Do you think the State acted appropriately here, and, if so, do you really think the children, as a group, are better off now?

“What gross deception and fatal delusion! Although very considerable benefit might be derived from strengthening the hands of Congress, so as to enable them to regulate commerce, and counteract the adverse restrictions of other nations, which would meet with the concurrence of all persons; yet this benefit, is accompanied in the new constitution with the scourge of despotic power, that will render the citizens of America tenants at will of every species of property, of every enjoyment, and make them the mere drudges of government. The gilded bait conceals corrosives that will eat up their whole substance.”

 I’m sure we’re going to be the best of friends.

Reason has a good piece up on the anti-discrimination measure recently approved by Michigan voters.  Here is a taste:

 The Michigan initiative prevailed even though its supporters were outspent 2 to 1, despite opposition from both Governor Jennifer Granholm and her Republican challenger, Dick DeVos. It won despite hysterical and deceptive ads that compared the proposal to Hurricane Katrina and Sept. 11, and despite false claims that the measure would end to public funding for breast cancer screenings.

The initiative’s opponents have depicted this victory as the result of white men fighting to retain their privilege. But maybe it’s really about Americans taking action to end a regrettable detour in the battle for true civil rights.

Paul Beston wrote about the Michael Richards case today. In so doing, he invoked the question of taboos. I think taboos do explain the powerful reaction to Richards’ outburst at the Laugh Factory. I wrote about the topic in connection to the Rush Limbaugh/Donovan McNabb controversy a couple of years ago:

I have a theory about why Rush’s brief remarks have unleashed so much antagonism. Many will believe it’s just about liberals trying to bring a big conservative down. That’s part of the story, but there’s something larger underneath. Every society must have taboos. We need to know the difference between sins and virtues so we can order our lives and live in community. In short, knowing what is right and wrong is the key to social order.

America has witnessed a radical re-ordering of our conception of what is good and bad. Socially useful taboos like unmarried cohabitation, having children out of wedlock, adultery, consumption of pornography, and divorce have all been transformed into acceptable activities through a powerful shove from the cultural elite and correspondingly widespread practice. G.K. Chesterton once famously complained about the rich preaching their vices to the poor and introducing them to ruin. He was right. The old sins aren’t sins any more and we’ve paid a certain price for that. Just ask any child of a single mother who hosts a series of transient males in the home.

But sins don’t disappear and leave a vacuum. We have a moral sense and we will exercise it on something. The ever-considerate cultural elite did not leave us empty-handed. Commandments they destroyed have been replaced by others more favorable to people of fashion. The sin that now stands center stage is the improperly crafted negative remark about anything having to do with race, gender, sexual orientation, or non-dominant religions.

I hasten to add that Rush’s remarks on McNabb were nothing like Richards’ blast of racial slurs. But the general point about taboos holds. We will exercise our sense of moral outrage about something. We just aren’t sure what that will be at any given point in time.

So it seems to me that a proper objection to the sort of renewal of the Voting Rights Act that most Dems and Republicans currently want (e.g. just extend it as is) is that it singles out certain jurisdictions for “emergency” requirements.  It certainly does seem unfair, so why don’t Republicans just offer an amendment extending those requirements to “all” jurisdictions.  I’ll bet local officials in Minnesota and Idaho and California won’t be too much in favor of having the Justice Department “pre-screening” everything they do vis-a-vis elections.  Plus, there’s a political bonus: if Democrats object, they can *only* do so by arguing that the South is run by a bunch of racist bigots who, freed from federal supervision, would quickly resurrect Jim Crow.

I’m far, far from an expert in this – what am I missing?

…if the FBI would look into a film like the one in this story, but showing someone destroying the Bible instead?

I’m guessing the answer is no.