Democrats, Republicans, and Race
Democrats, Republicans, and Race UPI has an interesting article by Bruce Bartlett of the National Center for Policy Analysis that discusses the troubling history of the Democratic Party’s relationship with blacks during the New Deal. (Link thanks to Geitner Simmons.) It is not what you may think. Until 1932, Bartlett reminds, blacks voted Republican, the […]
Flags, Shirts, Symbols
I have written before (here) that states should not display symbols, such as Confederate flags, that antagonize and offend large numbers of their citizens. But does that obligation, imposed by common sense and common courtesy, extend to requiring students to take the shirts off their backs? I’m not so sure, but, according to an article […]
Lind Laments
Reader Fred Ray sends word of an interesting article (link requires subscription) in Financial Times by Michael Lind, the liberal-turned-conservative-turned liberal, lamenting the current disorganized and chaotic weakness of the Democrats compared to the “streamlined, authoritarian organization” and on-message efficiency of the Republicans. Some of Lind’s history is off (such as calling interstate highways an […]
Neutrality: Religion-Blindness As Well as Color-Blindness
An editorial in today’s New York Times, “Using Tax Dollars for Churches,” nicely if unintentionally reveals the reigning confusion over what we mean by “discrimination.” According to the NYT, the president’s policy gives faith-based organizations “a green light to discriminate in employment,” i.e., Methodist organizations could insist on hiring Methodists, etc. (The editorial mentions a […]
Recall This Firestone!
When last heard from here, David Firestone of the New York Times was reporting that “G.O.P. Senators See No Need For Altered Stance on Race.” I commented at the time that his article was “odd” because he never said what that stance was. Now here he comes again, after only one week, reporting in today’s […]
There’s Diversity, And Then There’s … Diversity
These days, as is well known, “diversity” has become a virtual mantra among liberals. Imagine my surprise, then, at finding a powerful critique of it in, of all places, The American Prospect — in a review essay by Stephen Macedo, a professor of politics at Princeton. General public policies and programs never impose uniform costs […]
Race : Hammer :: Ballot Security : Nail
I wrote in my last post that “Increasingly, race is the Democrats’ hammer, as in the old saw that says when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.” Here’s another example; this time the nails are ballot security programs that attempt to deter voting fraud. Writing in The American […]
Sean Wilentz, The Democrademic
In a letter to the New York Times today, Princeton’s Sean Wilentz, the all-purpose, all-occasion, all-Democratic academic (Democrademic), comments on the Linwood Holton OpEd discussed here. Holton, recall, had concluded his OpEd by noting: Republicans must now decide where we should take our party. We can go with President Bush, who reminded us that “every […]
Hot Comments
Regular readers and other gluttons for punishment may want to take a look at the comments that have appeared recently regarding this post below. Although somewhat more heated than I enjoy (and I include mine in this reproach), they do highlight a number of issues often discussed here.
Kinsley, Innuendo, and Code Words
Michael Kinsley sure is getting cranky in his post-Slate dotage. In his recent column, for example, he writes: In trying to assess a politician, especially one who is braying about American freedom, justice, democracy and so on, I like to ask myself: Where would this guy or gal have been in the old Soviet Union? […]
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