PC Republicans vs. PC Democrats
0 comment Wednesday, September 24, 2014 |
I feel compelled to address a few of the canards and talking points that the 'colorblind conservatives' return to time and again. One that is frequently heard is that ''Democrat social programs cause all the black social problems. If it weren't for the Democrats/liberals, there would not be so much black crime or illegitimacy.'' Sometimes people elaborate on this one, and claim that black illegitimacy rates were negligible before the social programs of the 60s and onward were introduced. AFDC supposedly caused the number of unmarried mothers to skyrocket, and of course it's implied that were it not for the welfare checks, blacks would be chaste until marriage and monogamous within marriage.
Is there any evidence of that claim? One of the public figures who is most associated with the problem of social pathologies in the ''African-American community'' is Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Although he was a Democrat, he warned of the dangers of family disintegration among blacks. He said:
"The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States."
He was quoted here on the subject:
Mr. Moynihan speaks with passion about a poverty that is inextricably tied to "a volcanic change in family structure, for which there is no comparable experience in human history."
The 'respectable Republicans' say that the volcanic change, which led to a rise in illegitimacy and other social problems, was directly caused by Democrat/liberal bleeding-heart policies, like AFDC and other social programs. However, that is simplistic. The changes were already under way before the growth of the welfare state in the 60s and later. Much of the change resulted from earlier upheavals, first, emancipation, and then the uprooting of large numbers of rural blacks who went to large cities, many in the North, to find jobs. Disconnected from family and familiar surroundings, it was easy for many blacks (and poor Whites, for that matter) to break free of old social constraints and conventional morality.
It must be remembered, too, that many of these rural blacks did not hew as closely to conventional morality as did Whites. Illegitimacy rates and marital breakup rates were always higher than those of Whites.
Morality in general began to become more lax, especially during the years of World War II; this frequently happens because of the disruption caused by war, and the greater mobility and social disarray that accompanies it. Whites, too, had higher rates of social problems in the post-war years, though black problems were significantly more common.
This AmRen article from 1991 points this out.
''Black illegitimacy rates have always caught the attention of observers, even when they were forbidden to draw conclusions from them. As far back as 1944, when Gunnar Myrdal wrote An American Dilemma, he was worried about a 16 percent illegitimacy rate among southern blacks, which was then eight times the white rate. Today, nearly two thirds of all black children are born to single mothers (the figure for whites has risen to 15 percent), and if there is a single statistic that sums up the plight of American blacks today, this is it.''
But is that directly attributable to liberalism, as the 'respectable Republicans' insist? To claim such a thing is to deny that blacks bear any responsibility for their actions, or that they are free moral agents, not puppets of a political party -- or of White people in general, as many of the shriller PC Republicans imply.
Black people are not an inert mass who can be led this way and that by others. Yes, they vote consistently Democrat, because Democrats and their big-mommy government offer better pickings than the Republicans, and because the Democrats anti-White rhetoric and policies appeal to blacks and other minorities. To say that blacks are 'slaves on the Democrat plantation' is silliness. If they are being exploited, which is possible, given the corrupt political system we have, they are also doing some exploiting of their own. The Democrats deliver privileges to nonwhites -- as do the Republicans, but the Democrats go all out, and top Republican pandering every time.
Common sense would support the idea that subsidizing anything produces more of it, so that the easy social welfare benefits would provide an incentive for more single motherhood. This bears on the situation with illegal (and legal) immigrants, too. Subsidizing their irresponsible or illegal actions encourages such actions.
The rest of the talking points being disseminated by the PC Republicans involves a distorted picture of the War Between the States and the Reconstruction era. Their simple-minded scenario depicts Southron Whites as being cartoon villains out of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and makes slavery the sole cause of the rift between North and South. This is a caricature of history, and I cannot refute it in detail here; it would require a book. Unfortunately most Northerners and sadly, many Southron people too, have been weaned on such a caricatured, distorted view of the North-South conflict, and so the PC ''conservatives'' find a ready and gullible audience willing to accept their childish and oversimplified account.
The gullible Republican audience believes that the Democrats represented ''racism'' while the noble and selfless Republicans of the War era and afterward were the friends of blacks and heroic supporters of ''equality'' and freedom. So, believing this, they believe that the only reason the old ''solid South'' voted Democrat for so many years is that White Southerners were evil ''racists''. They show no sign of ever having heard of how Radical Republicans ran rampant in the South during Reconstruction, and how these extremists stripped White Southerners of their civil rights and liberties. They know nothing about the depredations against the White Southron population that took place during Reconstruction. And how can they know, since most schools and history books present a politically corrected account of what happened then, of the excesses and outrages of Reconstruction, of which Republicans were the architects, turned White Southerners against the Republican Party for a century or so. This is why some of my older relatives to this day will not vote Republican.

Actually, the Republican Party has been making the claim that the Democrats want to 're-enslave black people' ever since emancipation and the Reconstruction era, as the above document put out by the Union Republican Congressional committee shows. (Click to enlarge the document)
So now there are two parties, made up mostly of White people, each claiming that the other group of Whites consists of a lot of vile racists who want to ''keep blacks down.'' According to the Democrats, the Republicans are the racists, and according to the Republicans, who want to live down their reputation as being a White man's party, the Democrats are ''the real racists''. So we've got twice as many White people affirming that other White people are hateful racists trying to keep the black man down.
What message does this put out? How does this help the country? It does not; it further cements the minorities' stereotype of Whites as bigots and hypocrites. It hampers relations between the races.
However, that last sentence does not indicate that I am one of those colorblind conservatives who thinks that the races would all get along famously if only ''those other racist White guys'' stopped stirring up hate and division. For Democrats to believe such utopian foolishness is predictable; they are not known for being honest or realistic. But for ''conservatives'', who used to pride themselves on common sense and groundedness to believe this is unforgivable. The Republicans are again proving to be the Stupid Party.
As I type this, I can just hear those objecting that ''but the Democrats are far worse; the Republicans at least have some good candidates!" Yes, I agree to some extent. I plan to vote next week, though my faith in the system is weakening by the day, but I will not have an easy time choosing between the evils.
If the Republican Party is to be salvaged -- and that is a huge ''if'', there will need to be a resurgence of common sense and a repudiation of the childish game-playing and name-calling, and above all, a jettisoning of political correctness and pandering. I know; that's a forlorn hope. But PC and all its attendant lies will have to go; the issues that are at the heart of it are the very issues that will be the death of us if we do not deal with them head-on, minus all the finger-pointing and blame-shifting and name-calling, minus the intra-racial hate and divisiveness.
A rejection of liberalism in its Republican guise is one of the most urgent needs if things are ever to turn around.

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