nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

-They thought they were free-
By Milton Mayer .

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

BIRDMAN

🤤🤤🤤

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

BIRDMAN, that was one great quote. Is it yours?

Throughout the 1950s, Barry Goldwater, in both the House and Senate, had been in the forefront of civil rights legislation. In his home state of Arizona, he led the efforts to desegregate the National Guard. He helped establish the Arizona Air National Guard and insisted on no segregation. He once said that he didn't care what the race, religion or nationality of the guy next to him in a foxhole was, he wanted to know if he could shoot straight.

In 1964, as he was running for the Republican p**********l nomination, he v**ed against the civil rights bill on the grounds that it would lead to quotas in hiring, even going so far as citing the specific passages that would do it. Hubert Humphrey, who for his part was angling for the vacant vice-p**********l spot on Lyndon Johnson's re-e******n ticket, after he'd succeeded to the presidency with John Kennedy's assassination, scoffed saying that if it did, he'd eat a copy of the bill on the Senate floor. The bill passed, Humphrey secured the coveted VP slot, Johnson landslided to victory over Barry, quotas became the norm, and Humphrey's diet never changed.

Goldwater had valid constitutional concerns over the bill but it had steamrollered to passage and emboldened by this, Lyndon Johnson, a previous segregationist, then proposed the 1965 civil rights bill that went even further and
established integration in accommodations, housing and other sectors of the economy. One (black) woman, even said, "I don't want to go where I'm not wanted."

From their years together in the Senate, Goldwater had nothing but cold contempt for Johnson. Contrariwise, he and Kennedy had been good friends and frequent lunchmates. They also often agreed and worked on legislation together. He called Goldwater 'a man of decency and character,' and was looking forward to his re-e******n campaign against a presumed Goldwater as nominee. Kennedy also shared Goldwater's view of Johnson.

The two bills were bad precedents and the big beneficiaries have been the lawyers and governmentalists who regard themselves as our society's Messiahs. The biggest victims have been limited government and The Constitution.

son of witless

Just like Democrat v**ers do now.

Hipcheck16

Do I understand you correctly that you believe the Civil Rights Acts were bad for this country? That the integration of America was a bad thing?
Do you believe you should be able to treat people differently based on their race or nationality, their religion or their g****r, whether by birth or how they choose to identify?

I don't believe you can be in support of true democracy. Or American democracy, if you are in favor of interpreting the constitution to allow for different application to different groups of people.

How about BROWN vs. BOARD OF EDUCATION? If as it appears integration is a problem for you, should our far-right illegitimate Supreme Court majority go back-in-time and overrule that case which determined that, NO, separate but equal, was neither equal nor constitutional. Is that how things would be OK with you? Would enforcing compliance with laws banning racial discrimination make the enforcers the bad guys, in your eyes?

If that's how you think, congratulations you get that right to think how you want because you're in America. Like my father, my step father, my brother and others I'm related to, I will stand up and fight for that right, knowing freedom isn't free. And that's despite the fact that that kind of thinking is absolutely unenlightened, undemocratic and contrary to the ideals and actual language laid out in the most important document that's ever been written in the history of human kind, the Constitution of the United States of America, as amended by the Bill of Rights and each and every amendment subsequently added thereto.

If you're not willing to fight for the right of the person whose ideas you vehemently oppose to be able to put forth those ideas even if those ideas may make your ideas in a place such that they will never come about, then you don't understand and don't buy into the true concept of our constitutional democracy and what freedom of expression at its core really means.