Tag: Martin Luther King

The conservative’s conundrum (revised and extended)

In the wake of my original remarks I had quite a bit of reaction on social media, and the balance of support vs. “throw the bum out if he doesn’t resign” seems to be about 50/50. The latter category, however, seems to be almost exclusively Trump supporters who didn’t seem to hear the part at the state convention (or read my reporting) about being tolerant to those who don’t support The Donald.

I do have one issue with a completely different segment of the Trump opposition that is physically attacking Trump supporters such as those in California. Since many of these young punks have no concept of history, let me throw something out at you that was actually before my time, too.

Back in 1968, the Democratic Party had its convention in Chicago. As it turned out, then-President Johnson declared himself out of the running after a disappointing showing in the New Hampshire primary, opening up the field to a group of candidates that was cut down by one with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy that June after the California primary. Coupled with an escalating Vietnam war and race riots in response to the murder of the Rev. Martin Luther King two months beforehand, all creating a population already on pins and needles, the violent Democratic convention shocked a population as it was punctuated by scenes of daily protests and violence captured nightly on the evening news. (Remember, there was no internet back then so the sources of national news information were the nightly TV news and daily newspaper. National conventions also received wall-to-wall coverage on the networks in that era.) Across America’s heartland, it was easy for the law-and-order campaign of Republican Richard Nixon to be successful as voters were sickened by the strife associated with the 1968 Democrats.

So when you are out protesting Donald Trump by waving Mexican flags and shouting anti-American slogans, it’s a surefire way to rally support to his side. Quite honestly, I’m surprised some conspiracy theorist hasn’t put out the idea that the Trump protestors are an inside job by his own side to galvanize support. This is an election that has a lot of the hallmarks of the 1968 campaign, and Donald Trump isn’t a half-bad impersonation of Richard Nixon.

But back to my story regarding Trump supporters, who remind me that “You do not and are not willing to represent the nominee that the voters who you represent prefer.” This particular one pointed out that there were 7.200 county voters who supported Trump. (7,214, but who’s counting?)

So let’s make the leap in assuming they are against the status quo in Washington, which seems to be Trump’s selling point. Well, I also represent the 8,775 Wicomico County voters who were happy to support Andy Harris and I have no problem working for his re-election because I find him conservative enough. I’m not quite so down with the 2,839 Kathy Szeliga supporters but she will still get my vote. Both of them have been loyal and conservative Republicans for years, unlike Trump. Commitment to limited government (not to mention tact, trustworthiness, and a command of the English language) is something I find sorely lacking from Trump.

And then we have this diatribe from that same person:

Your role as a Central Committee member is to advance the party, and that means whomever the nominee is after the primary, you work to beat the Democrat! If you cannot do that in good conscious (sic) you should resign.

Well, this is interesting because I did a quick bit of investigation and found out this person was a diehard Ron Paul supporter in 2012 and basically has had the desire to stick it to the Republican Party since then. In fact, it’s intriguing to me that a number of folks I know as Paul supporters and who are supposedly pro-liberty are supporting perhaps the most anti-liberty Republican in the race simply because they perceive him as anti-establishment. Seems to me that in this person’s opinion the GOP wasn’t worth advancing:

I’ve been saying this for a long time…This man is not, and never has been a Republican…he is an Obama operative….a couple stupid neocons jumped all over me for calling that shot but now, who’s eating crow?…..You stupid neocons are soooooo scared about Ron Paul running as a third party….you defended this schmuck and now it looks as though he’s the spoiler!!

Everyone is entitled to change their mind and I respect that. But perhaps you might want to pardon me for thinking – like you did once upon a time – that Donald Trump is the spoiler.

Honestly, if I really didn’t think the Republican Party as a conservative vehicle was about to throw two decades’ worth of my sweat and toil away by nominating a particular candidate, would I speak out? Would I really give a rat’s rear end?

Oh, and by the way – our county does have a provision where we can withhold support from a nominee as a group. So at this point it’s still possible we won’t back Trump thanks to what’s known as the David Duke rule. And while Duke hasn’t officially endorsed Trump, he did state that voting for anyone but Trump is “voting against your heritage.”

Consider that as you continue to react.

‘Civil Rights Day’ and the state of civility

First of all, the reason I titled this post as I did is that I think this holiday should be known as ‘Civil Rights Day.’ It rarely falls on the actual birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and given the government’s love of three-day weekends perhaps a name change is in order. For example, we rarely celebrate Washington’s Birthday on its actual date and to most it’s truncated into President’s Day.

While today Dr. King is being eulogized once again in a number of ways, perhaps this is a good time to reflect on the discourse of the civil rights era; a decade which roughly spanned from the mid-1950’s to the mid-1960’s. I was born at the very tail end of the decade, so I won’t claim that I marched in Selma or anything like that. From what I understand about the time, though, there was some seriously heated political rhetoric and on a few occasions this boiled over into violence.

Obviously we’ve come a long way since then, with the election of Barack Obama supposedly the trigger for a ‘post-racial’ society. Yet TEA Partiers like myself are tarred with the moniker of ‘racist’ by simply questioning the wisdom of Obama’s policies and plans. By extension, yes, we are questioning the content of Obama’s character but we are accused of basing our opposition on the amount of pigment in Obama’s skin.

To give another example, ask a black Republican how many times he or she is called an “Oreo” or an “Uncle Tom.”

All this call for ‘civility’ comes in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and many others in Tuscon, a shooting where six victims died. It also comes after lefties got their weekend exercise jumping to conclusions about how shooter Jared Loughner simply had to be a TEA Party regular who got his marching orders from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and obeyed the target symbols on the internet for Giffords’ Congressional district. Yet once evidence came out that he was a political agnostic who was, if anything, left of center – ::: sound of crickets chirping ::: .

Assuming most of you have read this blog a few times, it’s likely you know that I reside well right of center on the political scale, and had I lived in Arizona’s Eighth District I’d likely have voted for her Republican opponent in November. (In fact, Gabrielle Giffords won this election in a similar fashion to that which Frank Kratovil won our district in 2008 – via plurality, with a Libertarian candidate taking 3.9% of the Eighth District vote.)

It’s also known that I covered the July 2009 event here in Salisbury where Frank Kratovil was hung in effigy. Certainly I believe in First Amendment rights, as one might suspect I would being a member of the ‘pajamas media.’ But as I said at the time:

Let me say straight away that I wouldn’t have recommended the noose and effigy of Frank Kratovil. The “no Kratovil in 2010″ (sign) would have been effective enough.

But don’t forget that the local lefties decided to intrude upon an AFP event just a few months ago, with the intent being to disrupt the proceedings and embarass the eventual winning candidate. Admittedly, a chicken suit is less threatening than a noose but neither rise to the level of actual bloodshed.

The point is that my criticism of Kratovil would have likely been similar to that of Giffords had I lived in her district, and I wouldn’t have been shy in sharing it. But I would have been just as horrified about Loughner’s actions.

(In fact, I have a separate article I submitted to Pajamas Media about another effect the Giffords shooting may have on political discourse, with a somewhat different angle than I present here. It may be on there as soon as tomorrow.)

Some say that the political tone we are saddled with these days, with its superheated rhetoric, can be toned down on both sides. But had Martin Luther King, Jr. been assassinated in 2011 instead of 1968, we likely still would have had the scattered rioting which occurred in the wake of his death. Emotional reactions to the death of popular leaders seldom change but are manifested in different ways.

Like it or not, part of the price of living in a free society as we do is having to put up with these arguments. Normally they are settled by the ballot, though, and it’s telling that it took someone with a mental illness to settle their differences with a bullet. Fortunately, our society still prefers the former solution despite the best efforts of some to argue otherwise.