Ignorance breeds contempt.
I was stunned into eye-rolling disbelief and embarrassed silence the first time I heard a rumor about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. When I began writing columns a few years ago, I’d get e-mails from black people concerned about their voting rights. Some thought that when the Act expired, blacks would lose the right to vote.
This is what happens when people allow hysteria and race-baiting to override common sense.
The Fifteenth Amendment prevented states from denying citizens the right to vote based on race, and whites tried to keep them from voting by a variety of ill-conceived tricks. Such was the “grandfather clause.” One had to descend from citizens who had the right to vote, which meant, in most cases, former slaves and their descendants couldn’t vote. These clauses were unconstitutional, so declared the Supreme Court in Guinn v. United States.
There’s no greater motivation than determination. Some states continued to disenfranchise blacks by requiring literacy tests. As educating slaves was illegal, there was an educational lag between former slaves, their descendants, and everybody else. Literacy tests were a blatant and obvious attempt to further disenfranchise blacks, although it unintentionally did the same to illiterate whites. In the face of this resistance, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Blogroll — As you can see, my blogroll is very long. At this point, I’m more interested in trimming it than adding to it. On occasion, I surf through the roll, deleting blogs that haven’t been updated in the past month and replacing them with new ones. As I’m very busy these days, I don’t do this as often as I’d like.
If you’ve sent requests for reciprocal links and haven’t received one, don’t take offense. Sometimes I don’t want to link to the blog for various reasons; other times I add the link or intend to add it, but don’t get around to it. That’s the way the blogosphere works sometimes. Fortunately, nobody is obliged to link to anybody, although it’s considered good etiquette to link to a blog you’ve referenced in a post.
Update II: Illegal Immigration From A Biblical Point of View
One more thing: no matter what you think of Rush Limbaugh, you need to listen to him on this immigration issue. He always, always makes me feel better when I’m this angry. He might do the same for you. Listen online here.
Update (3/30): Michelle Malkin has more info about our “undocumented” workers.
Also see Pro-Enforcement, Not Anti-Immigrant , Illegal Aliens Threated U.S. Health System, FAIR, Internet Pilot Program, and last but most important — one way to discourage idiotic businesses that hire illegal aliens is to sue them under RICO.
Focusing all of our energy on border jumpers won’t solve the problem. We need to put pressure of businesses, report the ones who hire illegal aliens, generate some press - something. Visit We Hire Aliens, and do what you can do.
Also see A Nation of Outlaws, Part I and Part II.
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I’m trying to calm down before I blog about the illegal alien protests. (Leo Jarzomb/Staff photo via Michelle Malkin)
[Note: Read this story about black couples renewing their vows.]
I’m no expert on marriage (its benefits or detriments) or children or women or black people; my impressions are based on almost four decades of interaction with and observation of marriage and children and women and black people.
This post addresses the well-linked article, Marriage Is for White People indirectly; I won’t go through it and comment on each paragraph. What I have to say encompasses more than one writer’s personal experience or the “marriage is for white people” meme. Besides the assiduous use of the term “African American,” the article rings true on many levels.
Fellow Christian and blogger Independent Conservative takes issue with the writer’s contentions in this must-read post.
Filed under: Cultural Decline, Faith
I have so much to say about this article and this one. Later…
Unrelated Update: I’ve been so slack. I kept forgetting to announce the MilBlog Conference 2006, which is scheduled for April 22, 2006, in Washington D.C., at the AED Conference Center (see this post for details). I was invited to live-blog. Check out the line-up of military bloggers. The conference is coordinated by the lovely Andi C., a military wife and blogger I met at BlogNashville.
On April 4, I’ll participate on a panel at the Celebrate Booker T. conference in Washington, D.C.
Update II (3/27): From the Townhall.com review of An Army of Davids:
Reynolds provides a wide range of examples how new technologies empower individuals, from helping amateur musicians distribute their online music to the masses without record companies to allowing private citizens to respond to terrorist attacks and disasters better and more efficiently than the government.
New technologies can and are used for nefarious purposes, too. An Army of Davids covers such abuses as terrorists engaging in cyber warfare and the possibility that nanotechnology, (“manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular levelâ€), a topic Reynolds blogs about frequently, could be used as “disease†agents or that nanobots could “hide out in people’s brains.†(hat tip to Michael Crichton!). The positive aspect of nanotechnology is its potential to repair cells damaged by radiation or destroy cancer cells or deliver oxygen to the brain to protect from drowning. The possibilities – and abuses – are endless.
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I’m out the door and will be on the Treo for most of the day. While I’m gone, turn your attention to these book reviews:
Update IV (3/27): If you’ve never visited IMAO, you must stop by. Frank J. and his contributors are hilarious. (And their podcast provides much-needed comic relief, too.) Frank lightens the mood with this funny and spot-on “editorial” about Christianity.
Update (3/26) III: On this Lord’s day, Abdul Rahman’s life is spared. A giant step toward civilized society for Islam. Even so, Christ said:
“Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
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“So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. (Matthew 10: 17-23; 26-28)
People work hard, save money, make sacrifices, and buy houses (for a premium) in safe, clean neighborhoods, and a gaggle of liberal lawyers ask a judge to dictate social policy and ship in people who didn’t do those things, people dependent on the government.
“Good schools” is one of the reasons cited. Does anybody want to guess why the schools are good? Never mind. The question’s rhetorical.
You maintain and care for something you own much better than something you rent. And when the government (taxpayers) pays a large portion of the rent, you care even less about it. It’s not yours. We all know how it works.
If this goes through, property values will drop (partly because of Section 8 housing), crime will increase, and the tax base will shrink (adversely affecting those “good schools”) because the better-off who work to pay for the schools will move again. And again. And again. At least for now, people are still free to live where they want to live in this country, government social experiments notwithstanding.
There ought to be a law…
Related posts:
I’ve thought about writing articles (and maybe a book) in defense of the Southern Strategy, and I’m similarly inclined to write an op-ed opposing the idea of pardoning people who violated segregation laws (also see this story) back in the day.
Maybe this is why I get hate mail. After all, such ideas are “dangerous.” Whites with sinister motives may use such op-eds and blog posts as material to support their “racist” positions, so I’m told.
Back in the day, whites were afraid that slaves would be exposed to “dangerous” ideas, too, like dignity, humanity, the pursuit of knowledge, and…freedom. Radical. The freedom to think critically and for oneself can be as radical. It may result in an epidemic of knowledge and reasoned debate, and we all know how dangerous that would be. 
