The Democrats of the civil rights era didn’t have too much in common with the Democrats of today, either.  They were not the diverse party they are now, nor did they place a strong emphasis on civil rights.  In fact, during the civil rights struggles…they tended to stick with their platform of states’ rights, and to assert that each individual state could decide on how to handle matters of discrimination, workplace inequality, and segregation.  They did have one, big advantage in the South:  As the party representing workers and unions over management and “big business,” they held dominant sway over the southern states, which were more heavily populated by working class and impoverished citizens than the other regions of the country.

Looking back at the two parties surely has a sort of “looking glass” feel to it.  Each party was “halfway” towards the policies it holds today…with only one major ideological flip needed to set things as they are now.  This change would come courtesy of the Republican Party and its new president in the early 1970′s: Richard Milhous Nixon.  Nixon, who had come from a very poor background himself, knew of one sure way to lure southern voters away from the Democratic Party’s grasp.  One subject that would outweigh the voters’ interest in jobs, income, and all other areas of economic self-interest.  Race.  Nixon’s use of race to influence voting, often accompanied with “social conservatism” issues, would form the heart of what has come to be known in politics as the “Southern Strategy” of the GOP.  This was not a completely new strategy.  In fact, during the civil rights struggles, Democrats had widely employed race-baiting, a cornerstone of the “Southern Strategy,” as a defense against the coming wave of changes, and with some success…they had won some battles, while losing the overall war.  Republicans, like Nixon, would perfect its usage as a political tactic.

You see, “race-baiting” is the politically-safer, passive-aggressive version of “overt racism.“  The time had come in America when overtly racist statements would cause the speaker to lose support among liberals, moderates, and even many conservatives.  While many people at the time still held racist beliefs, there was a growing common understanding that it was not acceptable to utter them aloud.  Race-baiting allowed politicians and other public figures to address racist voters, to play upon their prejudice-based fears…while still being able to deny that they had said anything “racist.”  Examples include:

- Showing photos, statistics, or simply retelling events in such a way as to make people of a particular race look menacing or dangerous.

- Making claims of people of a particular race “taking over” in terms of a locale, an industry, government power.

- Making claims that measures intended to help a disadvantaged group overcome institutionalized prejudice are giving them an “unfair advantage.“

- Offering racists “substitution terms.” For example, instead of calling a person a racist term, substituting terms like “foreign,” or “socialist/communist/fascist,” or simply inferring that they are “arrogant,” or that they otherwise “don’t know their place.“

- Intimating that the previously dominant race or culture is “under attack” by the other race.  This attack may come in terms of social norms, dress, music, religion…or even accusations inferring that interracial reproduction some sort of “danger.”

Suffice it to say, the strategy worked for the Republicans, and southern voters have strongly supported them to this day.  The transformation was now complete.  Democrats had become the party for minorities, civil rights, centralized government power, labor and unions, higher taxes, and public works.  Republicans had become the party of big business, lower taxes, smaller government, states’ rights…and prejudice.

Then for nearly forty years…the Republicans didn’t need the “Southern Strategy” as much.  The public trusted their assurances that they were the party of “fiscal responsibility” and “foreign policy experience” and so from the Reagan years to the end of the presidency of George W. Bush…the tactics were rarely employed.  That is, until Barack Obama was elected.  That is, until the people of this country found out that they were anything but “responsible” with the country’s finances and anything but “skilled” in terms of dealing with either friends OR enemies abroad.

With no accomplishments to brag about, and their economic and diplomatic skills under fire, Republicans, the Tea Party, and the rest of the nation’s conservatives would resort to using the “Southern Strategy” once again.  Only this time, they had new tools to aid with its implementation: the internet and Fox News. This time, the would not only target black Americans…but also foreigners (particularly Hispanics), gays, and Muslims.

Here’s Rachel Maddow, giving clear examples of Fox News’ ongoing attempts to play on the fears of white Americans:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qAQ3XXxKAY

Fox News and the conservative blogosphere went after Obama’s advisor on Environmental Equality, Van Jones, with nearly incessant coverage portraying him as someone with “dangerously radical” views on race, and as a “Marxist” or “Leninist.”

They also went after Kevin Jennings, Obama’s pick for “Safe and Drug-Free Schools” czar…by attacking him for being gay, insinuating that he was somehow pro-pedophilia, and stirring fears that he would allow gay teachers to “turn students gay.”

They attacked Chai Feldblum, Obama’s appointment to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission…by stoking fears that she would “promote gay sex,” and would give gays a hiring advantage over heterosexuals.

They have repeatedly covered items related to an ongoing theme: the supposed “war” on Christianity.  Any other religious group enjoying the freedom to practice their religioun…is portrayed as a “threat” to Christians being able to practice theirs.  Sound ridiculous?  That’s because it IS, and this was not lost on Jon Stewart of The Daily Show:

They gave a lot of time, and tacit support, to the new Arizona law, which unconstitutionally requires Arizona’s police to ask anyone “suspected” of being an illegal alien to prove his or her citizenship.  They allowed the bill’s supporters to tell their viewing audience about the murders, kidnappings, and beheadings occurring in their state due to lax border enforcement.  Of course, what Fox did not do…is to point out that there have been no such beheadings, and that violent crimes in these states have actually DECREASED over recent years.

Recently they went after the Department of Agriculture’s Shirley Sherrod, citing that a film clip of her speaking at an event was just “another example” of blacks in the Obama administration who are racially discriminatory against whites.  The clip was quickly revealed to be deceptively edited…Sherrod was actually telling a morality tale about overcoming racism, and the speech took place many years before she was even a federal employee.

For the last week, they have been allowing a single story to dominate their headlines.  They show a picture of two “menacing” black men from the New Black Panthers standing outside a polling place, stoking fears of black radicals taking over the political process.  Of course, they don’t focus on the fact that the men were removed by police, banned from serving as poll-watchers, and that the Justice Department justifiably decided not to press charges against the men because the case was so weak.  They also don’t point out that while there are an abundance of case examples of voter intimidation being perpetrated against blacks in this country…there is just this one, ridiculous example of the reverse ever occurring.

And countless times…Fox went after Obama himself.  They gave “birthers,” those that claim Obama is not an American citizen, lots of air time.  They’ve attempted to paint him as “arrogant,” or “socialist,” or as “pushing a black agenda,” at every available opportunity.  They’ve even gone so far as to directly call Obama…a “racist.”  In fact, that’s the real hidden “trick” behind race-baiting: Since you’re not making overtly racist statements, if anyone accuses you of racism…just deny it, blast them for “playing the race card,” and if they are a minority member, you accuse THEM of being racist/prejudiced against YOU.  This was recently the case when the NAACP called for the Tea Party to condemn the racist positions of some of their supporters, due to the PROVEN fact that a number of white-supremacy groups openly support the Tea Party.  So how did the Tea Party respond?  They feigned outrage at the suggestion that ALL of them are racists, even though no such allegation had been made, and…wait for it…accused the NAACP of being racist against white people.  It was only when the Tea Party’s spokesperson made obviously racist comments on his blog, that he was forced to resign.

I hear the effects of this strategy every day, living in the South.  I hear men and women I work with whisper things about how “hard it is to be white, and Christian” these days.  They moan about how they are “under attack.“  They fear the “effect” that society’s growing acceptance of homosexuality will have on their children.  They swear, incorrectly, that ours was founded as a “Christian nation,” and that people of other faiths should build their churches elsewhere.  They complain about “Mexicans,” who according to them cause crime to rise (incorrect), and who steal “their” jobs (also incorrect), and who soak up massive amounts of tax dollars by receiving free services (yup…also incorrect).  They complain that their lives would be “so much easier” if they were black, Hispanic, or some other minority, and had everything “given to them.”  These are the fruits of the “Southern Strategy” of race-baiting: Large numbers of semi-literate, white people feeling victimized and threatened by the very idea that someone else….someone DIFFERENT…might now live, work, worship alongside them.  Told that the racism they have held, quietly in their hearts…can now be expressed as long as they do it using certain careful terms, certain substitutions, certain “code.”  Told that even in expressing their racism, THEY are not racists…because they are the victims of the racism of the minorities.

Lo! How the mighty “Party of Lincoln” has fallen.

I only see one cure: We must rediscover our passion for the American ideals that were set forth in the Declaration of Independence.  Read it here.  I know, it’s been some time since you read it…so really let it sink in.  Now study the Founding Fathers and their passions…and let those passions become yours.  For it will only be when we all accept the universality of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…that our nation will experience true growth, true unity, true national greatness.  It will only be when all Americans embrace the idea that this nation was created as a haven of racial, religious, ideological, and political tolerance…that we will be able to focus our true and full attentions on the very real problems that face our country, and that keep us from thriving.  It will only be when we all accept that one group’s religious doctrine was never meant to dominate our government, our schools, our workplaces, or our laws…that we will see that it is not about what you or I believe, but instead, it is about what all of us agree on together.

And most of all: We must abandon our fears…especially our fears of each other. Then…we must condemn those who play upon our fears for little more than petty, partisan purposes.  Shame on you, Republicans….shame on you, Fox News….shame on you Tea Party….shame on you Breitbart, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, WorldNetDaily, Rush Limbaugh, and all you other ideologues.  And shame on us…for ever having listened to them.

I’ll leave you with Keith Olbermann’s spirited call to reject race-baiting…if we all had such passion, it would already be a thing of the past:

Part 1:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcI8nWyugQs

Part 2:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=34cynRWkPMs

YOU know that there are essentially two sides to the “balance sheet.” On one side is your “Assets/Revenue/Income“…the money that is coming in. On the other side is your “Liabilities/Debits/Expenses“…the money that is going out.

YOU know that these two sides, in conjunction, determine your bottom line…which is to say, whether or not you are making money (in budgeting, we call this a “surplus“) or losing money (in budget terms, a “deficit“).

Republicans are currently trying to tell us (examples here, here, and here from Huffington Post) that spending money, like extending unemployment benefits, increases the deficit and is, therefore, BAD. They say all measures to spend money MUST be offset by reduced spending in other areas.

In principle, this is TRUE. Yes -- adding expenses without either increasing revenue or decreasing expenditures somewhere else…would increase the deficit. File that little equation under “D” for “Duh.”

They also tell us that reducing revenue, for example the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, does not increase the deficit and is, therefore, GOOD. They say these tax cuts do not require that either more taxes be collected somewhere else, or that spending be decreased to offset their effect.

That much, is FALSE…and is, perhaps, the most irresponsible rationale we’ve heard used to justify what amounts to little more than partisan political hackery. Your average person with no financial education whatsoever can see that decreasing the amount of tax revenue without increasing revenue somewhere else or decreasing expenses WOULD increase the deficit.

See the attached graph…and you’ll see that tax cuts, in fact, have a bigger impact on increasing the deficit than two foreign wars, stimulative spending, and entitlement programs:

Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

This particular deception…is nothing new.  Once upon a time, in our not-so-distant past, a man named George Herbert Walker Bush (a Republican) ran against another man named Ronald Reagan (also a Republican) for President of the United States.  Reagan espoused an idea that has come to be known as “Supply Side Economics.” Essentially, this theory holds that reducing taxes on the private sector will lead to significant economic growth…enough growth to offset the loss of tax revenue.  Bush, in challenging Reagan’s proposal, would famously call this “voodoo economics.“  Watch part of the debate between the two men:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=edchtf9MS7g

Reagan would later go on to win the election, and today he is viewed by many in the Republican Party to be a “true conservative hero,“ a sort of epitome of what Republicans are “supposed to be.” But the truth is that his presidency, in many ways, represented an END to responsible, fiscal conservatism, and it was during his presidency that America’s federal deficit, and our national debt, SKYROCKETED.

In fact, if we look at the increase in the national debt while the last two Democrats were in office, Carter and Clinton, we saw increases of 42% and 36%, respectively.

While Reagan, following “tax cut ideology,” was President…the National Debt increased by 182%.

George H. W. Bush, who initially lambasted “tax cut ideology,” only to later adopt it himself….saw an increase of 55%.

George W. Bush, also added MORE tax cuts…and saw an increase of 89%.

Wait a minute.  Here are the Republicans, claiming STILL to be the party of “fiscal responsibility and conservatism,” and they are spending us into MORE debt than the Democrats, and are continuing to reduce our tax revenue through tax cuts, creating a LARGER deficit than under Democrats.  How exactly is this methodology either “responsible” OR “conservative?”

And what’s worse, they continue to spout the SAME lie as before.  Just this month, Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said, “The reality is that as you study — when President Kennedy cut marginal tax rates, when Ronald Reagan cut marginal tax rates, when President Bush imposed those tax cuts, they actually generated economic growth, they expand the economy, they expand tax revenue.“  Senator Kyl (R-Az.) has echoed this idea, as have Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and many others in the GOP.  Unfortunately for Pence, and for all of us, what he says is clearly NOT reality.  George W. Bush’s economic policy group told him tax cuts would not generate enough growth to make up for the lost revenue. Bush’s Chief Economist was even more direct about this when he said, “You are smart people. You know that the tax cuts have not fueled record revenues. You know what it takes to establish causality. You know that the first order effect of cutting taxes is to lower tax revenues. We all agree that the ultimate reduction in tax revenues can be less than this first order effect, because lower tax rates encourage greater economic activity and thus expand the tax base. No thoughtful person believes that this possible offset more than compensated for the first effect for these tax cuts. Not a single one.”

And yet so many Americans, seduced by the idea of tax cuts and ignoring their own common sense, still accept and repeat the GOP’s fiscal mantra: “Tax cuts pay for themselves.”

I love a good ideological debate, and there are a great many that we can have…but is it necessary for us to debate an issue where one side’s position is completely, demonstrably false?  Must we continue to listen to the same people who ballooned our debt and our deficit, by cutting tax revenues while spending as if the money were on fire…tell us that they deserve to be elected back into office because they have the solution to the problem: More tax cuts and responsible spending…the latter of which they proven incapable of doing?  For how long, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and amidst the screaming of expert economists, must Americans still see the GOP as the party of “foreign policy and fiscal responsibility?”

An Analogy:  You are very sick.  You go to a doctor who says he has a revolutionary, “proven” cure (although he can’t produce any proof of it actually working) called “slap therapy.“  He slaps you…nothing happens, you’re still sick.  He says, “Well, you have to do it more than once,” and slaps you again…but you’re still sick.  You decide to try another doctor who has an actual, proven, documented therapy which has helped millions of people…but it will take months of treatment, and the treatment is uncomfortable.  You try it, but after a few weeks you are tired of the discomfort and waiting so you go back to the first doctor.  He says he has the answer to your problems: “slap therapy.”  And the slapping begins anew…

America…aren’t you tired of getting slapped?

Once Rand Paul won the Republican primary in Kentucky, he made a number of very public statements in DIRECT violation of the Libertarians’ unwritten code of conduct.  These rules are simple:

1 – Do not talk about specific Libertarian policies

2 – Do NOT talk about specific Libertarian policies

You see, Libertarian concepts sound wonderful, when considered in the philosophical abstract.  Here are some examples:

Strict Constitutionality: The government has ONLY the powers enumerated in the Constitution…the rest are held by the people.  This is a necessary bulwark against tyranny.

Small Government: Government should have little power over the individual (especially in terms of individual’s liberty and property), and should tax people the minimum possible.

Peace: Libertarianism believes that war is to be avoided at all costs, should only be waged with the full consent of the people, and should only be engaged in after following the strictures of the Constitution.  It is seen as expensive, and as a means of keeping a population poor and controlled.  At the same time, the right-leaning Libertarians support a strong national defense, using the fullest sense of the word “defense.”

In addition, Libertarians on the right (sometimes called anarcho-capitalists), also propose the following:

Unfettered Private Property and Business: Government should not interfere in business (ie. regulation), as a free market is a form of “self-correcting” mechanism.

One can imagine that these concepts would appeal to many people, including people on the left, due to their emphasis on the strict defense of civil rights as enumerated in the Constitution.  In fact, Libertarianism is not actually a “right-wing” political philosophy, and its true, historical roots lie in Socialism.  The vast majority of the world’s Libertarians actually reject the anarcho-capitalist notion of unfettered private property, and they believe in a small government…a government that controls much of the means of production and which is responsible for the equitable distribution of wealth and resources to the people.  However, for the purpose of this discussion, we will focus on the “American-style” of Libertarianism which does, indeed, focus on a more “laissez-faire” economy, where the government does little to interfere in business and property.

So what “sin” did current Libertarians, like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle commit, that their predecessors, like Ron Paul, did not?  If they had stayed with the constant reiteration of the above principles without going into detail, then nobody would know the sad truth about Libertarianism, a truth that political philosophers have LONG known:  It is a philosophy that fails the minute it is applied to the real world, because it is purely idealistic, and fails to take HUMAN NATURE into account.  The Kentucky Libertarians vowed to abandon Rand Paul because he “violated their principles“.  In reality, he did no such thing (at least, no more so than anybody else)…he simply made the mistake of uttering them aloud, with specific examples…in front of the national media.

Paul and Angle weren’t done there, and they also committed a more heinous crime: They incorporated modern, right-wing positions INTO their philosophy…positions which flagrantly violate Libertarian principles, and thereby earn them the label of “hypocrite.”

Let’s take quick look at both these failings…

LIBERTARIANISM MEETS THE REAL WORLD:

Rand Paul would gather a lot of negative attention for three recent statements.  First he said that he did not support the Civil Rights Act, and that private companies should be allowed to racially discriminate in hiring, and in which customers they wish to serve.  Then, he publicly decried the Obama administration’s criticism of BP in the wake of the oil spill, calling it “un-American” for the government to criticize a private company.  Third, he defended our free-market system by citing a Cold War propaganda film as evidence that “the poor in our country are enormously better off than the rest of the world. It doesn’t mean we can’t do better. But we have to acknowledge and be proud of our system of capitalism,” drawing criticism due to the rampant poverty in his own state, Kentucky.

We start to see the heart of the problem, and it’s nested in two principles of the anarcho-capitalist strain of Libertarianism:

1 – The “Survival-Of-The-Fittest” Principle: If you are poor or have suffered misfortune, it is somehow the product of your own failures, whether that consists of a failure to educate yourself, failure to seek opportunity, failure to plan for adversity, or failure to pursue profitable enterprise.

2 – The “Good Business – Bad Business” Principle: Businesses do not need to be regulated…because they will naturally do good things, which will cause them to succeed.  Businesses that produce good, safe products…that treat their employees, the environment, their customers well…that do philanthropic gestures to help the poor, sick, and old…these businesses will thrive.  Businesses that produce dangerous products…that defraud their customers or mistreat their employees…that don’t help the public…will fail.

And there is where the philosophy breaks down…since these two principles are simply, completely, realistically, demonstrably FALSE.

We’ve seen, just in the last few years, what happens if companies are allowed to do whatever they want to do.  An oil company increases profits by not spending the time and money to train their workers in safety procedures, and to properly install and maintain safety/emergency equipment…and people still line up at the pump to buy BP gasoline even after their massive spill destroys the economy and ecology of an entire region.  Banks and investment firms play wild, convoluted games where only they win, their customers lose, and the economy plummets…and people still bank and invest with them.  We know that “bad things happen to good people,” and that even hard-working, good, educated people lose their jobs and suffer major financial misfortunes.  We know that there is no “marketplace justice,” and that big companies don’t often willingly sacrifice profits out of the goodness of their hearts, and that two of the biggest national economic disasters were caused by lack of government regulation on business…and were resolved by government spending, regulation, and programs (even most noted Libertarians are forced to concede the latter point…but fail to explain how it reconciles with their beliefs).

And…we know that we REALLY value some things that the government does…that are NOWHERE to be found in the Constitution.  Like the Social Security program…like Medicare/Medicaid…like checking our food, our water, our air, and the materials in our clothes, our homes, our children’s toys for poisons, bacteria, and other contaminants.  There’s nothing in the Constitution about the space program…or fighting the “drug war“…or the “border war“…or any number of other things that we have come to expect from our government.  This aspect, in particular, is one that Libertarians really wish that candidates like Rand Paul would NOT talk about…because if people knew every program that they would GET RID OF, then no Libertarian candidate would EVER be elected.  Because the “anarcho” in “anarcho-capitalism“…stands for “anarchy.”

LIBERTARIANISM MEETS RIGHT-WING FUNDAMENTALISM:

It would be bad enough if people knew what Libertarians, following a strict “only what is in the Constitution” platform, would get rid of…it’s even worse when Libertarian candidates engage in blatant hypocrisy just to include some ultra-right, often fundamentalist, ideals.

Rand Paul, to appeal the far-righters, recently stated that he would stop granting citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.  Well, since the Constitution quite clearly contradicts this by stating explicitly how citizenship is granted, his position is in violation of core Libertarian principles.  In fact, the Constitution grants all immigrants, legal or otherwise, all of the rights of citizens except those pertaining to running for public office and voting.

Sharron Angle has taken a hard-line position on abortion, saying it should even be denied to women who are the victims of incestual rape…saying they should try to “turn lemons into lemonade.“  Again, this is clearly in violation of Libertarians’ principles, as it amounts to the government interfering in the personal decisions of individuals.  Other conservative positions, such as in the case of gay marriage, where conservatives WANT the government to tell people how to live their lives, would also be contrary to Libertarian tenets.

As they have been engulfed by the Tea Party, these same Libertarians have adopted the Party’s “anti-tax” stance as well…and in countless interviews they stumble to explain how they reconcile this with the fact that the Constitution OBVIOUSLY grants the Congress the power to tax, and explicitly allows an income tax to be employed.  Clearly, the support a literal and absolute implementation of the Constitution…except the parts of the Constitution that don’t sit well with conservative voters.

The hard truth is, conservatives, particularly religious conservatives, have areas where they WANT the government to be “big,” they have powers they WANT the government to have (that are not listed in the Constitution), they have things in the Constitution that they wish were not there, and they have things they WANT the government to be able to tell us we can and cannot do for “moral reasons.” And whenever a Libertarian adopts these positions to obtain conservative electoral backing, it is at the price of completely compromising their ideals which they usually claim are “absolute” and based on “innate and self-evident” rights and liberties.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

People loved Ron Paul.  He’s charming, and when speaking he comes across as a person holding to solid, attractive ideals…and part of us loves an idealist.  A politician willing to talk about our Constitution, our liberties, our personal property in absolute terms will win many hearts.  If he is willing to also play upon our shared distrust of government…he will go far.  That is, up until we ask him, “So what does that mean in terms of practical application?  What government programs, departments, and policies would be abolished?“  Suddenly, we see him as he is: either a hopeless idealist with no sense of the real world…or as one who simply wishes for big businesses to be allowed to run amok to the detriment of our citizenry, all in the name of profit.

It is certainly odd that a political philosophy, whose branches either espouse a union of anarchy and socialism, or of anarchy and capitalism, should gain so much traction in a world where too much chaos and corruption already exists.  Perhaps…it is simply a sign that so many have become disenchanted with our old philosophies, and now grasp wildly for a new one to believe in.