School's Out Forever

It is time to stop beating around the bush and start talking about what these people are saying and what their goals are: Many mainstream Republicans want to de-legitimize and deconstruct public education as a concept in the United States of America.



This isn't their sole historical property, mind you. There was a time not so long ago when populist Southern Democratic governors stood in schoolhouse doors and fought public education as well. These are old questions, it is an old fight. And Democrats don't have a very good record of holding political allies responsible for the failing state of many public schools across the land.



That being said, there are two questions that must be asked about public school: Do you think that every child in the United States should be offered the opportunity to obtain a basic education? Do you think a government organization is the most effective way to deliver this basic education to the most possible children?



The current answer from the right wing continues to be "no," and "hell, no." That answer dominates the mainstream Republican Party mindset.



Let's not mince words, those kinds of beliefs are not political non-negotiables. Our own national history has often been built on the fights for universal access to basic education. It often took generations of struggle to reform school policy to include one group or another, or to fund one group the same as any other. Once one goal was acheived, it opened up a new host of problems that had to be addressed, and the political debate continued. That debate never ended, it just changed.



Right now, those answers to those two questions are winning the national debate. They are doing so because any political opposition refuses to accept that those questions make up the heart of the debate.



The current crop of Republicans is out to destroy the concept of public education in the United States of America.



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Bonkers: The Democrats & Congress

It doesn't matter that John Boehner is as unpopular as Nancy Pelosi on the generic ballot or whatever.



A. Pelosi's unpopularity all came from one side of the aisle, unifying an opposition and allowing them to sell that unpopularity to independents. There is no similar marketing campaign to turn independents against Boehner.



B. If Democrats are somehow able to make Boehner's popularity an issue in national congressional elections, they'll be asking independents to exchange his leadership for....Nancy Pelosi. In a contest between two incredibly unpopular choices, the incumbent has an edge, and the best marketing has an edge. The GOP has both.



C. Republicans and Independents-who-vote-Republican will not express their displeasure with incumbent Republicans by voting for Democrats.



D. District boundaries matter. Both in how many likely voters live in each district (favors the GOP) and how much campaign infrastructure can be organized for Congressional elections (favors the GOP).



E. You have to have electable Democratic candidates to run in those Republican-leaning districts, and they have to be able to organize campaign infrastructure.



The Republicans will maintain control of the US House of Representatives. They will actually increase their majority. The Senate will be under the control of the GOP, possibly to a supermajority. The President can get reelected, but only if Democrats nationwide start realizing how many disadvantages they are actually facing in 2012.



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Know Truth: The Perry Presidency

The general election for President of the United States of America began last Wednesday night, when Texas Governor Rick Perry "slipped" some information about Texas A&M joining the SEC, and dominating the millions-strong college football fan news cycle for 24 hours. That was followed up on Thursday night, when a staffer "let slip" that Perry would be announcing his assumed candidacy for the Presidency on Saturday. Governor Perry will be speaking in South Carolina on Saturday, and will sew up the Republican nomination for President of the United States of America before he's finished. That contest is all over but the shouting - everyone else is now vying for second place, and a favorable speaking time at the Republican National Convention.



As I've said before, not only is Perry the most likely candidate to win the GOP nomination, he is the most likely Republican to win the White House in 2012.



And the biggest "political liability" he has - or that his opponents think he has - is the "neo Confederate" ties that really aren't. While opponents will portray this as much more than it is, all that does is play to the crowd that already agrees with them, and build his supporters up. He'll be able to counter that with The Dukes of Hazzard and Smokey and the Bandit imagery, and his apologists will note that such "liberal" stalwarts as the late Senator Robert Byrd were actual Klan members and were still welcome as part of the caucus. And who looks more un-American, those folks, or the Kenyan anti-colonialist?



If his opponents were very smart, they'd link him with the Tea Party (which has lower ratings than even the CSA) and remind everyone that Perry = Bush III. And keep reminding people that these are not scare tactics, they are the stated beliefs of the Republican-NeoCon-Tea Party Caucus. This is how they want to "govern" our nation:



1. We'll be at war with Iran and Syria in his first term, while gearing up for war against Venezuela in his second. If they use anything like Bush's strategy, the USA will be at war until 2036. Run charts showing how much all that will cost, especially because we won't be out of Iraq and Afghanistan first.



2. The inability to cut defense spending, and the promise not to "raise taxes" or "end subsidies" or "close loopholes" means deep Social Security and Medicare cuts. Far from being changed and made solvent, they could actually be closed down as "unaffordable" entitlement programs. And if Social Security and Medicare are doomed, so much for any social welfare or shelter the homeless or feed the hungry programs. Those will be exported to charitable organizations first thing.



3. Banks and Financial Institutions will be able to do whatever the hell they want with your money and investments, leading to the next bubble, the next bust, and the next Panic. That's the Tea Party economy!



4. A lame duck Obama might be able to end the Bush Tax Cuts for three months until President Perry, a GOP Senate Supermajority, and a Tea Party House of Representatives delivers even bigger and deeper tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans: "job creators" who aren't creating jobs, despite the lowest tax rates, biggest loopholes, and most luxurious subsidies in in the post WWII era. Hell, they may finally be able to end the income tax this time, and take us back to 1829 instead of 1929.



5. You thought unions were in trouble before? Hah.



6. So much for all the gay marriage legislation at the state level. Instead of going after corrupt police departments and civil rights violations, the Perry Justice Department will go after those states with gay marriage and any state proposing a civil union, and probably stop enforcing hate crimes laws. DADT will be back with a vengeance, and no company that allows partner benefits will receive any government subsidy at any level. Equal Rights advocates will get hammered so hard, they'll start fondly remembering Clinton and the Defense of Marriage Act.



7. Drill, baby, drill. It doesn't matter that gasoline prices won't go down relative to the economy. It doesn't matter how dangerous this policy is. It doesn't matter how many subsidies this policy already showers on fossil fuel industries. It doesn't matter.



8. The Environment? Global Warming? Have fun with that, fellas. As natural disasters continue to overwhelm our infrastructure that we won't be paying for (pork), droughts and floods continue to make economic waves of instability for those not affected by disaster even as insurance companies lobbyists make sure no one is held accountable for screwing over disaster victims regardless of coverage. Rick Perry will pray for you, though, while your house washes away in the flood, your crops whither in the drought, and the earthquakes level your city.



9. And you can forget suing the chemical or fossil fuel companies when they poison the food and water and air your children eat, drink, and breathe. Tort reform, baby! Your kid's health is frivolous.



10. And when people take to the streets to protest all this stuff, they'll just be labeled the enemy. And what do you think the Perry administration will do with all those folks who can be called:

America-hating, baby-killing, terrorist-sympathizer who, with help from my illegal immigrant friends and union thugs, will follow our illegitimately elected Kenyan anti-colonialist President to turn this nation into a communist economy with a sharia legal code that follows the homosexual agenda.

My guess is, the reaction will not be kind.



Obama better get his game in gear, and Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives need to figure out what exactly is at stake in 2012 and start telling people what politicians like Perry really stand for. The Rebel Battle Flag is the least of your worries.



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On the Other Foot

What would the national reaction be if there was a liberal version of the Tea Party? Though the craziest thing about this is that nothing would change. They already say all the worst things they can about liberals in this country.



Hell, half the time, they ain't even talking about liberals when they say those things: they're talking about pragmatists, moderates, centrists, and even really real conservatives. There's only one thing anyone has to do to enter the "Enemy of America" club in the eyes of these radical right-wingers: disagree with radical right-wingery. The only acceptable version of America, to them, is their own version, no matter how make-believe or utopian that version is.



HT: To the Dish where we are also reminded about the peaceful, non-violent nature of America's internet "Christian" population. < / sarcasm >



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House of Cards

You play with fire long enough, you're liable to get burned.



If your object is to get back to the pre-1929 world economy, we're well on our way and it looks like the whole world is coming with us. Of course, all of this should have been expected, because what else do you think happens when the American government - maybe the one entity with the ability to spending enough money to land the economy safely - says they're going to stop spending money? Business leaders and stock brokers know that there is no one left to spend the money. Companies aren't spending money, despite massive tax breaks, subsidies, and loopholes. Individual people aren't spending money, because they're too busy trying to make ends meet. People in other nations aren't spending money, because their economies are based of the USA spending money.



Not only that, but if you borrow money from the USA, there is the very real possibility that a completely untrustworthy political group is going to put the brakes on you getting paid back so they can further curb the spending ability of the one organization left that can still spend money.



Thanks, Tea Party! Y'all own this economy, now. While all the kids may have pushed on the antique vase that ended up broken, the kid holding the baseball bat should recieve the most scrutiny. This isn't just the Tea Party Economy, y'all, this is the exactly stated results of their policies.



For a little while, it looked like we might get let down easy. The unsustainable economy America has been building over the last two generations was finally being exposed for the fraud it was. The panic of 2007-08 evaporated trillions of dollars in Monopoly Money from the economy, to the shock of many. The nation was bleeding jobs even as real estate oversupply sent house values tumbling below what owners and developers borrowed from the banks to pay for the land. Those are the types of jobs that aren't coming back, so not only are people going to need to find new jobs, they have to discover new ways to live within their means or create new jobs on their own. The whole time, the cost of health care continues to rise, along with prices of food and energy.



Of course, few politicians were willing to say in public how screwed the country is, lest they be called out for "making the situation worse" with a dose of reality. Out of our political caste, President Obama comes the closest to the truth the most often with the most consistentcy. And while that reality might draw derision from the Professional American Left, their national influence wanes the further away you get from the New York Times editorial pages.



On the other hand, talking about reality only draws howls and hatred from the fanatic and ideologically pure Right-Wing, content to sell cultural panic for the political capital necessary to win elections. At this point, the Right-Wing's stated policy goals include returning this country to a mythical utopia of stars-and-stripes-colored unicorns and business-friendly faeries where the government is based only on the parts of the Constitution they agree with. After all, the theory goes, how bad could things have been back in the days when the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery after Paul Revere raised his guns and bells to warn the British of an insane and armed American population?



And if you think incredible historical misconceptions are very different from the historical buffoonery of Bachmann and Palin, you're just kidding yourself.



Anyone mildly versed in United States history knows that pre-1929 economics would take us back to the boom and bust cycles of pre-1929 America, where the economy didn't experience "recessions" as often as it experienced "panics." Sound good? Try this: those economic panics happened so often they had to be labeled by the year instead of the decade, and often evaporated entire regions of national economic health.



The Right-Wing political sales pitch is more American Pie than Jim Crow, Segregation, and the legacy of slavery; more Strict Constructionist than Louisiana Purchase; more "right to work" than children in the coal mines; more seperate but equal vouchers instead of public education; and more Whistlin' Dixie than the Battle Cry of Freedom that eventually mtobilized the Union for total war.



Bobby Lee might have been revered by his soldiers and, later, an America that adores tragic heroes, but Grant and Sherman came after him with more men, more guns, more ammunition, more food, railcars to move all of those things and shoes on their soldiers' feet. I think of that any time a Tea Partier from the eleven states of the Old Confederacy talk to me about government being the problem.



These howlers aren't interested in the reality of the situation with the American economy, it only matters what they can sell the loudest to the 24 hour cable news consuming public. Discussing the real problems and real solutions would be difficult professionally and would make for boring television, after all.



Well, I doubt pre-1929 America was a boring place to live, based off the history I have read. Thanks to the Tea Party Economy and the right-wing, I think we're about to get a taste of just how "exciting" that kind of life would be.



(NOTE: This was scheduled to post Monday around lunch, and then I saw that Dante had posted Monday around breakfast, so I pushed it back.)

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The War of When?

Jonathan Rauch at The Dish starts a discussion about who really won the war of 1812. Several emailed comments seem confused. I guess the answer to "who won" depends on who you ask, and everyone's got a claim to fame.

Down in New Orleans, there damn sure ain't no questions.

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Criminal Justice 101

Essential reading from Radley Balko at Huffington Post:

Criminal Justice Myths 1
Criminal Justice Myths 2
Criminal Justice Myths 3

I would say that these items need to be read by every individual in the American criminal justice system, but I know they won't be. Further, I understand that many individuals in the criminal justice system will find ways to rationalize each and every one of these examples.

So, instead of that, these items need to be read by every American likely voter. And every American likely to spend any time on a jury, anywhere.

Though the traditional criminal justice system response to juries behaving such ways would likely lead to the end of the American trial-by-jury system, and authoritarian advocates would define such behavior as "turning criminals loose" as opposed to seeing the widespread lack of confidence in the system we have.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," - Thomas Jefferson, and he was talking about more than just paying attention to possible terrorists and criminals in the area around you. It is time civil libertarians started going to Police Academy en masse instead of law school.

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Excellent Police Work

At least this Police Officer was polite when he arrested a woman in her own front yard for videotaping a traffic stop.

I do not believe that this is what we maintain a police force for in this country.

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Glow, Baby, Glow!

I guess the right-wing energy "experts" were right - nuclear power is just as safe as oil production in this country!

When are we going to have a serious national conversation about the dangers of our high energy consumption? It would be one thing if policy could be discussed with a deep national understanding that fossil fuel and nuclear energy production came with serious human and environmental costs, and the subsidies we make available to providers of cheap energy.

It is another thing entirely to have that conversation with blinders on, which is our current state of affairs.

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Heckuva Job Moment

This massive Federal blunder belongs to the higher-ups at the ATF and the Department of Justice. Folks have stuck the Obama administration with a lot of BS over the years, but they're going to have to own this one, hard.

I know they were trying to do something bigger, but you have to pull the plug before it gets out of control on this level. This is stunning in scope and breadth of failure, on a scale with Michael Brown's leadership of FEMA in August and September of 2005.

And now that Weiner is out of the news, I expect we'll hear about this in a big way.

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Play On

I guess we can't even watch a 22 year old from Northern Ireland turn in one of a sport's performances of a lifetime without a bunch of Americans acting like spoiled children having a temper tantrum.

First of all, I hope the broadcaster learns that this is what happens when you try to please that loud but small population of thin-skinned, overreactive, and hyperdefensive grown up American babies who mask their lack of faith in God and Country by wrapping themselves in a flag. They'd rather spend their time yelling at others for some imagined slight against God and Patriotism than realize they're watching something special happen on live television. You will not be able to please these people until the only golfers invited to participate in the US Open renounce their home nations and recite odes to American exceptionalism before teeing off. You should not apologize to these people, you should tell them to STFU because that's what needs to happen to folks who get offended over some B__. S__.

Second, WTF are you doing with that kind of intro anyway? You know how you lead into a sporting event like the US Open? With pictures of the golf course, highlight reels from the week, and maybe some shots of kids having a great time in the summer. It ain't like Congressional isn't scenic.

Maybe some production assistant got confused. The US Open Championship is not like a World Series, or Super Bowl, or BCS National Championship. It is an open golf tournament. I've always found the US Open so rightly culturally named because, you know, the United States is in the "Free World," we're the "melting pot," and we have a Statue of Liberty to welcome the huddled masses of the world. That the United States should host an Open as one of the sport's 4 major events, where anyone who qualifies in the sport can be eligible to participate, with winners determined by the skill of their game, is incredibly appropriate.

The event itself is exceptional. The players are exceptional. The course is exceptional and, on Sunday the storyline was exceptional. The background for the course is the Capitol Dome in Washington. People who watch golf on television were tuning in because of those things.

Where, exactly, was the need to add any rah-rah to the stupid TV intro? Hell, that's when the majority of Americans watching the event were making themselves a sandwich. How did you screw this up? It isn't like more people were going to tune in due to your "savvy" marketing, or somebody would be flipping channels and think "Oh, the Pledge of Allegiance, I should watch golf on TV for my country."

Third, the superstar under the microscope Sunday, like last year's US Open champion, was not from the United States. Just a quick look at the final leaderboard should tell you all you need to know about how much worldwide talent was in play Sunday: there were two Americans in the top 10 finishers - the same number of South Africans.

So of course, let's pick the broadcast of this event to fight our culture war battles over. Folks, not every televised sporting event needs to begin with a tear-jerking tribute to HOW AWESOMLY ASS KICKINGLY BADASS AMERICA (F__ YEAH!) HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE ZOMG!!! Sometimes, especially on championship days that could end up very special, you can let it be about the beauty and skill at which the game is being played, and the joy those things bring to players and fans of all nations.

But that might just be too simple.

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Remember, Folks

< sarcasm >

The economy was sunk by things like this. Pay New York Times editorial level attention to this house of cards built by scant government oversight and supported by Democratic insiders, because this is indicative of the kind of politics Democrats, liberals, and progressives are likely to continue.

On the other hand, pay no attention to the house of cards built by highly financed real estate developers and supported by GOP insiders. This is not indicative of the kind of politics Republicans, conservatives and God-fearing Americans are likely to continue. You can trust them not to do this again, they wear American flag pins on their lapels.

Now, repeat after me, "Fannie Mae was the problem." There is no need to look anywhere else or entertain the idea that dipping your hands in the real estate bubble is historically the most bipartisan American political activity.

Hat tip to Kyle Wingfield at the AJC who reminds us that:

Fannie Mae did all those things that Democrats accuse Big Oil, Big Finance, the military-industrial complex, et al. of doing.

Emphasis mine.

< / sarcasm >

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Disaster Funding

Attempting to solidify his "fiscal conservative" credentials, Mitt Romney wants to send responsibility for disaster relief back to the states, if not private industry. Continuing to handle disaster relief at a Federal level "jeopardizes the future for our kids" and is "immoral."

Which makes me wonder just how bad disasters have to get in this country to remind someone so out-of-touch why the Federal government started getting involved in this in the first place.

And maybe I've got the wrong definition of "fiscal conservative" in my mind, but I thought one of the bottom lines of that belief system was to make sure any tax dollars spent were done so in the most efficient and effective way possible, with a subtext of keeping the overall national economy sound. Removing disaster relief as a responsibility of the Federal government only makes sense if your definition of "fiscal conservatism" is don't spend any money, ever and you don't give a shit about localized or regional problems dragging down the whole national economy.

Here's something Romney needs to be reminded of: the states already pay for disaster relief. Private organizations already pay for disaster relief. Do you know why the Federal government also needs to be involved, Mitt? Because even with their efforts combined, the states and private organizations cannot touch the level of funding required to relieve even moderately sized disasters in terms of economic and material damage, let alone the big ones.

So let's look at the numbers from the big leagues of disasters. One low estimate places the damage figures of Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood at $81 Billion*, not including overall economic impact to the states and regions most affected or the nation at large. Keep in mind that, at the time, gasoline got up to $4 a gallon many places far, far away from the Gulf Coast.

Let's do a little common sense math. Compare that figure to the state budget of Louisiana for FY 2005 ($17.5 Billion), the state budget of Mississippi for 2005 (just under $13 Billion), and the state budget of Alabama for 2005 ($33.2 Billion).

All three of those total state budgets combined ($63.7 Billion) only make up 78% of the total low damage estimate. That means three states of the union most affected by Katrina and the levee failures would have had to spend every single tax dollar they recieved that year and it still wouldn't have covered the recovery. And that's a total figure, which means the states wouldn't be able to pay for anything else without massive deficit spending.

While private organizations contributed a tremendous effort and generous sums of money and materiel to the recovery, do you think they'd be able to come up with $17.3 BILLION?

Of course, the states could have rebuilt without Federal help, given a generation or three. But who can estimate the economic fallout to these most affected states, the larger regional impact, and to the Union at large if these areas were forced into a local or regionalized recovery that the most affected states couldn't pay for before the disaster destroyed huge swaths of their state economies?

I can only imagine that Louisiana would have had to levy higher duties on shipping interests bringing products through what was left of New Orleans to even begin making a dent in their recovery needs. The economic ripples would have affected every suburban commutuer in America who drives a car and every American whose diet depends on the Midwestern corn crop. Things that happen one place tend to affect the lives of others someplace else. A butterfly flaps its wings and all that.

Now run that same scenario against these figures. Or just look at the map (PDF).

Sure looks like a national problem needing national solutions to me. And if "conservatism" means we throw responsibility for all that back on the states, private organizations, and - make no mistake - the individual familes who fall victim to such disasters, maybe it is time to start thinking of "conservatism" as its own dirty word.

(* - NOAA estimates the damage at $133 Billion)

Losing the Drug War

I don't agree with a lot of what Bob Barr says, but the man is an honest civil libertarian and has not wavered much from that stance. I'm glad one of the things he talks about negative impact of the Drug War on America, and America's need to lead the world out of this mess.

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Guns, Bells, & American History

No, Palin does not get a pass. Any reasonable person viewing the video knows that she totally flubbed it. That's excusable. Defending a flub as if it were real reality? Inexcusable. That rolls into "these aren't the droids you're looking for territory." "Everything is a gotcha question with her." (Remind you of any other famously foot in mouth politicians?) And, no, I won't be letting this go any time soon.

A lot of folks peddling the "messiah," the "anointed one," and "the one" narratives about an American political candidate were all correct - they just attributed it to the wrong candidate.

This gaffe is a gift that keeps on giving. And giving.

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Body Counts in the Drug War

DADvocate makes note of the police killing of Jose Guerena in Pima County, Arizona.

The war on drugs has become a war on the freedom in America. Too many police departments have taken on the cowboy/Dirty Harry mentality and are terrorizing the populace.

At least in Arizona, the police are still using the drug war as an excuse to terrorize the population. Some police departments have a bar far, far lower. Once you accept that the police can violate your rights for one reason or another, you'll have to defend everywhere else.

For those keeping score at home, Guerena was a United States Marine, a veteran of the Iraq War, and members of his family had recently been killed in a home invasion. So the SWAT team comes pouring into his yard in military garb, as part of a marijuana investigation. In the confusion, he takes up a weapon - who wouldn't, with armed men invading your home - and is killed in a hail of 77 bullets.

The police initially claimed that he had shot at them, and that illegal drugs were found on the property. This would justify their actions. Of course they feared for their life, as Guerena feared for his. Why do we put our police and citizens in such situations?

Of course, it is now coming to light that this might be a CYA story, that Guerena never got the safety off the weapon, and nothing illegal was found in the house. Nothing really connected him to the marijuana investigation at all other than the word of a secret, confidential informant. An informant that provided information into a home where nothing illegal was found. Why am I not surprised?

When I grew up, I remember hearing stories about despotic governments, where the thought police would keep track of people, and report on them to the government. In such places (thought to be the Third World, the Asian Tyrannies, and the Eastern Bloc) secret informants could destroy your life with a few words. The informed-upon would be "disappeared" to a camp or a mass grave, leaving the family only wondering.

The drug war has already been like that for a long, long time.

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The Not-So-Funny Farm

So, if the GOP nominates one of their two (nominally) reality-based candidates for President, and that candidate loses to Obama, there is an expectation that the GOP will really lose it.

But a win by one of their reality-based candidates will return the GOP from the alternate dimension in which they currently reside, as will the defeat of a reality-denial candidate (the rest of the GOP presidential field).

Really?

I've got a couple of questions:

1) At this point, how much worse can the reality-denial get? Seriously consider the ramifications of a large, well armed segment of the United States population becoming more paranoid, more extreme, and more distrustful of any information contrary to their own self-perpetuating world view.

2) How will the GOP become more reasonable if one of the two their reality based candidates is elected President by winning a primary election in which they are forced by their own base to deny reality? The deniers will become emboldened, and think all the nonsense they have engaged over the last four years was effective. That's like giving a toddler a cookie for throwing a tantrum.

3) Is the reality-basis for American narrative really determined by individual campaigns? Think about how effective reality-deniers and historical-revisionists have been already in terms of policy: our nation is currently discussing the dismantling of Medicare, permanent occupation of Iraq and Afganistan, engaging in another war with Iran, resegregating schools based on parental ability, rolling back the medical decisions of women, paying oil companies to raise the prices of gasoline and poison our food and water, and gutting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - and these are all the parts of the right's platform currently considered "reality-based." Where, exactly, do we go from there in terms of policy? They don't need a candidate to say they support those things, their party branding and primary success makes it nearly implicit that they do.

And the crazy thing is - and the thing most "liberals" and "progressives" and "Democrats" never seem to realize - the GOP is winning all of those arguments with the voters because they aren't really worried about candidates, they're worried about marketing a specific narrative until enough people buy into it.

And the power of getting people to buy into a narrative beats reality every single time.

(HT: Andrew Sullivan.)

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When Irish Ties Are Smiling

The White House protocol folks in the early days of the administration may have screwed up with the gifts to the British government, but whoever's running the show now got the Ireland visit just right.

And I'll be needing one of those t-shirts for 2012.

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Refighting the Past

You're never really done with legislation. You're never really done with human freedom or civil rights. Once you think you have them, there will always be someone who wants to try and roll them back. The price for freedom is eternal vigilance in so many definitions of the word.

Sometimes that vigilance means keeping your eyes open when the guy next to you in the subway keeps trying to light a fuse in his jacket. Other times that vigilance requires you to keep people from re-writing history to move political goal posts today.

The ongoing battle over the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - and yes I said ongoing because we aren't really done with it - got another boost with Ron Paul recently. While liberals and progressives stand around shocked to find out that people will actually say in public that they don't support the CRA (and are more shocked to find out these individuals still command political support), the forces of revisionism are hard at work to justify such political beliefs.

And it works. Remember folks, "the free market didn't enforce segregation, the government enforced segregation." Or that's the narrative, at least.

While hardly all-in with this narrative (like the Pauls), Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway comes dangerously close to rationalizing it.

Racial segregation in the South wasn’t a product of the free market, it was the product of a state imposing racial prejudices under the threat of criminal prosecution.

"Big Government" strikes again? Hardly.

While this article's explorations of SCOTUS decisions kneecapping the 14th Amendment in the Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873 (involving New Orleans) and the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 are quite valuable, I take issue with the idea that,

different outcome in The Slaughterhouse Cases and The Civil Rights Cases, the entire system of mandated racial segregation known as Jim Crow would have been under direct legal assault at the time of it’s birth.

There's a big concern I have with saying things like that. You see, Jim Crow was under legal assault from the time of its birth - The Civil Rights cases represented the first wave of such assaults, and Plessy vs. Ferguson represented the second wave. What we also know from our history is that these robust legal assaults, as well as others, failed.

An argument that:

So, as a philosophical matter, the Pauls are both correct that the state should not have the authority to tell businesses who they can choose as customers.

Is a almost an identical argument used by the Supreme Court to strike down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. And look what that philosophical matter got us - nearly 100 more years of Jim Crow and ongoing Jim Crow legacy today.

This issue is another place where I take exception with "libertarianism," even as I have my own robust blue libertarian streak of cynical distrust of the government.

Sorry folks, I. Live. In. The. South. Down here, you can't go six months without some popular politician reminding folks the importance of "state's rights" to ignore Federal laws (like the CRA) or complaining that all redistricting has to go through Justice Department approval in the same breath that carries discussions of diluting or off-loading minority voting strength.

Segregation and Jim Crow were state government mandates, free-market mandates, and cultural mandates all wrapped up in one. Businesses were getting subsidies and contributing to political campaigns back in the day just as much as they are today. As a matter of fact, that era is often described as the "good ole days" before all the "government regulations" came in and "ruined business." One wonders if more regular health inspections are the "government regulations" being discussed...

Should we even talk about the social stigma that would be ascribed to businesses that served "mixed" clientele during that time? After all, once schools and businesses were legally forced to integrate, white people fled to the suburbs and exurbs. There, they spent time socially engineering their own communities far away from the cities and the colored folks. They didn't have to go to school, shop with, or hire the colored folks if there ain't no colored folks around. And yet, the government doesn't interfere with their right to do so. As a matter of fact, it subsidizes the ability to self-segregate, by subsidizing road construction and oil exploration.

I think about all those free market forces at work when I drive through New Orleans East, an area where 71,000 people live where there's only ONE grocery store. Guess what race most of the residents there are.

The author sums up my whole opinion on the CRA in his closing:

by the time the 1964 Civil Rights Act came into being the distinction between private and public behavior under Jim Crow was a hard line to draw, especially when social pressure by Southern whites made it virtually impossible for any business owner who didn’t want to discriminate against blacks from doing so. The only way to bring down the whole system, a system that arguably might not have existed if the 14th Amendment hadn’t been virtually gutted in the latter years of the 19th Century, was to use the authority of the Federal Government to do so.

So, yeah, you could say that I don't mind "Big Government" robustly enforcing the 14th Amendment through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While it may be philosophically OK to think that parts of the CRA are coercive in nature, and a little bit of overreach on the part of the government, I only wished we lived in a society so perfect that we didn't need a government to make sure doors of opportunity are open to all citizens. Until we get to that More Perfect Union, I don't mind "Big Government" telling people interested in starting a business that they will be unable to segregate based on race, creed, or color if they would like to do business in the United States. We ain't yet far enough removed from the bad ole days yet.

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A Wild Narrative Appears

Following up on last week's flop daring ALL BLACK RAPPERS ARE SCARY THUGS!, Right Wing Studios is set to release an even bigger pile of crap Summer Action Flick.

PIRATES OF THE MIDDLE EAST IV: ON ISRAELI SIDES

This newest installment of the classic franchise has the chance to top the Fox Box Office all summer. Even if you don't want to, you're guaranteed to see it again and again and again!

This film has been rated BS by the Reality Based Association of America.

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