Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Thursday, May 29, 2014

The War on the Second Amendment: the Mental Health Gambit

Whenever we have a "mass"--a word with a highly flexible definition--shooting in the US, we have the predictable calls for more gun laws, for more gun "control." All the usuals put out their tweets, go on the talk shows, pontificate from the legislative floor, issue editorials, etc. The anti-second amendment crowd, generally the sort who can find the right to abortion in the US Constitution but can't find the right to bear arms, are getting more and more desperate. Despite years of anti-gun propaganda and false statistics, gun sales are at a record high in the US with manufacturers barely able to keep up with demand. More people now own guns in the US than at any time in our history; the courts have struck down bucket loads of anti-carry legislation so that concealed carry is now a possibility in every state; and, worst horror of all, the homicide rate continues to decline.

At times I get the feeling that the anti-gun boys and girls hope for mass shootings, which are actually quite rare, and for the shooter to be a white, good ol' boy Tea Partier who uses the n-word, hates women, gays, and liberals, and denies the "settled science" behind the theories of evolution and global climate cooling warming change disruption. The shooters in reality, of course, happen to be far from that, and give credence to Ann Coulter's long-ago stated observation that violence in the US comes from the left. The "mass" shooters, including the Santa Barbara creep, come from liberal/progressive backgrounds, and fall on the left end of the political and cultural spectrum. They are often well-off economically, and generally come from the sort of dysfunctional families that form a core component of the Democratic party electorate.

The gun issue in the US is much more than about guns. It is about culture and about the role and scope of government in our lives. The gun controllers want more government in our lives and want to suppress America's gun, aka individual freedom, culture. They want to make it seem that gun violence is rampant, and that we all face horrible deaths in a cloud of gunpowder. They want us to ignore that homicide, including with guns, is not equally spread among all sectors of our country. Homicide rates are much, much higher among Democratic constituencies--I have written about this before--than among Republican constituencies--compare Detroit with Utah, for example. Above all else, there is an enormous racial component to murder in the US. Please note, for example, that 3/4s of those arrested for murder in Chicago is black, while blacks only comprise about one-third of the city's residents; the overwhelming majority of murder victims is also black.

Nationwide, even when "white" is loosely defined, black homicide rates are some 8-10 times those of the white population. All that presents a dilemma for progressives. Instead of trying to deal with the real problem, i.e., that the most likely victim of a murderer is an unarmed black person, the progressives find distractions on which to spend their efforts. As I have written endless times, the progressives don't give a hoot about our black citizens trapped in situations where they become prime candidates for murder--those situations, after all, have been created by decades of progressive policies implemented by progressive urban political machines. The history of the Democratic party, one of the world's oldest political parties, is one of constant warfare against black people: slavery, segregation, the KKK, opposition to black suffrage, making generations of black people wards of the state, are all Democratic party contributions to race relations in the USA. The progressives want power for the state and they intend to control that state.

Progressives focus on bogus issues such as "assault" rifles and magazine capacity. The latest bogus distraction is the mental health one. The argument goes something like this, "We don't want to take guns away from law abiding citizens but want to put into place laws, regulations, and procedures that keep guns away from criminals and mentally disturbed persons." They are quite vague about what exactly those new constraints will be, and we just have to take them at their word that they are not really out to stifle gun ownership at large, and that the new constraints will work better than the old ones.

Mental health, really?

If you think the science of global climate whatever is up in the air, wait until you delve into the looney world of mental health. The mental health profession is full of quack "therapists" and quack theories; few things there are settled science; and that profession is as subject to the vagaries of the winds and tides of fashion and politics as any other. Let us not forget the uses of psychiatry in the dead and unlamented Soviet bloc. Even, however, without going back to the USSR, I would point out that my father was a psychiatrist, and in his old Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals (DSM) homosexuality was listed as a disorder, "a sociopathic personality disturbance" to be precise. It was a disorder or mental disturbance until it just wasn't--you can read the account of how that change happened here.

Would then those persons treated for homosexuality, and have that on their medical records, be denied their second amendment rights? This, in turn, leads to the raising of many other questions: What standards would be used to determine mental illness for the purpose of gun denial? Who would make those standards? How would authorities running a background check gain access to those medical records? How would we redefine the ancient notion of patient-doctor confidentiality? How would those mental health sessions be flagged in the Great Database? How would one prevent that information from leaking and from being used for political or blackmail purposes? How would this not dissuade people who need some help from getting it? I am sure you can think of dozens more questions.

We live--alas!--in a time that I never thought I would see in the USA. We see the IRS used to stifle political dissent; we see the ATF used to sell guns to Mexican cartels and to make it seem that lax US gun laws are to blame for the violence in Mexico; we see the NSA and FBI used for purposes for which they were never intended; we see local police forces with more firepower and sophisticated combat training and gear than most armies in the world.

Given the progressive track record, should we trust their "good intentions" when they seek to protect us from armed "crazy" people? I don't. I would rather rely on my old friends Messrs. Smith & Wesson.


49 comments:

  1. The same people wage war against the first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and tenth amendments, and other provisions that don't come to mind. They don't like the constitution, period.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Speaking of constitution, period: if you like your constitution, you can keep your constitution, period.

      Delete
    2. They don't like it; they don't even understand it. The political ideas upon which it is grounded are alien to modern progressives, if not anethema to them.

      Delete
    3. The Progressives do not want any limits on federal government power. That's why they hate the Constitution, which enumerates federal powers and therefore limits them. Obama governs by Executive Order and we see the results of unlimited government.

      Delete
    4. The Constitution is a document of "negative rights" according to B. Hussein Obama. It does not lay out what government CAN do for you. It is as Merkwurdigliebe said, anathema to the Progressive. Dangerous.

      Delete
    5. Greeting, Messrs. Gliebe, Mous, and Wall. Good to see you again.

      Gliebe, anathema is about right.

      Mous, the results can get worse--and are still getting worse.

      Wall, "positive rights" (the distinction is due to Isaiah Berlin) would be something that the government *must* give you, like a "free, appropriate public education". Ours doesn't have that. You can see why BHO doesn't approve.

      Delete
  2. Completely off-topic of course - this sorta thing should be expected from a "hillbilly-sort-of-personage" but ... and we've a much bigger problem than any of ... well our Congress at any rate will ever admit.

    "My experience with the VA has been excellent."

    I stand by that comment. Now here's where I may get Heretic!

    But Congress laying ALL at the Executive's doorstep for the VA's problems is exactly and precisely, Kabuki Theater!
    ______________________________

    What really pisses me off nowadays is Congress - not the Executive but given the Patriot Act these Incumbents we'll be soon voting November. The Executive branch merely asked

    It was the Congress which abdicated the "Enumerated Powers" clause. Congress is responsible for Oversight ... not the Executive I can understand of course a whole bunch or people being mad at that, in my opinion, Shinseki Scapegoat. Heck, whichever of our Presidents (I think LBJ) put the VA person a cabinet officer had to've been a complete idiot.


    or just another example of Congress abdicating its duty to ... not the Executive but rather, The People to whom their fidelity once elected to "represent the will of" [cough cough] those The People were under Oath to represent.

    What I've typed above "some may say" doesn't make much sense but, just this week I heard of a 90+ year old Congress Critter ...
    __________________________

    My point is this.

    After 2005 when I progressed from acute to chronic some increasing number from my general home area began to query me generally speaking "How can I get their attention?" & So I began to help writing a few letters .... generally addressed (if not in my State's Congressional Representative pool)

    Honorable (Member) of the House/Senate Armed Services ...

    What we veterans have going on most recently - and if it makes you feel good, go right on figuring, "It'll all be okay if Shinseki gets his ass handed to him" - well ... that'll feel pretty good but it won't accomplish a damn thing.

    Article from the media (before FOX really got going)

    http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/06/us/va-health-care-strained-by-big-wave-of-enrollees.html

    Paragraphs 1 - 5 truncated:

    Elderly veterans ... are waiting years to see a V.A. doctor.

    At Bay Pines V.A. Medical Center outside St. Petersburg, Fla., for example, 4,429 veterans, by the latest count, can look forward to their first doctor appointment in October 2005. And only a V.A. doctor can provide a prescription to be filled by a V.A. pharmacy.

    With H.M.O.'s pulling out ...has doubled since the mid-1990's, to six million.

    The department's

    In some areas, among them parts of Arizona, Florida,
    __________________

    Note that not alphabetically listed state.

    What we have here Countrymen is not a "Figurehead Executive Cabinet Personage"

    what we have here is Congress.

    & So long as we target the Executive it'll be Agent Orange all over again.

    Arkie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry. Had to cut my "pissed off" by 902 characters.

      Hopefully, y'all get the gist?

      (Dip's said much the same - this stuff has gone on a long time. An Executive might go for eight years but a Congress Critter sometimes lasts for a fourth generation.)

      Arkie

      Delete
    2. The problem is of course not Shinseki personally, nor Obama personally, nor anyone else personally. The problem is structure: a government monopoly doesn't have to please its "customers", so it doesn't.

      The solution is not (merely) to replace the poo-bah but to to replace the government monopoly with system that is both private and competitive.

      Now that requires replacing Obama.

      Delete
    3. Guten tag a6z....to replace a government monopoly eg the VA, will require an all out war in Congress. The Dem party will fight it Hammer and Sickle. They can not allow such a thing to even get started, much less happen.

      Delete
    4. Absolutely, Mr. Wall.

      Delete
    5. Mental health is the avenue to gun confiscation..

      http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/who-is-mentally-ill/

      Delete
  3. Arkie,
    " An Executive might go for eight years but a Congress Critter sometimes lasts for a fourth generation". The responsibility for all of this, is in the end, ours. Will we (the majority of the electorate) reengage in the political contest and exert ourselves in the pursuit and defense of a Government properly derived from the Constitution or not, this is the real question, all else flows from this. Alas, I see the smarter James has returned to commenting so it's back to:
    James the Lesser

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dip, you make some very valid points with respect to the poor science and wacky therapists within the mental health industry and I think you've touched on a major and rapidly growing problem in the US. Leaving guns out of the equation for a moment, as the culture meltdown, to which you have often referred, continues to impact more and more American families, society in general, could be well served by, finally, after decades of neglect, paying significant attention to the dark and frightening topic of mental illness. Instead of leaving it to law enforcement and the criminal court system to remove the nuts from the streets, filling our already overpopulated prisons with individuals who might not belong there, perhaps appropriate funds could be directed toward research and actual treatment, as opposed to the pretend attention the illness has received for generations. I would say that in the last 100 years, very little progress has been made in actually understanding the cause of mental illness. That, to me, is a complete fail by the medical community. I'm not suggesting that all criminals are mentally deranged. Evil is evil, however, we all know that prisons are full of individuals who have some form of mental illness, not to mention the growing number walking amongst us.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 'The latest bogus distraction is the mental health one. The argument goes something like this, "We don't want to take guns away from law abiding citizens but want to put into place laws, regulations, and procedures that keep guns away from criminals and mentally disturbed persons." '

    Um, I don't know how many times I've seen conservatives post that government should keep guns out of the "wrong" hands (ex-felons, etc.), but it was an awful lot of them. I suspect that position has not been well thought out. Government never stops at a place that YOU think is reasonable. Government is not there for us, it is there for the ruling class.

    Fortunately, this mental health ploy is not going any farther than any of the other ones. People aren't buying this crap any more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The default position of every conservative should be opposition to any new government program. No matter how high sounding in purpose it is, the odds are it will end up in the hands of the left, and used for political advancement of the "progressive" agenda.

      Delete
    2. "Um, I don't know how many times I've seen conservatives post that government should keep guns out of the "wrong" hands (ex-felons, etc.), but it was an awful lot of them. I suspect that position has not been well thought out. Government never stops at a place that YOU think is reasonable."

      I daresay that the problem with that position is NOT that it can (and will) start us down a slippery slope of increasing the ranks of those disallowed to exercise their Second Amendment right. Instead, I think the problem is, as you say, that "that position has not been well thought out".

      In its essence, the argument is simply that some people should have their rights taken away regardless of the fact they have done no harm to anyone else's person or anyone else's rights. It is an argument based on perceived POTENTIAL to harm. It is not punishment; it is "pre-crime". This applies not only to the mentally ill, but also (again, as you mention) ex-cons who have already paid their "debt to society" in prison or on parole or probation.

      The position isn't wrong because it's the first step down a slippery slope. That first step, itself, is wrong. NO just society punishes individuals for crimes they have not (yet) committed. Anyone taking this position puts their alleged "conservatism" in serious question.

      Perhaps more disturbing are those persons (among them the favorably quoted Ann Coulter) who would not only use this "pre-crime" POTENTIAL to harm to limit who may legally own arms, but who would permanently incarcerate some individuals based on the proposition that they have increased POTENTIAL to commit violent crime. A punishment that, in modern America, is not always even imposed upon those who have ALREADY -- in actual fact -- committed murder. One can certainly be excused for thinking that, for those who make this argument, even Capital Punishment would not be too extreme for the select individuals that they have pre-determined to have a greater POTENTIAL to commit as-yet-uncommitted violent crimes.

      I wonder who else may have suggested that the mentally ill should be permanently incarcerated (only to later receive Capital Punishment) based upon their POTENTIAL harm to society?


      =========

      On a slightly different note, if we're to be worried about slippery slopes, the one that I'd worry about is the expansion of the types of behaviors -- and even thoughts** -- that will lead one to be diagnosed with a punishable mental illness. Not to mention, who will be doing the "diagnosing".

      ** FIRST Amendment, anyone?

      Delete
  6. We need to take a more strategic look at the VA mess. (Yeah, I know it's not really the topic of the post. ) "Scandals" like the VA chamber pot, and all the others, are win-win situations for the Democrats. They allow the "discussion" (or, propaganda line) to wander down the rabbit trail of, in essence, who can best deliver the socialized services? The same is true of the schools, the Post Office, and a host of others. Generally, from the citizens' point of view, the Democrats always win this competition, because they just appropriate more money and look busy, and the president (I no longer capitalize the title.)can stand in his heroic pose, solving a problem that he inherited from Bush, six years ago, but never mind. He's had a lot on his mind, next golf game, the caddie's butt, etc.

    Even the IRS scandal, which is much worse, lying as it does on the Constitutional level, not merely the governmental competence plane, can devolve into whom to blame, when we all understand that this was not mysterious, that IRS employees are over-supervised, so any "Rogue Agent" is a political appointee or competent suck-up who got that high up the food chain by his or her internal political acumen. No, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, VA, IRS, etc, rolled down from the top of that hill, the crest of which is in Washington, DC, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

    There are much more fundamental matters before us. To wit: Why is there a huge VA, school bureaucracy, ATF, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Department of Energy, (No, I have not forgotten Solyndra) and so on? The basic Republican plea is that bigger government is corrupt government. While we argue about who is more corrupt, the socialists are grinding away what is left of the Constitution.

    Eyes on the ball, folks. Eyes on the feet on the Resolute Desk.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And, in a break from total digression, the gun matter is yet another example. As you said, they want to talk about "mental health" as if we had not thoroughly crapped on that, for over forty years, politicizing bits here, politically correcting parts there, and now the whole mess can be used to justify the disarming of American citizens, as determined by a "mental health" bureaucrat. It's the Constitution, leaving power in the hands of the citizen, not whether a government psychiatrist or Post Office window clerk should determine which of our rights we get to keep, at least for this week.

      Delete
    2. " ... solving a problem that he inherited from Bush, six years ago ..."

      Well yes Michael I agree, in the main, but if you look at the date of that link posted above (2002) note the time spanned, [para: 3] "has doubled since the mid-1990's, to six million" Bush inherited from Clinton who inherited from GHW who inherited .. and really, it goes back at least to JFK heck maybe FDR.

      But then take a look at that feller just got defeated I was mentioning (actually - now I haven't checked - but I think he was representing some district in TX) hell, that 91 year old probably knew FDR.

      But. Soon as I booted up the first thing I saw was "Shinseki Resigns" which I guess means ...

      We can all relax now, all our nation's senile incumbents [*James?] (especially those who're vets) will insist ... We'll probably hear the word "improvement" get tossed around on C-Span. Meanwhile if the sound from C-Span hasn't made all our eyes go nodding closed and we look to how many seats are actually occupied during any one of those Armed Services Committee meetings ... we can probably count on one hand about the same number as attend Intel Committee hearings.

      Arkie

      Delete
    3. " ... the Democrats always win this competition, because they just appropriate more money and look busy ..."

      Not to keep harping [much] Michael Sir, but the Executive will be asking the House to do the actual appropriating

      That's why I'm [trying] not putting any particular Executive's name on the title of who "owns this jalopy" but rather the bank [Congress] which holds the loan.

      Ark

      Delete
  7. We've already seen "previews of coming distractions" in the labeling of many currently-returning (and possible all of any term of past service?) veterans as potentially mentally-damaged-goods and, hence, being tagged as unfit to possess personal weapons. We all know what nut-jobs those veterans are. (Well, my wife and I do occasionally get silly wacky at times, but we're different!)

    It's not a slippery slope, it's an open 100-story elevator shaft (Wile E. Coyote style) into which we're all being pushed.

    Yikes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're and I should have mentioned the political use of veterans by the left. It's been going for decades, especially after Vietnam.

      Delete
    2. Mr. Mad,
      Yes, they are like ghouls feeding the bones of Nam. For that alone I despise them more that I can ever describe. For any lefties out there who wish to educate me on the subject, spare yourself, I am well versed.
      James the Lesser

      Delete
    3. Should read "feeding on the bones". Make mistakes when I am angry.
      James the Lesser

      Delete
  8. "very little progress has been made in actually understanding the cause of mental illness. That, to me, is a complete fail by the medical community. "

    Not mentioned is the capture of psychiatry by the psychoanalysts and Freud back about World War II. Freud was a hero to the political left and his influence is not yet completely gone. Analysis might be useful to the neurotic with problems related to prosperity and modern life. Certainly, the analysts thrive among the rich and discontented. Psychosis is an organic disease and analysis has stymied the study for half a century.

    I began medical school in 1962 very interested in psychiatry. I had spent several months with an impressive professor at UCLA named George Harrington. He had sat on Freud's knee as a child and his father was an analyst trained in Europe. Harrington had rejected psychoanalysis after spending some time working in a mental hospital in Kansas where his family lived (near Menninger Clinic). He had worked there one summer as a medical student and tried to use analytic methods on psychotic patients.The experience ends his interest in analysis but not in Psychiatry. He told me in 1962 that psychosis was an organic disease, maybe even the deficiency of an unknown vitamin.

    Today, we are learning a lot about brain chemistry and there are treatments that work, especially drugs, but they are not permanent. Unfortunately, the legal and political side of mental health is in the hands of those who still believe the analyst explanation.

    It has become an arm of the left wing political machine that generates victims like computers can generate random numbers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent comment, thank you.

      Delete
    2. Just so I can "contribute on subject" - my problem is, whatever Dip's post subject I most frequently come on with some more or less "dissent." On the subject of firearms however, Diplomad's left not even a nit to pick.

      So, (and really all you need do is check out this post's featured picture, says a thousa ... belay that, say's thousands and thousands of words).

      http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2012/07/whats-in-a-name-loadsa-money.html

      Arkie

      Delete
  9. Dip, I admire your energy and abilities. This was another fine post. As for trusting "progressive" (towards what?) intentions, I haven't trusted them since my college days (the first half of the Sillier 'Seventies). Whenever someone on the Left loftily says, "I disagree with what you say, but will fight to the death for your right to say it". I reply, "Sure. And now I must count the silver."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whenever someone on the Left loftily says, "I disagree with what you say, but will fight to the death for your right to say it".
      Never can find any bodies either.
      James the Lesser

      Delete
  10. Wow, visiting this blog is like a trip in a time machine, back to the 1950's. Seriously guys, you are still blaming "the left" and giving a pass to the right? You think the R's are your saviors? :-)

    Come on. The so-called right in Washington DC is EVERY BIT as evil as the so-called left. What's more, there's hardly any difference between them. When was the last time I heard a conservative say we needed to get rid of Socialist Security? Or that we needed to avoid foreign entanglements?

    Everybody in DC belongs to the party (if not the religion) of government. They all know better how to run our lives than we do. Look at what they do, rather than what they say (hint: politicians lie).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 1950s were a bad time to be black in the Democrat-dominated south.

      And of course technology was much more primitive, science less advanced, and people were much less affluent.

      Otherwise, morally and culturally in particular, it was a high-point from which we have dramatically descended. I only wish that a visit here were a visit there.

      And while it would be presumptuous for me to speak for Diplomad or the other members of this community, it is my own opinion that if you find a visit here too painful for your exquisitely refined sensibilities, you will be pleased to be informed that it is in no way mandatory.

      Delete
    2. Paul Bonneau: The 1950's were an era in which government tended to be responsible and understood it had limits. It was a time when many Americans were free to build communities of general civility and decency; when even teenaged boys could be trusted to bring firearms to school for an after-hours Marksmen's Club under adult (usually veteran) supervision. People could go for a starlight stroll with the reasonable expectation they could return home without being either attacked by criminals or questioned by police.

      Further, the 1950's seems to have been the last time in America when most people could be pretty free to put forth a responsible political opinion and be confident that opponents (rather than enemies) might give them respectful hearings. We also had a genuine, production-based prosperity and loads of opportunity for economic betterment for hard-working men of modest means (along with their families). It was also the last time most families in America were intact.

      You bring up Black Americans? Well, why do you think the Civil Rights movement started percolating in the 1950's? Black Americans were also caught in the rising tide which made escape from poverty and second class status eminently possible, and further knew that there were powerful white men sympathetic to their legitimate aspirations.

      Concerned about women? Well, why was Rosie the Riveter so quick to give her two-week notice and become a homemaker, rather than fight to become foreman, or even a mid-level manager or higher? Maybe she knew that she had a good chance of landing a man rather than one of the overgrown boys her sons growing up in the Silly 'Sixties ultimately became.

      As for "sexual minorities", they were called by their right name back then: perverts. We wouldn't have had the tragedy of Frank Lombard's adopted son back then; and there'd be no need for a Robert Oscar Lopez to plead for children unfortunate enough to be adopted by the male creeps who'd driven their mothers from their fathers.

      Back in the 1950's, we had an educational system that actually worked, since it focused on giving basic skills to as wide a population as possible rather than on becoming the laboratory for questionable social experiments. As for the Soviets beating us into space, that was because Sputnik did nothing but beep, while American (including the foreign-born, whom we welcomed rather than kept under guard) rocket scientists and their associates were arguing about the kinds of useful functions that could be put into our first satellites.

      We didn't frustrate whole generations by telling them they had to go to college. People more hand-oriented than intellectually-oriented could get good training on the job.

      The 1950's built an America confident enough to attempt the experiments of the 1960's that went so horribly, horribly wrong.

      Back to the '50's? Sure, there were problems. We were perhaps too smug; our liberalized religion failed to check our pride and self-will and tempted us to think that the House of God would live even when God was absent from it. As in the Song of Moses, "Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked". Further, powerful unions tended to lock minorities out of skilled trades.

      From this history teacher's perspective, going back to the 1950's might not be such a bad idea.

      Delete
    3. And while I'm at it, a lot of "progressives" (towards what?) seem so nostalgic for the 1930's and 1960's, which were "low, mean, rotten, lying" (W.H. Auden) decades tumbling headlong towards disaster.

      Delete
    4. Back to the 1930s and the noble vision of "liberal fascism" that was trendy among intellectuals before word got around about Germany and Russia.

      Delete
    5. "From this history teacher's perspective, going back to the 1950's might not be such a bad idea."

      "You bring up Black Americans? Well, why do you think the Civil Rights movement started percolating in the 1950's? Black Americans were also caught in the rising tide which made escape from poverty and second class status eminently possible, and further knew that there were powerful white men sympathetic to their legitimate aspirations."

      Kepha?

      Now while I'm not comfortable (or in most ways "properly credentialed") to express an opinion as to when African Americans' party shift nationwide mostly occurred - I am fairly comfortable declaring a timeframe for those living at the time along a certain big river. In 1927.

      "The Flood of 1927 brought about a political shift, especially among African Americans. Those who had traditionally favored the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, since the Civil War resented the Republican response, or lack of response, and shifted their allegiance to the Democratic Party."

      http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2202

      Arkie

      Delete
    6. Arkie: I wasn't talking about party affiliation of any group of Americans. I was making an observation about the general condition of the United States during the 1950's. It was the era of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and of Eisenhower's enforcing school desegregation.

      I believe that the Civil Rights movement was made possible in large part because increased prosperity raised expectations for everyone.

      Thanks for info on more recent events along the Mississippi. I lived in the southern end of Illinois for a number of years myself.

      Delete
  11. Ahhh, Dip,"
    "...3/4 ...murders... Chicago... blacks..." Why you bean all RAAAAAACIST!!!1!!1!! en stuf? , heh, heh, heh...

    ReplyDelete
  12. ""The Flood of 1927 brought about a political shift, especially among African Americans. "

    The Republicans introduced anti-lynching legislation every year during the 1930s.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyer_Anti-Lynching_Bill

    "Republican President Warren G. Harding announced his support for Dyer's bill during a speaking engagement in Birmingham, Alabama. Although the bill was quickly passed by a large majority in the House of Representatives, it was prevented from coming to a vote in 1922, in 1923 and once more in 1924 in the Senate, due to filibusters by the white Southern Democratic block. The Democrats exerted one-party rule into the 1960s throughout most of the South."

    I agree that many Republicans are indeed part of the party of government but the Tea Party is attempting to change that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael K?

      I had to do some deleting in my reply of June 1, 0202 - went over the character limit. But in addition to paragraph 4 being in quotations add paragraphs 7, 8, 9 and 10 and then quotations again for paragraph 13.
      ___________________

      Now I full well realize that nowadays "Party Affiliation" indeed extending to appellations such as, for example "RINO" (and where Arkansas is concerned) labels even of the "DINO" variety frequently appear in our newspapers --- but, and this is not exclusively my observation, at least in parts of for damn certain Arkansas, but some other states in the South I frequent --- that "Party Affiliation" that gets all my FOX favorites all worked up is, to use a one word descriptor, Simplistic.

      For instance we here in very especially northern Arkansas have a well worn saying I'm pretty sure most Democrats in the northeast and on the west coast - and a great many [especially of the Tea Party variety] Republicans simply cannot get their heads wrapped around:

      We elect Democrats to office and we expect them to legislate as Republicans.

      It's most apparent at the local level, County and such but most people outside the state simply base their opinion of any of our State level pols by whether there's an R or a D after their name. Forgetting perhaps Benedict Arnold was a Forefather properly speaking.

      Arkansas you might not be aware of has "Balanced Budget" written right into the State Constitution.

      And that Balanced Budget thingy was mostly observed until one of "our own" (and his carpetbagger wife from Connecticut) managed to get elected to our Governorship & the only way we Arkies could figure out to be rid of him was to get the notion into his head he could get elected President of the US of The Whole Shebang.

      We didn't figure into our equationating that a Hick From The Sticks could ever possibly beat a seated incumbent GHW Bush.
      ________________________

      Apologies for the inconvenience.

      Arkie

      Delete
  13. "The Democrats exerted one-party rule into the 1960s throughout most of the South."

    True generally speaking but not every southern state was Mississippi and Alabama. And I'm not sure the blacks of Desha County woulda cared anyway.

    "The African-American population of McGehee took an active part in the three men’s lynching."

    http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=7903

    As a result of that Delta & Mountain Democrats in Arkansas' House introduced and passed Anti-Lynching bills. Governor vetoed admittedly.

    But the Official History --- make no mistake here where my personal views are concerned but generally speaking when people from outside the region (and if you've attended to some few of my comments, you probably realize I'm an Equal Opportunity "Party Politics Establishment Style Basher") anyway, when people from Not-Arkansas just accept as Accepted Wisdom every Arkie Democrat was a Orval Faubus. And every school integration was a Central High.

    During the summer and autumn of 1955, proponents and opponents of school integration across America were watching “a battle in a test tube.” The scene of the “battle” was Hoxie (Lawrence County), a small community in the northeastern part of Arkansas. While not the earliest instance of desegregation in the state—Fayetteville (Washington County) and Charleston (Franklin County) were peacefully integrated the previous year—Hoxie’s attempt was the first to be met with active resistance.

    The superintendent of schools, Kunkel Edward Vance, had given three reasons for integration: it was “right in the sight of God,” it complied with the Supreme Court ruling and it saved money. Vance said all school facilities would be integrated, not just the classrooms, and on the morning of July 11, 1955, the black children came to the white Hoxie schools. No incidents occurred on the first day of integration, and from initial appearances, Hoxie was a successful effort.

    The Hoxie School Board forced the issue of racial integration into the courts by filing suit against the segregationist leaders both from Hoxie and elsewhere in the state. ... The segregationists appealed the decision to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    The segregationists’ setback at Hoxie was a turning point in their efforts to prevent integration in Arkansas. Because efforts to pressure the school board had failed, the strategy of segregationists changed. No longer would school boards be the primary target, but rather Arkansas politicians. [1957] Governor Faubus, rather than the local school board, was thrown into the spotlight ...

    http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=731

    Earlier I mentioned "Mountain Democrats"? Well actually the entirety of Mountain Whatever's are a contrary lot - and the trait goes back aways further than even the 1920s.

    The Arkansas Peace Society was a loose affiliation of local anti-Confederate groups that formed in response to Arkansas’s secession from the Union. These groups operated like secret societies in several north Arkansas counties until late in 1861, ... The Arkansas Peace Society was quickly broken up, though north Arkansas contributed approximately ninety percent of soldiers from the state who fought for the Union.

    http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=2821

    I think you'd be Michael K kinda impressed with just how much Tea Partying goes on in the northern third of Arkansas - too bad we got those other two thirds though.

    Arkie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arkie...good googly moogly! I didn't know Arkansas was so mixed up. Over the years I have been to many parts of it--Conway, Little Rock, Searcy, Ft. Smith, Texarkana, Springdale.....I even went to DeQueen- on purpose. Near Mena, don't you know.

      Delete
    2. So whitewall, you been to Conway eh?

      You I'm betting know Little Rock is Arkansas' state capitol?

      I'm reckoning however you weren't the least bit aware you visited Arkansas' Capital of Crazy:

      "Management at a Conway hotel is claiming $50,000 in damages was caused early Saturday morning by a prank caller who may be responsible for similar attempts at phone-it-in vandalism throughout the state.

      "The bogus caller told the employee that there was a problem with the sprinklers and that she needed to "reset" them by pulling a nearby fire alarm, which the caller claimed to have deactivated for the purpose. When the audible alarm went off, the report reads, the caller told the employee to push the activation lever back to its original position, which he said would deactivate the alarm. It didn't, and the employee seems to have panicked.

      "The woman was told by the caller that the sprinkler system would soon activate throughout the hotel unless she started breaking the hotel's windows, which he said contained sensors that were connected to the alarm system. Believing the man and his claim that the entire hotel was about to flood, she started smashing windows in the lobby area.

      "[A] Missouri man, said he heard the alarm sounding while he was getting ready to take a shower. ... "The alarm goes off, so I went and got all my stuff and put it in the truck and came around the front entrance, and a fire extinguisher comes crashing through one of the windows in the front of the building," the guest said Monday.

      "The employees told him that there was a representative from the alarm company on the phone and the guest picked it up, said he had once been trained in emergency response as a former volunteer fireman and asked what needed to be done to help.

      "After breaking several windows and realizing that the alarm was not deactivated, (the guest) got back on the lobby phone with the caller," the CPD incident report reads. "The caller told (the guest) that he must reset the control panel for the system. (The guest) told the caller that water from the sprinkler was keeping him from reaching the panel. The caller then told (the guest) that he had to find the breaker box and shut down the power to the hotel."

      http://thecabin.net/stories/060909/loc_0609090001.shtml

      And don't even get me started on Springdale, the corporate headquarters of the World's Largest Chinese Flea Market.

      Arkie

      Delete
    3. Sounds remarkably like my Aunt Vera's home improvement project for her yearly Canasta tournament.
      James the Lesser

      Delete
  14. If I'm elected -- Planned Riflehood -- universal gun education in the public schools. Guns and sex have so much in common. Lots to love. Lots to learn.

    So remember in the fall, vote Anonymous!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This candidate Anon wouldn't happen to be you would it?

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-2016-presidential-candidate-we-need/2014/05/23/77d599ae-e202-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html

      "All modern presidents of both parties have been too much with us. Talking incessantly, they have put politics unhealthily at the center of America’s consciousness. Promising promiscuously, they have exaggerated government’s proper scope and actual competence ... So, sensible voters might embrace someone who announced his 2016 candidacy this way:

      "“I am ambling — running suggests unseemly ardor — for president. It is axiomatic that anyone who nowadays will do what is necessary in order to become president thereby reveals character traits, including delusions of adequacy and obsessive compulsive disorder, that should disqualify him or her from proximity to powers concentrated in the executive branch. Therefore, my campaign will initially consist of driving around the Obnoxiously Entitled Four — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — trying to interest their 3.8 percent of America’s population in a minimalist president.

      "Congress, defined by the Constitution’s Article I, is properly the first, the initiating branch of government. So, I will veto no bill merely because I disagree with the policy it implements. I will wield the veto power only on constitutional grounds — when Congress legislates beyond its constitutionally enumerated powers, correctly construed, as they have not been since the New Deal. So I expect to cast more vetoes than the 2,564 cast by all previous presidents.

      "A congenial society is one in which most people most of the time, and all politicians almost all of the time, say, when asked about almost everything: ‘This is none of my business.’ If as president I am asked what I think about the death of a rock star, or the imbecilic opinions of rich blowhards who own professional sports teams, I will say: ‘Americans should have no interest in my thoughts about such things, if I had any.’ I will try not to come to the attention of any television camera more than once a week, and only that often if I am convinced that I can speak without violating what will be my administration’s motto: ‘Don’t speak unless you can improve the silence.’

      "I will not ruin any more American evenings with televised State of the Union addresses. I will mail my thoughts on that subject to Congress ‘from time to time,’ as the Constitution directs.

      "Finally, there have been 44 presidencies before the one I moderately aspire to administer, and there will be many more than 44 after it. Mine will be a success if, a century hence, Americans remember me as dimly as they remember Grover Cleveland, the last Democratic president with proper understanding of this office’s place in our constitutional order.”

      If that is you Anon - you got my vote!

      Arkie

      Delete
  15. Well shut my mouth~~~
    Bravo! to all 49 commentaros
    and a snappy hand salute to Dip,
    for remembering where they were!
    On Watch~~~

    "Let's Roll"

    ReplyDelete