GOP is the party of real racial justice

I know that will blow some minds but it's true. Virtually every mainstream media and social media platform has been propagating the theme that Democrats unite Americans and Republicans divide them. It's exactly the opposite.

The Democratic Party has been promoting black subjugation and segregation for over two centuries. Before the Civil War they were the party of slavery. The Republican Party was formed in 1854 specifically to resist the expansion of slavery. Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican President in 1861 and the Republicans gained control of Congress.

After the Republican Party passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution between 1865 and 1870 reinforcing civil rights for black Americans, a large block of the Democratic party continued to denigrate black Americans by instituting Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the South until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in schools and public accommodations was unconstitutional and ordered all states to desegregate "with all deliberate speed" but without an enforcement mechanism. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower proposed a civil rights bill to enforce the order to desegregate. Though they had lost their brief, slim majority in the House and Senate by then, Republicans managed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 over Democratic Party dissent to protect the right to vote, and to establish the Civil Rights Commission and Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. The Civil Rights Act of 1960 likewise was passed with enthusiastic support from Republicans, far greater than Democrats (see House and Senate vote counts).

Civil Rights Act of 1964

In June 1963 Democratic President John F. Kennedy proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but it was held up in the House Rules Committee by Senate Democrats to prevent it coming to a vote. In August 1963, the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place with Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Five days after Kennedy's assassination in November, newly-installed President Lyndon Johnson urged Congress to push the stalled civil rights bill forward as a legacy to the late President. The Democratic Party had a solid 60% majority in the House and despite their even larger 67% supermajority in the Senate, they didn't have enough votes in their own party to pass it in the Senate. Only 46 of the 67 Democrats in the Senate voted for it. Republicans, ever dedicated to the self-evident truth and American ideal that "all men are created equal," enthusiastically supported the bill while Democrats were bitterly divided over it. Here's the vote tally in the House and the Senate.

House vote

Democrats: 153 yea (60% of Democrats), 91 nay, 2 present, 12 not voting

Republicans: 136 yea (76% of Republicans), 35 nay, 2 present, 5 not voting

Senate vote

Democrats: 46 yea (69% of Democrats), 21 nay

Republicans: 27 yea (82% of Republicans), 6 nay

Republicans were even more supportive of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, with 80% of Republicans in the House and 94% in the Senate voting for it, compared to 75% of Democrats in the House and 69% in the Senate.

Change in party affiliation

The Democratic Party's support for labor unions and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's anti-poverty programs began to attract black Americans toward the Democratic Party. The outreach by Attorney General Robert Kennedy and the fact that the Democratic Party held both houses of Congress and the Presidency at the time of the passage of the Civil Rights Act began to persuade even more black Americans to the Democratic Party. The nomination of Senator Barry Goldwater as the Republican candidate for President in 1964 drove them away en masse from the Republican Party. Goldwater was one of only six Republican senators who voted against the Civil Rights Act (21 Democrat senators voted against it). Though a supporter of civil rights who had voted for the 1957 Civil Rights Act, his declaration that he voted against the 1964 Act because he thought it was unconstitutional drove a wedge between Republicans and black voters that has lasted to this day.

Over the next 60 years, Democratic Party politicians pandered to blacks by dangling legislative trinkets that amounted to essentially nothing. The bulk of the work to secure equal rights and opportunities for racial minorities had already been done by Republicans. Those legislative trinkets that did pass resulted in disastrous social changes for urban black communities and generational dependency on government handouts which weren't modified in any meaningful way until the Republican House and Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 to reform the welfare system.

While Republicans have long sought the goal of being "color blind" and treating all Americans equally, the Democrats continued to view Americans through the lens of race. In the modern era Democrats have adopted a "soft bigotry" of low expectations and race-based college-admissions. They are attempting to eradicate voter ID laws supposedly to "help" black voters who Democrats think can't get a photo ID. Their platform is centered on a social theory that segregates people by race and other categories and promotes the idea that white people are inherently racist. They inflame racial grievances, especially against the police, promote false narratives of racial inequity in arrests and incarcerations, and have celebrated thugs and criminals and denigrated accomplished black Republicans like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Their supposed "compassion" for blacks looks awfully condescending.

Republicans continue to promote policies that measurably improve the lives of black people instead of offering platitudes and unfulfilled promises. Here are a few recent ones:

• School choice that allows parents to move their kids out of underperforming schools. This is very popular with urban parents and is supported by 76% of black Americans.

• Prioritizing a strong economy and ending onerous government regulations to allow the business sector to grow and provide jobs, which has resulted in the lowest unemployment rate for minorities in U.S. history, 5.1%. See also here.

• Strengthening police forces and budgets to better patrol crime-ridden urban neighborhoods and reduce crime.

President Donald Trump has signed laws and executive orders and initiated other plans to improve educational and business opportunities for black Americans and economic prospects for poor people. All of this has been noticed by black Americans who are increasingly throwing their support to him as they distance themselves from decades of failed promises and policies by Democrats.

If you would like a copy of this graphic to print as a 24" x 18" yard sign, you can download the PDF file here and submit it to a print shop.

How to Argue

Other viewpoints, facts, and truth are often upsetting, especially when they repudiate a narrative that you believe and feel strongly about. The hallmark of a maturing person is the ability to hear other viewpoints and consider them thoughtfully even if you disagree with them. It's not only a Biblical proverb, but it's also key component of the scientific method.

If you're emotionally attached to a hypothesis that can be proven incorrect by experiment you will find it harder to consider or embrace a different hypothesis. Knowledge and understanding are gained by being able to accept a new hypothesis that better fits the evidence.

Disagreement and argument are fundamental to exploring and understanding truth and are legally protected rights in many countries. Calling people names ("racist!") is the lowest level of the hierarchy of disagreement (from the essay by Paul Graham about "How to Disagree"). It's childish; something that thoughtful, self-correcting, disciplined people grow out of as they mature. Unfortunately, it's a common mode of argument in the media today.

Pro tips for having a disagreement without being disagreeable

You could try a Monty Python Argument Clinic or these suggestions:

1. Ask the other person why he thinks the way he does and listen to understand, not to criticize and formulate an attack. Be precise and neutral. Start with easy questions and refine for clarity.

• "Why do you think the police are racist?"
• "I didn't mean 'why are they racist?' I meant what makes you think they are."
• "Do you think all police are racist or a lot or just a few?"
• "What do you think is the solution?"
• "Is that practical? Are there other solutions that might also work?"

2. Affirm his reasons for thinking that way. You don't have to agree with the point to validate him for having that point of view.

• "I can see why that makes sense"
• "I understand why you feel strongly about that now"
• "If I were in that position I'd feel angry too"

3. Ask if he's interested in hearing more information about the subject, or your viewpoint.

• "I've thought about this too. Do you want to hear?"
• "Do you know what some of the other arguments are? Are you interested?"
• "I read a different view that makes sense to me. Would you like to hear it?"

If he's not interested in hearing counterarguments, your discussion is over. The aphorism "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still" applies. He's not willing to be persuaded and you won't be able to convince him. Move on to something else.

If he is willing to listen it will lead to a counter-argument. Respond to it as described above: ask, listen, affirm, offer to explain your point of view.

The more neutrally you question and the more you listen thoughtfully, the more likely you can maintain a conversation with a low emotional response. This is important because if it becomes emotionally charged your amygdala takes over and you retreat into an adrenaline-fueled binary fight-or-flight mode that short-circuits your brain's ability to reason complex or nuanced arguments. It's often called an amygdala hijack.

If you know the other person holds a viewpoint that is objectively false, the best way to persuade him is to let him figure it out himself with neutral, probing questions that may inspire him to reflect carefully about why he has come to that point of view. If it's obvious where the misunderstanding is, the other person will arrive at it from just asking questions. Keeping emotions calm is crucial for your brain to be able to consider new information and process it.

The U.S. President's Job

"American Presidents Standing Side by Side!"
by Maggie Pagel, National Liberty Museum

This is a summary of the job of the President of the United States according to the powers granted in the Constitution. The next time you hear a presidential candidate making grandiose promises about what he will do when elected, remember this is what he actually can do, which is pretty limited. Power granted by the people to the Congress, President, and courts were limited for a good reason.

1. Faithfully execute all the laws passed by Congress.
2. Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
3. Commander in Chief of the armed forces
4. Create treaties with other countries. Treaties aren't valid until approved by two thirds of the Senate. For example, the Paris Agreement on climate change signed by President Obama was not a valid treaty since it wasn't approved by the Senate and doesn't have the force of law. It's simply a non-binding gesture.
5. Appoint ambassadors to foreign countries, heads of agency departments, and judges to federal courts and the Supreme Court, with the "advice and consent" of the Senate. If the Senate is in recess, he can fill those vacancies without the consent of the Senate but they automatically expire at the end of the next Senate session.
6. Report the state of the union to Congress and make recommendations that he considers necessary and expedient for the country.
7. Commission officers of the United States. In practice this has meant the commanding officers of the military who all report directly to him.

The framework of U.S. Constitutional government rests on the founding premise that government derives its right to govern from the consent of the people and its primary purpose is to secure innate natural rights that every human being is born with. This radically liberal idea was exactly contrary to the thought of leaders around the world who believed that people were the subjects of governing elites and the rights of citizens were granted by the government. As Nigel Farage points out, among the leaders of most democratic governments today that ancient and corrupt idea is still very popular.

See also:

• Constitution of the United States of America, Article II
• Article Two of the United States Constitution (Wikipedia)
• The Powers Delegated to the Federal Government Are Few and Defined (Roots of Liberty)

The false claims of the #blacklivesmatter narrative

What you think you know about racially-motivated profiling, harassment, and use of deadly force by the police is probably wrong. It's understandable that when you watch a horrifying video of someone dying while being detained by police it immediately triggers strong emotions, but if you take a step back emotionally and consider the larger story about systemic racism being told by Black Lives Matters and others, you'll discover that it's not true. Worse, it's dangerous to race relations and civil society, as we've witnessed over the last couple months of rioting.

In the current climate, when passions substitute for reasoned discussion, it's important to recognize that the truth is often upsetting, especially when it repudiates a narrative that you believe and feel strongly about. Social media and mainstream media have inflamed those passions and anyone who argues against the narrative is called racist, is denounced, cancelled, or doxed. Calling people names ("racist!") is the lowest level of the hierarchy of disagreement (from the essay by Paul Graham about "How to Disagree"). It's childish; something that thoughtful, self-correcting, disciplined people grow out of as they mature. Unfortunately, it's the main mode of argument in the media today.

The Truth about Crime, Race, and Policing

If you're willing to consider a refutation of the central points of the Black Lives Matters movement, Heather Mac Donald makes a compelling case, backed up with studies and crime and policing data. Her central argument is that "police activity must be measured against crime, not population ratios."

BLM and their sympathizers measure police activity by population ratios so it looks like black people are being disproportionately targeted. What they neglect to mention is that, based on decades of crime data, black men also disproportionately commit violent crimes. The sad truth is that, almost exclusively, blacks are also the victims of those violent crimes; a glaring, tragic fact that Black Lives Matters and their ilk always ignore.

When confronted with this inconvenient truth, race-baiters claim that the data is wrong because black men are arrested and convicted of crimes more often than, for example, white men; and the reason for that, they say once again, is systemic racial bias by law enforcement. If that were true, crime would be rampant in white communities, but in fact the opposite is true. It is inner-city, minority-dominated communities that have the highest rates of violent crime. Accepting this fact is the beginning of understanding what the real solutions to the disparity in crime between racial and ethnic groups might be.

"Defunding the police," which charitably means "reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality" as many have suggested, would make the problem far worse, as is almost invariably the case with Leftist thought experiments when turned into policy. Decades of crime data show that, for example the "broken windows" policy of policing advocated by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and increasing police forces reduces crime (see here).

Here are several links to Heather Mac Donald's testimony, articles, and video which go into detail about the points summarized above.

Webcast for the AmericanExperimentMN, July 30, 2020:

• Video: The Truth About Crime, Race, and Policing in America

Testimony delivered to the House Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing on Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability, June 10, 2020 (link to hearing here):

• Repudiate the Anti-Police Narrative (published at City Journal website, June 10, 2020)

Testimony at House Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing on Policing Practices, September 19, 2019 (link to hearing here):

• Video
• Transcript (published at Manhattan Institute website, September 19, 2019)

Here is one of the many studies that Heather Mac Donald refers to:

Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings (July 22, 2019)

When you look at the FBI crime data and the socioeconomic data, the reasons for the large disparity in crime rates begin to suggest themselves; factors like high percentage of single-family homes without a father, high unwed pregnancy rates, high drug use, low educational achievement; all of which contribute to higher rates of poverty. These factors are common to areas of high crime regardless of race or ethnicity. Leftists suggest that reducing poverty would reduce crime because there is an obvious correlation, but they fail to notice that poverty is a symptom of poor choices, not just something you accidentally get, like an infection, and that crime is also a symptom of poor choices. Solving the underlying cycle of poor choices is the best cure for the inevitable results of those poor choices.

Bill Cosby, before his own poor choices shackled him, was a vocal advocate for making cultural and personal changes in inner-city communities to end the cycle of poverty and violence.

Here are some links to crime data.

2018 Crime in the United States, Expanded data by Offense

The Expanded Homicide Data Tables shows data broken down by race, ethnicity, and gender:

• Murder Victims by Age, Sex, Race, and Ethnicity, 2018
• Murder Offenders by Age, Sex, Race, and Ethnicity, 2018

Systemic racism in the U.S. today is (almost) non-existent

While adding #blacklivesmatter to a social media post is intended to express someone's anger at the supposed widespread and systemic oppression, persecution, and disenfranchisement of the black community, it instead continues to spread the false narrative that any of this is really happening. Reviewing the links above will show that none of this is true.

Certainly there are jerks who treat others badly, even in law enforcement, but they are few. Calling them "racists" feeds the false narrative of BLM and others that there is widespread racism in the U.S. today. In fact, the perpetrators are simply jerks. And when they are caught, they are prosecuted, as has happened to several police officers who abused their position. That's the beauty of having laws and enforcing them. Letting the legal system work to punish perpetrators is far better for civil society—to protect people, their property, and their freedoms—than letting mobs judge and punish.

There are laws against racism in the U.S. and the systemic racism in government at many levels and in many states that existed until the 1960's was long ago purged with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We live in a time of vastly improved race relations, and the situation continues to improve every year. It has happened because Americans are increasingly racially diverse and more tolerant of each other. Even during the worst periods of exploitation of black people in the era of Southern Slavery and the Jim Crow South (both of which were supported and defended by the Democratic Party of the time), most Americans were against slavery and racism.

The reduction in racism and improvement in race relations in recent decades didn't come from the efforts of recently "woke" so-called "social justice warriors". It was happening long before they proclaimed themselves the modern-day saviors of racial minorities. In fact, the selective outrage of the Leftist mob that sees racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and bigotry everywhere—even (mostly) where there is no evidence of it; simply a difference of opinions—has actually caused a deterioration of race relations, and their call to have a "national conversation" about whatever is the topic de jour is actually the opposite and has worsened civil discourse. What they mean by "national conversation" is a one-sided lecture. It's not a "conversation" when one side shouts down the other and refuses to listen to their legitimate objections. Leftists and the Democratic Party use racism as a way to inflame passions and attract voters. It's another sad chapter in the exploitation of black Americans, something the Democratic Party has been doing ever since its founding. It's also evidence of the frequent implicit bias of Leftists who project their own racism onto others, as Ami Horowitz has demonstrated in his video "How white liberals really view black voters" (see here).

If you weren't already aware of the way Democrats distort, slander, and lie about the views of Americans who oppose their exploitation of race relations, have a look at the way Candace Owens was treated and misquoted by them in a House hearing:

Candace Owens accuses Democrat of distorting her comments (April 9, 2019)

For several minutes Democrats distort and lie about what Candace Owens said, then when she is allowed to respond (see here), Chairman Jerrold Nadler once again distorts what she says.

The mainstream media is complicit in these distortions. If you take what the mainstream media reports at face value you are seriously misinformed. They have increasingly cast aside all pretense of neutrality and spin their reporting to suit the narrative of the Democratic Party, of which most of the media are either members or are sympathetic to their platform.

Black Lives Matter Exposed

Many people who sympathize with #blacklivesmatter probably don't hold the views of the formal Black Lives Matter organization, but they also probably don't know what those views are.

From the Gatestone Institute:

Black Lives Matter: "We Are Trained Marxists" - Part I

Black Lives Matter: "We Will Burn Down This System" - Part II 

Here are some videos

‘Black Lives Matter Is a Joke’ — Black D.C. Resident Tells Far-Left Group ‘Go to Chicago’