Free State of Jones

5,247 Views | 51 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by Mitch Blood Green
Florda_mike
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Anyone watched it?

Latter scene showed a white man Newt Knight(Matthew McConaughey) walking in polling station in Jones County Mississippi with a bunch of his black friends he's risked his life to protect for years, to vote in 1876 president election. He asks for republican tickets for him and all his black friends. The multitudes of white democrats manning polling station say they haven't received any republican tickets for them to vote. McConaughey tells democrats his guys don't mind dying a lot less then any of the democrats. They give em the republican tickets which the blacks use to vote republican. Many tickets were used by the blacks filling the republican jar. The final count in Jones County was 498 Democrats and 2 Republicans! Imagine that! And it still happens today in the inner cities as one precinct voted obama 19,000+ to -0-!

Showed a democrat KKK lynching as Klansman wore masks to hide themselves just like Antifa democrats wear masks today.

Nothing has changed with Democrat Party up to today as they intimidate blacks into voting democrat. That's what KKK did back then as depicted in this movie. And they cut off genitals on the black they hung exactly as described in thread of Waco hanging

Wonder why the movie wasn't promoted or awarded by democrat Hollywood?

Wonder if that Robinson mob was a bunch of democrats that drug that black kid from courtroom and mutilated then lynched him

Seems democrats have perpetuated a scam on American people since Civil War to get blacks to vote for them through coercion by threat of death. Brutal death

And republicans have cowered to these democrat tactics which is just as bad!

You lefties need to wake up to what democrats have done and stop siding with then

And us republicans need to provide blacks the backing and protection to cross that dangerous picket line to the other side and be republicans. I wouldn't doubt it if black approval rate is much higher for Trump but they are afraid to say in front of others. Many are saying that's why leftist polls were wrong

What you're doing is the definition of insanity
Midnight Rider
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You might consider expanding your study of history beyond what you see at the movie theater.
Florda_mike
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Midnight Rider said:

You might consider expanding your study of history beyond what you see at the movie theater.


You might want to expand your study beyond textbooks
Florda_mike
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Midnight Rider said:

You might consider expanding your study of history beyond what you see at the movie theater.


And why are you so condescending to me?

Do you not consider the professional suicide McConeahey and the other actors, especially the blacks, were doing by making a movie like this in the vindictive environment of a democrat controlled Hollywood?

I didn't just look at democrat side of this issue either if you'll reread what I wrote! I said the republicans have been complicit in all this as they cowered back then and they are cowards now to the democrats lying about what they do for blacks and what the republicans don't do for blacks! Republican politicians are sickening cowards mostly

It's time to speak up and admit democrats have held blacks down back then, and all the way to now and celebrate and protect whoever stands to say it no matter the color of their skin
fubar
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smh
Limited IQ Redneck in PU
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Jim wants to imprison anyone that votes differently than he does and thinks over half of the voters in America are insane but he is a champion of cinematic civil rights..
Florda_mike
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fubar said:

smh


Blacks are waking to this truth and you know it too

They just need someone to have their back if they stand up and turn away from democrat party I believe

Blacks are, in general, ten times as street savvy as whites(it's forced!) imo so they have to know all I speak here!?
Florda_mike
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Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

Jim wants to imprison anyone that votes differently than he does and thinks over half of the voters in America are insane but he is a champion of cinematic civil rights..


Many of your posts reek of nothingness if not utter condescension

Respond otherwise here!
Canada2017
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Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

Jim wants to imprison anyone that votes differently than he does and thinks over half of the voters in America are insane but he is a champion of cinematic civil rights..


Jim's a good guy....

But Limitted gets points for making me smile on the day my daughters 14 year old Scottie died.

Thanks
Midnight Rider
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Who is Jim?
Florda_mike
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Canada2017 said:

Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

Jim wants to imprison anyone that votes differently than he does and thinks over half of the voters in America are insane but he is a champion of cinematic civil rights..


Jim's a good guy....

But Limitted gets points for making me smile on the day my daughters 14 year old Scottie died.

Thanks


I've taken your word that Limited is good and that's good enough for me. Thanks

I just want a solution to blacks being held down and held back. I want them given equal chance, not an easier path than whites, just equal
Florda_mike
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Midnight Rider said:

Who is Jim?


Just a condescending name

He doesn't mean it I'm sure
Canada2017
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Midnight Rider said:

Who is Jim?


Sorry....meant to say ' Mike'

Canada2017
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Florda_mike said:

Canada2017 said:

Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

Jim wants to imprison anyone that votes differently than he does and thinks over half of the voters in America are insane but he is a champion of cinematic civil rights..


Jim's a good guy....

But Limitted gets points for making me smile on the day my daughters 14 year old Scottie died.

Thanks


I've taken your word that Limited is good and that's good enough for me. Thanks

I just want a solution to blacks being held down and held back. I want them given equal chance, not an easier path than whites, just equal


You are both good guys.

IMO quality employment is the answer...and Trump is providing that.

But quality employment often necessitates quality training/education ....and obtaining that has always been up to the individual.
Florda_mike
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Canada2017 said:

Florda_mike said:

Canada2017 said:

Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

Jim wants to imprison anyone that votes differently than he does and thinks over half of the voters in America are insane but he is a champion of cinematic civil rights..


Jim's a good guy....

But Limitted gets points for making me smile on the day my daughters 14 year old Scottie died.

Thanks


I've taken your word that Limited is good and that's good enough for me. Thanks

I just want a solution to blacks being held down and held back. I want them given equal chance, not an easier path than whites, just equal


You are both good guys.

IMO quality employment is the answer...and Trump is providing that.

But quality employment often necessitates quality training/education ....and obtaining that has always been up to the individual.


Thanks for everything and thanks for that answer/suggestion
ABC BEAR
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Jones County, MS was indeed a sanctuary for rebel deserters who had had enough of fighting to protect an economic system they neither participated in or benefitted from during the Civil War.

A previous movie loosely based on those events came out in the late 1940's and it too was a flop at the box office.

I suppose that folks are content to see history in monolithic instead of dynamic terms and are therefore not willing to challenge those beliefs. Instead, we seem to gravitate towards depictions which support and illuminate events as we think they were. Some of these depictions are quite good and Speilberg has made a fortune detailing the Holocaust and the D-Day invasion for his viewers.

FWIW - my great-grandfather, (who came from a non-slave holding family) was dispatched along with the rest of his cavalry unit to suppress the Jones County rebellion. He would later spend 36 years in the Mississippi legislature, elected by and representing the same people he fought against in that conflict.

History, when viewed through individual eyes, can be a most curious thing.
Limited IQ Redneck in PU
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Jim Lahey is a fictional character from the great sitcom Trailer Park Boys. He manages a trailer park and says lots of hilarious things. See the similarity? By the way, Jim called my mother a bltch but complains when I call him Jim. Isnt that funny?



Thanks Canadian and may peace be with you on a sorrowful day. I have news that may interest you. Doc and Jim and some of the other scare mongers have finally convinced me that communists are hiding under my bed (I really did put one out of my bed this morning) and trying to take away my guns and kill me. I resigned my job here in China and landed what for me is a big contract to work in Alaska. I start work in the Lower Yukon River area in September. There are no roads connecting my village with cities so you and your son in law will be welcome to fly out to the boonies and hunt and fish. Yall can hike for days here and never see anyone. Let me get settled first.
Limited IQ Redneck in PU
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Mitch Blood Green
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Anyone seen Blazing Saddles when the Republican townspeople hire a sheriff based on his qualifications and give him good, clean German booty?

Then the Democrat old lady says "up yours ******!"

Florda_mike
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Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:




Again I don't drink and have seen waaaaay to much of lives and families ruined as well as death from alcohol(a suicide of 27 year old locally just last Thursday even and alcohol poisoning death of a cousin couple years ago) and don't enjoy nor respect being called a drunk but if that trips your trigger then so be it I guess as mods won't stop you. It pains me though if that matters

And again I didn't call Mom botch intentionally and you know I was just calling YOU an sob for endlessly insulting me and the like numerous times previous. I reacted unwisely and you've been victim ever since even though you continue to insult me. My mistake with your mom though, for sure, as it was just meant for you and you only so I apologize to you if you continue to really believe I attacked your precious mom

I have to tell you this here as I've tried to make a truce via PM but was shunned severely as you know

I know this will probably be of no credit to you but sometimes you just have to defend yourself publicly from continued daily verbal assaults and mods won't

God bless you and your family and especially your mom

Canada says you're good and that's good enough for me

Adios to your China and future Alaska ventures
Florda_mike
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tommie said:

Anyone seen Blazing Saddles when the Republican townspeople hire a sheriff based on his qualifications and give him good, clean German booty?

Then the Democrat old lady says "up yours ******!"




Good diversion from OP?
Limited IQ Redneck in PU
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You called me a sob but didn't mean any insult to my mother. And you claim you are sober. And you complain to the mods because I call you Jim. You live in a strange world.

Keep up the entertaining work though. You have complained several times about a poster not proofreading his post and claim one man's grammar gets worse at night. You have at least 18 mistakes in your original post on this thread.
I have found theres only two ways to go:
Living fast or dying slow.
I dont want to live forever.
But I will live while I'm here.
Florda_mike
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Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

You called me a sob but didn't mean any insult to my mother. And you claim you are sober. And you complain to the mods because I call you Jim. You live in a strange world.

Keep up the entertaining work though. You have complained several times about a poster not proofreading his post and claim one man's grammar gets worse at night. You have at least 18 mistakes in your original post on this thread.


My gosh you're certainly an angry fella

Turn computer off, get out and go be with friends for the day
Mitch Blood Green
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Florda_mike said:

tommie said:

Anyone seen Blazing Saddles when the Republican townspeople hire a sheriff based on his qualifications and give him good, clean German booty?

Then the Democrat old lady says "up yours ******!"




Good diversion from OP?


Diversion? I thought this was movie talk.
Limited IQ Redneck in PU
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Laughing at you is cathartic
I have found theres only two ways to go:
Living fast or dying slow.
I dont want to live forever.
But I will live while I'm here.
bubbadog
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Florda_mike said:

Anyone watched it?

Latter scene showed a white man Newt Knight(Matthew McConaughey) walking in polling station in Jones County Mississippi with a bunch of his black friends he's risked his life to protect for years, to vote in 1876 president election. He asks for republican tickets for him and all his black friends. The multitudes of white democrats manning polling station say they haven't received any republican tickets for them to vote. McConaughey tells democrats his guys don't mind dying a lot less then any of the democrats. They give em the republican tickets which the blacks use to vote republican. Many tickets were used by the blacks filling the republican jar. The final count in Jones County was 498 Democrats and 2 Republicans! Imagine that! And it still happens today in the inner cities as one precinct voted obama 19,000+ to -0-!

Showed a democrat KKK lynching as Klansman wore masks to hide themselves just like Antifa democrats wear masks today.

Nothing has changed with Democrat Party up to today as they intimidate blacks into voting democrat. That's what KKK did back then as depicted in this movie. And they cut off genitals on the black they hung exactly as described in thread of Waco hanging

Wonder why the movie wasn't promoted or awarded by democrat Hollywood?

Wonder if that Robinson mob was a bunch of democrats that drug that black kid from courtroom and mutilated then lynched him

Seems democrats have perpetuated a scam on American people since Civil War to get blacks to vote for them through coercion by threat of death. Brutal death

And republicans have cowered to these democrat tactics which is just as bad!

You lefties need to wake up to what democrats have done and stop siding with then

And us republicans need to provide blacks the backing and protection to cross that dangerous picket line to the other side and be republicans. I wouldn't doubt it if black approval rate is much higher for Trump but they are afraid to say in front of others. Many are saying that's why leftist polls were wrong

What you're doing is the definition of insanity
I haven't seen the movie, but I read a lot about it. The film got quite a bit of publicity (which doesn't necessarily mean it will do well at the box office.) It got favorable reviews from those liberal and effete film critics, too.

I studied the history of this period and will try to answer your questions as best as I I can.

In 1876, Reconstruction was nearing an end in the South. There were still Federal troops in some states like Mississippi, but local power was returning to ex-Confederates, who by this time were all Democrats.

Before the Civil War, some of those whites had been Democrats and some had been Whigs. When the Whig Party broke up in the 1850s, Northern Whigs tended to gravitate to the brand-new Republican Party. Southern Whigs really had nowhere to go, because many Whigs were large slaveowners and the Republican Party was anti-slavery. A lot of them voted for the Constitutional Union Party in 1860. But after the war they mostly all moved over to the Democratic Party in the South.

A few Southern whites in the Black Belt supported the Republicans. More of their support came from Northern Carpetbaggers who moved in and from the former slaves who now could vote.

Because ex-Confederates had been disenfranchised for a time after the War, blacks initially held majorities in the legislatures of states like Mississippi. By 1876, more whites were voting again and there was a struggle for control.

It all came to a head with the election of 1876, which is the election described in the Free State of Jones.

In Mississippi the election was chaos. There was fraud and intimidation on both sides. The lopsided result you mention in Jones County is surely an example of fraud by the white Democrats.

It was so bad that in 4 states there were actual two sets of electors to the Electoral College, each claiming that they were the legitimate electors and that the others were frauds. The presidential election was so close that the results in these 4 states would determine the outcome.

Congress appointed a 15-member bi-partisan commission to sort out the claims from these four states (3 Southern states plus Oregon, as I recall). But Republicans controlled Congress, and they wound up with 8 Republicans on the commission and 7 Democrats. By an 8-7 vote, the commission awarded each of the four disputed states to the Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes. Thus, the Democrat Samuel Tilden (who was governor of New York) won the popular vote but lost the election.

Southern Democrats cried fraud and actually made threats to secede all over again. In the end, tempers cooled enough for the sides to cut a political deal. Democrats would abide by the result, and in return, the last Federal troops would be pulled from the South. (This is why your American history courses are traditionally divided into the period before 1877 and after 1877.)

The Free State of Jones illustrates an episode of the local struggle that was part of this wider picture.

Major political parties evolve, change and sometimes die. The Whigs died. The Republicans and Democrats evolved. In the 1860s and 1870s, the Republicans were the party of big government; obviously, that is no longer true. The Democrats were the pro-slavery party that evolved into the pro-Jim Crow and black subjugation party. In the states where black people were allowed to vote freely, this began to change with FDR and the New Deal, when black people began to shift toward voting Democrat from voting for Republicans. White Democrats shifted decisively in the two decades after the Civil Rights bills passed (just as LBJ foresaw). When you and I were boys in Texas, Democrats held all state and local offices. A strong majority of white Democrats in the South moved over to the Republican Party just as black people in those states were finally being allowed to vote and were moving into the Democratic Party.

Thus, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans today bear any resemblance to what they were after the Civil War.
Canada2017
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Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

Jim Lahey is a fictional character from the great sitcom Trailer Park Boys. He manages a trailer park and says lots of hilarious things. See the similarity? By the way, Jim called my mother a bltch but complains when I call him Jim. Isnt that funny?



Thanks Canadian and may peace be with you on a sorrowful day. I have news that may interest you. Doc and Jim and some of the other scare mongers have finally convinced me that communists are hiding under my bed (I really did put one out of my bed this morning) and trying to take away my guns and kill me. I resigned my job here in China and landed what for me is a big contract to work in Alaska. I start work in the Lower Yukon River area in September. There are no roads connecting my village with cities so you and your son in law will be welcome to fly out to the boonies and hunt and fish. Yall can hike for days here and never see anyone. Let me get settled first.



Honestly the 'Jim' reference was a pure mistake . Yesterday was a stressful day for my daughter. She had practically grown up with that Scottie. But Paige died naturally...without my daughter having to 'put her down '. Still the memories are flowing through me . My little girl playing with Paige.

Hey careful what you offer ! LOL

Got a frat 'little brother' retired in Anchorage. Might get up there next summer.

Peace be with you .
Mitch Blood Green
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Anyone seen the movie where the Republican Ogre is minding his own business on his free Republican land and the Democrat comes and tries to take it from him unless he goes and rescues the princess?

They then make him frolic around with the Democrat, wise cracking donkey.
robby44
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tommie said:

Florda_mike said:

tommie said:

Anyone seen Blazing Saddles when the Republican townspeople hire a sheriff based on his qualifications and give him good, clean German booty?

Then the Democrat old lady says "up yours ******!"




Good diversion from OP?


Diversion? I thought this was movie talk.

Was Lili von Shtupp a Democrat?
Midnight Rider
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Midnight Rider said:

You might consider expanding your study of history beyond what you see at the movie theater.

Mike: bubba's response to your post would be a good start.

Pay particular attention to the last sentence in bubba's response.
Florda_mike
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bubbadog said:

Florda_mike said:

Anyone watched it?

Latter scene showed a white man Newt Knight(Matthew McConaughey) walking in polling station in Jones County Mississippi with a bunch of his black friends he's risked his life to protect for years, to vote in 1876 president election. He asks for republican tickets for him and all his black friends. The multitudes of white democrats manning polling station say they haven't received any republican tickets for them to vote. McConaughey tells democrats his guys don't mind dying a lot less then any of the democrats. They give em the republican tickets which the blacks use to vote republican. Many tickets were used by the blacks filling the republican jar. The final count in Jones County was 498 Democrats and 2 Republicans! Imagine that! And it still happens today in the inner cities as one precinct voted obama 19,000+ to -0-!

Showed a democrat KKK lynching as Klansman wore masks to hide themselves just like Antifa democrats wear masks today.

Nothing has changed with Democrat Party up to today as they intimidate blacks into voting democrat. That's what KKK did back then as depicted in this movie. And they cut off genitals on the black they hung exactly as described in thread of Waco hanging

Wonder why the movie wasn't promoted or awarded by democrat Hollywood?

Wonder if that Robinson mob was a bunch of democrats that drug that black kid from courtroom and mutilated then lynched him

Seems democrats have perpetuated a scam on American people since Civil War to get blacks to vote for them through coercion by threat of death. Brutal death

And republicans have cowered to these democrat tactics which is just as bad!

You lefties need to wake up to what democrats have done and stop siding with then

And us republicans need to provide blacks the backing and protection to cross that dangerous picket line to the other side and be republicans. I wouldn't doubt it if black approval rate is much higher for Trump but they are afraid to say in front of others. Many are saying that's why leftist polls were wrong

What you're doing is the definition of insanity
I haven't seen the movie, but I read a lot about it. The film got quite a bit of publicity (which doesn't necessarily mean it will do well at the box office.) It got favorable reviews from those liberal and effete film critics, too.

I studied the history of this period and will try to answer your questions as best as I I can.

In 1876, Reconstruction was nearing an end in the South. There were still Federal troops in some states like Mississippi, but local power was returning to ex-Confederates, who by this time were all Democrats.

Before the Civil War, some of those whites had been Democrats and some had been Whigs. When the Whig Party broke up in the 1850s, Northern Whigs tended to gravitate to the brand-new Republican Party. Southern Whigs really had nowhere to go, because many Whigs were large slaveowners and the Republican Party was anti-slavery. A lot of them voted for the Constitutional Union Party in 1860. But after the war they mostly all moved over to the Democratic Party in the South.

A few Southern whites in the Black Belt supported the Republicans. More of their support came from Northern Carpetbaggers who moved in and from the former slaves who now could vote.

Because ex-Confederates had been disenfranchised for a time after the War, blacks initially held majorities in the legislatures of states like Mississippi. By 1876, more whites were voting again and there was a struggle for control.

It all came to a head with the election of 1876, which is the election described in the Free State of Jones.

In Mississippi the election was chaos. There was fraud and intimidation on both sides. The lopsided result you mention in Jones County is surely an example of fraud by the white Democrats.

It was so bad that in 4 states there were actual two sets of electors to the Electoral College, each claiming that they were the legitimate electors and that the others were frauds. The presidential election was so close that the results in these 4 states would determine the outcome.

Congress appointed a 15-member bi-partisan commission to sort out the claims from these four states (3 Southern states plus Oregon, as I recall). But Republicans controlled Congress, and they wound up with 8 Republicans on the commission and 7 Democrats. By an 8-7 vote, the commission awarded each of the four disputed states to the Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes. Thus, the Democrat Samuel Tilden (who was governor of New York) won the popular vote but lost the election.

Southern Democrats cried fraud and actually made threats to secede all over again. In the end, tempers cooled enough for the sides to cut a political deal. Democrats would abide by the result, and in return, the last Federal troops would be pulled from the South. (This is why your American history courses are traditionally divided into the period before 1877 and after 1877.)

The Free State of Jones illustrates an episode of the local struggle that was part of this wider picture.

Major political parties evolve, change and sometimes die. The Whigs died. The Republicans and Democrats evolved. In the 1860s and 1870s, the Republicans were the party of big government; obviously, that is no longer true. The Democrats were the pro-slavery party that evolved into the pro-Jim Crow and black subjugation party. In the states where black people were allowed to vote freely, this began to change with FDR and the New Deal, when black people began to shift toward voting Democrat from voting for Republicans. White Democrats shifted decisively in the two decades after the Civil Rights bills passed (just as LBJ foresaw). When you and I were boys in Texas, Democrats held all state and local offices. A strong majority of white Democrats in the South moved over to the Republican Party just as black people in those states were finally being allowed to vote and were moving into the Democratic Party.

Thus, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans today bear any resemblance to what they were after the Civil War.


Fabulous summary Bubba and much you describe was in movie indeed!

I'm learning the last you mention of democrat(at least their politicians!?) going republican is fallacy in our books born from democrats desiring to separate themselves from being pro slavery and they've done very well separating and republicans have enabled them to do it

Bubba I look at what democrats have done to get black vote with welfare regs and other entitlements and it just doesn't seem much different than slavery to me as they attempt to make a person unable to sustain themselves

Republicans are to blame for not directly addressing problems in black community and seemingly writing off black vote. That's just as guilty if true as the well being of blacks have suffered and there needs to be a solution no matter who's to blame

Just solve the problem and address it honestly and openly is all I want

Thanks again
bubbadog
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Florda_mike said:



Fabulous summary Bubba and much you describe was in movie indeed!

I'm learning the last you mention of democrat(at least their politicians!?) going republican is fallacy in our books born from democrats desiring to separate themselves from being pro slavery and they've done very well separating and republicans have enabled them to do it

Bubba I look at what democrats have done to get black vote with welfare regs and other entitlements and it just doesn't seem much different than slavery to me as they attempt to make a person unable to sustain themselves

Republicans are to blame for not directly addressing problems in black community and seemingly writing off black vote. That's just as guilty if true as the well being of blacks have suffered and there needs to be a solution no matter who's to blame

Just solve the problem and address it honestly and openly is all I want

Thanks again
I'll try to come back with an honest answer to your comments a little later today when I have more time. I appreciate the dialogue.
Florda_mike
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bubbadog said:

Florda_mike said:



Fabulous summary Bubba and much you describe was in movie indeed!

I'm learning the last you mention of democrat(at least their politicians!?) going republican is fallacy in our books born from democrats desiring to separate themselves from being pro slavery and they've done very well separating and republicans have enabled them to do it

Bubba I look at what democrats have done to get black vote with welfare regs and other entitlements and it just doesn't seem much different than slavery to me as they attempt to make a person unable to sustain themselves

Republicans are to blame for not directly addressing problems in black community and seemingly writing off black vote. That's just as guilty if true as the well being of blacks have suffered and there needs to be a solution no matter who's to blame

Just solve the problem and address it honestly and openly is all I want

Thanks again
I'll try to come back with an honest answer to your comments a little later today when I have more time. I appreciate the dialogue.
bubbadog
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Florda_mike said:


Fabulous summary Bubba and much you describe was in movie indeed!

I'm learning the last you mention of democrat(at least their politicians!?) going republican is fallacy in our books born from democrats desiring to separate themselves from being pro slavery and they've done very well separating and republicans have enabled them to do it

Bubba I look at what democrats have done to get black vote with welfare regs and other entitlements and it just doesn't seem much different than slavery to me as they attempt to make a person unable to sustain themselves

Republicans are to blame for not directly addressing problems in black community and seemingly writing off black vote. That's just as guilty if true as the well being of blacks have suffered and there needs to be a solution no matter who's to blame

Just solve the problem and address it honestly and openly is all I want

Thanks again
Ok, let me come back to this. First off, I am not a Democrat nor a Republican. There are platform plans in each party that I don't like, and I don't want to have to defend either party across the board. I didn't vote for Hillary and didn't vote for Trump. Just want to put all that out there so you have a clearer sense of where I'm coming from.

All this said, neither party is a monolith. You'll find diversity of opinion in both on most issues (abortion is an exception among Democrats). This diversity is true of welfare as well.

I can show you speeches by Robert Kennedy from 1967 and 1968 in which he was calling for welfare reform because of concerns about creating dependency. And of course it was under a Democratic president (Clinton) that we passed significant welfare reform -- with the help of Republicans in Congress who were essential to making it happen. Gore supported Clinton on this and actually held his feet to the fire when he wavered.

So it's not like Democrats all march in lockstep on this issue. (Nor, of course, do all Republicans.)

It has become a popular talking point among Republicans that Democrats want to make black people dependent on them to create a new plantation mentality. It is a popular talking point among Democrats that Republicans hate the poor.

Both of these have it wrong, in my opinion.

Democrats pushed these programs because they used to be the party of the poor and working class, and the programs arose out of a genuine desire to help the poor and help people temporarily get through tough times (even before there were limits, most people didn't stay on welfare more than a year).

By coincidence, not long after many of these programs came on line, a crisis hit the inner cities where so many black people lived. Factories and employers started moving out of the city and into the suburbs. Jobs disappeared in the inner city, and many residents lacked the means to get to where the jobs had gone. So unemployment went up and poverty went up. That allowed drugs and crime to move in.

Rural poverty in the South and Appalachia was always awful. In the 1960s it really was at a Third World level in some places. There is a famous story of a doctor who was sent to Mississippi to operate one of the first federally funded health clinics in a rural area. He'd see patients who didn't have access to healthcare and prescribe medicines for them that were covered under welfare reimbursements from the feds. He sometimes would write prescriptions for milk and fresh vegetables and fruit that poor black people would take to the grocery store. After a while, some bureaucrat from DC called to tell him that he wasn't supposed to write prescriptions for anything but medicine. The doctor shot back: "Last time I checked, the medical treatment for malnutrition was food." He didn't have any more problem after that. But this illuminates the kind of poverty that many people were living in when these programs began.

Ironically, or perhaps not, in recent years we have seen the same pattern repeat itself among white people in rural areas, coal country and the Rust Belt. Jobs moved out, just as they did 50 years earlier in the inner city. Unemployment shot up. Drugs and crime moved in. Our society's response to the problems of the inner cities back then was to lock up black people, which meant that many of them couldn't get jobs or lead productive lives when they got out. We seem to have a more mature response now with the opioid epidemic about treatment and rehab over prison. (And yet we also have Jeff Sessions wanting to go back to the failed system of mass incarceration, which did as much to destroy poor families as the drugs and crime did.)

All programs, whether they involve defense spending or welfare, have a way of growing way beyond their originally planned limits and becoming entrenched and difficult to change. People who champion these programs resist efforts to reform them because they fear the real intent is to destroy the program, and because they have become invested in their continuation.

There are some Republicans who genuinely want to destroy welfare programs (I believe Paul Ryan is among them; anybody who reveres Ayn Rand after they become a mature adult cannot claim to be a serious Christian, much less a serious Catholic, but I digress.) There are many more Republicans who want to modify or reform these programs rather than abolish them. Defenders of these programs (mostly Democrats) often fail to make distinctions between those who want to kill the programs and those who want to reform them. They just brand them all as haters of the poor.

The script gets flipped, by the way, on defense issues. If you're a Democrat who wants to reform defense spending and eliminate rampant waste and fraud, or maybe revisit the actual need for a certain weapons system, or maybe just hate the idea of $400 toilet seats on airplanes, Republicans will brand you as failing to support the military and "weak on defense."

Black people overwhelmingly vote Democratic because they believe that Democrats support the policies and programs they most care about. It's not just welfare by a long shot. It's also affirmative action. It's ballot access for black voters. It's criminal justice reform. It's a commitment to civil rights enforcement.

It's true that the Democrats often have taken black votes for granted (Hillary sure did, and they didn't turn out for her in some key places as they had done for Obama). A lot of black voters resent being taken for granted.

A lot of Republicans would genuinely like to have more black votes. They don't think of themselves as racist and they don't want to be seen as racist. But you look at a lot of issues that black voters care about, and the Republican Party and Republican candidates aren't with them. What's there to bring them over to the Republican side?

This doesn't mean the Republicans are racists, not by a long shot. But as an example of how lines get blurred, look at the issue of ballot access (Democrats will call it voter suppression). In state after state, Republicans didn't just pass voter ID laws; they cut back early voting. This made no sense if what you cared about was ballot integrity, since you still had to show an ID if you voted early. But it made a world of sense if you wanted to reduce black turnout, because the legislators knew that a disproportionate number of black voters use early voting (while a disproportionate number of white voters use absentee ballots). So when Republicans cut back early voting to reduce black turnout, was that racism? Or just an attempt to get a political advantage? The Republicans would say it was just politics. But in the end, does the distinction actually matter? Either way, it's not going to help bring black people over to the Republican side.

Most of the divisions between the two parties historically have been on economic issues. The Democrats since FDR were the party of the working people and the poor. The Republicans were the party of rich and big business. Between the Depression and the 1970s, when a much smaller percentage of black people had opportunities to rise into the upper middle and upper classes, it was natural that they would identify with Democrats on economic issues alone. Some of those same divisions still account for voter choices today, although the Dems are not the working-class party they used to be, partly because of the decline of unions).

The Republicans were never a populist party. Reagan changed that to some extent but not fully. They still nominated traditional GOP bluebloods like the Bushes and Mitt Romney.

Trump comes along with a very appealing populist message. He's actually trying to appeal to working-class people on the grounds that the elites in both parties had forgotten about them. He promised the coal miners that their jobs were coming back (which was bull****) and promised manufacturing workers that all the plant jobs were coming back (which was also bull****). And he had a point when he asked black voters what they had to lose, since so many still lived in segregated neighborhoods that lacked jobs and good schools. That's something traditional Republicans (not even Reagan) would have done.

Trump is a salesman and a flim-flammer. If he could actually deliver on his sales promises, he might succeed in building a populist coalition that included lots more black voters. I get the appeal. But Trump is a con man.

Even so, con men often do well. Trump would do better if he didn't turn around so often and shoot himself in the foot with black voters by tweeting that black critics of him have low IQs, or saying that there were good people among white nationalist groups, or by flirting with clear racists like David Duke.

And black voters also get repelled by people like Jeff Sessions, who is what the Klan looks like when it goes to law school and becomes a respectable pillar of the Methodist Church. They'd be more willing to step over toward the Republican side if it weren't for people like Roy Moore (it was the black vote that beat him in Alabama).

And they'd be more willing to step over to the Republican side if they thought the Republicans supported working people and the poor on economic issues. Republicans in a lot of states are following the Kansas and Oklahoma model: Cut taxes in ways that mostly benefit the wealthier, and then cut services to the bone to help offset the loss of tax revenue. That approach led to a crisis in Kansas, and in Oklahoma it means they can't afford to keep the schools open for five days a week. Black voters still associate Republicans with trickle down economics, and they've seen over the course of almost 40 years that very little actually trickles down to them, certainly not enough to create Reagan's promised rising tide that lifts all boats. Real wages have been pretty stagnant since that time, and income inequality has grown.

To a lot of black voters, it looks like the Republicans have been the party of empty promises who are still firmly on the side of the wealthy elites and big business and who don't give a **** about them. I would argue that this has been a bigger reason than welfare policy for why they have stayed mostly in the Democratic camp.

Trump had a real chance to make some inroads if he had been serious about the concerns of black voters. But he seems to have pretty well convinced them that he's not.

You're right that someone needs to address the problems of black people who grow up in poor inner-city neighborhoods like Southside Chicago or West Baltimore or parts of Miami or the 5th Ward in Houston. Most of the problems, from crime to low school achievement, have roots in entrenched poverty and lack of opportunity. Take kids out of those neighborhoods and put them in places where they are surrounded by the things all kids need -- a critical mass of caring adults, safe places, housing stability where they're not having to move to another place every few months, decent nutrition and decent access to healthcare, decent education and opportunities to serve others -- and they thrive. All the attainment gaps between them and white suburban kids disappear. There are some real successes here like the Harlem Children's Zone or the Parramore neighborhood in Orlando and some of the charter schools where kids actually live during the week.

And the same is true with white kids who are growing up in the Rust Belt and rural areas where the opioid epidemic is rampant. They're falling through the cracks right now at the rate you used to think of with the inner city. Change the situation with the "basic nutrients" that all kids need, and their whole life trajectory changes.

The problem is that these interventions are expensive because they have to be pretty intensive. Money is no guarantee of success; it has to be spent on the right things. Democrats too often defend the expenditures to protect their programs as if money alone were all that is needed. Republicans too often want to cut funds to save money and pretend that money isn't part of the answer (it is). Both parties are part of a US culture that wants to do things on the cheap and claim victory rather than invest the time and money to do the job right.

We know how to do it right, because there are too many efforts like those I described above that are doing it right. But these tend to be smaller and isolated because it would cost so much to take them to scale. It's more about summoning the will than reinventing the wheel. As a country, we just don't really have the will.

Doc Holliday
How long do you want to ignore this user?
bubbadog said:

Florda_mike said:


Fabulous summary Bubba and much you describe was in movie indeed!

I'm learning the last you mention of democrat(at least their politicians!?) going republican is fallacy in our books born from democrats desiring to separate themselves from being pro slavery and they've done very well separating and republicans have enabled them to do it

Bubba I look at what democrats have done to get black vote with welfare regs and other entitlements and it just doesn't seem much different than slavery to me as they attempt to make a person unable to sustain themselves

Republicans are to blame for not directly addressing problems in black community and seemingly writing off black vote. That's just as guilty if true as the well being of blacks have suffered and there needs to be a solution no matter who's to blame

Just solve the problem and address it honestly and openly is all I want

Thanks again
Ok, let me come back to this. First off, I am not a Democrat nor a Republican. There are platform plans in each party that I don't like, and I don't want to have to defend either party across the board. I didn't vote for Hillary and didn't vote for Trump. Just want to put all that out there so you have a clearer sense of where I'm coming from.

All this said, neither party is a monolith. You'll find diversity of opinion in both on most issues (abortion is an exception among Democrats). This diversity is true of welfare as well.

I can show you speeches by Robert Kennedy from 1967 and 1968 in which he was calling for welfare reform because of concerns about creating dependency. And of course it was under a Democratic president (Clinton) that we passed significant welfare reform -- with the help of Republicans in Congress who were essential to making it happen. Gore supported Clinton on this and actually held his feet to the fire when he wavered.

So it's not like Democrats all march in lockstep on this issue. (Nor, of course, do all Republicans.)

It has become a popular talking point among Republicans that Democrats want to make black people dependent on them to create a new plantation mentality. It is a popular talking point among Democrats that Republicans hate the poor.

Both of these have it wrong, in my opinion.

Democrats pushed these programs because they used to be the party of the poor and working class, and the programs arose out of a genuine desire to help the poor and help people temporarily get through tough times (even before there were limits, most people didn't stay on welfare more than a year).

By coincidence, not long after many of these programs came on line, a crisis hit the inner cities where so many black people lived. Factories and employers started moving out of the city and into the suburbs. Jobs disappeared in the inner city, and many residents lacked the means to get to where the jobs had gone. So unemployment went up and poverty went up. That allowed drugs and crime to move in.

Rural poverty in the South and Appalachia was always awful. In the 1960s it really was at a Third World level in some places. There is a famous story of a doctor who was sent to Mississippi to operate one of the first federally funded health clinics in a rural area. He'd see patients who didn't have access to healthcare and prescribe medicines for them that were covered under welfare reimbursements from the feds. He sometimes would write prescriptions for milk and fresh vegetables and fruit that poor black people would take to the grocery store. After a while, some bureaucrat from DC called to tell him that he wasn't supposed to write prescriptions for food. The doctor shot back: "Last time I checked, the medical treatment for starvation was food." He didn't have any more problem after that. But this illuminates the kind of poverty that many people were living in when these programs began.

Ironically, or perhaps not, in recent years we have seen the same pattern repeat itself among white people in rural areas, coal country and the Rust Belt. Jobs moved out, just as they did 50 years earlier in the inner city. Unemployment shot up. Drugs and crime moved in. Our society's response to the problems of the inner cities back then was to lock up black people, which meant that many of them couldn't get jobs or lead productive lives when they got out. We seem to have a more mature response now with the opioid epidemic about treatment and rehab over prison. (And yet we also have Jeff Sessions wanting to go back to the failed system of mass incarceration, which did as much to destroy poor families as the drugs and crime did.)

All programs, whether they involve defense spending or welfare, have a way of growing way beyond their originally planned limits and becoming entrenched and difficult to change. People who champion these programs resist efforts to reform them because they fear the real intent is to destroy the program, and because they have become invested in their continuation.

There are some Republicans who genuinely want to destroy welfare programs (I believe Paul Ryan is among them; anybody who reveres Ayn Rand after they become a mature adult cannot claim to be a serious Christian, much less a serious Catholic, but I digress.) There are many more Republicans who want to modify or reform these programs rather than abolish them. Defenders of these programs (mostly Democrats) often fail to make distinctions between those who want to kill the programs and those who want to reform them. They just brand them all as haters of the poor.

The script gets flipped, by the way, on defense issues. If you're a Democrat who wants to reform defense spending and eliminate rampant waste and fraud, or maybe revisit the actual need for a certain weapons system, or maybe just hate the idea of $400 toilet seats on airplanes, Republicans will brand you as failing to support the military and "weak on defense."

Black people overwhelmingly vote Democratic because they believe that Democrats support the policies and programs they most care about. It's not just welfare by a long shot. It's also affirmative action. It's ballot access for black voters. It's criminal justice reform. It's a commitment to civil rights enforcement.

It's true that the Democrats often have taken black votes for granted (Hillary sure did, and they didn't turn out for her in some key places as they had done for Obama). A lot of black voters resent being taken for granted.

A lot of Republicans would genuinely like to have more black votes. They don't think of themselves as racist and they don't want to be seen as racist. But you look at a lot of issues that black voters care about, and the Republican Party and Republican candidates aren't with them. What's there to bring them over to the Republican side?

This doesn't mean the Republicans are racists, not by a long shot. But as an example of how lines get blurred, look at the issue of ballot access (Democrats will call it voter suppression). In state after state, Republicans didn't just pass voter ID laws; they cut back early voting. This made no sense if what you cared about was ballot integrity, since you still had to show an ID if you voted early. But it made a world of sense if you wanted to reduce black turnout, because the legislators knew that a disproportionate number of black voters use early voting (while a disproportionate number of white voters use absentee ballots). So when Republicans cut back early voting to reduce black turnout, was that racism? Or just an attempt to get a political advantage? The Republicans would say it was just politics. But in the end, does the distinction actually matter? Either way, it's not going to help bring black people over to the Republican side.

Most of the divisions between the two parties historically have been on economic issues. The Democrats since FDR were the party of the working people and the poor. The Republicans were the party of rich and big business. Between the Depression and the 1970s, when a much smaller percentage of black people had opportunities to rise into the upper middle and upper classes, it was natural that they would identify with Democrats on economic issues alone. Some of those same divisions still account for voter choices today, although the Dems are not the working-class party they used to be, partly because of the decline of unions).

The Republicans were never a populist party. Reagan changed that to some extent but not fully. They still nominated traditional GOP bluebloods like the Bushes and Mitt Romney.

Trump comes along with a very appealing populist message. He's actually trying to appeal to working-class people on the grounds that the elites in both parties had forgotten about them. He promised the coal miners that their jobs were coming back (which was bull****) and promised manufacturing workers that all the plant jobs were coming back (which was also bull****). And he had a point when he asked black voters what they had to lose, since so many still lived in segregated neighborhoods that lacked jobs and good schools. That's something traditional Republicans (not even Reagan) would have done.

Trump is a salesman and a flim-flammer. If he could actually deliver on his sales promises, he might succeed in building a populist coalition that included lots more black voters. I get the appeal. But Trump is a con man.

Even so, con men often do well. Trump would do better if he didn't turn around so often and shoot himself in the foot with black voters by tweeting that black critics of him have low IQs, or saying that there were good people among white nationalist groups, or by flirting with clear racists like David Duke.

And black voters also get repelled by people like Jeff Sessions, who is what the Klan looks like when it goes to law school and becomes a respectable pillar of the Methodist Church. They'd be more willing to step over toward the Republican side if it weren't for people like Roy Moore (it was the black vote that beat him in Alabama).

And they'd be more willing to step over to the Republican side if they thought the Republicans supported working people and the poor on economic issues. Republicans in a lot of states are following the Kansas and Oklahoma model: Cut taxes in ways that mostly benefit the wealthier, and then cut services to the bone to help offset the loss of tax revenue. That approach led to a crisis in Kansas, and in Oklahoma it means they can't afford to keep the schools open for five days a week. Black voters still associate Republicans with trickle down economics, and they've seen over the course of almost 40 years that very little actually trickles down to them, certainly not enough to create Reagan's promised rising tide that lifts all boats. Real wages have been pretty stagnant since that time, and income inequality has grown.

To a lot of black voters, it looks like the Republicans have been the party of empty promises who are still firmly on the side of the wealthy elites and big business and who don't give a **** about them. I would argue that this has been a bigger reason than welfare policy for why they have stayed mostly in the Democratic camp.

Trump had a real chance to make some inroads if he had been serious about the concerns of black voters. But he seems to have pretty well convinced them that he's not.

You're right that someone needs to address the problems of black people who grow up in poor inner-city neighborhoods like Southside Chicago or West Baltimore or parts of Miami or the 5th Ward in Houston. Most of the problems, from crime to low school achievement, have roots in entrenched poverty and lack of opportunity. Take kids out of those neighborhoods and put them in places where they are surrounded by the things all kids need -- a critical mass of caring adults, safe places, housing stability where they're not having to move to another place every few months, decent nutrition and decent access to healthcare, decent education and opportunities to serve others -- and they thrive. All the attainment gaps between them and white suburban kids disappear. There are some real successes here like the Harlem Children's Zone or the Parramore neighborhood in Orlando and some of the charter schools where kids actually live during the week.

And the same is true with white kids who are growing up in the Rust Belt and rural areas where the opioid epidemic is rampant. They're falling through the cracks right now at the rate you used to think of with the inner city. Change the situation with the "basic nutrients" that all kids need, and their whole life trajectory changes.

The problem is that these interventions are expensive because they have to be pretty intensive. Money is no guarantee of success; it has to be spent on the right things. Democrats too often defend the expenditures to protect their programs as if money alone were all that is needed. Republicans too often want to cut funds to save money and pretend that money isn't part of the answer (it is). Both parties are part of a US culture that wants to do things on the cheap and claim victory rather than invest the time and money to do the job right.

We know how to do it right, because there are too many efforts like those I described above that are doing it right. But these tend to be smaller and isolated because it would cost so much to take them to scale. It's more about summoning the will than reinventing the wheel. As a country, we just don't really have the will.


I agree with a lot of what you have said here, but I think you need to take a step further and realize that much of the problems we have in this country are cash cows for the UniParty.

They don't want to fix the problems. They want to increase the problems.

Example: Massive illegal immigration is supported by both sides of the professional political machine.
There are few issues more unifying for the K-Street purchased voices of DC politicians than keeping the borders open and the influx of illegal aliens as high as possible. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce pays politicians to keep this system in place.

All Democrats and most Republicans support mass immigration. Almost no DC politicians want to take action on any policy or legislation that stops the influx. There are billions at stake. None of the GOP leadership want to actually stop illegal immigration; it's a lucrative business. Almost all of the CONservative groups and politicians lie about it.

It's things like this that I have my eye on with regards to politics. Politics is almost a front IMO.

You can take it to the bank with regards to every major political issue in this country.
Nobody wants to disrupt their money sources or clean problems up that they rely on for votes.

It's a broken system.
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." ~ John Adams
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