"Well, what's wrong with slavery?"

[was]

Than you are obviously wrong. Republicans made this their thing since at least the 1960s with the Southern Strategy.

..So, all Republicans are racist because some of them once tried to recruit Democrat racists? If you want to use history to define a party, then racism is a Democrat 'thing' since the 1700's.

...Slavery in the U.S. was backed and promoted for much of the nation's history by the Democrats. The southern slave states were all Democrat. Southern Democrats were behind the rise of the KKK, and other hate groups, to eliminate the new black voting populace and black Republicans elected to office following the Civil War. Finally, it was the reemergence of the Democrat party controlling southern state governments that were responsible for the rise Jim Crow laws intent on supressing the civil rights of minorities.

...The parties have clearly changed over time. Using their past to define either one as being totally racist, or righteous, is problematic at best.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

No one has ever advocated that I don't vote, and I am a minority (Japanese American).

No mainstream politician- or mainstream wannabe- is going to say that directly. They're smarter than that.

I had a friend who date a dude who worked on David Duke's gubernatorial campaign, so I got a close look at his platform materials. Of the @2 dozen points in his platform, I could refute @20 of his positions with stuff out of freshman college courses. One I couldn't: he was anti-crime, and nobody is going to run on a pro-crime platform. But dig deeper, and his anti-crime measures were aimed squarely at minorities.

So, back to minorities voting.

Even throwing out the Jim Crow and Civil Rights abuses of the more distant past, GOP politicians are more likely to favor and propose measures like requiring ID to vote (usually while simultaneously making valid ID more difficult to get), reducing number of voting days, shortening polling hours, only counting absentee ballots in close elections, voting roll purges, and generally just making it more difficult to actually register in the first place (like opposing motor voter laws).

These are all more likely to suppress minority, youth, absentee (including military) and elderly voting than for middle aged white folks. And "disparate impact" is one of the tests in deciding if a law is unconstitutional.

In addition, said measures rarely have an upside, at least, not the one claimed. Usually, you'll see those regulations proposed to combat voting fraud. Well, in-person voting fraud has been looked at pretty extensively: in the billions of votes cast nationwide in presidential elections over the past few decades, fewer than 3000 cases have been reported in which showing ID would have prevented the alleged fraud- only a couple dozen since 2000. And there have been fewer than 100 convictions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...le-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/

http://www.politifact.com/georgia/s...acp/-person-voter-fraud-very-rare-phenomenon/

https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/voter-purges

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...nds-of-minorities-from-27-states-voter-rolls/


And the cost of those measures? Hundreds of thousands of voters struck from the rolls, hundreds of thousands if not millions more prevented from voting...mostly those who statistically tend to vote against the GOP. Oh yeah- plus hundreds of millions of dollars spent preventing something exceedingly rare.

 

[Ryujin]

I think it very much is.

In all honesty, two weeks ago, I would have said much the same. However, I did a little research: immigration courts don't care about the legal status of anyone except the person before the bench. Illegal aliens with citizen children get deported just like those without; it is literally a legal non-factor. The kids either go with their folks, or their parents make arrangements for them to stay in the country with someone else.

So that phrase is out of my lexicon.

My understanding was that certain courts were loathe to send away citizens, or keep a parentless child. Perhaps it's a thing of the past. Perhaps it's a talking point that never was. From that angle IANAL and you are, so I'll defer to your research into the matter

 

[gamerprinter]

Sure I agree, but assign generalities based on what one candidate and one radio host stated is very dangerous thinking. I see that as two people, not some kind of general shared philosophy. As I've stated, no Republican locally makes such statements nor openly agree with those statements. So to extrapolate that what Trump and one TV host states is equivalent to a national trend is pure bunk. To state that my experience is anecdotal, heck, everything is anecdotal. Most people live in one place and don't travel the country seeking national opinions on any subject.

Go back a century before the 1960's and it was the Republicans (Lincoln) promoting the end of slavery - to state that racism is Republican thing, I defer to the pro-democrats that became the Confederacy.

I have many personal philosophies that aren't shared by anyone that I know of, so that political leaders not sharing my opinions, are an expectation by me. I don't agree with a lot of what they say, but just as often the opposing party's beliefs are far, far beyond my acceptance at the same time. Honestly, no political party in existence follows/shares most of my beliefs (nor most people for that matter), but I'm not seeking agendas, nor groups that fit my beliefs. I am quite content at being completely individual, and though for the most part have differing opinions, I generally don't share them with anyone.

 

[gamerprinter]

David Duke's gubernatorial campaign...

Who was a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, so I don't consider his opinion, nor political platform one that I would even glance at. That he calls himself a Republican, I consider an insult to Republicans. Duke is just a racist pig, and not worth much consideration for anything.

As an aside, I'm in favor of the elimination of the electoral college, and requiring all votes to be counted for every issue. I'm in favor of online voting with never a need to visit an official voting booth.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sure I agree, but assign generalities based on what one candidate and one radio host stated is very dangerous thinking.

The trend is there if you care to look: republican politicians in Kansas, Texas, Florida, Georgia and other GOP dominated states routinely attempt to pass or advocate legislation targeting minority voters. Often, such measures don't pass a Constitutional challenge, but some do (see the aforementioned Kansas).

Sometimes, the states even get caught and admit it:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2...-voters-in-african-american-dominated-county/

 

[Ryujin]

I had a friend who date a dude who worked on David Duke's gubernatorial campaign, so I got a close look at his platform materials. Of the @2 dozen points in his platform, I could refute @20 of his positions with stuff out of freshman college courses. One I couldn't: he was anti-crime, and nobody is going to run on a pro-crime platform. But dig deeper, and his anti-crime measures were aimed squarely at minorities.

I've had a little experience refuting the "tough on crime" types here in Canada, who demand things like mandatory minimum sentences. It generally involves pointing to how that has failed in the USA and pointing out how our system seems to have a remarkably low recidivism rate just as it is, by quoting stats from The John Howard Society.

Of course, as you say, no one is going to run a pro-crime campaign. The easy out for the "tough on crime" folks is to point and declare that their opponent is soft on crime. It takes 5 seconds to get that out. It takes minutes to explain reality which, even then, may be ignored in favour of personal bias. Hell, I was one of them, before doing the research myself.

 

[gamerprinter]

I live in Illinois, not Kansas, Texas, Georgia and other GOP dominated states (my vote doesn't count in those places). I don't know, nor truly care what other states do on most issues.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Who was a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, so I don't consider his opinion, nor political platform one that I would even glance at. That he calls himself a Republican, I consider an insult to Republicans. Duke is just a racist pig, and not worth much consideration for anything.

The problem with thinking he's an aberration is that some of his positions have been adopted by more mainstream politicians in the party at large.

IOW, you may have supported what he espouses because you didn't know he said it first.

...except he DIDN'T- a lot of his rhetoric was retreads from his predecessors in the early 1960s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/01/u...aign-is-now-in-louisiana-mainstream.html?_r=0

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-po...er-klan-leader-reshaped-republican-grassroots

Duke- and others of his ilk- isn't as far away from the heart of the GOP as the better angels of that party would like to believe.

 

[was]

(see the aforementioned Kansas).

...LOL, I think that Kansas is so, 'conservative', that even the most ardent Rebublicans question some of their views.