September 8, 2012

"John Lewis tells you something about voting rights and you say, yes, sir, and you shut the fk up."

Charles Pierce pithily dictates the sole method of showing respect. 

But actually, ironically, that kind of respect entails massive disrespect. You say yes and you shut the fuck up in his presence, and that means the only way people can have a serious back-and-forth debate on the subject is if they exclude John Lewis.

***

Pierce has a nice sidebar at his blog under the heading "About this blog." I read it for the first time, by chance, just now. The penultimate sentence is:
It will be the belief of this blog that, as Christopher Hitchens once said, the only correct answer to the question, "Is nothing sacred?" is "No."

103 comments:

rhhardin said...

You'd think yes would be the answer to is nothing sacred.

No would go with anything.

The rule would be ask the question so that you can understand the answer.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

Wasn't he a major Tea Party slanderer?

Didn't he brazenly lie about what happened on the infamous 'giant gavel' Pelosi strut across the mall in Washington?

If so, he deserves NO respect whatsoever.

Shouting Thomas said...

Theme of the blog seems to be:

Preventing illegal immigrants from voting is the same as beating up one of the Freedom Riders in 1968.

That's a dynamic new theme?

Ann Althouse said...

"Wasn't he a major Tea Party slanderer?"

Click the "John Lewis" tag.

Lewis is used in the way that Pierce outlines, to cut short debate. I'm tempted to say that the party appropriates him and uses him, but to say that would be to exhibit the very form of disrespect I'm describing in this post.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Speaking of lack of back and forth: I don't bother having a conversation with anyone who honestly can't see, or pretends he can't see, that there are solid arguments for someone to prove that he or she is eligible to vote at the polls, and instead keeps beating the 'voter suppression' drum. Screw those guys. I'll leave it to more patient people than I to engage with them.

pm317 said...

Thanks, Ann, for revealing the hypocrisy of these nincompoops. Now how about that greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people? We can at least go after the media full force, no?

Shouting Thomas said...

Steve Sailer is one of the few people around who talk about the price of massive illegal immigration, which is the suppression of wages.

Liberals really have their heads up their asses on this one.

Importing cheap labor drives down the wages of legal Americans.

The Crack Emcee said...

It will be the belief of this blog that, as Christopher Hitchens once said, the only correct answer to the question, "Is nothing sacred?" is "No."

Ahhh, fresh air. Inhale deeply, Chil', 'cause - nowadays - you never know how long it gonna las',....

clint said...

There really ought to be a Godwin's law for this.

Something like:

If your main debating point is, "Shut Up!" then you clearly have no real argument, and have lost the debate.

kcom said...

Can't we just assign various people the role of "absolute moral authority" on specific topics and then let them make all the decisions for that topic? Wouldn't that be a smart way to do things? Who needs democracy anyway, or a plurality of opinions, when we have such expertise just waiting to fill the need?

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

"Lewis is used in the way that Pierce outlines, to cut short debate. "

Speaking of cutting debate short, this is, of course, a key tactic of the Left. Fortunately, Coulter put a big hurt on it with her observations on the 9/11 widows, and there has been much less of it,lately.

Hagar said...

The bridge at Selma was a BFD, but it was 50 years ago.
That bridge has been crossed, and we need to pay attention to what is happening now.

Sue D'Nhym said...

Best post in a while, and I don't mean that as a knock against the recent content.

Shouting Thomas said...

Don't know if you saw this one, but it's a classic.

Apple Computers has a "problem." They need a quota system.

Why? All its top executives are whites males.

This prevents them from understanding the needs of those blessed minorities.

Apple is awash in money. Probably has greater cash reserves than the U.S. government.

Shouting Thomas said...

Gotta go practice for the slew of upcoming Old Dawgz' gigs.

Gotta say that there is one reason for thanking God that Obama is president.

Time to stop kissing blacks' asses. They've gotten some of what they wanted.

Now, stand in line like everybody else and accept the fact that you're not always going to get what you want.

Automatic_Wing said...

I think the correct response is "Yes, massah".

Right is right! said...

We need to be taking names and keeping a list and get these people after the Republican landslide in November. These people are enemies of American and need to be treated as such.

And screw the Voting Rights Act. Seriously! Not every jiving buffoon should be allowed to vote more goodies for themselves. If we pared down who votes to individuals who behave like true citizens we would not be in the mess we are now in. The Voting Rights Act has allowed all kinds of crooks to get elected. I would have Clinton and Obama at the top of that list.

Why would anyone object to allowing only those who can read English to vote? If you are either to dumb to know how to read or you just fell off the boat (or sneaked across the boarder) so recently that you have not bother to figure out how to read english then you sure the hell shouldn't be voting in U.S. elections!

Anonymous said...

Last year, when Occupy was the hot new darling of the left, John Lewis showed up at Occupy Atlanta and they didn't let him speak.

Patrick said...

Nothing is sacred, except this guy's beliefs. Shut up.

Sam vfm #111 said...

When talking about cheating at the ballot box, I only have two words to say: Al Franken.

kentuckyliz said...

Dead people have rights, too!

yashu said...

Right is right, moby is moby.

edutcher said...

There goes the First Amendment.

And the neighborhood.

campy said...

Any liberal tells you anything, and you say 'yes sir' and you shut the fuck up.

campy said...

Unless the liberal is female.

Sydney said...

There is also this, on his sidebar:

"It will be the policy of this blog not to treat ignorance with respect simply because that ignorance profits important and powerful people.

Oh, the irony!

KCFleming said...

Great point about disrespecting Lewis, Althouse.

The leftist religion holds many, many things sacred:
Abortion
Minimum wage
Affirmative action
All things gay
Windmills
Feminism
Illegal immigration
Public unions
Free shit paid for by the rich
Etc. etc.

What it does not hold sacred are things that are actually, well, sacred.

Cedarford said...

Shouting Thomas said...
Steve Sailer is one of the few people around who talk about the price of massive illegal immigration, which is the suppression of wages.


=================
And both Republicans and Dems inner circles strongly back mass immigration of illegals. For different reasons.

Democrats see demographics inc. illegals, Amnesties, and unlimited family reunion immigration, welfare-fueled breeding rates - ending the power of evil white male Christians, and Republicans...

Republicans do see illegals, offshoring, free trade, and H1-Bs as the way to suppress greedy workers by way of wages - from stealing money that should go to the NOble Doer-Folk, the Jobs Creators who are the top dogs.

Remember after 9/11 when we closed down airports for hours because "a person breached The Heroes Who Keep Us All Safe's "Security Zone?"
Then the same night on TV you could watch hundreds of Mexicans, Guatemalens, Syrians, etc. running under a fence at a single Border ranch on the ranchers "Illegals Cam?"






Jim said...

Sounds like the photojournalist prepping Willard for his meeting with Kurtz.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C672_Fkzms&feature=youtube_gdata_player

iowantwo said...

Does the fact that two judges that have heard evidence and testimony about Voter ID laws and suppression voter has found none? That two states that held elections with voter ID laws saw an increase in voters?

What about my right to not have my vote nullified? Don't I have some rights in this debate? In Iowa a judge is hearing the case about the Secretary of State attempting to cross reference voting lists of foreign nationals with DOT drivers licences. Those bringing suit claim 'the people' have not had a chance for input. Ignoring the fact that the Sec. of State was elected to office running on the promise to clean up the voting. The people did have the chance to be heard, and in two years they can be heard again. Our system of govt should be allowed to self govern at the polls, not by judicial fiat.

Or how about the fact that under the 'equal protection' constitutional doctrine, Things like buying a gun or renting a post office box,can no longer require an ID?

Greg Hlatky said...

"If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age." - Charles Pierce

The Crack Emcee said...

clint,

If your main debating point is, "Shut Up!" then you clearly have no real argument, and have lost the debate.

Nope - not online. Have you seen how people "debate" online? Facts mean nothing. They lose and, rather than concede a point, just disappear. A bunch of losers think that, by ganging up on someone, that "proves" they're right. It's fucking madness.

And under such circumstances, yelling shut-up is perfectly valid,...

Shouting Thomas said...

What about my right to not have my vote nullified? Don't I have some rights in this debate?

Yes, you have the right to prove you're a legal American.

Then, you can vote.

Otherwise, no.

Shouting Thomas said...

Have you seen how people "debate" online?

Online debate is utter madness.

One of the great revelations of the internet is that we're all raving fucking nuts.

Including me.

Hagar said...

The Congressional Black Caucus is overstocked with elderly heroes of the past.
These guys are all going to pass away or go gaga in the next few years. Who and what is going to follow them?

Kylos said...

I agree with rhhardin: I would have thought Hitchens would answer that question with a yes. But maybe I don't understand him well.

I frankly don't understand how one gains absolute moral authority from their experiences; those experiences do absolutely mean that they have something of import to add to the discussion, but I don't automatically give any person authority simply based on their experiences. I want to test their reasoning as well.

And just as a PSA, Right is right! appears to be a moby. Best ignored.

Cedarford said...

When asked why Atlanta was shutdown for 6 hours and air hubs in Chicago, Newark, Charlotte, and Miami were hit with cascading delays over a guy ducking under security tape....
While the same day an estated 18,000 illegal aliens crossed his Borders.....
Dubya Bush, the American Churchill said in one case the airport guy could have been a Terrahist Evildoer for all the Heroes keeping us safe knew. But the people who were in all likelihood just hard working good family people....were simply crossing the Border to do work Americans wouldn't do for the same pay..

It was all Part of the Plan. Bush's wealthy Owner class, the Doer-Folk and Jobs Creators....wanted it that way.

tiger said...

Respect for a man who lied about being called a *igger'? by TEA party people?

A claim that has no substantiation especially considering the large amount of recording devices both network and private that were there.

How about 'No'?

As was pointed out they crossed the bridge in Selma 50 years ago.

Now it's time to see what's on the other side.

Shouting Thomas said...

You know, the only one who isn't utterly fucking nuts is probably Althouse. She's like my older sister. Doesn't seem like she even went out of kilter in her youth when the hormones were raging.

She could use a little nuttiness. (Well, there is the Dylan fetish!.)

Maybe she's got a few kinks we don't know about. Wouldn't surprise me.

Anonymous said...

...the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God.
-- William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell


I liked that quote a lot when I was young.

But since then I've discovered that there are any number of honest indignant voices out there being honestly indignant, such as Charles Pierce and our own Crack Emcee, and they don't agree on much of anything except they've got the real vanilla and everyone else should, you know, accept it and shut up.

The Crack Emcee said...

tiger,

Now it's time to see what's on the other side.

rWhat's on the other side is poofs writing words like *igger'...

The Crack Emcee said...

creeley23,

Since then I've discovered that there are any number of honest indignant voices out there being honestly indignant, such as Charles Pierce and our own Crack Emcee, and they don't agree on much of anything except they've got the real vanilla and everyone else should, you know, accept it and shut up.

No, creeley, we agree YOU should shut up. Not "everyone else."

See, that's your problem right there,...

Meade said...

From his Wikipedia entry:

[Charles] Pierce is noted for his 2003 Globe Magazine profile of Ted Kennedy in which he stated: "If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age".[9] The passage was widely misinterpreted as laudatory of Kennedy; the full context makes clear that it was intended as irony.

Meade said...

Mary Jo Kopechne would be 71, if she'd survived Ted Kennedy's crime. But she didn't, so that pretty much shut her "the fk up."

Shouting Thomas said...

Mary Jo Kopechne would be 71, if she'd survived Ted Kennedy's crime. But she didn't, so that pretty much shut her "the fk up."

Or, as Iowahawk said, the Democrats are the only party with a confirmed kill in the great War on Women!

The Crack Emcee said...

Meade,

The passage was widely misinterpreted as laudatory of Kennedy; the full context makes clear that it was intended as irony.

In other words, we live in a world full of idiots,...

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The democrats are sure up in arms over the simple basic idea that one should be required to show a photo ID to vote.
One vote/one person.
The democrats want to inspire people to cheat. ie: Voting multiple times, voting with fake names, hiding ballot boxes in the back of cars, criminals voting even though it's illegal etc.. etc..
Who does this? Why it's the democrats.

You must have a photo ID to get into the DNC convention, or an commercial aircraft.

Real American said...

asking for ID = police dogs, fire hoses and lynchings?

That's total bullshit and I don't give a shit who John Lewis is if he's going to tell complete lies. Do not shut up! Call him on his fucking bullshit.

wef said...

How about,

John Lewis is a big, fat con-artist fraud.

?

Transgressive enough?

Big Mike said...

... that means the only way people can have a serious back-and-forth debate on the subject is if they exclude John Lewis.

And a bunch of other folks for whom, now and forever, the entire United States is Mississippi in the early 1960s.

Anonymous said...

Christopher Hitchens once said, the only correct answer to the question, "Is nothing sacred?" is "No."

Same answer to "Have you no sense of decency?"

Cedarford said...

I worry that when the "revered Civil Rights Icon" , John Lewis, finally dies....liberals, progressive Jews, and black activists will all join forces and demand that the Chinese build a statue for him in Washington DC.

Meanwhile, whites generally have it right. When "Revered Vietnam War Ace" Duke Cunningham was revealed to be a lying, corrupt, self-entitled piece of shit - whites had no problems scorning him and tossing him in jail.

"What about my 6 enemy aircraft kills 45 years ago!!!"
"Yeah, Duke, what of them?? We honor your past, but don't excuse your present piece of shithood status because of it."

Anonymous said...

Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of

-- Phil Ochs, "Here's to the state of Mississippi"


Phil Ochs was a major protest singer back in the sixties and he ran neck-and-neck with Bob Dylan on that circuit until Dylan shifted into overdrive and blew past the field into a whole 'nother level of music.

I always loved the dangling prepositions in that refrain.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Shouting Thomas said...
Apple Computers has a "problem." They need a quota system.

Why? All its top executives are whites males.

This prevents them from understanding the needs of those blessed minorities.


Hopefully we'll have the perfect diversity hire for them after Nov. 6 of this year. 100% Guaranteed to spend all his time on the golf course and only show up to get his picture took, provided you supply waffles and cheeseburgers.

Michael said...

Lewis is my congressman and was a true hero of the civil rights movement. He remains nostalgic, I am afraid. But he was heroic in the sense of taking a step in the direction of a certain beating in the name of a moral ABSOLUTE. He can be forgivenmuch for that.

campy said...

He can be forgivenmuch for that.

He has. His Absolute Moral Authority card was maxed out a while back.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

If John Lewis stood for equal justice under the law, I would shut the fk up. He doesn't. He stands for a Justice Department that lets jack-booted black men with truncheons intimidating voters escape prosecution. He stands for a Justice Department whose leadership instructs its voting rights division not to pursue violations unless the victims are black. Until Lewis understands what equality really means, he should shut the fk up.

Anonymous said...

"Is nothing sacred?"

Gahan Wilson once asked that question.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to get all Bayesian on your ass, Mr. Pierce, but the fact that the voting-rights struggle of the 1960s was John Lewis' moment of glory makes it less likely, not more likely, that he's right about it happening all over again today. People with moments of glory in their pasts are always looking for excuses to relive them.

Conserve Liberty said...

I have NEVER in the last 40 years had any trouble voting at my appointed polling place at the appointed time on the appointed day.

I've had a current ID since I was 16. My ID has had a photo on it since I was 18. At least once each year I pay a visit to the City or County offices for something, on a personal day off work I have pre-arranged with my employer. That seems to be the way government works here. Everyone has to solve a problem in person once every year or two.

On some of those days over the last 40 years, when I have changed residence address, I have applied for a new photo ID and shortly thereafter (in the same building) changed my Voter Registration.

I fail to understand why this is such a challenge that requiring same is de facto vote suppression.

Please explain in detail.

sakredkow said...

Personally I have no problem shutting the fuck up around certain people even if I disagree. Clint Eastwood is one.

pm317 said...

Huh, voting rights! Poor don't have any in the Democrat's world. Look! at Obama going after the Democrats sacred cow. Will John Lewis or Charles Pierce say something or just shut the fuck up?

This is reminiscent of his spouse's handiwork at a Chicago hospital where she worked. Axelrod and Jarret were involved then too.

Chip S. said...

The problem with the sort of absolute moral authority that derives from head beatings is that it also tends to be followed a few decades later by degraded cognitive ability.

The most important quote in that Pierce piece is this, from Lewis:

Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap.

That's an important history lesson. However, Lewis's next sentence is a non sequitur that has no value other than to demonstrate that he's stuck in the '60s:

Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting.

Making sure you are who you claim to be is so far from counting soap bubbles as to make Lewis's entire opinion on the subject irrelevant.

It is, however, a fine way to strum the white guild chord.

Chip S. said...

"guilt," dammit.

Now the white guild's gonna go medieval on my ass for mentioning it.

bagoh20 said...

You know why Lewis got beat up? Because the guys with the clubs didn't have a good argument. Just like telling someone to "shut the fuck up" is admitting you don't either.

Bayoneteer said...

John Lewis is a liberal version of John McCain. A heroic period during his younger days has morphed into a "DON'T ARGUE WITH ME ASSHOLE! I'm a HERO!" attitude. Sorry to say to the Johns, but all glory is fleeting.

Anonymous said...

Now I can't stop worrying that they're going to make me count the bubbles in a bar of soap the next time I try to get on an airplane.

bgates said...

Just preventing The Man (generally represented at the polls by a couple of older white women) from demanding an ID doesn't go far enough. When I go to vote, the ladies always ask my name. C'mon - a quasi-official representative of the government asking that can't help but evoke images of a white southern sheriff ambling up to a stopped car and drawling, "What's yer name, boy?"

Maybe not images directly from my life, but that happened a lot in movies that were made only shortly before my birth. Or even in more recent movies that were set several decades ago.

Point being, I'm sure there are literally tens of millions of minority voters who view an older white lady asking "what's your name, honey?" as the next best thing to fire hoses and attack dogs and burning crosses on their lawn. So let's end the tyranny of the volunteer poll worker and just put out a stack of ballots at the polling place. First come, first served. It'll be on the honor system.

furious_a said...

A bunch of losers think that, by ganging up on someone...

...and there's no martyr like a self-anointed martyr. /eyes roll/

furious_a said...

The problem with being conferred 'absolute moral authority' is that one ends up like Cindy Sheehan, discarded once no longer useful.

And the overuse of that authority as a club cheapens the brand.

David R. Graham said...

When nothing is sacred nothing is profane and the system crashes from inability to act and react. No conflict no life.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Chip S. said...

"guilt," dammit.

Now the white guild's gonna go medieval on my ass for mentioning it.



The first rule of the white guild-- don't talk about the white guild.

Rob said...

Here are a couple of wholly subjective opinions of my own:
1. I have a lot of respect for Crack's opinions, and I think he is right about Cult thinking. (I also love Crack's sense of humor. Of late, he rarely has shown it here.)

2. I have no respect for Charles P. Pierce's opinions, which define knee-jerk leftism.

When Pierce states that we are not allowed to argue with Lewis, what he is really saying is we are not allowed to argue with Pierce. Read a few of his political columns, if you have a strong stomach.

The Crack Emcee said...

furious_a,

A bunch of losers think that, by ganging up on someone...

...and there's no martyr like a self-anointed martyr. /eyes roll/

So says a member of the gang!

Fucking incredible,...

dbp said...

"For example, when John McCain tells you what's wrong with torture, there seems to be very little point in arguing with him about it."

It is totally a coincidence that Senator McCain's views on torture happen to exactly match those of Charles P. Pierce.

bagoh20 said...

I assume there are people who have been through what McCain and Lewis have, yet they hold the exact opposite opinion on these issues. So who's ass do we kiss?

The Crack Emcee said...

bagoh20,

I assume there are people who have been through what McCain and Lewis have, yet they hold the exact opposite opinion on these issues. So who's ass do we kiss?

MINE, GODDAMMIT!l

Hey, you gave me a choice,...

Bender said...

Christopher Hitchens once said, the only correct answer to the question, "Is nothing sacred?" is "No."

Of course the answer is no. What is sacred, what could be sacred, about nothingness? In order to be sacred, something must exist, rather than not exist.

Anonymous said...

They never define exactly what voter suppression is and measure how much of it happens. The same with voter fraud.

The league of women voters states a single case of voter fraud has never been found.

What I find ironic is the meme that people who are normally fraudulent in their lives all of a sudden become saints when they step in the voting booth. Do crooks vote?

Paddy O said...

"John Lewis tells you something about voting rights and you say, yes, sir, and you shut the fk up."

Wonder how he, or Christopher Hitchens, would respond to "Jesus tells you something about religion and you say, yes, sir, and you shut the fk up."

Jesus was crucified, after all.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

Looks like this thread is winding down, so let me sum up my thoughts.

I think it is clear that, for all intents and purposes, racism no longer exists in America - at least of the kind that would hold someone down, deny someone pursuit of happiness.

Things that might look like racism-still-at-work, are almost always reactions to someone's or some group's behavior.

So it is high time we adopt zero tolerance for those who still exploit charges of it.

This means folks like John Lewis, when they slander, should get back nothing but the strongest "shame on you, you're a pathetic disgrace."

Charlie said...

Charlie Pierce used to be an OK sportswriter. Now he's just a douchenozzle.

Scott M said...

I have never talked to so many people who were so thoroughly convinced that their vote didn't matter, that it would not be counted, or that it would be stolen, or that their very right to cast it would be so hamstrung with official bother that it would cease to be a right and simply become another inconvenience.

Battlespace prep for the upcoming, as Garage once put it, epic butthurt. They are getting ready mentally to explain the loss.

I'd shut the hell up about Simpsonp-fking-Bowles and put John Lewis on an airplane and let him tell his story in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and everywhere else this atavistic authoritarian nonsense is going down.

And yet, to hear the speech Pierce so loved, you had to have a valid ID to get in.

Ken Mitchell said...

John Lewis is right, that voting rights are sacred.

But there are NO voting rights for people who are not CITIZENS of the US.

Lewis and other democrats want to perform some sort of arcane victim-transference ritual in which non-citizens (which would include both illegal and legal immigrants) become the logical equivalent of native-born black Americans.

I'll take facts, hold the narrative said...

If requiring a voter ID is an attempt to suppress the vote, then I suggest that a picture be taken of everyone who votes.

Facial recognition software can look for multiple vote casting and a card can be sent to the voter's address, with a copy of the photo, to acknowledge the person's participation in the election.

TeeJaw said...

Given how easy it is for anyone to have a photo ID the only reason to object to voter ID laws is because you want to cheat.

Anonymous said...

So, of course, if Senator John McCain, former detainee and prisoner of war, were to tell this Charles Pierce person something about the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Pierce would say to him "Yes, sir" and then shut the f--k up.

Pierce is one deep thinker of unassailable logic: Anyone with first-hand experience in some matter
speaks about it with absolute, unchallengeable authority, as from a throne on Mt. Olympus.

Anonymous said...

Nobody has absolute authority in this world. Nobody. This kind of crap is just another way that pols and others use to bully and manipulate people. Lots of people have unhappy stories and have been made to suffer unjustly but that doesn't give them the right to dictate to others what THEIR priorities are. I did not wrong John Lewis and I was not responsible for any of his suffering so he has no right to tell me how to think about anything. Period.

Quasimodo said...

"Shut up he explained"

Ring Lardner

Quasimodo said...

"Shut up he explained"

Ring Lardner

hombre said...

The comments to the Esquire article are stunning. If Esquire commenters have experience with voter suppression, it is only because they are too stupid to find the polling places -- and the country is better off for it.

Michael K said...

"I fail to understand why this is such a challenge that requiring same is de facto vote suppression.

Please explain in detail."

My mother died at the age of 103 eleven years ago. In the 1996 election, her Congressman was Jesse Jackson Jr and she was one of five or six white women still living in her 30 story building in Chicago's South Side. She went downstairs to vote on election day (The polling place was in the lobby) and was turned away by a black poll watcher. In spite of the fact that she had lived in that building for 18 years and had photo ID, she was not allowed to vote. She was probably one of three Republicans in the building.

That's how it works, sir.

BuddyPC said...

Somebody remind Pierce that it was John Lewis whom OWS Atlanta told to, "Shut up."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI

Peter said...

Congressman Lewis shed blood in the '60s. So now everyone is supposed to pay attention to him. Senator McCain shed blood in the '60s. Now everyone is supposed to pay attention to him.

thing is, hundreds of thousands of us shed blood in the '60s, there was this little war, there was a lot of other stuff going on. So, why is Lewis' blood, or McCain's blood more important than mine?

Maybe both of them should shut the fk up and everyone listen to me? It might be easier on everyone since I would rather read my book.

Big Mike said...

The end of Pierce's article has been bugging me since I read it this morning. There's this meme that the Democrats are pushing that "the game is rigged." If they can't have dead people voting, if they can't turn away white voters in predominantly black precincts, if, in other words, they can't cheat, then the game is rigged.

The Democrats had their chance in 2009 - 2010 to fix the economy. They applied all their favorite theories, and the result was widespread misery. The electorate rebuked them in November 2010, and the Democrat response has been a massive one-fingered salute to the rest of us. But that won't be the reason Obama loses in a landslide. Nope, it's because "the game is rigged."

That, and racism.

Bryan C said...

"Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting."

Both wrong and disingenous. The segregationist South was run almost exclusively by Democrats.

Democrats used intimidation and force to exclude voters they didn't like. Now they use voter fraud to do the same thing.

paul a'barge said...

Behold, Click to see the face of evil

JAL said...

"Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting."

Really. Unbelieveable?

Being a "people" is not the only criteria to voting.

Some people should be stopped from voting.

Charlie said...

"And yet, to hear the speech Pierce so loved, you had to have a valid ID to get in."

Amen

Rose said...

creeley23 said...
Last year, when Occupy was the hot new darling of the left, John Lewis showed up at Occupy Atlanta and they didn't let him speak.

Yes, I remember that well. They didn't want him to think he was 'above' them. And they used the horrific mic check to shut him up.

Is nothing sacred? Apparently the answer is fluid. It depends on which side you're on, and whether or not there is money of=r political advantage to be had. Trees are now sacred, not just old growth redwoods, but 5th growth, especially if there's money to be made in the lawsuit; muslim anything is sacred, because if you don't think it's ok to slaughter your daughters for talking to a boy on the phone, you must not be on the right side; apparently 'God" is no longer sacred, as we've seen this week. Trayvon became sacred, but the little boys and girls being murdered daily in the streets of Chicago don't get a presidential phone call, there's no advantage to be had.

So - he really ought to rethink that item.

sdharms said...

I dont recall John Lewis mentioning that it was DEMS who used the firehoses, DEMS who restricted the right to vote, DEMS who codified segregation. I would really like him to explain how DEMS sins transmogrify onto Repubs.

Rick67 said...

@SomeoneHasToSayIt - Wasn't he a major Tea Party slanderer?

Didn't he brazenly lie about what happened on the infamous 'giant gavel' Pelosi strut across the mall in Washington?


Yes and no. I followed that whole brouhaha closely, and there's no question it was baseless, contemptible slander against Tea Party. However if you check closely, it's not clear that Lewis himself made the accusations. Others say that he did. And Lewis, when asked, declined to answer. Which is remarkable. My guess is that Lewis was put in a bad spot, where his sense of honor/honesty was in conflict with his sense of loyalty toward fellow Democrats. He wouldn't lie, but he wouldn't sell out fellow liberal Democrats either by calling them on *their* lie.

All that having been said, he should've stood up for the truth. One would think a much vaunted hero of the Civil Rights movement would sympathize with people falsely accused by those in power.

mdgiles said...

"Lewis and other democrats want to perform some sort of arcane victim-transference ritual in which non-citizens (which would include both illegal and legal immigrants) become the logical equivalent of native-born black Americans.

Why should this case be any different? Don't you know that every group with an axe to grind - gays, women, illegals, etc. - no matter what the issue, is always the equivalent of native-born black Americans. You might say we carry the weight of the Liberal world on our shoulders/sarc.