Tea Klux Klan?

NewsBusters recounts more hysteria from nutjob Keith Olberman. Apparently, at a recent Tea Party convention, former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo made mention of a kind of “civic literacy” test. Olberman responded with cries of the KKK and Jim Crow and instituting laws to keep blacks and the poor from voting.

The first thing I’d like to point out is that Tancredo mentioned civic literacy tests. That is not the same as a literacy test. That means that in order to vote, you should be able to demonstrate some basic knowledge of civics, of how our government works and who your representatives in that government are. Olberman’s argument that this excludes immigrants seems to be ignoring the simple fact that immigrants to the US (at least the legal ones) have to pass such civics tests in order to gain citizenship, which last I checked is a requirement to be able to vote. How well natural-born citizens do on such a test seems to reflect more on the fact that the progressive education system has all but removed civics from most curricula. While I’m not sure I agree with Tancredo’s suggestion, I can see why someone would want to make sure that voters can at least name the Vice President.

That said, let’s move on to Olberman’s blatant ignorance of history. Many on the Left will ignore this simple fact, but the Democratic Party has long fought for institutionalized racism. The Republican Party was founded upon stopping it. Republicans wrote and passed the 14th Ammendment. Democrats wrote and passed Jim Crow laws. A Republican president federalized the National Guard to thwart a Domocratic governor in his refusal to de-segregate public schools. The Republicans wrote and ultimately passed the Civil Rights Act, which Democrats mercilessly filibustered. The Ku Klux Klan started as a Democratic group, and for many generations would only admit Democrats. The Republicans started the National Rifle Association to pretect the gun rights of southern blacks attempting to defend themselves from the KKK.

The Left seems to be continuing the noble propaganda technique developed by Joseph Goebells known as “the Big Lie” – if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. This is the only reason I can think of that explains why Democrats continue to blame Republicans for the Left’s history of racism.