Selma Civil Rights March: News Media Supports Historical Inaccuracy

They (the mainstream news media) are still crediting the "Emancipation Proclamation"  as the law that ended slavery, even though it really was the 13th Amendment that ended slavery.  The EP only applied to ten of the southern states, was an illegal over-reach of Presidential powers, and some northern states continued to practice slavery after it was issued.

But now we have a new historical fallacy regrading the attenuation of racial inequality.  People want to take credit for what someone else has done.  I have heard several news reports that the so-called Selma Civil Rights March "gave blacks the right to vote".  This is totally absurd.  Supposedly, this march led to adoption of the Voting Rights Act which they are saying "gave blacks the right to vote".

The 15th Amendment is what really guarantees that blacks (and people of any other race) have the right to vote.  To be more correct, they can't be denied the right to vote on the basis of race.  Here it is ratified nearly 100 years before all of this "Voting Rights Act" nonsense:

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

According to Wikipedia, "In Mobile v. Bolden (1980), the Supreme Court held that as originally enacted in 1965, Section 2 [of the VRA] simply restated the Fifteenth Amendment..."  

The real purpose of the VRA was to give the Federal Government power to manipulate local elections so that the fat cats in Washington could stay in power.   The VRA does not do anything to protect blacks but does prohibit certain prerequisites for voting like literacy tests, educational or knowledge requirements, proof of good moral character, and requirements that a person be vouched for.  So this is really about making sure that corrupt, immoral and uneducated people can vote so that the votes of the honest, hardworking, and knowledgeable Americans can be diluted.  It is easier for a corrupt politician to get elected if the electorate is uneducated and selfish.  The VRA has absolutely nothing to do with race.

This is just another example why Americans need to do two things:  1. learn the Constitution 2. do not support any piece of legislation until you have read it yourself.  People are now making a big deal about this 50th anniversary of the Selma march because they want to take credit for something that had already been done a long time before that.

Bob Mecklenborg on Need to Know

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Bob Mecklenborg recently made an appearance on the PBS program "Need to Know".  This was very interesting to me for several reasons.

Mr. Mecklenborg is my state representative.  I don't know what his true motivations are on this or any other issue.  I agree with him on most issues, but I think that he is mostly just another slick politician.  He is definitely someone who is biased toward the Republican party.  I have heard him say that the redistricting should be done in the way that most favors Republicans.  He has criticized the Tea Party for demanding the cutting of state spending, saying that there is nothing left to cut, but he himself voted for the wasteful Ohio Third Frontier Project.  Among other things, OTFP contained $2 million in appropriations to design hospital gowns and food trays.

But I don't trust PBS any further than I could throw them either.  As I was viewing this video on the PBS website, I noticed on the same webpage an advertisement which said, "Support provided by Goldman Sachs".  That should be proof enough for anyone to say the probability that what they are saying is a lie is at least equal to the probability that it is the truth.

As for the issues discussed in the program, I think I agree with PBS on the first bill that they discussed.  There are a lot of people who would be disfranchised if they were required to show photo ID.  Having such an ID shouldn't be requirement if you have some other proof (such as a birth certificate).  We didn't used to have to have any proof.  Its funny, though,  that PBS can't see that illegal immigrants vote illegally.

But on the second issue, I definitely agree with Mecklenborg.  In fact, his bill doesn't go nearly far enough.  There should be no early voting at all except for absentee (mail-in) voting.   And the only ones who should be allowed to vote absentee are military voters and others who have a really good reason (like being home-bound).  That is the way it used to be.  And of course, PBS is so blind that they refuse to acknowledge the incident in which the Democrats gave high school voters ice cream cones to entice them to "get on the bus" going downtown to the polling place.  No vote fraud?  Yeah, right.  This was an early voting day incident which would have been more difficult to pull off if all voting had to be done on election day.  They were registering voters and they were voting on the same day!  Not cool.

But I think the majority of the fraud is not due to any of the issues addressed in this program.  Neither PBS nor Mr. Mecklenborg want you to know about Diebold.  If you really want to preserve the integrity of the electoral process, demand that your state get rid of all electronic voting machines.  The only truly transparent system is one where the ballots are paper, marked by hand, placed in a clear plastic receptacle, and publicly counted by hand.  Mr. Mecklenborg mentioned that one his purposes was for public perception to be that the process is fair.  About that he is right and there is no more important battle in this effort than to get rid "black box" vote counting!