Senate Lynching Apology
As you may or may not know, the US Senate has passed a bill formally apologizing for their failure to pass legislation addressing the horrendous practice of lynching in the US.The good news is that 84 Senators (as of the last count I saw) not only supported, but co-sponsered the bill. The vote was done as a voice vote, so if a Senator did not co-sponsor the bill, he/she did not take an official stand.
The bad news is that John Cornyn, one of the Senators from my state of Texas, did not co-sponsor the bill. What he is thinking I have no idea. Maybe I'll call and at least let them pretend to tell me what is up.
I'm waiting for just one person to give a logical reason why any Senator would not support this bill. Rush Limbaugh tried yesterday but did a very poor job. Saying that this bill wasn't enough because it did not admit that the Southern Democrats led the filibusters against anti-lynching laws in the past is not a real argument. Saying that the filibuster is still being used today to halt democracy is not enough.
Give me one good reason why a Senator will not acknowledge publicly that lynchings happened and some people in our government let them happen, and we are sorry.
Maybe this is why Cornyn is one of the most unpopular Senators up in D.C.
posted by Brady @ 11:56 AM
10 Comments:
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Victor,
Thanks for responding. Of course I was looking for one good reason that I found worthwhile. That is pretty apparently implied, and I think you do the same when asking for someone to support an argument.
That aside I can see your points (which are really just 1 point worded a few different ways). Are you saying that the US government should have just gone on and never addressed an issue such as this? Especially one where people died and the Senate knew it was happening and refused to take action?
If US military mistakenly came in and killed your family and then 50 years from now wanted to apologize, would you not at least see that as a step of positive good will?
Yes, apologizing for atrocities (even if it is after the fact) is a terrible thing. Luckily, only 14 of the 100 Senators agree with you.
Victor,
Thanks for your comments. I can always depend on a good dose of a patronizing and "my views are better because..." tone from you.
Frankly, I am glad that most of the country thinks that political moves have personal consequences. We are running a country here, made up of individual people, and if we don't take a second to look at how things affect individuals we will inevitably not be able to best serve the citizens.
As far as the "majority thinks this is right so it must be" philosophy, I think it would be better stated as the "huge overwhelming majority theme."
No, the majority=truth theme does not always hold. In this case, though, it does. But please don't tell all of your friends on the right that the majority=truth theme doesn't hold water. They'd lose their biggest argument against gays.
Victor- I'm not sure why we are having this conversation. You "point out" my "flaws in logic" and then bring in your own, moving the argument no where.
First- I never said that majority=truth. I said I was glad that in this case, the huge overwhelming majority of Senators disagreed with your take on this issue. I then said that sometimes the majority is right, and i believe it is in this case. I never said this bill was right simply because the majority believed in it. You threw those words straight into my mouth. I think that is called strawman or trap argumentation.
My reference to your friends on the right centers around the current "right" or conservative movement, which is nothing like the right movement throughouthistory. When anyone refers to the "right" vs. "left" war we have going on, do you always postulate about the Burkist right movement of the 18th century? That seems a bit self-indulgent to me.
Back on topic, one of the huge arguments against gays and gay marriage are that the people think it is wrong. The right wants the peoples' voice to be heard on this issue. Anytime anything even slightly gay-positive comes out, and the right hits the polls talking about how the majority of the people don't like this or that. The majority=truth philosophy has been pushing constitutional ammendments nationwide. It is the current fuel of the conservative movement. So, despite your pontifications about your own ideals and historical beliefs, the current "right" holds the majority=truth philosophy pretty close, and they have for a number of years now.
Victor, quoting a whole paragraph correctly and in context might help our quest for honesty.
Victor,
The first line of the paragraph you quoted says, "No, the majority=truth theme does not always hold." I went on to say, "in this case it does," meaning in this case the majority is right. But since I said the philosophy did not hold to be true, I obviously was stating that the majority does hold the correct view in this case. I never said or implied that because the majority says something is true, it must then be true.
Yes, the majority is never right.
Correct, but in this case the majority was right, as I said.
As much fun as three year old games are, I'm going to refrain.
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