Proposition 54, or the Classification by Race, Ethnicity or National Origin Initiative from the October 7th recall election ballot. They’re saying having it on the ballot in October violates the Voting Rights Act and California laws.
They want Proposition 54 pulled from the recall ballot and returned to the original election date of next March the 2nd. Only by postponing the election, the lawsuit states, would California meet state election code requirements that dictate, among other things, that voters must have access to ballot information on propositions at least 100 days before an election. Under the current time frame the information would be available on August 11th, giving voters 57 days. These groups have petitioned for the election to be moved back on the basis that their voters can’t figure out what it’s all about between now and then. These people are actually filing lawsuits and in essence, saying our voters are stupid. “Our voters can’t figure all this out by October 7th; it isn’t fair; they’re being disenfranchised, and it’s being done purposely,” which is the claim that’s being made.
But more than this, what hit me here, reading this story, is that some time in the 1960’s, as is often the case with the language, we allowed the liberals and the Democrats to define what “civil rights” means. There are things that come under the banner of civil rights today that are abhorrent to me and should be to everybody. I’ve often joked, you could pass a law that legalized rape if you called it the Civil Rights Act of 2003, because there’s not a politician alive today with the guts to vote against anything with the words, “civil rights” in it, because it’s come to mean something that we’ve allowed the left to define. It is not a coincidence that the left’s agenda has falsely become synonymous with civil rights. More government, more entitlements, more spending, the election of Democrats, affirmative action, all have become so-called civil rights issues.
No Matter What Republicans Do, It’s Not Enough
So here’s how it has manifested itself. When the president decides not to attend the pro-Democrat, pro-left-wing NAALCP annual meeting, he’s said to snub civil rights leaders and snub civil rights. He did go see the Urban League, and you could see on the faces of the leaders of the Urban League that they wished he wasn’t there. And so now the president is accused of snubbing civil rights leaders. He’s done nothing of the sort. He didn’t snub everybody, and civil rights have not been harmed by virtue of the president not going. This whole definition of civil rights has come to mean affirmative action, the election of Democrats, bigger government, and bigger entitlement. If you oppose that, you oppose civil rights. Well, that’s bunk as far as I’m concerned. “Civil rights” is a term that’s been bastardized and expanded to include basically all of the liberal agenda.
I am convinced Jesse Jackson could have a meeting with Bush and in the meeting, Jackson could demand A, B, C, D, and all the way down the list whatever it was he wanted and Bush could say, “You got it,” and Jesse Jackson would walk out of the office complaining and whining and saying that Bush is against civil rights. This is what is so frustrating about trying to offer these people a portion of what they want to try to show your goodwill because it’s never enough, it doesn’t matter, and they’re not out to establish conservatives as leaders anyway. They’re out to defeat Bush; they’re out to defeat conservative leaders, and so there’s nothing that you can give them that will placate them, satisfy them, quiet them down, or even motivate them to join you in trying to achieve it, simply because you are a conservative.
The conservative movement has not promised Jesse Jackson a seat at their table of power, if he delivers X, Y, and Z. And the same thing with Ralph Neas of People for the American Way, and all these other so-called civil rights groups. But the Democrats have said it to them and have made it so. Therefore, conservatives cannot be allowed to establish great credentials in the “civil rights” community. If black voters, minority voters in great, great numbers begin to support Republican candidates, it’s bye-bye job for Jesse Jackson and Ralph Neas and the rest of these people who exist purely at the pleasure of the Democratic Party.