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SC Governor Names White Nationalist to Reelection Committee
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants and just the third person of color to be elected governor of a Southern state.
So, one might think she would want nothing to do with racists and anti-immigrant extremists. Not so, apparently.
In anticipation of her 2014 re-election campaign, the Tea Party darling has put together a 164-member steering committee comprising folks from all 46 of her state’s counties. And on that list is one “Republican leader” and Tea Party activist named Roan Garcia-Quintana of Greenville.
The name won’t ring many bells outside of the South Carolina political world. But he’s better known in white nationalist, anti-immigrant and neo-Confederate circles.
Garcia-Quintana is a lifetime member and current board member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which is listed as a white nationalist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The CCC is the linear descendant of the old White Citizens Councils, which were formed in the 1950s and 1960s to battle school desegregation in the South, and has evolved into a crudely racist organization. Its website, for example, has published pictures comparing pop singer Michael Jackson to an ape and referred to blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity.”
Garcia-Quintana is also a rabid nativist, even though he’s a naturalized citizen who was born in Havana. He’s executive director of the anti-immigrant group Americans Have Had Enough, based in Mauldin, S.C., where he lives. At the 2008 CCC conference held in Sheffield, Ala., Garcia-Quintana referred to Latino immigration as an “illegal alien invasion.”
In September 2006, Garcia-Quintana’s nativist organization received proceeds from a barbecue fundraiser featuring former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado. Tancredo, who was one of the most virulently anti-immigrant members of Congress, was listed as honorary chairman of Americans Have Had Enough and is currently listed on the group’s website as the “Past Honorary Chairman.” Lourie Salley, a League of the South (LOS) member, was named as the contact person for the barbecue on the League’s website. The League of the South, a neo-Confederate group that advocates for a second Southern secession and a society dominated by “European Americans,” is listed as a neo-Confederate hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
On the day of the barbecue, Tancredo spoke to men clad in Confederate battle dress from a podium draped in a Confederate flag. The food was catered by Maurice Bessinger, a well-known LOS supporter who has catered many LOS events and has been widely criticized for selling books defending slavery. At the close of his speech, Tancredo joined the audience in a rousing rendition of “Dixie.”
Although Cuban by birth, Garcia-Quintana does not consider himself Latino. His ancestors, he says, were Spaniards and this makes him white. He refers to himself as “Havana born, Savannah raised” and as a “Confederate Cuban.”
If Garcia-Quintana had his way, immigrants would be arrested if they were caught driving without a license and would languish in jail until they could be deported. Their cars would be impounded if they were caught driving without insurance. Garcia-Quintana would also work to make English the official language of South Carolina. According to his “Quintana for SC Senate” website in 2008, “What we want to accomplish is to STOP the enticements for illegal aliens. To do that we must remove the license to operate a business from anyone who continually hires illegal aliens and make it unpleasant for illegals to live here in South Carolina.”
on May 22nd, 2013 at 3:14 pm
The one time White Citizens Council (of Mississippi) changed its name to the Council of Conservative Citizens. After the name change Trent Lott and at least one other member of Congress spoke at one of the group’s large meetings and then played dumb concerning the group’s origins and record. Very enlightening to read about Garcia-Quintara’s “I’m not Cuban, I’m Spanish descended white” statement. Is this the real attitude of Republicans? I hope the super loyal Cuban Exile Community in Miami hears this man’s rantings, but more likely it will deny and ignore the way it does concerning the many holes in Marco Rubio’s story.
on May 22nd, 2013 at 3:34 pm
A white nationalist, anti-immigrant, neo-confederate? It sounds like the South Carolina GOP know who comprises their party’s base.
on May 22nd, 2013 at 3:48 pm
Reminds me of the Southern Filibustros who attempted to conquer Cuba in the 1850s in order to turn it into a slaveholders’ paradise.
He can claim he’s Castilian Spanish as long as he wants. They still possess beautiful olivine skin, not the lily-white skin of the Angled Saxophones.
on May 22nd, 2013 at 4:04 pm
“Although Cuban by birth, Garcia-Quintana does not consider himself Latino. His ancestors, he says, were Spaniards and this makes him white. He refers to himself as “Havana born, Savannah raised” and as a “Confederate Cuban.””
I’m not a psychologist, but it appears obvious that this guy has serious self-hatred problems.
on May 22nd, 2013 at 5:56 pm
Kinda with you, Dan. And what part of Spain did his ancestors allegedly come from? Any part of Spain is on the wrong side of Estremadura to make that claim with confidence.
on May 22nd, 2013 at 7:16 pm
I agree with you Dan.
on May 22nd, 2013 at 11:24 pm
Is what South Carolinians speak actually considered English?
on May 22nd, 2013 at 11:35 pm
To criticize Nikki Haley for one sourpuss in a group of 164 is really a reach. Perhaps she had a good reason to include this apparently severely self conflicted person, or perhaps someone on her staff did not do thorough research.
on May 23rd, 2013 at 8:09 am
This is a lot like golfer Sergio Garcia who made the fried chicken joke about fellow golfer Tiger Woods. Woods is the best golfer in history and that’s my two cents for the day.
on May 23rd, 2013 at 8:10 am
Sam, its the South Carolina Republican Party – the fact that someone is a white nationalist neo-confederate who is about ready to start firing on Fort Sumter again is hardly going to be considered cause for alarm or even unusual :)
and people from South Carolina do speak English and have almost as lovely of accents as people from Georgia :)P
on May 23rd, 2013 at 9:15 am
My research indicates that Nikki Haley has a fine record of deregulating industry to bring jobs to SC, and installed a Black Conservative to replace the outgoing Senator Jim DeMint until the next election.
on May 23rd, 2013 at 11:12 am
sam, did your “research” include looking at all of the lovely vacant and abanonded factories in the Greenville-Spartanburg area (as well as acres of vacant, abandoned, run down, slum like housing in the central part of Greenville – and Greenville is one of the wealthiest areas of the state) or looking at the price per job paid in tax incentives, site improvements, and outright payments to often foreign corporations.
Most of the “job gains” in the Southeast are entirely due to state governments giving away the farm for often substandard below market rate wages (while older unsubidized factories that pay market rates like the Ford factory in Atlanta have closed).
Such factories attracted solely through large financial incentives (payments) often threaten to leave and close within a couple of years if the state doesn’t give more “incentives” – the states often do so despite the fact that the factories create a major net loss of revenue and are a vast drain on the finances of local companies.
Not that South Carolina is alone in falling for that scam. Some company recently closed an almost new factory in Virginia after pocketing millions of dollars in tax incentives, financial aid, and site imporovement. Maybe in a few years they can be persuaded to reopen with more tax incentives and financial aid.
on May 23rd, 2013 at 5:41 pm
Re: “Although Cuban by birth, Garcia-Quintana does not consider himself Latino. His ancestors, he says, were Spaniards and this makes him white ” – I’m sure he sees himself as a proud descendant of the likes of Tomas de Torquemada and Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.
on May 23rd, 2013 at 10:20 pm
Ask Garcia Quintana to google 1912 Cuban Race War. Cuban Blacks were the backbone of the wars of Independance 1868-1878, the Small War and the 1895-1898 War of independence. They began to protest when they saw all of the benefits going to whites. They formed the Independent Party of Color. The Cuban government banned that party, so many rebelled.The Cuban Army, with its newly acquired machine guns massacred 6-12,000 Cubans of color, mostly civilians. ,Garcia Quintant comes from a nice blood-line. The Cuban government encouraged Spaniards to immigrate to whiten the population.
on May 24th, 2013 at 8:39 am
In re: fried chicken: Why has it become a racist slur? I am willing to believe everyone here, and elsewhere in the United States, has eaten and enjoyed it. The heavily battered, crisp-coated kind was invented because, in the days before refrigeration and coolers, it was an effective way to keep the chicken good till mid-afternoon, whether for field hands or a picnic, and it has been greeted with delight by highborn and humble, young and old, black and white. It is an American treasure, and, like ice cream, should unite us, not divide us.
on May 24th, 2013 at 9:14 am
Obviously when minorities join those who hold the power it is because they seek power influence. Instead of putting aside personal gain and seeking the advancement of the group, personal greed and selfishness takes over.
So of course we will find ethnic minorities who express hate about their ethnicity, if this means they find a niche that would otherwise be denied by the institutions of racism. The same phenomenon occurs on a sinking ship, when people scramble madly over each other through the waves, pushing the weak down.
If we have countless examples of people giving up their principles for money, sex, or simple notoriety, why would it surprise anyone that a person of a given ethnicity might join a group which is against the interests of that ethnicity? It can be viewed within the context of simple self interest without regard for others.
What I find curious is how the Republicans – particularly the Tea Party fringe – is so eager to trumpet the presence of non-white, female, or non-heterosexual members as if touting out some diverse faces among the homogeneous crowd is supposed to illustrate tolerance and welcoming of diversity.
And, quite vehemently, the same individuals and groups deny the ascension of these persons has anything to do with favoritism or tokenism.
Reduced to its simplest elements, the right wing has (1) long misunderstood racism or how prevalent racism is, (2) failed to support policies which attempt to remedy historical injustices, and (3) search far and wide for individuals who are willing to receive the benefits of personal wealth and power in exchange for compromising the wellbeing and rights of the oppressed, in order to deflect criticism of points 1 and 2.
So, when an individual such as this rises to the occasion, they are more than eager to bring that person into the fold. It should not be cause for cognitive dissonance that the right wing considers each Uncle Tom a great victory. It is what they do.
on May 24th, 2013 at 9:19 am
Erika, SC’s unemployment rate now stands at 8.0% statewide. The worst counties that were at 17 a year ago are now 15. In Communist Russia people were given a stipend or assigned to jobs where they were available. Here in this country people need to figure out for themselves where the jobs are. Don’t tell me they can’t move, that’s how this country was populated. Or they can sit on their porch and collect welfare while they complain that there are no jobs.
on May 24th, 2013 at 10:02 am
As I watch my Texas gov., a Neo-Confederate, run my state like a kingdom, I realize that our Tex Reb King and Mr.Quintana, are backed by enormous funding. Former Cuban Sugar Plantation Elites are still furious from Castro evictions 53 years ago. The American Beverage Assoc, PepsiCo, Coke, M&M Mars, Cadbury Schwepps, Nestlé all need lotsa sugar on the cheap/ slave labor mabey. Did the Bush Family Elders have Sugar Plantations in Cuba? O Yea!
So where did all the Cuban activist / Neo Con / Tea Party Latinos come from?
on May 24th, 2013 at 10:33 am
As Dan Zabetakis wrote, and I agree, this guy, Garcia Quintana, has self-hatred problems which can easily solved by knowing from the Bible that “God is no respecter of persons. Also something is misplaced in Gov. Nikki Haley thought for even naming him.
on May 24th, 2013 at 10:50 am
Sam, the people who live in run down houses and trailer parks primarily due have jobs – its just that running the cash register at Wal-Mart or making burgers at Krystal doesn’t pay thej bills. Some also work in those new factories being attracted through tax and financial incentives.
And in any case you missed my point – South Carolina like other states is primarily attracting “job creators” through financial incentives – when employers are attracted to an area through large tax and cash incentives, it creates a major drain on the local governments who are unable to afford basic services.
It is even worse when the jobs being attracted based upon tax and financial incentives are not well paying jobs – and remember it is not just employers who provide well paying jobs who are getting them – companies are getting them to open retail stores, telemarketing call centers, and warehouse jobs that barely pay above minimum wage – so many of those fancy new jobs being created do not provide for a living wage which can support a family.
on May 24th, 2013 at 11:04 am
“I am willing to believe everyone here, and elsewhere in the United States, has eaten and enjoyed it.”
–
Did you ask the chickens too, Rey?
on May 24th, 2013 at 11:09 am
“In Communist Russia people were given a stipend or assigned to jobs where they were available. ”
—
Actually, Sam, this practice is not limited to Communism. During the 17th Century in Europe it was extremely common for anyone who didn’t look busy or have some ostensible symbol of rank to be conscripted into public service due to “idleness”. Are you suggesting we turn back the clock and head through the neighborhoods you speak of with shillelaghs?
on May 24th, 2013 at 11:47 am
Aron…
“He can claim he’s Castilian Spanish as long as he wants. They still possess beautiful olivine skin, not the lily-white skin of the Angled Saxophones.”
Actually many Spaniards and some South Americans do have very light skin and are descended only from Europeans. I myself know two people, one Argentinian, and one Colombian who are very light-skinned. Of course they are also not blatant racists like Garcia-Quintana.
Jane Schiff had it right…
on May 24th, 2013 at 12:54 pm
Aadila,
I did ask the chickens. And they pointed out that we evolved canine and incisor teeth for reasons beyond only eating veggies. I know some very smart chickies.
And the poultry isn’t that dumb, either ;-)
on May 24th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
He and Nikki Haley should get along real good. She is Indian but claims to be white as well. She as abandoned her Indian heritage and he has abandoned his Cuban heritage.
on May 24th, 2013 at 1:17 pm
Erika, an agreement to suspend the stranglehold of taxation is not corporate welfare, it is an example of what should be done on a regular basis. Who pays corporate taxes? The people who buy the products.
Aadilia, our country was founded on the Biblical principle of free will. Work is available to those who desire it.
on May 24th, 2013 at 1:24 pm
” In Communist Russia people were given a stipend or assigned to jobs where they were available. ”
No. People did have choices as far as what to study and do. It was possible that you might not get a slot in the faculty or institute you wanted, but you weren’t simply assigned things. This was a big deal for millions of people who were the descendants of illiterate peasants and who grew up with dirt floors.
” Don’t tell me they can’t move, that’s how this country was populated.”
Child logic.
” Or they can sit on their porch and collect welfare while they complain that there are no jobs.”
What welfare?
on May 24th, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Hey Sam,
I’m unemployed. I also lack the ability to transplant myself to the middle of nowhere in North Dakota.
In addition, I abhor hydraulic fracturing. As such I am continuing to look for decent work.
Am I receiving welfare? About as much as you are, you silly little ducky.
Libertarianism doesn’t work. Face it.
on May 24th, 2013 at 2:33 pm
“our country was founded on the Biblical principle of free will.”
Not reallly, Sam.
Our country’s founding was largely influence by Puritans. It was not until 1833 that Massachusetts for example finally officially abandoned Calvinism, which had as one of its central tenets, predestination and the theological denial of free will.
But nice try.
on May 24th, 2013 at 2:40 pm
” Who pays corporate taxes? The people who buy the products.
Aadilia, our country was founded on the Biblical principle of free will. Work is available to those who desire it.”
Wow. Demonstrably false. All of this.
on May 24th, 2013 at 11:09 pm
Oh he’s a white nationalist, anti-immigrant, Neo-connfederate (whatever that is). Good for him. More power to him. I hope he goes far.
on May 25th, 2013 at 5:53 pm
Ruslan, those are outright Communist lies about people’s so called freedoms in the former Soviet Union. And I do not use child logic, I use actual logic. I suggest you stop trying to amateurishly insult people on this forum, as I for one have been insulted by genuine experts.
on May 27th, 2013 at 9:59 am
What else could we expect from the ditsy Sarah Palin clone?
on May 28th, 2013 at 5:40 am
Sam, you really should try learning history and economics from a more reputable source than Fox News – then you would realize how foolish you sound.
Corporate tax rates are at their lowest point in years – many coprorations in fact pay no taxes at all even while making billions of dollars in profits.
Yet, prices continue to rise – salaries paid to common workers continue to fall – the number of people employed continue to fall – investments in capital goods continue to fall – production continues to move overseas. None of the claimed benefits of cutting taxes have taken place – which should not be a surpirse since anyone with even the slightest understanding of how taxes work knows why:
“Ordinary and necessary business expenses” are tax deductable. Those include money paid in salaries, money paid to capital goods, and most costs. Hence, lower tax rates are not going to lead to more jobs or better pay (for common workers) – instead lower corporate tax rates will lead to fewer jobs and lower pay (for common workers). That is very simple – with a low corporate tax rate, there is less incentive to engage in activities which will result in tax deductions. It has also been shown historically that at times of high taxes (such as the 1950s) that salaries paid to workers are higher. In fact, when the massive tax cuts took place under Reagan, the results are obvious – the rich have gotten richer and richer and the poor and middle class have gotten poorer. Tax cuts for corporations and the rich therefore have been shown to result in a massive transfer of wealth from the middle and lower class to the upper class.
In fact, the only “benefits” which results from lower corporate taxes (or as is often the case no corporate taxes) is higher executive salaries, more corporate profits, and higher stock prices. Maybe that is a benefit if you happen to have a whole bunch of inherited wealth in the form of stocks or if you are the CEO of General Electric or something – but its not very much of a benefit for most people.
And of course, your “argument” (really you are parrotting on what those nice Fox Tarts told you to say) is even sillier when you realize that the corporate tax breaks are often given to companies who are primarily not selling their goods locally. Its not like BMW is only selling those stupid SUV things they make in South Carolina to local people – they are selling them nationwide. Hence, even assuming argumendo, that a break in state and local taxes leads to lower prices (it doesn’t) it would only benefit those people in South Carolina who have both the means and desire to buy an overpriced, ugly, ecologically unsound, stupid SUV.
And of course, you also ignore that when a state gives tax breaks and other forms of corporate welfare to corporations the revenue to make up for them has to come from somewhere – maybe cuts in basic government services (fire fighters are just a bunch of big government socialists ya know – and who needs roads or something trivial like bridge inspections (another aging bridge on the interstate highway system just collapsed – i’ll be sure to think about aging infrastructure and maintanance cuts while driving over the Hampton Roads bridge tunnel (well, in the tunnel i already watch for streams of water pouring in) – maybe increases in other taxes such as the extremely regressive sales tax or personal income taxes. That is to say to save those poor highly profitable multinationals money to assure more profits, higher executive salaries, and higher stock prices you are robbing working people who have to pay more and get less. And why – because you somehow think that the corporations will pass on the savings to consumers? Seriously? Have you been paying attention at all? Corporations aren’t going to pay the saving on – those savings are going right into the pockets of their shareholders and executives.
When you get your “libertarian free market utopia” and realize that it is not the heaven which the Wall Street Journal editorial page promised but instead closely resembles Jack T. Chick’s Lake of Fire where you are the sinner and the capitalists are cartoon Demons asking you “Hot enough for you? I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m going to my summer home in Antartica where it is cool. Haw Haw Haw!” don’t come crying to me that you goofed because i tried to warn you.
(hey, someone really needs to write a Chick Tract parody about free market economics leading to Hell on earth – it would practically write itself. And who doesn’t want to draw a bunch of Tea Party types standing in the Lake of Fire with the stereotypical and actually kind of cute cartoon Devil saying to them “Behold your Republican paradise, HAW HAW HAW” and their response “We were fooled, we goofed!”)
on May 28th, 2013 at 9:01 am
Aron, I commend you and anyone else who is philosophically opposed to Hydraulic fracturing. I personally believe that the benefits of a switch to smaller vehicles and totally eliminating the importation Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil would outweigh the environmental concerns. People should work in fields that they can morally support.
on May 28th, 2013 at 9:09 am
Erika, thank God for Fox’s isolated voice of reason in a morass of Collectivist propaganda. The Tea Parties are suggesting that no, the money does not have to come from somewhere, the G needs to cut back dramatically. I don’t have access to reliable figures, but I wonder, would the current Food Stamp costs even out if they fired all the social workers who ask all those questions, and simply give everyone a basic amount, say, fifty bucks a week, in Snap benefits with no questions asked. This would keep people from starving while they Look For A Job ( horrors!) and those of us who work can spend it on Grey Poupon mustard and Pizza.
on May 28th, 2013 at 11:08 am
Erika, I also follow some of the economic facts put forth in Adbusters Magazine. Things like, burning gasoline (or wood or anything) should be counted as a negative, not a positive. Meat production is a total unhealthy waste and the elimination of that alone could solve all the world’s food shortages. Debt does not equal prosperity. Current economics as taught in our universities counts even a train wreck as a positive economic factor. A total flip over of current economic theory is way overdue, without the desruction of Capitalism espoused by that once fine magazine. Oh, and they hate Israel, too.
on May 28th, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Erika,
The conflagration of West, Texas approximates that picture and is a preview of Sam’s libertarian paradise. A poorly supervised operation that was not constrained by pesky regulations and zoning ordinances, unburdened by liability insurance. What could go wrong?
Whether the cause was an accident or criminal activity, the result remains the same. Too much dangerous material, improperly stored, too close to residential structures = unnecessary death and destruction. All hail the Free Market of Texas.
on May 28th, 2013 at 1:57 pm
Sam, I know this is going to sound a bit unfair but…I know more about the USSR and Communism than you. So we’re not going to debate that.
When I said “child logic” I was referring to your claim that there’s enough work for those who want it and that people can move to other states to find work. The whole concept of unemployment means that there are more people seeking jobs than jobs being offered, and unemployment is an inherent feature of capitalism.
on May 28th, 2013 at 5:46 pm
Actually Erika, not to detract from the merits of your discourse, which are a-plenty, when the Republicans do end up in Jack Chick’s lake of fire, with demons going Haw! Haw! Haw! and stuff, I don’t think they’ll say that. I think they’ll say, “We’ll fillibuster!”
on May 28th, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Sorry, I cannot resist…
Since we ARE talking about the Tea Party. Did anyone else see this billboard in the news with a tea kettle that seems to be causing so much fuhrer…
I mean furor?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....enney.html
on May 29th, 2013 at 9:56 am
Looks like somebody was finally paying attention.
“Is it racist to be proud of your own heritage? Is it racist to want to keep your own heritage pure?” Garcia-Quintana said in an interview with The State newspaper. According to Garcia-Quintana, who is Cuban-American, “racist is when you hate somebody so much that you want to destroy them.”
His comments were made two days before Haley’s campaign formally cut ties with the conservative activist on Sunday, writing in a statement that, “we were previously unaware of some of the statements [Garcia-Quintana] had made, statements which do not well represent the views of the Governor.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....47974.html
on May 30th, 2013 at 4:35 am
to really symbolize what right wing policies would do to this country in bringing a Hell on earth, in the “Lake of Fire” scene there should be recognizable buildings in the background to be the Republican Utopia. Washington, DC would be an obvious choice due to easily recognizable buildings but i’m pretty sure that it would be under water due to the melting of the polar caps if the Republicans ultimately got their way. Plus it really needs to be some conservative area (maybe you can show the Marietta Big Chicken but an actual Lake of Fire could actually be considered an improvement over Cobb County, Georgia due to it being much cooler in summer – and one wonders if the Big Chicken is sufficiently well known outside of Cobb County (obviously one could use Atlanta which does have some fairly recognizable buildings but since i seem to remember from going to Sunday School in Marietta being told that Atlanta was a modern version of Sodom and Gomorrah the right wingers might miss the point) – there is always Orange County, California the home of a very large number of right wing types including i believe Jack T. Chick – of course, again i think they’d be under water due to the melting of the polar ice caps. i don’t want to have my parody suffer from bad science ;)
Are there any buildings in Kansas that people would actually recognize???
on May 30th, 2013 at 5:11 am
sam, honey, where exactly in the Bible does it actually promote “free will”??? In fact, it seems directly contradictory to the line “Thy will be done” from the Lord’s Prayer – and the fact that Christians are supposed to follow God’s calling to them and follow Jesus rather than their own wants. It also seems at least a bit contradictory to the passages in the New Testament which state that people will be judged by their works in following the teachings of Christ, the fact that those teachings state that Christians must take care of others, the strong condemnation of greed and wealth, and the calls for sacrificial giving.
In fact, the New Testament does strongly suggest an economic system – often called socialism, but more properly collectivism – that is why historically you have had lots of Christian “Socialist” (really collectivist in that everyone was collectively working for the common good of their community and that land/capital goods were collectively owned/used for the common but there was personal property) settlements such as the Amana Colonies in Iowa (although since the Amana Colonies started a manufacturing enterprize it would have been much closer to Socialism in that Socialism is really an industrial version of collectivism in that the company is owned by the workers and such a company would also be operated democratically).
So there are some realy problems there in that Christianity in its purest form (which is to say as taught in the Bible) is not an individualist religion but instead a religion that imposes a large burden upon its followers and a Christian society to care for others.
The myth that the U.S. is a Christian Nation thus collaspes very quickly when one realizes that many of the same people who promote it also promote the myth of the U.S. of a nation of “rugged individualists” – never mind that a “rugged individualist” is completely incapatable with the teachings of the Bible. Unless, of course, you remove the teachings that Christians are judged by their works to help others (as many Fundamentalist Christians do – also seen in many of the churches (especially suburban Megachurches) which follow “Prosperity Theology” which basically tells their wealthy followers that God wants you to be rich – this type of “theology” has been parodied (first by Al Franken, i believe) as “Supply Side Jesus” or “Free Market Jesus” – it is needless to say a complete abomination and massive distortion of Christianity).
BTW, isn’t it much more notable that at the time of the Founding Fathers that there was a strong notion of collectiveness such as “public greens” and the militias also represented collectivism (or as it is so often known even though its not exactly the same thing Socialism). So based upon the modern conflation of Socialism with any sort of collective action, i think its safe to say that the Second Amendment was like totally Socialist ;)
on May 30th, 2013 at 2:02 pm
What Erika said.
on May 30th, 2013 at 3:57 pm
sam, what is this Adbusters you are talking about? My understanding is that it is some sort of magazine or something, but i’ve never really heard ol it let alone read it. Personally, when i had reason to care about economic news and business news (when i was working for one of the world’s largest law firms) i read the Wall Street Journal and the Journal of Commerce which are hardly left wing sources
and i was still a Socialist :)
on May 30th, 2013 at 8:45 pm
Erika, thank God for Fox’s isolated voice of reason in a morass of Collectivist propaganda.
Well, that explains a lot.
on May 31st, 2013 at 5:51 am
General questions now – why do right wingers always seem to assume that left wingers must be blindly parrotting something they read??? what does that tell us about how right wingers get their ideas??? do right wingers simply fail to understand the concept of thought and that people can receive information and analyze it on their own and therefore do not need some one to tell them what to think??? when did blind obedience become the primary defining trait of conservatives???
on May 31st, 2013 at 10:58 am
Erika, humans were given free will from Genesis. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are based on the premise that our freedoms, free will in other words, do not come from Government like in England but directly from God. It is up to the G to protect those rights. Admittedly they did not have multinational corporations but they did have the Church to compete with. And the Militia in the Second Amendment was as much a responsibility as a right, so the crime and hooliganism found in Dickens’ London would not ruin our cities.
on May 31st, 2013 at 2:55 pm
Brock,
While ‘tis true Puritanism was not the only influence upon American political and social history, you provide ample evidence that if anyone does not by now consider you an alarmist, there is every reason to do so.
Predestination and the denial of free will was not only a component of most Protestant sects present in the North American colonies leading up to our Founding, but the very idea of rule by consent of the governed was intrinsic to a belief in the omnipotent will of God.
This included not just Puritans, but Anglicans, Lutherans, and various others in all the colonies, all of whom shared a belief (the Puritans only for themselves, or course) that there should be a right to religious freedom at the same time as they believed that God, specifically the Christian god, pulled the strings of the entire universe, called all the shots, and basically had the whole thing rigged from the get go. Try as you like, with a creator God, there can be no free will.
Now please do run along, child, and crack a book.
on May 31st, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Sam, have you actually bothered to you know actually read The Bible??? Because according to Genesis the ability of humans to know right from wrong was far from being given by God was instead “The Origiinal Sin” when Eve ate the apple from the Tree of Life that was given to her by that evil snake who was known to his friends as Lou Siffer. That is to say that according to the Bible people have the “free will” solely due to rebelling against God and with this free will they can either follow God’s will and have your name listed in the Book or Life or be cast into the Lake of Fire? ;)
Yes, i’ve read Chick Tracts too, HAW HAW HAW :P
on May 31st, 2013 at 4:43 pm
And you do realize that Charles Dickens lived several decades after the American Revolution, right? And that London was much larger and more industrialized than any contemporary American city?
The Second Amendment is really there to protect slave owners – people try to deny it, but the history doesn’t lie – the “militias” that were protected were the slave patrols in the South.
on May 31st, 2013 at 4:49 pm
the life of the Christian Libertarian must be very difficult – how does one’s brain not explode from the cognative dissodence when devoted to two mutually contradictory ideologies??? :)
Christianity is based upon sacrifise and giving to others. Libertarianism is an ideology of selfishness, self interest, and greed (or what Christians should recognize as the root of all evil).
on June 1st, 2013 at 1:26 am
Sam, the God of the bible never gives humans free will. Hell he KILLS Onan for pulling out. He kills his entire creation because they were “wicked,” yet the flood happens long before God even tells humans what to do(the commandments and the law of the Torah).
on June 1st, 2013 at 8:03 pm
Erika, Adbusters is a magazine from Vancouver BC that had a tradition of anti Consumerism ( pointing out that we are subjected to over 3,500 commercial messages every day) and the aforementioned Accurate Paradigms of economic theory regarding loss and gain as opposed to the economics fantasies taught in our Universities. The wisdom of the planned urban environment surrounded by farms instead of suburban sprawl, as described in the misunderstood Agenda 21 suggestions. That the actual cost of the useless crap that we are compelled to buy like some kind of narcotic is much higher than the barcode would indicate due to environmental impacts and psychological damage. So far, fine…
Then they got deeply involved in the totally ineffective and self stroking Occupy movement, the proactive destruction of the entire Capitalist system – and became rabidly anti Israel to boot. So I let my subscription expire.
It can be found in fine book stores for about nine bucks per issue, ( they do not accept advertising).
on June 3rd, 2013 at 10:01 am
Erika, the Militia aspect of the Second Amendment had the intention of good people stopping crime. This does actually happen today, but nearly all cases escape the media’s attention. This is less a vast antigun conspiracy than a responsible discouragement of rampant vigilantism. Some of the cases can be found on the NRA website every month under the heading “Armed Citizen”. It can be assumed that many cases go unreported.
on June 4th, 2013 at 9:27 am
Sam,
I don’t agree on militias and crime. The issue in the 18th Century was one of several centuries: standing armies were expensive and dangerous to have around in peacetime because they didn’t produce anything and ended up being a menace.
Militia armies were a concept (which if I am not mistaken, came from England though I’ll have to owe you the exact source) much ridiculed by traditionalists but a useful innovation because they could produce and work normally in times of peace, but be called up on reasonably short notice. Firearms of the day didn’t require much training and any farmer could be bullied into a firing line. A well regulated militia was a step up from a mob or conscript army because they had some discipline, training and order, but a step down from a professional army in so far as they were not full time soldiers. But as they were cheaper and less of a menace to civilians still bitter in their memories of British soldiers, it was a smart compromise.
So when we talk about a militia in the Constitution it is important to consider what that really was — a way to avoid having standing armies on U.S. soil, which were known to be problematic in times of peace. So, that is why we have the concept of a well regulated militia, not to fight crime.
on June 4th, 2013 at 12:11 pm
Aadilia, it is concievable that both of these purposes were why that is worded that way. The concept of blue suited Police departments were still several decades away. It has been said by many historians that during America’s “wild west” period, New York City was actually more wild and dangerous than the worst mining towns like Leadville and the always moving “Hell on Wheels” settlement that followed the building of the Transcontinental railroad.
on June 4th, 2013 at 2:16 pm
*eyes roll* because the NRA is such a creditible source.
The Second Amendment has absolutely zero to do with crime (unless you want to somehow claim that the state militia slave patrols had that purpose and even less to do with an individual right. To try to pretend that it does mangles both language and history.
on June 5th, 2013 at 9:50 am
Sam,
You might want to read about the English bill of rights in 1688 which was a reaction to the standing armies of previous reigns and the desire by free thinkers and protestants to be collectively free from persecution in England (which was very much tied in to the colonization of North America by religious dissidents who had bitter memories of persecution).
I don’t think the right to bear arms can be divorced from self defense, but it was not the primary motive for establishing the 2nd Amendment. The Constitution was concerned with an institutional framework whereby the nation could defend itself at the same time as the life and liberty of citizens could be protected from the armies established to defend its soil.
Therefore it appears to be an incredibly obtuse distortion when looking at the historical context to suggest that only self defense was the issue. Furthermore, the free wheeling trade in arms without restrictions was certainly not the intent of the 2nd Amendment. It was intended to provide ample liberty for owning weapons but not anarchy or complete laissez faire.
In other words it was a compromise between public safety and the right of personal self defense. To go to one extreme or another — either banning weapons outright or removing all restrictions on their ownership and use — is equally a distortion of American founding principles. Reasonable limits on the right to bear arms are perfectly in line with founding principles.
on June 5th, 2013 at 5:28 pm
IMHO, the purpose of the Second Amendment is explained in its first thirteen words, the clause skipped by folks like Sam who focus on the last fourteen words.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State… not to fight crime, not to protect individually enumerated rights. To protect the security of the State. And be well regulated.
As I’ve said before, I am a veteran and I own guns but I do not believe that the framers would have shared the same interpretation of this Amendment as currently espoused by the NRA.
My $0.02.
on June 6th, 2013 at 3:35 pm
Sam, self defense or defense of others as a defense to criminal or tort liability was recognized for centuries before the Bill of Rights – it was a right so established at Common Law that it would not merit inclusion in the Bill of Rights because it would be a matter of state law. The Second Amendment is the only clause in the Bill of Rights which makes its purpose explicit. It is not to promote self defense
(ironically considering that many people who push it are right wingers who pretend to support state rights saying that the Second Amendment protects it kind of tramples upon state’s abilities to set their own criminal laws – not that a bill to abolish the defense of self defense would likely pass a state legislature, but the thought that the Founding Fathers would put Constitutional dimensions on the federal level to a well established Common Law defense for matters normally within the reserved powers of the States (setting criminal law and civil (tort) law is a reserved power of the state unless specifically involving one of the enumerated powers) is rather incredible and downright silly)
on June 7th, 2013 at 9:39 am
Erika, forgive the quibble but I seek to be informed. My readings suggest that throughout much of English history killing was always a crime, but could be pardoned in the case of self defense.
This goes back to the precursors of constituted English society, the Anglo Saxons (Peace, Hays Council!) who required payment of bloodwealth to the families of those slain, generally in between various clans. These Anglo Saxon terms for restitution made it into English code after the Norman Conquest of 1066, suggesting that killing was always a capital offense but pardonable under common law. My understanding is when self defense was inscribed in written laws, it was intended to protect the Normans from Saxon vigilantes, and did not apply generally to everyone.
So, I would suggest that while self defense appears to be a natural right intiutively, killing was the right of kings, not of ordinary subjects. Military service was an extension of the power of sovereigns through divine right (natural law), so the bearing of arms was not an a priori affirmation of the right of self defense, but rather the right to behave above the common law in the name of the sovereign.
Thus, my lay interpretation of legal history in this complicated issue is that self defense was a universtally accepted positive defense against charges of murder, but not in and of itself a right, since killing was always a criminal act even in self defense until pardoned (either through restitution or through clemency). At least that is how I understand it, and I welcome informed critiques to the contrary.
on June 10th, 2013 at 6:43 am
aadila, according to the most readily available reference that i had laying around (my Torts casebook from law school) the defense of self defense is a very old doctrine which predates the formation of England by centuries – it was present in Roman law and may well have been present in earlier law codes such as the Ancient Hebrew law code recorded in the Bible or the Hammarabi’s Code which the Ancient Hebrew legal code was largely based upon. It would have been present in Colonial Law having been recorded in treatises such as Blackstone’s on law – and in a Common Law (as opposed to Civil Law system) likely was never formerly recorded).
Once Common Law developed (and remember that there are recorded English cases going back to at least 1100- 1200 C.E.), self defense would have been a defense to the charge raised before the court. i’m no expert on the English legal system history, so i’m not sure exactly when commoners in England received the right to a trial (may have been the English Bill of Rights) so these early cases may have only involved cases where a noble was a defendant. Thus the defendant would have to plead to self defense and the judge (or later jury) would rule whether the defendant was guilty or whether the provokation was adequate to justify the violence. As time went on and the notion of “lesser punishments” arose (remember that intitially any felony would be punished by death) the legal doctrine of imperfect self defense arose – in imperfect self defense the defendant would be justified to use force in self defense, but used too much force. In those cases, the murder charge would be reduced to manslaughter.
The self defense doctrine to my knowledge has remained pretty constant for centuries – it has always been a “risky” move in that whether there was “perfect self defense,” “imperfect self defense,” or “no self defense” was always a matter for the fact finder (the judge and/or jury) to find. Needless to say that historically self defense claims were not likely to be found when raised by members of certain disfavored groups especially when the victim was a member of the favored group.