Whose Rights? Our Rights! Jackson Family Values, Part II

By Nicholas Stix

November 14, 2000
Toogood Reports
[Part I: Jesse Jackson on How to Steal a Presidential Election, and Live Happily Ever After;

Part III: “Gettin’ Paid”; and

Part IV: “A Chip Off the Old Block.”]
 

As Jesse Jackson reportedly said at a November 8 press conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, “Citizens were disenfranchised; the full weight of Florida law and the Voting Rights Act should come to bear in this matter. This is critical to our national interests ... This undermines the integrity of our democracy.”

The relevant code-word used by the Rev. Jackson was “the Voting Rights Act.” Initially passed by Congress in 1965 with the noble purpose of preventing blacks from being disenfranchised via various ruses then popular in the South, including selectively-enforced poll taxes and literacy tests, the Voting Rights Act has since been perverted by the Justice Department—more under white Republicans than Democrats of any color—to rig elections.

The feds’ preferred method of election-rigging has been to racially gerrymander districts so that they are “majority-minority,” meaning as close as possible to “Weissen-rein” (white-free), so as to guarantee the election of a black or Hispanic candidate. A more “honest” way to rig an election would be to simply cancel it, and appoint an “elected” official.

The desperate search for pockets of black and Hispanic voters that this form of racial fixing took, resulted in congressional districts so oddly shaped, that even the Supreme Court threw out some of them a few years ago.

According to cheerleader/reporter Marion Dozier of Florida’s Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspaper, Jackson and other black leaders’ “rejection of the balloting in Tuesday’s presidential election was fueled by a larger concern: The future of the Republic itself.”

Translated from Jacksonese into English, “Voting Rights Act” means, ‘If we win, we win, and if we lose ... we win.’ ‘We’ means blacks, not the Republic.

Indeed, another great republican, Prof. Lani Guinier, an unsuccessful Clinton candidate for Justice Department quota queen (aka head of the “Civil Rights Division,” a post presently illegally held by Bill Lann Lee), has long proposed a Jackson-style gutting of the American political system, such that blacks would receive a “veto right.” This would amount to a racial dictatorship with legalistic trappings.

Another of Jesse Jackson’s criticisms was of the “butterfly ballot” used in the state of Florida.

According to various Gore demonstrators and Jackson, this ballot supposedly caused voters supporting Al Gore to vote twice—once for Gore, and once for Pat Buchanan. Because they voted for two competing candidates for the same office, their votes were disqualified. The demonstrators are demanding the chance to vote again.

The ballot, by the way, was chosen by the state’s Democratic supervisor of elections, Theresa LePore, based on its being easier to read for Florida’s many elderly voters. It had received the blessings of the state Democratic and Republican parties; was used in the 1996 election without any lawsuits demanding a revote (the Gore demonstrators’ man won that time around); and before the 2000 election was published in newspapers, mailed to all voters, and available for study at every polling place before voting. Confused voters could also ask poll workers for help. I happen to think that many of the Florida Gore supporters are lying, and voted for Gore already, but only once. They want to be able to vote for him a second time, in order to get the election “right.” On the other hand, my Mom, a Gore supporter, believes the Gore demonstrators really did vote for Al Gore AND Pat Buchanan for President.

As Jay Leno quipped on The Tonight Show, “People used to be ashamed to be stupid.”

But according to Stanford University professor of public interest law, and former NAACP legal counsel, Pamela Karlan, voters are entitled to be as dumb as they wanna be. Appearing on Ted Koppel’s ABC-TV show, Nightline, on November 10, Karlan opined, “We don’t assume an intelligent, literate voter.”

Translation: Voters have a right to keep on voting, until the Democrat wins. One of Prof. Karlan’s specialties is “legal regulation of the political process,” a euphemism for “the theory and practice of racial vote-rigging.”

Conversely, as Bush campaign chairman, Don Evans, had pointed out on Nightline on November 9, “This is the ballot that the good people of Florida chose, they’ve been used before, they’ve been used across the land.”

And as Bush campaign strategist Karl Rove observed on the same show, “In this country we hold elections for the purpose of electing a President. We don’t continue to hold elections until we get the outcome some people like.”

But is Rove right?

Prof. Karlan would surely disagree. Besides, if a white policeman charged with brutalizing a black man is acquitted in state court, blacks demand and get a second crack at him—the double jeopardy of a political, “federal civil rights trial.” Think Rodney King.

And if black police officers fail the sergeant’s exam, as happened in New York City, they still get awarded the promotion.

By the same token, if black students fail to get the necessary grades or examination scores required by “highly competitive” universities, they get admitted anyway.

So why should a presidential election be any different?