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Tancredo, Tea Partiers, and Jim Crow: Birds of a Feather

Directly from the Department of “You couldn’t make this up if you tried”:

Speaking to the Tea Party Convention in Nashville today, US Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) officially stated his love for all things segregationist and racist when during his speech he said:

“And then, something really odd happened, mostly because I think that we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country. People who could not even spell the word “vote,” or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House, name is Barack Hussein Obama.”
- Link 1, Link 2

In addition, he also slammed Sen. John McCain, saying “Thank God John McCain lost the election.”

All that’s missing is a loop of George Wallace saying:

Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.

When reached for comment, Tea Party Convention organizer Judson Phillips defended Tancredo’s comments.

Updated: February 5, 2010 at 3:16 pm
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  • mickey

    I heard a blip about this on the news but didn’t catch the story till I read this.

    Anyways, is this really being considered racist? Kind of a reach, wouldn’t you say? I’m fairly certain if a liberal Congressman had said the exact same comment 2 yrs ago, he would have positioned himself as a front runner to replace Bush. Think about it.

    Hell, some buddies of mine used a rope and noose to drag a deer out of the woods last week, but no one’s calling them racist for it. And its the exact same thing.

    I think your own words to me once were something along the lines of “the country’s largest voting block is Dumb Masses”.

    With that said, why would it be so bad to have some sort of test to allow voting? I know it’ll never happen because that’s just not how this country works. Shoot, you can vote in some districts without an ID nowadays. But really, why would it be so bad to have a test? Even a really simple one….How many sitting senators in the Senate? Who is vice president of the US? How many justices on the Supreme Court? Really, thats all it would take in my opinion are simple questions such as those.

    Is it because we all know that both major parties LOVE a bunch of idiots running around the country? Is there some hidden fear that maybe conservatives, in general, are a little more aware of how government works and how it should work? Or maybe there is a fear of admitting that, whether the Jim Crow law was wrong or not, that it was indeed effective in achieving its goal and would still be effective today?

    Again, I know that it will never happen. Its not even a battle worth fighting. But it certainly wouldnt be a bad idea IMO (a voting test).

    • http://homebrewedtheology.com Christian

      Mickey,

      Coming from Tancredo, talk about literacy tests and “voted in by people who can’t spell vote or say it in English” is his nascent racism showing through. Where he stands, who he associates with, what he says…… to believe otherwise is to be, in the words of Meghan McCain, “smoking something”.

      Yes, there are a ton of stupid people out there, and yes, they do vote. Does it frighten me? Yep. Would I change it? Nah, don’t think so. Part of living in the country and enjoying the freedom we enjoy is understanding that the Dumb Masses will get out and vote whatever way they are told.

      As far as the test, here in AZ, the Goldwater Institute surveyed AZ High School students and how they would do on the US Citizenship test. Only 3.5% got more than 6 out of 10 correct. While, in theory, the test idea sounds good, I think the rampant ignorance inherent in the voting bloc is the symptom of a much larger problem. It’s a problem of education, of a country that prefers tabloid journalism over real issues, of a public that wants their opinions given to them in 30 second soundbytes, of a media that acquiesces to this demographic, and a general lack of intellectual curiosity. In essence, people are more interested in Brangelina than in what their government is doing.

      It makes me sad, really. It’s also why I’ve tried to stay out of politics as much as I can, because “teh stupid……it burns!”

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