Why I left the Paleo-Conservatives or Old Right: Exhibit R for Racism

Our latest installment comes from none other than Chuck Baldwin. Who was the Constitution Party‘s Candidate for President of the United States in 2008.

In Chuck Baldwin’s latest Paleo-Conservative propaganda missive named “DATES THAT DESTROYED AMERICA” he writes:

July 9, 1868

This is the date when the 14th Amendment was ratified. This amendment codified into law what Lincoln had forced at bayonet point. Until then, people were only deemed citizens of their respective states. The Constitution nowhere referred to people as “US citizens.” It only recognized “the Citizens of each State.” Notice also that citizenship was only recognized among the “several States,” not among people living in non-State territories. Until the 14th Amendment, people were “Citizens of each State.” (Article. IV. Section. 2. Paragraph. 1.) The 14th Amendment created a whole new class of persons: “citizens of the United States.” This false notion of “one nation” overturned the Jeffersonian principle that our nation was a confederated republic, a voluntary union of states.

Notice how he craftily he words that?

This is what actually the 14’th amendment was for: (Source Wikipedia)

The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868 as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.

Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States.

Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons (individual and corporate) of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken. This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive rights and procedural rights.

Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause later became the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision which precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in the United States.

The amendment also includes a number of clauses dealing with the Confederacy and its officials.

This is why that I happen to believe that Chuck Baldwin, nor anyone else of the “Old Right” in the Country have ANY business being selected to be the President of the United States of America. Anyone that opposes the 14’th amendment to the United States Constitution is nothing more than a racist bigot. Whether nuanced or blatant, racism as absolutely NO PLACE in the dialog of politics at all. This is why I do not support this man, this is why I do not support Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan; because this sort of idiotic nonsense is nothing more than racist bigotry.  As for their legal argument, it is nothing more than constitutional double speak for the feeling that blacks were inferior to whites and did not deserve to be counted among everyone as citizens.

As far as I am concerned, as a Born-Again Christian, as feeble about that as I might be; I just cannot for the life of me, understand how anyone could hold to such a belief system as that, and call themselves a follower of Jesus Christ.

This, along with a few other very good reasons, is why I decided that the Paleo-Conservative circles were not for me. I want to be on the side that views ALL Americans; Black, Jewish, Hispanic, White as ALL equal Americans. That, my friends, is what TRUE Conservatism is about; and not that hate-mongering nonsense of the “Old Right”, which is why William F. Buckley went after well known Paleo-Conservative group named the John Birch Society in 1962. This basically ended their influence within the Republican Party.

However, to be fair to the Birch group, they did actually do a huge purge of people that were ID’ed as racists and members of the Klu Klux Klan. This took place in the 1970’s. Many people believe that Buckley’s attacking of the Birch Society was because of his being a “Neo-Con”, but actually it was because of the nonsensical conspiracy theories that were then touted by it’s founder Robert Welch. Also it should be noted that the Society does not promote and usually goes terribly out of it’s way to disprove these silly theories. I will also note, my beef is not with the actual Society itself, the John Birch Society was one of ardent fighters against the uprising of communism in America, after World War II. For that I am very grateful. Further more, I have nothing but respect for the man, of whom the society is named after; John Birch.

In Closing: While the some of the elements of Paleo-Conservative, such as the fiscal aspects of it might be noble; it is the racist and antisemitic undertones that do truly turn me off.  Which is why I distanced and do continue to distance myself from them.