[alexamenos]

At least two counts where SeanL goes horribly, horribly wrong....

1. That the Civil Rights Amendment was the greatest thing in the history of ever, and without it we'd all be horrible horrible raciss segregators.

Here's a quick little test in consideration of whether de facto segregation is the norm--see if you can spot 8-mile road (the highway between urban Detroit and suburbs north of Detroit) on this map. (Hint: The red dots are where the white people live, the blue dots are where the black people live.)

The whole reason behind the CRA is because even if you repeal Jim Crow laws you could still have de facto segregation.

The thing is....we still have de facto segregation. If you think maybe it was unfair of me to pick Detroit as an example, let's look at nice progressive towns like Austin or Seattle. Austin is pretty clear, white people to the west and dark people to the east. Seattle hardly has any black people and it looks like they all live in the same very small neighborhood--they must really hate black people there.

But I suppose the CRA must have some very tangible benefits for black folks, like when it comes to getting a job...hmmm...googling, googling...whoops

Since the 1940s, the jobless rate for blacks in America has held remarkably, if grimly, steady at twice the rate for whites.

Since the '40s? Doesn't seem like the CRA helped much in that regard.

Maybe I should look at the incarceration rates for blacks v whites??? Or...maybe not, I'll leave it to Sparky to show how much the CRA helped the black man in this regard.

Point being, human nature is a remarkably immaleable thing, and humans have long had a propensity for hanging with people who talk, think, and look like themselves.

2. The act of voting in Federal Elections is a mystical ritual which lifts people into higher states of consciousness.

Lest I be accused of a setting up a strawman, I should probably allow that Sparky just doesn't know what the heck he's talking about when he refers to "State's Rights", but let's assume he does:

the policies he [Paul] supports - extreme state's rights conservatism (not libertarianism) - logical conclusion would be the oppression of millions of Americans.

Extreme State's Rights Conservatism [ESRC] basically means that the State governments are sovereign and the Federal government is the weaker subsidiary.

With this understanding of ESRC, consider the implication of Sparky's statement....

NY (19mm souls), Texas (26mm souls) and California (36mm souls) -- According to Sparky, if the people of NY, Texas, and California each have their own sovereign State governments, then *logically* we must conclude that this will lead to the oppression of millions. Also, by implication, if those exact same 19+26+36mm people are voting for a Federal sovereign rather than a State sovereign, then everything is going to be just dandy.

Thus are 81mm people lifted into a racially transcendant consciousness by voting in federal elections. Logic!