ESSEX, Vt. — Missed opportunities are common in life. Less common, however, is making a habit of missed opportunities some sort of virtue on the road to political expediency.
With that we enter the goings on in Selma, celebrating a civil rights victory in morally, constitutional-minded public dissent, and the unfortunate tragedy that Republicans, generally, have decided to skip the festivities, while those who seek to enlarge the power and scope of government, and it’s attendant intrusions, are there in force.
Seems rather ironic, no?
But not when you see this as a consistent problem with Republicans. Nor when it is observed how large and ubiquitous Republican’s myopia on the issue of race happens to be.
I myself am not one to chalk this up to Republicans being the surreptitious dark side of the force when it comes to race — made up of a secret cabal of Klu Klux Klan members with enough brio to cause Nazi brown shirts to bristle with admiration.
No.
I think it more the sentiment of invariable defeat. Blacks do not vote Republican, therefore nothing can be gained by attending Selma in force goes the attitude.
The short rebuttal: nothing ventured, nothing gained — and all that.
And the next time I hear Republicans with shocked open mouths and another major election defeat under their belts, lament, “How could we only get 10% of the black vote … we love blacks!” I know I will do a swan dive out the nearest open window. But more should, and can, be said; of a more serious nature, too.
It is this: those who favour the limited state as the express way to keep and preserve the individual’s liberty, his and her opportunity to approach life the way they see fit, honouring their neighbours same said liberties, ought to have seen a purpose, regardless of support or lack thereof, politically, to have attended Selma’s festivities; it’s anniversary, as the virtue of public dissent against oppressive and tyrannical government must be celebrated by a party that seeks to preserve and protect the Constitution of these United States.
In a word, Republicans are radically tone deaf when it comes to race. The Selma march in remembrance of constitutional defiance against oppressive government was — is — a perfect opportunity for those who believe in the limited state to seek an audience in order to express and communicate the importance of our constitutional clauses in protecting the pursuit of happiness, civil liberties, and freedom of choice of American citizens regardless of race, belief, or conscious.
Yet Republicans, brain-dead as usual, allowed statist Democrats a monopoly on remembering those who through virtuous public dissent of oppressive government, helped make America a more perfect union in the words of that greatest of Republicans, Abraham Lincoln…