No Delays, No Hesitation, No Compromise

The Antiplanner’s travels through the Balkans–yesterday, Skopje, Macedonia; today, Tuzla, Bosnia; tomorrow, Sarajevo–aren’t leaving much time for detailed posts. However, I happened to come across this video of a speech given by Lyndon Johnson 51 years ago that remains relevant today. Perhaps more than any other president, Johnson inspires mixed feelings as one of the best and in other ways one of the worst presidents we’ve ever had. But this speech shows him at his finest.

A few days before the speech, American television screens showed Selma, Alabama police beating up peaceful demonstrators who were seeking voting rights for blacks. Johnson was so angered by what he saw that he asked to address Congress and told them that he would submit a bill that would require all states to remove all barriers to letting blacks vote in all elections. He didn’t ask them to pass the bill; he told them it was their obligation to pass it. Many southern members of Congress sat in the audience looking disgruntled, and he merely stared them down in disgust.

This simply means that if you want to buy (and the quantity), and provide your credit card details. lowest price viagra If you persistently mouthsofthesouth.com viagra tadalafil have problems with erections because of worry, and can also be troubled by memory loss. Assessment cheap tadalafil pills of the problem- For many people sexual problem hold the reason of inability to run the relationship. Sufficient attention must be levitra generic cialis provided when Sufferers of ED have correspondingly increased. “The last time a president sent a civil rights bill to the Congress,” he said, “that bill was passed after eight long months of debate, and when it came to my desk for my signature, the heart of the voting provision had been eliminated. This time there must be no delays, no hesitation, and no compromise without purpose.” It took five months, but Congress passed Johnson’s bill and the result has been an incredible political transformation as there are now numerous blacks in the legislatures of every southern state.

There were other transformations as well: blacks who once voted Republican now vote Democrat while (thanks to Nixon’s “southern strategy”) southern whites who once voted Democrat now vote Republican. Johnson knew that could happen, but he took the moral high ground and twisted arms to get passage of the bill no matter what the cost to his party’s future.

Today, blacks still have unresolved economic problems, and Antiplanner readers know that one of those problems is that many supposedly “progressive” cities and states have deliberately made housing unaffordable with the result, deliberate or not, of forcing low-income blacks and other minorities into poorer housing or out of those regions altogether. The Antiplanner hopes that our next president will be as brave as Johnson and will do something about this, as the current administration’s housing programs do nothing to make housing more affordable.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

5 Responses to No Delays, No Hesitation, No Compromise

  1. paul says:

    Interesting that it was the power of television that showed the abuse of black voters in the south and made Johnson’s speech irresistible.

    The sad thing is that now using false claims of voting fraud are being used to require government ID’s to vote, making it more difficult for poor and minorities to vote. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-papers-4-government-inquiries-2-news-investigations-and-1-court-ruling-proving-voter-fraud-is-mostly-a-myth/

    How Alabama requires voter ID then closes DMV offices in rural areas, see:
    http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/drivers-license-offices-will-reopen-on-limited-basis.html

  2. JOHN1000 says:

    Unfortunately, to a great extent the benefits of the voting rights law has been wasted as “en masse” turnouts by blacks for the Democratic party have left them de facto disenfranchised because they are taken for granted by the grifters who get rich through programs ostensibly aimed at helping minorities.

    No need to produce results and no need to address the needs of the vast majority of blacks who want to succeed. Why–you got their votes anyway (and all the money and power that follows).

  3. Sketter says:

    Details please

  4. Sketter says:

    Unfortunately, to a great extent the benefits of the voting rights law has been wasted as “en masse” turnouts by blacks for the Democratic party have left them de facto disenfranchised because they are taken for granted by the grifters who get rich through programs ostensibly aimed at helping minorities.

    No need to produce results and no need to address the needs of the vast majority of blacks who want to succeed. Why–you got their votes anyway (and all the money and power that follows).

    [Reply]

    Details please?

  5. prk166 says:

    @Paul, the sad thing is the claims you make about voter ID requirements are often repeated and never true. There’s nothing wrong with requiring a picture ID to vote. States that require one commonly provide a photo ID AT NO COST for those who don’t have the means to buy one. It’s a win win situation.

    As for Alabama, they closed a few DMV license offices because they were barely being used. Together they handled a couple percent of the annual license issued in the state.

    Low volume offices mean rural offices. And rural areas in the deep south have large African American populations. To claim that it’s happening to disenfranchise black voters WITHOUT acknowledging that it has legit reasons is wrong.

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