One For the Road

Here's my last rant on the recent death of Robert "the conscience of the Senate" Byrd and all the fawning over the ex-Klansman which ensued.

Andrew Sullivan's comments caught my eye:

Speak no ill of the dead? Well, let me simply say that the racist, populist, larcenous bigot of a Senator - a man who robbed the American tax-payer to pave his state with baubles and bribes - is not going to be much mourned in these parts.

And John Howting's piece in Human Events sums up my frustration quite succinctly:

Good Riddance, Robert Byrd

Filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Act for over 14 hours straight. To this day, the American left vilifies Sen. Barry Goldwater for voting against this legislation but where is criticism of Byrd? Goldwater had a strong pro-civil rights record coming out of the 1950s that included voting for civil rights legislation and working with the Arizona NAACP to desegregate Arizona’s public schools. Goldwater voted against the 1964 Act only because he believed that Title II was not within Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce and was also an abridgement of the 10th Amendment.

Robert Byrd did not have the same civil rights record, far from it he was a Klansman. And, Byrd was never able to make a legitimate argument that he rejected the 1964 Act on constitutional grounds alone because while he filibustered the bill he quoted The Mind of Primitive Man by Frank Boaz. He cited Boaz’s study which concluded that the white man’s brain weighed more than the black man’s brain and therefore the white man is smarter. He also insisted that the writers of the Declaration of Independence did not intend for their words to be taken literally because they must have understood that all men are not created equal ...that the darker man is clearly inferior.