Randy from Pennsylvania Shucks and Jives About the NRA and the Republican Party

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Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Audio and Transcript – To say this is something that comes from the South and that’s what, by definition, makes it racist is ridiculous.  The abolition leagues were filled with racists that wanted to export all African-Americans from whence they had come.  Look it up.  As a matter of fact, you can read the writings and the general minutes of the Anti-Slavery League meetings from the 1830’s and see this.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

http://youtu.be/-XQ6GNIoSzQ

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Randy in Pennsylvania, it’s all yours.  How are you doing?  You’re first up today.

Caller Randy:  I just wanted to cover this claim of “shucking and jiving” being a racist comment.  I’m about tired of every time someone gives out a colloquialism or slang that there’s some group of people claiming that’s racism.  Shucking and jiving is nothing more than someone pulling a fast one on you.  It’s southern slang, just as the word lazy is not racist.  I’ve been called lazy.  I’m a white man from the South.  I live in Pennsylvania now.  I’ve heard people up here called lazy.  It has nothing to do with the color of your skin.  All these people out there claiming racism, if they want racism to stop, stop claiming racism on every turn to make yourself some headway in the newspapers and headlines.  It’s ridiculous.

Mike:  Yeah, but when you combine lazy and shiftless, according to General Powell, that is what is racist.

Caller Randy:  Again, have you been called shiftless before?  I know I have.  That doesn’t tell me it’s a color thing.  There are plenty of white people, black people, yellow people, red people out there that have been called shiftless.  It is not a racist comment; it’s a comment about the way you are as a person, not the color of your skin.  That’s where people need to stop drawing the line on the racism comments.  It’s not a comment about the color of your skin; it’s a comment about the way you act as a person, two totally different things.

AG:  Randy, do you know where the term “shuck and jive” comes from?

Caller Randy:  I absolutely do.  I’m from the South.

AG:  From where?  The first recorded instance of it is 1884 in Harper’s Magazine.  It’s a lyric in a poem that describes slaves shucking corn.  It uses any number of derogatory terms, so the idea that it’s just a term…

Caller Randy:  Are you telling me then that a white man has never shucked corn?  You’re talking about a different time and place.  If you want to stop the talk about racism, quit bringing up 150 years ago.

AG:  So Sarah Palin should stop using that term?

Caller Randy:  Your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather made some mistakes, I admit that.  I shouldn’t have to pay for them still and neither should you.  How many times have we been told as kids growing up to turn the other cheek?  Nobody is turning the other cheek.  Everybody wants to point back to 150 years ago.  A lot of our men were killed in a war, fought over that entire subject.  Why can’t we let go?

AG:  Is it smart for Sarah Palin to be using terms from 150 years ago that were considered racist?

Caller Randy:  There are many terms that were —

AG:  Is that a yes or a no?

Caller Randy:  I’m answering the question.

AG:  Randy, yes or no, should she be using that term?

Caller Randy:  Yes, it was smart.  You know why?  She’s trying to speak to the common person the same way that President Obama has a very capable way of doing.  She was trying to reach out to the common man.  That’s why she used that slang term.  It had nothing to do with racism.

AG:  Randy, one last question.  If she uses that term, is there any appeal to the African-American community?  Does using that term at all mean African-Americans should look to the Republican Party as understanding of their history?

Caller Randy:  Why do we have to appeal to a certain community?  Why can’t we appeal to the American people?  That’s the problem.  We cater to too many of these small groups, these special interest groups that are trying to do things.  We don’t cater to the American people anymore.  That’s the problem.

AG:  Would you say the NRA is a special interest group with only four million members?

Caller Randy:  The NRA?

AG:  Four million members, special interest group, yet the Republican Party seems to appeal to them.

Caller Randy:  When you go nationwide, yes, that is a special interest group.  How many people are in the United States today?

AG: 330 million or so.

Mike:  311 million.

Caller Randy:  So four million is what percentage of that, a little over one?  I consider that a special interest group.

AG:  So then aren’t the Republicans just as guilty of doing what you say they shouldn’t if they’re appealing to a special interest group like the NRA?

Caller Randy:  How are they appealing to the NRA?

AG:  You don’t think that any of the Republican policies appeal directly to the NRA?

Caller Randy:  No, I feel the Republican policies appeal to the Constitution where it states we have the right to bear arms.  Just because the NRA supports that same precedent doesn’t mean that the Republicans and NRA are in bed together.  That’s the problem.  You want to make some connections between the NRA and the Republicans all the time.  That’s not the case.

Mike:  It isn’t?  Are you serious?

Caller Randy:  I don’t believe the NRA and Republicans are in bed together.

Mike:  Are you serious?  Oh, come on!

Caller Randy:  I believe they have similar interests.

AG:  Come on, lobbying cash is a huge —

Mike:  Randy, you’re just being disingenuous now.  Sir, please.

Caller Randy:  They have similar interests.

Mike:  I have far more historical knowledge about what was going on in the 1870’s, 80’s and 90’s at the time that this poem was read that would tell me it was equally possible for that poem to have been popular and laughed about and used in a pejorative sense in a Yankee state as it would have been in a Southern state.  To say this is something that comes from the South and that’s what, by definition, makes it racist is ridiculous.  The abolition leagues were filled with racists that wanted to export all African-Americans from whence they had come.  Look it up.  As a matter of fact, you can read the writings and the general minutes of the Anti-Slavery League meetings from the 1830’s and see this.  I’m getting off the subject.

Yes, the NRA has basically become an adjunct, a functioning appendage of the Republican Party.  They’ve made a choice.  They’ve chosen to support a party just like those abortion rights groups have chosen to support the Democratic Party, just like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have chosen to support the Democratic Party.  There is no difference here.  Denying it just weakens your argument.  In today’s politics, this is how the game is played.  This is how sausage is made.  Sides are chosen, parties become parties for partisan purposes, and partisan purposes are almost always to enrich someone.

By the by, the briefs and the cases that have been started and supported by the NRA have made it possible now for a federal power grab over the firearms, if you really want to know the truth of the matter.  Remember when Professor Gutzman was on this show, author of James Madison and the Making of America, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, and much more?  When Gutzman was on this program the other day, he told the story about how the NRA asked him to write an amicus brief on one of these cases, I think it was the McDonald or Heller case, that was being used to incorporate the Second Amendment for us against the states, in this case against D.C. and against the City of Chicago.  Professor Gutzman said he wouldn’t do it.  They said: What, you don’t support the Second Amendment?  Gutzman said: I do, that’s why I’m not going to do it.  You’re trying to incorporate it.  You’re going to make it so that it’s a one-size-fits-all national policy.

I get more grief from this than anything else I have ever done in my life, including being the father of teenage girls, more grief for standing against the principle of incorporation.  As a matter of fact, I remain amused on many mornings just going through my email, being heckled, taunted, being called names, having my patriotism questioned whenever this subject comes up.  I can go back and write all manner of written commentary, back it up with historical source documentation, and it doesn’t matter.  [mocking] “We don’t care about that!”  Then I get letters from nitwits out there that want to smart off and go, [mocking] “No one has ever argued that whoever ratified the Second Amendment wanted to incorporate against the states, you loser.  What we’re talking about is that’s why they had the 14^th Amendment, so they could use the Bill of Rights against the states.”  That is not true either.

As a matter of fact, let’s just spend some time reading Raoul Berger’s Government by Judiciary.  Read the parts of the debates between Senator Howard of Michigan.  When the question came up on the floor, when another member in opposition to the 14^th Amendment, said: Shouldn’t we include something in here so that it is known that this will not apply the first eight amendments of the Constitution to be used against the states?  Howard and other proponents of the 14^th Amendment said it’s not necessary, that there’s no way anyone could ever imply that.  No way anyone could ever even imply that, the language of the 14^th was supposedly so crystal clear.  You see, again, history doesn’t matter.  When it’s inconvenient to your point of view, it’s irrelevant.  [mocking] “I didn’t mean that part of the founding history.”

End Mike Church Show Transcript