A pompous lefty academic lectures Gov. Pat (and the rest of us)

Here in Moore County, the owners of our local thrice twice-weekly Peabody Award-winning, hallucination-inducing newspaper are the same bunch who perfected the concept of lefty media bias over decades at The Raleigh News & Observer.

This week, those peddlers of progressive propaganda offered up an op-ed from one of the more pompous residents of the faculty lounge at Duke University, informing us knuckle-draggers how clueless Gov. Pat is and how stupid we were for promoting him from mayor to governor:

Recently, Gov. Pat McCrory has characterized those who have protested against the General Assembly’s destruction of basic citizenship rights in North Carolina as “outsiders” who have conducted “unlawful demonstrations.” These demonstrations, he declared, should not be given “credence.”

But, sadly, it is the governor’s criticism that should not be given credence.

I do believe Gov. Pat was referring to the SEIU stormtroopers from NY and elsewhere who have been participating in the protests, as well as the NY-based PR team that is disseminating propaganda from the protesters to media throughout North Carolina.  But let’s not dwell on such *trivialities* :

At the least, it would be helpful if he would make himself more clear. First, virtually all those who have demonstrated — or been arrested — are longtime citizens of North Carolina, many having lived here the majority of their lives. It would be good to know what makes them “outsiders.”

Studies — like that done by Civitas –– show the protesters coming mostly from places like The Triangle, The Triad, Charlotte, and Asheville.  These are all places loaded with college campuses — and the usual menagerie of left-wing kooks.  These places were voting overwhelmingly against Amendment One in 2012 while the amendment was winning the state with 61 percent of the vote.  Thanks to the invasion of lefty academics, these communities have become outsiders — so different from, so far to the left of, the rest of the state.   The larger issue when discussing Moral Mondays is the large percentage of participants who have a track record of left-wing activism.  More: 

Second, it would be good to know who should have “credence.” A number of us wrote an op-ed piece recently that objected to how the actions of the North Carolina legislature — and the governor — were reversing the history that North Carolina had struggled to achieve over the past half-century as a forward-looking state that can attract business investment because it protects civil rights, pays decent wages, and offers social welfare benefits that will attract new residents.

This guy ought to be cheering tax cuts, then.  Letting employers keep more of their money gives them the flexibility to pay their employees MORE.  Social welfare benefits attract new businesses?  Really?  What businesses make a relocation decision based on the local DSS budget, Medicaid expenditures, or Head Start programs?

Now HERE comes the arrogance:

Four of us signed that original op-ed, and although The News & Observer of Raleigh would publish only two of our names, all four of us — William Leuchtenburg of UNC, Anne Firor Scott of Duke, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall and myself — are noted historians.

Between us, we have written more than 30 books. We have lived in North Carolina for a total of more than 160 years. Each of us has been president of the Organization of American Historians, the leading professional organization of historians in the United States.

THAT is kind of like going to a cocktail party and bragging that you were VP of the audio-visual club in high school.  WHO CARES ????

Gov. McCrory, we are the “establishment.” We are not “outsiders.” We know how hard it is to have made our state a progressive beacon for others to emulate, and it is precisely because we care so much about that history that we have chosen to demonstrate our concern about the actions of the Republican Party in seeking to reverse that history: by suspending unemployment benefits to people entitled to them, denying women control of their reproductive processes, denying Medicaid treatment for 500,000 people in need of health care — even though it would not cost the state a cent for the first two years.

We are the true conservatives, seeking to hold on to what we have gained — not recklessly throw it away. That is why we also insist on retaining the right to vote — our most fundamental right — and not have it subject to being taken away by eliminating early voting, insisting on state IDs, or denying the right of students to vote on their college campuses rather than having to return home to vote.

Suspending unemployment benefits?  THIS is being done because Chafe’s lefty heroes kept extending unemployment benefits until our state had wracked up an outrageous debt ($4 billion and counting) to the federal government.  In the real world, when you go into debt big time, you STOP SPENDING.

Denying women control of their reproductive processes?  Who’s doing that?  I know the legislature has been working to get Planned Parenthood off the state treasury’s teat.

Eliminating early voting and requiring voters show ID is taking away the right to vote ???  Denying the right of students to vote on their campuses rather than having to return home? Seriously?

When I was off at college, I did what millions of other people nationwide did — got an absentee ballot. If you are in town solely for the semester, you really don’t have an interest or stake in the local community’s affairs.  It’s unfair for you folks in the dorms  to cancel out the votes of folks who own property and pay taxes in the local community.

What’s wrong with asking people wanting to vote to show their ID?  I bet Chafe approves of the government giving people colonoscopies before purchasing guns — exercising their 2nd amendment rights.  Asking for ID from people seeking to choose leaders who will be determining the future of the community, state, and nation?  *Outrageous.*

Denying medicaid to 500,000 people who need it?   The legislature’s vote had NOTHING to do with people currently on Medicaid.  The state is having trouble paying for the folks already in the program.  The feds have admitted they don’t know where the money is going to come from to pay for the expansion.  Does Chafe think the people who gain from the medicaid expansion will simply drop it after two years?  State government will get stuck with THAT big bill in two years — in addition to the existing Medicaid bill it is struggling to pay.

I would question the credibility of the information being disseminated in Chafe’s history lectures.  After all, he’s having a tough time properly grasping recent history. 

Of course, Chafe had to throw in allusions to Bull Connor and Rosa Parks:

Third, but hardly least, it would be good to know how McCrory and his allies define “unlawful demonstrations.” Would that include the four Greensboro students who, 53 years ago, decided to insist on buying coffee at the Woolworth’s lunch counter after they purchased notebooks and toothpaste at other Woolworth counters? Would it include Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery to a white customer who got on the bus well after she did?

It would be interesting to see how Chafe would react if the College Republicans gathered in a mob outside his classroom, and started hooting and hollering, while he was trying to lecture. Or if they did it outside his office while he was trying to work?  How long would it take for him to call in campus security?

Asking a mob of lefty kooks to stop blocking a public walkway, and to stop hooting and hollering — and arresting them when they refuse to do so —  is a far cry from ANYTHING that happened during the 1960s civil rights movement.