By Mike Huckabee
July 8, 2019
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Must-read column today by Michael Goodwin at the New York Post, on how the Democrats are eating their own, thanks to the far-leftists finding the leftists not leftist enough. There’s a ton of interesting info and history here, including a great quote from LBJ, who was dealing with a similar situation during the Vietnam-era Yippie riots. He said, “You know the difference between cannibals and liberals? Cannibals eat only their enemies.”
https://nypost.com/2019/07/06/liberals-are-eating-their-friends-as-well-as-their-enemies/
This article brings up a couple of stories that made news during the July 4th break, and I wanted to comment on them as well:
1. Tiffany Cabán, the AOC-backed, far-left insurgent candidate for Queens DA who declared victory on Election night, was found in a count of paper absentee ballots to be 16 votes behind establishment candidate Melinda Katz. Like other “progressive” DA candidates who’ve burrowed into government like termites by targeting low-turnout primaries in one-party areas, Cabán vowed to institute “justice reforms” by simply no longer prosecuting a long list of crimes.
The election results are now heading to the courts, and Cabán supporters such as NY State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi are accusing the Democratic establishment of trying to “steal” the election. This is incredibly ironic considering that if Cabán prevails and becomes DA, stealing things will no longer be illegal in Queens.
2. Kamala Harris has surged in the polls while Joe Biden has dropped to only a slight lead over her, following the debate where she savaged him for opposing forced busing in the early ‘70s. In fact, it’s worked so well for her that she’s decided to really ride that bus and is suggesting that we need to bring back forced busing to reintegrate schools now.
As I pointed out the morning after that debate (and do so again, refusing to grovel or apologize for telling the truth), many people of all races opposed forced busing back then because it was a bad “solution” to a real problem. Thinking that there must be better ways to combat racism than forcing children to waste hours every day in traffic, going to strange schools far from their homes, didn’t necessarily mean you were racist (at the end of this article is a comment from “Huckabee” writer Pat Reeder, who actually rode a school bus 18 miles each way every day.)
By the early ‘70s, official segregation had been quashed, but many schools were still largely white or black, mostly because of white flight from inner cities to the suburbs. There was surely an element of racism with some people, but it was mostly the desire of all parents for their kids to be able to go to the best and safest schools and have better lives than they had (a universal motivation, as witness the black parents and students in DC who compete so hard for a chance at vouchers to send their kids to private and religious schools.)
Robert Verbruggen at National Review has a piece suggesting ways to reintegrate schools than busing. It also backs up some of the historical points I made, as well as noting that until recently, even liberals acknowledged that forced busing was a lousy and unpopular idea:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/desegregating-schools-without-busing/
I’d also like to add to Verbruggen’s piece than a better solution than sending black kids on 20-mile bus rides to a decent school would’ve been to make all schools as good as the ones they were being bused to. That would have helped the students and also likely reduced white flight and voluntary segregation. But it would have required elected officials and bureaucrats in those cities to spend more money, and (even worse!) in ways that would have upset the teachers’ unions, whose interests have for too long been prioritized over the good of the students.
COMMENT FROM “HUCKABEE” WRITER PAT REEDER:
As a kid, I had to ride a bus 18 miles each way to school, not because of desegregation, but just because I grew up in rural Texas, and the nearest town with a school was 18 miles away. So while I didn’t experience the racial animosity (or the exposure to dangerous urban traffic) that the black kids on buses suffered, I can tell you what it was like just having to put in so many miles to get to and from school.
It stank! That bus was the worst part of my childhood, bar none. It took a long, circuitous route with many stops that required me to get up before sunrise, and in winter time, to stand outside in the pitch dark waiting for it to arrive, just to make it into town in time for the start of school. While the town kids got out at 3:45, I got on the bus and didn’t get home until well after 5. Any social activities, after-school dances, sports, etc. were out for me because I had to be on the bus and lived so far away from the school I attended. I spent all evening until bedtime doing homework because I had to get up so early and waste so much time on that bus. I tried to do some of it on the bus, but it was as noisy as a riot and so bumpy it was impossible to write. You also had to contend every day with bigger kids who had a captive audience for their bullying and a bus driver who did nothing about it. I counted the days until I could get a driver’s license and my first car, and worked a part time job to buy gas, so that the minute I turned 16, I never had to set foot on that damned bus ever again.
And Kamala Harris wants to bring busing back? Just what I needed: one more reason not to vote for Kamala Harris!
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