Methinks Levin has been reading Jonah Goldberg. How else can you explain his attempt the other day to claim that "liberal historians" have it all wrong, and that the Ku Klux Klan was never a right-wing organization.
Levin: You see, the left tries to write the history for this nation. And the left does that because it wants to encourage people, incentivize people, to move left. To support some kind of a statist agenda. Not the Klan's agenda, but the radical left's agenda -- which, in the end, are pretty similar, frankly. In the end it's all one big circle that meets at a point. Tyranny is tyranny, however it's dressed up. You have tyrants who wear suit and ties, and you have tyrants who wear goofy white uniforms.
Well, as we explained to Jonah, the 1920s Klan was the very epitome of right-wing politics in America, and it has remained so ever since:
The Klan was about much more than mere racism, which was more an expression of its larger mission -- enforcing, through violence, threats, and intimidation, "traditional values" and what it called "100 percent Americanism." It was essentially populist, certainly, but there was no mistaking it for anything "progressive." The latter, in fact, was its sworn enemy.
... And it is not as if the Klan has gone away since. In the ensuing years, it has remained the implacable enemy not merely of civil rights for blacks, but for any minority, including gays and lesbians. Its activities have remained associated with violence of various kinds, including a broad gamut of hate crimes committed against every kind of non-white, or non-Christian, or for that matter non-conservative.
In the recent past, it has revived its nativist roots by becoming vociferously active in the immigration debate, openly sponsoring anti-immigrant rallies at which the Klan robes have come out ...
Indeed, you can look around the Web at various Klan websites, if you care to give them the traffic, and see that this is still the case. For example at Thom Robb's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan site, a page is dedicated to their agenda.
Here it is. See if this looks like a "radical left" agenda to you:
The recognition that America was founded as a Christian nation.
The recognition that America was founded as a White nation.
["America was born as an extension of White European heritage. Those who formed the very ideals that we cherish such as freedom of speech, trial by jury, innocent until proven guilty, free enterprise, etc. were of White European heritage. All of the early laws of the United States from its very inception restricted citizenship to White people and all of the early charters, laws, compacts, etc were signed into effect by White people."]
Repeal the NAFTA and GATT treaties.
Put America FIRST in all foreign matters
Stop all Foreign Aid Immediately
Abolish ALL discriminatory affirmative action programs
Put American troops on our border to STOP the flood of illegal aliens
Abolish all anti-gun laws and encourage every adult to own a weapon
Actively promote love and appreciation of our unique European (White) culture
Outlaw the purchase of American property and industry by foreign corporations and investors.
Drug testing for welfare recipients
Repeal the Federal Reserve Act.
Balance the budget
Rehabilitate our public school system.
A flat income tax should be introduced to allow for the funding of community, state and federal projects.
Abortion should be outlawed except to save the mother's life or in case of rape or incest.
We support the death penalty for those convicted of molestation and rape
We support a national law against the practice of homosexuality
["This is a Christian nation and the Bible condemns homosexual activity and the perversion of our society which it encourages."]
We support the placing of all persons HIV positive into national hospitals
Restoring individual freedom to Christian America.
We support the voluntary repatriation of everyone not satisfied with living under White Christian rules of conduct back to the native lands of their people
Everyone who can work should work
We support a return to parental authority without government interference in the raising of our children
We respect the right of homeowners and that no one should ever be forced from their home for the non payment of taxes
We support state sovereignty resolutions
We advocate a strong defense department to safeguard American citizens
We support all U.S. veterans
Hmmmm. That sure sounds like a radical right-wing agenda to me. In fact, does anyone want to wager that Mark Levin has promoted more than a few of these same agenda items?
Sometimes, those tyrants in suits and ties are right-wing Republicans, too -- guys who wrap themselves in flags and pretend to be defenders of liberty and freedom. That's what the KKK was good at, too.
