100 Republican Firsts (for Leftwing Dummies)
by Ben-Peter Terpstra | View comments |
Print This Post
Part 1 (1-50): For Mr. Clooney!
1. 1854: Pro-life Americans establish the first major anti-slavery party. The Republican Party is born.
2. 1862: Pro-life politicians are the first to abolish slavery in Washington, D.C. They are Republicans.
3. 1863: Pro-life politicians issue the Emancipation Proclamation, in order to set all slaves free. They are Republicans.
4. 1865: Attorney John Rock (a registered doctor), becomes the first black member of the Supreme Court bar. He is a Republican.
5. 1870: Pastor Rhodes Revels becomes America’s first black Senator. He is a Republican.
6. 1872: Louisiana gives America her first nonwhite Governor. He is a Republican.
7. 1872: By now, the first seven African-Americans are in the U.S. Congress. They are all Republicans.
8. 1884: John Lynch, a Congressman, becomes the first black to preside over a national convention. He is a Republican.
9-11. The 1890s: During his stint as New York City Police Commissioner, Teddy Roosevelt is the first leader to open doors to women – and the first to welcome Jews in the department. But there’s more. Teddy becomes the first to introduce standardized pistols to the force, in order to protect innocents. He is a Republican.
12. 1901: Teddy Roosevelt, a balanced conservationist, becomes – according to Time 2006 – the first President “to make environmentalism an issue.” He is a Republican.
13. 1901: President Roosevelt upsets Democrats when he invites the first African-American to dine in the White House. He is a Republican.
14. 1906: President Roosevelt becomes the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a Republican.
15. 1916: Jeanette Rankin becomes America’s first congresswoman. She is a Republican.
16. 1916: Also – according to Gov. Thomas Judge — Rankin becomes the first “woman in the world to be elected to a parliamentary body.” She is a Republican.
17. 1921: Pro-life politicians are the first to establish and back the controversial Dyer Anti-Lynching Laws. They are Republicans.
18. 1925: Florence Khan becomes the first Jewess to serve in Congress. She is a Republican.
19. 1938. Former President Herbert Hoover becomes the first statesmen to rebuke Adolph Hitler in person. He is a Republican.
20. 1943. Hoover is the first major statesmen to back the controversial Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, which finally convinces President Roosevelt, the Democrat, to create a War Refugee Board, in order to rescue Jews. He is a Republican.
21. 1950: Joseph Mc Carthy, a great patriot, delivers his famous Wheeling speech and is the first Senator to publicly blow the whistle on the largest nest of Red Fascists in the State Department. History will vindicate the Senator. He is a Republican.
22. 1953: Former Catholic Congresswoman Clare Luce Booth becomes the first female ambassador to a major world power. She is a Republican.
23-5. 1954: On his 30th anniversary, as FBI Director, the liberal Associated Press, Washington, acknowledges that J. Edgar Hoover is responsible for three firsts. Before his time there was no “fingerprint file [1], no crime detection laboratory [2], no training program [3], and no prestige.” He is a Republican.
26: 1955: President Eisenhower becomes the first President to appoint an African-American (E. Frederic Morrow) to an executive position on the White House staff. He is a Republican.
27. 1957: Eisenhower becomes the first President to order troops to protect black students at Central High, Arkansas. He is a Republican.
28. 1957: Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Bill makes him the first President to strongly back black voting rights and protections in the post-war period. He is a Republican.
29. 1959: Hiram L. Fong becomes the first Asian-American Senator. He is a Republican.
30-1. 1964: Margaret Chase Smith (not Hillary Clinton) is the first woman to run as a U.S. Presidential candidate for a major party. She is a Republican. (Note: Smith is also the first female to be elected in the U.S. House and Senate too.)
32. 1964: Hiram L. Fong becomes the first Asian presidential candidate. He is a Republican.
33. 1964: Barry Goldwater is the first person of Jewish ancestry to run as a U.S. presidential candidate for a major party. He is a Republican.
34. 1964: The Grand Old Party is the first (and only) party to strongly back the Civil Rights Act (83%). Thank God for the Republicans.
35. 1971: Herbert Choy becomes the first Asian-American to serve on the federal bench. He is a Republican.
36. 1971: Romana Acosta Banuelos becomes the first Hispanic-American Treasurer of the U.S. She is a Republican.
37. 1971: Senator Strom Thurmond, a former member of the racist Democratic Party, renounces his past, and becomes the first southern Senator to hire an African-American, in a senatorial office. He is a Republican.
38. 1973: Henry Kissinger becomes the first Jewish U.S. Secretary of State. He is a Republican.
39. 1985: Significantly, Reagan becomes the first world leader to describe five dictatorships (Cuba, Iran, Libya, Nicaragua, and North Korea), as “outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, loony-tunes and squalid criminals since the end of the Third Reich.” (Loud cheers and laughs.) He is a Republican.
40. 1988: Reagan becomes the first President to sign legislation which acknowledges that – under FDR, the Democrat – Japanese internment camps were based upon "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." He also offers a formal apology and compensation to survivors. He is a Republican.
41. 1988: Lauro F. Cavazos, the former Secretary of Education, becomes the first Hispanic-American to serve as a U.S. Cabinet Member. He is a Republican.
42. 1989: Julia Chang Bloch becomes the first Asian U.S. ambassador. She is a Republican.
43-4. 1990: Antonia Coello Novello becomes the first woman and the first Hispanic-American to become a Surgeon General of the U.S. She is a Republican.
45. 2001: Elaine Chao becomes the first Asian-American Cabinet Minister. She is a Republican.
46. 2001: Colin Powell becomes the first African-American Secretary of State. He is a Republican.
47. 2001: The late Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt becomes the first and only President to receive the Medal of Honor, America’s highest military award. He was a Republican.
48. 2005: Alberto Gonzales becomes the first Hispanic American Attorney General of the U.S. He is a Republican.
49. 2005: Condoleezza Rice becomes the first African-American female Secretary of State. She is a Republican.
50. 2008: John McCain looks like he will become the first President born outside of the continental United States, in the Panama Canal Zone. He is a RepubliCAN.
To be continued!
(Thanks to www.newspaperarchive.com)
pizzatrays@yahoo.com
http://pizzatraysandbeerbottles.blogspot.com
Read more articles by Ben-Peter Terpstra
Exellent!
Now we need a similar list for Democrats, but it needs to be a list of shame. (First President to have sex with an intern while talking on the phone to a world leader…).
Comment by Mountain Man | June 12, 2008
Joe McCarthy a great patriot? You've got to be kidding. The McCarthy era was one of the most shameful in the history of the United States. Alberto Gonzales, a Republican, sanctioned torture.
The Democratic, Strom Thurmond aside, is not racist. It is the Democratic party that fostered the Civil Rights Movement; not the Republicans. John F. Kennedy (D-MA) introduced the idea in a speech in 1963. Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) helped used his presidential weight to get the bill passed following the assassination of Kennedy. Passage of the Civil Rights act was basically a "north v. south" measure: overhwelmingly both the Northern & Southern Democrats were more pro-Civil Rights Act than Northern & Southern Republicans. The voting record supports this — percentage wise on a geographic/party basis, the Democrats supported the bill more than the Republicans did. And the prohibition against discrimination based on sex was added to the bill by as Democrat (Howard Smith, D-VA).
It is the Republican party that saw the first president resign in shame — Richard Nixon.
Strom Thurmond was a Dixiecrat which is a breed and party in and of itself. He also sired a black child out-of-wedlock.
Also you fail to take note of the fact that the Republican party of the 1800's is not the Republican party of today. It was the Republican party that brought about prohibition.
It was the Democratic party that first put a Catholic on a national ticket, the first to put a Jew on a national ticket, the first to put a woman on a national ticket, and the first to put a black on a national ticket.
It was Rep. Martha Griffiths (D-MI) who introduced the Equal Rights Amendment in 1971. One of the most prominent opponents to the ERA was Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative Republican.
It is the Democratic party that has brough the citizenry the social security system, Medicare/Medicaid, the food and drug act, among others. It is the Democratic party that consistently pushes for a higher minimum wage, longer unemployment benefits, child labor laws, other wage and hour laws.
And it is the Democratic candidate Barack Obama who will be the first black president of the United States.
As an Aussie, why don't you stick to analyzing the political parties of your country instead of ours?
Comment by catpurrson | June 12, 2008
Good Work!
Now if republicans would put that much effort into finding Bin Laden or fixing the economy then maybe they could get their respect back…).
Comment by TheDiplomat | June 12, 2008
Here's a list for Rightwing dummies:
* 1933 Unemployment Relief
* 1935 Social Security
* 1938 Minimum Wage
* 1944 GI Bill
* 1945 United Nations
* 1947 Marshal Plan
* 1949 NATO
* 1964 Civil Rights Act
* 1965 Medicare
* 1965 Voting Rights for all
* 1965 Head Start
* 1965 Federal Aid to Education
* 1967 Freedom of Information Act
* 1993Family Leave Act
* 1990’s Federal Aid to Education
* 1990’s BUDGET SURPLUS
Notice how this list isn't made up of a bunch of personal accomplishments, but actual laws and programs - many of which you cons were against!
Also, I have a recommendation for #51: August 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravages New Orleans, and the Federal Response is led by Michael Brown, the first horse judge to manage FEMA. He is a Republicant.
Also, I think #50 is a bit optimistic. McCain looks more like the face of a party that's sinking quickly. He's doing no more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Comment by JonStewart | June 12, 2008
Lol. JonStewart thinks abolishing slavery was a minor "personal accomplishment", but instituting socialist economic policy that kept America in a massive depression 10 years longer than the rest of the world, expanding the power and authority of the federal government, creating wealth redistributing subsidies, instituting racist affirmative action, dumping money into an education system that shows increasingly WORSE results, and creating an illusory budget surplus by vastly increasing intergovernmental debt while marginally reducing public debt, were major achievements. You're right there, Jon. Those Democrats sure know how to get things done. If you want to build nothing out of something, the Democratic party prides itself on getting it done.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | June 12, 2008
"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things…every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor."
Matt Santos, The West Wing
And before you bash me for using a line from a television show, you need to explain Fred Thompson. Plus, wasn't Reagan an actor too?
Comment by JonStewart | June 12, 2008
JonStewart: I don't think you are going to get anywhere with this line of thinking. Conservatives are ideologically opposed to most of the things you are talking about. As for the Budget, Republicans would rather focus on Obama's middle name then look in a sober way at their performance in office. And BTW, don't pay any attention to anything Patrick Mulligan says. He gets most of his ideas from Sex and the City.
Comment by felix | June 12, 2008
JonStewart,
I've just re-read my comment, and I cannot find any portion therein where I "hurled that label" of "Liberal" at your feet. If you could stick to just one delusional topic at a time, that would be great. Maybe you should spend less time in front of the TV. It seems to be impairing to your reading comprehension. It does, however, explain a lot about the quasi-reality in which you appear to live.
felix,
You've hit the nail on the head - conservatives do not favor vast expansions of government control and cost, not to mention usurpations of individual liberty, so they do not view governmental "achievements" that accomplished exactly that favorably. I thought I had made that sentiment clear in my first comment, but since JonStewart doesn't appear to have grasped it, I'm glad at least one of you got it. Perhaps the language was too complex - I'll try to simplify it in the future. Maybe some puppets and pictures, or something.
Oh, and I don't get HBO. I'm a basic cable kind of guy. So I'm not really that familiar with Sex and the City. From what I've been able to ascertain, I thought it was a show about middle aged women having sex in a city. Which I don't think really correlates to a political philosophy espousing small government and constructionist constitutional principles (though middle aged women having sex in a city would be a far superior inspiration for political thought than The West Wing, in my estimation). But as I said, my knowledge of the show is limited. If I've misjudged Sex and the City, and it is, in fact, a show about small government constructionist political philosophy, then I'll be glad to accept it as representational of my ideas. Unfortunately, I don't watch enough TV to pull any relevant quotes from a fictional, scripted character, or to define my political views in the context of a fictional, scripted storyline. That's one of those things that usually divides conservatives and liberals - reality versus fantasy.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | June 13, 2008
Yes, the achievements of liberals are noteworthy. Class envy, toxic pop culture, housing projects, 70% of black babies born into single parent families, eviro-fascism, campus speech codes, censoring religious expression…
Ya 'all must be proud.
Comment by Mountain Man | June 13, 2008
Mr. Stwart
Looking at your list of accomplishments 1933-1967, you might be wise to note that about half of the "liberals" who were around through those years would likely be Republican/conservatives today, or Democrats so far to the right of those in their party today as to not be recognizable.
Republicans and conservatism has evolved (or devolved) as well, but it is the nature of conservatives to change slowly. In the case of liberals, leftist progressivism demands rapid change, and is open to radicalism creeping in for the sake of change.
It is why so much of what liberals have done leads to nothing or makes matters worse. Unintended consequences are always hard to see, but they are particularly obscured when you are rushing through new policies in a blind quest for utopia or to "help" people in exhange for their vote.
Having said that, the top liberal accomplishment of all time has to be being able to simultaneously convince blacks that they are on their side, while doing nothing effective for them - a remarkable con job that is now in its fifth decade.
Liberals have been "helping" blacks and low-income people for generations, but it has always been true that Martin Luther King's dream is the liberal politician's nightmare.
Real achievment is what blacks need, yet real achievment and accomplishment by blacks often leads to their realization that so much of what liberals believe in creates a barrier to their success. In essense they make their way to the glass ceiling only to realize it is maintained and guarded by the people who claim to be helping them.
If they should break through, they automatically lose their victim status, but are expected to reclaim their place and show their gratitude by declaring their dedication to the liberal ideology that held them back for so long and champion it from then on as the way out for those still struggling.
Those blacks who refuse to play the game, who point a finger at the people and policies that held them back and hold back millions, are savaged as Uncle Toms and traitors to their race by the likes of Jesse Jackson and others who's livelyhood depends on the continuation of the game as constructed.
It is one of the most disgusting cons of all human history.
Comment by nick adams | June 13, 2008