Update on Conservative Lack of Accountability and Bigotry in the 2016 election cycle, and Nikki Haley

courtesy of Sikhchic.com

s the 2016 election cycle ramps up, we see more examples of the faulty morals and ethics of right wing propaganda, outright lies, and a whole lot of denial instead of accepting responsibility.  Let's review some of the recent examples, particularly those relating to racism and immigration issues.

We see it in S.C. Governor Nikki Haley's rebuttal to the state of the union address by President Obama earlier this month, which was really more of a rebuttal to Donald Trump, making false claims about bigotry in our country's laws regarding race and religion.  We do in fact as a nation, from our earliest days, have a pretty shameful history.  It is quintessentially conservatives, especially those of the tea party stripe, who promote revisionist history and other fact-averse curricula in our schools, attempting to throw out fact based education.  It is the antithesis of accountability and taking responsibility for past actions and for present proposed actions that are bigoted, intolerant, and exclusionary, both on the basis of race and ethnicity, and religion.

Not surprising that Governor Nimrata Haley, nee' Randhawa, doesn't use her actual name very often in her public life or political career, which would be too 'ethnic' for many right wing voters.  It is all too common for people from her own background of Sikkhism, (which ignorant bigot conservatives routinely confuse with Islam) to be referred to as 'rag heads' on conservative talk radio, for example.  These are the same conservatives who claim that Indian American beauty pageant contestants are not 'American' enough to wear a tiara and represent the USA. But there is just no excuse for Haley to deny (or to be unaware) of the laws in this country which banned people like her family from becoming citizens based on ethnicity.  Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal doesn't use his real name either, Piyuash, apparently for similar reasons of distancing himself from his race/ethnicity.

Conservatives are swarming to support bigot peddling more than ever this election cycle, and always have.  The Salt Lake Tribune hit the nail on the head:

Pitts: Nikki Haley living in Fantasyland

Nikki Haley's 44th birthday is this week. You would think her a little old for fairytales.

But a bizarre, little-reported remark the South Carolina governor made last week suggests that, age notwithstanding, Haley lives in Fantasyland, at least insofar as American history is concerned. The comment in question came the day after her Tuesday night speech in response to President Obama's State of the Union address, in which she cuffed Donald Trump for his strident anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant bigotry.

Haley told reporters, "When you've got immigrants who are coming here legally, we've never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion."

Or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, whose title and intent are self-explanatory?

Or the Immigration Act of 1917, which banned immigrants from East Asia and the Pacific?

Or Ozawa v. U.S., the 1922 Supreme Court decision which declared that Japanese immigrants could not be naturalized?

Or U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the 1923 high court ruling which said people from India — like Haley's parents — could not become naturalized citizens?

So yes, however you slice it, Haley is wrong and Haley is ignorant. But one wonders if Haley is to blame.

Americans, the historian Ray Arsenault once said, live by "mythic conceptions of what they think happened" in the past. And as school systems, under pressure from conservative school boards, retreat from teaching that which embarrasses the nation's self-image, as ethnic studies classes are outlawed, as textbooks are scrubbed of painfully inconvenient truths, as standards requiring the teaching of only "positive aspects" of American history are imposed, we find those mythic conceptions encroaching reality to a troubling degree.

 Some observers found that an astonishing thing for her to say as chief executive of the first state to secede from the Union in defense of slavery, a state that embraced segregation until forced to change by the federal government. Others observed that any fair reading of Haley's quote makes it pretty clear she was speaking only in the context of legal immigration.

They're right. The problem is, even if you concede that point, Haley is still grotesquely wrong. She thinks no immigration laws have been passed "based on race or religion"? What about:

The Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended citizenship to "any alien, being a free white person."?

Or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, whose title and intent are self-explanatory?

Or the Immigration Act of 1917, which banned immigrants from East Asia and the Pacific?

Or Ozawa v. U.S., the 1922 Supreme Court decision which declared that Japanese immigrants could not be naturalized?

Or U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the 1923 high court ruling which said people from India — like Haley's parents — could not become naturalized citizens?

So yes, however you slice it, Haley is wrong and Haley is ignorant. But one wonders if Haley is to blame.

Americans, the historian Ray Arsenault once said, live by "mythic conceptions of what they think happened" in the past. And as school systems, under pressure from conservative school boards, retreat from teaching that which embarrasses the nation's self-image, as ethnic studies classes are outlawed, as textbooks are scrubbed of painfully inconvenient truths, as standards requiring the teaching of only "positive aspects" of American history are imposed, we find those mythic conceptions encroaching reality to a troubling degree.

Haley was born in 1972; US v Bhagat Sing Thind took place in 1923 affirming people from India could not become citizens - just slightly less than 50 years earlier.  We're not talking ancient history here, by a long shot.  Read more about this case here  but here is an excerpt to highlight the gist of the case and what resulted, courtesy of wikipedia:

Not only were new applicants from India denied the privilege of naturalization, but the new racial classification suggested that the retroactive revocation of naturalization certificates granted to Asian Indians, of which there were many, might be supported by the Court's decision, a point that some courts upheld when United States attorneys petitioned to cancel the naturalization certificates previously granted to many Asian Indians. Some of the consequences of revoked naturalized status are illustrated by the example of some Asian Indian land owners living in California who found themselves under the jurisdiction of the California Alien Land Law of 1913. Specifically, Attorney General Ulysses S. Webb was very active in revoking Indian land purchases; in a bid to strengthen the Asiatic Exclusion League, he promised to prevent Indians from buying or leasing land. Under intense pressure, and with Immigration Act of 1917 preventing fresh immigration to strengthen the fledgling Indian-American community, many Indians left the United States, leaving only half their original American population, 2,405, by 1940.
...the Asian Indian community finally succeeded in gaining support among several prominent congressmen, as well as President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The support culminated in the signing into law by President Truman on July 2, 1946, of the Luce-Celler Act. This Act reversed the Thind decision by explicitly extending racial eligibility for naturalization to natives of India, and set a token quota for their immigration at 100 per year.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Hart-Celler Immigration Act, which phased out the national origins quota system first instituted in 1921. In 1965–1970, 27,859 Indian immigrants entered the United States. Immigration from India in 1965–1993 was 558,980

Neither Governor, Haley or Jindal, are likely to be unaware of bigotry in law or common practice, current or historical. So that makes it an intentional convenient political lie in an attempt to minimize ADMITTING that this appeal to bigotry is part and parcel of our conservative politics in the United States. Jindal and now Haley are nothing but political tokens for the right, selling out their origins in exchange for individual acceptance. That makes them far worse than simple liars, and it gives the greater lie to responsibility on the right for the reality of their bigotry. To lie like this means they KNOW the problem exists, and they choose to deny it rather than own it. Haley and Jindal, Trump and Palin, and those who support them, tend to be racist bigots and also religious bigots.  Own it.  Take responsibility for it.  It is quintessentially conservative.  Expect to see it reflected in the 2016 right wing primary election results.

Meanwhile, right wing media whore Ann Coulter tweeted that Trump should deport Nikki Haley..... asuch intolerance for those who are not white and of European descent among conservatives.  Apparently among some far right conservatives at least, Nikki Haley is not "American" enough to be a citizen residing in this country?