21 Jun 2011 Project 21’s Charles Butler Defends Voter ID Laws in Daily Caller Commentary

Project 21 member Charles Butler’s recent New Visions Commentary on voter ID laws and the rabid liberal opposition to them was published by the Daily Caller.

In his commentary, Charles — a radio talk show host on WIND-Chicago — takes issue with young liberals who throw around accusations that current events are akin to America before the advent of the civil rights movement.  In particular, he calls out Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) for likening new voter ID laws to the Jim Crow era.

In an interview with Roland Martin on TVOne, Wasserman Schultz said:

Now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us back to Jim Crow laws and literally — and very transparently — blocked access to the polls.

In the commentary, Charles writes:

I’ve been voting since 1970, and I’ve always taken my driver’s license with me to the polling place to identify myself to the election judges.  It seems like a common-sense thing whether it is required or not…

The problem with liberals is they want to be paternal and involve themselves in the manipulation of black Americans’ right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  If 25 percent of black Americans don’t have valid ID, they obviously don’t want one.  The onus should be placed on them to obtain one.  It is their personal responsibility to be productive citizens.  If cost is a problem, as some claim, why aren’t deep-pocketed liberals making this problem their charity of choice?

Wasserman Schultz and Martin — born in 1966 and 1968, respectively — never had the opportunity to experience Jim Crow.  They lack the credibility to discuss such an assertion much less throw it out there.

Charles chronicles his own dealings with the last vestiges of forced segregation, writing:

I experienced Jim Crow as a young boy travelling through the segregated South.  By the time Wasserman Shultz and Martin were born, I had visited Jim Crow Florida numerous times with my father and brothers.  Driving down from Detroit, we also passed through Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama.  Even though we were decent and had money, we couldn’t stop at roadside restaurants and be served like other people because we were black.  We carried our food on ice in the car: fried chicken, bologna, pops, vegetables and fruit.

When we went to the movies in Pensacola or DeFuniak Springs, Florida, we had to sit in the balcony because we were black.  I quit going to the movies because I refused to give the racists my father’s hard-earned money.

What to do about this extremist misrepresentation?  Charles demands that“[p]eople such as Wasserman Shultz and Martin need to stop playing the race card in hopes of stirring up racial discontent and scoring political points.”

The entire Daily Caller column by Charles Butler can be read by clicking here.