Yeah, that's right -- the 2nd District has done it for us again. And let's be honest and recognize that Tony Zirkle makes the Chris Minor episode look like mere child's play. The South Bend Tribune reports:[Tony] Zirkle, who's seeking the Republican nomination in Congress' 2nd District, told a weekly newspaper, The Kokomo Perspective, that he questions whether desegregation has worked in the United States. He suggested that separating whites, blacks and other minorities by states could create a new sense of community and is an idea worth debating.
Zirkle confirmed those comments to The Tribune on Monday but said, "I'm not going to say which side of the debate I fall on."
Both of Zirkle's opponents denounced his statements. He's not going to say what side of the "debate" he falls on? The segregation debate? Who the hell is still having the segregation debate, other than Tony Zirkle? I mean seriously, segregation is accepted by everyone as a dark time in our history, right?"Well, has it?" Zirkle asked. "African-Americans in Indiana have 80 percent out-of-wedlock birth rate. Fifty percent of all African-Americans between 18 and 25 are in the criminal justice system. Is it working? I don't know. You can't say there is no argument to the contrary. Yes, there have been many advances, but there are still many problems."
He went on to tell the Kokomo Perspective, "While we are brainwashed with respect to integration and forcing everyone to be together and basically all arguments to the contrary are silenced, historically it's very often been the case that you have to segregate and apartheid people to stop the continual war." Uh...
Zirkle goes on to state that "his proposal" would need a congressional study before it could be implemented (of course!), but that it is worth looking in to. The logistics, he admits, would be a bit messy, but luckily he's got some quick answers to some of the tough questions. So how would you divvy up Hispanics?
You can pretty much lump them in with whites, he says.
What about black Latinos whose black roots go back several generations in Latin America? And what about the ever-growing number of mixed races?
"You'd have to let people declare what culture they want to be living in," Zirkle said.
He pointed to Indian reservations as an example of segregation. But didn't those work out poorly? Zirkle answered: "There are plenty of Indians living on the reservations today by their own choice. There's a communal trend." This is the first time in a long while that I've battered the fair use doctrine a bit by extensively quoting from a single article, but let's not mess around with spinning this one way or another: this guy is crazy, and I just can't help myself.
To finish things off, he ends with a Bible verse and a warning not to ignore the word of God. You know, the God who loves segregation.
And we get at least another two months of this guy. I can hardly wait.
Update: Here's the original audio/transcript from the Kokomo Perspective. |
