Tuesday, June 14, 2005

"Good Men Did Nothing"

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” -- Edmund Burke.

Want to know what can happen when our elected Representatives fail to act? Just take a look at lynchings in America. The Senate failed repeatedly to pass anti-lynching laws for decades. From the CNN website:

Seven presidents petitioned Congress to end lynchings. Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in the first half of the 20th century. The House passed three anti-lynching measures between 1920 and 1940, but the Senate passed none.

That inaction happened as 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968. There were only four states in the union where no lynchings were recorded in that time. It was only after the FBI began enforcing Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s that lynchings faded away.

The US Senate has at last passed a resolution apologizing for its inaction. (CNN)

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