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U.S. Constitution Title: Walter E. Williams --- What's Gone Wrong With Democracy Walter E. Williams What's Gone Wrong With Democracy? The Economist magazine recently published "What's gone wrong with Democracy ... and what can be done to revive it?" The suggestion is that democracy is some kind of ideal for organizing human conduct. That's a popular misconception. The ideal way to organize human conduct is to create a system that maximizes personal liberty for all. Liberty and democracy are not synonymous and most often are opposites. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison explained, "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." Democracy and majority rule confer an aura of legitimacy and respectability on acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical. Let's look at majority rule, as a decision-making tool, and ask ourselves how many of our life choices we would like settled by majority rule. Would you want the kind of car you own to be decided through a democratic process, or would you prefer purchasing any car you please? Ask that same question about decisions such as where you shall live, what clothes you purchase, what food you eat, what entertainment you enjoy and what wines you drink. I'm sure that if anyone suggested that these choices be subject to a democratic process, we would deem it tyranny. Our Founders saw democracy as a variant of tyranny. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said, "...that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy." John Adams said, "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." Alexander Hamilton said, "We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship." By the way, the word democracy appears in none of our founding documents. The Founders of our nation recognized that we need government, but because the essence of government is force, and force is evil, government should be as small as possible. The Founders intended for us to have a limited republican form of government where human rights precede government and there is rule of law. Citizens, as well as government officials, are accountable to the same laws. Government intervenes in civil society only to protect its citizens against force and fraud, but does not intervene in the cases of peaceable, voluntary exchange. By contrast, in a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. The law is whatever the government deems it to be. Rights may be granted or taken away. Alert to the dangers of majority rule, the Constitution's framers inserted several anti-majority rules. In order to amend the Constitution, it requires a two-thirds vote of both houses, or two-thirds of state legislatures to propose an amendment, and it requires three-fourths of state legislatures for ratification. Election of the president is not done by a majority popular vote, but by the Electoral College. Part of the reason for having two houses of Congress is that it places an obstacle to majority rule. Fifty-one senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators. The Constitution gives the president a veto to thwart the power of 535 members of Congress. It takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress to override the president's veto. If you don't have time to examine our founding documents, just ask yourself: Does our pledge of allegiance to the flag read to the democracy, or to the republic, for which it stands? Or, did Julia Ward Howe make a mistake in titling her Civil War song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"? Should it have been "The Battle Hymn of the Democracy"? Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2015 CREATORS.COM Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Comments (1-47) not displayed.
"Today's society is better than the society of the Founders. Yes, I'll tell you that." I was only referring to the voting process. That when voters were limited to those with the most to lose, it was a fairer system. Today's average voter is ignorant of the issues, easily fooled by propaganda, is voting on a single issue, and is heavily influenced by political correctness. 47% of them pay no federal income tax, yet vote in the federal election for people who promise them all kinds of goodies paid for by someone else. I'd like to see voting in the federal election limited to those who a) could answer the questions in the U.S. Citizenship Test and b) pay federal income taxes. State office and local elections -- that's up to each state. I don't care.
#49. To: nolu chan (#33) "The slaves were considered persons." Only for the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes. And, technically, they were "other persons". They had no more rights than a table or chair.
#50. To: sneakypete (#46) Thank you for admitting that Catholics aren't Americans. Oh, but we are. And we're winning.
#51. To: misterwhite (#48) (Edited) That when voters were limited to those with the most to lose, it was a fairer system. Nope. It concentrates political power in the hands of people who already have money and property. But men who don't have property are still subject to the law in their bodies, lives and limbs. They have as important a stake as anybody else. One adult, one vote is the only acceptable way. Most people merely want security: stable housing, food, clothing, medical care if they need it, and education for their children. Most are content with that. If they cannot get that, then they will vote to use the power of the state to get it from those who are concentrating so much money that it prevents those things. That's the way it is, and that's the way it ought to be. The problem with democracy is that people will vote themselves sexual license that will end up destroying the birth rate and killing off the society.
#52. To: misterwhite (#49) And, technically, they were "other persons". They had no more rights than a table or chair. Which is why that system and its culture had to be destroyed. If it would not peaceful cede it power and stop committing evil, it had to be uprooted by force. And it was.
#53. To: Vicomte13 (#52) "Which is why that system and its culture had to be destroyed." The plan was to free the slaves and deport them to Liberia, an idea Lincoln supported. He died before he had a chance to implement it.
#54. To: Vicomte13, misterwhite, nolu chan, Y'ALL (#52) (Edited) Nolu Chan --- "The slaves were considered persons." To reiterate, Walter Williams points remain unrefuted: ---- -- "Our Founders saw democracy as a variant of tyranny. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said, "...that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy." John Adams said, "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." Alexander Hamilton said, "We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship."
#55. To: misterwhite (#49)
Only for the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes. According the the U.S. Constitution, the slaves were counted as people. In the census, each was counted as 100% of a person. Representation was provided to the slave states based on 60% of the slave persons counted in the census. Technically, they were persons. Free persons were persons. Women were persons. Poor persons were persons. Indentured servants were persons. Indians not taxed were persons. All other persons were persons. That latter persons were slaves but the Framers artfully dodged using the word slave. Art. 1, Sec. 2. Cl. 3:
Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. Art. 1, Sec. 9, Cl. 1: [protected from high taxation on slave persons]
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. Art. 1, Sec. 9, Cl. 4: [each slave person counted as one person]
No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. Art. 4, Sec. 2, Cl. 3: [Fugitive slave clause re enslaved persons]
No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. The misterwhite defense: "But your Honor, the clause does not apply to me. It only applies to persons and I am not a person." Art. 5:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
#56. To: tpaine (#54) To reiterate, Walter Williams points remain unrefuted: ---- Refuted? No. However, what the Founders set up, their Republic, WAS a horrendous tyranny. When a quarter of the population of a country are chained slaves, that country is a monstrous joke of a nation, hideously evil and worthy of destruction, not something to be PROUD of.
#57. To: misterwhite, Vicomte13 (#53) The plan was to free the slaves and deport them to Liberia, an idea Lincoln supported. He died before he had a chance to implement it. Deportation to Liberia was physically impossible as was explained to Lincoln. The plan was Central and South America and the islands.
#58. To: Vicomte13 (#56) --- what the Founders set up, their Republic, WAS a horrendous tyranny. When a quarter of the population of a country are chained slaves, that country is a monstrous joke of a nation, hideously evil and worthy of destruction, not something to be PROUD of. --- What the Founders set up, our Republic, IS a tremendous success. despite the fact that a quarter of the population of a country were chained slaves, freed after nearly 80 years of a 'war on slavery'... Our country is something to be PROUD of. Your attitude towards our country is disgraceful.
#59. To: nolu chan (#57)
The plan was wicked. Civil war was a better option.
#60. To: nolu chan (#57) "Deportation to Liberia was physically impossible as was explained to Lincoln." Deportation to Liberia was the initial plan. Many changes to that plan were made. The POINT is, deportation was part of emancipation.
#61. To: Vicomte13 (#50) Oh, but we are. And we're winning. Winning what? I realize the Holy Mother Church is an administrative arm of "Worldwide Government,Inc",but I would hardly call that winning. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012) #62. To: tpaine (#54) To reiterate, Walter Williams points remain unrefuted: ---- Excellent distillation of the Founders' concerns of a pure "Democracy."
#63. To: nolu chan (#55) "Technically, they were persons. Free persons were persons. Women were persons. Poor persons were persons. Indentured servants were persons. Indians not taxed were persons. All other persons were persons." So when the U.S. Constitution stated, "No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen", they were including slaves?
#64. To: tpaine, Vicomte13 (#58) Your attitude towards our country is disgraceful. He's steamed because they didn't allow the Catholic Church to be a co-governing branch of government,with the right to hold trials and punish non-believers. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012) #65. To: tpaine (#58) Your attitude towards our country is disgraceful. My attitude is just. The country's history is what is disgraceful. The Catholic Church also has a disgraceful past. But guess what? Catholics man up about it, are honest about it, admit the sins, and have fixed it. We don't DEFEND the evils of the past, we call them evil, and we call the men who committed them erroneous and sinful. What is disgraceful is to look at a treasonous asshat like George Washington, standing there priggishly "for liberty", shooting down his own British countrymen to obtain this liberty, whingeing that slaves the British freed had to be RETURNED at the end of the war, and then holding slaves until the day he died, thereby making a joke out of any claim he fought for human liberty. He committed murder and treason in his own quest for personal power. He attained it: he died the wealthiest man in America, with a plantation still full of slaves. Flaming hypocrite. Were we speaking of a Pope, the execrations would be hurled, and rightly too. It is no different when we speak of a man who went out and killed thousands of people for "The proposition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty..." I hold Washington to the same standard that people (including me) hold the Popes of old. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy. What those Popes and Washington did was disgraceful. It is not disgraceful to call them out on it. We had to have a Civil War and a million dead BECAUSE the Founders were greedy, weak men with feet of clay, hypocrites, who were willing to commit treason and kill their own countrymen in order to gain power, but who were not willing to strip down some of their own personal wealth in order to live up to what they declared. And as a direct result of their fecklessness and the crappy and incomplete system they erected, it all fell into civil war two generations later with a million dead, and then apartheid for a century after that. We're STILL dealing with the overhang of their hypocrisy. The Revolution, given its justification, was THE moment to wipe the slate of slavery clean and do it right. The French, after all, freed THEIR slaves (and their Jews) in THEIR Revolution. We could have also, but the slavers who commanded the Revolution here did not. They betrayed their own principles and left us a freakish Frankenstein of a system, towering in its evil and hypocrisy, that could not survive scrutiny on its own principles, and that DID NOT. I am not disgraceful for telling the truth. Washington was disgraceful for having fought a revolution for freedom but then being a petty, greedy little asshole of a man - the wealthiest man in America could not bring himself to part with ownership of his slaves BECAUSE HE WAS A SMALL SPIRITED GREEDY LITTLE MAN. The system that he and his comparably hobbled and morally crippled co- conspirators, Jefferson and the Rutledge and the other rich Southern slavers who won the revolution and were the nations leaders after the war - this system collapsed of its own illogic. An "empire of freedom" with a quarter of the population chained slaves? What a joke! What a FOUL DISGRACE OF A LAND. IT NEEDED to be destroyed, and it WAS, in Civil War. Civil War was not necessary. Had the greedy little killers Washington and Jefferson and Rutledge been big men - had they been as BIG as hero-worshipping Americans make them out to be, then these shitstains of men would have taken the hit in their personal wealth and FREED THEIR OWN SLAVES in order to LIVE UP TO the principles for which they DECLARED THE RIGHT TO KILL MEN! BUT THEY DID NOT! Which means they were, IN FACT, the petty little men that I call them. The country they ripped away, so they could rule it themselves, like local Mafiosi holding men in chains, was such a ramshackle, crappy structure, so riddled with the incongruities that THEY LEFT THERE (because they were GREEDY and SMALL and would not free their slaves), that it fell apart "Four score and five" years later. Nobody spares the corrupt, evil, contemptible Renaissance popes. They did great evil when they were SUPPOSED to be stewards of Good, stewards of God. Nobody gives them any quarter, and they don't deserve any. The Declaration of Independence is a great document that declares lofty morals, indeed, perhaps the ONLY moral principles on which murderous rebellion CAN be justified. But then the drafters and ratifiers of the document DID NOT DO THAT. ALL they did was manage, with the help of the Kingdoms of France, Spain and Holland, to replace British rule with home rule. They didn't treat men as equal, ever, even during the Revolution. They didn't MEAN it. They merely SAID it as a pretext to cover over what was simply treason and insurrection. The slaves remained chained. America wasn't a free country, even colorably, until 1865. And 1865 happened because of another war, not because the SYSTEM that the Founders made worked. It didn't work. The central corruption was there for the world to see, and could not be hidden. The American Republic, with slavery, was a public disgrace from its declaration UNTIL the slaves were freed in 1865. THEN it had at least a CHANCE of being something worthy of praise. Before that? Pfffft. You say my attitude is disgraceful. But I say the country itself was disgraceful until slavery ended, and the Founders were a disgrace. And I'm right. Now you're going to bellow like idolators whose sacred cows have been gored. I'm burning idols that need to be burnt. Americans do not spare their criticism of the Popes of old, or the cardinals of the present, for the monstrous sins of the past or the pedophilia of the present. And they SHOULDN'T! For those men are goddamned disgraces in the Church of God, sullying that which was founded by Christ. I don't apologize for them. I criticize them too. And I apply the same unsparing truth and clarity to the United States, a far lesser thing of lesser importance than the Church of God and Jesus Christ.
#66. To: sneakypete (#61) Winning what? We are winning control of the United States, its laws and institutions. You say we're not Americans. We are. And since our arrival in force, we've been changing America for the better in countless ways. We will continue to do so.
#67. To: Vicomte13 (#59) The plan was wicked. Civil war was a better option. The deportation plan did not work well but Lincoln worked on it throughout the Civil War. Lincoln's goal, repeated over and over in his own words, was to produce an all White America. The time Lincoln met with the first delegation of Blacks invited to the White House is oft mentioned. Less often mentioned is what Lincoln said to the delegation. They were not wildly enthusiastic. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 5, pp. 370-71 Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes [1]
August 14, 1862 The first group of Blacks to visit the White House were shown in by the Rev. James Mitchell who provided his own sales pitch in addition to having Lincoln telling them that their belief that they could live anywhere in the U.S. was an extremely selfish view. Mitchell was a longtime friend of Lincoln from the American Colonization Society, of which Lincoln had been an official in Illinois. Mitchell wrote a long letter to Lincoln and was hired as Lincoln's Commissioner of Emigration. Black Emigration. The letter written by Mitchell was provided to the Government Printing Office and published as a pamphlet (at taxpayer expense). Mitchell makes David Duke look like a moderate.
#68. To: misterwhite (#63)
"No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen", they were including slaves? They were not including anybody. They were excluding certain classes of people. Who was included was a matter of STATE law. Slaves were persons.
#69. To: nolu chan (#67) Lincoln had some bad ideas. And he didn't get to implement them so they're moot. The Blacks were right: they had the right to live as free men, with full voting and property rights, anywhere in the USA. The freed blacks also had the right to full compensation for a lifetime of slavery, to be paid primarily by expropriation of the slaveholder and overseer class, but also out of the treasury, for the US government itself aided and abetted slavery and maintained its legitimacy - and enforced the Fugitive Slave Act. White crapweasels kept trying to find ways to weasel out of having to live with blacks, having to share power, and have to pay compensation. They have failed in this regard again and again, and will continue to. The overhang of segregation remains: there are still tens of millions of people alive who directly experienced it, and millions more who have been very deeply affected by its noxious effects. The restructuring of the country to end the differential has continued apace and will continue to for a generation or two more. Then it will be done. It's like the reparations to Jews for World War II atrocities. That still continues, to an extent. Two generations hence, maximum, it will be done, for there will be no living memory. The oppression of the Blacks did not end in 1865. It did not formally, legally end until the late 1960s.
#70. To: Vicomte13 (#69)
White crapweasels kept trying to find ways to weasel out of having to live with blacks, having to share power, and have to pay compensation. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 5, pp. 518, 529-30, 535-36. Annual Message to Congress
[518]
#71. To: nolu chan (#70) Thank God THAT never passed. To impose debt upon the people of the United States in order to COMPENSATE some people for depriving other people of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? No. No right to hold slavery ever existed in truth. It existed only as a fact of American law and brute force. The proper way to end slavery was by bloodshed and destruction, without compensation, by the physical death of the slaveowners and all who would stand in their defense of such "property". Remember: the punishment under the Law of God for kidnapping a man and selling him was death. Slaveholders and their overseers all deserved death. Those who escaped with their lives should count it a blessing. Obviously the entirety of all property derived from slavery was property acquired by theft, and the proper restitution was complete expropriation, the stripping from slaveholders and overseers of the entirety of their real and personal wealth and the handing over of 100% of it to their former slaves as restitution. Just as obviously, the expropriation of the master class and the handing over of a lifetime of capital to the slaves whose property it was by right (as their stolen labor had produced the entirety of it) never occurred. This is why the old slaveowning class was able to hold onto political authority, while the freed blacks remained in destitution. The full measure of justice was never carried out. Still, seeing that wholly unjust constitutional amendment proposal makes one thankful that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and provoked him to rebel, so that the slaves could be freed immediately, in an ocean of blood, with the tearing up of the laws and the social order and the harsh forced acceptance of a new one, rather than allowing the despicable American project of slavery to continue under color of law, and allowing the Americans to say "they worked it out lawfully". Slavery was unlawful before God. It was very important that the American structure of law and governance catastrophically fail, with a million dead, rather than the Americans be left with any sort of fig leaf of respectability in their institutions. It is important that justice - which was the freedom on the slaves - be achieved in 1865 at the cost of a million American dead, rather than two more generations' lives be sacrificed to the slavers so that the Americans could get around to doing it in comfort. All of the agony and death and loss and grief and destroyed white lives to uproot slavery ALL AT ONCE was the price God imposed on America for the evil of slavery. The Americans were not allowed to escape with their money, their order, their dignity or their lives intact. They were not allowed to steal the lives of two more generations of blacks. They were brought to their knees in blood and fire, and forced to accept what they found unacceptable. The judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. Hateful people got what was coming to them, and were only spared the FULL measure of justice they deserved by the mercy of the Lord.
#72. To: Vicomte13 (#65) You say my attitude is disgraceful. But I say the country itself was disgraceful until slavery ended, and the Founders were a disgrace. And I'm right. No, I'd say you're quite demented about this subject. Rave on, if you must.
#73. To: nolu chan (#70) And, in any event, cannot the north decide for itself, whether to receive them? No, the "North" cannot decide any such thing. All men are created equal, and all Americans have the right to live ANYWHERE without their neighbors permission or by-your-leave. And if some neighbors decide to put on sheets and ride horses and brandish torches by night to enforce a bogus claim of the right to decide who their neighbors shall be, then that is why we have an army and cavalry: to put such violent insurrectionists, murders and deprivers of the rights of other men to the sword and to the bullet, and to continue to do so until the remainder submit and cease to commit such crimes, or until they are all dead and no such minds continue to draw breath. No quarter for oppression. No mercy for slavers. No refuge for those who would refuse to recognize equal rights. Those who insist that they have the right to oppress others because of their skin color will never be happy. Somebody must be oppressed, either the blacks, to please them, or them, to stand for the principle of equality. The principle of equality is just and true, and therefore those who stand against it must be forced to submit to it. If they submit with quiet grumbling but do nothing, they shall be left in peace to answer to God. But if they raise a sword, they must be put down by the sword. Do that enough, and the rest will submit. Or they will all die. Either way, we will be rid of them. Equality before the law is not optional. Those who refuse to accept it have no place in this society other than as sullen defeated minorities. If they rebel in force, they die. There is no other way.
#74. To: tpaine (#72) No, I'd say you're quite demented about this subject. Oh, I shall. For mine is the voice of VICTORY. We won. My ideas won. Those with the opposite ideas were never persuaded, and are not persuadable. You know that sign that VxH posts, about "permanent hostility". Well, that's me: I am a deadly enemy of slavers, segregationists, and those who attempt to impose or justify the imposition of those standards in society. Because of the evil that has done in our past, it had to be cut off in blood, and it WAS. And that was a good thing. However, the original lesson was not learned fully. And so once again, a century later, the forces were arrayed a second time. THIS time, the segregationists had the good sense to realize that they were outnumbered, outgunned and could not win, so they surrendered and did not fight. They murdered a few people, and rotted in prison or were executed for it. The rest sullenly submitted and still are in that state. Occasionally on chat boards they poke up their faces. And I put the heel of my egalitarian boot right between their eyes every time they do it. You're damned right I will rave on. The fundamental equality of all men before the law is not negotiable in any way. Those who seek it, urge it, or seek to defend it, at ANY point in the history of our republic, are my mortal enemies, and I will wage war on them in the present, and on their memory. They gave no quarter to their slaves, and I will give no quarter to them. And my side won all the wars and battles. My principles are the law now, not Washington's, with his divided mind about slavery. And not Lincoln's either, with his earnest desire for a White America. No. America always was, and always will be, a place of all people, all of them equal. That's where we've come out, and that's where we SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALL ALONG. France got there with their Revolution. WE didn't. Why? Because of the moral weakness of our Founders, their greedy narrow self-interest. We had to get there by killing their grandchildren in great numbers. That's their fault. They should have dealt with their own sins and not propagated them further. They were willing to MURDER the British soldiers over principle, but they refused to put the restraints upon themselves. Unacceptable.
#75. To: Vicomte13 (#73) No, the "North" cannot decide any such thing.
The could and they did. It is not as if it was done is some secret codicil known only to Dean Wormer. For example, Lincoln’s Illinois did it in their Constitution. Illinois Constitution of 1848 Superseded by Constitution of 1870, ratified July 2, 1870
ARTICLE XIII.
#76. To: nolu chan (#75) The could and they did. It is not as if it was done is some secret codicil known only to Dean Wormer. For example, Lincoln’s Illinois did it in their Constitution. For awhile. But they lost. They were overwhelmed by people who have my view of it. Evil white crapweasels tried their best to maintain their system of inequality. They put their back into it. And they lost. But they're still out there, and still trying to come back. One way they do it is by trying to justify the past. Catholics don't justify burning people at the stake for witchcraft or the lechery of the Borgia Popes, but many white Americans continue to try to justify the evil of their system before its reform, and spare moral judgment of their respected leaders. I will have none of it. This makes me unpopular among those whose idols include the Founders and the Constitution. But I apply the same severe standard of justice to those men and things as I do to the Borgia Popes. Evil is evil, and you call it out. They were redlining real estate transactions in Illinois to keep out blacks right down into the 1970s. There is corruption all over the place. And there's a stubborn will not to assent to COMPLETE equality. This will expresses itself by an unwillingness to see black slaves in the same light as one would see, say, British colonists forced to pay taxes without representation or quarter troops. We believe that these lesser offenses gave Washington the right to put a bullet through the head of a British colonel, but we do not think that the worse offense of maintaining slavery gave Washington's slave the right to put a bullet through the head of that hypocritical greedy sack of shit. Well, it did.
#77. To: Vicomte13 (#71)
Thank God THAT never passed. To impose debt upon the people of the United States in order to COMPENSATE some people for depriving other people of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Yes. Compensated emancipation. How did you think the slaves in Washington, D.C. were freed? You did not expect the North to just up and free its slaves without getting paid. That might have opened up a new war front. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln5/1:428.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
April 16, 1862. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/dc_emancipation_act/transcription.html
Transcription
#78. To: Vicomte13, Y'ALL (#74)
You posted the above yesterday.. --- Today: ---
The fundamental equality of all men before the law is not negotiable in any way. Those who seek it, urge it, or seek to defend it, at ANY point in the history of our republic, are my mortal enemies, and I will wage war on them in the present, and on their memory. They gave no quarter to their slaves, and I will give no quarter to them. ---- And my side won all the wars and battles. -- - My principles are the law now, not Washington's, with his divided mind about slavery. And not Lincoln's either, with his earnest desire for a White America. No. America always was, and always will be, a place of all people, all of them equal.Dementia anyone?
#79. To: nolu chan (#77) Yes. Compensated emancipation. How did you think the slaves in Washington, D.C. were freed? You did not expect the North to just up and free its slaves without getting paid. That might have opened up a new war front. Exigency of war. Of course such a project could not have been undertaken nationwide: there were far too many slaves in the South. It would have been better had they all been freed without compensation. It would have been best of all had they been freed and then themselves compensated, to give them the capital to begin. Do you happen to know if any of the manumissions in Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri were accompanied by government payment?
#80. To: tpaine (#78) Dementia anyone? "I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN" - Jefferson. HE was a hypocrite about this. I'm not. I don't go as far as he does. I merely observe that God made each of us free and equal, that we're all cousins, and that he imposed death for kidnapping men, pay for work, and restitution for theft. I don't make exceptions for men like Washington and Jefferson.
#81. To: Vicomte13 (#76)
For awhile. But they lost. They were overwhelmed by people who have my view of it. Can you estmate when and where this overwhelming event took place? Separate but equal was the law of the land until 1954. I thought it was a gradual struggle over a long time. In 1876, the GOP got to select, rather than elect, Harrison in return for ending reconstruction. Love for their brother man only went just so far. The Blacks have been peeved about having been thrown to the wolves ever since. The Latinos might get peeved at another Lincoln observation if our history books ever published what was said in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. CW 3:235
If Judge Douglas' policy upon this question succeeds, and gets fairly settled down, until all opposition is crushed out, the next thing will be a grab for the territory of poor Mexico, an invasion of the rich lands of South America, then the adjoining islands will follow, each one of which promises additional slave fields. And this question is to be left to the people of those countries for settlement. When we shall get Mexico, I don't know whether the Judge will be in favor of the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for themselves and all others; because we know the Judge has a great horror for mongrels, [laughter,] and I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels. [Renewed laughter.]
#82. To: tpaine, Vicomte13 (#78) [Vicomte13] America always was, and always will be, a place of all people, all of them equal. That is an ideal and a political sales pitch. No such place has existed in the recorded history of man.
#83. To: Vicomte13 (#79)
Exigency of war. Great rationalization. Lincoln opposed the Act and even delayed the announcement so his slavemaster friend could remove his slaves from D.C.
Of course such a project could not have been undertaken nationwide: there were far too many slaves in the South. The cost of the war exceeded reasonable compensation. 5 million slaves, at $300 a head as in D.C., works out to $1.5B.
It would have been better had they all been freed without compensation. Even better would have been freed with compensation and no war.
It would have been best of all had they been freed and then themselves compensated, to give them the capital to begin. Yes. The government could have given them your 40 acres and my unicorn.
Do you happen to know if any of the manumissions in Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri were accompanied by government payment? The Northern states had few slaves or free blacks due to gradual emancipation which essentially emancipated nobody. It acted as an economic incentive to sell slaves and move them out of the state. The were fewer free blacks in the free states than in the slave states at the time of the 1860 census. In Illinois, slavery was replaced by 99-year indentured servitude. The few slaves left in the North by the time the 13th Amendment went into effect did not result in compensation. Slavery was abolished earlier in the South by the U.S. Army and the slaves manumitting themselves via fast feet.
#84. To: nolu chan (#82) That is an ideal It is. What is not an ideal is this: You shall not kill. THAT is a commandment, from God, the one and only. For a land such as America to gain its independence, a war must be fought against the established legal order. Wars mean killing, lots and lots of it. They mean breaking the law of God. If you're going to initiate war, which is to say, if you're going to upset the peaceful order and start killing people to have your way, you had better have a justification strong enough to justify the killings you will inevitably commit. You do not have to justify them to other men - men are always ready to kill other men for advantage. No, you have to justify the killing before God. God is your judge, jury and executioner. What, then, justifies killing on such a large scale before God? The desire to have local government? Nowhere does God suggest that a form of government is worth any bloodshed. Because of taxes? God said "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars." What then? To prevent killing? Yes. If the government that rules you is murderous and marauding, you have the right before God to kill its agents and overthrow it to stop the murder. However, the British government was not marauding the colonists. There were taxes, and there were impositions, but even the so called Boston Massacre involved a riot scene, not a case of cold-blooded imperial murder (and the death toll was low). What about to end slavery? To break people free of their chains of servitude? Well, yes. Under God's law, to kidnap a man and sell him was a death penalty offense. In 1775, the Bostonians staged a revolt over nothing that could justify killing. The war spread. There was no particular justification for it that would stand up before God. The Americans didn't want to pay taxes, some members of a mob got shot in a standoff situation. The government was repressing guns. None of these things justifies killing under the laws of God. But then the delegates met in Philadelphia and made their case to the world: "We hold these truths to be self-evident," they wrote, "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Well, now, those are fine pretty words, but contained in two of them are genuine rights before God that would justify rebellion and bloodshed: the right to live, and the right to be free. By this point, the British had responded to the theretofore unjustifiable rebellion with excessive force of their own, particularly the unleashing of Indian tribes on the frontiers against American colonists. To protect yourself and others from death justifies violence, and to throw off the chains of slavery: these things justify a war, and killing. However, for those justifications to truly exist, you have to actually mean them. You have to DO the things you claimed as the basis for your right to kill. Otherwise, you're a hypocrite. God excoriated hypocrites. The Americans killed their own countrymen, by the thousands, over a claimed right to liberty as equal men before God. But they clamped down the chains of slavery on a quarter of the population, and kept them there. Suddenly, their justification is gone. Now they're just killers again, killers seeking their own fortune, seeking their own power. The "freedom" they claimed was not the right to live as free, equal men. It was, rather, the right to live without taxes they didn't control, the right to run their own show, and the right to continue to grind their boots into the backs of other men. A quarter of the population were slaves. They were kept in chains throughout the war. Washington demanded the return of all slaves liberated by the British. "All men are created equal?": "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? For the whites only. The justification dissolves into farce, into rank hypocrisy, and those who rebelled and killed, and those who led them, reduce themselves thereby to the role of rank murderers and oppressors, nothing more. So yes, that notion of a place of all people, all equal, was indeed an ideal And it is the only ideal that justifies the existence of the country in the first place. Without THAT ideal, Washington and his ilk were simply murderers, America was a rebellious province, and the just outcome would have been for the United States to have been destroyed like the Confederacy was, and its leaders hanged as murders and traitors, which they were. Those ideals are everything. Without ideals that are true and just, there is never a justification for using violence. America proclaimed a just ideal, but didn't even try to live up to it. This doesn't seem to perturb you. Once upon a time, when I was a young man I joined the military to defend this country. The Cold War was on, the Soviets were a menace to liberty everywhere: so we perceived them, not unjustly. People like me will serve an ideal. Take away an ideal, though, or render it a sham (as the Republican Party has done with their repeated campaigning on a set of ideals which they then swiftly betray once in office), and you will get mercenaries, but you will not get men like me. I'll risk my life and fight for an ideal. I won't do either for an abstract "form of government" that serves no ideal but power and money, nor for a "flag". A flag is a piece of cloth. What matters is the ideals that move the men who carry it. Have the wrong ideals, and you can go hang yourself in your pretty flag.
#85. To: Vicomte13 (#66) (Edited) We are winning control of the United States, its laws and institutions. I thought that was the Muslims doing that? Then again,they are your old-time dance partners,and sometimes it's hard to tell you apart. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012) #86. To: Vicomte13 (#74) For mine is the voice of VICTORY. We won. My ideas won. I picture you cackling like Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Coo Coo's Nest" when I read that. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012) #87. To: Vicomte13 (#84) God said "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars." Show me where God said the fruits of your labor are Caesars. Jesus was being clever. He wasn't saying Give to Caesar. He said give to Caesar what is Caesars. He never once ever said give unto Caesar.
#88. To: Vicomte13 (#84) It is. That isn't his only commandment. Now just for arguments sake. If thou shall not kill is a commandment. and the Bible tells you how to treat slaves. Never mentions fighting a war to free them. Then the Civil War was disobedience to God. If your side won. Did the winning side keep the one commandment you mentioned? Did they act in accordance with the way slaves were to be treated?
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