Clearly, a life of dependency on the government is not literal slavery – but is the metaphor / comparison valid? I’ll state my view (which is basically “no”), and people can disagree (or whatever) in the comments.
The essence of slavery is lack of self-ownership. You’re someone else’s property in a direct way, where they tell you what to do, seize all the products of your labor, and violate your body (or worse) at their option.
Excepting criminals (people deprived of rights under due process and for heinous acts), I think that if the government can either conscript your labor, or seize more than half of the product (the wealth/income) of your labor – and jail you or worse, if you don’t comply to the government’s satisfaction – then metaphors/comparisons of slavery begin to apply. Because the conditions for slavery have been met in part, even if the government gives you “freeman” status and a lot of lifestyle choices.
One of the lifestyle choices that you face, as a non-slave, is the extent to which you live off of government-provided benefits – in other words, the extent & duration of your being a government dependent. I don’t think that government dependents can be compared to slaves. Because, while the dependent may indeed be lulled into a lifestyle which is passive, limited and degraded, they still keep the right/option to change and become less dependent.
Thus, comparisons to slavery may be valid when speaking of government mandates on people, oppressive levels of taxation, and denials of rights (e.g., right of free speech). That is why we speak of Communist nations as “slave nations” and so forth.
But it’s not valid to compare voluntary government dependency to being a slave. If anything, the person who lives a lifetime of voluntary dependency on the government is closer to being a slave-master; someone who (partly, or metaphorically) uses other people as slaves.
And that would be another reason that I find fault with Cliven Bundy’s recent remarks. (While defending, of course, his right to make them – and the pro-liberty movement in general.)
To suggest that government dependents are like slaves is to suggest that their dependency isn’t voluntary. In other words, it’s to suggest that government dependents somehow didn’t choose their situation. And if you really believe that, then you deny their natural human power of choice; you believe implicitly that they are sub-human, or the moral equivalent of children. And I don’t believe that.
The people who are partly like slaves are not the government dependents, but rather, the productive working people whom the government forces to pay for its dependents.
The comparison is perfectly valid.
A person can be complicit in their own enslavement, in every bit the same way that a heroin junkie makes the choice to continue his/her ‘enslavement’ to their very real physical addiction to the drug, as opposed to breaking that habit through detox and rehab.
Not to mention what should be the obvious difference between using the words ‘slave’, ‘slavery’ and ‘enslavement’ as literal terms and historical references as opposed to using them metaphorically.
This is what pisses me off here sometimes; this penchant for being excruciatingly over analytical and missing the forest for the trees.
Anybody not so pedantic knew what Bundy was attempting to say, even without benefit of reading the entirety of his remarks.
I wish that he hadn’t made them; not because he or his comments are racist, which they are NOT, but because he appears to lack some rudimentary verbal skills, and because he should have kept his remarks confined to the issue which gave rise to his notoriety (out of control federal government).
Jeff, you write that (Black) people who are government dependents are so voluntarily and, therefor, their condition can’t be compared to slavery. I disagree. On your previous post, “Cliven Bundy: Warts and All”, Sean L. wrote this in the comments: “[I]f you shackle a man’s mind, his body will submit with all the meekness of a lamb.” That’s why the dependency of many, maybe most, government dependents is NOT voluntary. Their minds are shackled, and their invisible chains makes their slavery all the more insidious. Yes, some dependents manage to break free from their mental prison and uplift themselves, but that doesn’t mean the chains of those still on the government plantation aren’t real.
Yes…but then they made a choice. And, especially if it’s reversible, they continue to make the choice. In other words: They have choice. The essence of real slavery, is that you don’t.
I agree, enough that I pointed out Bundy’s real sympathy for the plight of “the Negro” (his phrase).
But at the end of the day, he still said what he said – poorly. He said it in a way that I just can’t get behind. So, I agree with your final paragraph as well.
There have indeed been been records of people who have sold themselves into slavery. And the classical writers had nothing but the utmost scorn for those who gave up their freedom and willingly served in the household of another person as a slave.
But since Jeff is arguing that a person can only be a slave if it is against their will (my objections to premise have been noted), let’s instead use the term “indentured servant.” Indentured servitude was entered into after the signing of a contract by the servant-to-be and the master-to-be, so there was consent. However, indentured servitude always had a time limit: serve for X number of years, and then go free. Slavery was supposed to be for life, and often affected a slave’s descendants, too.
Since many here would probably agree that Blacks willingly (no argument there) and knowingly (I might contest that point) make themselves dependents of the State, then I would put forward this notion:
The status of many Blacks in America today is akin to indentured servitude in terms of cooperation, since man Blacks willingly make themselves dependents of the State, but is akin to slavery in terms of duration, since Black dependance on the State is often a multi-generational institution.
I know you read my entire comment, Jeff, because I just read yours 🙂
To clarify: are you saying that the word ‘slavery’ should not be used metaphorically?
If ‘yes’, what do you think is a good substitute/synonym?
I know what you’re saying…but I also know that even the most degraded crack/heroin addict retains the power to “wake up” and throw off their addiction, if they choose to. I try to never underestimate my fellow human beings’ power to choose. I view all mentally normal adults as morally responsible for their own state, even if their state is that they have put themselves into mental slavery.
Sean L. just gave me another idea:
Voluntary servitude.
Whaddya think?
No, I am saying that the metaphorical slave here would be the productive working person who is forced (literally – no choice involved, except jail or death) to pay for the government dependent.
“Voluntary servitude.” – OK 🙂
Yayyyyyyyyy!
Consensus! 😀
And upon doing so, they legally had no further choice; if they did one day “wake up”, force would have been used against them.
So, the essence of slavery remains: the use of force to negate a person’s self-ownership and make them, or keep them, the property of someone else.
Yay, consensus achieved! 🙂
Long story short, everybody who isn’t a bureaucrat or politician in this country gets a raw deal.
I acknowledge the differences between slavery and indentured servitude that you’ve thoughtfully noted. The indentured servant retained basic self-ownership, that he sort of “loaned” away for a fixed period.
But a key similarity between the two institutions remains: like slavery (and like conscription or paying taxes), indentured servitude was a legal institution that the government actually enforced on people. Being a welfare dependent just isn’t.
Many lawyers and lobbyists (rent seekers) do pretty well, too.
@ ILC: Considering the recent uptick in the government’s threats of force to enforce its will, the government may be headed for enforcement of dependency.
The New York Times released an edited video of his remarks.
The unedited video is here:
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/unedited-tape-bundy-emerges-sheds-light-racist-remarks
http://youtu.be/agXns-W60MI
Because a ‘metaphorical slave’ (or whatever term you may wish to label a government dependent) doesn’t recognize the choices available to him doesn’t mean the choices aren’t there. Believe it or not, that is a crucial difference.
Bundy’s words need repeating: “And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
Bundy used the words ‘slaves’, and ‘picking cotton’. And he makes the comparison that as slaves, blacks had more freedom (‘…got less freedom” “…under government subsidy”). No matter how much equivocating, attempts to parse his words, claims to know what he really meant, pointing out the very, very obvious point that those who are dependent on subsidies are disempowered (all while ignoring agency) and making the case that Bundy didn’t really mean to compare dependency to literal slavery — well, in fact that’s exactly what he did.
Some have concluded that Bundy’s only fault is that he’s inarticulate, that he means well but isn’t well-spoken. I don’t know him personally and so I can only go by what he does and says. I too resent the political minefield that is modern discussions re. race but saying that blacks are better off as slaves? Owned by whom? No rational, reasonable person says such things. And apart from character/the man who made it, the statement is offensive and so is defending it. I won’t be losing sleep over his statement but I’m fairly certain some on the political left are burning the midnight oil trying to figure out how they can work this into the next few campaign cycles.
@ Ignatius: “Some of the political left”… You mean your friends?
The “racist” appellation didn’t stick, so now you’re trying to call him “crazy.” After calling me a Klansman and a slaveowner. Your powers of argumentation are astounding.
To summarize my own view of Bundy:
– I don’t think he’s a racist in the slightest, in the sense of “White Power” or “hating other races”.
– I do think he is a racist, in the sense of “someone who dwells on racial categories too much”. The standard under which I consider President Obama to be a racist (and most people on the Left).
– I thought Bundy’s remarks were unfair because they emphasized blacks doing poor behaviors that really are done by people of all races.
– I also found Bundy’s remarks misleading/incorrect, because government dependents are more like kings than slaves; the true “metaphorical slaves” are the people who are forced to pay for all those government dependents.
– I don’t think Bundy’s bad remarks arose from malice on his part; more just from sloppy thinking. (And speaking.)
“Your opinions may vary.”
The person who said this is one of the Progressive Left’s biggest heroines and icons.
Puts Cliven Bundy in perspective, does it not?
Pathetic. No reasonable, rational person who knows anything about what actually took place during slavery would ever say the kinds of things Bundy said, nor would any educated person defend them.
Yes, that’s precisely what I said, right? I called you no names, hurled no epithets. Unlike yourself:
I was using hyperbole to illustrate how ridiculous your points are, taking your argument to the logical extreme. After all, you’re the one defending the statement that having blacks live in slavery is preferable, not I. I’m encouraging you to attempt to climb down from that position and am wondering what convoluted path you would take. It’s pretty funny, actually.
Is Bundy a racist? It’s possible. It’s also possible that non-racists can say things that are racist. Similarly, when I argue against the points you make I’m not calling you a douchebag.
@ Ignatius: Yes, you are correct. You did not call me a Klansman and a slaveowner. Explicitly, that is. You, did, however, ask me if my favorite movie is “The Birth of a Nation,” a movie often associated with the KKK, and then asked me how many slaves I would purchase if slavery was re-instituted. So you weren’t saying it out loud, but you sure as hell were implying it. Congratulations, you have successfully rules-lawyered the comments guidelines to your benefit. Here’s a cookie.
You say that you are doing this to “encourage” me to not defend Bundy. There are people on this site who disagree with Bundy, and probably me for saying that he has a point, but nobody else on this site is giving me the same amount of grief as you. So you indirectly call me “pathetic” and “uneducated” and try to bully me into agreeing with your position. You haven’t actually presented a counterpoint and argued it, you have made disingenuous allegations about my worldview, twisting my words in order to do so, and cast aspersions on my mental health and intelligence. You have nothing to say except, “Recant, heretic!” How medieval of you.
Directly out of the liberal playbook. You, Ignatius, are a liberal. You’ve been exposed, and I hope you are looking forward to becoming another piñata for the folks around here to whack. Game, set, match. 🙂
Even Daniel Patrick Moynihan talked about the “plantation mentality” of many welfare entitlements. He was speaking of both the “paternalism” and the resultant dependency. Naturally, the “planation” is mostly associated with slavery. But it is also associated with peonage. Peonage is outlawed by the 13th Amendment along with slavery, but there is a vast difference.
A slave is denied free will. A peon or surf is trapped, financially, into a system which he can most likely not escape. When one is locked, financially, into a bound servitude, it is not too much different from slavery.
A person could be totally dependent upon welfare and have completely arranged his horizons in accord with keeping his status of receiving entitlements. But, nothing prevents him from walking out of welfare at any given time.
Moynihan realized that the “costs” of walking out on entitlements were heavily stacked against making that choice. Thus, welfare is a sort of shadow peonage.
Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare in Pennsylvania calculated that:
Understand? If the single mom trades her $29,000 income (and welfare benefits) for a job paying $69,000 of income, she actually loses $282 in standard of living by taking the risk.
What person can walk from a $29000 income into a $69,000 income in one simple maneuver?
This “welfare cliff” is much more than a simple discouragement to taking the chance.
So, we need a word for those who are so enabled by Uncle Sugar to stay in the system.
I find it had to fault these folks. Look at the costs of Obamacare if those costs come from your own pocket. But millions have been “signed up” for Obamacare while actually being placed on the Medicaid rolls. Why would a struggling family try to pay the Obamacare mandate when they can get housing, food stamps, utilities help, medicaid, daycare supplements and more while working on their own terms in the underground economy?
Sean, you think blacks are better off as slaves. Well good on you, bro. Yep, you sure did show me!
For everyone else, ever wonder why the GOP and other righties have such a difficult time reaching out to the black community, why Obama gets support from blacks above 90% at times? Sean is in large part why.
heliotrope – Incentives matter; no question about it. Bad policy means worse incentives means the worst of outcomes.
Having said that, they do remain *incentives*, operating on people who fundamentally are as free as you or I. We speak of the plantation mentality, most often in regards to people who should really stop having that mentality – in other words, people who in fact are off the (literal, enforced) plantation.
The interaction of incentives & free will complicates the assessment of moral responsibility (or blame). I agree, it is difficult to fault people for following the given system’s incentives. Difficult, but not impossible. There are certain things that I haven’t done and will never do, despite large societal incentives to do them.
The way I think about it is, incentives influence “the average decision made”, or the rates at which large numbers of people choose certain options. In other words, incentives operate at a “macro” level. But in every “micro”-level instance, personal choice and values operate; thus, personal responsibility still exists.
Welfare dependents are swayed – but not literally held – by the system of bad incentives that lefties have constructed around them, as a metaphorical cage (not a literal one).
Sure.
Because of closet racists and phonies like you and your leftist friends who believe they’re inferior and can’t make it in life by the same rules and standards as everyone else.
You’re the dealer, and their your junkie customers.
And they’re using OUR money to buy YOUR dope.
You must be proud to be a part of such a noble endeavor.
By the way, how many would YOU like to own?
Ignatius, I never said blacks are better off as slaves. The ownership of another human being is repugnant. I’ve made that abundantly clear. My position has been that Blacks are not doing very well as a group, but they aren’t doing anything about it because they have either chosen to be beholden to an overwhelmingly White government, or they do not realize just how beholden to that same government they are. And in the meantime, the Black family is disintegrating, Black women are slaughtering their children by the thousands in the womb, and Black men are throwing themselves into prison to the benefit of a corrupt bureaucracy. I want to see Blacks succeed. I want to see generations of people who thought that Black people are inferior to White people proven wrong.
But that can never happen so long as Blacks refuse education and content themselves with handouts and welfare. And throwing money at them may assuage your conscience, Ignatius, but it won’t solve anything. It just lines the pockets of a few corrupt hucksters and encourages Black people to stay as they are. Why must a man learn to fish if he is given fish on a daily basis?
Well, heliotrope, I don’t.
You cast it as if all of the folks who are on welfare are good, decent and moral people who are making rational fiscal decisions.
Far too many are not, and any search of the term ‘welfare fraud’ will return tens of thousands of documented instances of people who have as many as a dozen or more EBT cards under different aliases, for instance. In fact, these types of fraud have become the norm, in inner city neighborhoods at least.
This is where I agree with Jeff; taking the money and building a life of dependence on it is a choice, just as gaming the system to get more than one would normally qualify for is also a choice.
And I’ve known many of these people well. I’m not guessing or extrapolating on this one.
These folks get ZERO sympathy from me.
Because they damn well don’t deserve any.
@ JMan1961: Wow. That was a brilliant parting quip. Wish I had thought of it a few posts back. Nice one! 🙂
Sean L.-
Thanks! 😀
Which one are you referring to?
I’ve put up a few ‘quips’ today?
@ JMan1961: The “who many would YOU like to own?” one. Brilliant!
Sean:
From another thread:
Sean:
Leaving aside the obvious point (to everyone else) that non-slaves actually have choice or freedom, you’ve stated that today’s blacks are worse off than those who were slaves, that slavery was a preferable status for black Americans because they had greater freedom, that slavery offered greater freedom than did freedom itself. We can argue about ‘are’ and ‘were’ but the essence of what you yourself have posted isn’t really debatable: ‘by many measures’, blacks enjoy ‘far less’ freedom than they experienced while slaves, ‘far less’ because they are supposedly ‘less free’ ‘[i]ndeed, by many measures’. Own it.
Finally, while I’m not surprised that you assume I’m a liberal because I’m calling you out, I’ve been railing against welfare dependency longer than you’ve been alive. So, you’re wrong about blacks (even referring to racial groups is something I abhor), wrong about slavery, wrong about freedom, wrong about me. Earlier you claimed to try to engage me in discussion but it appears that a) you’ve not read anything I’ve written; b) you’ve not carefully considered what you’ve written; c) simply went ez-mode when things got tough. I’m a liberal? Seriously?
Most people are followers, less are true leaders.
Increased benefits to prop up the down economy has increased benefit takers.
However, I’d argue that because religion. self sufficiency, & the “pioneer spirit” has been mocked to death for 30-40 years, if the barriers to benefits were taken down, even in a good economy, we’d still have more benefit takers.
Path of least resistance = water, electricity, and most people who grew up in welfare/awarded participation trophies/told they “earned” it – whatever “it” may be.
Chad – BIG difference between fringy, fever-swamp stuff that those who follow 1 person believe, those who believe EVERY negative thing, and those of us who paid attention!
@ Ignatius: See, it’s saying that you abhor referring to racial groups that makes people here question your conservative credentials. The only people I’ve heard say that racial groups are constructs without any biological basis are liberals.
Terms like “White,” “Black,” and “Asian” (“Yellow” has been declared inappropriate) are based on visual observation of very real and concrete observations of genetically-based phenotypic expressions of skin color, which generally correspond to distinct cultures and continents that an individual’s ancestors came from. Of course, we know that these differences in skin color are based on the accumulation of genetic mutations to cope with differing levels of solar radiation at different latitudes, and that beyond skin color and some anatomical differences, there is no latitudinal distribution of many other genetic traits. So yes, it may be more appropriate to refer to people by their regional ancestry, like “European,” “Persian,” “African,” etc., but the increased frequency of mating between members of these regional ancestral groups has blurred the lines between many of these groups. So yes, “race” may be a social construction in some circumstances (individuals of mixed African and European descent identifying as “Black,” for instance), but racial terms are still used because they are a useful shorthand to describe very real observable differences. The view on the reality of races maps with the physical/nautural sciences and the social sciences: the former, who deal with physical characteristics on a daily basis, are more likely to consider race to be biological, whereas social scientists, who deal in the realm of ideas and are more amenable to progressive political philosophies, are more likely to embrace the social construct view of race.
On another topic: Notice, Iggy, that nobody else on this site has asked me about that sentence that you take such umbrage with, or accused me of supporting the re-enslavement of Blacks. Everybody else seems to understand what I am saying except you, who have fixated on one sentence of my initial comment and obsessed over it. That’s because they have all taken the time to figure out the import of my full comment, rather than accused me of being a slavery enthusiast. If I had said, “How has the situation of Blacks improved since Emancipation, and how has it worsened,” would you have taken my comment so badly? Despite the fact that both of those sentences basically mean the same thing?
Allow me to use a blunt medical metaphor: it’s like being cured of cancer and then being infected with HIV. We would like to see the person not have either disease, since they are both terrible and life-threatening, but the HIV forces changes in lifestyle that were not necessary with the cancer. Thus, the person’s situation has worsened, because they now have issues to worry about that they did not beforehand. However, in the grand scheme of things, these differences are pretty minor compared to the enormity of both diseases.
Does this clear up what I was trying to say, Ignatius? Or do I still want to but Black people back in chains, as Joe Biden would say?
I am disgusted with the welfare plantation. I believe welfare should be a safety net and carefully monitored to avoid making it an attractive lifestyle. I say that without any reference to whether the people are “good and decent” or ghetto rats.
My statement about “hardly blaming” people for choosing welfare over being self-reliant is a shot at the system for not accounting for the human nature of some.
The plantation mentality stretches to cover these people who think that slavery is evil but at least the slaves had three squares and place to flop. Not too much unlike the crowd that can’t stay out of prison, I guess.
As soon as the welfare reforms that Clinton was forced to undertake started to show positive results, the DemonizingRats started to dismantle them. They need those welfare prisoners on their plantation in order to keep their power.
In the meantime, I will judge the welfare recipients one by one instead of by a class. We have created the welfare cliff. And repairing the damage will be subject a great amount of DemonizingRat screaming and demagoguing.
I’m not a conservative. I don’t aspire to any sort of conservative credential, whether that credential exists in your mind or otherwise. I don’t design my comments in order to conform to some neat little hierarchy you’ve constructed in order to make your thinking really, really easy. That is after all why people rely so heavily on stereotypes and labels: it spares them the terrible chore of addressing each individual as such. There’s not much I can offer to someone like yourself, someone who clearly goes through life freely labeling people, wondering why they don’t conform to their preconceived categories, except to say that that is exactly the kind of thinking that has caused the world so many problems throughout history.
When individuals are treated as individuals, categories such as race don’t really exist at all, not in any truly meaningful way. Unfortunately, people like you maintain these arbitrary barriers, political, social, moral. In essence, you’re really no better (and are actually worse) than the race-hustler who profits from these same ideas because you attempt to validate the belief of determinism. Yes, I abhor referring to racial groups because such abstractions deliberately devalue a man’s ability to reason, to freely choose, and the consequences of his choices. And yes, since you have stated that one of the tenets of conservatism is to regard people according to their perceived racial categories, I am absolutely not a conservative, by your definition.
Neither am I a liberal. And you cannot quote a statement where I have attempted to make the case that “…racial groups are constructs without any biological basis…” because I have never done so. In fact the concept of race (racial category) exists only due to biology.
In any event, you believe that black Americans were better off enslaved. You are no doubt very sincere in this belief. This is racist thinking, racist because it treats an entire group of people according to some shared chemistry, that certain patterns of behavior are (or should be) attributed not to community or learning but to physical attributes all while conveniently forgetting those who don’t conform, the exceptions no doubt proving the ‘rule’. It is also historically uninformed, shows a lack of understanding of the nature of freedom and agency, initiative, reason, and choice, and is intellectually lazy. Philosophically and morally, it is a terrible way to treat individuals. It’s altogether pretty shameful.
I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m merely stating my position a bit more clearly so that others who may read this conversation will understand my position without the annoying distractions of someone’s labels. I think we should agree to disagree. You’ve made your case, I’ve made mine.
@ Ignatius: “In any event, you believe that black Americans are better off enslaved. You are no doubt very sincere in this belief.”
Wow. Just… wow. I have tried over and over again to explain my statement to you, and show you that I do not think blacks are better off enslaved, but you are sticking with your initial asinine interpretation of my words and you are sticking to it. Not since my tangles with a Restorationist have I seen somebody who can take somebody’s writing and take them to mean their exact opposite. This is an obsession for you. The more you go on about it, the more I worry about your mental health
Since you can’t seem to understand that I don’t think Blacks are better off enslaved, here goes: I do not think that the situation of Blacks is such that they are better off enslaved. I was asking a rhetorical question of whether the aggregate position of Blacks in America has improved since Emancipation.
There. Satisfied? Or am I just trying to cover my trails after revealing my evil, evil, White Man core of desiring to own Blacks?
But let’s not leave it there, let’s get some other opinions: who here besides Ignatius thinks that I believe that Black people are better off enslaved?
For the record,
(1) I definitely say it. (Ethnic categories have a little bit of medical use, as regards the probability distribution of certain genetic diseases. Racial categories, as fairly arbitrary groupings of the ethnic categories, have that much less use. The differences among individuals of each alleged “race” are much larger & more important than the differences between the alleged “races”, skin-deep differences which modern life is slowly erasing, as we speak.)
But…
(2) You may still have a point, because I don’t presume to call myself a conservative. I think I’m closer to a right-leaning “classical liberal”, Tammy Bruce style, or 19th-century style.
Given the long-standing existence of white-skinned blacks latinos Asians and Semites, and of dark-skinned whites, I can’t begin to call racial terms “a useful shorthand to describe very real observable differences”. Again, we’re talking about differences that would be minor if they could be observed reliably, and that in fact are *not* observed reliably (by eyesight) because of their wild penchant for going contrary to the alleged type.
@ ILC: I haven’t really explained my position on the matter of race very well, what with fending off Ignatius’ attacks. I think “race” is a flawed idea, since I myself noted that it is based almost purely on skin color. “White,” “Black,” etc. certainly have a cultural component to them. Whenever there are “genetics vs culture” debates on a situation (race, intelligence, etc.), I never say it’s purely a matter of either/or; skin color, which is genetic in origin, developed in certain areas to cope with environmental factors such as solar radiation. The increased prevalence of mixed-ancestry marriages and the revelation of significant amounts of European blood in many Blacks makes the current racial model tenuous at best. “White,” and “Black” are best used as adjectives, as in “black cows” and “brown cows”; their equivalence with ethnic groups is understandable due to laymen’s desire for brevity
When it comes to classifying people scientific purposes, I myself favor the ethnic group model, since we can map them to geographic areas via Y-chromosome haplogroups. So there is a least some genetic basis for that. The reality of greater genetic variation within groups than between groups is well-established, so I won’t dispute that. But even Richard Dawkins has admitted that analyzing differences in enough alleles can show regional variations, so there is some basis for genetically-distinguishable geographic groups. Plus, you have to account for gene-flow between groups at high-traffic areas and trade hubs. So again, “race” is not as biologically fixed as some people have said it is and does have a big cultural component, but it is not entirely a cultural construct and does have some biological basis. It’s not entirely one or the other, but a combination of the two factors.
Sean, that’s reasonable. To be precise, I may have over-stated my point at #39 a little, since I do acknowledge that the ethnic groupings have *some* medical & historical uses.
I also want to note for the record that I never thought (and still don’t think) your words were suggesting that blacks were better off as slaves.
Finally, I believe that when someone’s meaning is unclear for whatever reason, it is legit to ask them to clarify it – and then their clarification becomes the new “record” that should be accepted, rather than denied obstinately.
FTR, let me be more clear. Human biology (genetics, i.e. DNA, cell structure) is the only basis upon which racial categories (the broad and the infinitesimal) can be at all validated in a measurable way such as human origins, mutations, demographics, etc. The only justification for a racial category, say, the black race, is that of genetic characteristics that pertain to features inherent (adhering to, literally) of that category, i.e. DNA structure.
Thus, the only concrete factor separating characteristics between racial categories is biology. That a racial category is changing or that racial categories are less valid as the numbers of distinct representatives of those categories (as defined by distinct DNA) are diminishing does not call into question genetics, but rather how we define racial categories.
So I entirely disagree that racial categories are constructs w/out biological basis. We derive and maintain the concept of ‘race’ due to biology. Were we all the same race (were there no racial differences), the concept of ‘race’ such as what’s being discussed here wouldn’t exist.
Other than that, race means squat.
That’s just it, heliotrope.
They do account for the nature of some (many or most, in fact).
That’s why it continues, as you said yourself in the same comment:
When someone derives their power and purpose from being the ‘savior’ to misguided and unfortunate people, then they’ll often do whatever it takes to make sure that there’s a steady stream of misguided and unfortunate people to be a ‘savior’ to.
Another one of these “forest and trees” things, I see.
Try this:
A person can say “I think the 1950’s were a much better time for this country and it’s culture and wish that we could go back those days” without implying, suggesting or averring that Jim Crow and government enforced segregation was a good thing.
Just as a person can make the very true and fact-based statement that “there were far more intact black families from the post Civil War period until the mid 1960’s than there are now” without the slightest notion on their part that we should order everything in society as it was in 1900.
Someone here (do I have to say who?) is so tediously ucfking BINARY (as Mr. McGee pointed out in a thread earlier this week) that he is blind to that reality.
So much for a ‘nuance’.
Sean, here’s what I wrote:
Here’s your ‘quote’ of me (notice a difference, something I pointed out before):
Here’s what you wrote many MB ago:
The language you are using is better off, making the comparison between today’s black Americans and American slaves. You have stated repeatedly that blacks are worse off today than they were under slavery. Now, you can proceed to start to parse/spin your statement word-by-word, pointing out that you used the expression ‘much better off’, not ‘better off’ (as if to imply that blacks as a group have to be doing some subjective measurement of ‘much’ in order to make your statement seem more reasonable), and/or that when you wrote ‘less free’, you didn’t mean ‘worse off’ (even though you’re making a direct comparison, using ‘better off’ to describe slave conditions), because who am I to equate greater freedom with ‘better’? And notice that you’ve never itemized these ‘many measures’, giving us a complete list of how modern blacks are less free than slaves.
As I wrote previously, you’re free to climb down from your statement (and subsequent, obstinate defense of it) at any time. But since you view discussions here as a game (“You, Ignatius, are a liberal. You’ve been exposed, and I hope you are looking forward to becoming another piñata for the folks around here to whack. Game, set, match. :)”), you feel you must win at all costs rather than admit you wrote something truly idiotic. You’ll never do that and I know it. Plus, you actually believe what you wrote is true. Whereas Cliven Bundy may be granted forgiveness for speaking off the top of his head and being inarticulate (though I don’t grant him that — certain things just aren’t said unless they’re believed), you’ve argued via the written word that what he said was entirely valid.
Lastly, you’re calling me a liberal, that I converse in ‘liberal ‘parlance’, you’re calling a colleague a Restorationist, you’re referring to blacks, what’s best for blacks, when blacks were doing better as slaves, you’re doubting my ‘conservative credentials’ (which is good, but it’s beside the point) — this is all exceptionally shallow. Is there any wonder you consider regarding people by race as valid? Not at all.
And along comes #45 to make my case for me.
So, Perfesser, what’s it like living in the weeds?
Or is it pressing your face against the trunks of trees and staring endlessly at the bark?
Thanks again for another pointless and self-flattering dissertation.
Golly, are you a smartie!
Useless.
@ Ignatius: You seem to be the only person here who deems that I was suggesting that individuals of African descent (since you are getting so upset over my use of the word “black”) were better off enslaved.
Bear with me on this, folks, this is a long one.
To give one final explanation of the intent of my words: the situation of African-Americans has improved since slavery, since they can no longer be bought, sold, beaten without consequence, or denied the right to vote. These are great boons to them. But in many statistical areas, the situation of African Americans has not improved since the Civil Rights Movement over even a century ago, and in some has even gotten worse. The number of abortions they have and their crime rates (violent and otherwise) have gone up, their home ownership rates and business ownership rates have gone down.
Their dependency on the overwhelmingly European-descended federal government stifles their self-sufficiency and is, metaphorically, a new slavery of their own choosing in some cases, and of necessity in others. That they do not publicly object to this voluntary dependence is, in my eyes, a bigger problem than the forced dependence of slavery, because many do not object to it or even embrace it. Under slavery, slaves worked to gain their freedom; under welfare, freemen do not work to gain self-sufficiency. In this sense, their situation is worsened, because they do not have desire to improve their situation.
Culturally, too, African Americans have declined. The Harlem Renaissance, blues music, gospel, jazz, R&B, motown: these are all cultural achievements that African Americans can take pride in for originating partly or wholly. When people think of African American contributions to American culture, they think of rap music. Call me a cultural chauvinist and a racist all you want, but rap music presents an image of African American men as promiscuous, misogynistic, uneducated, and obsessed with wealth and violence. This stereotype is as pernicious as that perpetuated by blackface. In some regards, it is worse, because now it is African Americans promoting the stereotype about themselves, and their young people are setting the stereotype as a goal, the standard of success that they hold themselves to.
To be sure, welfare-dependence and cultural rot is not a problem exclusive to African Americans. The last that I heard about the matter, European Americans make the greatest number of people on welfare, and the recent contributions of European Americans to popular culture (Ke$ha and Miley Cyrus, anybody?) promotes an image of European Americans as promiscuous, misogynistic, uneducated, and obsessed with money and violence. Does that stereotype sound familiar?
On the whole, I believe that the status of African Americans has improved. It is better to be free and dependent on the government than be owned by another human being and forced to labor all one’s life. But it cannot be denied that their situation in some fields has gone down, such as family situation, crime, abortion, and their presence in the marketplace. In that sense, their situation has worsened over the past half-century to century. African Americans are better off now than they were under slavery, but there is still room for vast improvement, but it is hampered by what I rightly or wrongly perceive as contentment on the part of African Americans (as a group, excepting many individuals) with the status quo, and I lament the cultural decline of African Americans, just as I lament the cultural decline of European Americans.
When I interact with African American people, whether they be teachers, acquaintances, or friends, the fact that they are African American does not enter into my head; one-on-one, they are “Insert-Name-Here, an Insert-sex-here who is an Insert-relation-to-me-here who happens to have a skin color that indicates a significant amount of African ancestry,” but this does not influence my interaction with them at all, and I treat them no differently than I would treat a person of European descent. “African American” only enters into my mind when I consider African American culture and politics in interaction with other groups in America, or in relation to American culture and politics as a whole. To me, this level of interaction is very concrete, but when compared to my daily, face-to-face interactions with people, it is so nebulous that I don’t allow it to influence my interpersonal behavior.
This is the fullest I can articulate the matter. If you see anything wrong with my reasoning, please point it out. I apologize that I seemed to be saying that slavery was a better situation for African Americans. I can certainly see where you might get that impression, but it was never my intention. My full thoughts on the matter were not articulated, so some pieces of the puzzle were left out. Hence my initial refusal to back down. If, based on this explanation, you still believe that I think that African Americans were better off then than they are now, I can’t help you.
Here’s a thought: let’s remove race for a moment.
Anecdote: I have a nephew who’s fairly bright yet utterly incapable of impulse control. Accordingly, he sired a baby with a truly awful woman. He left (he’s no prize, either) so she’s on welfare and living in the projects. All parties involved are white.
One of her friends (who lives in the projects but is a fairly nice woman) warned her numerous times to not get ensnared in the welfare tar pit: she said that once you’re in, it’s tough to get out.
Aside from acclimating to a life of sloth, the incentives of welfare are to remain idle (i.e. get a job to earn money, and the welfare loss will cost dearly).
As I wrote in the previous post, welfare denies a life of dignity and purpose. Working to take care of oneself is a pain in the ass a lot of the time but it also provides a sense of worth: that one is capable of independence; that one is useful in the world.
Mark Steyn and Theodore Dalrymple have written many times of the train wreck inflicted on the white British population by the welfare state’s promise to “eliminate want”.
So while dependence is not literal slavery, it has many of the same effects. If you live your life at the pleasure of the state commissars, you may not be a slave but you’re certainly not free (and the tragedy for many is that they don’t know they’re not free).
Bundy commented on the lives of black in the Vegas projects: bleak and empty. Nasty, brutish, and short comes to mind. The outrage here isn’t Bundy’s observation, it’s the continuing waste of human beings. But in the interest of PC, we’re not to notice.
Here’s a thought: let’s remove race for a moment.
Anecdote: I have a nephew who’s fairly bright yet utterly incapable of impulse control. Accordingly, he sired a baby with a truly awful woman. He left (he’s no prize, either) so she’s on welfare and living in the projects. All parties involved are white.
One of her friends (who lives in the projects but is a fairly nice woman) warned her numerous times to not get ensnared in the welfare tar pit: she said that once you’re in, it’s tough to get out.
Aside from acclimating to a life of sloth, the incentives of welfare are to remain idle (i.e. get a job to earn money, and the welfare loss will cost dearly).
As I wrote in the previous post, welfare denies a life of dignity and purpose. Working to take care of oneself is a pain in the ass a lot of the time but it also provides a sense of worth: that one is capable of independence; that one is useful in the world.
Mark Steyn and Theodore Dalrymple have written many times of the train wreck inflicted on the white British population by the welfare state’s promise to “eliminate want”.
So while dependence is not literal slavery, it has many of the same effects. If you live your life at the pleasure of the state commissars, you may not be a slave but you’re certainly not free (and the tragedy for many is that they don’t know they’re not free).
Bundy commented on the lives of black in the Vegas projects: bleak and empty. Nasty, brutish, and short comes to mind. The outrage here isn’t Bundy’s observation, it’s the continuing waste of human beings. But in the interest of PC, we’re not to notice.
Sorry for double-posting… I blame the iPad.
SCR, that is a great point – a good reminder to keep this brouhaha in perspective.
Sean, at least twice at last count you’ve used a logical fallacy sometimes known as the Band Wagon, but a derivative of it using Argument from Ignorance: since no one else has taken my side in our argument, my side must then be false. It’s ignorance (or if you prefer, non-testable hypothesis) because you’re basing your assumption entirely on a lack of evidence and it is a band wagon because you assume that a lack of support for my argument is a popular vote for yours. Since you feel you’re under attack (“…what with fending off Ignatius’ attacks…”), I can certainly understand why you might be attempting to muster support for your cause, hoping others will take your cue and chime in in your favor. Perhaps they agree with your earlier statements that blacks were better off enslaved than they are today. Or perhaps not. (I’d like to think it’s the latter.)
(Btw, it’s funny how you’re now consistently using the term ‘African Americans’. Is this sudden show of supposed respect reflective of a change of mind or heart or are you trying to prove via labels your ‘human credentials’? /sarc)
We’ll just have to disagree. Slave families were routinely (that is, as a matter of policy) separated in order to break down the family unit. Dividing family members broke down allegiances between slaves and served to prevent rebellion. As far as crime goes, it’s hardly meaningful to compare crime stats of slaves (who were routinely punished for even looking at whites the wrong way) to a gang-banger in East LA. Abortion existed in the 19th century certainly, but it was not the drive-thru culture of today regardless of race. That is not a function of skin color but of technology as much as culture and is true for all races. (Causality problem here.) And as for ‘presence in the marketplace’, blacks are a much more powerful consumer group than ever before and advertisers avidly seek black customers. Slaves had no measurable presence in any market except in slave markets. The comparison makes absolutely no sense.
Oh, I get it. We weren’t really discussing slaves, were we? We’re now moving the goal posts and discussing pre-War On Poverty blacks. D’oh!
Wrongly. Do you actually know any black Americans? Do you realize how similar they are to you and me?
You ‘seemed’ to be saying slavery was a better situation? Well, that is what you wrote.
I rest my case.
I’ve known more, and known them WELL (and know most of them still), than you’ll ever know, even casually, in 10 more lifetimes at least, and in many ways their values and priorities are very different than mine.
The Perfesser gets stuck on the biology, and completely disregards culture.
SoCal, I agree that the legacy of dependency is particularly tragic because we’re paying for it financially and we’re paying for it socially, all in the name of piety, convenience, and public safety. It’s such a soulless, irresponsible way to treat others. Ultimately the only beneficiaries are politicians who enrich themselves and expand their roles, all by design.
But I still utterly reject the comparison to actual slavery, just as I reject those statements mentioning the Holocaust every time a government oversteps its boundaries. Such comparisons belittle history, implying we’ve not learned. More specifically, dependency-as-slavery reduces responsibility, without which freedom cannot exist.
@ Ignatius: Why yes, Ignatius, I do know several black people. They are some of the nicest people I know.
I don’t know why you’re bothering to be so polite to SoCalRobert. He (like every other commenter here) has seen your conduct over the past day, and that’s not going away. ILC has commented on how obnoxious you can be. You’ve pretty much torpedoed any credibility you had on this site, mate. Cheers, have a nice life! 🙂
Sean, you got…owned. 😉
Oh, Ignatius. Poor, gullible Ignatius. You’ve been so busy attacking me that you forgot who really asked that rhetorical question about blacks being better off as slaves: Bundy.
Recall from the previous post that I had “translated” Bundy’s comments into college-level English. You’ve spent how many comments accusing me of saying that I think blacks (a term that you also faulted me for, since it revealed “racial thinking” on my part, according to you) were better off slaves, that you seem to have forgotten that the offending sentence was part of the translation.
So, no, actually, I really never did say that personally. I was translating Bundy’s words. Whether or not I think he had a point is another matter. Yes, I wrote those words, but anybody who has well-read in English will know that that sentence occurred within my translated quotation.
You have unfairly attacked me for something I legitimately never said. Congratulations. Don’t you feel foolish? 🙂
Sean, from the Cliven Bundy: Warts and All thread:
(Responding to his own ‘liberal parlance translation’ of Bundy’s statement, as follows: This brings up the question of whether they are really much better off today than they were under slavery. Indeed, by many measures, they are even less free today.)
So not only is Sean ‘translating’ Bundy’s statement, he’s defending it, saying he’s perfectly fine with it, that there is nothing wrong with it, that it’s completely true.
There is no ‘whether’ and that is exactly what we’ve been discussing, something that finally resulted in your apology.
Sean went on to explain:
This is someone who has no concept of what slavery actually was, what blacks endured, the punishment, lynchings, torture, whippings and beatings, degradation, isolation, selective breeding and enforced family separation, the lack of any political status except that of property. Sean seems to think slaves enjoyed perfectly intact families, and were able to ‘work the land’ (oh, they worked the land all right), and of course all that singing and dancing, clapping their hands, birthin’ babies, and another helpin’ o’ collard greens. What effing idiocy. Oh, yes, the US government is actually worse than a plantation owner and a ward of the state is worse off than someone who lived under the slavery system. (!!)
Sean, you’ve gone to great lengths to make it clear to everyone here you don’t engage in anal sex. It’s not hard to understand why, as it would be extremely difficult to first remove your head.
People like this actually exist. *facepalm*
“Sean Hannity Show.” There Hannity said, “His comments are beyond repugnant to me. They are beyond despicable to me. They are beyond ignorant to me.”
Rusty: Get a life.
I admire Sean Hannity even though he frequently makes me scream for him to shut up. I an delighted to learn that Hannity believes Cliven Bundy’s remarks are (1) beyond repugnant, (2) beyond despicable and (3) beyond ignorant. Nice tired there, brother Hannity. Now how do you feel about a seagull pooping on your head?
But I darn sure don’t take my cues from Hannity on indignation hyper-drive.
Cliven Bundy has worked out a lot of cause and effect in his mind and he has come to some conclusions. He has a temporary platform and he decided to lay some of his “homespun” on us.
In a civilized world, one listens to his remarks and steps aside with an “that’s interesting” response and moves on.
But in a hyper-political world, the partisans attack the man and try to do as much collateral damage as possible.
You, Rusty, are hyper-partisan. You want to hang Cliven Bundy on as many of your opponents as possible.
Just because William Jefferson Clinton was an unrestrained horn dog does not mean that Harry Truman was an unrestrained horn dog. (Even though JFK was and John Kerry, John Edwards, Gary Hart were as well.)
When conservatives disavow a fellow conservative for being stupid in public, it is a mark of integrity.
You liberals put up with Al Sharpton, the Obama lies and Harry Reid’s demagoguery while focusing on conservatives for distancing themselves from those among them who shoot wide of the mark.
Hypocrite. That is the word for you. Enjoy it.
Ignatius, the reason is very simple.
Government dependence is every bit as destructive to black Americans as slavery was.
The reason the former is worse is because very few people, least of all black Americans, would call ending slavery racist or demand you stop.
If you advocate ending government dependence, everyone, ESPECIALLY black Americans, will call you a racist and demand you stop.
Not surprisingly, the same Obama Party that was against ending slavery is also the on against ending government dependence.
ILC @ #25. I am in 100% agreement with your response to my comments at #23. I would extend my remarks to suggest that the “enticements” are also a form of “entrapment”. When the welfare system of living is passed on through two or three generations, the entrapment becomes a pernicious replacement for free will and self-reliance. But your basic point remains unchanged: any person can walk away from welfare without penalty. Therefore, that person is not enslaved or entrapped or deprived of his free will. Our continuing challenge is how to help the needy without damaging them in the process.
Nancy Pelosi went off on how people out of work have a wonderful opportunity to live on the welfare dole and start doing creative things in the arts. That kind of cloudcoukooland mentality is moral relativism played out at it most ridiculous extreme. But it is par for the course among Progressives.
To fight for self reliance and take pride in self responsibility is taught in the moral codes that undergird the Jewish ethic and the Christian ethic. One does not take charity, because it is a form of theft and it makes one “beholden” to another. Charity immediately becomes an unpaid debt. To become used to receiving charity and then to calculate your life based around charity is to willfully exchange your moral compass for the amoral, situational ethic of doing “what works for you” in the old formula in which the “ends” justify the “means”.
I have attempted to work with helping prisoners get out of their cycle of crime problems. I have worked to help wards of the court have a mentor and stabile contact during their years in foster care and community homes. I have worked to give non-violent drunks a clean flop house to help rid the emergency rooms and jails of having to put up with them. This is to say that I am intimately aware of some of society’s shadow problems and I know the high failure rates as evidenced by recidivism, child abuse, addiction, and more.
A bureaucracy of parole officers, welfare workers, child advocates, etc. is too often staffed with people who see their challenge as just a job with a lot of annoying problems. Not many aggressive, smart, dedicated people get involved in helping their case load survive the red tape and build themselves up to leave the system behind.
One of my great angers is in how pernicious the choice of the word “entitlement” is. We even talk about “qualifying” for welfare as if it is the same as passing the college boards. That helps the Progressives from facing the facts that the person’s life is so wretched that now the government has to help him with his food or his rent or his utilities, etc.
I guess I erred in saying that I can “hardly blame” entrapped people for taking the bait. I find taking charity and relying on charity to be an entirely unpleasant reality in keeping with general human nature.
I look at the poor in the barrios around the world and compare them with our air conditioned, cable connected “poor” who drive to the welfare office and I wonder just who in our society “doesn’t have a clue”.
Iggy,
You always pull the same old shitte out for your fling-fest.
@ #58 you “quote” Sean: Indeed, by many measures, they are even less free today.
Read the words. “By many measures” is not all measures which would be conclusive. “Even less free today” is not an expression couched in the extreme.
But you got full bore when you fire back at Sean. To wit:
Get it?
Sean did NOT say that Bundy is indefensible, that he abhors every syllable of Bundy’s words, that Bundy’s statements are illogical and that there is no scintilla of truth in Bundy’s words.
So you paste him with defending everything Bundy said, being perfectly fine with what Bundy said, finding not a thing wrong with what Bundy said and finding everything that Bundy said to be perfectly true.
That is the most immature form of playground kangaroo court babble there is.
Whatever you are packing in your hyperbole and exaggeration pipe to smoke may be, it has warped your mind and turned your “arguments” into the realm of the buffoon and the nincompoop. If you can’t do better, sit on it and stew.
helio, learn to read.
Sean stated very clearly re. his ‘translation’ of Bundy’s remarks:
This means Sean agrees with everything in his ‘translation’, the statement we’ve been arguing for the past 2 days. So yes, as I stated earlier, he thinks it’s completely true.
heliotrope, don’t go against the Perfesser. He towers over the rest of us and we’re just going to have to live with that.
Uh huh.
See what the Perfesser did?
He offers as proof the highlighted statement. A question posed by Sean L.
He then claims that the question, which may have been posed as an invitation for the Perfesser to lay out his objections to Mr. Bundy’s remarks, is clearly and undeniably not a question, but a declarative remark which clearly indicates that Sean L. agrees with Mr. Bundy’s remarks (selectively cherry-picked by, ahem, ‘journalists’), and thus Sean L. is as much a racist as Mr. Bundy.
Uh huh.
The Perfesser has read Sean L.’s mind; indeed, he can read all of our minds, and our hearts as well, and he KNOWS that we’re racists.
The Perfesser is the only one here who has more than passing knowledge of the horrors and degradations of slavery, along with an abundance of compassion and humanity (lest we forget), and he certainly isn’t a racist. He’s even got himself one or two black friends to prove it.
Uh huh.
And we know all this is true, because the Perfesser has told us so, and we know from reading his
tripecomments over some length of time, that his character is immaculate and unimpeachable.Uh huh.
So don’t argue with the Perfesser; he’s ALWAYS right.
Uh huh.
No, actually. It doesn’t mean that. Read the plain English (and perhaps with a little generosity of spirit, if any point is in doubt). Sean asked a question. If Sean had felt absolutely 100% a certain way, he would not have bothered. Even if he felt 99% a certain way (or seemed to, in your view), the question’s existence still implies Sean’s openness to discussion about it. As such, the question probably should have been taken at face value and given a more patient type of answer, than what Sean got.
One more thing that needs to be pointed out to the Perfesser, lest he ‘double down on doubling down’:
The ONLY thing it meant at the time he posted it was that he was confident that he had ‘translated’ Bundy’s remarks accurately, NOT that he agreed with the entirety of the sentiments expressed initially or in the ‘translation’.
An important distinction, and because of that, one likely to be lost on the obtuse Perfesser.
Jman and ILC,
I have been trying to parse this thing from Iggy and I keep bumping into Iggy-obstinence in titanium wrappings.
Progressives have learned to just outshout anything which requires perspective, circumspection and measured understanding.
I will take your advise and let Iggy stew in his own juices for his own delight and sense of self-fulfillment.
When your opponent grounds himself in moral and ethical relativity, it is nearly impossible to move him off of his inflexible dogma.
Well put. I am afraid that the only way is a complete return to freedom – scary or painful as that would be, for some people. We face a complex of problems, which have a common root: Not enough freedom. Poor people can’t find jobs? It’s because our government has put up a vast series of obstacles to people *creating* jobs (and continues to add to those obstacles). If we wiped away many of those obstacles, at the same time we greatly reduced welfare benefits, then we’d suddenly wake up to welfare dependents getting lots of new jobs.
heliotrope:
The Perfesser is a pro at ‘Iggy-obstinence’.
I find the Perfesser (if I may ‘riff’ on your term) ‘Iggy-noble’.
And wisely, you realize that you can’t expect any better from an LCP*.
* – Little Contrarian P—
And in the first year or two (or three) after Clinton was forced into signing off on welfare reform, a lot of those folks found jobs and stopped receiving “Uncle Sugar’s Taxpayer Funded Parasite Allowance”.
And we all know who rolled those reforms back, don’t we?
Jman – You’ve reminded me of my old pet name for Iggy (years ago – 2008/9 I think), “Professor Quibbles-Bore.” Those were the days! 🙂 Because I have to not do that now, being the traffic cop who hands out tickets for excessive name-calling (and who asks people to please NOT do their do-nuts and wheelies right in front of me; it’s just disrespectful).
ILC:
I once had a co-worker who has the nickname “Snizzlefritz”.
That one may work here as well.
I am quoting historian Robert McNamara here:
A colleague of mine was taken from us at a very early age. He was undertaking landmark research into the lives of antebellum slaves and free blacks in the central piedmont region of Virginia. He was under constant assault for upsetting the stereotypical picture of slavery as a relentlessly cruel institution in which all manner of acts of inhumanity were everyday affairs. He was black and, therefore, particularly maligned for tinkering with the established narrative.
It is important to remember that most of the narratives were managed by people associated with the abolitionist movement and therefor structured to shock and offend. The WPA interviews were not particularly instructive and should be taken as weak oral history from people 67-72 years after the 13th Amendment. Their memories of the Jim Crow era were far more vivid and instructive.
But there are letters between slaves and their owners which reveal examples of a largely different climate than the common stereotype of regular abuse and cruelty.
The point in my bringing this up is not to side with Cliven Bundy’s spotty ruminating but to address the fact that political correctness does not want to tolerate any moderation of the Progressive narrative concerning slavery.
Sherman made a march to Savannah with 65,000 troops in the heart of Georgia. As Napoleon noted, an army travels on its belly. How do you feed those troops behind enemy lines when your army is busy destroying the railroads and making havoc of the established supply lines? For five weeks of the march Sherman’s communication were cut off.
What is at issue here is the mythology about the thousands of “freed” slaves who are imagined to have attached themselves to Sherman’s army. How could that army absorb all those men, women and children and keep everyone fed while maintaining its momentum? Meanwhile, if the crops and stores of the Southerners were laid waste, what was left to feed the slaves and free population they encountered while passing through?
What is ironic is the Progressive “ideal” of a minimum standard of living provided by the state. Typical utopian, Marxist boilerplate. Well, that “dream” is identical to a pro-slavery arguments put forth by George Fitzhugh in 1857 and picked up by Karl Marx in Das Kapital a decade later.
George Fitzhugh wrote a book entitled Cannibals All from which this excerpt is taken:
What goes around comes around. There is old, bottomed Nancy Pelosi babbling on about how the unemployed workers on state welfare are now “free” to gambol about and sing ditties around the campfire and live a carefree life. “
The Negro slaves of the SouthThe state kept welfare peoples are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world.”She sounds just like Cliven Bundy, don’t you know?
Darn spell-checker. “Old, bottomed” was the automatic “up-grade” for what I wrote. I wrote: old, botoxed.
Yes, actually, it does. Sean provided a ‘translation’ of Bundy’s remarks:
I expressed my disagreement:
Sean’s reply:
Sean is going to great lengths to explain why he agrees with the statement I blockquoted. And since I disagreed, Sean is asking me to point out what I find wrong in his translation, what point(s) in the statement cause me to disagree. Sean goes on at length to explain why he thinks Bundy is right, why he agrees with what he ‘translated’. Does this mean that he completely agrees with the statement I blockquoted and explicitly disagreed with? Yes, obviously. At no point in his answer does he qualify is agreement, explaining where thinks Bundy may have gone too far or said something wrong, quite the contrary.
When someone makes a statement, you’ve then expressed that it’s wrong, then that person responds with “Well, what about it is untrue?”, they obviously agree with it.
Iggy,
Take two Viagra and try again.
Will Perfesser Snizzlefritz EVER give up?
Will Iggy-noble EVER let this drop?
Is this the final chapter of this incessant harangue from Professor Quibbles-Bore?
Find out the answers to these and other important questions on the next action packed episode of “As the LCP* Crashes and Burns”.
(check your local GayPatriot listings for date, time and comment thread)
* – Oh, hell, you know what it stands for…