I like the Frederick Douglass suggestion, Star. “I am a part of all that I have met.” —Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Hi All,
Here is why I am not in favor of replacing the statue of Lincoln, or tearing down the Jefferson Memorial, or obliterating the Confederate flag. I quote below a passage from Orwell's Animal Farm, Chapter 6. Orwell made clear that one of the sure-fire ways to control minds is to re-write history. History is history. it does not change. If we the people allow one thing to be changed, other changes will surely follow as those who wish to control us change our past to control our present and our future. Also, as a pre-emptive strike, I will predict the comment, "Oh, should we allow a statue of Hitler....." Had a statue of Hitler been in U.S. soil, I would be in favor of leaving it be, as a reminder of what can go wrong and as acknowledgement that the man existed to do evil, and people like him can exist again. So here goes the quote:
"It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse and took up their residence there. Again the animals seemed to remember that a resolution against this had been passed in the early days, and again Squealer was able to convince them that this was not the case. It was absolutely necessary, he said, that the pigs, who were the brains of the farm, should have a quiet place to work in. It was also more suited to the dignity of the Leader (for of late he had taken to speaking of Napoleon under the title of "Leader") to live in a house than in a mere sty. Nevertheless, some of the animals were disturbed when they heard that the pigs not only took their meals in the kitchen and used the drawing-room as a recreation room, but also slept in the beds. Boxer passed it off as usual with "Napoleon is always right!", but Clover, who thought she remembered a definite ruling against beds, went to the end of the barn and tried to puzzle out the Seven Commandments which were inscribed there. Finding herself unable to read more than individual letters, she fetched Muriel.
"Muriel," she said, "read me the Fourth Commandment. Does it not say something about never sleeping in a bed?"
With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out.
"It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,'" she announced finally.
Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have done so. And Squealer, who happened to be passing at this moment, attended by two or three dogs, was able to put the whole matter in its proper perspective. "
Marcy
Should a child be forced to wear the belt he is beaten with, as a monument to his history?
My goodness. That would be awful.
Marcy
So it is with the confederate flag.
My great grandfather was at Antietam and Fredricksburg, after the time when his neighbors were arrested at the disposal of the salve-state governments to capture and dominate humans.
That flag, flying for fifty years at the disposal of the same scum-of-the-earth, is testimony to the extreme overindulgence of the totally unacceptable. It lends credence to Joshua's imperative.
I guess we strongly disagree.
Marcy
Disagree on what, whether that flag was carried by the people trying to kill my family?
Or whether the totally un-acceptable is really acceptable, there was no problem with the Fugitive Slave Act"
Whether I should be more forgiving...my ancestors should have been more forgiving?
Whether we need scum-of-earth flying that flag, to make child-molesters look good?
Sorry your family got involved in the government’s fight John.
Here’s another take on the subject. Your relatives were attacking mine. I don’t carry a grudge against you or anyone for that. Please allow for a difference of opinion here on the discuss list. This is the last thing I’m going to say about it.
The Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered
Mike
Are you going to ignore the Fugitive Slave Act?
I'm sorry your slave-state governments involved my ancestors too, reaching into their homes, dragging them to jail, and making their lives hell. After that, it was "on-like-donkey-kong". If it hadn't been for Lincoln, they would have burned all the South to the ground.
I'm sorry the Japanese government involved my relatives too, reaching across the ocean with their evil mischief. We know how that went.
There is no difference of opinion here, it's either responsibility or obfuscation.
I wasn’t born then….my relatives from that time are dead so I can’t ask them. It was a terrible thing. Don’t know who was involved in the Fugitive Slave Act but know Lincoln was a big fan of it. And I can’t fathom why Lincoln would speak so badly about a race of people he set out to “free” in the South nor can I understand why he wouldn’t free them in the North. And how the rest of the world ended slavery without bloodshed so soon after.
A sad episode all around.
Mike
It was a terrible episode and Lincoln was an agent of Satan. But, still nothing was learned and the notion "they attacked us cuz they hated our independence" has been replaced by "they attacked us cuz they hate our freedom".
Chuck Baldwin has achieved a new level of vapid crap, somehow weaving a justification of the slave-state governments into Lincolns support for slavery. It would take electro-shock to bridge that cognitive gap.
And still, the slave-state governments somehow get a pass, for what they did to the average Southerner, jamming secession down the throats of the majority of unwilling Southerners, having lost control of the federal government to do their dirty work.
Then the new confederacy of slave-state governments, stated the institution of military conscription in America*, created armies and started a war, ultimately destroying the lives of millions of good people, to benefit a few scum-of-the-earth, profiting with the slave-state-governments.
Doesn't that seem familiar? The only difference is the names of the agents of Satan in the deal with devil. *If this is not a wake-up call, what is?
John
Thank you to Mike D. for the article. It is a good reminder that indeed history is written by the
victors in any conflict -- and then re-written many times over by further
attempts at conquering territory, hearts and minds. Meanwhile, we
the people, like the characters in Animal Farm keep falling in with the
changing versions of what happened.
I agree that we all need to allow
for a difference of opinion not only on discussion lists (good grief, that is
why lists like this are called discussion lists!), but everywhere. Not
only should we remember "let my people go", but add to that "let
everyone be, for crying out loud!" Obviously, no one should be free to commit crimes and let be. We have rules
against taking of life, health, liberty, and property that must be observed. However, applying those rules retroactively, especially without historical context, is not wise.
John, here is my deep
concern -- and I always welcome specific, focused reasons why anyone feels
I am wrong in any subject. Our Founding Parents created a certain type of
social contract, clearly spelled out in both the Declaration of Independence
and the US Constitution. They provided for specific ways that the
contract could be amended if the people felt something should change. When the Union was first formed, involuntary servitude was totally lawful under that social contract, not only in the Union but pretty much all over the world, as evidenced, for example, by the African slave traders who captured and shipped slaves to many parts of the globe. Also lawful was secession, since what is not clearly spelled out in the social contract is to be left to the states to decide. So, what about the Fugitive Act? Completely in agreement with laws of the time.
So, did Lincoln save the union, free the salves because he though slaves were equal to non-slaves, go to war to end involuntary servitude, fight for freedom, and all the other things we learn in school today? Read the article that Mike posted, especially the quotation from a Southerner of the time about if the South is vanquished, then history will be rewritten to obliterate the reason for the Civil War.
Why my deep concern about this re-writing of history? Trying to obliterate the Confederate flag is just one step along the path to the obliteration of that social contract that the Founding Parents created. That social contract as it still stands today places the individual above government, and clearly limits the power of government to its function of protecting the specific rights spelled out in the Constitution. Statists do not like that. They want a new contract placing government at the top.
By whipping up fire and brimstone, pitting factions against one another, placing inordinate focus on objects -- such the Confederate flag -- instead of clear ideas, picking events out of context, casting our Founding Parents as evil slave holders, statists steadily move towards their ultimate goal of squashing dissent and declaring government, not the individual, as supreme.
Well, I enjoyed writing all this as a form a psychic self-help. If anyone reads it all, thank you.
Regards,
Marcy
Another great grandfather was in the Illinois legislature around the time. I am not rewriting history. The whole concept of nullification became an American institution because of the Fugitive Slave Acts.
The various Lincoln myths, whether savior or Satan are irrelevant, compared to the mayhem from fifty years of slavery, after it had been outlawed in the civilized world.
From a free person's viewpoint, slave owners were savages or criminals and their slave-state governments were organized crime, including the complicity of the federal government. When those criminal savages, by virtue of their organized crime reached into the homes of free persons in the north and violated them, it was time to abolish whatever forms were oppressing them.
Appeals to the virtue of of a Constitution of this organized crime, don't justify the organized crime nor does it detract from the people's right to abolish the oppression. Check out the "Wide Awakes" for an eye opener. Consider the terms "slave state" and "free state", even as they called themselves.
But somehow through some bizarre delusion, "slave state" gets a pass in some libertarian discussion under legalistic ruse..as if it could be anything else, all things being the same.
John
It seems to me that both the Confederacy, and the Union (or Northern states) at the time, were a mixed bag. Those who want to remember and honor what was good about the Confederacy (the principle of secession, the opposition to high taxes) are being told, "No, you can't separate those things from the evil legacy of slavery -- none of it deserves to be commemorated."
But if that admonition is correct, then shouldn't the same principle also be applied to the American founders like Washington and Jefferson who were slave-owners, to Union general (and later president) Grant who was a slave-owner, and so on? Indeed, should not the same principle be applied to the modern-day slavery of involuntary taxation? And to Abraham Lincoln, who was a tyrant and white supremacist even if he did (eventually, as a self-serving war measure) issue the Emancipation Proclamation that led to slaves being freed in the South?
Marcy, I don't think anyone here is arguing for removing historical context. When I suggested replacing Lincoln's statue in the Memorial with one of ex-slave Frederick Douglass, it was not to obliterate or hide history, but rather to tell that history in a more accurate manner that isn't dominated by the prejudices of the victors (who as you remind us, tend to write the histories after any conflict). John, we cannot ignore the fact that the union under Lincoln was also a "slave state"!
Nevertheless, I'm not going to get upset at the decision to remove the flag from outside the South Carolina statehouse. According to the article by Chuck Baldwin that Mike posted (which after having read "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas DiLorenzo, I largely agree with), the Confederacy had *five* different flags. Since the "battle flag" has come to be seen by many on both sides of the issue (rightly or wrongly) as a racist symbol, why not accede to that reality, and use one of the *other* four flags -- if *any* flag is truly needed -- to honor the positive aspects of the Confederate legacy while specifically disavowing any defense of racism or slavery?
While history and historical symbols matter, the stances and actions that leaders take on the issues of today, and moving forward, ultimately matter even more. Those who support the right to secede, who oppose coercive taxation and tyranny, should put most of their energy into seeking more freedom now.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
P.S. - Calling the Constitution a "social contract" strikes me as unwise. The existence of a (the) Social Contract is most often asserted by those who wish to assert that individuals have somehow consented to systematic violations of their rights in the name of the "greater good" and support precisely what Marcy fears, the supremacy of government over the individual. I think the Constitution is more properly viewed as a *legal* document binding the federal government to certain conditions in exchange for its legal right to exist.
Thank you Marcy
Mike
I don’t think they were justifying slavery John…I think they were just saying it was their decision to make at the time and they didn’t like it jammed down their throats. It was a model that was on the way out anyways. The industrial revolution was on the march.
Mike
Justifying SLAVE-STATE-GOVERNMENTS!!!
Slavery is not justifiable, whether they thought it was their decision to make or not. Their choice was what their governments did.
For the Southerners, their slave-state-governments were the issue. Their governments struck the hornets nest in the North, jammed cession AND military conscription down their throats, started a war and then sent the average Southerner to hell, loosing family members, farms, stores, homes. businesses, ranches...everything.
It's not unlike what the Nazi government did to the Germans, with a minority getting into power and f'king the majority like nothing in their history.
For the Northerners, the slave-state-governments were the issue too. And as we have seen, they are still the issue.
While history and historical symbols matter, the stances and actions that leaders take on the issues of today, and moving forward, ultimately matter even more. Those who support the right to secede, who oppose coercive taxation and tyranny, should put most of their energy into seeking more freedom now.
Well said Starchild....as usual.
Mike
I second that. Especially if the leaders are intent on throwing away the baby with the bathwater. The new improved baby will not be to any libertarian's liking.
Marcy
There is another matter about contracts: if a contract is unfair, it is void on its face, at the outset.
Any provision for slavery in a social contract is void. Every action to enforce such provision is wrongful.