Both Democrat Candidates Had Ancestors Who Owned Slaves

 

Okay, this blog will very soon be banned on Facebook so if you want to pass it on do so quickly. I'm pretty sure the leftist fact-checkers will find "missing context" - something like "Yeah, but they are Democrats so it doesn't count."

We do have the missing context, however - at least enough credible data to say with confidence that the Bidens and Harrises partook of the benefits of human slavery. To reassure my loyal readers, here are two links to documentation of the claims  - one from Biden family genealogical research (His ancestors owned from six to sixteen slaves), and another article citing a family history report written by Harris' own father, who is a Stanford University economics professor. 

Let's be fair about this. We might all have slave-owning ancestors if we dig back far enough. In my own case I haven't found any slave-owners - a couple of abolitionists, some pretty horrible Viking kings, a debauched Roman emperor (they often had household slaves) and Vlad Dracul - a military commander so evil he frightened the Turks into abandoning their invasion of Europe. So I've got lots of sin up my family tree. None of it is mine, however. And the slavery in the Biden and Harris family doesn't exclude them from the human race. Nor does Mitch McConnel's ancestors who, according to the leftist media, may have owned slaves, exclude him from being a right proper human being. We offer the same set of rules for everyone. Republicans and conservatives believe you are responsible for your own behavior and are not responsible for what your parents did. If we are, we should all just go shoot ourselves.

If, however, we go by Democrat cancel culture rules, both Biden and Harris should be canceled. Furthermore, they should be kicked off the ticket and probably be forced to present themselves for public scourging for the sins of their fathers if the new ultra-Puritan Socialist New World Order/Utopia/Worker's Paradise comes to power (if they can successfully rig the elections this year).

That is, of course, a great big crock of stupid, and totalitarian systems only reserve that iron-pantsed authoritarianism for the proletariat. The leader class gets a pass because they "work so hard for the people" which entitles them to big houses on the beach and to harvest millions of dollars from their public service. I leave it to you to guess who's paying them extra to do their job "well".

© 2020 by Tom King

Compassion or Promoting Slavery Lite

Saw this in the San Diego Union Tribune by one of its lefty cartoonists.And shame on him for promoting slavery. It's like I keep saying about Democrat leaders. These guys are still the party of slave labor after all these years. There was no great party switch in the 60s in which racists Democrats became racist Republicans. The party still likes to keep a few million workers on the plantations for the benefit of big Agriculture. They get paid a pittance so we can buy cheap produce and agricultural products and at the same time, the commercial Ag companies can make bigger profits.

For that is what suggesting that we have to have illegal immigrants in order to harvest our crops is all about. This badly distorted policy in essence supports the exploitation of migrant workers as what is essentially cheap virtual slave labor. I've seen the colonias where the pickup trucks gather up ragged fathers and sons in the predawn light and carry them off to the fields for the day and home again in the failing light, For, you see, the growers and factory farms don't have to worry about paying illegals the "living wage" Dems say they are so fond of. Not only that but big agricultural operations, chicken processors, rose growers and commercial dairy farmers can treat undocumented migrant workers like crap and they won't complain for fear of being tossed out and reported to ICE. I saw it in the colonias of Texas and I see it in the illegal immigrant camps and miserable ghettos of California.

At least my home state is trying to cut off the flow of slave labor from the south. By doing that they force industries that exploit illegals to hire actual legal workers at living wages to do the work. Legal immigrants cannot be exploited in the same way because it is safe for them to report your Colonel Beauregard, plantation owning, upper class butt to the authorities.

There's a reason they can't get Americans to work those jobs. We expect not to be treated as slaves and to be paid decently.

We in America are free Massa Bob!


© 2018 by Tom King

The States Rights Myth Revived

I'm a proud Texan.  While I think Sam Houston was in many ways an egotist and a lousy general. His treatment of the heroic Texas Navy was reprehensible. His men forced him to fight at San Jacinto. He was something of a drunk.  But he was absolutely right about secession being wrong.

I used to have a Confederate battle flag and used to irritate my Yankee boss at summer camp by flying it all over the place as a prank. I never thought anything about it. I'm the furthest thing from a racist you'll ever find. To me the flag was a bit of Southern rebelliousness and I thought it was a pretty flag.

There has been an effort of late to argue that the Confederacy was all about states rights and not about slavery.  Well, certainly there was a lot of noise about state's rights in the early days of the war, but everyone, I thought, knew the fight was over slavery.  The states right the CSA particularly wanted was the right to own slaves.

In trying to make the argument that the Civil War was all about state's rights and had nothing to do with slavery, one of the proponents of this rehabilitation of the Confederacy disdainfully urged those who disagreed with him to "...study history before we say stupid things".

So I did.

First I read the Constitution of the Confederacy and found these passages:

• Sec. 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired. 

•  In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States. 

•  (4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

This was pretty mild language in the actual document, but it certainly legitimized slavery and enshrined that "peculiar institution" in law.  The rhetoric in the Confederate Congress was far less polite than the constitution was.  If you want a clear view of what the Civil War was about, read this excerpt of a speech given by Alexander H. Stephens, March 21, 1861 in Savannah Georgia.  Called the "Cornerstone Speech" it makes it quite clear that the patriarchs of the South understood that the founding fathers of the United States had never supported slavery and had always intended that it would eventually fade away.  His speech makes it clear that the founding fathers of the CSA were very deliberately fighting to preserve the institution of slavery.  Here is a refreshingly honest admission of this from CSA Vice-President Stephens. It's about all the history you'll need.  Stephens tried to back off some of what he said when he ran for Governor after the war, but he never backed off the idea that the negro was inferior to the white man. Never.  Here are his own words.

•  The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

• Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal. 

Okay, I studied the history.  The Civil War was most certainly about slavery and I can see why the Confederate Battle Flag, as beautiful as it is as flags go, is seen as a symbol of racism by black Americans.

That's why I hauled it down and raised the Texas Flag in its place.

Tom

God Parted the Red Sea, but the Israelites Had to WALK Through It

I read a frustrated post by a conservative today who lambasted blacks for the plight of their culture.  She was long on criticism and short on sympathy. This attitude among some of our conservative brethren (and sisteren) isn't terribly helpful and reveals a lack of understanding of how the culture became what it is.  Black culture is by no means as homogenized as the Democrats would have you believe. I watch black leaders, both liberal and conservative struggle to find solutions for the obvious problems they face - like broken homes, drug abuse, low education and violence.  What conservative whites need to do is read their Old Testament if they want to discover what we did wrong that helped create the problems faced by our black brothers and sisters.

You heard me right. I said what WE did wrong.

Read the Old Testament. In it there is the clear chronicle of what God did to help a slave race escape from slavery and stand on its own two feet.  It was not easy.  For centuries God struggled with these people as generation after generation tried to drift back into enslavement to one god or another, to one government or another.  Do you remember what God had to do to the Israelites to teach them not to be slaves anymore?  Do you remember what a tough government he set up?  It was so tough, many of us still complain about it to this day.  We refuse to read the Old Testament because it confuses us.  We think God's legal system was too tough on them. And yet, we applaud Rush Limbaugh when he says, "The law is a teacher."
The legal system God set up for the Jews in the aftermath of the Egyptian slavery is the very thing that taught them to be the fiercely independent, self-sufficient race they are today more than 3,000 years later. They fought it, surely. They whined till God let them have a king because they thought they needed an authoritarian government instead of the decentralized (essentially capitalist) system that they had.

God let them pay the price for that. He did not shield them from the consequences of their actions. He expected a high standard of behavior. While the Jews, like any group of humans did not entirely learn the lessons God was teaching, they did learn to be self-sufficient, hard-working and smart. They survived against all odds, living (and thriving) to this day in a tiny bit of land surrounded by people who want them dead and pushed into the sea. When God teaches, the lessons stick!

What we did to the black slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War by marginalizing them, refusing to give them decent education, true equal rights or equal opportunity and then by trying to buy their compliance with freebies from the government was wrong. It treated a whole race like little children. Is it any wonder they face the troubles they do today?

When are we going to acknowledge that our country screwed up in how we handled the 40 years in the desert of the former slaves in our own country. How can we when we're so afraid of a government that is truly tough and fair that some of us won't even look at the Old Testament, much less read it and learn from it.  God did a really good job of liberating one slave race and standing them up on their feet. Maybe it's time we join forces with those in the black community that wish to invite God to do that again for their own race.

The truth is, we could stand a little Old Testament discipline for all Americans, lest we allow ourselves to drift into slavery as the Israelites allowed themselves to do after they moved to Egypt. to escape the famine.

There's a lesson there too. In every handout there are the seeds of slavery. Be careful not to become dependent on them. The Old Testament style of government had a lot of other good ideas like:

1. Limited central authority
2. Tough criminal laws
3. Voluntary taxation to meet national needs as they arose
4. Locally based judicial system
5. Seven year debt holiday (how many people would be able to survive poor financial decisions if that were in place AND how many banks would make bad loans under that system?
6. Small standing army, citizen call up in an emergency

Instead of criticizing, we need to be willing to support those in the black community who are trying to make a difference.  The pastors, the teachers, the community leaders who recognize what has gone wrong and are trying to fix it are understandably confused by so-called conservatives who want to complain about blacks and immigrants, but don't seem willing to help clean up the mess we've caused.


And, yes, I know it's our father's and grandfather's mess, but does that matter.  It's still a mess. It still needs cleaned up and if we're not willing to help out, then we're just part of the problem.  It's time to quit griping about what's wrong with black people and immigrants and start helping those among them that want to improve their communities, put their neighbors to work and instill a little pride, self-respect and self-sufficiency into their kids.


We're part of the solution or we ARE most assuredly, part of the problem.


I'm just sayin'.

Tom King