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Betsy Ross flag now decried by 2020 Dems, pundits was flown during Obama's 2nd inauguration

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  badfish-hd-h-u  •  5 years ago  •  125 comments

Betsy Ross flag now decried by 2020 Dems, pundits was flown during Obama's 2nd inauguration

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



he controversy quickly worked its way into the national political bloodstream, with some Democratic presidential candidates siding with Nike.

President Trump's campaign fired back by noting the flag's otherwise broad appeal.

“Democrats running for president have officially lost it. Beto & Castro strongly imply that the Betsy Ross flag is a symbol of hatred. Do the rest of the Dems agree? Pictured here, of course, is the notorious flag prominently featured at President Obama's 2nd inauguration,” tweeted Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.




Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, also mocked those suddenly criticizing the flag, tweeting that “weird that no one had a problem with The Betsy Ross Flag when it flew over Obama’s inauguration.”




Liberal   pundits   and 2020 presidential candidates alike jumped on the controversy, with former HUD Secretary Julián Castro saying he was “glad to see” Nike removed the shoes over the “painful” symbol that he compared to the Confederate flag.

“There are a lot of things in our history that are still very painful,” Castro told CBS News. As an example, he cited “the Confederate flag that still flies in some places and is used as a symbol.”


“I think it’s really important to take into account the impression that kind of symbol would have for many of our fellow Americans." — Beto O'Rourke

Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, meanwhile, also gave thumbs up for Nike's decision, noting that "white nationalist groups" have “appropriated” the Betsy Ross flag, without providing evidence.

“I think it’s really important to take into account the impression that kind of symbol would have for many of our fellow Americans," he said, according to Jewish Insider.

MSNBC guest Michael Eric Dyson echoed the Democrats’ comments, saying that conservatives were wrong to decry "political correctness" on Nike's part.

“Words matter. Symbols matter, too,” Dyson told MSNBC host Hallie Jackson when she asked about concerns over political correctness.

“Why don't we wear a swastika for July 4th? Because, I don't know, it makes a difference,” he said. “The cross burning on somebody's lawn. Why don't we just have a Nike celebration of the cross — those symbols are symbols of hate. So we can take PC culture back.”

The Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday   weighed   in on the debate, saying the flag is “innocuous” and has been used by people mostly for patriotic purposes.

Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow for the group’s Center on Extremism, told the Associated Press that the flag isn’t in the organization’s hate symbol database and while extremist groups have occasionally used the flag,  it’s most commonly used by people for patriotic purposes.

“We view it as essentially an innocuous historical flag,” he said. “It's not a thing in the white supremacist movement.”


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Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
2  Sean Treacy    5 years ago

Its amazing how batshit crazy the progesssives have gotten in less than a decade.

 
 
 
The Magic 8 Ball
Masters Quiet
2.1  The Magic 8 Ball  replied to  Sean Treacy @2    5 years ago

I'm not amazed at all... it was predictable.

I told them in 2009 they moved too soon.    this country is still right of center.

I think they actually believe their own BS.

their problem is...  marxism. and they are in too deep to back up now.

 
 
 
TTGA
Professor Silent
2.2  TTGA  replied to  Sean Treacy @2    5 years ago
Its amazing how batshit crazy the progesssives have gotten in less than a decade.

Sean, they were always like this.  They just hid it before.  Now, they're out of the closet and can't get back in quickly enough to save themselves.

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
2.2.1  XXJefferson51  replied to  TTGA @2.2    5 years ago

They have been moving this direction since the 1968-1974 ‘reform’ purge that took over the party I was then growing up in.  There were elements of it in the democrat house majority when Reagan was president that were just as looney as the AOC wing is today. There are just a lot more of them now. The democrat party move to the left is decades old and has moved far more left than any GOP move right.  I left them for Reagan.  The best political thing I ever did.  

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
4  Tacos!    5 years ago
“Why don't we wear a swastika for July 4th? Because, I don't know, it makes a difference,” he said. “The cross burning on somebody's lawn. Why don't we just have a Nike celebration of the cross — those symbols are symbols of hate.

So this guy is going to equate the American flag with nazis and the KKK. What an asshole.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
6  Vic Eldred    5 years ago

To suddenly discover that the Betsy Ross flag is a "racist" flag and to hear it all being said by leftist pundits in unison only hours after Colin Kaepernick found fault with it, was truly breathtaking!

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
6.1  Texan1211  replied to  Vic Eldred @6    5 years ago
To suddenly discover that the Betsy Ross flag is a "racist" flag and to hear it all being said by leftist pundits in unison only hours after Colin Kaepernick found fault with it, was truly breathtaking!

Gee, how soon will the same idiots declare that any US Flag is racist?

WTF do they do all day--sit around making everything "racist"?

 
 
 
The Magic 8 Ball
Masters Quiet
6.1.1  The Magic 8 Ball  replied to  Texan1211 @6.1    5 years ago
WTF do they do all day--sit around making everything "racist"?

anything to do with love of country is racist to today's lunatic left.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
7  JohnRussell    5 years ago

I guess BF and his crew have found the "issue" they can be hysterical over for the next few days. Over/under on how many different seeds BF has on this topic in the next 72 hours is 3.5

As for the content,

“Democrats running for president have officially lost it. Beto & Castro strongly imply that the Betsy Ross flag is a symbol of hatred.

Neither O'Rourke or Castro said that the Betsy Ross flag is a symbol of hatred. O'Rourke did say that if the flag has been appropriated for use by white nationalist groups then maybe Nike shouldnt use it.

I have very little doubt that most of the responders here are pretty ignorant about slaveholding among the founders generation.

George Washington held hundreds of slaves in his lifetime, and though he knew it was wrong by the time he was a mature adult, he was making profit off their labor and couldnt bring himself to free them as long as they were contributing to his businesses bottom line. He freed some of them in his will, in other words when he was dead, and didnt need them anymore.

It is up to individuals to decide how much these facts effect something like the "Betsy Ross" , or colonial, flag. Personally, the flag doesnt bother me.  I doubt if it bothers many Democrats either.

This seeded article is essentially conservative and republican propaganda.

 
 
 
KDMichigan
Junior Participates
7.2  KDMichigan  replied to  JohnRussell @7    5 years ago
Over/under on how many different seeds BF has on this topic in the next 72 hours is 3.5

Somebody has a friend...

This seeded article is essentially conservative and republican propaganda.

How is it propaganda? Didn't this happen JR? 

 
 
 
1stwarrior
Professor Participates
7.3  1stwarrior  replied to  JohnRussell @7    5 years ago

384

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
7.3.1  Texan1211  replied to  1stwarrior @7.3    5 years ago

I wish these malcontents who seemingly hate America would simply move and make some other country into their Utopia and leave us the hell alone.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
7.3.2  JohnRussell  replied to  1stwarrior @7.3    5 years ago

Betsy Ross didnt create the colonial flag. 

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
7.3.3  XXJefferson51  replied to  JohnRussell @7.3.2    5 years ago

No.  She created our first official national flag which makes what Kaepernick and Nike did all the more offensive.  

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
7.5  JBB  replied to  JohnRussell @7    5 years ago

This is just the forever outraged far right's manufactured outrage of the day....

Just a ruse to keep the dumbasses distracted while Trump & Co fleeces them.

 
 
 
Don Overton
Sophomore Quiet
7.5.1  Don Overton  replied to  JBB @7.5    5 years ago

[deleted]

 
 
 
Don Overton
Sophomore Quiet
7.6  Don Overton  replied to  JohnRussell @7    5 years ago

Hell John they know nothing but hysterics 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
7.6.1  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Don Overton @7.6    5 years ago

Note to everyone:

The semi-personal snipes going back and forth have got to stop. The only reason I have not removed them is that BF likes minimal moderation and I am trying to respect that. But if this continues I will be doing write ups.  

 
 
 
luther28
Sophomore Silent
8  luther28    5 years ago

Betsy Ross flag now decried by 2020 Dems, pundits was flown during Obama's 2nd inauguration

I suppose this means that as a Country we are now officially bat shit crazy. It is not as if we do not have legitimate problems that need to be addressed, now we have to create troubles where none exist.

 
 
 
Sister Mary Agnes Ample Bottom
Professor Guide
9  Sister Mary Agnes Ample Bottom    5 years ago

I have to admit that I haven't understood this latest 'controversy'.  I thought it was a joke at first...I mean honestly, who attacks Betsy Ross and her flag design?  

How disappointing to realize it has been an advertising stunt...and one that is working.  Again.  Nike pulled a similar stunt last year when they hired Colin Kaepernick.  The backlash appeared to be huge, but Nike sales rose 31%.  

It wouldn't bother me one bit if Colin Kaepernick, and his hair, just went away.

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Sister Mary Agnes Ample Bottom @9    5 years ago

Word, Sister!

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.1  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1    5 years ago

The fact that many of the founding fathers were slave owners is not going to go away. 

In fact, as the country becomes more "diverse". its going to be brought up more and more. We have to stop treating the founding fathers like they were faultless and demi-gods to be unquestioningly revered. 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.2  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.1    5 years ago

The revolutionary war was not a war to free anyone but the people who lived in America from what they deemed was the tyranny of the king, i.e. taxation without representation, having their homes taken way to house the British army, blockades of ports, no representation in court, etc. Despite that, the first patriot to die for the cause was a black man, Crispus Attucks, killed at the Boston Massacre. He was a free man. This was way before the Declaration of Independence was drafted.

When it came time to announce our independence to the world, of 5 men made up the Declaration committee, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson, only Jefferson kept slaves, yet it was Jefferson who included an anti-slavery clause in the original draft that was ultimately removed. This is the actual clause:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.

Jefferson, who kept slaves till the day he died, want that clause to stand. On the other hand, Franklin, who let all his slaves go decades earlier and started the first abolitionist group in the colonies, knew that by keeping that clause in, they would never get the unanimous vote needed to get the Declaration of Independence signed by all. He was the one who urged Jefferson and Adams to remove it, saying in a letter to Adams, "We're men, no more, no less. Trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first John, independence America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?"

These were good men in a time where lesser men would be crushed by such decisions. They were not perfect, but they were better than anyone around now. And they created a nation. That flag is nothing more than the flag of a new nation. It stands for nothing more than that new nation. To read anything more into that is to demonstrate a lack of one's own history.

And a final note. If anyone should complain about that flag, it should be the Indians, who lost their country to the one being created. Yet they have fought in every war for America even then. Think about that for a moment..

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.3  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.2    5 years ago

Washington and Jefferson were both troubled by slavery, meaning that they KNEW it was wrong and would have to be ended, or slaveholders would lose their souls and their honor. 

Had they not known that slavery was wrong, you would have a far better argument. As it stands they were not willing to put their money where there beliefs were , in regards to slavery, but they were in regards to rebellion against England. Washington left his prosperous farming business for many years to go serve as the commander of the Colonial army and Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence which could have got him a hangman's rope from the British. So they were all in on independence FOR THEMSELVES AND PEOPLE LIKE THEM. They were not all in on "independence" for the Africans, even though they knew that it was the right thing to do. 

This is the contradictory nature of their behavior and beliefs during this era, and you can pretty much apply it to all the slaveholding founding fathers. 

They acted on principle for their own interests, and did not act on principle for the Negroes interest. 

Now of course, maybe this just makes them men. Men of their time. I think we all understand that. But does understanding that mean that they will for eternity be held in high reverence? No matter what their flaws were? 

I don't think so. 

We can both appreciate their great contribution in founding our nation, and relaize that they failed on the issue of race. 

And I dont know why you insist on saying that if anyone has a complaint it is the Indians. Of course the Indians have a complaint, but dont you think more than one group or party can have a complaint?  You also say that Indians fought in every war America has fought. Are you suggesting blacks havent? 

This is not about pitting black interests against Indian interests or women's interests. It is about being clear minded about our history. 

I dont have a strong feeling about the "Betsy Ross" flag, but if we are going to foment the myth that George Washington personally asked her to create it, then maybe his weak stance on slavery does enter into it. 

Personally I can both honor the founding fathers for their brilliant political creation and be dismayed by their position on slavery, the Native Americans , and womens rights. 

In a diverse society there are going to be more questions along these lines, not less. 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.4  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.3    5 years ago
Now of course, maybe this just makes them men. Men of their time. I think we all understand that. But does understanding that mean that they will for eternity be held in high reverence? No matter what their flaws were?  I don't think so. 

They were human and complex men. They were not perfect. They even knew they were not. But they did something that no other people ever did before in the history of mankind. They broke away from the mother country. That is what the 4th is about. A dream made real. That is what the 4th is about. Have you ever read what John Adams wrote about his dream?

Let me show you:

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. -- I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. -- Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity willtryumphin that Days Transaction, evenalthoWe should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Btw, he is referring to the second day of the 4th as the day they the 2nd Contential Congress took the vote on the Declaration.

Now tell me what the war was about? It was about Independence. 

And I dont know why you insist on saying that if anyone has a complaint it is the Indians. Of course the Indians have a complaint, but dont you think more than one group or party can have a complaint?  You also say that Indians fought in every war America has fought. Are you suggesting blacks havent? 

Wow, way to twist my meaning. Indians had their homeland taken from them. If anyone should be bitter about American Independence, it's them. But they actually love this country and fought for independence. despite that, they are STILL FIGHTING FOR their rights. They are the most forgotten minority group in the US yet they don't complain about a flag on a pair of shoes.

And how am I suggesting that blacks didn't fight for Independence? I opened my last comment saying that the first man killed in the Revolutionary war was a black man. He believed in the cause. Yet you focused on slavery. Well, he didn't. He understood the cause in the context of his time. This was not a war about slavery. It was a war for independence. To drag in slavery is ridiculous. 

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
9.1.5  TᵢG  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.4    5 years ago

To add to that.   

Attempting to correct all the wrongs in one transaction does not work.   Politicians know this today.   Our founders knew that back then.   One need only read the Federalist papers to see the serious challenges facing the founders to come to political consensus to get something passed.   They, of course, recognized that taking a step forward in progress enables future steps whereas trying to solve too many problems at once means nothing is solved.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.6  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.4    5 years ago

When we look at the context of worship and unquestioned reverence that many Americans pay to the founding fathers, and the founding, and put that in contrast with SOME of their actual actions, it really isnt that difficult to see why some people have grown uncomfortable with it (the reverence). 

Why do conservatives try and place such a personal claim on the founding and the constitution? I am sure you have seen right wingers on this very site claim that obedience to the founders literal words and vision should take precedence over modern day interpretations of their principles. When Rand Paul and Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act provision that businesses be required to serve everyone regardless of race or religion , they did so on a supposed constitutional basis. 

What those who revisit the character of the founders are saying is that we need to look at their totality, not just their revered positions on establishing the principles of a new nation. 

As far as the flag goes, I strongly suspect it is Washington's alleged personal interaction with Betsy Ross , although it is apocryphal, that led to a suggested protest of the shoe. The sad truth is that Washington's personal relationship with slavery was not a good one. 

In a multicultural society this sort of thing IS going to be discussed, whether you or me or anyone else likes it or not. 

As for the Indians, I have every sympathy for the plight of the Indians in America throughout history.  You are the one who tried to suggest that they had a better claim to sympathy than the slaves did. Then you sort of doubled down on it.         Ok. 

They both do. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.7  JohnRussell  replied to  TᵢG @9.1.5    5 years ago
They, of course, recognized that taking a step forward in progress enables future steps whereas trying to solve too many problems at once means nothing is solved.

Of course it just conveniently worked out that ignoring slavery would help their personal bottom line.  Of course Jefferson and Washington etc were men of principle, but they acted on one principle and failed to act on another.  Why not get rid of slavery first and then later declare independence? 

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
9.1.8  TᵢG  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.7    5 years ago
Of course it just conveniently worked out that ignoring slavery would help their personal bottom line. 

There was nothing convenient about it.   These men were struggling to form a union while dealing with very strong-willed men with diverse opinions and differing economic and philosophical factors critical to their constituents.

Of course Jefferson and Washington etc were men of principle, but they acted on one principle and failed to act on another. 

Correct.   Imagine that John.  Human beings in compromised situations who fail to produce perfect results.

Why not get rid of slavery first and then later declare independence? 

You write this as if this were easily accomplished.   Again, have you not read what was taking place back then?   They barely got the 3/5th compromise.   Where do you get the idea that it was even possible to get the union to agree to abolish slavery?   

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.9  JohnRussell  replied to  TᵢG @9.1.8    5 years ago
Where do you get the idea that it was even possible to get the union to agree to abolish slavery?   

What union? Before independence there was no union. 

Look, what happened happened. We got the greatest country in the world out of it. But there is nothing about the lives of the founding fathers that requires, in an honest way, that they not be criticized for their non-actions regarding slavery, or the theft of Indian lands. 

It is entirely possible to both appreciate the declaration of independence and the constitution, and at the same time protest the "Betsy Ross" flag because of other factors related to race or other conditions at the time. This revisionism IS going to be the future of the way we look back at that era. It is an evolution of understanding what the era was like. 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.11  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.6    5 years ago
When we look at the context of worship and unquestioned reverence that many Americans pay to the founding fathers, and the founding, and put that in contrast with SOME of their actual actions, it really isnt that difficult to see why some people have grown uncomfortable with it (the reverence).

John, the men are recognized as flawed. You need to do more reading about it. "American Sphinx is a good starting point. What is held in reverence is their accomplishments. They achieved something that had never been done before in the history of man. They broke away from their mother country. That alone is amazing.

Why do conservatives try and place such a personal claim on the founding and the constitution? I am sure you have seen right wingers on this very site claim that obedience to the founders literal words and vision should take precedence over modern day interpretations of their principles.

Ah, now we come to the crux of your problem. You view the fact that conservatives hold our founding fathers in high regard, a conservative POV. Well, I am not a conservative, and I hold them in high regard since I know what they did in the context of history. What I find disturbing is politicizing our history which leads to ridiculous alterations. Don't fall into that trap. 

The sad truth is that Washington's personal relationship with slavery was not a good one. 

No one denies that, but he did manage to beat the odds and win an almost unwinnable war. You keep going back to the wrong point. When we celebrate the 4th, we celebrate our freedom from England, not G. Washington.

In a multicultural society this sort of thing IS going to be discussed, whether you or me or anyone else likes it or not. 

We have always been a multicultural society. That is part of our uniqueness. What you seem to be missing is that it's not the discussion of our founding fathers that is disturbing. It is not. It is the distortion of history that is disturbing and finding new reasons to diminish what these men did. Furthermore, for one man to push his agenda, via his popularity. I find that revolting. And that is what happened at Nike.

As for the Indians, I have every sympathy for the plight of the Indians in America throughout history.  You are the one who tried to suggest that they had a better claim to sympathy than the slaves did. Then you sort of doubled down on it. 

Do you read what I write? I never said anything about Indians having a better claim to sympathy. I said they never got any. There was no civil rights movement for them. There was no national awakening for them. Do you not get that?

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.12  JohnRussell  replied to  Release The Kraken @9.1.10    5 years ago

Are you capable of saying more? 

Or is "Not Historically accurate."  in the eye of the beholder? 

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
9.1.13  TᵢG  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.9    5 years ago
What union? Before independence there was no union. 

Amazing how you go after absolute petty, pointless aspects like my not using the adjective 'fledgling' or equivalent at every turn.    But much worse, you ignored the fact that I had, in my opening sentence, wrote this:

TiG @9.1.8 - These men were struggling to form a union while ...

How did you manage to miss that?

Look, what happened happened. We got the greatest country in the world out of it. But there is nothing about the lives of the founding fathers that requires, in an honest way, that they not be criticized for their non-actions regarding slavery, or the theft of Indian lands. 

Who says they are not open for criticism.   My point is that they were just men and it is absurd to think they can be perfect.   Their inability to abolish slavery while forming the union is easy to understand.   

It is entirely possible to both appreciate the declaration of independence and the constitution, and at the same time protest the "Betsy Ross" flag because of other factors related to race or other conditions at the time. This revisionism IS going to be the future of the way we look back at that era. It is an evolution of understanding what the era was like. 

You are now equivocating and moving the goal posts from failure to abolish slavery during the founding to the BR flag having symbolic ties to our slave-owner past.   In other words, you are backing down from your position and trying to move this into:  the founding fathers were imperfect and that it is fair to criticize the imperfection.

Yes, slavery is clearly immoral and our founding fathers were imperfect men.   No doubt about it.   If the founders could have eliminated slavery and successfully form the union but chose to not do so then I could appreciate your words.   As it stands, you seem to be ignoring what was taking place back then or downplaying the difficulty of what they were trying to accomplish.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.14  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.11    5 years ago
 I never said anything about Indians having a better claim to sympathy.
And a final note. If anyone should complain about that flag, it should be the Indians,

Ok, we wont parse words.  I stand by what I said and you say you have clarified it. 

I don't want to get deeper into an argument with you, although I certainly could based on historical fact. 

Thank you for the fun "debate". 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.16  JohnRussell  replied to  TᵢG @9.1.13    5 years ago

Of course they could have abolished slavery. If they wanted to abolish slavery more than they wanted a thirteen state nation, they could have done it. They didnt, and now they are open to that criticism. Your insistence that the founding fathers cannot be criticized for ignoring slavery because they had bigger fish to fry at the time is little less than silly.  They did what they wanted to or had to do, and now the critics are doing what they want to or have to do. 

The past is in the past and will not be changed. The amount of reverence that will be paid to the founding fathers era is wide open to reassessment , is being reassessed constantly in history books , and will continue to be reassessed in the future, whether anyone likes it or not. 

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
9.1.17  TᵢG  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.16    5 years ago
If they wanted to abolish slavery more than they wanted a thirteen state nation, they could have done it.

You are ignoring part of what I wrote.  Here it is again:

TiG @9.1.13 -  Their inability to abolish slavery while forming the union is easy to understand.   

And this is not the only time I made it clear that I was talking about the difficulty of doing both.   They chose to form the union first.   That gave us a union and that union later on (barely I might add) was able to abolish slavery.   It took a civil war and years of societal evolution after the fact.

Your insistence that the founding fathers cannot be criticized for ignoring slavery because they had bigger fish to fry at the time is little less than silly.  

And yet again you fail to actually read what others write.   Here again:

TiG @9.1.13 - Who says they are not open for criticism[?] 

and

TiG @9.1.13 - Yes, slavery is clearly immoral and our founding fathers were imperfect men.   No doubt about it.   If the founders could have eliminated slavery and successfully form the union but chose to not do so then I could appreciate your words. 

Is there a problem with how I write words that make them invisible to you?    It gets old having to constantly point you back to the words that you ignored or cannot see after you write rebuttal comments that make no sense if you had actually read what I had written.

The amount of reverence that will be paid to the founding fathers era is wide open to reassessment , is being reassessed constantly in history books , and will continue to be reassessed in the future, whether anyone likes it or not. 

Why do you presume anyone here is against critical review of our history?

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.18  JohnRussell  replied to  Release The Kraken @9.1.15    5 years ago

Being obsessed with Social Justice virtue signaling has nothing to do with history.  Someone says something is racist and the followers fall in line.

Many others actually review the statement and study it's accuracy. In this case that someone has been proven to be an idiot. At this point the followers continue to support the fallacy because, ego.

The right thing to do is admit you were wrong and move on.

Please don't babble at me BF.

It doesnt go over well, and besides , you can probably do a little better. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.20  JohnRussell  replied to  Release The Kraken @9.1.19    5 years ago
John, I tried to help you. You are getting shellacked on this article and it's embarrassing. It's like when Gunny use to school you. Nostalgia.....

Gee, I guess it's a good thing that I don't have any respect for your opinion then. 

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
9.1.21  Dulay  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.2    5 years ago
Despite that, the first patriot to die for the cause was a black man, Crispus Attucks, killed at the Boston Massacre. He was a free man. This was way before the Declaration of Independence was drafted.

Ironically, a founder, John Adams didn't believe that Crispus Attucks 'died for the cause'. In today's vernacular, Adams considered Attucks a 'thug'. 

March 5, 1770 – Boston Massacre – A crowd gathered, “a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars” as John Adams called them during the soldiers’ trial.
Soldiers received a heavy bombardment of snowballs and rubbish when they
opened fire. 3 dead, 8 wounded , including Crispus Attucks

That's right, John Adams defended the soldiers. 

This is the actual clause:

Actually, it was longer: 

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

My reading of that clause is that Jefferson decried the 'middle passage' slave trade and the fact that the Dunmore Proclamation threatened a slave revolt. 

As far as slavery, Jefferson seemed more worried about it's effect on the oppressor than he was on the oppressed. His 'Notes on the State of Virginia' has quite a few pages that make it pretty clear that he felt strongly that black people are mentally and emotionally  inferior and that they could never be 'assimilated' into American society. Jefferson supported emancipation of children born after a given date and then their expatriation at adulthood. Of course their family would remain enslaved until manumission or death... It's actually pretty disgusting to read. 

That being said, though I have read much that I abhor about him, Jefferson is my favorite founder. His was visionary to make the Louisiana Purchase and to send out the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Their journals are a chronical of this nation that time in history.  

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.22  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.16    5 years ago
Of course they could have abolished slavery. If they wanted to abolish slavery more than they wanted a thirteen state nation, they could have done it.

What don't you get? There would have been no nation since the motion was passed that all 13 colonies had to vote yea on the Declaration, or their job was done. The war would have ended and we would have been under British rule. End of story. It was Franklin who noted to Adam's that Independence had to come first, slavery second. We had to have a nation before we could decide on the question of slavery. They tried to get it passed but it could not be done. It was an unfortunate compromise, but that is life. It still happens today. 

The reverence we have for our founding fathers were not because they were perfect, but because they managed to give us a country where we can have these kinds of discussions. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.23  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.22    5 years ago

Why The Constitution Was Indeed Pro Slavery

…..of the 11 clauses in the Constitution that deal with or have policy implications for slavery, 10 protect slave property and the powers of masters. Only one, the international slave-trade clause, points to a possible future power by which, after 20 years, slavery might be curtailed—and it didn’t work out that way at all.

…..all the powers delegated to the House—that is, the most democratic aspects of the Constitution—were disproportionately affected by what critics quickly came to call “slave representation.” These included the commerce clause—a compromise measure that gave the federal government power to regulate commerce, but only at the price of giving disproportionate power to slave states. And as if that wasn’t enough, Congress was forbidden from passing export duties—at a time when most of the value of what the U.S. exported lay in slave-grown commodities. This was one of the few things (in addition to regulating the slave trade for 20 years) that Congress was forbidden to do. Slavery and democracy in the U.S. were joined at the 60-percent-replaced hip.

Another clause in Article I allowed Congress to mobilize “the Militia” to “suppress insurrections”—again, the House with its disproportionate votes would decide whether a slave rebellion counted as an insurrection. Wilentz repeats the old saw that with the rise of the northwest, the slave power’s real bastion was the Senate. Hence the battles over the admission of slave and free states that punctuated the path to Civil War. But this reads history backwards from the 1850s, not forward from 1787. The shaping policies of the early republic were proslavery because the federal government was controlled by southern expansionists like Jefferson and Jackson, who saw Africans as a captive nation, a fifth column just waiting to be liberated (again) by the British.

The refusal to mention slavery as property or anything else in the Constitution means something. But what it meant was embarrassment—and damage control. Domestic and foreign critics had lambasted Americans for their hypocrisy in calling themselves a beacon to human freedom while only a few states moved on the slavery question. The planters didn’t need or even want an explicit statement that slaves were property; it would have stated the obvious while opening up the United States to international ridicule in an era when slavery was coming into question.

….the fact that it took a civil war to settle the debate about the Founders’ intentions for slavery’s future shows that, as John Quincy Adams came to understand and assert during the 1830s, there was no constitutional way except the exercise of war powers to end slavery in the United States. You can call that the founders’ design, but it seems more a design flaw than something to celebrate. When it takes a war to resolve something, humane persons call it a failure or a tragedy. They don’t blame the people who point out the roots of the problem. Unless their agenda is less historical than political. When Wilentz raps the knuckles of Bernie Sanders for saying what his teachers said fifty years ago, he isn’t doing his favorite any favors.

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.24  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Dulay @9.1.21    5 years ago

Dulay, 

It is no secret that Adam's defended the British soldiers that were at the Boston Massacre. He was a defense lawyer and the British chose him knowing that he was sympathetic to the patriot cause, hence lending more credence to his defense. In the case, he referred to all that Patriots at the Boston Massacre at thugs, not just Crispus Attucks. His cousin Sam Adams was upset with John (they were very close), but John was not on board yet, since the year was 1770 and things in Boston had not become too bad yet. Obviously, he went on to be one of the biggest proponents of independence a few short years later. He would later write:

The "foundation of American independence was laid" on March 5, 1770.

************************************************************

My reading of that clause is that Jefferson decried the 'middle passage' slave trade and the fact that the Dunmore Proclamation threatened a slave revolt. 

If that were the case, then the south wouldn't have wanted the clause out, and it is very clear from the minutes that they did for the reasons I stated, Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, in particular. 

As far as slavery, Jefferson seemed more worried about it's effect on the oppressor than he was on the oppressed. His 'Notes on the State of Virginia' has quite a few pages that make it pretty clear that he felt strongly that black people are mentally and emotionally  inferior and that they could never be 'assimilated' into American society

Well, I hate to break the news to you, but that was the feelings of Abraham Lincoln, but even worse. Lincoln even toyed with the idea of sending freed blacks back to Africa, as to not have them free among whites. 

We are judging these men by today's standards. You can't do that. You have to look at the time they lived in, and see how much more progressive they were to their peers and they were. 

btw.. I am an Adam's gal. He never swayed from his beliefs. He was honest and true and truly without him, there would have been no United States, of which he is given so little credit to, until late. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.25  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.22    5 years ago

image-OJQ5V92K.jpg?token=1562644641_3I2U67PFBPE7QFAVQHA74SKLITNURUFMH5FVSJF7FU3K3ELH5BVU32QUSZ4QW===_bac2654062981e00da51b93b65662dd828f2695f

I have this book. 

“Was the American Constitution as originally ratified a proslavery document? In this unflinching, deeply intelligent, and persuasive work, David Waldstreicher answers yes. Sure to spark interest and debate, Slavery's Constitution is an immensely engaging and valuable contribution to the literature on the founding of the American nation.” ― Annette Gordon-Reed

“Succinct and shrewd, David Waldstreicher's Slavery's Constitution enables us to understand a central element of American political practice that the founders sought to obscure.” ― Linda K. Kerber

“David Waldstreicher's intriguing new book brilliantly shows the founding fathers' republican constitution to be, in important part, central to their many evasions of slavery's antirepublican nature.” ― William W. Freehling

“With as light a touch as its hard truths permit, Slavery's Constitution explains the deep, complex, and pervasive entanglement that ultimately doomed the United States to civil war.” ― Robin L. Einhorn

A concise and mildly polemical book discussing the role of the Constitution as a shield for slavery in the early American republic. Waldstreicher's point of departure is historiographic in that he points out that discussions of the role of slavery figure very little in several of the standard discussions of the American revolution and the formation of the Constitution such as Bernard Bailyn's great Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and Gordon Wood's magisterial The Creation of the American Republic. Waldstreicher makes a good argument that the Constitution was partly constructed to protect chattel slavery, a charge made in the early to mid-19th century by prominent abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.26  JohnRussell  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.25    5 years ago

256

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.27  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.26    5 years ago

But we are not talking about the Constitution. We are talking about the Revolutionary War. That was when the flag in question was made. 

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
9.1.28  Dulay  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.24    5 years ago
It is no secret that Adam's defended the British soldiers that were at the Boston Massacre.

I didn't say there was. My point is that Attucks didn't 'die for a cause'. 

In the case, he referred to all that Patriots at the Boston Massacre at thugs, not just Crispus Attucks.

As the quote I cited proves. 

If that were the case, then the south wouldn't have wanted the clause out, and it is very clear from the minutes that they did for the reasons I stated, Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, in particular.

Jefferson's notes from the Continental Congress:

the clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa , was struck out in complaisance to13 South Carolina & Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender <on that> under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.

You have got to be kidding with that video...1776 the Musical. Sheesh.

Well, I hate to break the news to you, but that was the feelings of Abraham Lincoln, but even worse. Lincoln even toyed with the idea of sending freed blacks back to Africa, as to not have them free among whites.

I hate to break the news to you but Jefferson wrote about that when Lincoln was just a teenager:

We are judging these men by today's standards. You can't do that. You have to look at the time they lived in, and see how much more progressive they were to their peers and they were.

Nope, I'm just citing facts.

Many people of Jefferson's time believed that slavery was abhorant. The Quakers worked for years to eradicate it in there society and by 1774 had achieved their goal.

Jefferson and others of that time knew that they had no moral ground to stand on made pragmatic choices, some purely for profit. I don't hold it against them as I would modern leaders today. I see their greatness despite the fact that they were horribly flawed. 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.29  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Dulay @9.1.28    5 years ago
I didn't say there was. My point is that Attucks didn't 'die for a cause'. 

You are wrong. He was stirred on by event going on in Boston at the time:

In the fall of 1768,   British soldiers   were sent to Boston in an attempt to control growing colonial unrest, which had led to a spate of attacks on local officials following the introduction of the   Stamp Act   and the subsequent   Townshend Acts . Radical   Whigs   had coordinated   waterfront   mobs against the authorities. The presence of troops, instead of reducing tensions, served to further inflame them.

After dusk on March 5, 1770, a crowd of colonists confronted a sentry who had chastised a boy for complaining that an officer did not pay a   barber   bill. Both townspeople and a company of British soldiers of the   29th Regiment of Foot   gathered. The colonists threw snowballs and debris at the soldiers. A group of men including Attucks approached the   Old State House   armed with   clubs . A soldier was struck with a piece of wood, an act some witnesses claimed was done by Attucks. Other witnesses stated that Attucks was "leaning upon a stick" when the soldiers opened fire.

In the case, he referred to all that Patriots at the Boston Massacre at thugs, not just Crispus Attucks.

That is how cases are won. They were trying to defend the actions of the Britsh soldiers, not Crispus Attucks.

You have got to be kidding with that video...1776 the Musical. Sheesh.

If you knew anything about the musical was based on Peter Stone historical book 1776. The same scene is also included in the series John Adams based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. I would have posted that if I could have had it well clipped like this one. They only had the part with Rutledge saying he would never vote for it. And btw.. there is no reason to get nasty and say sheesh. Do you actually think I would post something without knowing the facts?

I hate to break the news to you but Jefferson wrote about that when Lincoln was just a teenager

That was not my point. My point was the man that everyone holds in high regard as the great liberator of the black man, was held similar views to Jefferson, so why are you condemning Jefferson? The fact that he wanted the clause in there in the first place, was remarkable given the time.

Jefferson and others of that time knew that they had no moral ground to stand on made pragmatic choices, some purely for profit. I don't hold it against them as I would modern leaders today. I see their greatness despite the fact that they were horribly flawed. 

You seem to miss the part that Jefferson did have it in the Declaration. What he did later in life, made him human and yes flawed. But at that moment in history, he tried to do the right thing. I guess we will have to differ on how we view him. But this whole business was about the "Besty Ross" flag, and all that flag was about was American Independence and really I don't care who made the flag, that is what it was about.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.30  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.29    5 years ago

Thomas Jefferson owned well over 100 slaves at the very time he wrote a passage for the Declaration of Independence (which was not included in the final document) condemning King George III for the slave trade. 

Jefferson acquired most of the over six hundred  people he owned during his life through the natural increase of enslaved families. He acquired approximately 175 enslaved people through inheritance: about 40 from the estate of his father,  Peter Jefferson , in 1764, and 135 from his father-in-law,  John Wayles , in 1774. Jefferson purchased fewer than twenty slaves in his lifetime.
 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.31  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.30    5 years ago

No one is denying that John. If you had watched the clip I provided, the congress reminded Jefferson about that themselves. But the issue wasn't slavery. It was American independence. And Jefferson, although usually credited for writing the Declaration, wasn't the only one. There were 4 other people all of who didn't own slaves. 

I would provide you with an interesting video from Kahn Academy about this, but why bother, since no one is really interested in learning anything. They just want to make something that has no evil intent (the flag) into a whole bugaboo. Well so be it. You and Colin Kaepernick can shit on the flag. It's your right. And no other country in this world gives you that right. So, please keep that in mind when you are in the act. 

I am done! 

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
9.1.32  Dulay  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.29    5 years ago
You are wrong. He was stirred on by event going on in Boston at the time:

Being 'stirred' by events is not the same as dying for a cause. 

In the case, he referred to all that Patriots at the Boston Massacre at thugs, not just Crispus Attucks.

You've said that already. 

That is how cases are won.

I know, I am the one that quoted the Adams statement. 

If you knew anything about the musical was based on Peter Stone historical book 1776. The same scene is also included in the series John Adams based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. I would have posted that if I could have had it well clipped like this one. They only had the part with Rutledge saying he would never vote for it. And btw.. there is no reason to get nasty and say sheesh. Do you actually think I would post something without knowing the facts?

The book by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards is the screenplay of the musical Perrie. It is fictional and took HUGE literary license. It conflates events and has founders making statements during the July 1776 debates that were taken from their writings from years before the event. 

That was not my point. My point was the man that everyone holds in high regard as the great liberator of the black man, was held similar views to Jefferson, so why are you condemning Jefferson?

Where did I 'condemn' Jefferson Perrie? I see him with eyes wide open. I don't white wash his shortcomings just because I revere his accomplishments. 

The fact that he wanted the clause in there in the first place, was remarkable given the time.

I've already told you my view of his motive for the clause, I'll just add that even if we were to take your musical as historical, it's pretty obvious that Jefferson wasn't the only one that wanted the clause in the DoI and many of those others LIVED those values while Jefferson did NOT. 

You seem to miss the part that Jefferson did have it in the Declaration.

I don't see how you could come to that conclusion since I posted the entire clause and cited my view of why he include it. 

What he did later in life, made him human and yes flawed.

What he did earlier in his life made him human and flawed too...

But at that moment in history, he tried to do the right thing.

Actually no, no he didn't. Jefferson was one of the biggest planters in Virginia. He COULD have sold most or all of his slaves if he wanted to 'do the right thing'. After reading Jefferson's Farm Journal, I doubt that he ever gave it a thought. Jefferson didn't free his slaves in his will as Washington did. 

I guess we will have to differ on how we view him.

I don't think we DO view him differently. We just come to that view differently. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.33  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.31    5 years ago
You and Colin Kaepernick can shit on the flag.

I don't appreciate that Perrie. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.35  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.31    5 years ago

I watched your clip from the movie 1776 (which is an excellent movie by the way). 

John Adams to Ben Franklin - "If we give in on this issue (slavery) posterity will never forgive us."

Ben Franklin - "That's probably true but we won't hear a thing, we'll be long gone." "Besides what will posterity think we were, demi-gods? We're men , no more no less." 

=====

They knew they were open to severe criticism and , for some of them, accusations of hypocrisy. They knew it, and seem to have accepted it. 

Why can't you? 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.36  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Dulay @9.1.32    5 years ago
Being 'stirred' by events is not the same as dying for a cause. 

Are you kidding me? You mean he died on a whim? He and the others who were killed died for what they believed in, which was the oppression of the English. 

The book by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards is the screenplay of the musical Perrie. It is fictional and took HUGE literary license. It conflates events and has founders making statements during the July 1776 debates that were taken from their writings from years before the event. 

Which oddly agree with  David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. The one major known literary license in 1776, is the fact that Thomas Jefferson never got to go home to his wife as she died from consumption before that. The bulk of the story is accurate in content and was taken from the minutes of the congress as was McCullough's book. 

Where did I 'condemn' Jefferson Perrie? I see him with eyes wide open. I don't white wash his shortcomings because I revere his accomplishments. 

I'm not whitewashing him either. Somewhere in this thread, I suggest a reading of American Sphinx. See, that's the thing. I actually have a whole library of books that I have read on the founding fathers and the war and that is why I am so discouraged at this discussion. It is actually one of the worst and biggest waste of my time. 

it's pretty obvious that Jefferson wasn't the only one that wanted the clause in the DoI and many of those others LIVED those values while Jefferson did NOT. 

Again, I said that exact same thing earlier on in this thread. He was a hypocrite. None the less, the clause was there. Something that 4 non slave owners helped to write.

I don't see how you could come to that conclusion since I posted the entire clause and cited my view of why he include it. 

Your view does not concur with most historians of the time. Since the south wanted it out, and the other 4 involved in it's writing wanted it, I would say your interpretation isn't correct. But so be it.

What he did earlier in his life made him human and flawed too...

OMG...Too much. Everyone is human and flawed.

Actually no, no he didn't. Jefferson was one of the biggest planters in Virginia. He COULD have sold most or all of his slaves if he wanted to 'do the right thing'. After reading Jefferson's Farm Journal, I doubt that he ever gave it a thought. Jefferson didn't free his slaves in his will as Washington did. 

He was hardly the largest plantation owner and had the clause never been removed, he would have had to let his slaves go. And that is the point that you seem to be missing. Yes, the clause was removed, and yes he didn't even follow through upon his death, but it would have played out differently had the clause remained. 

Now I am done with this discussion. You can get last licks Dulay if it makes you happy. 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.37  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.35    5 years ago

Do you not understand done?

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.38  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.33    5 years ago

I don't appreciate the BS I have gotten on this article so we are tied.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9.1.39  JohnRussell  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.38    5 years ago

Please point out the b.s. ? 

I accept that you are very knowledgeable about this era. But you want everyone to over look what , according to your favorite movie, Jefferson and Adams and Franklin themselves knew was not going to be overlooked by posterity. 

You make it sound like all this is being caused by Kaepernick, me, and Dulay.  

I showed you a book that makes the case that the Constitution was used in part to protect slavery.  You dont approve of that one because it's not one of your books. 

There are many books that look at the "flaws" of the founders now. I seeded an article this morning which is from the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on the founding fathers and slavery.  If you won't listen to me at all, will you listen to Encyclopedia Britannica? 

You act like I have spit in John Adams face.  No such thing. I admire all of those people. That does not put them above criticism. 

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1.40  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.39    5 years ago
I showed you a book that makes the case that the Constitution was used in part to protect slavery.  You dont approve of that one because it's not one of your books. 

And there it is. A strawman argument. The flag was made for a new nation, not the constitution. It had nothing tied to it other than saying that here we are, a country with a flag. Take note. So why are you bringing in the constitution? It has nada to do with this.

And this wasn't about criticism of our founding father. They were people with flaws. This is about a hypersensitive society that makes a big deal over everything. 

Now I am done forereals. Oh and btw.. I own that book.

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
9.1.41  Dulay  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @9.1.36    5 years ago
The bulk of the story is accurate in content and was taken from the minutes of the congress as was McCullough's book. 

Where are these 'minutes of the congress' that you speak of Perrie? You've cited them twice now. John Adams' diary notes skip from May 13, 1776 to July 25, 1776. I quoted Jefferson's notes for the debate. 

Which oddly agree with David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography.

McCullough's biography was written AFTER the Stone screenplay. It's a biography, not  historical non-fiction. Maybe McCullough liked the play. 

I'm not whitewashing him either.

Nor have I condemned him as you claimed. 

Again, I said that exact same thing earlier on in this thread. He was a hypocrite. None the less, the clause was there. Something that 4 non slave owners helped to write.

There was a meeting of the committee about what the declaration should include BEFORE Jefferson or anyone else put pen to paper. Perhaps the other four wanted the clause and Jefferson was ticking off a 'line item'. 

Your view does not concur with most historians of the time. Since the south wanted it out, and the other 4 involved in it's writing wanted it, I would say your interpretation isn't correct. But so be it.

I haven't given my opinion why it was removed. Though you feel it's worthy to argue it, it seem pretty obvious to me that the southern colonies didn't want to stop importing slaves. What I did opine on was my interpretation of the clause:

My reading of that clause is that Jefferson decried the 'middle passage' slave trade and the fact that the Dunmore Proclamation threatened a slave revolt.

The clause is obviously about the capture and importation of slaves and Jefferson took later actions to prohibit it in the US. Of course, the pessimist in me recognizes that it made existing  slaves that much more valuable and Jefferson recognized that too as he wrote about the value of 'breeding' slaves @ Monticello where children started working @ 10. 

He was hardly the largest plantation owner

Hence the words 'one of' Perrie. 

and had the clause never been removed, he would have had to let his slaves go.

Wrong. The Declaration of Independence is NOT a legal document. It makes no law and requires no legal action of it's signatories. 

And that is the point that you seem to be missing. Yes, the clause was removed, and yes he didn't even follow through upon his death, but it would have played out differently had the clause remained.

I don't know why you believe that the clause has anything to do with those that were already enslaved.

Now I am done with this discussion. You can get last licks Dulay if it makes you happy.

Thanks for taking yours and 'encouraging' cogent discussions Perrie. 

 

 
 
 
Citizen Kane-473667
Professor Participates
9.1.42  Citizen Kane-473667  replied to  JohnRussell @9.1.1    5 years ago
The fact that many of the founding fathers were slave owners is not going to go away.

Why not since obviously the fact that it was not only an accepted institution at the time, but also had been for over 10.000 years apparently has been forgotten. Oh wait, I'm talking to JR...I need to do this so he can read it!

You and Colin et al like to judge people by YOUR standards of today. Okay, then let us judge YOU by 2019 standards.

Oops, GTG, dinners ready. but I'm sure such a brilliant mind as yours can conceive of other conundrums to ponder and YOU must decide which battles to save for another day because YOU, JR...are perfect--which is what gives you the right to sit in judgement of 200+ year old morals and battles.

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
9.2  Dulay  replied to  Sister Mary Agnes Ample Bottom @9    5 years ago
It wouldn't bother me one bit if Colin Kaepernick, and his hair, just went away.

I feel the same way about Trump. 

jrSmiley_54_smiley_image.gif

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
9.2.1  bugsy  replied to  Dulay @9.2    5 years ago

He probably will...in January 2015. Enjoy the time he is here until then. It does a mind good.

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
9.2.2  Dulay  replied to  bugsy @9.2.1    5 years ago

WTF are you talking about? 

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
9.2.3  Tessylo  replied to  Dulay @9.2    5 years ago
'It wouldn't bother me one bit if Colin Kaepernick, and his hair, just went away.'

'I feel the same way about Trump'

jrSmiley_54_smiley_image.gif

I don't understand anyone feeling that way about Kapernick.  To each their own.  

I feel the same way you do about the 'president'

 
 
 
KDMichigan
Junior Participates
9.2.4  KDMichigan  replied to  Tessylo @9.2.3    5 years ago
I feel the same way you do about the 'president'

Of course you do. 

I don't understand anyone feeling that way about Kapernick.

Kaperdink is quite smart I'll give him that. He is making millions off the butt hurt and perpetually offended left.

original

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
9.2.5  Dulay  replied to  Tessylo @9.2.3    5 years ago
I don't understand anyone feeling that way about Kapernick.

I think most white people see an afro as unkept. They don't realize how much work goes into a 'natural' hairdo like that. I 'buttered' and braided many an afro during my time in Chicago. 

Personally, I think he looks better with short hair and a short beard. 

 
 
 
Paula Bartholomew
Professor Participates
9.2.6  Paula Bartholomew  replied to  bugsy @9.2.1    5 years ago

2015?  You do know that was 4 years ago.

 
 
 
Enoch
Masters Quiet
9.3  Enoch  replied to  Sister Mary Agnes Ample Bottom @9    5 years ago

Dear Friend SMAAB: Mr. Kapernick sports an Afro.

I used to display a Jewfro.

Then my hair moved to Florida, leaving my scalp here in upstate NY.

I save time and a small fortune on morning grooming and hair care products.

Every cloud has its silver lining.

Enoch, Using a Magic Marker and Flashlight to Put A Bat Man Image in the sky over our home. 

 

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
11  Split Personality    5 years ago

With all things eventually becoming amusing, once again NIKE stock (NKE) continues to rise ( today a modest 1.27% )

Naturally since I already have NKE

I ordered a new "Betsy Ross" flag only to find that they are generally, at least the inexpensive ones, out of stock.

800

I wonder if Kopenick owns any stock in flag companies?

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
11.1  Sean Treacy  replied to  Split Personality @11    5 years ago

aturally since I already have NKE

Congrats on profiting off the  exploitation of  kids in sweatshops!  

It's a genius model.  A massive multi-national corporation pays a couple of dollars a day to a labor force consisting largely of kids and women to work 80 hours a week in a hell hole, then the corp gives million  to a washed up  millionaire former athlete who will attack America and gain street creed with the kids (often poor) and hipster clowns  who will pay hundreds of dollars for shoes to appear rebellious. What a perfect scam. 

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
11.1.1  Split Personality  replied to  Sean Treacy @11.1    5 years ago

Keep living in the past Sean, it behooves you.

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
11.1.3  Sean Treacy  replied to  Split Personality @11.1.1    5 years ago

Keep living in the past Sean, it behooves yo

As you seed something from 2013... funny.

Let's catch you up to some  of the news since then:

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
11.1.4  Split Personality  replied to  Release The Kraken @11.1.2    5 years ago

Nice recovery....

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
11.1.6  Split Personality  replied to  Sean Treacy @11.1.3    5 years ago

I spent countless hours in a Chrysler assembly plant in the early 70's.

It left me with little sympathy for people who sit for a living.

Be careful about your expressed outrage, your beginning to sound like a liberal.

 
 
 
KDMichigan
Junior Participates
11.1.7  KDMichigan  replied to  Split Personality @11.1.6    5 years ago
Be careful about your expressed outrage,

I didn't see any outrage.

your beginning to sound like a liberal.

Is that a know it all? 

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
11.1.8  Split Personality  replied to  Sean Treacy @11.1.3    5 years ago

Keep trying Sean,

3 days later, NKE back up over $88.00 again.

Their first wholly owned plant still on track in Arizona despite the hyperventilation by the Governor.

The mayor wants the investment, the 500 jobs and tax revenue........

Meanwhile the Governor quietly changed his mind...

 
 
 
The Magic 8 Ball
Masters Quiet
13  The Magic 8 Ball    5 years ago

thanks to todays lunatic left we will be seeing more of the betsy ross flag flying on front porches

every attack on our founding by the left results in another leftwing blunder... top job :)

 
 
 
KDMichigan
Junior Participates
13.1  KDMichigan  replied to  The Magic 8 Ball @13    5 years ago
thanks to todays lunatic left we will be seeing more of the betsy ross flag flying on front porches

And then them same lunatics will Claim everyone with a Betsy Ross flag are racist like they do with the circle game.

 
 
 
The Magic 8 Ball
Masters Quiet
13.1.1  The Magic 8 Ball  replied to  KDMichigan @13.1    5 years ago
And then them same lunatics will Claim

LOL

matters not.

there is no safe space available in my city for the likes of antifa or their lunatic friends.

we will fall on them all like a ton of bricks.

elsewhere their numbers are dwindling... no money = no funny business.

 

 
 

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