Brianna here shot an M16. This, in addition to multiple other ridiculous claims, is what she took away from the experience. As stated in the past, on multiple occasions on my social media,"official records show that 800,000 were shot in the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1952" under Russian Socialism. Under German Socialism the Einsatzgruppen "murdered around two million Jews in mass shootings in less than a year." In one solitary instance "about 42,000 Jews were shot" in just two days. Now, name for me any civilian gun owner, or slew of them, that have murdered 42,000 people with their privately owned "civilian" firearms in just two days. Most I surmise are aware that millions were killed in the Holocaust, but fewer I would wager are aware that "of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, about 40 percent were killed in mass shootings." In the interest of providing context, it would take 153 years for gun homicide in the U.S., based upon the 2015 figure provided by the CDC, to rival the number of Jews shot by German Socialists in less than 1 year. It also needs to be observed that the Einsatzgruppen were an assortment of German military units and police, among others. You know, the people that are supposed to "protect" you, once you're disarmed. You know, the only ones that should have guns, according to American leftists like Brianna here. Brianna isn't trying to make us safer. She's literally paving the way for genocide, as usual, under the brazenly deluded belief that our own government (that's both sanctioned and subsidized the extermination of 60 million children; possible only because they have no means to defend themselves) would "never" do something like that. And in response to that assertion the obvious question to be posed, is what do you do when those "trained soldiers" with "assault rifles" come to take your house and kill you? Because that's exactly what happened to the Jews. The Jews were systematically disarmed by the German Socialist government for "public safety," and thus when they "needed" these weapons most, had no means by which to "defend their homes" when the German military/police came for them. So millions of Jews died, as a direct result of precisely what Brianna is proposing, based upon precisely the same specious rationale. Civilians didn't "need" these weapons; no one "needs" them to protect their home. Only trained soldiers "need" them. And they "need" the fully automatic versions, not the semi-automatic 10 round capacity magazine versions, because the latter significantly impedes the efficacy of mass murdering throngs of political dissidents. It frankly never ceases to amaze me that 42,000 concentration camps, and 6,000,000 dead Jews later, people are still parroting the exact same authoritarian tripe that caused the Holocaust, and the deaths of tens of millions of others in the 20th century. So, just to be clear, if history has taught us nothing else it's taught us at least 2 things. • No entity on earth has killed more people with guns than government.
• No one does "mass" shootings bigger and better than the proponents of "gun control." This is the problem with abject historical ignorance. As the adage goes, those who forget the past, are doomed to repeat it. And apparently American leftists will not be content until we do indeed repeat it, and suffer our own comparable genocide, the fruition of which was facilitated at every turn by credulous and useful idiots.
(This is derived from a response to a "libertarian" on the topic of infanticide.) The first in order and importance of all rights, is the right to life, which is the right from which all others are derived and upon which all others are contingent. A person who is against the right to life, it may be said with no ambiguity, is the enemy of all liberty period. As there can be no other liberty without that first and most fundamental liberty. And this observation is nothing more than a repetition of those values plainly and unequivocally proclaimed in the Declaration which states:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [...] are endowed by their Creator," with certain unalienable Rights, [...] among these (is) Life."
What does "unalienable" mean?
"Not capable of being taken away or denied." - Definition of unalienable.
We are, at the moment of creation, by our creator endowed with the unalienable right to life. Not conferred by our mother at birth with that right. And as previously illustrated, the Constitution was "established," as it plainly states, to convey those rights to "posterity."
"We the People of the United States, in Order to [...] secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Supporters of infanticide plainly believe that life is not an unalienable right, and in doing so, have rejected the entire philosophical basis for American liberty and governance, which was devised and established to protect the rights of the people, of which the right to "life" is paramount. But self-evident truths aside, a more empirical and chronologically contiguous inquiry would reveal it's no exaggeration whatsoever, to say abortion supporters are Nazis. The Nazis were Socialists who staunchly supported eugenics, and killed millions of people in pursuit of that philosophy, and so are American leftists. The National Socialists of Germany began their genocide campaign (Aktion T4) with children also, and their eugenics initiatives were likewise veiled in specious "reproductive" and "family planning" rhetoric (e.g., Lebensborn). Abortion in the U.S. was pioneered by racists and Nazi sympathizers who wanted to wipe out blacks and poor people. Margaret Sanger, the founder of what is now Planned Parenthood, was an ostentatious racist who gave speeches at KKK meetings. Sanger wrote a book expressing views that are indistinguishable in substance from those expressed by Hitler in Mein Kampf; the language used by the latter approaching a nigh verbatim reproduction of the former at some points.
"The most urgent problem to-day is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. [....] The most responsible and most intelligent members of society are the less fertile; that the feeble-minded are the more fertile. Herein lies the unbalance, the great biological menace to the future of civilization. [....] The mating of a moron with a person of sound stock [...] undermines the vigor and efficiency of an entire nation and an entire race." - Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood, 1922.
"The inferior always predominates numerically over the best, if both had the same possibility of preserving life and propagating, the inferior would multiply so much more rapidly that in the end the best would inevitably be driven into the background, unless a correction of this state of affairs were undertaken. [...] In every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925.
The genocide perpetrated by the Nazis, though perhaps not what Sanger explicitly proposed, was the natural and inevitable outcome of the values to which she ostentatiously subscribed. Sanger makes it clear government intervention is imperative to prevent the catastrophic consequences of "morons" mating untrammeled.
"We now have state commissions for controlling the gipsy-moth and the boll weevil, the foot-and-mouth disease, and for protecting the shell-fish and wild game, but we have no commission which even attempts to modify or to control the vast moral and economic forces represented by the feeble-minded persons at large in the community. [....] Surely it is an amazing and discouraging phenomenon that the very governments that have seen fit to interfere in practically every phase of the normal citizen's life, dare not attempt to restrain, either by force or persuasion, the moron and the imbecile from producing his large family of feeble-minded offspring." - Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood, 1922.
Hitler's Socialist government was merely the reification, intentional or not, of Sanger's principles.
"We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population." - Margaret Sanger, to Dr. Clarence Gamble, December 19, 1939.
German eugenicists, like Sanger, were also arguing that "economic savings justified the killing of 'useless lives' ('idiots' and 'congenitally crippled')," the outcome of which was likewise systematic mass-murder conducted by the state.
"Between 200,000 and 250,000 mentally and physically handicapped persons were murdered from 1939 to 1945 under the T-4 and other 'euthanasia' programs." - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
As anyone not suffering some form of cognitive impairment will immediately recognize, abortion is the "correction" to the problem of the "inferior always predominat(ing) numerically over the best," described by Hitler. And it's still serving that purpose today. According to the census of 1860, slaves accounted for 12.6% of the population. "As of July 2016 [...] African Americans are [...] an estimated 12.7% of the population." The modern "abortion" movement is merely a substitute for the oversight, or control upon the number of "the feeble-minded persons at large in the community," once provided by the slave master. The Democrats may not be able to wipe blacks out, but they clearly can "control" their numbers, and keep them a permanent minority from which they benefit almost exclusively in a political capacity. A circumstance remarkably similar to that which existed in antebellum America, in which the master managed the reproduction of his black slaves, and observing that their number had grown too large for extirpation resolved to keep them in bondage (control) forever. As I've observed for many years even modern Democrat opposition to school vouchers, which prevents black children from escaping failing schools, is rooted in slave era Democrat policies designed to control blacks and keep them in a state of perpetual inferiority and dependency upon their master.
"The mass of slaves is too great for any expectation of their ever being removed from the country to be entertained. [....] The Americans of the South, who do not admit that the negroes can ever be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them to be taught to read or to write, under severe penalties; and as they will not raise them to their own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes." - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Future Condition Of Three Races.
Every time a few people are shot somewhere in America, we're told by the left that America is suffering from a gun-homicide "epidemic." While simultaneously these same people are methodically liquidating millions of innocents, about 3,000 a day (enough to surpass the annual gun homicide tally in about 4 days), away from public scrutiny (to avoid inducing public aversion) in facilities specifically designed for the perpetration of genocide. You know, just like the Nazis. And they even defend it with the same specious rationale. It's okay because those aren't "people" being killed. They're something else; something less than human; just like those pesky Jews. And being sub-human they have no right to life, or any other right, as such. American Socialists have with their eugenics program murdered people with an efficiency, and to an extent, that would render the Nazis fawning with envy. Indeed, the wanton killing perpetrated by American Socialists renders the genocide of the Nazis a spectacle of restraint and moderation by comparison. American Socialists took the basic model they provided, and mastered it, if not made of it an art form. But its origins go still much farther back, and like most of Socialist ideology, is merely the rehashed and relabeled tripe of pagan antiquity. And, again, that's not hyperbole to any extent. The predilection among high ranking German National Socialists for, and even participation in, pagan mythoi and customs is well known. A not insignificant portion of the Reich's "weltanschauung" was predicated upon such, and it was conspicuously incorporated into the Reich's iconography and propaganda in efforts to efface and supplant the preexisting German culture, in a manner not at all dissimilar to the assiduous campaign of traditional cultural eradication being perpetrated by Socialists in America today. Infanticide was a staple of more than one ancient pagan religion. And both the Greeks and Romans, for example, allowed for the discarding of unwanted children in certain designated locations (today known as "abortion clinics" or some other vile euphemism), where they were simply left to their fate, and often died to exposure, starvation, or the predation of animals. Had they possessed the medical capabilities to terminate pregnancies prior to giving birth they certainly would have employed them "liberally." But they didn't so they just abandoned them. Also of note is that both Greeks and Romans didn't consider babies "full" people, for lack of a better description, until about a week and half after their birth (following a naming ceremony and whatnot). So stories like the one posted immediately below tell you a lot about where our society is heading philosophically and morally.
The notion that being anti-abortion contradicts property rights is the all too typical, and banal, leftist and liberal-tarian sophistry. The child's body is not the woman's property. That he resides in the mother is a circumstance resulting from the mother's actions and not his own. Women have no right to an exemption from their physiology. The purpose of sex is procreation. Period. That's what it does; it makes babies. There is no such thing as an "accidental" or "unintended" pregnancy. Being shocked you're pregnant after having sex is tantamount to someone being shocked they have to take a dump after eating a meal. As anyone with a functioning brain well knows, that's what eating does. Anyone that estranged to basic human physiology, needs a refresher biology course, not affirmation. But of course, leftists have pretty much precluded ignorance as an excuse, by making "sex education" mandatory in schools across the country. Even children know what sex does now. If women don't want to have a baby, then they should be abstinent. To believe women have a right to have sex without having a baby is, again using anatomical analogy, tantamount to me claiming I have the right to eat at the buffet without taking a dump. But imagine I don't just stop there. I further demand an entire quasi-medical infrastructure should be erected, solely for the purpose of granting me surgical procedures on demand that preemptively remove the feces from my colon before my bowels evacuate themselves naturally, purely to spare me the inconvenience of wiping my ass. Such a belief would be the absolute height of solipsistic delusion. Which is, not surprisingly, something routinely on display among infanticide supporters. We're talking about organizations that literally dismember and sell the babies for parts, and yet they still have the audacity to claim it's about "womens' health." The notion that "liberals" are "progressive," would be to even a neophyte historian, farcical. None of their platform is "new" or "modern." Virtually everything they believe and support is obsolete excrement derived from failed pagan civilizations. Far from from seeking to move society forward, they're moving it backwards by millennia. And how did they do it? By merely changing the label. People in America will imbibe neo-pagan Socialism without compunction, so long as you call it "liberalism," or "progress," or "equality," etc., because lacking any genuine knowledge they're incapable of making distinctions between one thing and another. And those that are able, are prohibited from doing so by their government through "anti-discrimination" laws, in which the state literally bans people from acknowledging the difference between things (i.e., a state that tells its citizens what to think). The United States government, thanks to the left, can literally command you not to acknowledge or even discern reality. Which is a feature of tyrannical leftist governments if ever there was one.
It seems a nigh constant occurrence these days, and no small source of personal aggravation, to see someone portraying the three-fifths clause of the United States Constitution as some racist pro-slavery policy. This misconception bears testament to the abject failure of modern schools to apprise their students of the facts. Like the fact white people didn't invent slavery.
"Negro slavery is not an invention of the white man. As Greeks enslaved Greeks, as the Hebrew often consented to make the Hebrew his absolute lord, as Anglo-Saxons trafficked in Anglo-Saxons, so the negro race enslaved its own brethren. The oldest accounts of the land of the negroes, like the glimmering traditions of Egypt and Phenicia, of Greece and of Rome, bear witness to the existence of domestic slavery and the caravans of dealers in negro slaves. The oldest Greek historian commemorates the traffic. Negro slaves were seen in classic Greece, and were known at Rome and in the Roman empire. It is from about the year 990, that regular accounts of the negro slave-trade exist. At that period, Moorish merchants from the Barbary coast first reached the cities of Nigritia, and established an uninterrupted exchange of Saracen and European luxuries for the gold and slaves of Central Africa. Even though whole caravans were sometimes buried in the sands of the desert, and at others, without shade and without water, suffered the horrors of parching thirst under a tropical sun, yet the commerce extended because it was profitable; and before the genius of Columbus had opened the path to a new world, the negro slave-trade had been reduced to a system by the Moors, and had spread from the native regions of the Ethiopian race to the heart of Egypt on the one hand, and to the coasts of Barbary on the other." - George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, 1848.
It is virtually forgotten today that there were colonies going back about 200 years before the Founding, and that slavery became a feature of North America under the British Monarchy to which all the Founders were subjects, long before the establishment of the United States government.
"It is well known, that it constituted a grievance, of which some of the colonies complained before the revolution, that the introduction of slaves was encouraged by the crown, and that prohibitory laws were negatived. [....] Let it be remembered, that at this period this horrible traffic was carried on with the encouragement and support of every civilized nation of Europe; and by none with more eagerness and enterprise, than by the parent country." - Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison, Commentaries on The Constitution of The United States, Prohibitions on The United States, 1833.
The Founders were born into the firmly established acceptance of slavery, in the same manner everyone reading this will no doubt have been born into the firmly established acceptance of abortion. And like abortion, which despite only being around several decades is already a billion dollar industry with significant lobbying power, slavery was deeply entrenched in America by the time of the Revolution. The Founders could no more abolish that practice on a whim than can present day opponents of abortion abolish that practice on a whim. Just as subverted federal courts routinely overturn pro-life initiatives at the state level today, efforts on the part of colonies to abolish slavery prior to the Revolution were overturned by the "parent country" (British government) to which they were subordinate, because various parties within the latter benefited from the importation of slaves to the American colonies.
"Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he (the King) has prostituted his negative (veto) for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce." - Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1: 1760-1776.
"A disposition to abolish slavery prevails in North America, that many of the Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty, that even the Virginia Assembly have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for preventing the importation of more slaves into that colony. This request however, will probably not be granted, as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed, and as the interest of a few merchants here has more weight with government than that of thousands at a distance." - Benjamin Franklin to Richard Woodward, April 10, 1773.
Franklin says "here" because he was living in Britain at the time. Basically, he's saying the efforts of American colonists to abolish slavery had always been overturned by the British government, because it cared more about the business interests of slave traders in England than the interests and happiness of its subjects in the American colonies. The practice was being imposed upon the colonies, to their detriment, to benefit merchants back in England. The veracity of Franklin's claim is reflected in the Articles of Association, adopted two years prior to the Revolution for American Independence.
"We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time, we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it." - The Articles of Association; October 20, 1774.
At the time of the Revolution the Founders were presented with a circumstance that had no copacetic solution. They could with their Revolution either liberate most of the people now and the rest later, or liberate none by seeking to abolish slavery in addition to seeking Independence (which some wanted; e.g., Jefferson), resulting in the loss of southern support for the initiative and almost certainly killing it. They made the logical choice, securing the former and paving the way for the eventual liberation of the rest, via documents like the Declaration which establish the philosophical and legal basis for individual liberty (making no distinction based upon race when doing so).
"The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, was seen and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with deeper and more unalterable conviction, than by the author of the Declaration himself (Jefferson). [...] They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country, and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth." - John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before The Inhabitants of The Town of Newburyport, July 4, 1837. (Parentheses mine.)
Adams's assertion that the Founders, even the Southern ones, were fundamentally opposed to slavery and sought its eventual abolition, is corroborated by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens nearly 24 years later, when he declared that the Confederacy the supporters of slavery wished to establish would be based upon opposing principles to the "old (U.S.) Constitution."
"The prevailing ideas entertained by him (Jefferson) 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." - Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Address, March 21, 1861. (Parentheses mine.)
Less well known is that the efforts of the Framers to end slavery are found in the Constitution as well. Though they could not secure an outright abolition of slavery in the Constitution, they did work toward the abolition of the international slave trade, as a preliminary step to that end.
"America stood forth alone, uncheered and unaided, in stamping ignominy upon this traffic on the very face of her constitution of government, although there were strong temptations of interest to draw her aside from the performance of this great moral duty. [....] It was notorious, that the postponement of an immediate abolition was indispensable to secure the adoption of the constitution. It was a necessary sacrifice to the prejudices and interests of a portion of the Southern states. The glory of the achievement is scarcely lessened by its having been gradual, and by steps silent, but irresistible." - Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison, Commentaries on The Constitution of The United States, Prohibitions on The United States, 1833.
"Some of the politicians of that day thought the introduction of that unfortunate class essential to the prosperity, if not to the existence of the southern States; and, therefore, would not consent to allow Congress to exercise the right, they would otherwise possess, under the general power of regulating commerce, to put an immediate end to this inhuman traffic. The result was a compromise, by which the power of Congress was restricted for a limited period." - James A. Bayard, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Limitations of The Powers of Congress, 1833.
This postponement of an abolition to which Story refers, and restriction upon the power of congress to regulate slave commerce to which Bayard refers, is contained in Article 1 Section 9:1 of the U.S. Constitution.
"The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. [....] No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken." - U.S. Constitution, Article 1 Section 9:1 & 4.
The purpose of these provisos is provided by Senator James Bayard.
"These clauses relate to the importation of slaves, and the assessment of direct taxes; and being matters of contract, were not to be altered. The former (Article 1 Section 9:1) was temporary in its terms; and, as has been already noticed, the importation was forbidden as soon as the prohibition expired." - James A. Bayard, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Miscellaneous Subjects, 1833. (Parentheses mine.)
It's even more significant, when one realizes the first draft of Article 1 Section 9:1 contained no time limit, rendering it indefinite and therefore a de facto prohibition on banning the slave trade. The time limit was deliberately included in a subsequent draft to allow for the eventual abolition of the slave trade. President Thomas Jefferson, who opposed slavery, observing that the prohibition in Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution preventing a ban on the slave trade would soon expire, stated in 1806.
"I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe." - Thomas Jefferson supporting a ban on slavery, Sixth Annual Message, December 2, 1806.
This language in the Constitution is now a long forgotten, and constantly overlooked, conspicuous manifestation of the anti-slavery disposition of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, and their efforts to achieve its eventual abolition. As Bayard observes.
"To the honor of our country, a law was passed, which went into operation on the first day of January, 1808, prohibiting the slave-trade under severe penalties; and, by subsequent laws, it is declared to be piracy, and those engaged in it are to be punished with death. - James A. Bayard, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Limitations of The Powers of Congress, 1833.
The wildly misconstrued "three fifths" clause of the Constitution is another portion of that document commonly used by leftists to advance a fallacious narrative.
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." - Article 1, Section 2:3.
This portion of the Constitution, which it should be noted was applicable only to slaves and not free blacks, is incessantly cited as proof the Framers were ardent slavery supporters. The complete converse is true. It was the slave owners that wanted their slaves to be considered "full" people (as opposed to property) in the population tally, despite denying them all the rights thereof, because as shown above a state's representation in congress is based on population. If slaves were considered full people, and counted in the census as such, it would have augmented the population of slave states by millions giving slave states more representation in congress, and therefore more legislative power in the federal government, than they otherwise would. So when modern leftists denounce the thee fifths clause of the Constitution, and claim slaves should have counted as five fifths of a person, they are supporting slavery.
"The slave holding States insisted on a representation strictly according to the number of inhabitants, whether they were slaves or free persons, within the State. The non slave-holding States contended for a representation according to the number of free persons only. The controversy was full of excitement, and was maintained with so much obstinacy, on each side, that the Convention was more than once on the eve of a dissolution. At length, the present system was adopted, by way of compromise. [...] The real difficulty was, as to slaves, who were included under the mild appellation of "all other persons." Three fifths of the slaves are added to the number of free persons, as the basis of the apportionment. In order to reconcile the non-slave-holding States to this arrangement, it was agreed, that direct taxes (the nature of which we shall hereafter consider) should be apportioned in the same manner as Representatives. [...] The slave holding States have, at the present time, in Congress, twenty-five Representatives more than they would have upon the basis of an enumeration of free persons only. [...] It has sometimes been complained of as a grievance, founded in a gross inequality and an unjustifiable surrender of important rights. But whatever force there may be in the suggestion, abstractly considered, it should never be forgotten that it was a necessary price paid for the Union; and if it had been refused, the Constitution never would have been recommended for the adoption of the people." - Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison, A Familiar Exposition of The Constitution of The United States, The House of Representatives,1840.
"Another difficulty arose, respecting the slaves, who form so large a portion of the inhabitants of some of the States. To compute them among the numbers represented, would be giving them an importance to which their character did not entitle them; or, rather, would be introducing a representation of property, contrary to the general tenor of the Constitution; to omit them altogether, in the computation, would be to reduce the influence of the southern States, in a manner to which they would never consent. As a medium between these, it was agreed that five slaves should be accounted as three citizens, in arranging the representation, and the apportionment computed accordingly. To counterbalance, in some degree, this direct concession to the southern states, direct taxes are to be apportioned by the same rule as representation; so that the same cause which increases their influence in the national legislature, subjects them to the necessity of making larger contributions to the national treasury." - James A. Bayard, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Of The House of Representatives, 1833.
Woven into the Constitution by the Framers, in addition to the three fifths clause, is Article 1 Section 9:4. The concession made to the southern states of allowing their slaves (property) to count as three fifths of a person, for the purposes of representation and exemption from commerce regulation, is mitigated by increasing their burden of taxation in proportion. The Framers ensured they could not have their cake and eat it too. Yet another anti-slavery instrument is the Ordinance of 1787, authored by staunch opponent of slavery Rufus King, which establishes the criteria by which territories seeking admission into the union as a state may be admitted.
"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."- Ordinance of 1787.
So as we see from colonial times, to the earliest days of the Republic and beyond, the Founders were opposing slavery and seeking its abolition to the extent they were able in various ways. Through measures that sought to (and ultimately did) end the trafficking of slaves to the continent, measures that sought to contain slavery to those places it already existed and prevent it from spreading elsewhere (through the Ordinance of 1787), ultimately seeking to abolish slavery altogether through a Constitutional Amendment.
"I hope it will not be conceived from these observations, that it is my wish to hold the unhappy people who are the subject of this letter, in slavery. I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it—but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority: and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." - George Washington, to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786.
The Founders wanted slavery to be ended through peaceful means, and not through violence or war.
"The abolition of slavery must be gradual, and accomplished with much caution and circumspection. Violent means and measures would produce greater violations of justice and humanity than the continuance of the practice." - John Adams, to George Churchman and Jacob Lindley, January 24, 1801.
Unfortunately the Founders did not get to see that Amendment realized in their lifetimes, though they indisputably paved the way for its reification. And Adams's warning of "greater violations of justice and humanity" would be realized in the conflict known as the "Civil War."
"a practice or policy of segregating or discriminating against black people, as in public places, public vehicles, or employment." - Definition of Jim Crow.
As described in a previous installment, it's a common practice among American leftists (particularly black leftists) to claim that the Republican and Democratic parties have "traded places," as an explanation for their support of the historically ostentatiously racist Democrat party. As illustrated in that installment, it was the Democrat party mass importing non-white people to perform their menial labor nearly 200 years ago, and it's the Democrat party doing the very same thing today. But as always with leftists, when their delusional mythos is challenged with fact, they respond by making some ridiculously simplistic and/or erroneous claim to affirm their delusion. According to Democrats the reason their party is still mass importing an underclass of brown people to perform their menial labor, is because they "traded places" with the Republicans and became the party of civil rights, as opposed to simply trading one group of serfs for another (the actual explanation). It's nothing more than an absurdly specious justification for a position rooted in abject ignorance. (A virtually ubiquitous practice among leftists.) You'll never find a staunch Democrat (especially a black Democrat) with even a moderate understanding of history, because if they had such, they wouldn't be Democrats. In much the same manner no one with even a modicum of historical knowledge would be a "Marxist." Because no one who actually grasps the fact 100 million people died in a single century, as a result of the implementation of Marxist values, would want to be a Marxist. (Socialism's death toll in the twentieth century rivals The Black Death, speculated to have wiped out half the population of Europe, and yet it's a common thing to see American "Democrats" touting the virtues of Socialism, advocating its adoption in the U.S., and supporting flagrantly Socialist candidates for office.) Garnering support for these ideologies and the parties that support them, requires suppressing knowledge of history (typically through omission or revision), not increasing it. And thus you will consistently bear witness to leftists deceiving themselves and others, by fabricating and espousing utterly fallacious (and even psychotic) explanations for their positions, as a means of justifying those positions. Mass importing brown people to do the labor they deem beneath them was racism 200 years ago, but it isn't racism today, because the brown people being brought here today are coming here for a "better life." Basically, the same thing an antebellum slave trader/owner could, and would, have argued regarding slaves.
"Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually. [....] Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe–look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse." - Democrat John C. Calhoun, Vice President of the United States and U.S. Senator from South Carolina, February 06, 1837.
John Quincy Adams acknowledges the origin and fondness of this sophistic reasoning, among those for whom the exploitation of their fellow man was a lifestyle, as well.
"It has, indeed, presented itself in its most malignant form in that portion of the Union, the civil institutions of which are most infected with the gangrene of slavery. [....] (Where philosophers teach) that slavery is no curse, but a blessing! [...] ; that slavery is the guardian and promoter of wisdom and virtue; that the slave, by laboring for another's enjoyment, learns disinterestedness, and humility, and to melt with tenderness and affection for his master; that the master, nurtured, clothed, and sheltered by another's toils, learns to be generous and grateful to the slave, and sometimes to feel for him as a father for his child; that, released from the necessity of supplying his own wants, he acquires opportunity of leisure to improve his mind, to purify his heart, to cultivate his taste; that he has time on his hands to plunge into the depths of philosophy, and to soar to the clear empyrean of seraphic morality." - John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before The Inhabitants of The Town of Newburyport, July 4, 1837. (Parentheses mine.)
So, as I've stated for years, you see the exact same arguments antebellum Democrats were using to justify their racist policies two centuries ago being used by present day Democrats (merely slightly modified for modern circumstances). If you asked a Democrat in 1829 how slavery affected brown people, they would have told you not only was it not bad for them, but it was actually good for them. If you ask a Democrat in 2019 how illegal immigration affects brown people, they will tell you not only is it not bad for them, but it's actually good for them. In both instances the end result for the brown person doing the menial labor is a "better life." Thus, in this instance neither the position nor the rhetoric of the party has changed in substance, yet Democrats claim the parties have "traded places." And they claim that because they're ignorant or dishonest. Ignorance is now the primary cause as leftists, having subverted the education system, have essentially purged history curricula of such information. And those that do know certainly aren't going to volunteer that information. And this brings me to the point of this installment, which is to illustrate yet another flagrant commonality between "old" Democrats and "new" Democrats. Hatred of Republicans. Ever fewer people are aware of the fact it was the Democrat party that supported slavery, founded the terrorist organization known as the Ku Klux Klan for the purpose of overthrowing Republican government in the southern states, and maintained the racist laws known colloquially as "Jim Crow" (which essentially negated the Fourteenth Amendment) long after the Civil War. Even fewer are aware of the fact Democrat antipathy and malevolence wasn't directed exclusively at black people. They hated Republicans in general. For example, in 1866 Democrats (many of which were ex Confederate soldiers) in New Orleans, LA, attacked Republicans who called for a Constitutional Convention killing 60 people, 20 of which were white. Hatred toward and violence perpetrated against not only black Republicans, but whites who were members of the Republican party and/or supported black civil rights, would continue into the twentieth century under Jim Crow. In 1964, 98 years after the murder of Republicans in New Orleans previously mentioned, members of the KKK murdered three activists, two of which were white, seeking to register blacks to vote (for Republicans) in Mississippi. (Racist Democrat control of voter registration was so complete that in 1940, 75 years after the Civil War, less than 1% of the voting-age black population in Mississippi was registered).
Remains of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner.
Leftists will observe that the Democrats now support black people voting, and cite such as evidence the parties "traded places." But nothing could be farther from the truth. Democrats support blacks voting today because nearly 100% of black voters now support the Democrat party. This was not the case decades ago. Because of the Democrat's party's ostentatious hatred of blacks, and refusal to accept or support black candidates, virtually all black voters supported the Republican party for generations. SouthernDemocrats didn't elect a black congressman until 1973, e.g., Andrew Young, who was "the first African American to represent Georgia in Congress since Reconstruction." 1973 wasn't 200 years ago during some long past epoch of American life, it was only 46 years ago, and well after many Americans now living were born. Something many people today simply don't understand, is that southern Democrats were incensed at Republicans for using their former property against them through the "negro vote," and remained bitter about it long after the Civil War. In the eyes of Democrats, using their property against them in this manner was seen as dishonorable, and for the purposes of political expediency. Thus wresting that vote from the Republican party, and using it against them in the same manner, was a form of exquisite revenge against the Republican party in the eyes of Democrats. So over time through deceptive rhetoric and "assistance" programs, the Democrat party gradually rendered much of the black populace dependent upon, and therefore loyal to Democrats once again. When blacks overwhelmingly supported the Republican party Democrats fervently opposed black voting. But now that they benefit almost exclusively from the black vote, and get to use it against Republicans in the same way it was used against them, they're naturally huge supporters of it. So it needs to be understood that the Democratic Party's newfound support of black rights has little, if anything to do with a love of freedom, and a great deal to do with personal benefit and vendetta. Likewise, as I've long said, if most illegal immigrants began voting Republican you'd see the Democrat Party's position on that issue change essentially overnight. Just as in the past with black voters, you'd see aggressive Democrat opposition to illegal immigrants voting, if those votes didn't overwhelmingly benefit and augment the power of their own party. As illustrated by the restaurant owner depicted at the beginning of this contribution, the goal of Democrats has been consistent whether it be 1866, 1964, or 2019; to send a message. Republicans are not welcome and will not be tolerated by Democrat loyalists, either personally or in their places of business, just as they weren't 55 years ago or 153 years ago. You will either defer to Democrat discrimination, segregation, harassment, and intimidation, or you will become the target of Democrat led terrorism campaigns which seek to ruin you or worse.
And if discrimination, segregation, harassment, and intimidation don't work, just as in 1856 when Democrat Preston Brooks severely beat Republican Charles Sumner on the Senate floor with his cane for criticizing slavery and slavery supporters (causing Sumner brain damage), violence isn't off the table for dedicated Democrats if it means keeping Republicans out of power.
Same ole party. Same ole hatred and bigotry you know and love. And it's still ostentatiously directed at black and white Republicans. Likewise the black person that knows his place, falls in line, and submits to Democrat rule is taken care of, i.e., provided food, housing, health care, etc., just as one was "under the kind superintending care of his (Democrat) master" nearly 200 years ago. So what's changed? The knowledge and understanding of the average American. It was common knowledge which party was the party of hatred and oppression 100 years ago, but decades of historical dereliction and revisionism under primarily Democrat controlled educational institutions, has drastically obscured that fact to the point most Americans today can't recognize even the most flagrant illustrations it remains such. Democrats were seething with hated for Republicans a century ago and they're seething with hatred for them today. They aggressively and furtively sought to undermine Republican governance a century ago and they aggressively and furtively seek to undermine such today. They wanted a society in which a permanent aristocracy ruled a permanent lower class of non-white laborers a century ago and they want the same thing today. They systematically robbed human beings of their rights by denying their personhood, and used such as a basis for arbitrary power over life and death over a century ago, and they do the same thing today.
All that's really changed is the medium and methods Democrats use to market their world view to the populace at large. Ultimately, Jim Crow was devised by Democrats to repress political dissidents and rivals. Democrats are still doing that today at every opportunity, only now it's at the federal level, in addition to the state and local level. So in closing, though some of the nuances may have changed, ultimately the "new" Jim Crow is really just the old Jim Crow. Deceptively concealed within, of all things, a rhetorical platform of "equality." When you look beyond the rhetoric to the substance however, e.g., the policies, the prejudice, hatred, segregation, and manner in which they sought to augment their own power in government while seeking to intimidate and disenfranchise Republican voters, etc., is all still there. You just need the requisite historical knowledge to recognize it.
