A week or so ago, I published a post in which I maintained that raw racist politics emanating primarily from the Southern States are not just attacks on civil rights but are behind much of the opposition to gun control. I pointed out how before the civil war U.S. Senator David R. Atchison (D-MO, and a good Christian) in letter to U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis shamelessly advocated the murder of African-Americans:
"[O]ur people are resolved to go in [to Kansas] and take their niggers with them…. [Within six months we will have] the Devil to play in Kansas… We are organizing. We will be compelled to shoot, burn, and hang, but the thing will soon be over: we intend to "Mormonize" the abolitionists…. In a public speech, I advised the squatters in Kansas and the people of Missouri to give a horse thief, robber, or [murderer] a fair trial, but to hang a Negro thief or abolitionist without judge or jury. This sentiment met with almost universal applause…"
As far back as 1788, Patrick Henry, he of "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" fame, during the debate in the Virginia Legislature on ratification of the proposed new Constitution of the United States, had this to say about liberty for a majority of the residents of his State:
"In this state," here are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there are few or none in the Northern States. . . . May Congress not say, that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free."
"…[T]hey will search that paper [the Constitution], and see if they have power of manumission… And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defense and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power?
"…This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."
"…This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress."
This speech prompted the drafting of what was eventually to become the Second Amendment to the US Constitution: assurance that the state militias, which in the southern states were organized for the most part to protect against slave rebellions, would not be disbanded by the proposed Federal Government. The potential of such rebellions struck mortal fear into the heart of just about every brave white southerner at the time. Thus in one speech, this so-called icon of liberty, argued for the permanent enslavement of a majority the residents of his state and the military means to assure it; all thinly disguised under the rubric of "States Rights."
In one way or another the rhetoric of politicians from the South (and to a lesser degree in the rest of the US as well) has remained consistent for over 200 years.
If one looks at what is going on with voter registration in North Carolina this very day as well as in other states primarily in the South and such laws as Florida's stand your ground law, the current Supreme Court's opinion that the war on American black people is over, seems ludicrous.
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Today's Quotes:
Why would anyone be morally bound or wish to be morally bound to a civil society that does not share the goal that it’s citizens deserve a fair distribution of wealth, income and power? If the civil society is not dedicated to that end what else could it possibly be dedicated to? What is freedom, to those without wealth, income or power?
Trenz Pruca
The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism but the claim that no one could see it coming.
Most wealthy individuals are scoundrels, only very few admit it and they usually are already in jail.
Trenz Pruca
In the past, the United States has sometimes, kind of sardonically, been described as a one-party state: the business party with two factions called Democrats and Republicans. That’s no longer true. It’s still a one-party state, the business party. But it only has one faction. The faction is moderate Republicans, who are now called Democrats. There are virtually no moderate Republicans in what’s called the Republican Party and virtually no liberal Democrats in what’s called the Democratic [sic] Party. It’s basically a party of what would be moderate Republicans and similarly, Richard Nixon would be way at the left of the political spectrum today. Eisenhower would be in outer space.
Norm Chomsky