Posted on 03/24/2002 12:31:54 PM PST by Fintan
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John Street at his finest. Ive never understood why our City Charter stipulates that the village idiot would be the Mayor, but there you have it.
Dont let historical context get in the way of feeling umbrage. Im glad that were viewing things in a logical perspective as well. I mean, whats really important, the history of the United States, its principles or the sacrifices made by The Patriots who established this country, or the fact that there were slaves there?
Perhaps the NAACP can organize a protest against George Washington all together. Yes, perhaps we can re-write the history books to have Kwazie Mufumbly-wumbly named our first President. Just so long as everyone feels good about themselves, or if not everyone, at least oppressed minorities.
Owl _ Eagle
Guns before butter.
I think the whole idea is to corrupt children's minds into believing U.S. history started in 1992. |
For example, using their mindset (and I use that term loosely), we're now in the Dark Ages between Clintons.
Washington's birthday The holiday we have just celebrated, now called "President's Day," was within living memory called "George Washington's Birthday." It is our loss that we no longer have any sense of this great man, who had more than anyone else to do with our being a free people today.
Part of the reason is this generation's sheer ignorance of history. Worse, it is also due to misconceptions of the world borne of that ignorance.
For many of the politically correct today, it is enough to dismiss George Washington because he was a dead white male -- as if he had anything to do with any of that. Others condemn him because he owned slaves. But the slaves were here before George Washington was born and there was nothing he could do about slavery, even when he was president. The most he could do was advocate the abolition of slavery in general and free the particular slaves he had inherited -- and he ended up doing both.
George Washington was generations ahead of his time on this issue in the Western world, and centuries ahead of his time as far as non-Western civilizations were concerned. People grossly ignorant of history -- and that includes graduates of our leading colleges and universities -- have no idea that slavery was not even a controversial issue before the 18th century, and only in Western societies beginning then. Everywhere else in the world, it was as widely accepted as it was widely practiced -- and it had been for thousands of years.
It was not slavery that was unique, it was freedom that was new and rare. George Washington was the key figure in the creation of the first major modern nation with an elected government, which was to become a model for the creation of other such governments in the centuries to come. Even now, however, free nations remain the exception, rather than the rule.
Governments with autocratic rulers were so prevalent in George Washington's day that it was assumed by many that he would become king after the American revolution succeeded. However, he said that he had not fought against George III in order to become George I. He not only threw his weight behind the creation of a constitutional republic, he set the precedent of voluntarily leaving the presidency after two terms, in order to forestall a tradition of one-man rule that has ruined so many other countries, even those with republican governments.
There have been many insurrections and revolutions in history, but the American revolution was one of the few that did not end in tyranny, like the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, for example. George Washington was a big part of the reason why American freedom not only persisted but spread, both internally and internationally.
As late as Abraham Lincoln's time, the United States was still an experiment. As Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, the terrible war then going on -- the bloodiest ever fought in the Western Hemisphere -- was testing whether government of the people would perish from the earth.
We cannot take for granted the hard-won blessings of this country -- created by the wisdom and character of people like George Washington, as well as the blood and deaths of the patriots who supported them -- and then also demand that their words and deeds mirror our notions today, in a time with much easier choices.
No one called the United States a superpower in George Washington's time. The big question was whether it could survive at all, in a world of bigger and more powerful nations, all on the lookout for more prey for their empires.
Putting the country together and keeping it together was the key to whatever chance it had for survival. To act as if the Constitution of the United States could have been written as if it were an exercise in abstract principles, discussed around a seminar table, is to betray both ignorance and moral hubris.
We should never forget that British troops marched through the capital of the United States in the early 19th century and set fire to the White House. But of course millions of Americans cannot forget that because they were never taught it in the first place. What they have been taught is silly political correctness about dead white males. When you lose your national memory, you risk losing what you need for understanding your own time -- and you risk losing the future as well as the past.
Received via e-mail - Author unknown.
This is very sloppy historical writing by the Inquirer. The General was inaugurated in New York City on April 30, 1789 and served in this city--the first national capital--until August of 1790. So, the General did not serve in Philadelphia 8 years as president.
The General grew to hate slavery,and predicted a North/South War over it (one of the numerous things he was right about).
One year before his death, he told the actor John Bernard: "I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle." (See page 485, Flexner IV, George Washington.
Further, the General freed many slaves during his lifetime, often using the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to do it (he did not, as a representative of Virginia and a national figure want to be seen as a divisive personality). The laws in PA at the time allowed freedom to slaves if they stayed there for more than two weeks.
And, as is well known he freed all his slaves when he died; early in his life, he forbade slave families from being broken up by selling families apart (a common practice).
Again, from Flexner: "None of the three other Presidents of "the Virginia Dynasty," not Jefferson or MAdison or Monroe, followed Washington into freeing more than a few especially privileged slaves."
And remember folks: slavery was legal then. As a matter of fact, it was legal in New York as late as 1827.
LOL! That should fit nicely into my leftist costitution!.
Owl _ Eagle
Guns before butter.
Where were these idiots when they were knocking down the underground railroad site that was in the way of Clinton's library?
And it's just gettin' started, believe me. The Declaration of Independency has no value; the Constitution has no value. There's no reason to adhere to either, because there were some slaveholders involved in their creation. Democrary, the republican form of government, honesty, decency, hard work, fact-based truth: all those are just creations of evil Western slaveholding white people. The U.S. will to be turned into a banana republic, third world country if at all possible with "people of color" (the silly phrase gags me) ascendent over evil honkys who will be forced to pay reparations. How do Zimbabwe and South Africa look to you? Get ready. There are those who absolutely can't wait to bring them right to your doorstep.
America balkanized? Naw.
Well, on second thought........
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