would it have been possible to be a confederate and a devout catholic?

[BouncingBall]

Ain’t that a blip? Did this question really happen on a Christian forum? Is it April 1st or something?

The answer to this question will be given at the Judgment.

I am an American Black Catholic, and a convert since my teen years from the Southern Baptist faith tradition. My ex-fiance is a white man. So, you all know where I am coming from when I say what I am about to say.

Pardon my English but… wasn’t nothing good or right about the Southern US version of slavery. It was so bad they had to work in three Amendments to the Constitution to enforce abolition of slavery. And then they had a Voting Rights Act to solidify it. And they had to have sit-ins and stuff, 100 years after the freeing of the slaves.

A fellow Catholic (@CentralFLJames) posted this: “The truth is while there were abuses many of the blacks were treated by their owners with compassion and became like family members. Many were much better off in the South than they ever were under the harsh conditions where they came from. Most people don’t realize it but many of the blacks were NOT originally free to begin with and lived in squalid conditions in Africa. That is, the blacks in Africa were being enslaved in mass by the Muslims who were conquering Africa and funding their empire by selling those they did not want to convert to Islam as mere chattel to the Protestant England with the head of the Protestant Church’s (the King/Queen) full consent.”

Yeah, I’m sooooooo glad that the benevolent white man came to get us from de squalid dark continent of Africa. Thank you, Catholic Massa!

Hatred of Protestants, Muslims and anything royal has made some so blind that they see as in a mirror very darkly. The British Empire abolished slavery before the US did.

I see this argument as two flies on two piles of dung arguing over which pile is more desirable. One fly is pro-North, the other pro-Confederacy; neither fly has condemned US slavery properly and the social effects of it that still manifest today.

@Odell said this: “I know the constitution says we the people have the right to stand up and defeat the government if it no longer represents the people.”

I translate that as the following: If the South had won, we wouldn’t have a Black president, this Osama–I mean Obama fellow–who is “behind big government”, so now some want to re-live the glorious past of the Confederacy. States rights! Yeehaw!

A Forum Elder posted this gem: “Holy Mother Church influenced the laws of Louisiana to at least ameliorate the harsh laws of Anglo-Saxon southern America regarding slaves. Slaves were not required to work in Louisiana on Sundays. They went to Mass and then were free to congregate and recreate on Sundays.”

Gee, thanks. LOL. I may have wanted to be a slave on your plantation. A day off. But come Monday morning, back to beating you slaves!

'Nuff respect to the Forum Elder, I hope he doesn’t have my account banned for bleating against him.

These neo-Confederates need to invest in a time machine, set the dial to 1801, get in and then lose our address.

 

[GratefulDad]

Ain’t that a blip? Did this question really happen on a Christian forum? Is it April 1st or something?

I am an American Black Catholic, and a convert since my teen years from the Southern Baptist faith tradition. My ex-fiance is a white man. So, you all know where I am coming from when I say what I am about to say.

Pardon my English but… wasn’t nothing good or right about the Southern US version of slavery. It was so bad they had to work in three Amendments to the Constitution to enforce abolition of slavery. And then they had a Voting Rights Act to solidify it. And they had to have sit-ins and stuff, 100 years after the freeing of the slaves.

Yeah, I’m sooooooo glad that the benevolent white man came to get us from de squalid dark continent of Africa. Thank you, Catholic Massa!

Hatred of Protestants, Muslims and anything royal has made some so blind that they see as in a mirror very darkly. The British Empire abolished slavery before the US did.

I see this argument as two flies on two piles of dung arguing over which pile is more desirable. One fly is pro-North, the other pro-Confederacy; neither fly has condemned US slavery properly and the social effects of it that still manifest today.

I translate that as the following: If the South had won, we wouldn’t have a Black president, this Osama–I mean Obama fellow–who is “behind big government”, so now some want to re-live the glorious past of the Confederacy. States rights! Yeehaw!

A Forum Elder posted this gem: “Holy Mother Church influenced the laws of Louisiana to at least ameliorate the harsh laws of Anglo-Saxon southern America regarding slaves. Slaves were not required to work in Louisiana on Sundays. They went to Mass and then were free to congregate and recreate on Sundays.”

Gee, thanks. LOL. I may have wanted to be a slave on your plantation. A day off. But come Monday morning, back to beating you slaves!

'Nuff respect to the Forum Elder, I hope he doesn’t have my account banned for bleating against him.

These neo-Confederates need to invest in a time machine, set the dial to 1801, get in and then lose our address.

Wow, these are truly an astounding statement. The vast majority of the South still fighting the history of 150 yrs ago. Talk about TV Stereotypes.

As for stereo typing Southerners, you’ll find the people in the South like the Mountain West are not Statest, but self reliant folk trying to provide for their families not worrying about 150 year old history. Mr. Obama has asked us as a nation not to live in the past, correct.

Their just seems to be so many words of rage and anger here, over events from 150yrs. Surly you are even more offended at the events from the past 24mos. aren’t you? Aren’t true believers in the Gospel and the CCC enraged and speaking out against the bigoted and racist words and actions from these people below?

Fist it was Rev. Jeremiah Right and his racist rants, fanning the racist flames.

youtube.com/watch?v=vdJB-…eature=related

Then is was Van Jones saying:

foxnews.com/politics/2009…n-jones-words/

“White Polluters”

January 2008

Van Jones: “The environmental justice community that said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, you know, you’re regulating, but you’re not regulating equally.’ And the white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people-of-color communities, because they don’t have a racial justice frame.”

See the video here.

Then Rep. Charles Rangel saying “not negotiate with white southerners and not count the votes.”

nypost.com/p/news/regiona…gKhNWheKomzPON

Mr. Obama seems to be surrounded by people with these feelings against white folks. This is a significant trend in the post racial era and Mr. Obama doesn’t even say he will work to end this trend of racism against whites.

Denver Post: "Racial attacks like the ones behind the arrest of 32 suspects in Denver are part of a trend spreading across the country, gang experts said Saturday.

As part of the trend, black gang members videotape the assaults in trendy tourist districts and sell them on the underground market as entertainment.

“They knock a young white guy out with one blow to see if his knees will wobble and surround them and take their money,” said the Rev. Leon Kelly, who runs a Denver gang-prevention program. “It’s a joke.”

Denver police announced the 32 arrests Friday after a months-long undercover investigation into what authorities said were racially motivated assaults and robberies in Denver, including in the Lower Downtown entertainment district."

denverpost.com/ci_13843272

Mr. Obama was going to bring hope and heal the racial divide. Instead the people around him seem to be fanning the flames of racism. Like John Stossel’s report below shows.

blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel…-a-racist.html

“From Day 1, Obama’s supporters have tirelessly cultivated the idea that anything inconvenient for the first black president just might be terribly, terribly racist.”

Where is that hope?

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

Wow, these are truly an astounding statement. The vast majority of the South still fighting the history of 150 yrs ago. Talk about TV Stereotypes…Their just seems to be so many words of rage and anger here, over events from 150yrs. Surly you are even more offended at the events from the past 24mos. aren’t you? Aren’t true believers in the Gospel and the CCC enraged and speaking out against the bigoted and racist words and actions from these people below?

Fist it was Rev. Jeremiah Right and his racist rants, fanning the racist flames.

I thought this thread was on the Civil War? Rev. Wright rarely has anything to do with any discussion (and I do not consider him a racist) but folks *will *trot him out.

Then is was Van Jones saying:

I thought this thread was on the Civil War? What does Van Jones have to do with the discussion?

Then Rep. Charles Rangel saying “not negotiate with white southerners and not count the votes.”

I thought this thread was on the Civil War? What does Charlie Rangel have to do with the discussion?

Mr. Obama seems to be surrounded by people with these feelings against white folks.

None of the folks you mention works in the administration. Your allegations should be posted on the Politics forum. Hijacking a thread is against forum rules.

 

[Odell]

How does those who support state rights become racist? Did they not read my first post when I said I DO NOT support slavery? Yee haw I don’t want a group of people in dc to tell me I have pay for someone’s abortion over seas. Yee haw I don’t want my state to bail out california. Yee haw I don’t want to pay for another states health care. Looks like them massachusetts people don’t either yee haw for them.

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

How does those who support state rights become racist?

“States’ rights” were well-known codewords for maintenance of segregation laws. The campaign slogan of the “State’s Rights” party was: “Segregation Forever!”

u-s-history.com/pages/h1751.html

 

[CentralFLJames]

Segregation is the natural order? That’s a blast from the past.

Just one quick administrative detail upfront - please to do not personalize this discussion and speak objectively or even subjectively to the things I say and don’t keep trying to demonize me and calling me names etc. What good is all that? For the 2nd time I will say that I am not an apologist for slavery at all. I do not believe in slavery but recognize too that you can’t just willy nilly change practises. Societies are delicate and can be incited to violence and unrest by even mere rumors. Why is it that you can only empathize with blacks but not with the indigent southerner? That seems like a selective morality to me.

As to Segregation is the natural order? Am I wrong?

No I am not. That’s the planetary history - don’t blame me - I had nothing to do with it. Shall we blame the historians for speaking the truth? Are you challenging the assertion? Can you show examples of ANY country on the planet prior to America’s founding that had a stable society with an “integrated” (btw who decides how to integrate?) culture of mixed races, mixed religions and mixed morality? The Romans are the closest I can think of who attempted to use pagan barbarians (at safe distance from Rome) as troops to further their empire. But they ended up losing their empire to those same barbarians who found the only thing the had in common with Romans was their greed for power, wealth and lavish sex orgies. You are the historian - present your evidence if you think my assertion is materially wrong. Sometimes the truth is painful and its well past the time to question the competency of these social engineers that have no practical experience or success to point to. We must face the realities if we are to ever have any hope of leveling the playing field to help safeguard unjust inequities.

You seem to like generalize. Well let’s generalize and put it all on the shoulders of the federal government for being completely incompetent in its ability to manage and control its immigration policy back in the time of pre-civil war era and today. The slave ships should never have been permitted to enter American waters. I’d must wonder if if the US benefited by direct or indirect tariffs in those slave ships since I really think the moral argument we hear in this OP was truly secondary to all other things. At any rate, take note of how even to this day federalism remains completely incompetent in immigration policy and is unable to manage and moderate the entry of illegal aliens. Carrying forward to current times it sure looks like Obama’s new policy is “get the 'lil bastards before they get old enough to get across the border” with his massive “South of the Border” spending for foreign (Mexican) abortions. Who are we kidding here?

One does not need to be a social scientist to foresee how disrupting it is to a stable society to suddenly inject massive numbers of foreign peoples with foreign cultures into an existing and establised population that shares nothing socially in common. Most people choose to live together for only one reason - to associate with those who they identify with and hold in common shared believes and values. Other sorts of people live like gypsies and go to wherever they can find new work (or food) and could care less about the host cultures they live in and their impact to those cultures – they just move on to the next “host” when the jobs are all gone (or are forced to leave).

The forms of segregation have indeed changed. There is still work to be done to truly integrate American society. But many walls have been knocked down. America is more integrated, and is more a land of opportunity for many today than it was in the past. The KKK no longer burns crosses on the lawns of blacks who dare to vote; George Wallace isn’t standing in schoolhouse doors; housing “covenants” are no longer legal and sundown towns have vanished from the map. Its ridiculous to pretend that things haven’t gotten better on that front.

A few minor social improvements here and there have not changed human nature.

And it’s not “integration” it’s “assimilation” – and resistance is futile since the precedence of federal force is now established as case law. I guess you think the current melt down of the west, both socially and economically and morally, is just part of the “integration plan” do you?

Wake up - America is adrift. Politically we slap the rudder to the left then to the right every 4-8 years and instead of plotting a course toward a common vision we paddle (or flog) ourselves against the wind in circles like a lame duck on a pond. We then become vulnerable to external factors and generally have to fend off the insanity in the world’s larger external context every 5-10 years. Then we come right back and do it some more till the next world crisis. But we no longer have a luxury to tinker with our social dysfunction to keep it all glued together with legislative duct-tape. The agenda is being set by others now who take delight in putting us in a reactionary mode of existence. America’s world leadership reflects our own general moral decline as a nation - nations are all falling out of coalition to cover their bets as they see the handwriting on the wall.

[continued]

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

[continued]

The forms of segregation have indeed changed…

Sure the KKK no longer openly burns crosses on Black’s front yards or beats up and intimidates Catholics as much as they used to. And no longer do sleazy Northern Carpetbaggers & opportunists come South to loot, plunder and take advantage of the South by sitting in the many vacant leadership chairs occasioned by the killing of so many Southern gentlemen in the North’s “quick fix” morality. BTW that latter is not my idea of an effective nor fair “jobs creation and relocation program” for Northerners. The KKK have all taken off their hoods and moved back into their various fundamentalist churches to further their hateful anti-Catholic and racial agendas. Who do you think is behind all the vitriol and hateful anti-Catholic polemics we often see in these very forums? And Carpetbaggers are long dead but have spawned their descendants off to to do everything in their power to remake the south into the image of the north - a tax-and-spend social state. You have no idea of how many Northerners have been coming south to escape all that up north and are bumping up against their fellows and say “hey bro - this ain’t the big city - don’t tax me I just retired from all that”.

BTW - you forget one fundamental right that no government will ever be able to remove. That is the free God given right to freely associate with whoever one wants to (by mutual consent). This right is implicit in the Constitution’s First Amendment. But we don’t hear much these days about the Constitutional right of free association anymore do we? If you sell a product not only must you work for the state as a tax collector at point of sale but you can only look at the currency and not at all to the character, lifestyle or face of the person who demands you sell to him. Prostitutes, drug dealers, pimps and gangstas – all have a right to do business with you if you sell anything.

Me thinks that “The Integrators” have invented a problem and opportunistically turned morality into an ugly-stick to bash people into compliance and give themselves a job in a legal co-dependency. Such will force everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbaya and pretend that the ensuing cacophony of discord is music to their ears and evidence of success. Nero did the same thing as he fiddled while Rome burned.

God help us if the government again dares to try large scale social tinkering again. People are sick of government’s incompetent imposition of social mores and its ever advancing of secular-humanism and socialism under a thin veneer of charity. Everyone is finding less and less in common with their fellow Americans outside of their own families and neighborhoods.

I really find this offensive.

Something tells me you get offended easily and often.

Oh, and there’s a key difference between factory workers in the 1860’s and slaves: “Go west, young man.” Even though the factory workers in the 1860’s and for years to come lived under bad conditions and were ill-treated, and even though it took a long struggle for them to get treated the way they deserved, they could leave.

Again, I am not condoning slavery. It was “what it was” and was occasioned by a regrettable confluence of events and circumstances that the average southerner had absolutely nothing to do with. It was an an atrocity that never should have happened if the country was truly a “people” and a “union” to begin with. I don’t think the union was a solid as our history books like to portray. People were just just drunk on the lust for liberty and an unbelievably lucky opportunity for the average person to own land without having to be noble born - what a concept (steal it from the native American Indians with a self declared title). But no country can be founded nor sustained on a plurality of moral and socail ethics that have such fundamental differences as existed in the Civil War times.

There will always be a long and clear line between “slave” and “free”, even when “free” lives in bad conditions.

Question for you - “What would you have done had you lived in the south as an average white southerner who was scraping to get by to feed his family”? Would you have gone up on a soap-box to challenge the city fathers to end slavery when chances are those city fathers were your employeer? Would you have risked death by breaking into a camp at night and freed slaves and probably gotten both them and yourself killed (those southern hounds can run for miles and never give up the scent)?

Again, as morally distasteful as it is - the slaves were considered legally purchased property by their owners. They would have been within their legal rights to shoot anyone who tried to steal their property. Some Western states used to hang men for stealing horses since they were absolutely essential to survival and life. This was exactly how slave owners viewed their slaves - essential for survival. I am not saying its right. I am saying it was totally unrealistic for the Federal Gov. to think it could with a simple stroke of the pen change the practises and leave the south with no means to deal with the social unrest and the lack of production that would ensue before the ink even dried on the bill.

Ironically, it is the blood shed in the American Civil War and America’s ascendancy to world power which probably single handily won general recognition world wide that slavery was morally repugnant. To the world America was a country willing to self-destroy its own peace and kill its own citizens in large numbers for that principal; and that did get people’s attention.

James

 

[Odell]

Oh and we do have the right to stand up against a government that no longer represents you. If you think the government represents you then well maybe it is time to go our separate ways. If you want big government fine not me but don’t call me racist.

 

[Odell]

“States’ rights” were well-known codewords for maintenance of segregation laws. The campaign slogan of the “State’s Rights” party was: “Segregation Forever!”

u-s-history.com/pages/h1751.html

Yea and government segregated indians into reservations. To suggest I’m racist because I’m for state rights is just as ridiculous as if I was to say those who are pro government are for segregating indians

 

[Lujack]

Just one quick administrative detail upfront - please to do not personalize this discussion and speak objectively or even subjectively to the things I say and don’t keep trying to demonize me and calling me names etc. What good is all that? For the 2nd time I will say that I am not an apologist for slavery at all. I do not believe in slavery but recognize too that you can’t just willy nilly change practises. Societies are delicate and can be incited to violence and unrest by even mere rumors. Why is it that you can only empathize with blacks but not with the indigent southerner? That seems like a selective morality to me.

You are an apologist for slavery, and I’ll continue to say it until you back away from it. And I do empathize with the indigent Southerner; do you realize that the areas with large concentrations of poor whites (West Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Jones County in Alabama, and the hills of North Carolina) very often tended to be hotbeds of Union sympathy?

As to Segregation is the natural order? Am I wrong?

130%.

No I am not. That’s the planetary history - don’t blame me - I had nothing to do with it. Shall we blame the historians for speaking the truth? Are you challenging the assertion?

I am. And you’re wrong.

Can you show examples of ANY country on the planet prior to America’s founding that had a stable society with an “integrated” (btw who decides how to integrate?) culture of mixed races, mixed religions and mixed morality? The Romans are the closest I can think of who attempted to use pagan barbarians (at safe distance from Rome) as troops to further their empire. But they ended up losing their empire to those same barbarians who found the only thing the had in common with Romans was their greed for power, wealth and lavish sex orgies. You are the historian - present your evidence if you think my assertion is materially wrong. Sometimes the truth is painful and its well past the time to question the competency of these social engineers that have no practical experience or success to point to. We must face the realities if we are to ever have any hope of leveling the playing field to help safeguard unjust inequities.

Are you or are you not an advocate of segregation? It seems like you are. If you are, have the courage to admit it.

Now, to your question: Provide me a reason why blacks and whites cannot live together. Explain why it doesn’t work. Explain why blacks and whites living together necessarily mixes morality and religions. Explain how if mixing religions doesn’t work that Catholics and Protestants live side by side in many places.

The burden of proof is on you if you wish to argue something as immoral as segregation.

You seem to like generalize. Well let’s generalize and put it all on the shoulders of the federal government for being completely incompetent in its ability to manage and control its immigration policy back in the time of pre-civil war era and today. The slave ships should never have been permitted to enter American waters. I’d must wonder if if the US benefited by direct or indirect tariffs in those slave ships since I really think the moral argument we hear in this OP was truly secondary to all other things. At any rate, take note of how even to this day federalism remains completely incompetent in immigration policy and is unable to manage and moderate the entry of illegal aliens. Carrying forward to current times it sure looks like Obama’s new policy is “get the 'lil bastards before they get old enough to get across the border” with his massive “South of the Border” spending for foreign (Mexican) abortions. Who are we kidding here?

This is a ridiculous tangent, and I won’t acknowledge it. There’s only one thing I will acknowledge, and that’s the slave ships: Southern interests refused to allow the slave trade to be banned immediately (South Carolina was influential in that). That’s why it was pushed until 1808.

Oh, and how were those slave ships supposed to be prevented from entering the waters? With what navy? At the start of the Civil War, the US navy had something like 45 ships, and only a herculean building effort allowed them to set up more than a paper blockade. How is a navy that small supposed to cover entire oceans and a vast coastline in peacetime?

One does not need to be a social scientist to foresee how disrupting it is to a stable society to suddenly inject massive numbers of foreign peoples with foreign cultures into an existing and establised population that shares nothing socially in common.

You hit it again. And here’s why you’re argument is bigoted: you’re essentially saying that blacks and whites cannot have anything in common. Do you deny that?

Most people choose to live together for only one reason - to associate with those who they identify with and hold in common shared believes and values. Other sorts of people live like gypsies and go to wherever they can find new work (or food) and could care less about the host cultures they live in and their impact to those cultures – they just move on to the next “host” when the jobs are all gone (or are forced to leave).

Who are these “other sorts of people” that you are demonizing here?

A few minor social improvements here and there have not changed human nature.

And it’s not “integration” it’s “assimilation” – and resistance is futile since the precedence of federal force is now established as case law. I guess you think the current melt down of the west, both socially and economically and morally, is just part of the “integration plan” do you?

Are you blaming the ills of the present day of integration? If you do, have the courage to say it.

 

[Lujack]

Sure the KKK no longer openly burns crosses on Black’s front yards or beats up and intimidates Catholics as much as they used to. And no longer do sleazy Northern Carpetbaggers & opportunists come South to loot, plunder and take advantage of the South by sitting in the many vacant leadership chairs occasioned by the killing of so many Southern gentlemen in the North’s “quick fix” morality.

Stop spouting old Reconstruction myths. Most Northerners who came South after the war didn’t end up with great jobs. The corrupt ones got all the attention, but the majority of people were veterans who liked the land and settled there, or schoolteachers who came South to teach freedmen. Many of them didn’t have great pay and paid heavily for it.

And eventually, many Southerners took control with their “Redeemer Governments”, and many of those who rose to high office were former Confederates. Governor William Mahone of Virginia is a noteworthy example.

BTW that latter is not my idea of an effective nor fair “jobs creation and relocation program” for Northerners.

Good thing that its not really the way it happened then, now is it?

The KKK have all taken off their hoods and moved back into their various fundamentalist churches to further their hateful anti-Catholic and racial agendas. Who do you think is behind all the vitriol and hateful anti-Catholic polemics we often see in these very forums?

That’s the very evidence that the KKK and its anti-Catholic fellows has gotten weaker over time. Once they ran the state of Ohio, came close to banning parochial schools in the Pacific Northwest, humiliated Al Smith, and attacked Notre Dame students on the streets of South Now they…are vitriolic on an internet forum?

 

[CentralFLJames]

You are an apologist for slavery, and I’ll continue to say it until you back away from it. And I do empathize with the indigent Southerner; do you realize that the areas with large concentrations of poor whites (West Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Jones County in Alabama, and the hills of North Carolina) very often tended to be hotbeds of Union sympathy?

You continue to attack me and not my arguments. That is indicative of a liberal mind that can not objectively speak to facts without demonizing others and projecting one’s own opinion as fact. This is probably my last reply to you since you lack the self discipline to engage the topic in honest dialog and are doing everything you can to bring emotion into the dialog. Get a grip.

130%.

I am. And you’re wrong.

Mere assertions and personal opinion made without evidence.

Are you or are you not an advocate of segregation? It seems like you are. If you are, have the courage to admit it.

This is an irrelevant charge and a smokescreen attempt to demonize me since you have lack of evidence to support your position. Have the courage to admit you have no evidence.

Now, to your question: Provide me a reason why blacks and whites cannot live together. Explain why it doesn’t work. Explain why blacks and whites living together necessarily mixes morality and religions. Explain how if mixing religions doesn’t work that Catholics and Protestants live side by side in many places.

Another evasion of the question with a leading question back at me. Why am I not surprised? You have a one track mind that sees only linear progression of logic. You lack the discipline to objectively face the facts and must demonize that which you can not defeat to compensate for your own inabilities to refute what has been presented. This is a hindrance to meaningful dialog and is selfish and self serving. It will never result in changing people’s views or in learning from the matters that are discussed to avoid repeating the errors of the Northern war of aggression so to profit humanity.

The burden of proof is on you if you wish to argue something as immoral as segregation.

Have you considered how absurd your presumption is? I had nothing to do with the importation of slaves in the South – nor did most Southerners. As well, EVERYONE on the planet elects to segregate themselves in some way FROM others. Your problem is you must see evil in everything as if segregation is always one way, must be bad and can only be forced on others against their will. Consider that people FREELY CHOOSE to segregate themselves from those who do not hold their same values. Trust is hard to gain outside of close friendships and ones peer group. You just refuse to acknowledge that there is a fundamental freedom & right of “free association” that will never be capable of being forced by government on anyone - especially in a free society that values above all things a variety of personal choices. What this means is NO ONE can force me or you or anyone else to “like” someone we have no empathy for or do not respect. That is a violation of free will and is the same mindset of a rapist who imagines he can force somone to love him through domination and and by imposition of mere conjugal facilities. So, I’d present that no one can legislate or socially engineer society in ways that will compel somone to love any other arbitrary human since that goes against the nature of humanity and free will. Nope - all government can do is pass the silly idea of “hate legislation” to make certain classes of people legislatively protected from being verbally abused. Not exactly “equal protection” under the law now is it?

I won’t let you turn this discussion into a race topic nor sleeze this dialog down a rabbit hole just so you can use morality as a club to force your world view on me or anyone else here. The truth is within any arbitrary same race there are widely divergent strata of classes and more developed mores above the “common” level. In society its really all about CLASS NOT RACE. No one wants to be in situations and around people that raise their anxiety levels or makes them uncomfortable. People will always seek to reduce their anxiety EVERY time or else leave or when trapped attack the thing causing them anxiety. I know this is a novel idea and goes against all your liberal programming but can you possibly accept this and think about it? You will find that it is true. Even benevolent change that is clearly intentioned for the better ALWAYS has unintended consequences and people KNOW this principal. And this is why we have conservative since they know that change for change sake is foolish and invites stress, anxiety and conflict at the same time it invites incompetence to show itself in the most grand way.

[continued]

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

[from prior]

…

I think you are apparently an idealist and think everything should fit into a neat cookie cutter sort of moral template without any regard to the widely divergent maturities and readiness of people to adapt to radical social changes. You must genuinely think that everyone is of an “equal” capacity in all the human attributes. But this is a fallacy for there is NO equality in anyone whatsoever except in equality of standing before God in Justice - yet God had his favorites too (“blessed are you among women” & “this is my only beloved son”). I am much different than you since I am a pragmatist. I acknowledge differences in all people as a good thing. I also embrace as passionately as you embrace your liberalism one of the most fundamental rights given to humanity - the right to free association to choose one’s friends. Christ picked only 12 apostles as his inner circle of confidants. They were all Jews - race as well as gender was relevant in this case. So are you prepared to follow the absurdity of your position and claim Christ was a racist male chauvinist pig and assert He was immoral for only choosing close friendship with 12 white male Jews? Please recalibrate your thinking before you shoot yourself in the foot here.

Here in FL there are 2 overwhelmingly “black” colleges that blacks often choose to attend because they want to be around other blacks and not around whites. I think this is good that they take pride in their ethnicity and their race. It is there God given right to form free association with friends of their own choosing. This is a reverse segregation where Blacks have elected to isolate themselves from whites (as beneath them). Would you advocate upsetting the status quo that seems to be quite pleasant to them simply because there are not enough whites on campus or do you have a double standard when it comes to segregation?

You hit it again. And here’s why you’re argument is bigoted: you’re essentially saying that blacks and whites cannot have anything in common. Do you deny that?

You keep trying to make this a racial topic and I am going to kick it back to you every time. I am addressing CULTURAL differences. If all of Africa were white rather than black and we had white slaves in the south it would be substantially the same problem - incompatible social mores and education levels etc. that would take massive training to get people even at a rudimentary level of social competency.

Why do you think the Indians who are generally closer in appearance of features to whites than blacks were put on a reservation? Because THEY for one DID NOT WANT to live like the white man (who they considered dog faced and ugly animals); and because the two cultures were so radically different and the engrained mistrusts where so high that it would never work without one side or the other causing suspicion and conflict anytime somone accidentally did the “wrong thing” culturally and shot somone. Both Southern and Northern whites most often spoke of native American as “savages” who could not be trusted. The Australians have to this day the same social problem with the aborigines who they now admit were mistreated (forgetting that they took their land to start with). One just don’t see too many native Indians nor aborigines choosing to live among other ethnic groups. They prefer to be in the company of their own people and it’s their right to do so.

Are you blaming the ills of the present day of integration? If you do, have the courage to say it.

I am never afraid to speak my mind on matters that I know are correct. But I try not to be irresponsible either. What is irresponsible is taking a baited question along lines that can lead to no productive purpose and only fuel conflict, drama and rhetorical exchange. Is it just my imagination that you seem to thrive on drama. If so, why is that?

I’ll go ahead and tell you what I think the major ills of the day are due to. They are due to a complete secularization of Christianity into competing sects of partial truths and a complete lack of ecclesial moral authority anywhere in government. Separation of Church and State is IMMORAL - even in a religiously plural country. There should be a cabinet position to interact with the Catholic Church and Protestants and other faiths. I want to see this entire country converted to Catholicism to tell the truth. I see that as the only way to get us back to being “one people” and on track with leading the rest of the world out of its errors. But if we can’t fix our problems at home we have no business teaching or moralzing other countries.

James

 

[Zooey]

How does those who support state rights become racist? Did they not read my first post when I said I DO NOT support slavery? Yee haw I don’t want a group of people in dc to tell me I have pay for someone’s abortion over seas. Yee haw I don’t want my state to bail out california. Yee haw I don’t want to pay for another states health care. Looks like them massachusetts people don’t either yee haw for them.

Oh and we do have the right to stand up against a government that no longer represents you. If you think the government represents you then well maybe it is time to go our separate ways. If you want big government fine not me but don’t call me racist.

Odell, I don’t believe for one minute that ANYONE here, is supporting slavery. Such accusations are simply folks trying to excuse their own support for the big government policies that began to go into effect under Lincoln’s administration.
None of my ancestors owned slaves; I say this, not to brag on them–It is possible that if they could have afforded slaves, they might well have had some. I say it because what they fought for, was NOT slavery; they fought for the right of Americans to be free from the kind of anti-Christian & socialistic gov’t that we have, tragically, seen come to be.

---

And Lucy, I stand by my statements to you. You are insulting the memories of all African Americans when you talk about “slave breeding”.
A few slave traders in New England–as I said–tried it, and gacve it up as a bad job. Why?? Because the African slaves they wanted to “breed” simply refused to take part in such ****. More power to them!!
Re: Thomas Jefferson? Unless my math problems have reached the stage of sheer idiocy, I believe that the man was dead & gone long before the Confederacy was ever thought of.

To all: If you read the history of slavery in America, kindly note that Massachusetts was the first (& most active) in the slave trade. And Rhode Island continued to trade in slaves in the West Indies for nearly a decade after the War for Southern Independence was over.
The first state to abolish the slave trade, by the bye, was Virginia.

But we are not here to defend slavery; we are here to make it clear that, when States’ Rights went by the wayside, American democracy went, not to put too fine a point on it, it went to hell in a handbasket.

 

[Lujack]

And Lucy, I stand by my statements to you. You are insulting the memories of all African Americans when you talk about “slave breeding”.
A few slave traders in New England–as I said–tried it, and gacve it up as a bad job. Why?? Because the African slaves they wanted to “breed” simply refused to take part in such ****. More power to them!!

You’re wrong when you say that, though. At Southern slave auctions, women of childbearing age were sold for the highest price. There’s a reason for that, unfortunately.

To all: If you read the history of slavery in America, kindly note that Massachusetts was the first (& most active) in the slave trade.

Yes, they were the first to legalize slavery. But by the 1820’s it was abolition country. Are you arguing that if Massachusetts had slavery and traded slaves at one time, it can never oppose it? That people who never lived in a state that had slavery are not allowed to oppose it?

Massachusetts was home to Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and William Lloyd Garrisson. Massachusetts was where Frederick Douglass lived. They fought back against the Fugitive Slave Law in Boston. How do you explain all that?

And Rhode Island continued to trade in slaves in the West Indies for nearly a decade after the War for Southern Independence was over.

What? Provide a source for that, please!

The first state to abolish the slave trade, by the bye, was Virginia.

But not slavery. That they were willing to fight to keep.

But we are not here to defend slavery; we are here to make it clear that, when States’ Rights went by the wayside, American democracy went, not to put too fine a point on it, it went to hell in a handbasket.

Mmmhmm. Because its been so terrible and undemocratic to live in America for the past 150 years. Its been a terrible, terrible place. We’ve never done anything good in the world at all.

 

[CentralFLJames]

A fellow Catholic (@CentralFLJames) posted this: “The truth is while there were abuses many of the blacks were treated by their owners with compassion and became like family members. Many were much better off in the South than they ever were under the harsh conditions where they came from. Most people don’t realize it but many of the blacks were NOT originally free to begin with and lived in squalid conditions in Africa. That is, the blacks in Africa were being enslaved in mass by the Muslims who were conquering Africa and funding their empire by selling those they did not want to convert to Islam as mere chattel to the Protestant England with the head of the Protestant Church’s (the King/Queen) full consent.”

Yeah, I’m sooooooo glad that the benevolent white man came to get us from de squalid dark continent of Africa. Thank you, Catholic Massa!

BB, first of all let me say I am sorry you seem to be so agitated over this comment.

May I ask you who is “us”? Do you relate “us” more to black American slaves or more to Africans? I am just trying to understand your sentiments better.

I hope you did not think that I was attempting to justify the morally repugnant idea of taking blacks from their homeland and bringing them to America as slaves by rationalizing that they would have better living conditions. I am NOT claiming this and this is NOT what really happened anyway. The motives were pure selfish greed and opportunistic exploitation of native Africans who were complete and total victims of crimes against our very humanity. The men who did this are most probably in hell contemplating for eternity their damnable conduct and seeing the image of each and every soul they harmed.

I was only meaning to convey that once the slaves were here in America the damage was already done and could not be repaired so easily but they were at least given the basics of food, shelter and clothing - admittedly not for humanitarian reasons but to keep them healthy and alive for selfish motives. That is all.

There were so many slaves in the South that the common average southerner (who had nothing at all to do with this matter) that it would have been MORE dangerous and disastrous to both blacks and whites to suddenly release them all into a strange American culture that they did not know much about and were ill equipped to independently survive in – much less prosper in. Simply put the slaves were uneducated, had no means of income & did not know how to live in southern society; and the common Southerner also was clueless with how to cope with an instant doubling of the free population in a society that had no provisions for accommodating them culturally nor economically.

The ugly truth is that if slaves were suddenly freed into Southern society they would have been living in worse conditions than even in the slave camps. It is easy to imagine the probably that they would been more severely abused in large numbers by frightened southern citizens and forced to rebel and fight against in an insurrection or revolt. If that would have happened the soldiers and police would have been brought in and there would likely had been massive bloodshed. It might very well could have escalated into genocide situation. If you think the slave camps were bad the military prison conditions were at least as bad and during wars and insurrection most in prison die from disease and malnutrition. The slave camps were no certainly no rose-garden but their masters at least fed them, gave them clothes and shelter, and had doctors check in on them – albeit not for the right reasons - but only because they had a lot of money invested in them and in the crops they needed them to help plant and harvest.

I know its hard for you, but try to look at the realities of the few real options the South had to do anything good with the mess a few immoral men got the South into. What would you have done if you were a white southern citizen to change the situation that was way bigger than you? I think some few Southerners did in fact release their slaves for moral reasons but many of these freed slaves facing the realities I just presented elected to work their old jobs as freemen in exchange for room and board and perhaps some minor stipends for incidentals.

A question to you BouncingBall:
What was the “right thing to do”? What would you say was fair and within the means of the South to do to make right a wrong committed against slaves?

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

Hatred of Protestants, Muslims and anything royal has made some so blind that they see as in a mirror very darkly. The British Empire abolished slavery before the US did.

I see this argument as two flies on two piles of dung arguing over which pile is more desirable. One fly is pro-North, the other pro-Confederacy; neither fly has condemned US slavery properly and the social effects of it that still manifest today.
…

These neo-Confederates need to invest in a time machine, set the dial to 1801, get in and then lose our address.

Interesting analogy. And who or what are the dung piles in your imagery?
Also, be careful about calling people neo-Confederates since it could be reversed to call you a neo-African or neo-slave. We are all Americans yes?

Listen BOTH the North and the Southern elected officials desired to “do the right thing”. History will bear out that both groups saw the moral error of slavery at the same they saw how it was in fact technically legal at the start of the country. Both sides acknowledged that they needed to abolish first the slave trade and secondly slavery itself. The two major competing philosophies were the “Moralists” and the “Pragmatists”. Everyone knew it was immoral but no one knew how best to deal with ending slavery in a country that had already been tainted by it. The various states representatives agonized over what to do that was fair and equitable to all (slaves and American citizens) and would not cause succession and not gravely wound the union of the American states.

The pragmatists prevailed and the plan was to phase out slavery by first stopping the trade in America then outlawing it & figuring out how best to free slaves. The problem was who “owns” them during the transition from slave to free. If America bought them to release them then the nation was put in the “business of slave trading” in a sort of moral catch 22 (even though the intentions were honorable). Various moral dilemmas existed. The government was not exempt from breaking its own laws on purchasing slaves. As well, the federal government acknowledged the South could become victims of a civil uprising and insurrection if slaves were suddenly made free men. It was a very real and legitimate fear since the slaves in some states out numbered southern citizens and could have taken over entire states by force.

The “dungpile” you mention was how to prevent everyone from getting slaughtered. Maintaining the status quo was pragmatic in that half the people living in southern states could be preserved from violence and poverty. The alternative was to toss the dice against all reasonable odds that there would be no insurrection or have the entire regions in arms and conflict such that ALL Southerners and freed slaves were worse off.

The problem was HOW to “make right” on acknowledged moral errors.

As for who and when slavery was banned:
Yes Britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807, and the United States followed in 1808.

But the decades following the abolition of the slave trade show that United States did not have enough will to even enforce the laws they had passed. Illegal slave trade continued overland through Texas and Florida, while ships continued to smuggle slaves in through South Carolina. Even though Congress passed a law in 1820 making participation in the slave trade an act of piracy and punishable by death, it was not strongly enforced.

In the 1820’s, the nature of the illegal slave trade changed. US ships were now primarily involved in the transport of slaves from Africa to other countries in North and South America like Cuba and Brazil. The British wanted cooperation from the Americans in the form of the mutual right of search and seizure. The Americans opposed this reasonable principle, not so much out of a desire to continue the slave trade, but out of a sense of national pride and an appeal to the freedom of the seas. The US’s refusal to enforce its own anti-slave trade laws, as well as refusal to cooperate with other nations allowed the slave trade to continue for decades to come. All totaled, 300,000 Africans were transported as slaves to various OTHER global destinations in the holds of 1,500 American ships. I am ashamed that America as a country did not cooperate and honor England’s just request for mutual policing of the trade and its looks like American gov. talked out of both sides of its mouth.

England had its own challenges with enforcing its slave trade bans.Their measures did not stop the British slave trade: if slave ships were in danger of being captured by the Royal Navy, British captains were known to have ordered the slaves to be thrown into the sea to reduce the quota of fines they had to pay per slave. The laws simply got many slaves killed.

America abolished the slave trade at the same time as England (but not the internal slave trade in the US until 1850). “But further measures were soon discovered to be necessary. The Portuguese continued to carry on the trade to a greater extent than ever; and British subjects did not hesitate, under cover of their flags, to become partners in their adventures.”

It might surprise you to know that by the time that England got around to actually making slavery illegal outright (not just the trade) Slavery Abolition Act many prominent Englishmen and nobles were profiting by it. England opted to phase it out using an apprentice system where those over age 6 had to stay in the employ of their owners for some number of years. Privileged British such as Protestant Bishop Henry Phillpotts and his three business colleagues received £12,700 for 665 slaves that Great Britain paid him for compensation.

James

 

[BouncingBall]

BB, first of all let me say I am sorry you seem to be so agitated over this comment.

May I ask you who is “us”? Do you relate “us” more to black American slaves or more to Africans? I am just trying to understand your sentiments better.

I hope you did not think that I was attempting to justify the morally repugnant idea of taking blacks from their homeland and bringing them to America as slaves by rationalizing that they would have better living conditions. I am NOT claiming this and this is NOT what really happened anyway. The motives were pure selfish greed and opportunistic exploitation of native Africans who were complete and total victims of crimes against our very humanity. The men who did this are most probably in hell contemplating for eternity their damnable conduct and seeing the image of each and every soul they harmed.

I was only meaning to convey that once the slaves were here in America the damage was already done and could not be repaired so easily but they were at least given the basics of food, shelter and clothing - admittedly not for humanitarian reasons but to keep them healthy and alive for selfish motives. That is all.

There were so many slaves in the South that the common average southerner (who had nothing at all to do with this matter) that it would have been MORE dangerous and disastrous to both blacks and whites to suddenly release them all into a strange American culture that they did not know much about and were ill equipped to independently survive in – much less prosper in. Simply put the slaves were uneducated, had no means of income & did not know how to live in southern society; and the common Southerner also was clueless with how to cope with an instant doubling of the free population in a society that had no provisions for accommodating them culturally nor economically.

The ugly truth is that if slaves were suddenly freed into Southern society they would have been living in worse conditions than even in the slave camps. It is easy to imagine the probably that they would been more severely abused in large numbers by frightened southern citizens and forced to rebel and fight against in an insurrection or revolt. If that would have happened the soldiers and police would have been brought in and there would likely had been massive bloodshed. It might very well could have escalated into genocide situation. If you think the slave camps were bad the military prison conditions were at least as bad and during wars and insurrection most in prison die from disease and malnutrition. The slave camps were no certainly no rose-garden but their masters at least fed them, gave them clothes and shelter, and had doctors check in on them – albeit not for the right reasons - but only because they had a lot of money invested in them and in the crops they needed them to help plant and harvest.

I know its hard for you, but try to look at the realities of the few real options the South had to do anything good with the mess a few immoral men got the South into. What would you have done if you were a white southern citizen to change the situation that was way bigger than you? I think some few Southerners did in fact release their slaves for moral reasons but many of these freed slaves facing the realities I just presented elected to work their old jobs as freemen in exchange for room and board and perhaps some minor stipends for incidentals.

A question to you BouncingBall:
What was the “right thing to do”? What would you say was fair and within the means of the South to do to make right a wrong committed against slaves?

James

@CentralFLJames,

It’s OK if you are a racist or a segregationist. This sin is not just against me, it’s against Someone Else. It’s a free country, “free to be you and me,” as Marlo Thomas sang. But we must keep in mind that when the End of Game Buzzer sounds, we will have to answer to the Referee about our actions, including things typed on an internet forum. That includes me, which is why I try to be as charitable as I can online.

Methinks, on a theological level, that maybe devout Catholics who “kept slaves because that’s just how things were” are going to be stuck in Purgatory until the repercussions of their actions in time have completely subsided or disappeared. Because nothing unclean can enter Heaven and that may include the repercussions of bad choices started by the individual. That’s just my private thought. But I digress.

As a Black American, the “us” I referred to = Black American descendants of US slaves.

The slaves were '“uneducated” because HELLO the slaves were not allowed to learn how to read. Now if by “uneducated” you mean “intellectually inferior”, well history has proven you wrong. Just 145 years after the abolition of slavery we have Blacks excelling and prospering in every field of American life: science, entertainment, business, education, sports and politics… including the highest office in our land. If I comb through the history books, I cannot think of any people who have gone from so low to so prosperous in such a short time, while living in a land where they were persecuted and kept down by law. So I don’t buy your line that the US slaves were “uneducated”.

You say there would have been no room to put the slaves once they were freed? I call BS. Texas alone is huge. Plenty of space. California. All the land in-between, lots of room. “Where we gonna put 'em all!” LOL.

I don’t want to take up too much space on the boards, but I noticed in your reply to @Lujack you mentioned something about Our Lord choosing “twelve white Jewish men” as His disciples. Another LOL.

You seem like a nice guy and well-meaning. I will be sure to visit you in the Whites-only section of Heaven.

 

[Odell]

@CentralFLJames,

It’s OK if you are a racist or a segregationist. This sin is not just against me, it’s against Someone Else. It’s a free country, “free to be you and me,” as Marlo Thomas sang. But we must keep in mind that when the End of Game Buzzer sounds, we will have to answer to the Referee about our actions, including things typed on an internet forum. That includes me, which is why I try to be as charitable as I can online.

Methinks, on a theological level, that maybe devout Catholics who “kept slaves because that’s just how things were” are going to be stuck in Purgatory until the repercussions of their actions in time have completely subsided or disappeared. Because nothing unclean can enter Heaven and that may include the repercussions of bad choices started by the individual. That’s just my private thought. But I digress.

As a Black American, the “us” I referred to = Black American descendants of US slaves.

The slaves were '“uneducated” because HELLO the slaves were not allowed to learn how to read. Now if by “uneducated” you mean “intellectually inferior”, well history has proven you wrong. Just 145 years after the abolition of slavery we have Blacks excelling and prospering in every field of American life: science, entertainment, business, education, sports and politics… including the highest office in our land. If I comb through the history books, I cannot think of any people who have gone from so low to so prosperous in such a short time, while living in a land where they were persecuted and kept down by law. So I don’t buy your line that the US slaves were “uneducated”.

You say there would have been no room to put the slaves once they were freed? I call BS. Texas alone is huge. Plenty of space. California. All the land in-between, lots of room. “Where we gonna put 'em all!” LOL.

I don’t want to take up too much space on the boards, but I noticed in your reply to @Lujack you mentioned something about Our Lord choosing “twelve white Jewish men” as His disciples. Another LOL.

You seem like a nice guy and well-meaning. I will be sure to visit you in the Whites-only section of Heaven.

He said yall where uneducated not dumb asses. Hello you acknowledge that they where because know on was teaching them. How come you can state the facts but know one else can? If your white of course! Facts are facts get over it.

 

[CentralFLJames]

@CentralFLJames,

It’s OK if you are a racist or a segregationist. This sin is not just against me, it’s against Someone Else. It’s a free country, “free to be you and me,” as Marlo Thomas sang. But we must keep in mind that when the End of Game Buzzer sounds, we will have to answer to the Referee about our actions, including things typed on an internet forum. That includes me, which is why I try to be as charitable as I can online.

Yes we will ALL have to answer to almighty God for every deed and for every deed we did not do but should have and for every slander. A prudential man forms his conscience according to Christian principles (e.g. as The Catholic Church teaches) and uses his intellect to decide what is the best and most righteous thing he can do in such matters as we discuss here. I might add that judging others unfairly and slandering others by implying that they are racists etc. is also a grave matter and you really have no business or obvious moral superior position in so judging others as you blatantly do here. I resent the implications of your words that run contrary to your claimed charity and would not desire to be in your court of opinion as a defendant.

Methinks, on a theological level, that maybe devout Catholics who “kept slaves because that’s just how things were” are going to be stuck in Purgatory until the repercussions of their actions in time have completely subsided or disappeared. Because nothing unclean can enter Heaven and that may include the repercussions of bad choices started by the individual. That’s just my private thought. But I digress.

I don’t think many Catholic Southerners owned slaves at all. I don’t have any data on it - do you?

As a Black American, the “us” I referred to = Black American descendants of US slaves.

Thanks for clarifying that. I am Irish-Italian and while I relate to the struggles of my ancestors both abroad and here (in the immigration discrimination against both of these ethnic groups) I think of “us” only in the context of the Catholic Church. That is my family. The USA is where I live and worked and do my best to be a good citizen even as the country rejects its founding moral principles and tramples the most innocent and defenseless life under the corporate boot of the abortion mills and the citizens under a “big brother” who insists on secularizing the entire country.

[continued]

James