Church Shooting

[B-Man]

ROGER SIMON: 90% of the Racism in America Comes from the Democratic Party and the Left:

 

 

I am uniquely positioned to say this because I spent most of my life on the Left and was a civil rights worker in the South in my early twenties. I was also, to my everlasting regret, a donor to the Black Panther Party in the seventies.

 

So I have seen this personally from both sides and my conclusion is inescapable. The Left is far, far worse. They are obsessed with race in a manner that does not allow them to see straight. Fu

rther, they project racism onto others continually, exacerbating situations,

which in most instances weren’t even there in the first place. From Al Sharpton to Hillary Clinton, they all do it.

 

Barack Obama is one of the worst offenders in this regard. Recently, in reaction to the horrid actions of the deranged, but solitary racist Dylann Root, the president claimed racism is in our DNA.

 

How could he possibly utter such nonsense and who was he talking about? The majority of Americans are from families that came to this country after slavery existed. Many of those were escaping oppression of their own. In my case my family was fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe. Many of the members of my family who stayed behind ended up gassed in Auschwitz or starved to death in Treblinka.

 

 

 

 

Read the whole thing.

 

 

 

 

.

Edited June 25, 2015 by B-Man

[Magox]

those 2 are certainly in abundant evidence here

 

 

And how many of those guns are purchased illegally?

 

And again, Why the !@#$ am I talking to you??

 

[TH3]

 

Please tell where in the world you can live that you would be safe from any and all evil?

In every other industrialized nation you are quantum leaps safer from gun violence than here - at least that would be a start - after all - aren't we "exceptional" ?

[KD in CA]

In every other industrialized nation you are quantum leaps safer from gun violence than here - at least that would be a start - after all - aren't we "exceptional" ?

 

Not according to our President.

[truth on hold]

those 2 are certainly in abundant evidence here

Probably a relatively safe assumption you made to eliminate commercial agenda as a motive, since the apologists on this board sound unemployable.

 

Anyway, I note the link isn't working, here it is again

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/19/guns-in-america-for-every-criminal-killed-in-self-defense-34-innocent-people-die/

Edited June 25, 2015 by JTSP

[FireChan]

The laws are only part of the problem (and one could argue they are a smaller part of the problem), the biggest problem is our culture.

 

Crumbling lower classes and social support systems, lack of blue collar jobs, public education struggles mightily in poor areas, the war on drugs, systemic racism, privatized prisons that have a vested interest in repeat offenders, so there's no real attempt at rehabilitation, extreme difficulty in getting work after being convicted of a crime, easy availability of guns legal or not, popular culture obsession with violence and guns, and so on

 

This is not some sort of easy problem.

 

It's my sincere belief that most crime is the result of desperation. There will always be "bad guys", sure, but I think a lot of people are born into bad situations, go from there. If we find a way to raise the lower classes up, if we can find a way to educate and rehabilitate, instead of profiting off criminals, and if we can find a way employ more people in the lower classes, a lot of crime would go away. But, all that is way easier said than done, and the path to those results is often times debated so much, that little is done.

Whose culture? The culture that looks down on folks who obey the law and work at honest jobs? The culture that glorifies gun violence, gangs, and drug dealing? The culture that perpetuates victimization and an "us against them" mentality from the start?

[Rob's House]

 

Oh I have plenty. On this topic, you're a blithering idiot. By your logic, evil institutions should be allowed to continue because the idea of war is so odious as to be impractical. I can assure you that's foolishness. The Civil War was both just and necessary...and not just for ending the slave trade. Had the concept of secession been allowed to continue, it can't be certain HOW MANY "Americas" we'd have ended up with. UNFORTUNATELY, John Wilkes Booth ensured that the peace would be disastrous. But the idea that slavery would have organically stopped in any reasonable amount of time or that the racism behind it would have magically stopped itself over time is just foolishness. The war was necessary, just, and the means for victory outweighed any moral consequences. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a blatant revisionist, or living in a fantasy world.

I think secession would have been just fine. If you think slavery would have continued on indefinitely the only thing you've got going for you is the luxury that no one can prove what might have been, but slavery was dying and did die out in the civilized world, and in most places without a war.

 

And if you don't think the war and it's aftermath didn't exascerbate the racial tensions that persist today I think you don't know much about the topic.

 

And !@#$ the union. Without it we wouldn't have a bunch of northeastern socialism shoved down our throats by same !@#$ing ass holes who claim righteous ground on the basis of freedom.

 

And even if we're to accept your cartoon version of history, why aren't you campaigning for wars in the 3rd world where people are still enslaved?

[Rob's House]

those 2 are certainly in abundant evidence here

Says the guy who makes an assertion then runs away pouting when challenged.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Rob's House

[Deranged Rhino]

I think secession would have been just fine. If you think slavery would have continued on indefinitely the only thing you've got going for you is the luxury that no one can prove what might have been, but slavery was dying and did die out in the civilized world, and in most places without a war.

 

 

I'm in agreement with the last three paragraphs of this post, but the bolded section isn't historically accurate. 1/4th of all African slaves were brought across the Atlantic after 1808, the slave trade -- and by extension the institution of chattel slavery -- was increasing exponentially during the 19th century. It took the civil war, specifically the Union victory, for Brazil and Cuba to shut down their ports to slavers. It took war to bring an end to slavery in the western hemisphere. There's little historical data that supports the institution was dying out in the Confederacy, even less in regards to the institution as a whole across the Americas.

 

Would slavery have died out eventually? Possibly. But it would have been set back a century or more had the Confederacy "officially" reopened the trans Atlantic trade -- which is what they would have likely done.

Edited June 25, 2015 by GreggyT

[Rob's House]

In every other industrialized nation you are quantum leaps safer from gun violence than here - at least that would be a start - after all - aren't we "exceptional" ?

If you guys ever presented a position on the issue that wasn't full of misinformation and lies (not that I think you're a liar, just an ignoramus) you might have credibility with anyone who's at least minimally informed on the topic.

 

I'm in agreement with the last three paragraphs of this post, but the bolded section isn't historically accurate. 1/4th of all African slaves were brought across the Atlantic after 1808, the slave trade -- and by extension the institution of chattel slavery -- was increasing exponentially during the 19th century. It took the civil war, specifically the Union victory, for Brazil and Cuba to shut down their ports to slavers. It took war to bring an end to slavery in the western hemisphere. There's no historical data that supports the institution was dying out in the Confederacy but especially in the Americas.

 

Would slavery have died out eventually? Possibly. But it would have been set back a century or more had the Confederacy "officially" reopened the trans Atlantic trade -- which is what they would have likely done.

If you ban something you're going to see a spike in sales. There was plenty of anti-slavery sentiment in the south and it was growing. A lot of slave owners opposed it but trying to operate a plantation without slaves at the time meant going out of business. But if it was made illegal all planters would be in the same position, and I believe that would have happened. The war may have expedited it's end, but at a high price. A price we're still paying today.

 

On the flip side, without slavery and the war none of us would be here today so we can't be but so upset I guess.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Rob's House

[boyst]

This thread is getting absurd with people speculating what might have been and conjuring what they feel (not think) is important.

 

No, we shouldn't have to carry a gun to protect ourselves because someone else shouldn't threaten violence upon us. But the smart ones do carry a weapon because chance favors the prepared.

 

Slavery would have died out had the South been allowed to secede without intervention and in 20-30 yrs. No one can say if the blacks in the South would have had been more adjusted to society and contributing towards economic stability.

 

Joesixpaxk dropping by to take horribly aimed pot shots about nothing is exscusable, but the rest of the junk is ridiculous. Greggypoo is the only one of his camp making decent replies.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

And if you don't think the war and it's aftermath didn't exascerbate the racial tensions that persist today I think you don't know much about the topic.

 

And !@#$ the union. Without it we wouldn't have a bunch of northeastern socialism shoved down our throats by same !@#$ing ass holes who claim righteous ground on the basis of freedom.

 

 

There's no doubt white southerners were bitter and bigoted up until about 30 years ago. There's also no debate reconstruction was at least partly to blame, but come the !@#$ on. If you seriously believe that the slaveowners didn't see themselves as superior, you need to read up on the topic.

 

As for sentence two, then you're an advocate of secession today?

[Magox]

This thread has gotten absurd. According to some, we've now reached the point that the results of the Civil War did nearly as much or more harm than good. And that we can declare with full certainty that slavery would have ended in 20-30 years.

[Rob's House]

 

There's no doubt white southerners were bitter and bigoted up until about 30 years ago. There's also no debate reconstruction was at least partly to blame, but come the !@#$ on. If you seriously believe that the slaveowners didn't see themselves as superior, you need to read up on the topic.

 

As for sentence two, then you're an advocate of secession today?

I never said they didn't see themselves as superior. Most people in positions of authority see themselves as superior.

 

And today the logistics may not make secession practical, but if we could split off and have a separate country in the south I'd be all for it. You guys can keep northern VA.

This thread has gotten absurd. According to some, we've now reached the point that the results of the Civil War did nearly as much or more harm than good. And that we can declare with full certainty that slavery would have ended in 20-30 years.

Sorry if the truth disrupts your fairy tale comfort zone. Of course we can't say for certain that slavery would have ended within a specified time frame, but you can't say it wouldn't have either. Not with any certainty. Edited June 25, 2015 by Rob's House

[Alaska Darin]

 

The USA has become a defeated place if one has to arm themselves to go about their daily business....

No one says anyone has to arm themselves but you don't get to live in a world where you pretend evil hasn't always existed. This is actually one of the safest periods in our history and there are more guns on the streets of this country than ever before. I don't think it's a coincidence but I also don't think that guns in the hands of private citizens are the only factor.

 

There are a percentage of human beings on this planet who will do terrible things if given the opportunity and will look for situations that increase their chances of success. You can choose to play that lottery as a pacifist or not but there are plenty of people who want to make a different choice and they should have that right.

[TakeYouToTasker]

 

Oh I have plenty. On this topic, you're a blithering idiot. By your logic, evil institutions should be allowed to continue because the idea of war is so odious as to be impractical. I can assure you that's foolishness. The Civil War was both just and necessary...and not just for ending the slave trade. Had the concept of secession been allowed to continue, it can't be certain HOW MANY "Americas" we'd have ended up with. UNFORTUNATELY, John Wilkes Booth ensured that the peace would be disastrous. But the idea that slavery would have organically stopped in any reasonable amount of time or that the racism behind it would have magically stopped itself over time is just foolishness. The war was necessary, just, and the means for victory outweighed any moral consequences. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a blatant revisionist, or living in a fantasy world.

 

I'm an idiot? You're the unmitigated moron examining the world as it was in the early-mid 1800's through the moral prism of 2015 America.

 

Further, you're so malinformed about the actual issues at hand that it's hard to know where to begin slapping the **** out of your argument.

 

1. The South did not enter into war over slavery. An argument can be made that they seceeded over slavery (a poor one), but they entered into war because they were attacked by the North, who were attempting to deny them their sovereignty. A sovereignty they had always enjoyed, until the time of the Civil War, as the United States was a voluntary union.

 

2. The North, with the exception of a very vocal and very small minority, did not believe slavery to be inherently evil; nor did they view blacks as equals. One of the major issues guiding the battle over new states being either slave or free states, was that Northern elites did not want the new lands to be settled by blacks under any conditions. They sought the purity of an all white frontier. The North profited greatly from the slave trade, with the large majority of money earned through the venture winding up in the coffers of the North's monied elites. Brown University, for example, was built completely on the back of the slave trade.

 

3. How many Americas we would have ended up with? That's the dumbest argument I've ever heard. First of all, the acceptance of this argument immediately negates the concept of self-determination; and elevates the desires of the bureaucratic nation state above the rights of men. Our Country was founded on the notion that, and I quote: "...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

 

It is never just to subvert others to your cause against their will. Just as slavery was unjust, equally unjust was denying the South it's right to self determine with the force of military might.

 

4. Slavery, as has already been explained in this thread, was already on it's way out in the South; and had ended or would end, quite organically, without war, everywhere else in the world. Your position, which hinges entirely, on the existence of an "exceptional racism of the American South" dwarfing that of the rest of the world is absurd. There were, in fact, many other proposals to end slavery in the South on the table at the time the War began; proposals that were gaining steam in the South. Further, slavery was becoming economically unviable due to the costs. The only reason it persisted was because of a wide scale labor shortage, and that labor shortage was quickly disapearing due in large part to immigration.

 

Finally, if you truely believe my position to be revisionist, then your schooling was so poor that you're actually intellectually obligated to slap every teacher you've ever had.

Edited June 25, 2015 by TakeYouToTasker

[Magox]

I never said they didn't see themselves as superior. Most people in positions of authority see themselves as superior.

 

And today the logistics may not make secession practical, but if we could split off and have a separate country in the south I'd be all for it. You guys can keep northern VA.

Sorry if the truth disrupts your fairy tale comfort zone. Of course we can't say for certain that slavery would have ended within a specified time frame, but you can't say it wouldn't have either. Not with any certainty.

 

You are entitled to your opinion and my opinion is that your view if that is your view that the Civil War did more harm than good is much closer to being a fairy tale.

[Deranged Rhino]

.

If you ban something you're going to see a spike in sales. There was plenty of anti-slavery sentiment in the south and it was growing. A lot of slave owners opposed it but trying to operate a plantation without slaves at the time meant going out of business. But if it was made illegal all planters would be in the same position, and I believe that would have happened. The war may have expedited it's end, but at a high price. A price we're still paying today.

 

On the flip side, without slavery and the war none of us would be here today so we can't be but so upset I guess.

 

The anti-slavery sentiment in the south was fueled largely by the working poor, not the slave owners themselves. These people were only upset with the institution because they couldn't afford to get into the game. However, these working poor still were given an advantage in society that the slaves themselves lacked, which made it a conflict of interest for these working poor to fight the system in many ways. While there were certainly abolitionists on both sides of the "border", the actual slave trade -- both domestic and trans Atlantic -- increased exponentially in the lead up to the war. This isn't proof that slavery was dying, it's proof of the opposite. Removing the restrictions of purchasing slaves from Africa (officially), would have lowered the price of slaves and made the practice more available to the working poor of the South -- this would have increased the likelihood that chattel slavery existed well into the 20th century in the Confederacy, let alone in Cuba, Brazil and the Americas in general.

 

There have been more than a few historians who have set out to prove that slavery was dying in the south before the war -- all of them failed. There isn't a single reliable source that can prove this, but yet there are countless reliable sources that can show unequivocally that slavery was increasing in popularity across the Americas. It was after all, a huge profit maker for the north and the south.

 

This thread is getting absurd with people speculating what might have been and conjuring what they feel (not think) is important.

 

No, we shouldn't have to carry a gun to protect ourselves because someone else shouldn't threaten violence upon us. But the smart ones do carry a weapon because chance favors the prepared.

 

Slavery would have died out had the South been allowed to secede without intervention and in 20-30 yrs. No one can say if the blacks in the South would have had been more adjusted to society and contributing towards economic stability.

 

Joesixpaxk dropping by to take horribly aimed pot shots about nothing is exscusable, but the rest of the junk is ridiculous. Greggypoo is the only one of his camp making decent replies.

 

Follow your own advice, don't tell us you "think" slavery would have died out in 20 years (that's absurdly optimistic), show us the historical proof. I've offered plenty of historical proof (all of which can be fact checked) that proves the institution of slavery was stronger than ever, increasing in numbers across the western hemisphere in the 19th century.

 

This thread has gotten absurd. According to some, we've now reached the point that the results of the Civil War did nearly as much or more harm than good. And that we can declare with full certainty that slavery would have ended in 20-30 years.

 

Agreed.

 

I never said they didn't see themselves as superior. Most people in positions of authority see themselves as superior.

 

And today the logistics may not make secession practical, but if we could split off and have a separate country in the south I'd be all for it. You guys can keep northern VA.

Sorry if the truth disrupts your fairy tale comfort zone. Of course we can't say for certain that slavery would have ended within a specified time frame, but you can't say it wouldn't have either. Not with any certainty.

 

This is true, I can't say with any certainty that chattel slavery would have continued for 100 years, or 150 years. But I can paint a pretty compelling case, with actual historical references, that had the Confederacy been allowed to stand -- something which would have required legitimacy from Britain -- it's more than likely the trans Atlantic slave trade would have continued into the 20th century.

 

Regardless of how slavery was brought to an end -- whether it was allowed to die out or it was stomped out -- it was going to take time to heal the racial wounds inflicted by this evil. Not decades, CENTURIES. We're barely out of the woods from a historical perspective, delaying the end of slavery would have only delayed the turmoil that we were bound to reap.

[Gary M]

In every other industrialized nation you are quantum leaps safer from gun violence than here - at least that would be a start - after all - aren't we "exceptional" ?

 

 

So pack your stuff and leave.

 

Again, if it is so dangerous here, why are so many people trying to get in?

[DC Tom]

This is true, I can't say with any certainty that chattel slavery would have continued for 100 years, or 150 years. But I can paint a pretty compelling case, with actual historical references, that had the Confederacy been allowed to stand -- something which would have required legitimacy from Britain -- it's more than likely the trans Atlantic slave trade would have continued into the 20th century.

 

Except that the economics of the slave trade and the Royal Navy's anti-slavery activities both were effectively shutting down the trans-Atlantic slave trade even before the Civil War. By 1850, most American slaves were born slaves, not imported as slaves.

 

It may have continued past 1890 or so...but less as "trade" than as "illegal smuggling."