Journal PopeRatzo's Journal: Not a Racist Country? Really? 23
A black man is gunned down by police for handling a toy gun in a Walmart. A gun that Walmart was selling.
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6839953/video-john-crawford-walmart-police-beavercreek-ohio-toy-gun
But this white guy can carry a real, loaded rifle (and body armor) in front of a school, refuses to show ID to police and nothing happens.
http://politix.topix.com/story/14304-was-this-man-wrong-to-demonstrate-open-carry-in-front-of-a-high-school
Open Carry laws are clearly meant just for white people. Laws that only apply to one race are the definition of racist.
False (Score:1)
Open Carry laws are clearly meant just for white people.
You know that's untrue. The idea of equality before the law is why we fought the Civil War. And my ancestors fought and died for the Union and emancipation. Repent of your evil, and do not dishonor their deaths.
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And my ancestors fought and died for the Union and emancipation.
Which begs the question: What happened to the money your mother gave you for singing lessons?
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Oh no, nothing.. I'm just laughing that you think that civil war was about "equality before the law". I mean, that's all great for the kids who believe in the Easter Bunny and whatnot, but really, who do you think you're jivin'...?
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Oh, it existed, but they are not why slavery was actually abolished. Like everything else, it boiled down to plain old economics... the cotton gin made it obsolete. Your "morality" spiel had nothing to do with it.
We're trying to abolish prohibition. It turns out the only way to do it is to take the profit out of it.
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The AC beat me to the punch. It was contentious specifically because of the economics.
You're having another "What the hell is water?" moment. Your POV is singular.
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Seriously? The cotton gin is what brought a dying institution back to life. Eli Whitney changed the entire economic landscape with his invention by suddenly multiplying the money southern landholders could make with slaves. This resulted in quite a bit more money pouring into southern slavery from northern banks and dramatically increased the sale and investment value of slave children. I doubt any of that was Whitney's intention, but it was the result.
The irony of the whole
Fundamental rights belong to everyone (Score:2)
Fundamental rights belong to everyone by definition. Clearly there are problems, but we don't simply achieve rights and then get to rest on our laurels. Rights need to be vigorously maintained. That's a lot harder to do if we get suckered into an us vs. them mentality.
Not all whites freak out when blacks open carry, either, and sometimes the divisive rhetoric simply does not pan out [gundebate.com]. Many g
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John Crawford, Ohio. Walmart. A white woman sees a black man examining a toy gun, calls 911. Police rush all-out to Walmart. John Crawford says, "It's a toy!" and drops gun. Police open fire.
Several white guys walk into Target carrying real guns, and are treated politely.
Racist nation. Racist laws. If the roles were reversed, white people would be screaming that they're being victimized. Black men shot down unarmed and it's all business as usual.
The Sec
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No, but apparently you can make it up. I have heard the "2nd Amendment for slaveholders" many times and found not a shred of proof. It's proponents completely miss the fact that the clause in the NW Territory agreement outlawing slavery in the allocated territory was insisted on by *Virginia*, which also ceded the largest chunk of territory. The founders as a group vocally decried slavery and took quite a number of actions to curtail it. In
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I provided a link to an article with multiple citations as proof. You didn't look at it, did you?
You really need to look at the debate from Virginia's ratification of the Bill of Rights. George Mason was front and center, talking about the slave patrols and why they needed the Second Amendment, and just like today's Second Amendment activists, he's fearmongering over what cou
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I have Pauline Maier's "Ratification" on the shelf not two feet from me, along with all of the other Constitutional and legal references I reach for frequently.
Was Mason not pro-RTKBA during the Revolution and establishing/arming the Committees of Safety? Did he not use close to the same wording then? Did not he and other prominent founders not refer to their "Constitutional Rights"
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The difference is that the 4th was not put in place entirely to protect slaveowners, but the 2nd was.
It's false "whether or not it existed"? If the motive existed, then how could it be false?
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Just to be clear in case this gets heated, I see this as an interesting debate, and nothing I say is intended to offend. I follow your posts because you are generally insightful and interesting even when I disagree. So few people are :-)
Primarily because of your insistence on the world "entirely". All it takes is o
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evought, you are too nice and too smart for this to get heated. And if I seemed angry it wasn't at you. I get heated all by myself.
You've given me some things to think about and a reason to read a little more background, for which I am grateful. And I agree about Blackstone and Paine, but it's amazing how misused those fundamental authors can be. I see their writing cherry-picked over like a bowl of M&Ms, with people looking for partisan justification. And I do it too. The spirit of the Enlightenm
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Amen to that. The 'living' part of it to me is that we can and should always reach to the highest narrative in choosing the way forward. By that I mean that the Declaration of Independence uplifted equality under the law while practicalities of the time precluded eliminating slavery. So we follow the stated goal and eliminate the racism (or sexism) in those early documents and mostly consig
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To help you zero in on the parts of the ratification debate I reference, I refer you to the debate of Wednesday, July 11, 1788. The exchange between George Mason and a "Mr Lee of Westmorland", in which they both refer to the institution of slavery as "nefarious", but then Mason goes on the fret about how any threat to slavery would threaten the "whole property" and thus, liberty (!) of the slave owners of Virginia. Remember, Mason himself owned 300 slaves. And this was during the ratification of the Con