I'm always aware that despite the great abundance of political commentary we are all exposed to, many of us (and especially those of the current generation) aren't always well acquainted with our national roots (speaking as a citizen of the United States). It may be a tough read due to the language style but for a glimpse of what sort of people began our country and how different they were from most of us today, I think the following links regarding writings of George Washington are worth visiting:
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/inaugural/final.htmlhttp://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/civility/transcript.htmlhttp://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/farewell/intro.html
Despite our modern "evolution" and "enlightenment" we have also lost some values that have diminsihed us by their absence. I hope these speak to a few of you. I always learn when reviewing them.
I think we sometimes confuse political issues with being patriotic citizens. Patriotism is not a political view. It is a mindset state of being that are a reflection of how you value your nation and fellow citizens.
and not one thing i said in there was to flame or anything if u wanted me to flame i would call u something like a eccentric little pric who doesn't know his history or the world history
Go back to school and learn some history or watch the history channel sometimes most of what is in my post is right from the history books and none of it is pointed toward anyone its examples
The President is commander in chief of the military, so that's some important power there. Presidents are able to send troops places and start conflicts without Congressional approval (there is tension here since while Congress has the explicit power to declare war, the President is charged with the defense of this country).
The President also controls the executive branch, meaning the IRS, FBI, CIA, SEC, FCC, FTC, and all those other TLA's take orders from POTUS.
An example of Presidential power is when ol' Andrew Jackson sent some troops to round up those Cherokee and force them on the Trail of Tears in direct disobedience of a Supreme Court ruling.
Congress severely limited the President's power to escalate armed conflict. Congress also controls the budget for the military, so no much he can do without money. The president doesn't get a blank check anymore like Andrew Jackson and Jefferson had. (Thomas Jefferson is mah boy, cuts military spending and wins wars)
He doesn't have too much control over the agencies. FDR got called out for misusing one of his agencies to help farmers as did Nixon for abusing the IRS
Slavery in Canada - We were not tought this in school.
@palidins for a moment i thought you were serious. you are a good troll
this is just golden, if you don't see the irony you have no manners left
hahaha golden i tell you thanks for the laugh
Right, but the real problem is, the candidates you are allowed to choose from have already been chosen by the "powers that be." In other words, the big corporations and the super-rich could care less which of the two candidates (democrat or republican, Obama or McCain) you choose - they've already bought both of them, and they control them both. This is why nothing ever changes.
Agree - wrong, dead wrong. Whoever thinks the president doesn't hold the power hasn't been watching what's happened to our government the last 150 years - the creation of an "imperial president."
The president does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Nobody can stop him. Nobody dare try. The congress is a meaningless rubber stamp. Bush totally ignored congressional laws against wiretapping (FISA), in fact broke them knowing he was breaking them. Congress did nothing. Bush also eviscerated the Constitution (no more habeus corpus - the crowning achievement of western civilization, over 1000 years in the making). Bush Justice Department guys (John Woo, etc.) declared to the congress (I saw it on national TV) that Bush could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and nobody could stop him. When one senator asked whether Bush could have the testicles of the boy of a terrorist suspect crushed in front of the terrorist suspect in order to get him to talk, Woo said "yes."
Bush set the precedent, and now Obama is following it. Obama has declared that he can have any american citizen killed, anywhere, at any time, with no arrest, no trial, no jury, no verdict, no nothing, merely on suspicion of "being a threat."
1. That was a long time ago. Things have changed.
2. If you hadn't noticed, they don't even bother declaring war anymore. The congress has basically given up its power to declare war. The president just sends troops whervever he wants, whenever he wants.
No disrespect paladins but you have a some facts wrong there. Media has had a tremendous effect since the invention of the printing press and movable type. Handbills, and broadsides were a big part of how the Continental views were developed and promoted to the public. It had a huge influence. Broadsides were posted in public and those who could read often read them aloud for others. It was a fairly common practice.
By the Philidephia convention in 1787, ten states had outlawed slavery in some form or another.
I grew up in Mississippi. Black slaves in the South didn't normally emancipate themselves or buy themselves out of slavery and displace local white workers and there are a lot of historical papers detailing treatment of slaves at various times by various owners. A few were humanitarian and allowed slaves to work themselves free and others were as harsh as any ancient Egyptian overseer. It varied with the individual.
The South also wasn't trying to eliminate slaves--the entire Southern economy was dependent on it. The rich industrial growth of the North made dependence on slaves a necessity in the South in order for them to be competitive and able to keep up economically and a big part of the the reason for the civil war was the South saw the wealthyh, industrialized Northern states as trying to use the slavery issue as a way to keep the South poor so they could control the economy. They saw the abolition of slavery as a political strike designed to cripple their economy.
But the point of this thread was simply to discuss the difference in the outlooks and values of people then and now in Washington's time and not to rage against current government which really has nothing to do with this topic.
If I could rip out part of your sentence and modify it as such, I would in large part agree with it: "A big part of the the reason for the civil war was the South saw the wealthy, industrialized Northern states as trying to ...[deleted]... keep the South poor so they could control the economy."
At any rate, the real and only reason for the civil war was that the south seceded, and the north forced them back into the union by force. Something like half a million people killed just to prevent half the country, who didn't want to stay, from leaving. So much for "freedom of association," I guess.
EDIT: The term "Civil War" is actually a misnomer. A civil war is where two or more sides are fighting to control the same government. But the south didn't want to control the US government. It left and formed its own government and country. I prefer the term "War of Secession."
The threat of seccesion dated back to the forming of the Union and it was always over the slavery issue. The South's secession was pretty much the very thing the founders were concerned would happen with some states when the Union was first formalized.
The industrial revolution in the North caused those states to prosper and gain more political influence and that was perceived as a threat by many Southerners. Social change in the North was shifting the public view against slavery and the traditional culture of the South and that added to the feeling of threat.
When Lincoln won the election, the South feared their way of life was going to be legislated away by a unified Northern controlled federal government so they broke from it.
It would have happened anyway sooner or later. The slavery issue always was overhead.
The North fough the war because the South seceeded but the South seceeded to protect their traditional way of life and slave dependent economy. It was indeed a War of Succession but hey, Pluto used to be a planet too
The north used slavery more then the south. The war had nothing to do with slavery. The War Between the States began because the South demanded States' rights and were not getting them.The Congress at that time heavily favored the industrialized northern states to the point of demanding that the South sell is cotton and other raw materials only to the factories in the north, rather than to other countries. The Congress also taxed the finished materials that the northern industries produced heavily, making finished products that the South wanted, unaffordable. The Civil War should not have occurred. If the Northern States and their representatives in Congress had only listened to the problems of the South, and stopped these practices that were almost like the taxation without representation of Great Britain, then the Southern states would not have seceded and the war would not have occurred.
It isn't that there wouldn't be a good amount of truth to what you say. It's how you say it.
For instance, you say "perceived as a threat by many Southerners" and "added to the feeling of threat." There was no "perception," and there was no "feeling." There was outright mistreatment and hostility perpetrated on the south by the north. The north just treated the south like it wasn't even a part of the country. The north imposed protectionist tariffs to help itself, which hurt the southern economy very much. The north couldn't have cared less how much their policies hurt the south, and there was nothing the south could do except sit there and take it.
All 100% correct.
I agree, but I'll go you one better than that. If the north hadn't made war on the south after the south seceded, then the war would not have occurred. Sounds simple enough to me.
In 1800, Jefferson became president after an extremely close election. The election deepened a great rift between federalists, who wanted stronger power for the fledgling United States government, and republicans like Jefferson, who viewed centralised government as a necessary evil that must be contained and not allowed to overshadow states' rights. Despite his views, he used his inaugural address to reach out to his defeated opponents and call for unity:
'Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions....'
Daniel Webster's notes for his speech to the United States Senate favoring the Compromise of 1850, 7 March 1850.
Looks to me like this was brewing for a long time before Lincoln came to power
It has always failed me why people think that Lincoln fought the war over slavery. I guess the victors of a war always write the history - in this case the north. At any rate, Lincoln said time and time again that he was not fighting the war over slavery, rather he was fighting the war to save the Union.
One of his quotes on why he was fighting the war:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_on_slavery
Some "racist" or "white supremacist" quotes from Lincoln, and I have read many more:
"I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment." [referring to negroes]
"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
"I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes."
"Negro equality! Fudge!! How long, in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagougeism as this?"
"You and I are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other races. Whether it be right or wrong, I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living amongst us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln
Good point as well! I agree, America is not the America of the 18th century. We do have it easy! You do not like something, sue! And regardless of the rhetoric, no one is really starving through neglect (only by choice). But in Washington's time, every day was an adventure. Would you get shot by an irate red coat? Killed by a native American (Indian of the day)?
You did not work? You did not eat. Life was very hard back then. And it took a special breed of men to thrive. And thrive they did. There are still some people around today that are like that (none in the confines of DC however). But back then, there was a country full of them.
Some today still look at life as an opportunity and grab it. Perhaps in numbers, greater than there was back in 1776. But then the population of the nation is far greater and the majority are soft (I fully admit I am soft).
Great discussion starter! I admire the founders not only for what they did, but for the fact they had time to do it. Today, no one has the time to do anything comparable (or I should say very few do) even though the means are a lot easier than they were 230 years ago.
Ok, now having read all comments, I have 2 observations:
1. I am impressed with the knowledge and insight of most of the posters. While I can see Sin's aversion to making this about slavery, at least those discussing it seem to be doing so in a rational and intelligent manner.
2. Agent's post on 9-11 was a trolling post! But very well done as it got some heated discussion going.
Kudos to most all posting here. The comments are well worth the read .
Unless you were one of the privileged class in which Washington worked so hard to climb ranks. Then, as now, people of privilege often did no more work than giving orders to servants who did all the labour needed to produce, prepare, and serve food to 'their betters.' Washington was no Horatio Alger-style hero. He was born to moderate wealth and married extremely well. Is marrying well hard work? Poetically, I'm sure it can be, but pragmatically it does not compare to the labour needed to produced goods and services for a household or a market.
On the slavery sub-plot, I think it's worth noting that our first US presidency was partly staffed by slaves who belonged to Martha Washington's children from her first marriage but were assigned to serve her during her lifetime as part of her first husband's will. Things back then were indeed very different, but that does not mean that they were as clear and simple as many founder hagiographers (and 'strict constructionists') like to imply when they write their essays.
That's because we have fallen into some horrible pit filled with mindless consumption, fame obsession, and telecommunication 'addictions.' The steadily increasing gap between us in the teeming masses and the real 'ownership society' doesn't help, especially when connected to the mindless consumption problem. My guess: Washington would have wanted a servant to look after his smart phone and he would have politely declined staff requests that he start his own b*og, lecturing the pushier folks about how he would not contribute to the end of civility if they kept nagging him keep up with 'the new media.'
I am safe in affirming, that the proofs of genius given by the Indians of North America place them on a level with whites in the same uncultivated state. The North of Europe furnishes subjects enough for comparison with them, and for a proof of their equality. I have seen some thousands myself, and conversed much with them, and have found in them a masculine, sound understanding. I have had much information from men who had lived among them, and whose veracity and good sense were so far known to me, as to establish a reliance on their information. They have all agreed in bearing witness in favor of the genius of this people. As to their bodily strength, their manners rendering it disgraceful to labor, those muscles employed in labor will be weaker with them, than with the European laborer; but those which are exerted in the chase, and those faculties which are employed in the tracing an enemy or a wild beast, in contriving ambuscades for him, and in carrying them through their execution, are much stronger than with us, because they are more exercised. I believe the Indian, then, to be, in body and mind, equal to the white man. I have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so; but it would be hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few generations, he would not become so. -Thomas Jefferson
"Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of color in the white race, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of black that covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, and their own judgment in favor of the whites, declared by the preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Orangutan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? . . .
"They secrete less by the kidneys and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odor. They seem to require less sleep. . . . They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. In general their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labor. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to whites; in reason, much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless and anomalous. . . . The Indians will astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, and their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration. . . .
"In music, they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time. . . . I believe that disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man, in whose favor no laws of property exist, probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favor of others. . . Notwithstanding these considerations which must weaken their respect for the laws of property, we find among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their better instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken fidelity. The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion, requires many observations . . . where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them."
Thomas Jefferson--From Notes on Virginia, 1785
I do like Jefferson because of his duality. The equal rights of man while owning slaves, the Louisiana Purchase while knowing a large republic is not good and went against the constitution. I am trying to find the quote where he said having 1000 representatives will get nothing done and it will only be ruled by a few anyway.
"If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface." --Thomas Jefferson to William T. Barry, 1822. ME 15:389
Jefferson has always been my favorite president. It's hard to grow up in an era when everyone felt that blacks and indians were inferior and not be brainwashed. True, he did own slaves, but it seems to me that he kind of pulled a Schindler's List-esque maneuver. He's the only president whose foreign and domestic policies I find agreeable.
The rich are an argument for another thread, and you are correct for the most part. However, Washington did use his wealth for the new nation (for the most part) and yes, he sure used Martha's as well. There are other examples of what you describe, but I think GW is a bad one.
Your supposition about GW aside, I agree again. Today it is instant gratification, not working for the goal. Then credit was not something on a card, and most did not have access to it readily. We are distracted by what we are supposed to want, but in reality do not need. There is no hunger that the founders had to get what the Jones have. instead, Ye Olde Banke can lend you the money to get it now (instead of working for it) and no need to fret about the Jones having more (until the bill comes due).
We are being told, willingly I will add, that we want and need all this fooferaw. When in reality, we do not. But it is nice to have it, even if you are a wet behind the ears 18 year old that has no skills or training for an occupation much less a career.
I don't have a favorite president because I'm a lapsed anarchist who is fundamentally pissed off at how our democratic republic fell prey to demi-monarchy in the years between the start of the War of Northern Aggression and the rise of the bully pulpit during the Progressive Era (and yes, I admit to an ironic combination of admiring the legacy of the New Deal while loathing the massive leg-up FDR gave to the imperial presidency). George Washington deliberately and explicitly shunned nearly all the trappings of monarchy, despite his great love of putting on an impressive show at parties amongst his peers. He took care to see that he had matched white horses to draw his carriage on big occasions, but he also shook hands with ordinary citizens (something nobility of the time generally spurned) and asserted that "Mister President" was a more than sufficient honorific for his office. Washington was most likely Jefferson's distinct inferior in terms of raw intellectual strength, but the records suggest to me that they were similarly 'democratic' in their overall thinking.
This sounds almost like you're accepting the idea that class conflict is a fundamental historical process that affected the establishment of the US and still affects politics today. You didn't meant to imply that, did you?
From my armchair analyst's POV, easy credit is a symptom more than a problem in its own right. If it were not so terribly easy to get away with puffery and false advertising, easy credit would be a good thing because people working to join the mass consumer economy would have a much better chance of making reasonable decisions. The Chicago school and Hayek folks are very fond of their 'rational choice' arguments, but what is 'rational' in their destruction-laden models is often quite unreasonable for well-informed people living in the real world.
Jefferson did pull one illegal maneuver but it was so beneficial it is overlooked.. The Louisiana purchase was done without the approval of Congress...We actually have a lot to thank Haiti for on that one.. Napoleon had just bought Louisiana from the spanish and was going to move 8,000 troops there. At this time Haiti was having their revolution against france..They defeated the first 8000 that were supposed to go there so the other 8000 that were supposed to go to louisiana were then sent to Haiti. they were defeated too and Haiti won its independence. Because of this Napoleon decided to sell louisiana to us since he couldn't effectively defend it and needed more cash for his war in Europe.
Yeah, that's certainly worked wonders for the Brits, so should fix us right up.
Kharma -
Much as I've disagreed with you on other subjects, on this you are mostly dead on.
My only quibble is your politicization/bias concerning Bush. He didn't 'eviscerate the Constitution' - he merely enforced the distinction as to whom it applied, appropriately in my view, denying its protections & benefits to non-citizens. FDR did precisely the same thing, on a far greater scale. As for the right of habeus corpus, Bush did not suspend it for US citizens... that was Lincoln.
That's exactly right. the carpetbaggers that invaded the South after the war had precursors...wealthy Northern business interests and lobbies in the government. The South was slowly being pushed into a second-class, poor economy and slavery was the last shove that set them off. This is something you don't hear a lot on in the average school here in the states.
The North "punished' the South for decades after the war and that only hardened sentiments amongst Southerners for generations to come and into our own modern history.
There is plenty of blame to go around but if you read about the founding of the country it was colony-states squabbling over self-interest that dominated a lot of the constitutional process. They strove to create a "more perfect" union but it was far from perfect. Interstingly, the U.S. population as whole didn't identify themselves most strongly as "The United States" until after the Civil War.
Good quotes MyFist0...what makes our nation so amazing is the chaos and disharmony it was birthed from and in. People genuinely were drawn to a higher principal and it was exceptional men who were pulled by it that gave the vision to the rest of us.
No, and I did not want to get into this on this thread (preferring to try to keep to the theme of the OP). What I meant is that there are some who are born to wealth and do not have to earn it (that is what I thought you were saying). While there are not many, there are some, and while I do not cotton to their way of life, I will not try to confiscate what their ancestors created for them (it is a slippery slope that I do not want to start). Studies have shown that most of the wealthy earned it, but until (and hopefully never) there is 100% inheritance tax, there will always be those who do not earn it.
The Chicken or the egg. I say it is the egg, you the chicken. I believe easy credit is the catalyst for the instant gratification that we see today. When you remove the puffery and hyperbole, easy credit is just putting a higher price on a good or service. The time value of money says that a dollar today is worth more than tomorrow. Banks know this so that is why interest rates are usually higher than the devaluation of money. Thus, while that new car you want has a sticker of $25k, when you factor in the devaluattion of the money and the finance rate, it is closer to $26k in today's dollars. Still it is not going to cost you the $30k (all numbers are just for example) that you actually shell out over the life of the loan, due to the fact that your money today is worth more than it is tomorrow. Most people do not actually think about it at all, and just see how much they can afford. But that is what is driving the money lenders as they have to think about it. And in actual fact, people do make decisions based upon economics, they just do not realize they are doing it.
As an anecdote, I graduated back in the 70s when interest rates went through the roof! I had student loans (which of course seemed onerous at the time), but the rate on them was 3%! My new wife wanted me to pay them off as soon as possible, but I told her with Inflation going at 10%+, the loan was actually saving us money! As even passbook savings were paying 5% and more at the time.
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