Monday, June 22, 2009
More Groveling By The US Congress
Congress piece by
J. D. Longstreet
Less than six months after Obama became President of the United States, the US Senate passed a formal apology for slavery. For what it is worth, the act is a non-binding resolution. It is said to acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery. Last year the US House of Representatives passed their own apology for slavery, as well. A number of states have passed apologies including, unfortunately, my own state. There are reports that a huge celebration is being planned for sometime next month. A pathetic gesture, I know, but, hey, these are liberals and everything with them is based on emotion and feel-good politics.
If you have read this far, you already suspect I am not happy about this affront to my southern ancestors and to me. And, just so the record is straight, as I said last year - I’ll be darned if I will apologize! I had nothing to do with it, and I refuse to be saddled with a blanket of guilt for something I had nothing to do with! I just want that to be clear! I feel NO NEED to apologize and therefore refuse to ACT as if I am sorry for something for which I am wrongly accused! Never!
Alan Caruba, a renown commentator and blogger, who happens to also be a friend, has an excellent piece on this very topic over at “Facts not Fantasy.” Mr. Caruba had this to say, last July, when The House of Representatives passed their resolution: “There are a lot of Americans, mostly liberals, who can only see what was wrong about American history. Morally it was wrong to import slaves and work them to death on plantations. Morally it was wrong to chase the native-Americans from their lands. Morally it was wrong to deprive Japanese-Americans of their rights and property during World War II. These things occurred in different eras and virtually everyone involved are dead.Why the present generation of Americans has to apologize for the actions of previous generations escapes my understanding.” You can read this insightful article HERE.
Alan was correct last year and his comments certainly are timely today - about eleven months later.
Last year I said the following: “We Dixicans know this arrow is aimed at the heart of Old Dixie. As a Dixican, I resent the heck out of that! Check your US history and you will find that SLAVERY WAS LEGAL IN THE US. It was “Northern Slavers” whose ships brought the slaves from Africa to this country. (And the ships of European slave traders). It was Northern Slavers, in America, who sold the Africans, at auction, in the New England states. Some of the richest families of the Northern states can trace their family fortunes directly back to the slave trade. And finally, for the record, the very first anti-slavery laws, in the US, were passed in the SOUTH!”
Reparations, anyone? Oh, the Congress assures us there is no way, legal or otherwise, that these resolutions can possibly open the door for reparations. You believe that? If you do, I have this bridge in Brooklyn, NY, in which, I suspect, you might show some interest. If you really, REALLY, DO believe that -may we suggest you get your wallets, pocketbooks, and checkbooks out and - assume the position.
Who, exactly, will be expected to pay those reparations? Huh? As Mr. Caruba so clearly pointed out – they’re all dead! Maybe better schools, yes, and a better public education system in this country, would have made it clear to American scholars the plain and simple fact that there is hardly a human being alive, of any race, who cannot trace his/her ancestry back to slavery… somewhere on this earth. We ALL come from ancestors who, at one time or another, were slaves. Heck, we even have countries, and nationalities of people, whose very names derive from the word “slave.” And, just for the heck of it, check the pigment in their skin.
Now if some folks want to press the issue of reparations shouldn’t we discuss what we owe to those folks we call today “Native-Americans”?
OK, so maybe I’m being overly sensitive about this but, in all honesty, it surely does seem to me that Americans would be better served if the Congress would seriously look for solutions to modern day problems such as bankrupting the nation, and our children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren with their nationalization of America’s financial system and auto-making industry and the frightening speed with which they are tossing democracy overboard in favor of socialism, which has a proven record of failure, massive failure, everywhere it has been tried as a basis for society.
But, I suppose we shouldn’t expect too much from our current crop of “leaders.” I mean - they DID buy into the hoax of man-made global warming. Oh, yes, they bit –line, hook and sinker! And the American taxpayer is about to receive the bills for that, too.
I am of the opinion it is way past time for America to stop apologizing for doing all the things that made this nation great and much of the world green with envy, rather than as a result of recycling our trash! I am more than convinced that an American President ought not condemn the people of the country he/she represents by offering apologies to other nations on behalf of his own country while overseas – especially when a vast majority, or even a large minority, actually feels no remorse and no need to make such an apology. It is disingenuous, and it is certainly dishonest, and frankly, lacks the hallmark of “good taste.” It is, as an earlier generation of Americans would have said: “unseemly.”
J. D. Longstreet
http://csadispatch.blogspot.com/
HowardWasRight 
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