Originally Posted by cmac2012

While it is likely true that having some gainful work to occupy one's time is generally better than chronic idleness enabled by enough of stipend to survive and not much more, not sure I'm going to give Bundy a nod for being on the right track. His take has it that govt. subsidy is some nefarious doing. More likely is that the multi-generational welfare dependency seen here and there was the end-result of decades of struggle by blacks in Jim Crow America to survive with large pockets barely doing so.

Post emancipation blacks were not often educated to any degree and plenty of whites were disinclined to hire them for anything, aside from some share cropping arrangement. There were plenty of segments of the nation in which poor whites had trouble finding work at various points and I can only imagine it was even harder for blacks.

Implying that perhaps they were better off as slaves is sort of ignoring the fact that it was their enslavement and its aftermath that laid the groundwork for difficulties in the Jim Crow era. I can easily imagine that in various urban centers, doling out a welfare stipend seemed at the time to be a better alternative than having legions of people on the bare edge of survival and turning to crime at times to survive.

Originally Posted by HuskyMan

Originally Posted by HuskyMan

Originally Posted by cmac2012

I think they were correct in noting that assimilation and peaceful coexistence would be difficult. Whether or not they were correct that some sort of resettlement could work is another matter. The Liberia experiment had many problems - Americanized blacks were generally of a different caste than natives.

Hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube. White Europeans created the conundrum by bringing Africans to these shores and over generations making them into different people than those back on the continent - certainly different in language and skill sets.

Could be the only atonement possible is the one that has gone on up til this moment: an often awkward and painful process of learning something that has arguably not been successfully done before, which is of course, a working multi racial society with something approximating equality for the various players.

There are ongoing problems of course but there are also many area of enrichment, cultural growth etc.

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

Since someone mentioned Lincoln, here is an excerpt from his 2nd inaugural, one of my favorite quotes ( if i get it right, working from memory)
"....if every drop of blood drawn with the lash must be repaid by one drawn by the sword, what shall we say but, " The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether..." " The atonement was paid in the blood of the American Civil War

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

Since someone mentioned Lincoln, here is an excerpt from his 2nd inaugural, one of my favorite quotes ( if i get it right, working from memory)
"....if every drop of blood drawn with the lash must be repaid by one drawn by the sword, what shall we say but, " The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether..." " The atonement was paid in the blood of the American Civil War.

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Could be the only atonement possible is the one that has gone on up til this moment: an often awkward and painful process of learning something that has arguably not been successfully done before, which is of course, a working multi racial society with something approximating equality for the various players.

There are ongoing problems of course but there are also many area of enrichment, cultural growth etc.

Originally Posted by cmac2012

While it is likely true that having some gainful work to occupy one's time is generally better than chronic idleness enabled by enough of stipend to survive and not much more, not sure I'm going to give Bundy a nod for being on the right track. His take has it that govt. subsidy is some nefarious doing. More likely is that the multi-generational welfare dependency seen here and there was the end-result of decades of struggle by blacks in Jim Crow America to survive with large pockets barely doing so.

Post emancipation blacks were not often educated to any degree and plenty of whites were disinclined to hire them for anything, aside from some share cropping arrangement. There were plenty of segments of the nation in which poor whites had trouble finding work at various points and I can only imagine it was even harder for blacks.

Implying that perhaps they were better off as slaves is sort of ignoring the fact that it was their enslavement and its aftermath that laid the groundwork for difficulties in the Jim Crow era. I can easily imagine that in various urban centers, doling out a welfare stipend seemed at the time to be a better alternative than having legions of people on the bare edge of survival and turning to crime at times to survive.

Originally Posted by Botnst

Th gov intervention may have had the best of intentions (I think it did) the consequences are, I believe, at great variance from the intention. It has created a dependency class and clearly not just for black folks. If I remember correctly there are more whites than blacks on the dole.

Clive was wrong in singling-out a racial component. It isn't about race, it is about creating a dependent class. No matter how virtuously color-blind it maybe, its effect has been insidious. It has destroyed the dependent family by rewarding single parenthood. It has rewarded creating children by increasing benefits with the number of children. Clearly, no right-thinking person would intentional perpetrate such a disaster on society.

Despite intentions, reality is what it is. And we persist in addressing the initial problem that has metastasized by doing more of the same. It is th wrong path that has become institutionalized in government and in the minds of the people.

Originally Posted by Dudesky

Old Clive goes 1st amendment and everyone's upset.....

Originally Posted by Botnst

Somebody nodded in agreement? Got a photo?

Originally Posted by MTI

In the video of Cliven giving his history lesson on "the negro" . . . I believe you can discern grunts of approval. There certainly wasn't anyone there saying "uh, hold on there . . ." Particularly this part of his sermon at the ranch when he notices the apparent lack of diversity among the militia folks:

Where is our colored brother? Where is our Mexican brother? Where is our Chinese? Where are they? They’re just as much American as we are, and they’re not with us. If they’re not with us, they’re going to be against us.

There was also this from Maureen O'Dowd's op-ed:

The unsettling thing about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s ugly rant on the Virgin River on Saturday, The Times’s Adam Nagourney told me, was that there was no negative reaction from the semicircle of gun-toting and conspiracy-minded supporters who had gathered round to hear it. The oblivious 67-year-old Bundy, who has refused for 20 years to pay for his cattle to graze on our land, offered a nostalgic ode to slavery.