Vindicating the Founders

In an earlier post I wrote about the ideals enshrined in this country’s founding documents. Recently, I’ve been reading Thomas G. West’s Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America; it’s a bit of a slog, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to get all the way through it, but I have found one passage (a quote from “Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president”, actually) that not only vindicates the founders but also puts the lie to the claim that the Civil War was about anything other than slavery:

Jefferson in his forecast had anticipated this [slavery] as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. . . . But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. . . . These ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of the races. This was an error. . . .
     Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.
     This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

Thus, one can see that the Confederate States of America was based on the enshrinement of slavery; the United States of America was not.

Velvet Revolution?

In The Shadow Party, by David Horowitz and Richard Poe, the authors describe George Soros’s funding of “velvet revolutions” in countries such as Croatia, Serbia, and Georgia, using elements of “ ‘civil society’ ” to stage protests and demonstrations in order to bring about what Soros calls an “ ‘open society.’ ”

With the SEIU staging protests in various places, including outside a bank executive’s home, are we starting to see the first signs of Soros’s attempts to fund a Velvet Revolution in the United States?

But…but…but…

Shocker: Radical Islamic cleric advocates killing U.S. civilians.

Aw, shucks, I thought the world was going to be all hopey-changey after we elected Obumbler. How about we put a real man (or woman, as the case may be) in the White House in 2012 and start kicking terrorist @$$ again?

Impeach

Can we just impeach him now? OK, how about next year, after the Republicans regain control of the House and Senate?

Autonomía y Libertad

Instead of criticizing efforts to “ ‘criminalize migration’ ” why doesn’t Mexican President Felipe Calderon do something to address the problems that cause Mexican citizens to risk everything for a chance at a better life north of the border?

Don’t let the Golden Gate hit you on the way out.

If Chris Matthews thinks so highly of the ChiComs, why doesn’t he just move to China?

Finally, A Contemporary Answer

…to the question posed in the title of an earlier post. And it’s in the first full paragraph on page 4 (which is the second page of the Introduction) of Party of Defeat, by David Horowitz and Ben Johnson:

The warriors of the jihad are promised salvation for slaughtering innocents; their highest honor is to sacrifice themselves for Allah by murdering infidels; their goal is to restore an Islamic empire that once stretched into the heart of Europe, until it was defeated in the battle of Vienna on September 11, 1683. Three hundred years later, Osama bin Laden turned this date of humiliation into a day of vengeance—and revival. Striking America’s homeland on September 11, 2001, jihadists murdered thousands of unsuspecting civilians, and came within a terrorist attack or two of destabilizing the American economy and unleashing chaos.

And the book as a whole serves as a very lucid answer, also, to the question of how the war in Iraq fits into the overall Global War on Terror—or, more precisely, the global war on Islamic jihadists.

Disuniter

Why does President Obama insist on arrogantly nurturing divisions among us? Wasn’t he supposed to be post-partisan or something?

Al Sharpton is an Idiot and a Traitor

Why is Al Sharpton so vocally in support of illegal aliens who take jobs away from average American citizens?

Natural Consequences

If men “ ‘experience their sexuality free of consequence’ ” it’s because women let them.

If women would insist that men wait until marriage for sex then men would not experience their sexuality free of consequence. Duh.

First Pitch

So when Sarah Palin is elected President, how will she throw out the first pitch? Fastpitch softball style?

At least she’d have a valid reason to throw like a girl.

Why Public Sector Unions Suck

I’m willing to concede that unions may have their place in the private sector when they work to balance the power of management. All too often, though, even private-sector unions can work to force companies into agreements that are detrimental to both sides in the long term.

Unions do not belong in the public sector at all, though, and here’s why: While private-sector companies have to consider the impact of union agreements on profitability, public-sector entities do not have to worry about making a profit and can agree to anything the union demands. If union demands result in increased costs, all that a public-sector body has to do is to raise taxes; private-sector companies, on the other hand, cannot necessarily just raise prices.

From The Housing Boom and Bust, by Thomas Sowell, p. 97.

“However irrelevant the empirical validity of claims of racial discrimination may be to those who use such claims to advance their own political or financial interests, the truth or falsity of these claims is crucial for the society as a whole.”