Tea Party v. U.S. History

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Tudamorf
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Tudamorf »

Fyyr wrote:You then misunderstand.

It was the NORTH, the Abolishionists, who only wanted to count slaves less than a person.
Not the South.
There's nothing wrong, morally or logically, with not wanting slaves to count for purposes of representation, when they can't vote or really change their government in any way.
Fyyr
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Fyyr »

Correct.

But I was not the one making the point (that bad people wanted to count slaves as less than a person).
The point presented was a rewriting of history, or just taken out of context.
It was the 'good' people who wanted them counted as less than a person.

Just like they do with the "all men are created equal" clause of the Declaration.
The context of the clause is to say that the king of England is human, and not divine.
Not that people are really created equal. They obviously are not, regardless of how emphatically it is interpreted as such today.
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Tudamorf
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Tudamorf »

Fyyr wrote:But I was not the one making the point (that bad people wanted to count slaves as less than a person).
The point presented was a rewriting of history, or just taken out of context.
It was the 'good' people who wanted them counted as less than a person.
The bigger point is that people take the entire 3/5 compromise out of context, invoking it as if to say that black slaves were valued, in general, as 3/5 of a person.

As if to say that anyone making it less than 1 necessarily had a bad intent, when it is the other way around.
Fyyr wrote:Just like they do with the "all men are created equal" clause of the Declaration.
The context of the clause is to say that the king of England is human, and not divine.
Not that people are really created equal. They obviously are not, regardless of how emphatically it is interpreted as such today.
All men are created equal. Unless they're black (implied), or they're one of the few Native American "savages" left alive and able to defend themselves (explicitly listed as a complaint to the document).
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Fyyr »

Men are not equal.
Neither are women.

That is just stupid, in the context of today.
They are certainly not created equal. As if they were actually created by a Creator.
But even by Darwinian or genetic standards, none of us are equal to another.
That is just a lie.

Is a person born with CP equal to you?
Microencephaly?
Down Syndrome?

Of course not. That notion is fucking retarded.
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Tudamorf
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Tudamorf »

I'm just repeating what the document says, not agreeing with it.
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Zute
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Zute »

I know you guys are smarter than that. It doesn't mean that everyone is equally brilliant, talented or lovely to look at. The idea is part of the Enlightenment movement which was a philosophy held dearly by the founders of our nation, so much so that they took phrases right out of Enlightenment writings and stuck them into the preamble.

In England not everyone was equal under the law. Your birth decided pretty much your place in life and what rights, if any, you had.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights
Meanwhile in America, Thomas Jefferson "took his division of rights into alienable and unalienable from Hutcheson, who made the distinction popular and important",[22] and in the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, famously condensed this to:
“ "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." ”
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Tudamorf
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Tudamorf »

Zute wrote:"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."”
That was my point.

All men are created equal.

Women, by definition, were not equal.

Native Americans are referenced in the document as "savages", not men. In fact one of the complaints against the King was that he wasn't protecting the "men" from these "savages".

Blacks were of course not "men", or equal, as Jefferson clearly demonstrated; all of the "men" were in agreement on this point so they didn't waste time belaboring the point.

They didn't really think that "everyone was equal under the law."
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Zute
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Zute »

Well, right. I suppose that could be true they just redefined men so it only applied to those they wanted it to. I wonder what John Locke had to say on the topic of women or slavery, if anything.
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erianaiel
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by erianaiel »

Tudamorf wrote:Blacks were of course not "men", or equal, as Jefferson clearly demonstrated; all of the "men" were in agreement on this point so they didn't waste time belaboring the point.

They didn't really think that "everyone was equal under the law."
Tudamorf, you are splitting hairs here and you must know it.
The -spirit- of that clause was that all people should be considered equal in that they had unalienable rights.
That at the time of writing this was understood to mean that three out of every four humans living in the country were not included in the category 'men' does not in any way detract from the principle expressed in the preamble.
Two centuries ago it was 'common wisdom' that women were too emotional to be trusted with decision making. Blacks were not even considered to be true humans. Since then we have learned better and as a result the protections set forth in the preamble now applies to any human being regardless of race, religion or gender. (though there are still plenty of attempts by various narrow minded special interest groups to exclude some people).

As far as the whole sorry argument that started all this goes.
The way we look at it today neither of the two sides of the argument were 'good' by our current standards.
Both sides dismissed half the population as unworthy of consideration (nothing at all in the constitution about the rights of -women- is there?) They both agreed that if you were not white, male and have (recent) ancestors coming from Europe you were a lesser human being fit only to either die or serve your betters for all eternity.
The 'how much does a slave count for votes' argument was all about the southern states with its much lower population of the abovementioned 'real' people trying to secure an advantage against the northern state with their much higher influx of immigrants. The compromise was simply the number where neither side believed the other had too great an advantage. Nobody at either side of the discussion had any care at all for the people about whose vote they were bickering (the idea that there was something inherently wrong with owning other humans as property came later). Nobody even thought about allowing women to vote (the very idea that women could discuss economics and politics with men would have been preposterous to these founding fathers).

For all your expressed disdain for religion both you (Tudamorf) and Fyyr certainly seem fond of sophisteries. I might even get really nasty and say you two like to argue like Jezuists...


Eri
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Tudamorf
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Re: Tea Party v. U.S. History

Post by Tudamorf »

erianaiel wrote:Tudamorf, you are splitting hairs here and you must know it.
The -spirit- of that clause was that all people should be considered equal in that they had unalienable rights.
That at the time of writing this was understood to mean that three out of every four humans living in the country were not included in the category 'men' does not in any way detract from the principle expressed in the preamble.
When the implementation of your rule violates 75% of its "spirit", then either you don't have a rule, or you're a Christian.
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