US Politics: Chaos Made to Border

[Zorral]

5 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Pretty sure every single slave owner knew it was wrong.

Yes. There are Reasons they all worked so very very very hard to justify their slavery, and it wasn't because they knew slavery was a positive good -- but they got to that point too, declaring slavery a positive benefit to the enslaved.  Shoot DeSantis & Ilks in Florida and Texas are trying to put this back into history textbooks.

Also, let us speak to these Potuses policies and behaviors to Native Americans, shall we?  Just for another starter . . . .

Of course, we can justify all this by saying they were only fulfilling what their constituents demanded, so then, let's look at what this says about us, their constituents.

 

[kissdbyfire]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

Just this morning, I was reading a long article, online, about how being a Southern slave was better than being a factory worker.  Apparently, their masters treated them like family members.

So, even today, there are people who could not clear that low bar.

 

Well, slavery wasn’t so bad also b/c enslaved people learned skills they used later on to improve their lives, don’t you know. Ask Wrong DeSantis. /s
 

And this reinforces the point @Rippounet made imo: now as then it shows us their moral character - or lack thereof. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

Here's a simpler take on what I'm saying:

1. Don't flatten history

2. Talk is cheap. (Sartre et al.)

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Yeah, what a load of horseshit. Pretty sure every single slave owner knew it was wrong.

If people were offered the chance to make a huge profit from shipping 500 people overseas, without repercussions, I suspect the proportion who’d give  it the nod would be disturbingly high.

[Spockydog]

7 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Not what I said.

I just reread your post.

And it does pretty much appear as if you are excusing slave owners on some basis.

So are you saying that they did in fact know slavery was wrong, but because everyone else was doing it (i.e. other rich people) we shouldn't criticises them?

Because that's horseshit too.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

I just reread your post.

And it does pretty much appear as if you are excusing slave owners on some basis.

So are you saying that they did in fact know slavery was wrong, but because everyone else was doing it (i.e. other rich people) we shouldn't criticises them?

Because that's horseshit too.

I don’t think he’s excusing them, so much as saying lots of people today would do the same, given the same opportunities.

[Heartofice]

I’m quite sure the Overton window on slavery isn’t the same today as it has been at different periods in history 

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Here's a simpler take on what I'm saying:

1. Don't flatten history

Right, don’t do it b/c as with everything else, there are consequences. IMO the laundering of evil deeds from our past is also a way of flattening history. 
When we say we can’t judge the past by our current standards, we help give rise to these disgusting and utterly disingenuous arguments.
“Enslaved people were treated like family members!” - yeah, only if their relatives are Hannibal Lecter or worse.

Just now, Phylum of Alexandria said:

2. Talk is cheap. (Sartre et al.)

I have not seen anyone here argue that they would have done better personally.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

I just reread your post.

And it does pretty much appear as if you are excusing slave owners on some basis.

So are you saying that they did in fact know slavery was wrong, but because everyone else was doing it (i.e. other rich people) we shouldn't criticises them?

Because that's horseshit too.

1. Don't Flatten History

We know that at least some slave owners openly described slavery as wrong. Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Jefferson are some examples, and they wrote about how conflicted they were about the issue.

My point was that individuals should judged individually, relative to what the norms of the time were. Obviously on the issue of slavery, the members of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society were morally ahead of people like Washington and Jefferson. Franklin at one point owned slaves, but later on became the president of the Abolition Society. Washington did manage to pay his debts and grant freedom to his slaves, but only at the end of his life. But he was better than Jefferson, who had big ideals but often didn't practice them in deed. Different people, different outcomes, different moral judgements. 

Jefferson was morally suspect, but still, debt was real. I think that obviously the Northern states were right to condemn the Southern states for trying to spread slavery in the 1800s...but I can also accept that those Northern states were reliant on emerging factory labor rather than tobacco and corn, and so their economic dependence on slavery was easier to shake off. That doesn't make the evils the slave owners inflicted on fellow humans any less vicious--but it does dampen the righteousness of the North. 

2. Talk Is Cheap

It's easy to judge from the 20/20 vision that historical hindsight grants. All I am suggesting is some personal humility, and the acceptance of the fact that most people in the world are not exceptional. They are basic, mediocre, muddling through the world as best they can.

Do you really think you could do better than George fucking Washington if you were in his place?

[Spockydog]

Are we just going to ignore the fact that most people, people like you and me, generally did not own other human beings?

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Right, don’t do it b/c as with everything else, there are consequences. IMO the laundering of evil deeds from our past is also a way of flattening history. 
When we say we can’t judge the past by our current standards, we help give rise to these disgusting and utterly disingenuous arguments.
“Enslaved people were treated like family members!” - yeah, only if their relatives are Hannibal Lecter or worse.

I have not seen anyone here argue that they would have done better personally.

I think there are two separate issues.

Would I have behaved any better than the average planter, had I inherited 400 slaves, a mansion, and thousands of acres, giving me a fantastic standard of living?  Well, I hope I would have set the slaves free, but there must be a good chance that I would not.  Greed could easily have outweighed any moral sentiment.

Does that excuse the planters?  No.  The fact that I might have behaved as badly in that situation does not justify them.

I do think that @Phylum of Alexandria’s point is a valid one.

Edited February 9 by SeanF

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Are we just going to ignore the fact that most people, people like you and me, generally did not own other human beings?

No because they were generally owned by other people.

[Spockydog]

I grew up Catholic, and I can promise you that one of the loudest messages  received from my upbringing was that the Jews being enslaved by the Egyptians was one of the biggest evils ever perpetrated against humanity.

So please don't tell me that the elites of what was basically a nation of Puritans didn't know they were all being enormously evil cunts.

Edited February 9 by Spockydog

[TrackerNeil]

28 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

That's funny. When watching that same content in Stranger Things, I found it odd how the gay character lacked any situations of terror, or even just casually cruel jokes from his friends. That's something that Stephen King got quite well in IT.

Yup. I remember well the firehose of anti-gay remarks, jokes, policies, threats what have you, that all gays and lesbians dealt with in the 80s, very little of which appears in modern media about that time. In a sense, I get it; lots of writers don't want to spend time degrading a character via bigotry, even if that was to be expected at the time. So I'm not knocking "Stranger Things" on that score. However, I really want 19-year-old Twitter randos whose parents weren't even knocking boots in 1986 to stop telling gay people alive in the 80s how the 80s were for gay people.

[Rippounet]

In any given society, it's always possible for people to be shitty to other human beings, through either wealth or status.
It's a safe bet that over 90% of the people intervening in this thread are wealthy enough to take a plane to a developing country and use money to literally enslave others for their own benefit if they wanted to.
Even if we don't take such extreme examples into consideration, the fact remains that most of us no doubt have opportunities to abuse their power, because we can employ others in a variety of ways (having subordinates, or employing service workers for instance).
Of course, moral judgment should take into account the cultural environment and socio-economic structures of the times, or we all guilty of everything wrong in the world at any given moment. But there's also a limit to moral relativism, and I would say slavery is a pretty good one. Even if your society allows it, it's still a pretty shitty thing to do.

[Denvek]

Just now, Rippounet said:

Even if your society allows it, it's still a pretty shitty thing to do.

And people knew that at the time, hence the existence of abolitionist movements.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

5 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Of course, moral judgment should take into account the cultural environment and socio-economic structures of the times, or we all guilty of everything wrong in the world at any given moment. But there's also a limit to moral relativism, and I would say slavery is a pretty good one. Even if your society allows it, it's still a pretty shitty thing to do.

To be clear, I'm not making an argument of absolute moral relativism. Maybe a soft one, in terms of shifting societal standards across time. 

I agree that slavery is terrible, no matter what the social norms are. My point was against the easy certainty, and the easy dismissal of past figures as shitty, because they took part in a shitty system that was quite normal for their time.

At least Washington knew it was shitty! Most of us would not even be that advanced in thought if we had been born back then.

Edited February 9 by Phylum of Alexandria

[Consigliere]

As an outsider view, it's pretty disappointing to see how the media portrays the 'gaffes' of Biden and Trump. Seems to me that Trump is given A LOT more leeway while Biden is treated much more harshly (and it's not just Fox News) even though Biden is magnitudes more coherent than Trump. This leads me to believe that there is no progressive major media house in the US (despite Republican snowflakes forever crying about left wing MSM) but rather just different shades of right wing.

Seems pretty clear to me that the major media houses are pro Trump because he'd be good for business. Biden is not forever in the headlines because of some inflammatory/moronic bullshit he did/said (which is something that should be desirable in a president but is not so good for the sensationalist media) plus he's done a pretty decent job at getting legislation passed in a hostile environment - he's been a good president imo even though the MAGA types and a certain section of progressive crybabies think otherwise.

It's unfortunate that the US voters have to choose between two people past their sell by dates but the two party system is deeply entrenched and there's no chance of that changing barring some catastrophic event so the choice is between Biden and an extremely dangerous moron. Unfortunately both the electoral college and the main stream media favour the dangerous moron while a section of progressives continues to swallow and parrot the talking points of the right wing.

[Zorral]

Ben Franklin did not own slaves, but he made a fortune out of others buying and selling people, and even warehousing, i.e. keeping imprisoned,  some of the 'product' in his place of business, until they were moved on by owner, seller, buyer, and by the paid adverts for slave auctions and sales in his newspapers.  He eventually came round to seeing slavery as evil, but after he'd gotten rich by it -- as well as by other activities.

10 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Do you really think you could do better than George fucking Washington if you were in his place?

You mean would I in his place not pull out all the teeth of an enslaved person in the vain hope they then could be transplanted in my mouth to the take place of all my rotting teeth due to all the sugar raised and processed by enslaved labor elsewhere I have consumed?  Would I not hound throughout my life an enslaved woman who managed to escape to free territory, to force her to return?  Would I carefully remove my enslaved people from Philadelphia before the term was up before by Pennsylvania laws they could become free?  All while knowing slavery "was shitty"?  And like Thomas Jefferson, stating slavery was for the United States "having the wolf by the ears," and Patrick Henry saying slavery is bad, but, "it's general convenience makes us have them"?

[Phylum of Alexandria]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You mean would I in his place not pull out all the teeth of an enslaved person in the vain hope they then could be transplanted in my mouth to the take place of all my rotting teeth due to all the sugar raised and processed by enslaved labor elsewhere I have consumed?  Would I not hound throughout my life an enslaved woman who managed to escape to free territory, to force her to return?  Would I carefully remove my enslaved people from Philadelphia before the term was up before by Pennsylvania laws they could become free?  All while knowing slavery "was shitty"?  And like Thomas Jefferson, stating slavery was for the United States "having the wolf by the ears," and Patrick Henry saying slavery is bad, but, "it's general convenience makes us have them"?

I see that you didn't make clear how you would have acted had you been born in their place. 

That behavior you describe disgusts me. It still doesn't warrant our easy certainty about how we would have behaved.

Edited February 9 by Phylum of Alexandria