David Frum Freaks Out Over Sarah Palin’s Supposed Racism

With Kathleen Parker getting her own CNN show, David Frum is undoubtedly worried that he will be totally eclipsed among so-called conservatives with Palin Derangement Syndrome.

So, in a little 59 word post portentously entitled, “Bigger Problems with Sarah Palin’s new book,” David Frum finds racism—yes, racism—in the following statement:

PALIN FROM “AMERICA BY HEART”: “But from what I’ve read, family life at the time of the founding was a lot like family life for Americans today: full of challenges, sure, but also full of simple pleasures.”

I’ll give you boilerplate, banality, throwaway, heartfelt cornpone… but racism? Really? Give up the Frum Forum, David, and get a column on HuffPo. You would have more readers and most importantly, you would be right at home with other PDS sufferers.

FRUM: For the 1 in 6 Americans who were held as slaves in 1790 – often unable to marry legally, and always liable to be sold and separated from spouses or children – family life was quite a lot different at the time of the founding than it is today.

Even Frum Forum readers—who are still looking for a right of center reading experience—were put out by this, asking if we had to mention slavery every time we bring up the founders.

“ I don’t say so at all,” Frum protested, “I don’t call for national self-flagellation or self-disparagement.”

Which is to say the totalitarian types who put their faith in human slavery LIVED IN THE UPPER MIDWEST. The members of the Union Armies who destroyed the slave regime of the South LIVED IN THE LOWER MIDWEST.

I think we need to define terms here. I was thinking of the early settlers of western PA, Ohio and Indiana and not Kentucky or the western part of Virgina. I believe the Mason-Dixon line defined free vs. slave states at the time of the writing of the Constitution.

In any event, my main point remains -- without a starting point of freedom for whites there would be no freedom later for people of color.

The Mason Dixon Line was a boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland.

That's all it was. There was slavery in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut ~ and anywhere else "they" could get away with it.

Just who did you imagine built all those stone walls?

The history of the Upper Midwest doesn't really get going until AFTER the Civil War ~ until then all you had was Michigan and Wisconsin.

The Lower Midwest starts at Zanesville Ohio and extends to the Mississippi River. It is bounded on the South by the Ohio.

Pennsylvania is its own thing ~

Later on ~ early 1900s ~ the US began REDEVELOPING the South ~ and industry began to move in. Louisville KY became, to a degree, "Midwestern" at that time, but most of the state of Kentucky retained its Southern Character.

Someday you should look up which states provided how much of each army in the Civil War. Illinois, Indiana and Ohio formed the backbone of the Union armies. The Northeastern states and New York also served but they had substantial populations who may have been opposed to the extension of slavery but otherwise weren't all that interested in eliminating it.

Kentucky split and like Maryland and Missouri provided troops to both sides. Virginia REALLY split ~ into three parts in fact. Northern Virginia was quickly occupied by the Union Army at the outset and a rump state legislature was set up. West Virginia was even admitted as a separate state. The core of Virginia was later re-admitted as the state of Virginia and Northern Virginia was "grafted on" after the settlement.

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