Posted on 02/29/2012 6:03:44 PM PST by nuconvert
Can’t do that. Martin Luther King was so much more important than our Founding Fathers...
Gage mme.
Look, I think King did some important things and deserves to be recognized for it. A whole day dedicated to him? I’m not buying it.
Bring back George Washington’s birthday.
Relegate King to his proper status.
I've got one of his bios on my Amazon wish list - I'll have it on its way tonight. :)
Really? Anything in p[articular?
Over the last five or six years I began reading as much as I could not only about Washington, but about that entire period, and apart from owning slaves (which wasn’t much different from other men of his station) I didn’t see much to change what became a deep admiration and appreciation of the man.
He was extraordinary by any standard, yesterday’s or today’s.
Absolutely agree. There are so many presidents who don’t deserve a holiday, but George certainly does.
Those men lived in a different age. I’ve heard that in the day the United States had something like 5% of the world’s slaves. I’m not sure how accurate that is. I do know that no other nation on the planet has exhibited even a smidgen of the angst the U. S. does regarding slavery.
Washington had slaves. Jefferson had slaves. Other Founding Fathers probably did too. Do you know how those slaves were treated? They may have been treated more like family members than true slaves. Their living standard in the day may have been quite a bit higher than the average colonist. That doesn’t mitigate the idea that they were servants, and not free to leave. I will grant you that.
I don’t think I could have ever bought off on owning other human beings, but I would suspect it would depend on how I was raised, and how my family treated slaves during my formative years. Some families mistreated their slaves, and others treated them with a reasonable amount of respect.
As angry as some people get about slavery, it’s baffles me that you never hear of complaints about nations today, where slavery still exists. Have you ever heard a special interest group complain about that?
In the day, our nation was founded while not addressing slavery. Despite that, the Founding Documents were drafted with language that was bound to cause slavery to be addressed in time. It was. It was abolished.
Our Founders who drew up our Founding Documents cannot be dismissed for the contribution that made to this eventuality.
I think it peeves Liberals today that the United States exists at all. Trashing our Founders comes naturally to them.
I visited my fifth grade niece’s school room about ten years ago. One the wall was a student mural. It was about 2” (tall) x 8” in size. Washington was sitting on a horse, barely able to fit top to bottom. Lincoln was standing up, and barely able to fit top to bottom. Martin Luther King only had his face on the mural, and it barely fit top to bottom.
Guess what our kids are being taught.
Washington and our Founding Fathers risked their fortunes, lives, and future for you and I. King did that too, but only for a thin slice of our nation’s citizens. As I said, he deserves recognition, but at the expense of our Founding Fathers, no damn way.
Let King have his own holiday but for God’s sake Washington is the epitome of great Americans Without him there would be no country. The Founding Fathers worked hard to give us all this country Washing ‘s Darkest Hour was his time in Valley Forge. Reads it and teach it to our children.
Let King have his own holiday but for God’s sake Washington is the epitome of great Americans Without him there would be no country. The Founding Fathers worked hard to give us all this country Washing ‘s Darkest Hour was his time in Valley Forge. Reads it and teach it to our children.
His slave was assisted by an anti-slavery group that was pretty prevlent at the time, which suggests that slavery wasn't simply "the way things were".
In fact, the program went on to say that, as he was dying, Washington changed his will to specify that his slaves would be free after his wife died. This was also an indicator that he knew he was "in the wrong".
After Washington died his wife immediately freed all the slaves out of fear for her own life (because the slaves would have a vested interest in her own demise). This indicates that the slaves were not at all happy with the arrangement.
The interaction and history that Washington had with his slaves, as well as the fact that an underground railroad was already established, just suggests that, as a nation, we already knew that slavery was profoundly wrong.
Washington was the “Indispensable Man.”
Oldplayer
Washington was the “Indispensable Man.”
Oldplayer
Washington was the “Indispensable Man.” (James Flexner’s words)
Oldplayer
Washington was the “Indispensable Man.” (James Flexner’s words)
Oldplayer
Sorry. I know how to post singularly. Keyboard issue.
And while we’re at it, let’s push for the other great president’s February birthday to be recognized, Pres. Ronald Reagan, born on February 6th.
NO MORE!
and this is so typical of republicans...our country is in bankruptcy and we have a shallow,stupid population that is growing in shallowness and stupidness every day, Iran wants to blow us and Israel up, and yet we have republicans talking about more holidays...
next they'll introduce the flag burning amendment and prayer in school....
Like what? Stealing his dissertation? Plagiarism is stealing. Beating up the prostitutes he hired? Committing adultery?
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