Five Great Movies That Celebrate American Patriots

Townhall.com ^ | July 5, 2016 | John Hanlon

[reg45]

Most New York commerce was from the free states by way of the Hudson river, the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. Prior to the building of the Erie Canal, New York City was a comparatively minor port. New York was an important port because of its proximity to Europe and to the Hudson River.

If tariffs are the metric you use to measure economies then you need to remember that tariffs are collected on imports not on exports. Imports were mostly from Europe and therefore not products of slavery.

Most of the agricultural exports from slave states were done through southern ports like Baltimore, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile and New Orleans.

[Vigilanteman]

Interesting map, but there would be no tariffs on imported slaves after 1808 because the trade was illegal by then. See Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution.

[stockpirate]

“I don’t have that much info regarding the battles. I think that by the time those started, all the politics of the situation had solidified, and the reasons why it started were no longer significant to the outcome.”

The democrat controlled south approached the war mush the same way they do now. The early battles were fought by men who had no firearms because the south didn’t buy as many as requested, same with power and other supplies.

[DiogenesLamp]

Most New York commerce was from the free states by way of the Hudson river, the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. Prior to the building of the Erie Canal, New York City was a comparatively minor port. New York was an important port because of its proximity to Europe and to the Hudson River.

See message #37.

[DiogenesLamp]

Interesting map, but there would be no tariffs on imported slaves after 1808 because the trade was illegal by then. See Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution.

Okay, somehow I didn't make my point clearly enough. The New England profits from slavery had nothing to do with the "slave trade." They had to do with 3/4ths of all US exports being produced by slave labor.

The exports went out Southern ports to the tune of 3/4ths the value of all US Exports, but the return specie and trade came back in through New York, where New York and the Federal government both took their cut.

New York was making money off of the slaves laboring in the Southern fields.

I hope that clarifies my point. It has nothing to do with trading slaves, it has to do with taking from working slaves the fruits of their labor.

Same as Washington D.C. and the power corridor to New York has been doing for a long time.

[Vigilanteman]

Point taken. Of course, prior to 1808, they profited off the slave trade as well.

We toured Jamestown a few years back. One of the interesting things we learned is that the first slave ships turned up some a decade or so after the colony was founded to peddle their wares, Portuguese, I believe.

The slaves were packed in horrible conditions and Colonists were horrified and turned the ships away. But they had second thoughts a couple of years later as tobacco thrived and labor was scare. This time, it was a Dutch ship and the slaves were transported in far better conditions, so they struck a deal.

[RegulatorCountry]

Even then, Africans were treated as any other indentured servant in Virginia, they worked off the term of their indenture, then were free. Up until a somewhat notorious lawsuit that instituted slavery for life, that is.

[DiogenesLamp]

The slaves were packed in horrible conditions and Colonists were horrified and turned the ships away. But they had second thoughts a couple of years later as tobacco thrived and labor was scare. This time, it was a Dutch ship and the slaves were transported in far better conditions, so they struck a deal.

The longer I go through life, the more I realize just how many people there are who want someone else to labor on their behalf.

I suppose it was always thus, though people were more willing to face the truth of what they were doing in the past. Now those who receive the benefits provided by the work of others prefer their slaves to be faceless and nameless.

[x]

Selma (2014): Although our nation was founded on great ideals, we haven’t always lived up to them. Such was the case in the 1960s when African-Americas were fighting for equal rights. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought bravely against the status quo to make our nation live up to its most noble values.

Selma really did a job on LBJ. I didn't care when Johnson's surviving people were complaining. I figured the filmmakers reshaped what happened to make a better story. But when they twist things to fit some preconceived pattern of heroes and villains and exploit cheap emotionalism it makes for a lousy movie.

Played by David Oyelowo, King takes center stage in Ava DuVernay’s remarkable 2014 drama, Selma. The feature captures King’s use of nonviolence protests to show the brutality that African-Americans faced in this country. The feature captures King’s obvious personal flaws but it also showcases his fight for a better America — an America that grants all of his citizens equal rights.

Oyelowo had some nerve, taking the role away from deserving African-American actors and then complaining about Hollywood not providing better roles for African-Americans.

[x]

“Bridge of Spies” is terrific and worth seeing just for Mark Rylance’s incredible,low-key performance.

I dunno. I know he's supposed to be some great Shakespearean actor, but it looked like what he was doing in Bridge of Spies wasn't all that different from what he was doing in Wolf Hall -- playing a meek, befuddled, goggle-eyed guy.

Maybe if I see more work by him I'll appreciate him more, but just from the two things I've seen, he doesn't appear to have a much wider range than Stallone, who he beat out for the Oscar.

That said,I find it an odd list.

The complete list is here. You could certainly find a lot more patriotic movies from the Forties and Fifties, but I think they were only looking at more recent movies.

[CodeToad]

Selma? Really??