Posted on 05/20/2003 6:19:49 PM PDT by fhardesian
Freepers like this article, because they like the conclusions. If you read the article critically, the author's logic is incredibly flawed throughout. If a leftist used the same style logic only with left leaning conclusions, this article would be torn to pieces instead of praised.
I think this is a bad article with a lot of bad logic moments.
After the Civil War, most southern whites who owned slaves lost not only their slaves, (a tremendous investment), but through taxation and the inability to work their land, lost that land as well. The claimed family fortunes, were, by and large, forfeit.
The irony of this is that free blacks who owned slaves (yes, there were some)lost their landholdings for the same reason.
While manumission was becoming more commonplace, the north has since (post bellum) used slavery as an excuse for the war, when if slavery were a linchpin issue, the slaves would have been freed at the start of the war, not 1863. The realization that it is cheaper to pay someone and make them fend for their own food, shelter, and medical care, rather than own them and pick up the tab had crept into the economic psyche of the growing pre industrial America.
The reality of the situation, simply enough, is that few southern slave holding families gained by the end of the 'reconstruction' period. So much for that angle.
Even if my ancestors had owned slaves, I would show no gain and, even more to the point, I never owned anyone. If we apply the logic that anyone should have to pay for the actions of their ancestors, actions which occurred a century or more before their birth, the courts are really going to get bogged down.
Because their ((great)grand)fathers earned it. You got a problem with that, Friedrich? Get off your duff, generate some wealth, and maybe your ((great)grand)children will get in on the silver-spoon thingie, too. Unless the Democrats wreck it all for you (and them) by way of estate taxes, capital taxes, excessive income taxes, property taxes, et al...
Your problem with this article doesn't really have much to do with logic now, does it?
Find my post where I am whining. FYI, I have a MS in Physics and my undergrad degree is from Stanford, and I "have more money than God" (not really, just a figure of speech).
You seem to be reading that statement differently that I did. I read it to mean that if you discriminate against one person of a particular race, it is as if you have discriminated against all of that race.
In order for it to be exactly the opposite of what I said, it would have to mean if one person discriminates, it is as if all people of the same race discriminate. That seems to be the assumption of many, but it is not what the statement says.
You'll find when you really talk to these people, what they really mean about all this is "Our system is inherently racist because the free market favors the white anglo-saxon protestant ethic, therefore, capitalism must go." In other words, this is the same old Marxism under a new title.
I've worked my rear end off and if I want to leave my kids (if I ever have any) a fortune and a silver spoon in their mouths they shouldn't feel bad or guilty from that. Anybody can make a fortune in this country if they APPLY themselves and earn it and I'll be damned if it's a crime for being born into money from your fathers hard work. If blacks want to work their tail off and leave a nice fortune to their children they have the same chance as anybody in this country of doing so. I'm sick of the race card always being played in every situation in this country. It's a tired, old excuse for failure and there is nobody to blame for failure but the individual who fails. No more excuses please.
The few Asians I know around this litle burg work 12-14 hour days 6 and 7 days a week in their family owned and operated businesses. Do you suppose that maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with their success and prosperity?
I also know, or I should say have known, some black Americans who work long and hard, some in their own businesses and some in other's. Most of them live better than I do, and deservedly so. The one thing that characterizes all of them is that they are getting on with their lives, in spite of the discrimination they have probably encountered at some point, instead of continually whining about the "unfairness" of the society they live in.
Incidentally, whining about the unfairness of life isn't confined to any one racial group. I have known many whites (most of whom just "happened" to be labor union members and Democrats) who have made it into an art form.
My point remains, though, that the silver spoon crowd has it because their ancestors earned it. If, in fact, more "whites" percapita have the natal silver spoon than "non-whites" (whatever-the-heck a "white" is...) then the rational approach would be for the "non-whites" to examine what the "whites" did to get it and try something similar. Instead of whining about "white privilege".
IMO, the worst enemies of future prosperity for the currently non prosperous (of any skin color) are socialists trying to "help" them, and (in all too many cases) their own lack of ambition. Not from some illusory "racial privilege".
And if you examine my silverware drawer, you won't find any Ag there. A good bit of Fe, Ni, Cr, and C, but no AG. Nor Au.
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