[Paul C. Jesup]

As for comparing Araby with the South: didn't they both engage in slavery and both subscribe to an honor/shame culture?

How quick you forget that the U.S. supported slavery for almost 90 years. Also, the founders of this nation, whether they liked it or not, also signed off on slavery when they signed the Constitution (look up the '3/5 vote for a slave' in the Constitution).

And not much have really changed, the country still has slaves, only we don't them slaves. They are either in the URBAN slums, harvesting votes or in the sweatshops.

And here is the true irony of the situation, this country is falling apart because of the socialism that Abe himself started the ball rolling on a little under 130 years ago.

It is true poetic justice.

[tpaine]

"--- the founders of this nation, whether they liked it or not, also signed off on slavery when they signed the Constitution (look up the '3/5 vote for a slave' in the Constitution).

They made a political compromise on slavery to accomplish union, expecting it to fade away in a republic. Wrong. -- Slavers did not want republican forms of government.

And not much have really changed, the country still has slaves, only we don't them slaves. They are either in the URBAN slums, harvesting votes or in the sweatshops.

Weird view, - you a communitarian?

And here is the true irony of the situation, this country is falling apart because of the socialism that Abe himself started the ball rolling on a little under 130 years ago. It is true poetic justice.

The concept of an 'all powerful state', one that can ignore our constitutions restrictions, has always been a product of the states rights movement in america. The socialistic politics of the early 1900's grew from that seed, -- and flowered in Roosevelts big government 'new deal'; which was bought to power by a coalition between leftist labor & states rightist political interests.

http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/ea/side/newdeal.html

[donmeaker]

Lincoln said "The people who grow the corn should get to eat the corn". That statement got him the endorsement of Karl Marx, who was not a communist in the modern sense of the word, but rather an anti-capitalist.

The 3/5th rule was put in the constitution to penalize the states of slave holders, to encourage them to free their slaves to gain 40 percent additional representation. Alas, in this the Framers erred, not having forseen the cotton gin and the tremendous profits gained thereby. What they saw was, at that time, the marginal gain of owning slaves, and set against it a marginal loss of representation.