Here’s a quote Ramesh Ponnuru posted without comment that I will comment on:
“[T]wo ideological factors caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy now.”
I like to think I’m an understanding person, but I never for the life of me understood the left’s complete and utter freakout over the rich not getting their taxes raised. For the right, it was a pretty simple thing as we thought that was what’s best for the economy and we hold no animosity towards rich people and know we don’t get a special prize if they suffer, but for the left… I dunno. Maybe it’s just the concept that people like to keep money in the private sector is a bit like a rejection of everything the left stands for. Deep down the left know their time is over and everyone is disgusted by them — just like slave-owners knew near the end — but they can’t consciously admit it so they lash out. Well, whenever they reach that realization, slave-owners will keep a seat warm for the left in the dustbin of history.
So then Barack Obama – who didn’t just support extension of the cuts but actually signed them into law – is just like Jefferson Davis?
You shouldn’t argue with silly people, Frank.
Well, of course it is.
Sounds like one of those old tabloid surveys. Question #1, How often do you get angry? Question #2, How often do you eat peanut butter? Voila! People who eat more peanut butter are either more angry or less angry than those who do not. Solid science, just like global warming. YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT? (peanut butter on my lip)
I think it’s a very simplistic world most liberals live in. To them, the money evil rich people have is always there, just out of reach, and will always be there. It’s like a candy jar to a toddler for them. Despite the proven fact that over taxing the rich lowers tax revenue EVERY TIME, they still think it’s just free money and if they can stand on a chair or something they can reach the candy jar. Just as in toddlers, there is no thought on whether the owner of the jar is going to keep candy in it if the toddler has the ability to reach in and grab whenever it wants to.
Unfortunatly, Ponnuru’s analogy doesn’t hold water historically. Slave owners supported slavery for racial reasons rather than economic. It has been fairly well documented and acknowledged that many southern white small acreage farmers that either did not own slaves or had one or two absolutely detested and did not relate well to the large plantation style aristocracy in Virginia and North Carolina.
Now, if Ponnuru had merely stated that today’s low income “people” support Bush tax cuts because Bush was racisct, that’d not only be a more acceptable and common meme but IT WOULD BE TRUE. Bush is racist. Just sayin’, 🙂
Let’s see: The slaves had to work or risk very severe punishment, but the product of their labors was taken away by their masters. The masters then shared out what the slaves needed to survive (according to their needs) but kept an awful lot of it for themselves, often congratulating themselves on their even-handed and paternal oversight of those whose lives they governed.
Whose ideal does this sound suspiciously like? Hint: opposite of republic.
Liberals, Progressives, Socialists and Communists: To the dustbin of history and the garbage dump of failure.
The Jacksonian Democrats left over will have to fend for themselves.
Evidently Mr. Loewen has never heard of the term ‘wage slave.’
This could be true, or Ramesh could be completely bat snot insane. My money is on the bat snot.
I am always amazed at how utterly blind leading leftists writers are at understanding conservatives. We are the majority by 2-3 times of the country they live in. Reminds me of all those hilarious skits where anthropologists try and explain ancient man with the most ridiculous and usually superstitious assumptions. Futurama’s “whaling on the moon” is a good one.
We understand them better then they understand themselves. They understand us even worse then they understand the nature of their own movement.
How do you handle stupid like that when they have almost all the microphone and megaphones?
Can we compromise and just raise taxes on slave owners?
We watched you building, stone by stone,
The well-washed cells and well-washed graves
We shall inhabit but not own
When (Americans) ever shall be slaves;
The water’s waiting in the trough,
The tame oats sown are portioned free,
There is enough, and just enough,
And all is ready now but we.
But you have not caught us yet, my lords,
You have us still to get.
A sorry army you’d have got,
Its flags are rags that float and rot,
Its drums are empty pan and pot,
Its baggage is — an empty cot;
But you have not caught us yet.
A little; and we might have slipped
When came your rumors and your sales
And the foiled rich men, feeble-lipped,
Said and unsaid their sorry tales;
Great God! It needs a bolder brow
To keep ten sheep inside a pen,
And we are sheep no longer now;
You are but Masters. We are Men.
We give you all good thanks, my lords,
We buy at easy price;
Thanks for the (trillions) that you stole,
The bribes by wire, the bets on coal,
The knowledge of that naked whole
That hath delivered our flesh and soul
Out of your Paradise.
We had held safe your parks; but when
Men taunted you with bribe and fee,
We only saw the Lord of Men
Grin like an Ape and climb a tree;
And humbly had we stood without
Your princely barns; did we not see
In pointed faces peering out
What Rats now own the granary.
It is too late, too late, my lords,
We give you back your grace:
You cannot with all cajoling
Make the wet ditch, or winds that sting,
Lost pride, or the pawned wedding rings,
Or drink or Death a blacker thing
Than a smile upon your face.
– G.K. Chesterton (with minor adaptations)
You’re operating under the false premise that democrats actually believe what they say.