Some random thoughts about Independence Day

[Plain Jane 3953]

You are right, Jazzlover, the "founding fathers" yearned for freedom, for white people anyway - slavery for the blacks.

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by Plain Jane 3953

You are right, Jazzlover, the "founding fathers" yearned for freedom, for white people anyway - slavery for the blacks.

Thomas Jefferson added the "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
knowing full well that it meant ALL PEOPLE. The first continental congress ripped the whole draft Jefferson submitted to pieces, and removed the hope that ALL MEN would have the full rights given by our creator. The states were split, but unfortunately, there were a few more that did not feel the need at the time to give up on freedom for slaves, and thus it was another 100 years before that would happen.

There is a VERY VERY good documentary that was on the discovery, it would be of great help for you to find a way to watch this, and gain some true insight as to what was happening at that time in our history. The quote remains true for this as it does for most everything else "the devil is in the details"

The broad painted picture will not help as much as knowing the nooks and crannies of what happened.

Watch it, it is good.

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by ocean2026

Yeah Double H Our place is good - we like to cause hell and make life miserable for other countries. Sure we gave Iraq biological weapons and Bush's own 9-11 commission concluded there was "no credible evidence linking Iraq with 9-11" and as we later found no evidence of WMD's. Isn't life better here than there - YOU BET!

IN Vietnam we broke the 1955 accords and canceled the free elections we promised when CIA polling showed HO Chi Minh would be the winner in a landslide. So we bombed and napalmed the **** out of them - Isn't life better here than there! YOU BET!
IN Cuba and the Bay of Pigs we KNEW the people would rise up against Cuba because they wanted democracy! But the bay of pigs Cubans were slaugthered like dogs and all we are left with is the Cuban losers in Florida who want us to fight their battles for them. Through years of blockades and dirty tricks we are probably living better than them too Yes even though most people around the world dislike us- things aren't so bad here after all!

those were the actions of a government not working in the intrest of the people. They covered that area very well in the declaration

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."

[Sockeye]

Originally Posted by Noahma

Thomas Jefferson added the "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
knowing full well that it meant ALL PEOPLE. The first continental congress ripped the whole draft Jefferson submitted to pieces, and removed the hope that ALL MEN would have the full rights given by our creator. The states were split, but unfortunately, there were a few more that did not feel the need at the time to give up on freedom for slaves, and thus it was another 100 years before that would happen.

There is a VERY VERY good documentary that was on the discovery, it would be of great help for you to find a way to watch this, and gain some true insight as to what was happening at that time in our history. The quote remains true for this as it does for most everything else "the devil is in the details"

The broad painted picture will not help as much as knowing the nooks and crannies of what happened.

Watch it, it is good.

The Jeffersonian vision was a very good one. He had to keep some of his beliefs quiet, though. Those were the times. You can't superimpose current social attitudes on those that are over 200 years old. Thats revisionism. Something you'd find in a history book by that Howard Zinn idiot. Oh well, this from a guy who's had too many cervezas at the family reunion up in Jimmytown today.

[Katiana]

Jefferson himself was a slave owner. So he wasn't ready just then to give them up. It's too bad they didn't outlaw slavery right away, but that's 20/20 hindsight, as sockeye pointed out.

[DOUBLE H]

Ocean 2026, I said it wasn't a bad place, I didn't say it was Utopia. Sorry if I offended you. Speaking of 20/20 hindsight, me thinks if not all, but certainly most nations history of civil rights violations weren't anything to write home about either. I'll let other posters debate that issue as I don't have the smarts to qualify.

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Jefferson himself was a slave owner. So he wasn't ready just then to give them up. It's too bad they didn't outlaw slavery right away, but that's 20/20 hindsight, as sockeye pointed out.

he had internal strife when he realized the implications of what he had written, and it would be a lie to say he did not second guess himself, but he did feel that it was the way to go.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by Noahma

he had internal strife when he realized the implications of what he had written, and it would be a lie to say he did not second guess himself, but he did feel that it was the way to go.

Ya, he was human like all of us. He had his faults and contradicitions. We all do.

[onthamove]

colorado is the cenntenial state! est 1876!

[onthamove]

Originally Posted by Plain Jane 3953

You are right, Jazzlover, the "founding fathers" yearned for freedom, for white people anyway - slavery for the blacks.

hindsight is 20/ 20