America Founded in 1619

#26
#26
Orangeburst65 said:
They are ubiquitous in name and monument to Ross and ToT.

The irony is the slave holding oppressors were being oppressed themselves.

This bad because of white man:

View attachment 219192

This ok because they were slave owners:
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It's all bad, period. Nobody is saying white slaveholders are bad because they were white and nobody is saying Indian slaveholders are OK because they are brown. The latter is not common knowledge and chalking societal response all up to "whiteness" is completely disingenuous and stupid. I'll prove the point to you...Uncle Toms were black, and to people of color, Uncle Toms are viewed as just about as bad as the slaveholders themselves, even though they were less culpable.

Stop looking for reasons to excuse our horrible history. Own it. Learn from it. Put it in proper context and condemn it.
 
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#27
#27
FLVOL_79 said:
Its funny..all around Atlanta there are 4 lane highways built in the middle of nowhere. Anything that involves getting on 75 is a nightmare
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This is how it should be done. Three hubs and multiple spokes. Grand Pkwy 99 is 85 miles around and built BEFORE the immediate need. You can get to any quadrant in city thru numerous ways without red lights. East-West is a serious problem in Atlanta along with 75.

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This is effed and only one non lighted hub:

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#28
#28
Persian Vol said:
While the overall comparison is certainly a hyperbole, there are truths to aspects of it...

“In the essay's final paragraphs, we learn that this is indeed the case — that the problem of traffic congestion is less about placement of the highways than about a lack of options for mass transit, and especially regional rail, that suburban Atlantans continually reject at the ballot box. This, Kruse argues, is blatant racism motived by white suburbanites seeking to prevent easy access for urban blacks to their exclusive neighborhoods.”

I grew up in the affluent North Atlanta suburbs, and fear mongering that the homeless/criminals of Atlanta will have easy access to their suburban communities through Marta expansion is not uncommon. Hell, even I was terrified of MARTA as a suburban teenager, or course until I became an adult and actually used it regularly and saw how convenient it was to avoid rush hour congestion when commuting.
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The only universe in which that might make a tiny bit of sense is the one in which all suburban Atlantans living in "exclusive" neighborhoods are white. Something we all know is simply not the case.
 
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#29
#29
n_huffhines said:
It's all bad, period. Nobody is saying white slaveholders are bad because they were white and nobody is saying Indian slaveholders are OK because they are brown. The latter is not common knowledge and chalking societal response all up to "whiteness" is completely disingenuous and stupid. I'll prove the point to you...Uncle Toms were black, and to people of color, Uncle Toms are viewed as just about as bad as the slaveholders themselves, even though they were less culpable.

Stop looking for reasons to excuse our horrible history. Own it. Learn from it. Put it in proper context and condemn it.
Click to expand...

This whole societal outrage is about the oppressive white man. Shaming people for being white. Just like the OP, it was blacks who made America exceptional. The author could of made it about black contributions which would of been fine, but instead focused on blacks being the reason we are exceptional.
 
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#31
#31
Orangeburst65 said:
This whole societal outrage is about the oppressive white man. Shaming people for being white. Just like the OP, it was blacks who made America exceptional. The author could of made it about black contributions which would of been fine, but instead focused on blacks being the reason we are exceptional.
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The version of history I was taught is that whites made America exceptional and then we sprinkled in a peanut farmer and a baseball player. Now we're upset because somebody is giving too much credit to the non-whites.

Did you read the article or the article about the article? I'm not sure I disagree with this excerpt:

[out of slavery] "grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional."

Agriculture was the foundation for everything. It's hard to say that slavery doesn't have at least an indirect impact on everything that America is, the good and the bad.
 
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#32
#32
n_huffhines said:
The version of history I was taught is that whites made America exceptional and then we sprinkled in a peanut farmer and a baseball player. Now we're upset because somebody is giving too much credit to the non-whites.

Did you read the article or the article about the article? I'm not sure I disagree with this excerpt:

[out of slavery] "grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional."

Agriculture was the foundation for everything. It's hard to say that slavery doesn't have at least an indirect impact on everything that America is, the good and the bad.
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This goes back to the exceptional aspect of the argument.

Without slavery the agriculture, or whatever, would still have been great. It wasnt until really WWI or 2 that America became truly exceptional when looking at the world. Well after slavery ended.

The forced contribution is undeniable, but it still would have happened regardless. At worst you are pushing things back a generation. Would have just had to import more European labor, which the north turned to after they outlawed slavery. Didnt set them back making the switch.

America is great, and slavery was there. America is not great BECAUSE of slavery. Which is kinda the argument I took from the part of the article I read.
 
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#33
#33
ClearwaterVol said:
I attended high school in Michigan, Toronto and Knoxville. I learned about the civil war in all three schools. Michigan and Toronto schools focused on the slavery aspect and the inhumane practice that it was. In Knoxville, the teacher tried to minimize the atrocity that was slavery. I heard things like most slave owners were good to their slaves and the slaves themselves didn't mind the practice. Some masters even taught their slaves to read. We were taught the civil war was all about state's rights (ignoring the fact that the specific right at issue was the right to own folks).

None of the schools I went to ever taught about the contributions to the country made by slaves. We got to learn about two black people Harriet Tubman and George Washington Carver. A couple of paragraphs on each is what the lessons consisted of. No mention was made regarding the tremendous wealth generated by slaves.

All of this makes me not care about people, especially educators, taking a closer look at our history and giving it a more fair and balanced approach.
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The education I got in Chattanooga taught that it was about states rights, and slavery was part of that. There was also trade, self determination of development (corporations refused to move down south even with slavery on both sides), taxes, and so forth.

It's all intertwined but even without slavery the war would have been fought. Or there would have been major reasons for it to be fought.
 
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#34
#34
I'm not overly bothered by the concept, nor do I think it's fundamentally incorrect to say that American was built upon the backs of slaves.

However, I'd argue that a similar statement would be true for pretty much every developed nation on Earth. Some were built on the backs of the same African slaves that built America, but all were built on the subjugation of one or more oppressed peoples who had no realistic opportunity to improve their plight.

I don't know if the point of this concept is to reach the conclusion that America is awful because America as we know it came about because of the horrors of slavery. If that is the point, then every nation sucks. The greater point, in my mind, is that mankind is awful to mankind and always has been. It's not an American thing more than it is any other nation, group, race, or people.
 
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#35
#35
LouderVol said:
This goes back to the exceptional aspect of the argument.

Without slavery the agriculture, or whatever, would still have been great. It wasnt until really WWI or 2 that America became truly exceptional when looking at the world. Well after slavery ended.

The forced contribution is undeniable, but it still would have happened regardless. At worst you are pushing things back a generation. Would have just had to import more European labor, which the north turned to after they outlawed slavery. Didnt set them back making the switch.

America is great, and slavery was there. America is not great BECAUSE of slavery. Which is kinda the argument I took from the part of the article I read.
Click to expand...

Why do you think 20th century is when we became exceptional? I just look at the droves of immigrants coming here in the 19th century and conclude it was exceptional long before WWI. That's when we became a world power, sure, but I don't view that as the same thing. Economically, we were exceptional in the 19th century in terms of opportunity and property rights. Culturally, we were exceptional before WWI. Look how many important authors and poets came from the United States. Our version of democracy was copied all over the west. Etc.
 
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#37
#37
bamawriter said:
I don't know if the point of this concept is to reach the conclusion that America is awful because America as we know it came about because of the horrors of slavery. If that is the point, then every nation sucks. The greater point, in my mind, is that mankind is awful to mankind and always has been. It's not an American thing more than it is any other nation, group, race, or people.
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I don't think people are trying to reach the conclusion that America is awful, but rather trying to acknowledge its real history and the debt (not in the sense of reparations) we all owe to slaves.
 
#39
#39
n_huffhines said:
Why do you think 20th century is when we became exceptional? I just look at the droves of immigrants coming here in the 19th century and conclude it was exceptional long before WWI. That's when we became a world power, sure, but I don't view that as the same thing. Economically, we were exceptional in the 19th century in terms of opportunity and property rights. Culturally, we were exceptional before WWI. Look how many important authors and poets came from the United States. Our version of democracy was copied all over the west. Etc.
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We can make the date whenever. Point was that stuff wasnt tied to slavery.

To me exceptional means " the standard". So yeah government wise 1776 seems like a good date. But to me it takes more than that to be exceptional.

The reason people came here was opportunity. Which is hard to define what that means to the point of exceptionalism. The opprotunity wasnt great because of American government, it was great because we had empty space. People were flocking here before 1776. I guess this goes back to the argument of "when was America great".
 
#42
#42
n_huffhines said:
Why do you think 20th century is when we became exceptional? I just look at the droves of immigrants coming here in the 19th century and conclude it was exceptional long before WWI. That's when we became a world power, sure, but I don't view that as the same thing. Economically, we were exceptional in the 19th century in terms of opportunity and property rights. Culturally, we were exceptional before WWI. Look how many important authors and poets came from the United States. Our version of democracy was copied all over the west. Etc.
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It took massive German immigration to really make America great.
 
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#43
#43
n_huffhines said:
It's all bad, period. Nobody is saying white slaveholders are bad because they were white and nobody is saying Indian slaveholders are OK because they are brown. The latter is not common knowledge and chalking societal response all up to "whiteness" is completely disingenuous and stupid. I'll prove the point to you...Uncle Toms were black, and to people of color, Uncle Toms are viewed as just about as bad as the slaveholders themselves, even though they were less culpable.

Stop looking for reasons to excuse our horrible history. Own it. Learn from it. Put it in proper context and condemn it.
Click to expand...
Condemn it? Lol. That's dumb.
 
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#44
#44
n_huffhines said:
It's all bad, period. Nobody is saying white slaveholders are bad because they were white and nobody is saying Indian slaveholders are OK because they are brown. The latter is not common knowledge and chalking societal response all up to "whiteness" is completely disingenuous and stupid. I'll prove the point to you...Uncle Toms were black, and to people of color, Uncle Toms are viewed as just about as bad as the slaveholders themselves, even though they were less culpable.

Stop looking for reasons to excuse our horrible history. Own it. Learn from it. Put it in proper context and condemn it.
Click to expand...

Are you saying our horrible history as America or as a human race?
 
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#47
#47
Fun coupon VOL said:
Learn history for one.
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I would say that teaching accurate history is important, but what you said that I found interesting was the "compare" comment. Why do we need to compare history to that of any other? I am not saying we have a bad history. It is just that we have history that we have chosen to ignore.
 
#48
#48
LouderVol said:
We can make the date whenever. Point was that stuff wasnt tied to slavery.

To me exceptional means " the standard". So yeah government wise 1776 seems like a good date. But to me it takes more than that to be exceptional.

The reason people came here was opportunity. Which is hard to define what that means to the point of exceptionalism. The opprotunity wasnt great because of American government, it was great because we had empty space. People were flocking here before 1776. I guess this goes back to the argument of "when was America great".
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Actually, I think that's one of the big reasons it was great. It was more laissez faire than Europe. The French economist Bastiat wrote The Law in 1850 and spent a good portion of it praising the US for their liberty* and property rights.

*he also said our violation of the liberty of slaves was so egregious that we war was likely the only way to purge ourselves of such sin. He couldn't understand how a nation that valued individual liberty so much could be so hypocritical.
 
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