They would add $18T to the national debt. That’s essentially doubling it (again, after Obama already did it once), not even counting the unfunded liabilities of social security et al.
Related: BS from Bernie:
Bernie Sanders, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, spoke at Liberty University today. You can read his speech here. It is useful, in that it exposes the extent of Sanders’s ignorance and radicalism. Any deconstruction of a speech this bad must be selective.
Read the whole fisking. It’s also worth noting, in contrast to when a conservative speaker comes to a leftist college, how politely he was treated.
“And I would also say that as a nation – the truth is, that a nation which in many ways was created, and I’m sorry to have to say this, from way back on racist principles. That’s a fact. We have come a long way as a nation,” Sanders said.
This is why people think Democrats hate the USA.
The idea expressed by Sanders is a reactionary one. Republicans began expressing an interest in founding fathers, the constitution, and the ideals that lead to the creation of our country. In reaction, Democrats could not handle possibly agreeing with the other on some issues and instead had to find ways to impugn the past in order to discredit the present.
Cultural Marxists were there waiting with a distorted view of history to feed their American partners.
But now, rather than just attacking Republicans, Democrats have been forced to disown their own founders. Democrats have been severing their ties to the idea that is the United States of America. What to replace it with?
Socialism, nature worship, and racial/gender hierarchy.
Bernie would say that after the Black Lives Matter crowd essentially assaulted him at a rally?
Beyond pathetic, it just guarantees more thuggery, endangering us all.
I don’t even care that Bernie won’t win, in the America I remember this cowardly commie b@st@rd wouldn’t even have even gotten the funds to run, he wouldn’t be a Senator, he’d be a crazy tenured professor in some college nobody’s heard of.
I’m like, gobsmacked by what is currently going on with race discussions, specifically the notion that the US derives its prosperity even today from the inheritances of slavery.
Many of the Founders were slaveholders, but many of those recognized that it was an insupportable violation of human rights. As many people would do, they just didn’t want their own conveniences and profits to end. So they talked themselves into believing it would wither away. And the institution was still wrong, wrong, but it might have indeed slipped away…maybe.
Then comes along the cotton gin (remember when Eli Whitney was taught as a hero of American invention in schools?) and slave labor becomes phenomenally profitable. Where it existed, attitudes and rationales for slavery become stronger than ever.
We fought a war, Reconstruction was tried and abandoned because of the exhaustion of white voters and conniving of (both) party hacks. A hundred years of progress denied before legal remedies again push back. Followed by other attempts to actively change the situation of the black population. These attempts however brought their own insidious problems.
I do believe that there are deep psychological problems over race in this country. But they won’t be cured by coming up with explanations for them which are ever more hateful towards the nation.
It’s a simple fact that our country was founded on racist principles, as well as principles that we continue to find admirable. Are we supposed to ignore or deny the facts of our history when they make us uncomfortable?
“It’s a simple fact that our country was founded on racist principles,…”
List a few of the Founding principles that are racist.
“Are we supposed to ignore or deny the facts of our history when they make us uncomfortable?”
You do it every day in your posts here.
Obama claimed Iraq a success in 2011, pulled out troops, and then to suggest he knew what he was doing, called ISIS the JV team.
Chicago under Rahm Emanuel is now falling behind Houston.
The homicide rate in Baltimore has increased ever since the DA declared a war on cops.
But the most important thing to remember is that Bill Clinton denied women he is accused of raping from having their day in court to be heard.
Are we supposed to continue to marinate in that history after sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives to end that (one) “racist principle”? What is the value in Sanders’ statement?
The fact that so many recoil from such a banal truth suggests it bears more frequent repetition.
Nice try at pop psychology. One’s level of offense is not always proportional to denying the truth.
Maybe people are recoiling from the reflexive and continuous leftist need to bash the country and its Founders.
How is it bashing the country and the founders to point out such an obvious fact? Are Japanese citizens bashing their country when they talk honestly about Nanking?
Damn Jim, still going on about Nanking? Do you still call them Nips and think the should be interned in camps like Democrat FDR? You know the United States signed a peace treaty with Japan, so did China. Most of us moved on, but I guess you still think China should hold a grudge? Do you still hate the British too? That might explain your support of Obama.
“The fact that so many recoil from such a banal truth suggests it bears more frequent repetition.”
What we recoil from is the constant attempt to force upon the society a totally groundless guilt.
If you can’t hear a simple fact without feeling defensive, the problem isn’t with the fact.
Jim, he heard your supposed fact, and corrected your fallacy. On that basis, I’ll repeat myself and note the problem with your fact isn’t that it wasn’t heard, but that it wasn’t a fact.
Where in the Declaration or Constitution does it show we are racist?
Simplicio: It is a simple fact that the sun revolves around the earth. Why, we see it every day.
Weak attempt at a dodge. Try listing some concrete examples of the racist founding principles. If they’re as obvious as you claim, it should be easy. Actual examples required – no handwaving allowed. Put up or shut up.
It’s in Article 7, section 21C, subclause 16.4893:
“Electors shall be selected based on area-averaged reflectivity in direct noon sunlight.”
ah the damn albedo clause…..
Gosh, you would think Frederick Douglass would hate the Constitution for its racist principles. Unfortunately, he calls it a Glorious Liberty Document. Nice rewriting of history, Jim.
“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/
When Douglass spoke, defenders of slavery were pointing to the fact that the documents most revered by white Americans — the Bible and the Constitution — plainly endorsed the institution of slavery. So of course he tried to rebut that argument, and convince his audience that they could turn against slavery without turning against the Constitution. [His abolitionist colleague William Lloyd Garrison took a different tack, burning a copy of the Constitution and calling it a “covenant with death and an agreement with hell”; that approach did not win many converts.] Douglass is helped by the fact that the framers of the Constitution artfully kept the words “slave” and “slavery” out of the text. But as Douglass knew full well, the endorsement of slavery was still there.
Lincoln famously asked how many legs a dog has if you count its tail as a leg. The answer is four, because saying a tail is a leg doesn’t make it one. The Constitution, Douglass says, “interpreted as it ought to be interpreted”, is a “GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.” But of course it wasn’t written or interpreted as Douglass thought it ought to have been. It had to be amended before it became the document of Douglass’s wishful thinking.
So once again, my quotes are wrong because the interpretation behind the quote is completely different than the quote itself. With that rationale, you can have any unhinged argument on any topic. In fact, this is probably how you justify Obamacare.
“Douglass is helped by the fact that the framers of the Constitution artfully kept the words “slave” and “slavery” out of the text. But as Douglass knew full well, the endorsement of slavery was still there.”
So this is how you prove that the Founding Principles were racist?
Really?
And prove top us that Douglass “…knew full well, the endorsement of slavery was still there.”
How can there be an endorsement in a document when there is no endorsement appearing in the document?
This takes the concept of a malleable Constitution to an absurd level….
The endorsement is in the document, it just doesn’t use the word “slave”, substituting the euphemisms “person held to service or labour” and “Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit” to refer to slaves, and “free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years” to refer to non-slaves. The Constitution makes clear that the nation legally includes people who are “bound to service” for the rest of their lives, who are to be counted towards the Congressional and electoral college representation of the states in which they live, that states are obligated to return those people if they escape across state lines, and that Congress can not interfere with or excessively tax the importation of more such people until 1808. The founders endorsed race-based slavery as a legal, protected part of American society.
If they did not explicitly say it, then is it in the document? It was the intention that slavery was a state law, not a federal law. That is, not a founding principle of the Republic. Most of the states found slavery abhorrent. They intended on ending slavery in their lifetimes. It was only a matter of time. You have yet to show how this country was founded on racist principles.
To paraphrase Monty Python:
Besides liberty, equality, freedom of assembly, religion, speech, unwarranted search and seizure, etc, what have the founding fathers given us?
Nothing!
We all know the true goal of your subterfuge: to remove the Constitution by vilifying it as a racist, outmoded document to be replaced with Wilsonian, bureaucratic despotism. That is why, for me at least, I find your argument disgusting.
Are we supposed to ignore or deny the facts of our history when they make us uncomfortable?
No. Interesting question coming from you. Why do you do it so often?
History of black oppression wasn’t that important when Democrats were lionizing Robert Byrd. Heck, they are still considering Biden for President, who famously said this about Obama: “you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”. I’m sure there are many more than Condi Rice, General Powell, and Thurgood Marshall, but I’ll simply point out that they were well before Obama, very bright, very intelligent, and I won’t dignify the ugly concept that black’s are not clean, by suggesting there was ever a first to be such.
Do I need to provide another link to the NYT article literally highlighting the Jews that oppose the Iran Deal?
It would be great if Jim would recognize the racist present of the Democratic Party.
Jim.
Please list the racist principles, and how they are codified into the founding of this country.
Not unwritten customs, but the ones enshrined into the constitution, either pre or post amendment.
The Constitution as originally passed gave slave states extra representation in Congress and the electoral college. It required the federal government to pursue fugitive slaves. It barred any limits on the Atlantic slave trade for twenty years. Absent those endorsements of slavery — of the principle that black Americans are not equal to whites — the Constitution would not have been ratified.
Where in the document does it state: Freedom of speech, religion and assembly, except for blacks.
Where does it say the right to bear arms, except for blacks.
Etc.
Please show us those statements in the Constitution as originally passed
Of course no answer from Jim.
Crickets chirping….
There were many compromises when they wrote the Constitution. One of them, the Grand Compromise, is the reason we have a Senate and the House of Representatives. The large states wanted a legislative body whose membership was proportional based on population. The small states wanted equal representation. With the Grand Compromise, both sides got what they wanted.
When it came time to determine how people would be counted for proportional representation in the House, the pro-slavery states wanted to count everyone including slaves. The anti-slavery states didn’t want to count slaves at all. The compromise was to count slaves as 3/5ths of a person. It was one of many such compromises that went into the Constitution. Without those compromises, there wouldn’t be a Constitution. No one got everything they wanted.
Bernie said that complaints about his multi trillion dollar plan for an idiot ran health care system were overblown because they overlooked that health insurance wouldn’t exist and so that money would be freed up to fund his scheme…
There are three places I know of in which the Constitution was influenced by the slave trade:
1) The “Fugitive Slave Clause”. I put this in quotes because the actual text of the document did not specifically mention slavery. Article Iv, Section 2, Clause 3 reads:
“No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.”
The “under the laws thereof” is specifically included to indicate that this does not imply Federal sanction of slavery. The law could equally apply to slaves, or to someone who had contracted service and failed to provide it. The law was necessary to get the slave states to sign on, but the anti-slave states were careful to, in essense, wash their hands of it.
2) The 3/5 Compromise, in which slaves counted 3/5 of a person for purposes of representation. The slave states, having lower population, wanted compensating representation to assure that they would not become enslaved to the Northern majority (irony intended).
3) The 20 year moratorium on Congress exercising its power to limit the slave trade. Article 1, Section 9:
“The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.”
Again, carefully avoiding specific mention of the word slave or of slavery. When the 20 years was up, Congress duly passed the 1807 ban on importing slaves, and President Jefferson signed it into law.
The upshot is, no, slavery was not written into, nor in any way endorsed, by the Constitution. However, there were compromises made in order to seal the deal. Those compromises would later be expunged following the massive carnage of the Civil War.
Keep in mind that slavery and racism are two different things. Selling oneself into servitude, regardless of race, was common in our founding days. An apprentice learning a trade could be an example.
That Africans captured by Arabs and others were sold to the American south was economic before becoming racist.
It became racism because sloppy thinking is human.
And I would also say that as a nation – the truth is, that a nation which in many ways was created, and I’m sorry to have to say this, from way back on racist principles. That’s a fact. We have come a long way as a nation,” Sanders said
Sanders never said anything about the Constitution, so I don’t know why commenters are demanding references to racism in that document. He said when the country was founded, racist principles were part of that foundation. The very fact that slavery was an institution in the founding of America is just a fact. Inconvenient, yes, but indisputable. He also said that we’ve come a long way as a nation. Equally true. Why not just accept the verdict and acknowledge the success of our system, which overcame a vile institution for the greater good of humanity? The progress should make us all proud.
Why make such a BFD about how we were “founded as a racist nation?”
We get that you and Bernie hate America. We just don’t get why you want to inculcate that hatred in everyone else. We continue to await an explanation.
Why make such a BFD about how we were “founded as a racist nation?”
The state of blacks in America today is an important topic that Sanders was addressing. Addressing that topic without acknowledging that the history of black Americans starts with centuries of racist oppression would be delusional. It would be like trying to talk about the state of Native Americans today without mentioning anything that happened before 1960, or talking about the state of Jews in Eastern Europe today without mentioning pogroms and the Pale.
We get that you and Bernie hate America
I get that you think that the only reason someone would talk honestly about American history would be out of hate. You are far from alone in that, which makes it no surprise that there is so little attention to some parts of our history.
There’s a natural human inclination to avoid and downplay facts that seem to reflect poorly on ourselves, and where national history is concerned that results in dark chapters being systematically neglected. We have thousands of history museums in our country, and the very first one dedicated to the history of slavery (a private effort) only opened in the last few years. We have a national Holocaust museum by the Mall, but no comparable attempt to catalog or understand our own history of racial violence.
In Japan there’s an ongoing struggle between people willing to acknowledge Japan’s WWII crimes and nationalists who treat any such self-criticism as treasonous. Looking at it from the outside, as a country that was one of the victims of those crimes, we have no trouble siding with the truth-tellers. But where our history is concerned, you still get reactions like yours — that if Bernie Sanders is going to mention our racist history, he must hate America.
But where our history is concerned, you still get reactions like yours — that if Bernie Sanders is going to mention our racist history, he must hate America.
No, Bernie mentions slavery because for you SJW, it’s still a way to whip up sentiment in a demagogic way, as if we’re living in the Jim Crow South. And, because he’s trying to get the votes of Blacklivesmatter–that Soros funded group intent on making our country more divisive.
You refuse to recognize the strides minorities have taken in this country and to see that our founding documents have been a positive good on the world.
“You are far from alone in that, which makes it no surprise that there is so little attention to some parts of our history.”
So little attention being paid to the topic of slavery? Lol whut?
When has slavery ever been something swept under the rug? When has that history not been taught in schools?
You act like the topic has been ignored when it hasn’t. You act like Bernie bringing it up was just a historical footnote rather than a condemnation of our country’s existence and of the present state of affairs.
Saying that our country was founded on racist principles is absurd. Doing so intentionally excludes and attacks the actual principles that our country was founded on, which is why Democrats use this anti-American line of attack so often.
We get that you and Bernie hate America.
Very sophisticated theory of mind you’ve got going there.
Why make such a BFD about how we were “founded as a racist nation?”
Actually, making “a BFD” of the topic is being outraged about someone pointing out that the past was not totally perfect. I wouldn’t say that Sanders was making a BFD of it either — his statement wasn’t the subject of his speech, it was made in response to a question from the audience that was explicitly about racism in America. Why not be outraged that the students of Liberty U. are so obsessed about race relations?
being outraged about someone pointing out that the past was not totally perfect
No one is outraged by noting imperfection in the past. The outrage is selectively noting the imperfections while forgetting that those flaws were resolved over 150 years ago. Dave, you have heard of the Civil War? I’m not saying that resolved everything, as Democrats still voted for members of the KKK as recently as the last decades, but I’m really tired of hearing from supporters of Robert Byrd, such as Bernie Sanders, that I’m racist purely because of my skin color. Do I need to point out that my family migrated to the US, after the US fixed the imperfections of their past? Ok, consider it done. So you have no moral authority over me on this. That’s two strikes, you don’t know history and you don’t understand morality. What’s your third problem?
Their third problem is, in my opinion, delusional psychotic disconnect from reality.
but I’m really tired of hearing from supporters of Robert Byrd, such as Bernie Sanders, that I’m racist purely because of my skin color.
Huh? I don’t make that accusation. Point me to people who do make that accusation. Many on the right want to believe that they’re being persecuted. Not surprised you believe that, too.
Do I need to point out that my family migrated to the US, after the US fixed the imperfections of their past?
Right back at you, slick. My family migrated from Scandanavian countries at the turn of the last century. Does that mean I should just ignore the history of my country before their arrival?
So you have no moral authority over me on this. That’s two strikes, you don’t know history and you don’t understand morality.
I never claimed ‘moral authority’ over you. But I’m pretty sure my understanding of history is better than yours.
“Huh? I don’t make that accusation. Point me to people who do make that accusation.”
Do you never listen to Democrat politicians or activists?
“Why not just accept the verdict and acknowledge the success of our system,”
That is an excellent question to ask of Democrats who are assassinating cops and rioting in the streets.
“The progress should make us all proud.”
Yes, it should but for too many of our friends on the left, there is nothing to be proud of.
Many of the commenters above focused on the US Constitution, but I would look at state constitutions as well as the federal constitution when considering the founding principles. After all, “United States” was a plural noun back then, and I ‘m sure many regular readers of Transterrestrial Musings would be happy to explain why state governments remain vitally important today.
The state constitution of South Carolina of 1778, which was explicitly racist in that it said an elector must be “a free white man, and no other person….”
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/sc02.asp
The state constitution of Georgia of 1777 was similarly racist – it explicitly restricted the right to vote to white men.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ga02.asp
Those are the only two I’ve looked at so far.
The Constitution of Alabama of 1819 is more racist than the two I listed above. While it explicitly disenfranchises non-whites in more places and in more ways than the constitutions of Georgia and South Carolina, Alabama’s constitution does, however, generously assert that the punishment for actually killing a slave (as opposed to any other kind of violence) shall be the same as the punishment for killing a white person.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ala1819.asp
Interesting… You mention racist, but seem to have glided over sexist. But, the US was hardly unique in that regard. The first European state to allow women to vote was Finland in 1907. Others waited until after WWI.
So much focusing on our own flaws, without recognizing that the entire world fails to measure up to the modern perspective, is merely a lever to bash our institutions and agitate for radical change.
Interestingly, too, the major opposition to women’s right to vote came from the same Democratic Party that supported slavery, and uses its own sordid history to push for a new kind of slavery of the common man today.
Sanders the Socialist is simply utilizing the time-worn trick of creating division where none exists so that the electorate can be split into neat little blocks. Create anger and division where none exists. Lenin used it. Mao used it. Stalin used it. Hitler used it.
That Democrats do not roundly reject the techniques of Mein Kampf tells you all you need to know about them.
Create anger and division where none exists. Lenin used it. Mao used it. Stalin used it. Hitler used it.
Yep, I don’t see Jim or Dave complaining about the NYT’s singling out Jews for opposing the Iran Deal. That is straight out of the Hitler/Goebbels playbook for starting a war. Talk about historical imperfections, but neither Jim, Dave, or Sanders will acknowledge it.
Since it is in vogue to talk about the historical imperfections of the past, is this when we should point out that Sanders is a socialist, and that Democrats have in the past (as of just a year ago) refused to accept him as a member of the party. Why is that? I think it is because of the deadly past of the socialist movements in the 20th Century that resulted in the slaughter of tens of millions of people. I’ll refrain at this time discussing the connection to the Progressive Movements support of eugenics and abortion, which has lead to more blacks fetus being aborted than allowed to term and born, and then the apparent market for the tissues so that Progressives can have their Lamborghini sports car. Thats happening now, and we are discussing the past apparently. Although I’m fairly sure Rand’s post is about Sanders plans for the future.
Were we founded as a racist nation? The fact that the Gang That’s Wrong About Everything Else (hi, Dave, Jim!) appears to think so should clue you in on the answer. The founding of this nation came out the Enlightenment, and with the Enlightenment a movement away from statism toward a freer society. (See Locke, the Cato Letters, and other influences on the Founders.) The fact that the Founders were imperfect libertarians or even, in some cases (like Jefferson) harbored racist beliefs does not make the ideal they were striving for racist. I always find it interesting that of the three Founders tasked with drawing up the Declaration of Independence, two of the three (Adams and Franklin) opposed slavery; and even Jefferson wanted to include a clause castigating King George for allowing the slave trade.
I also find it interesting that these days people who complain loudest about the Founders countenancing or trafficking in slavery are invariably the biggest State-f*ckers: i.e., people who have no real interest in liberty at all.
Like Hitler, the Gang That’s Wrong About Everything Else also tends to conveniently forget that it was their party who were the slavers.
If they really believe that sins of several hundred years ago should be paid for today, then they should outlaw their party and dissolve it.
No one should be surprised that a Socialist would parrot USSR talking points or that Democrats would be so open to those anti-American views themselves. History is inconvenient for them as much of their ideology came from our country’s enemies. The links between the Democrat party and anti-American groups, from socialists to militant Islamists, have been there throughout history and are present today as well.
So Bernie said the USA was founded on racism rather than the ideal of liberty. Big deal. No one will be surprised when the American flag gets burned at a Bernie rally either.This is pretty common among Democrats. If Republicans were to pick some other period of time in the USA, like the Civil War, as a period to where we should look for inspiration, our friends to the left would turn the Civil War into the Union fighting to preserve racism and oppression.
It doesn’t matter the topic, this is the tactic.
What is really chilling aren’t the hatred of the constitution or of the founding fathers or of the country itself, are Bernie’s economic policies. How does getting rid of insurance companies mean the government has more money to spend on “free” health care? It doesn’t. How does nationalizing the shoe industry translate into the government having more money to spend on social welfare programs? It doesn’t.
The only thing shocking here is that Bernie’s actual positions aren’t getting covered by the media. Oh wait, that isn’t shocking at all.
Actually I saw Bernie this morning on CBS this morning and the cost (many trillions) of his proposals were listed and he was asked how to pay for them. He refused to answer and they called him on tht. He finally used the hoary old bromide tht the rich have to do more.
But it was the first time I saw CBS actually put even a little bit of pressure on a Democrat – even though he’s a Demo-Soccie.