--- In [email protected], Mike Dixon <mdixon.6...@...> wrote: > > You're jumping to conclusions... again. Your article was about students > having *less* empathy, not *zero* empathy. Survival of the fittest in this > context was exactly what the the Nation was founded on, FREEDOM. >
Bananas. "Survival of the fittest" has nothing to do with the concept of freedom unless you aim to somehow "free" yourself from those whom you consider inferior. Survival of the fittest - wikipedia --Herbert Spencer first used the phrase - after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species - in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones, writing "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest > You are free to follow your heart's desire. You are free to succeed and free > to fail. We have equality of opportunity, not outcome. > If you make unwise decisions throughout life, you are more likely to fail and > that is your right.Those that make wise decisions shouldn't be burdened > fixing your failures. Those that fail should be allowed to correct themselves > or sink into oblivion, like the dinosaurs.< As for the Confederacy, it wasn't > built on slavery, it was built on the original United States Constitution > written by our founding fathers, which did allow slavery... unfortunately. > Had we known then what we know now, we would have picked our own cotton.You > can thank the Massachusetts delegates to the constitutional convention for > that since many of the slave traders were based in Boston and those > delegates insisted slavery be protected, where as a few southern states were > indifferent, and even against it's constitutional protection. see *The South > Was Right* by Kennedy and Kennedy. Would slavery have been more acceptable to > you had it *not* been race based? BTW, no slave ship ever > flew a Confederate flag. > The following excerpts are from: The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union. Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. ... = = = A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. = = = Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. = = = Georgia The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property... http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html === The Confederacy UNDENIABLY fought for and defended its ongoing system of institutionalized racism and slavery. To honor the Confederacy is to honor wealth and prosperity based on the labors of human slaves. It's an assault on the dignity of not only black Americans, but humanity itself. Those 'Southern Industries' - which produced the wealth and so-called splendor of the elite of the Southern states - were shamefully built on the subjugation, degradation, and exploitation of a whole race of people. It was and is called "slavery." There is no honor in it - only shame. To hold any honor in it is to honor brute ignorance. [snip to end]
