>>OK, they also knew that Black people were inferior. I believe
>>that to be not so. >Thomas Jefferson, who was a slaveholder, wrote the Northwest Ordinance in
>1787, which prohibited both slavery and involuntary servitude in the
>Northwest Territories. The Congress of the Conferderation passed it.
> So I wouldn't be so certain that the Founding
>Fathers "knew" black people were inferior, because if they really
>believed this to be so, they wouldn't have banned the
>expansion of slavery into the Northwest Territories.
Just because people said they were anti slavery doesn't mean that they felt that all peoples are equal ( White man's burden).
Thomas Jefferson also proposed laws that severely restricted free blacks from entering or living in Virginia, which would have banished children whose father was of African origin and exiled any white woman who had a child with a black man.
The facts that he didn't follow the instructions in the Kościuszko will, didn't interfere with the 1806 change to the Virginia emancipation law, and formally freed only two slaves during his life (although he did allow two slaves to "walk away" in 1822, and freed five more in his will, 130 of his slaves were sold after his death) suggest to me that he wasn't anti slavery for himself.
He also said The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life Notes on the State of Virginia
Which for some reason makes me think that he felt that Blacks were inferior.
>It also appears that the reason the Continental Congress changed John
>Locke's declaration about "life, liberty and property" being sacrosanct into
>"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration
>was due to unease over people being property.
I accept that there was a lot of ambivalence about slavery and the treatment of slaves, however I don't see that this contradicts my comment on perceptions of inferiority.
>>They knew guns could fire at most nine shots a minute,
>>I also believe this to be not so.
>A gun that could have fired nine rounds in a minute
>in that day would have been such a huge advance
>. . . I think firing two rounds in
>a minute was as good as could be envisioned.
>And rifling was only available in gun barrels as long
>as George Washington was tall, which is why so few
>people died from gunfire.
(N.B. A Revolutionary War general named Benedict Arnold figured out
>how to use the rebels' one company of backwoodsmen equipped
>with long rifles to crush a superior British army at
>Saratoga. Mind you, he was never given credit for
>this huge tactical breakthrough because of other events that happened in his life shortly thereafter.)
The Puckle gun which fired nine shots a minute was patented and had been demonstrated by 1718
>>They believed that the only way to protest was violently.
>>Gandhi and Bayard Rustin have shown us that is not so.
>Had Gandhi tried to do nonviolent protest in the 1700s, he
>would have been dead as a doorknob. Nonviolent protest
>can only succeed when mainstream violence becomes unacceptable.
I would argue that institutional violence towards unarmed groups will nearly always spark an outcry, unless the unarmed group has been demonised.
>>If you have arguments and beliefs then by all means state
>>them but don't say oh some bloke who died 300
>>years ago said x therefore it must be true.
>Is there anything that "must be
>true"? Even despite my
>belief in the Christian writings,
>this discussion makes me think
>of that to which Estee
>alluded:
>Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked
>him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
>“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk
>to you about me?”
>“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and
>your chief priests who handed you over to me. What
>is it you have done?”
>Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it
>were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by
>the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
>“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
>Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king.
>In fact, for this reason I was born, and for
>this I came into the world, to testify to the
>truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
>“What is truth?” Pilate asked.
>With this he went out again to the Jews and said,
>“I find no basis for a charge against him."
My point was that just because someone you respect said something it doesn't make it true, as to what must be true I would say Cogito ergo sum however it appears that the holographic view of the universe suggests that even that may not be so.