"They share a great deal of responsibility for developing a nation of people that have enjoyed freedom and democracy. We all have the Scots/Irish to thank for the fact that democracy even exists."
No more then a lot of other people. (sorry CB I am not a Brit!!)
"I am proud of my ethnic background.....you evidentially aren't. Those are personal choices. Is it your opinion that without ethnic pride humans would be better off?"
I am quite proud of mine too, I just don't flaunt it like so many others do... especially the Irish. Must we always hear about the Irish?? Bad enough they have a whole day devoted to themselves, but they do seem to blather on about themselves all the rest of the year too.
I seem to recall that my Norweigian, Norse back then, ancestors sorta ruled Irland for some time, only being stopped by the black death and Not by the Irish.
Here's some "ethnic pride" from the Pennsy Dutchie side o` me:
afrolumens.org
1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery
From Pennsylvania Law Book, vol. i, p. 339. This text was taken from William Henry Egle, M.D., M.A.; History of the Counties of Dauphin and Lebanon in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Biographical and Genealogical;, page 50; reprinted by Higginson Book Company, Salem, Massachusetts, 1991.
"Following is the full text of the act which doomed slavery in Pennsylvania. Enacted on March 1st, 1780, with a vote of 34 to 21, this law was partially the work of William Brown, a Pennsylvania legislator from Lancaster County.
"I. When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition to which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to reduce us, when we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have been exposed, and how miraculously our wants in many instances have been supplied, and our deliverances wrought, when even hope and human fortitude have become unequal to the conflict, we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful sense of the manifold blessings, which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being from whom every good and perfect gift cometh. Impressed with these ideas, we conceive that it is our duty , and we rejoice that it is in our power to extend a portion of that freedom to others which hath been extended to us, and release from that state of thraldom to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we now have every prospect of being delivered. It is not for us to inquire why in the creation of mankind the inhabitants of several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient to know that all are the work of an Almighty Hand. We find in the distribution of the human species that the most fertile as well as the most barren parts of the earth are inhabited by Men of complexions different from ours and from each other; from whence we may reasonably as well as religiously infer that He who placed them in their various situations, hath extended equally His care and protection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract His mercies.
"We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us, that we are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civilization, by removing as much as possible the sorrows of those who have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which by the assumed authority of the Kings of Great Britain no effectual legal relief could be obtained. Weaned, by a long course of experience, from those narrow prejudices and partialities we have imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence toward men of all conditions and nations, and we perceive ourselves at this particular period extraordinarily called upon by the blessings which we have received, to manifest the sincerity of our profession to give substantial proof of our gratitude.
"II. And, whereas, the condition of those persons who have heretofore been denominated Negro and Mulatto slaves, has been attended with circumstances which not only deprived them of the common blessings that they were by nature entitled to, but has cast them into the deepest afflictions by an unnatural separation and sale of husband and wife from each other and from their children, an injury the greatness of which can only be conceived by supposing that we were in the same unhappy case. In justice, therefore, to persons so unhappily circumstanced, and who, having no prospect before them whereon they may rest their sorrows and hopes, have no reasonable inducement to render their services to society, which they otherwise might, and also in grateful commemoration of our own happy deliverance from that state of unconditional submission to which we were doomed by the tyranny of Britain."
You can read the rest at the link provided
And if you wish to be made sufficently humble in the face of those who truly built this country, the German Americans, go here for a start:
serve.com
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