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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (21118)	4/29/1998 2:57:00 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Slavery has at many times, in many civilizations, been the norm. The Greeks, who had an admirable democracy, had slaves. Slavery per se, IMO, is not wrong- we just have a cultural abhorrence to it, which is fine with me. But the fact that our ancestors, living in a time when slavery was an accepted norm, owned slaves has nothing to do with our "Karma". After all slave capture was a big business among many tribes in Africa. They were capturing each other for slavery well before the white slave traders (starting with the dutch?) made it big business in America- after all the Greeks, Romans, Carthiginians, etc, had black slaves- it wasn't a new thing invented by white colonists. And don't forget the role of the Arab slave traders. Everyone has someone in their history who has had a hand in slavery (the American Indians captured each other for slavery- women and children anyway, and lets not forget the Incas and Aztecs). Slaves are just REALLY handy in pre-industrial societies. We don't need them anymore so it is easy to be emotional and terribly shocked about the whole thing but it is a facile position.

To: Grainne who wrote (21118)	4/29/1998 4:50:00 PM
From: Thomas C. White	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

"Does everyone know that the colonists did not really want to become independent from England? That they felt they had no choice except to take a stand over taxation without representation in that funny situation where all the tea ended up in Boston Harbor, but that they did not want to go to war?" Well, a few things -- first of all, by the time the Declaration was signed, the movement to independence had a very broad, majority base of support in the colonies. This largely stemmed from a long series of almost comically foolish British mis-steps, which took place over about five years, whereby rather than accommodating to some degree the colonists' earlier demands for a status different from Britain's other colonies, the government of George III over time sought to basically make an example of the uppity Americans. At no time was the "taxation without representation" thing much more than a very nice slogan. The colonists of course were aware that, even with representation in Parliament, they would never be able to avoid any taxation that the Crown deemed appropriate. They would be "represented," and voted down. Representation in Parliament was never all that important to most of the colonists, much more the ability to make a living unimpeded by the decisions of the Crown. The rejection of British rule by the colonists was the culmination of various things over a long period: originally, because of the colonists' contention that they should not be responsible for paying the expenses of the French & Indian War (the British crown had traditionally allocated a measure of costs of fighting wars in colonies to the colonies themselves); and the restriction of the colonies from buying and selling goods from/to anyone but Britain, at prices set by the British to favor the homeland; and later a series of increasingly punitive measures such as the Quartering Act, which the British Crown often promulgated with the express intent of putting the colonists in their place. While at the outset of the troubles, not many envisioned that the colonies would declare independence, by the time that it actually happened, the majority of the colonists were convinced that it was necessary. Otherwise, there certainly would have been a full-scale revolt when the Declaration was signed. In fact, this is exactly what the British were expecting, and when it did not happen, they were completely flummoxed and began to realize that they had a much bigger problem on their hands than they thought. At the same time, even if the British had not made this series of blunders, it's doubtful that America would have remained a colony. It only would have probably delayed an independence movement that would have developed as Britain's and America's interests increasingly diverged. As to the "going to war" question, certainly, the colonists would have preferred Britain to simply accept the Declaration, and in fact were actively playing the "French card" at the time of the signing to dissuade Britain from going to war. However, it was implicit in the signing that war was a probability.

To: Grainne who wrote (21118)	4/29/1998 6:49:00 PM
From: James R. Barrett	1 Recommendation Respond to of 108807

>>".......and that until we make whole our relationships with blacks that we brought here as slaves, Native Americans we committed genocide against......."<< My God Christine, what kind of a family do you come from? Are you telling us that YOUR ancestors were slave traders and also slaughtered Native Americans? That's disgusting. I hope you have disassociated yourself with them. My ancestors were very kind and decent people. They used to exchange gifts with the slaves and Native Americans at Christmas time. One of my ancestors was killed by one of your slave trading ancestors when he got caught helping one of the slaves to escape. I feel very fortunate that MY family tree is filled with good people and I feel very sorry for you that YOUR family tree is filled with such evil people. I guess we all can't be winners when it comes to family. Jim