Monday, March 10, 2014

Watching a movie about Democrat Party history...

I'm spending a Sunday afternoon watching Twelve Years a Slave with my family. Wow. Powerful movie, excellent acting. Well-deserving of an Academy Award (I saw Gravity last night-- good movie, but not as good as Twelve Years.)

Something I was thinking while watching it: Christianity was depicted as hypocritical vile doctrine used to justify any kind of horror perpetrated against the slaves. Of course, many horrors have been perpetrated in its name, but obviously ownership and abuse of human beings is not Christian in any actual sense. Early Christianity tolerated slavery (not chattel slavery, but the slavery that was extant in Roman civilization at the time) as the real long-standing state of affairs, and worked hard to endow it with as much humanity and charity as the social system would allow (c.f. Philemon). Over the next few centuries, Christianity wiped slavery off the map in lands in which it held sway. By the early Middle Ages, it was gone from Christendom, but remained everywhere else. Chattel slavery in the New World was a decisively un-Christian reversion to brutality and sin. Slavery in the New World was condemned by the Catholic Church repeatedly and decisively: in 1537 by Sublimis Deus, which was accompanied by Pastorale Officium which imposed a latae sententiae excommunication on slave owners and traders. Slavery was condemned by the Congregation of the Holy Office (otherwise known as The Inquisition, for you Catholic-haters) on March 20, 1686, and repeatedly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example in Pipe Gregory XVI's 1839 Papal Bull In Supremo, which reiterated the Church's consistent centuries-old condemnation of slavery. In 1888 and 1890, Pope Leo XIII again condemned slavery and demanded that it be eliminated throughout the world as it had been eliminated in Christendom.

So watching the movie, I was perplexed by the insinuation that Christianity was a rationalization for slavery. While many slave-owners invoked Scripture to defend slavery, there was massive, consistent, and ancient opposition to slavery from the Catholic Church and from many courageous Protestant denominations. In fact, Christians formed the core of the anti-slavery movement-- William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, John Newton, William Lloyd Garrison and countless other Christians as well as entire congregations of Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists-- are exemplars of the devout Christians who worked passionately to free slaves. And Christianity played a central role in the spiritual lives of slaves themselves-- they understood that Christ was on their side and that they were all God's children.

So why was Christianity portrayed so dishonestly in the movie? The reason, of course, is that lying about Christianity is de rigueur in Hollywood. The screenwriters just went with the flow.

But here's what was missing: slavery was the core public policy of the Democrat Party during the ante-bellum era. Democrats were the slave-owners party. The Democrats were only cured of their slave lust by Union armies in the bloodiest war in American history (caused entirely by Democrats fighting for slavery). After the Civil War, Democrats created the Ku Klux Klan, enacted Jim Crow and created the largest Progressive government program in American history-- segregation.

Leading Democrat politicians like Wilson, FDR, Truman, JFK, Lyndon Johnson, George Wallace and a host of lesser Dems (countless senators, governors, congressmen and the like) either overtly supported and enacted segregation or worked in collaboration with fellow segregationist Democrats to beat, lynch, and otherwise degrade and abuse black Americans for a century. Today, the worst fate a young black man can suffer in America is to be raised in a Democrat-controlled city like Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, and scores of other crime-infested Democrat municipalities. The violent mortality of young black men growing up on the streets of Detroit is almost certainly higher than the violent mortality of young black men growing up in the antebellum South.

Only 21st century Democrats can kill more black people than 19th century Democrats.

Here's the rub: you never-- never-- see slave-owners in superb movies like Twelve Years a Slave talking about their beloved slave-holding Democrat Party, or how they live by Democrat Party pro-slavery principles, or how they have to take time out from flogging slaves to go to their Democrat Party meetings.

Odd how the intimate correlation between slavery and the Democrat Party is never mentioned by the entertainment cognescenti, but there's always a slave-raping Christian pastor lying about Christian teaching on slavery. Yet all slave owners were Democrats, passionate Democrats nearly always, and hardly Christians in any meaningful sense.

Why is Christianity's tangential (and contradictory) relation to slavery, but not the Democrat Party's essential bond with slavery, invariably the only ideological connection to slavery offered in movies and popular culture?

No slave owner was a Christian, in any honest spiritual sense. Every slave owner was in a state of mortal sin. The abolitionist movement was run from Christian churches, as was the Civil Rights Movement. Yet every slave owner-- and nearly all KKKers and segregationists-- were Democrats in good standing.

The reason is that Hollywood elites-- Progressive Democrats to their cocaine-marinated bones-- are the moral and political descendants of the slave-owners, and the central frantic endeavor (largely successful) of Progressive Democrat elites since the mid 20th century has been shoving their direct responsibility for slavery and segregation down the memory hole.

Movies about slavery that don't mention Democrats are like movies about the Holocaust that don't mention Nazis.

Think about that while you watch Twelve Years a Slave

27 comments:

  1. As I observe the debate over private sector nondiscrimination laws, I am reminded how little the Democrats have changed.

    I am a private business owner. The government didn't give me a dime to start my business, in fact I send them money every April 15th.

    I should be allowed to choose whom I do business with. If I don't want to fulfill an order, that's my business. When the government steps in and forces me to serve to someone I don't want to, that's involuntary servitude by definition.

    Involuntary servitude is unconstitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment, commonly known as the slavery amendment. But Democrats never change. One hundred and fifty years later and they still want to hold people in involuntary servitude.

    JQ

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    Replies
    1. you're right. you shouldn't have to do business with anyone you don't want to.

      naidoo

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  2. the left wants to make us all slaves to the state. freedom is just too hard for them.

    naidoo

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  3. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyMarch 10, 2014 at 6:54 AM

    There's a popular saying that you are what you eat. People pay close attention to what they eat in a culture addicted to personal trainers, gluten-free crazes, and the like. And in a very real sense, that's true.

    But it's also true that you are what you read and watch. You are the mental fare you consume. Just ask the Soviets, the Cubans, or the North Koreans. Those governments are very careful to ensure that the "masses" are exposed only to "healthy" mental fare. In fact, our very own government just backed off a plan - for now - to put political officers in newsrooms.

    Since my Christian conversion, I have come to realize ("I was blind, but now I see") that the media are a propaganda sewer.

    Here's Doc, on the historical propaganda-washing of Twelve Years a Slave: "After the Civil War, [racist] Democrats created [...] the largest Progressive government program in American history-- segregation....[T]he intimate correlation between slavery and the Democrat Party is never mentioned by the entertainment cognescenti..."

    And racist Democrats are now trying to re-create it...

    Democrat Spike Lee on white people moving into his old 'hood:
    I mean, they [white people] just move in the neighborhood. You just can’t come in the neighborhood. I’m for democracy and letting everybody live but you gotta have some respect. You can’t just come in when people have a culture that’s been laid down for generations and you come in and now shit gotta change because you’re here? Get the fuck outta here. Can’t do that!

    Or this:
    [Progressive Hampshire College] students were calling for [...] residence halls exclusively for students of color and for “queer-identified” students.
    --- Chronicle of Higher Education (3/2008)

    Democrats love segregation! Every single one of the top 10 segregated cities in America (huffpo) is run by Democrats. Detroit, Milwaukee, New York, Newark, and Chicago are the top five. As the mattamatical progolodytes around here would say, "do a statistical test".

    Personally speaking, I gave up cable television years ago, and I don't spend my money at the box office. Both are Progressive sewers. And you are what you read and watch.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. 'Yes' to all you say about the television and 'media' in general.

      First tried to stop watching television in 2000.
      By 2003 I was 'totally clean'. Now I never watch television under any circumstances.
      However, here's the tricky issue Admiral......
      Do you still have friends whom you like and respect...except for the fact that they not only watch television; they actually expose their children to it as well?
      I do.
      This is tricky as no decent person, let alone a Christian, should EVER expose their children to television.
      It is spiritual & intellectual poison. There are no excuses really. The television does not inform anyone. If it entertains you, then you should reflect on what you have come to consider 'entertainment'.

      Not watching television, or the films that our host writes about; is a for of spiritual & intellectual hygiene.
      We cannot wallow in a sewer and then complain about the stink. Like most really dangerous problems; we have to choose to be infected/affected.
      You are correct when you point out how 'controlled' television is in all degenerate societies.
      Like ours.

      Regards.


      John R.

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  4. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

    Until very recently, the RCC had no problem with "just slavery", as opposed to "unjust slavery".

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    1. From antislavery.org: "West-Indisch Huis in the centre of Amsterdam was the former headquarters of the Dutch West-Indische Compagnie, which was probably the largest single SLAVE TRADER in history."

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  5. Well, at least you admit that the civil war was fought because Southerners wanted to continue owning slaves. There’s no arguing the fact that while it’s true they were Democrats at the time, they’re Republicans now.

    -KW

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    Replies
    1. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyMarch 10, 2014 at 7:47 AM

      Democrats then, Republicans now, eh? Well, Popeye, don't worry.

      They're pretty old. Probably can't get to the polls. :-D

      Delete
    2. I don’t think southerners are that much older than average; fatter, less educated, and poorer than average sure, but not older.

      -KW

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    3. Adm G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyMarch 10, 2014 at 9:13 AM

      Check your demographics, race baiter.

      Delete
    4. Yep, everything checks out.

      Obesity

      http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gPGXNJ2iofA/UR7bYd75VoI/AAAAAAAABVo/ozruFe4D6Ks/s1600/obesity_by_county_large.png

      Poverty

      http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_poverty.gif

      Education

      http://www.raconline.org/racmaps/mapfiles/education.png

      age

      http://media-cache-cd0.pinimg.com/736x/15/04/44/150444d46572596bb281fea74db28ce0.jpg

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    5. KW. ALL the slaveowners are dead. ALL of them. Most of the segregationists are dead. Their descendants discarded the racist baggage which had hobbled their societies. They discarded the Democrat Party which promoted racism. And now the South is rising again. As a free market Republican society. As a society where everyone is respected. A society which many blacks find more congenial than the racism in Chicago and Detroit.

      Delete
    6. I’m so glad to hear that the descendants of slave-owners have so thoroughly rejected their deplorable past. Those Confederate flags flying in state capitols must be there to be a constant reminder of how despicable they were so they don’t backslide. I wonder why it is then that they like Rand Paul so much, a man who wants to make it legal again to close your lunch counter to blacks, or why within two days of the conservative Supreme court gutting the Voting Rights Act southern states were enacting laws to disenfranchise black voters.

      I wish the South would rise again, but it seems they would rather make themselves into an uninsured unorganized pool of cheap labor willing to work for dirt pay. Considering the poverty rate is higher and the percentage of people with health insurance is lower than the rest of the country I would like to think they have nowhere to go but up, but unfortunately that’s not the case as southerners continue to vote against their own best interests. I just wish they’d stop dragging the rest of us down with them.

      -KW

      Delete
    7. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyMarch 10, 2014 at 5:00 PM

      Nobody: "Yep, everything checks out."

      You forgot one thing. In fact, it's what we're talking about.

      Race.

      I'm sure it was just an oversight. When you're an MSNBC parrot, it's easy to get caught up in the spin.

      Delete
    8. The confederate flags were placed there by Democrats too.

      Here's an idea, KW; Maybe the confederate flag means something different to them than it means to you.

      No one "enacted laws to disenfranchise black voters." You're speaking, of course, of voter ID laws. Such laws "discriminate" against people who shouldn't be voting: felons, noncitizens, and residents of cemetary plots.

      In Texas, for example, you can actually obtain a free ID from the state for purposes of voting. I'm sure they're giving away free IDs because they want to disenfranchise people.

      Democrats can't win if they don't cheat. They have a long history of cheating, which is why they can't stand voter ID. They want the whole process to operate on the honor system because they have none.

      Ben

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  6. "(not chattel slavery, but the slavery that was extant in Roman civilization at the time)"

    "The slavery that was extant in Roman civilization at the time" was worse than anything that ever happened in America. For example, American slavers didn't have the legal right to just kill their slaves ... as though they actually were chattel.

    Everyone calls the slavery in America "chattle slavery", but American law, unlike Roman, did recognize that slaves were persons.

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    1. "While many slave-owners invoked Scripture to defend slavery ..."

      And the reason they tried to invoke the Judeo-Christian Scriptures to defend slavery is precisely because the only organized and socially-significant opposition to slavery -- in all of human history -- was based on the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and religion.

      Delete
  7. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyMarch 10, 2014 at 8:01 AM

    Off-topic: Putin vs. Obama

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    Replies
    1. Conservatives always fall for the macho fascist Christian dictator types.

      -KW

      Delete
    2. Adm G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyMarch 10, 2014 at 9:11 AM

      Progs always fall for the metrosexual sissyboys. Sorry, I meant Pajama Boys.

      Cocoa, anyone?

      Delete
  8. "Democrats then, Republicans now, eh? Well, Popeye, don't worry.

    They're pretty old. Probably can't get to the polls. :-D
    "

    Of course, soon as they die, they'll be voting Democrat again.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Egnore, as I explained to you before, and as everyone knows except for you, apparently, the two parties have flipped roles. Today's Republican Party is the ideological descendant of the Democratic Party of the 1860s, and today's Democratic Party is the ideological heir of the Lincoln Republicans of the same era. Sorry if that is so inconvenient for you, but it is absolutely true, and the change began with the New Deal, when the Democrats under FDR jettisoned small government for big government, and it culminated under JFK/LBJ and the Civil Rights legislation of the 60s. You're a member of a party descending from the 19th century racists you claim to oppose. O, irony!

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    1. Anon, for your comment to make any sense you would have to see Woodrow Wilson as a 'small government' President. He had the government seize control of the railways. That wasn't very 'small' government.

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    2. "Today's Republican Party is the ideological descendant of the Democratic Party of the 1860s, and today's Democratic Party is the ideological heir of the Lincoln Republicans of the same era."

      What part of Dem Party ideology from the 1860's do we now share? State's Rights? There was talk of secession in New England, you know, back around 1805-1812, when the maritime interests there vehemently opposed Jefferson's policies. Couldn't have been that. Maybe it was the Democrat preference for government defined status….no, wait. They still prefer government defined status. Dred Scott lives! On the Democrat Plantation, that is.


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