Tuesday, April 9, 2013

P.C. liberals are more than three-fifths dumb

From Robert Weissberg:

Like many readers I recently encountered the sad tale of how James W. Wagner, President of Emory University, had to apologize for praising the Constitution’s three-fifths compromise (treating slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of congressional representation). 
A letter to Wagner from the Department of History and African American studies called his analysis “an insult to the descendants of those enslaved people who are today a vital part of the Emory University community and our nation.” 
Wagner’s apology, “To those hurt or confused by my clumsiness and insensitivity, please forgive me,” closely resembles a Soviet-era show trial where the already guilty defendant tries to save himself with a self-humiliating confession. 
Alas, this self-degradation is apparently insufficient and the College of Arts and Sciences faculty has formally censured president Wagner. Perhaps like Soviet show trial victims, he should immediately confess even more grievous sins so the faculty will spare his family.

Wagner was accused by the p.c. police of denigrating blacks by endorsing the legal concept that slaves were only three-fifths of a human being for the purpose of apportionment in the Constitution.

Nonsense.

It is the liberal inquisitors, not President Wagner, who take the slave owners' side in the argument.

The question facing the Consitutional Convention was: how do we account for slaves in the apportionment of representation on the House of Representatives? Northern abolitionist states insisted that apportionment of political power in the House be according only to the free population in states. They argued that it was immoral to count slaves for purposes of apportionment, because that would mean that the slaves-- who were not free to participate in the political process-- would add to the political power of their slave owners.

The Northern abolitionists' argument was that States should get votes in the House only in accordance with the number of citizens that they allow to freely participate in the electoral process. The Northern abolitionists wanted to reduce the power of the slave states, in order ultimately to eradicate slavery.

The Southern slave-owning states wanted slaves counted the same as free men, so the slave owners would benefit from the increased representation in the House of Representatives without having to allow slaves to participate in the electoral process. Counting slaves as free men for the purpose of apportionment would have greatly increased the power of the slave states in Congress. 

The three-fifths compromise allowed the Union to form, while giving the Southern slave-owning states as little legislative power as possible. 

The Constitutional apportionment of slaves as less than free men was part of an effort to abolish, not expand, slavery. 

The culpable ignorance of the politically correct prosecutors of this show trial is jaw-dropping. The little stalins of today's p.c. police, in their fervor to prosecute heresy, in fact make the slave-owners argument. Counting slaves as full citizens for the purposes of apportionment, while denying them political participation, would have enormously empowered the slave-owners. The purpose of the Northern abolitionists for not counting slaves (or for counting them as less than free men for the purpose of apportionment) was to fight slavery. 

The p.c. police-- including faculty who have a professional responsibility to know the facts in this matter, accuse the President of Emory University of racial insensivity, while at the same time idiotically making the argument that the slave owners made

Goodness gracious I can't stand liberals. 

21 comments:

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    ReplyDelete
  2. How incredibly disingenuous of you Doctor. Consider what Wagner’s critics actually said:

    “Compromise is necessary to the public good, but we urge you to be careful about the compromises you hold up for emulation. Some compromises don’t hold; others shouldn’t hold. Surely if the goal is to make Emory, and our nation, a “more perfect union” that is inclusive instead of exclusive, and if compromise is a possible model, there are more admirable choices than the Three-Fifths Compromise.”
    "The use of the Three-Fifths Compromise for any reason is unacceptable because, regardless of the context of the compromise, African-Americans see it simply as looking at black people as less than a human being,"

    That’s not the slave owners argument, not even close.

    -KW

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    Replies
    1. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyApril 9, 2013 at 9:50 AM

      "...there are more admirable choices than the Three-Fifths Compromise."

      Like what?

      I always find it amusing when academics look back and find that, had they just been there themselves, had humanity just been graced with the benefit of their profound and shimmering wisdom, everything would have been different. And better.

      Perhaps the local canonical example of that is hoo's supposed friend who allegedly claimed he could have done a much better job designing the human genome (I still haven't seen a working demo). But this letter is a pretty good one, too.

      Delete
    2. Like what? Seriously? How about any compromise that doesn’t label a race as 3/5 human, and doesn’t help lay the groundwork for the bloodiest war in American history.

      -KW

      Delete
    3. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyApril 9, 2013 at 1:23 PM

      Oh sure. Just any old one, right, lackwit? How about labeling a race as 3/4 human? 7/8? 99/100? Or one that says No Bloody Groundwork Allowed So Don't Even Bother To Ask?

      Jeez. Why didn't those morons think of that? I can see you've really thought this through! Damn shame you weren't there to help, love god.

      Delete
    4. @KW:

      What compromises would you have suggested?

      Delete
    5. What compromises would you have suggested?

      Gee, how about the compromise of having a bicameral legislature?

      Delete
    6. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyApril 9, 2013 at 4:39 PM

      See below...

      Delete
    7. KW:

      Answer the question, coward. On the issue of census apportionment of slaves, what compromise would you have suggested?

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    8. I’m a coward for not answering a question that isn’t even pertinent? You fools seem to miss the point entirely that Wagner could have told a story of any number of compromises that avoid celebrating the up-side of blacks being 3/5ths human.

      -KW

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  3. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyApril 9, 2013 at 8:48 AM

    There's an interesting article about this in Public Choice. Dougherty and Heckelman (2008) did a statistical analysis of voting behavior at the Constitutional Convention.

    They argue that the votes on apportionment and regulation of the slave trade were driven by different factors. With regard to regulation of the trade, delegates' votes were primarily driven by two factors: state interest (slaves per capita) and geography (which may not, IMNSHO, have been statistically independent).

    However, with regard to apportionment, religion was a major driver. Regardless of state/geo issues, delegates who were religious abolitionists tended to vote against the purported economic interest of their own states.

    The victory of the apportionment compromise faction meant that the slave states ended up with 47 seats in the first Congress. If slaves had not been counted in apportionment, these states would have had only 33 votes. And the history of this country could, and probably would, have been very different.

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    1. Georgie,

      And if the slave states hadn't received their 47 seats in the first Congress, would they have joined the Union? If they hadn't joined, then agreed the history of America would have been very different. IMHO.

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    2. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyApril 9, 2013 at 9:22 AM

      Obviously, there might not have been a Union to join. No one can really say.

      However, had there been enough religious abolitionists at the Convention, it wouldn't have passed. Being a from northern state did not mean a vote against (N) the compromise. MA, NH, and CT all voted Y, and Virginia voted N.

      Delete
    3. And if the slave states hadn't received their 47 seats in the first Congress, would they have joined the Union?

      There was already a union, the Articles of Confederation established that prior to the Constitutional Convention.

      Delete
    4. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyApril 9, 2013 at 4:19 PM

      Was that an issue that required compromise? Wikipedia suggests that a bicameral legislature was not an issue of contention:

      The division of the legislature into an upper and lower house wasn't questioned either, despite the obscure origins of the English House of Lords and its role as the representative of the hereditary nobility. Americans had never known much besides bicameral legislatures, both in Britain and in most state governments. [...] Experience had convinced the delegates that an upper house was necessary to tame the passions of the people.

      Did Wiki get that wrong?

      Delete
    5. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyApril 9, 2013 at 4:20 PM

      Oops, sorry. That comment was intended for the previous thread...

      Delete
    6. Was that an issue that required compromise?

      Yes, it was. That is why there were two competing plans - the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan.

      Delete
  4. "The question facing the Consitutional Convention was: how do we account for slaves in the apportionment of representation on the House of Representatives? "

    ... and taxation.

    The 3/5 clause was about not only political power in the new government, but also how how the costs of that government -- which was explicitly forbidden to directly tax the people -- were to be apportioned.

    In full, the Northern States wanted to to fully count slaves for the purposes of taxation, and to fully discount them for the purposes of representation. On the other hand, the Southern States wanted to to fully discount slaves for the purposes of taxation, and to fully count them for the purposes of representation.

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  5. "Like what? Seriously? How about any compromise that doesn’t label a race as 3/5 human, and doesn’t help lay the groundwork for the bloodiest war in American history."

    Egnor had just finished explaining that the US Constitution did *not* "label a race as 3/5 human" ... and what does this God-damned (and I mean that, literally) leftist do? He goes right back to asserting the lie.

    Leftists to the lies are like dogs to their vomit.

    The 3/5 compromise did not say that an enslaved person *counts* as 3/5 of a person; is says that 3/5 of the count of all enslaved persons shall be used for apportionment purposes for taxation and representation.

    HERE is an interesting observation -- The US Constitution always acknowledges that enslaved persons *are* persons -- you know, that very thing that "liberals" and other leftists just can't bring themselves to do with respect to persons of smallness ... and nor, coming soon to an abattoir near you, to persons of feebleness.

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    Replies
    1. We were all, at one time, a "person of smallness", and we will all, at some time, be a "person of feebleness".

      Ultimately, the "liberal" stance is that *none* of us really are persons.

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  6. "P.C. liberals are more than three-fifths dumb"

    Whatever the precise proportion of their dumbness happens to be, they are 100% dishonest.

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