No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
These are the last four lines of the third verse of our national anthem. The same anthem that Colin Kaepernick will no longer stand for. He says he’s protesting the treatment of blacks in America. I have no idea if he is aware of these lines or their meaning. I only became aware of this through an article appearing in “The Intercept” yesterday. The fact that run away slaves joined the British to fight against their former American owners clearly chapped Francis Scott Key’s ass. The irritation from that chapped ass made its way into what became our national anthem.
Today I found an interesting article about this chapter in our history written by an Army chaplain. Naturally, as a chaplain, he turned it into a sermon… and a far too simplistic one at that. Nevertheless, the article is still interesting and informative.
**********************************
On May 30, 1814, the Corps of Colonial Marines, a British force consisting of freed slaves, made their first amphibious landing of the War in 1812. Assaulting an artillery battery along Virginia’s eastern shore through a hail of enemy fire, the Colonial Marines performed better than expected.
“Though one of them was shot and died instantly in the front of the others,” British Rear Adm. George Cockburn wrote. “It did not daunt or check the others in the least but on the contrary animated them to seek revenge.”
In the end, they helped capture the battery and pursued their enemy into the woods before being called back to their landing craft and sailing to their base on Tangier Island.
I love to read history and I love to root for the Americans even when I am reading about a historical figure from another nation. However, in the case of the Corps of Colonial Marines I find myself not rooting for the Americans, but for their invading enemy, the British. This is because of two things that set the Colonial Marines apart in history.
The first, the Corps of Colonial Marines were made up of freed African American men who escaped slavery, then fought against their former masters alongside the Royal Marines. The second reason, they fought so well that by June 1814, Cockburn came to prefer the Colonial Marines to his own Royal Marines, finding them stronger and less likely to desert. The Colonial Marines also provided invaluable intelligence, guiding the British through the backwoods and waters with more intimate knowledge than their former masters. Yet, what Cockburn appreciated the most about the Colonial Marines was the incredible fear they inspired in the Americans.
Although they were of African descent and formerly enslaved, the British gave the Colonial Marines the same training, uniforms, pay, and pensions as the Royal Marines. A very interesting part of the story is the Colonial Marines not only exposed the hypocrisies of American liberty, but the British provided proof, when treated equally, these men could perform equally or better than their Caucasian counterparts.
“Do to others as you would like them to do to you,” the Bible recorded these famous words of Jesus, hundreds of years earlier.
The American slave owners neglected to follow this simple teaching, which drove the enslaved men to join the British. On the other hand, the British, who did follow this teaching, were blessed with powerful allies who helped them fight their way to Washington. The moral of this story is not only will you lose friends by mistreating them, but also when you treat people the way that you would like to be treated; you may gain friends who will stand by your side.
Army Chaplain (CPT) ROB HOSKINS, JTF-GTMO Chaplain
********************************
I have no doubt Kaepernick is sincere about his actions and his reasons for those actions. I am glad the NFL and his coach have stood by his right to take those actions. He must also stand by the consequences of those actions. But I also fully understand the reactions of many who are burning his jersey and now consider him a spoiled, ungrateful son of a bitch. I don’t follow football, but I’m happy that Alex Ovechkin, Russian to his core, respectfully stands during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a Caps game in Verizon Center. I am pleased and proud that I am now authorized to render a hand salute during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at that same Caps game at Verizon Center.
What I do take vigorous exception to is the notion that I must cling to some all white version of Western civilization in a desperate attempt to save my white tribe from cultural oblivion. I’m proud of the many glorious social, cultural, military, scientific and technological achievements of Western civilization. They are magnificent. But I am not blind to its mistakes and shortcomings. There is no tribe out there with a monopoly on virtue, creativity, cruelty or stupidity.
On a more personal note, I resent the notion that my tribe cannot include all those black and Hispanic (mostly Mexican) soldiers I served with in the 35th Infantry. My rifle platoon was one third each black, Hispanic and white. The mortar section in my weapons platoon was almost exclusively Mexican and black. Surprisingly, tensions and fights were always between companies and battalions, not races. Yes, we were all members of our own respective ethnic tribes, but we were all willing to fight and die for our common tribe. I loved them as much as I loved my all white Special Forces Detachment and my extrordinarily multicultural SMU team.
To anyone who thinks I should fall in behind the banner of white nationalism or follow the hopping green hitler frog or whatever to save Western civilization, I offer the phrase taught to me by my first platoon sergeant, SSG Livingston, a black man, “Kiss me where it stinks, mutha fukka.”
TTG
P.S. If I was a better man, I would have found a quote from Pope Francis rather than SSG Livingstone.
Additional info about the Brits, the blacks and the War of 1812:
http://starspangledtrail.net/life-during-wartime/blacks
In the Declaration of Independence, the “property” alluded to, was also slaves.
Brunswick,
I thought Jefferson changed “property” to “the pursuit of happiness.”
Brunswick, I’m also sure the right to property also included other goods, possessions and land besides slaves.
TTG: Well said!
Although one snivel on my part. I will still place my hand over my heart during the Star Spangled Banner when not wearing a cover. It is in my bones and I would never be able to salute when uncovered.
mike,
I hear ya. Every time I go through the gates at Quantico MCB, I return the sentry’s salute with a nod and a “How you doing, Marine.”
As in the War of 1812, Britain also freed any slaves that came over to their side in the War, barred and punished “slave catchers”, and constituted Regiments of Freed Slaves.
Sadly, post War, post 1812, many settled in the Maritimes, and Upper Canada, where they were at best, ignored.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/23/was-the-american-revolution-fought-to-save-slavery/
I too was struck by this story in the Intercept. Definitely interesting history. I had heard many years back that the latter verses of the Star Spangled Banner was a denounciation of those Americans who were critical of US policy that led to the War of 1812. Basically an early version of accusing the antiwar movement of being traitors. We have definitely seen that played over and over again in recent decades. I experienced that meme during opposition to the Viet Nam War.
Here is another anecdote. Patrick Cockburn, the Independent reporter who had some of the best articles describing the rise of ISIS a few years back, is a direct descendant of George Cockburn. His brothers Andrew and the late Alexander and his father Claude were solid left wing journalists.
There was a lot of anti-war sentiment in New England at that time. Madison’s Embargo Act hit the region hard. Most calls for milita units to fight the war were refused and there was serious talk of secession. If the war didn’t end when it did, we could have had our civil war a lot earlier.
The North/South Divide in the US was there long before the Cotton Gin.
Most certainly true. One of the big reasons for the establish clause in the first amendment of the US bill of rights is because the Virginians insisted on it. They were afraid that the New Englanders would establish their Protestant version (Anglican, Episcopalian, whatever) the state religion. They wanted to protect what their version of Christianity from the New Englanders version.
Now that is ironic. The strongest objections to the separation of church and state today seems to be coming from those churches rooted in the south.
Thanks, TTG, in hindsight one of things I cannot understand at all, is why I found history so boring in school. Let’s say, compared to something helpful like mathematics. Studying literature pulled the veil from my eyes concerning many fields that weren’t exactly love at first sight. On the top of the list surely is history.
LeaNder
“The proper study of mankind is man.” A lot of STEM types would rather spend their lives contemplating something as artificial as mathematics. It is a lot easier than trying to understand people. I say that while still married to my first wife, SWMBO, who has come around to a full appreciation of the humanities after having been inoculated with the STEM needle in her youth. pl
toivos
IMO the North-South divide was imported from the old country at the very beginning. New England was a planned effort to establish a theocratic state complete with litmus tests for church membership in Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut. Plymouth was so small that it hardly mattered and was quickly absorbed by the larger Puritan colonies that were of a different faith rather than the “Pilgrim” separatist splinter group. You need to learn some specifics. The “established” religion in colonial New England was the Puritan variety of the “established” religion in England. It sought to purify the Church of England not to destroy it. Many of the stakeholders in New England were ministers of the Gospel, and educated at Cambridge University in England, a hotbed of Puritan theorizing and teaching. Several of my ancestors were among them. These “divines” as they were called were usually well off financially and brought servants and employees with them to New England. The society did not tolerate dissent of any kind and saw the New World as a desolation to be conquered and disciplined. In Virginia the non-Puritan variety of the Church of England was the “established” religion. It, too, did not tolerate dissent and Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, Baptists, etc. were not initially allowed within the colony, but it saw the forests and mountains as an immense garden and a proof of God’s bounty. When the English civil war broke out in the 1640s many people in New England returned to England to fight in the war. In the restoration of royal authority in 1660 the Puritans pretty much lost whatever they thought they were going to accomplish politically in New England although their baleful spiritual influence persists in the US, including among a lot of Baptists, etc. in the South. As David Habakkuk has observed, the US is the only place on earth in which 17th Century English Puritanism has persisted as a pattern of thought including in its secularized forms. BTW, slavery was legal in nearly all of New England for a long time. pl
TTG
I find the dates puzzling. Twenty or thirty years had elapsed since the War of Independence. Men of military age for service in the ranks are usually in their 20s or 30s. Where were these Colonial Marines born? New Brunswick? Also, during the War of 1812 slavery was still legal in the British Empire. pl
Colonel, are you sure royal authority was restored in 1640? Didn’t King Charles lose his head sometime in the 1640’s? Forgive me for being such a nitpick.
morgan
Thanks. I meant 1660 roughly. pl
pl,
By that time I’m sure a lot of the slaves who fled to the British were American born. Some could have been born in Africa. That was immaterial to the Brits who formed these regiments of Colonial Marines. A prime reason to form the regiments was to deprive America of this valuable labor pool. It certainly wasn’t done out of a desire to free the slaves. I’m aware that the Brits feared slave rebellions in their colonies as much as the Americans did on their plantations.
Brunswick,
Yet the British did not free the other slaves within their empire.
TTG,
Interesting history. As to Mr. Kaepernick. Well he’s a multimillionaire victim of oppression. Or in other words a very rich professional athlete whose career is on the inevitable decline but finds a way to gain public attention for his future wife’s tv/radio career. This is very much the m.o. of the BLM activist crowd. It reminds me very much of the Col.’s post on Hilary’s graduation speech where she insulted the US Senator from Massachusetts as a means to launch her political career.
TTG –
Thanks for this.
I ran SSG Livingstone’s quote thru google translate to find out how Papa Frank might have said it – “Unde brevis mihi osculum, mater irrumator!”
I’ll have to check that translation though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAfKFKBlZbM
TTG: A wonderful post.
Fred: No worries, Fred. And the British ancestors of Rear Admiral Cockburn are happily helping Saudi Arabia ruin Yemen, while expressing outrage that that Assad is fighting for his life in Syria.
Sadly, hypocrisy is universal.
TTG,
You can pick a side or have one picked for you. You’re playing by rules no one else is except to use them as a cudgel to beat you with. If you really thought the Founders envisioned Somali refugees living off the dole as what America is all about, I got no words for you bruh.
Given that, according to Pro Football Talk, Kaepernick was likely to be cut by the 49ers this year, even though the team would still owe him lots of money for not playing, and that he almost certainly knew this was likely to happen, I do have doubts that he is sincere about his actions and the reasons for them.
Background on the likelihood of CK getting cut (again per Pro Football Talk) is that aside from him being a rather pissy guy in general and that the team’s currrent offensive scheme wouldn’t fit him that well even if he weren’t pissy, he has had two off-season surgeries, was unable to work out, and his physique in general and his somewhat unique physical skills in particular have deteriorated a good deal as a result.
I think there is another factor in the North/South split: The influence of the Five Nations culture on the North.
The Iroquois Confederacy had a very strong personal liberty and anti-class bent to it. This attitude leaked into the northern states which tended to oppose a class of people “born to rule”. The southern states, on the other hand, turned the planter class into aristocrats in all but name.
Tyler,
The only Somali I knew was a fellow case officer in a SMU. We were on the same side. I’ll stick with my neighbors. We play by the same rules.
True, he has had a horrible fall camp and is in danger of not being on the active roster at season’s start. He lost a lot of weight as a result of the operations an that, in addition to lack of conditioning, has hurt him.
Regarding TTG’s comments on tribes- I recall being on a Marine Detachment aboard the USS CHICAGO years ago. When we met in port to turn over flag duties to another guided missile cruiser, there were fights- not between black, whites, Hispanics, or Asians,- but between the crews of the ships. Fortunately nobody got hurt badly, and it was actually a morale builder- for each ship’s crew.
I also initially found the dates puzzling. I did not find a date for when the Brits occupied Tangier Island. But looking at a timeline of the war I note that Chesapeake Bay was blockaded by the Royal Navy in December of 1812. I am guessing that was when they sent the Marines ashore to Tangier Island. If so that gave them a year and a half to encourage slaves on the DelMarVa peninsula (and mainland Virginia itself) to run away, and to recruit and train them before the 30 May 1814 battle that TTG cites.
I’m also not surprised that Cockburn thought them stronger than his British born Marines. They were born in the area and were acclimatized. And perhaps immune to many of the diseases plaguing the Brits. They had done the same in the Revolutionary War. Same with their Native A,erican allies, the most famous of which were the Shawnee, the Creek Red Sticks, and the Iriquois, but there were many, many more tribes proselytized to their side They also reportedly had a unit made up of former Napoleonic soldiers who were recruited from Brit prison ships.
One interesting item from their sojourn in the Chesapeake was their Raid on Alexandria.
Indeed it was. Not long ago I serendipitiously ran across a link to a Jane Smiley essay on David Hackett Fischer’s book “Albion’s Seed,” which goes in depth into the effects of the fact that different parts of the USA were “seeded” with immigrants from various and diverse parts of Britain. The North/South divide, and others, go back to the original settlement. Her essay provided a good overview of Fischer’s argument, but I’m looking forward to reading the book.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/janes-bingo-award-for-mos_b_37415.html
I guess CK has picked his spot. I guess a Man has to do what a Man has to do. Hopefully he was not pushed into this or cornered as that never is a good result, on either side. As one gets older one learns a little flexibility in life goes a long way.
Now when it comes to Anthems whether ours or another’s it is a matter of Respect to stand in solidarity with another. Anything else is disrespect no matter how it can looked at.
TTG,
You should look into what’s going on in Maine and Minneapolis then. There’s a bigger world than anecdotes.
Do you think a sub 100 IQ culture can maintain and understand the Federalist Papers and the Free Rights of Man?
TTG,
I think that while the ‘multiculturalism’ that can be found in military units is very real – as also that in other activities where there is a strong sense of common purpose – they are somewhat misleading in relation to how things work out in other contexts.
Another interesting example from British military history is that of the joint battles of Imphal and Kohima, between March and July 1944, when the Japanese threat to British control of India was decisively defeated.
At a competition held at the National Army Museum in 2013, Imphal/Kohima was voted ‘Britain’s Greatest Battle’. A bit under two-thirds of Slim’s ‘Fourteenth Army’ were Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs from the sub-continent.
(See http://www.nam.ac.uk/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/britains-greatest-battles/imphal-kohima .)
But then, in 1947, these different units went their separate ways – into different national armies, with the ‘Indian’ element joining what would become the profoundly antagonistic militaries of India and Pakistan.
Bobo,
Dude converted to Islam, but he also is married to a BLM activist, so I imagine there was an amount of shrewery involved.
“There’s a bigger world than anecdotes.”
Quite true, no matter left or right.
A Somali woman did quite a bit of Babysitting for one of my granddaughters. She was a wonderful woman. Spoke Italian better than my son-in-law from South Philly. But then his mother had immigrated from Sicily and spoke only a dialect of Italian.
TTG,
Thank you for posting this, especially the last few paragraphs! 🙂
I don’t think the British Indian army had integrated units that mixed different ethnicities side by side. (INA fighting on the Japanese side did, IIRC) I always wondered what kind of India might have been born had the army of the Raj were actually integrated.
Tyler,
I can’t speak for Maine but here in the Twin Cities we have one of the largest communities of recent East African immigrants in the US. True, there have been a few young men (no women that I know of) who’ve been radicalized and have gone back to their homeland or the Middle East to do Jihad, but the vast majority of them have assimilated quite well. They tend to be quite hard workers.
Tyler,
My father lives in Maine. I’ve spent a lot of time there. The Somalis in Lewiston and Portland are doing fine. Crime has not increased in spite of the horror stories the alt-right media pulls out of its ass. If any state could benefit from a largely industrious youthful influx of immigrants, it is Maine. The economy up there is sucking bilge water. I cannot speak to the situation in Minneapolis.
Do I think a sub 100 IQ POPULATION can maintain and understand the Federalist Papers and the Free Rights of Man? No. That’s why I think we should be paying a lot more attention to our education system. There should be a lot more teaching of civics and history at the grammar school and high school levels. Perhaps that’s why those “others” I know from military and government service share my culture. They’ve been educated.
Judging from your last paragraph of the fantastical blog post, I take it you’re voting for, or effectively voting for, the Marxist anti-American anti-Christian Islamist jihadist importing Trans-Pacific Partnership endorsing anti-1st amendment anti-2nd amendment anti-Semitic globalist Hillary Clinton. I find it quite telling how so many people who dislike Trump and claim to be religious won’t admit they’re voting for, or effectively voting for, the antithesis of a good person, Hillary. Man, if someone were to have the gumption to “kiss you where it stinks,” they would have cut your chest open and kiss your heart – its rotten to the core and I mean the hydrogen sulphide coming off of it is simply overwhelming. You must have done something horrible in your life and you’re projecting it onto all white Americans alive.
1.4% of white Americans owned slaves, at the height of slavery. Slavery ended in 1865 – boy, that’s a long time ago. You, nor I, ever owned a slave and neither did our parents or grandparents. Nobody alive today picked cotton as a slave and neither did their parents or grandparents. Africans enslaved white people for more than 500 years – maybe they owe us reparations, aye? For quite a while whites were the majority of slaves in the USA. In 1860 three thousand blacks owned twenty thousand black slaves, in the US of A. So, I guess ole anti-American Islamist Marxist revolutionary Colin Kaepernick would have just as much to say about our flag standing for black-on-black as well as white-on-black oppression aye? No, you know what this is, as well as anyone…that’s why your heart is so very rotten. You know it’s the girlfriend of this weak-minded, talks like a teenager, football player being manipulated by his anti-American black supremacist Marxist Islamist girlfriend. But, you’re more than willing to play along with his lame claim. globalist Hillary Clinton.
Why all this jockeying around. Why don’t you simply come out and admit it. You fully support a Marxist anti-American anti-Christian Islamist jihadist importing Trans-Pacific Partnership endorsing anti-1st amendment anti-2nd amendment anti-Semitic Hillary Clinton for president, because you’ve done something so awful you believe all white America needs punishing.
TTG, I also thank you for posting this. Your quote by SSG Livingstone was perfect.
TTG,
“Alt Right pulled out of its ass”
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/tag/lewiston-maine/
http://www.vdare.com/articles/abolishing-new-england-in-lewiston-maine-they-had-a-dream-too
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/tag/minnesota/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/24/islamist-terror-groups-target-minnesota-somali-ref/
Tell me more about pulled out of it’s ass. All ears here.
Education is not magic. Someone with an IQ of under 100 is going to have issues grokking what the hell the Founders were talking about, no matter how long you stick them in school.
Chuck,
That’s funny because a google search of ‘Twin Cities Somali Problems” turns up a wealth of fun.
What’s the unemployment rate in the US again? The actual one, not the made up one. Why do we need to bring in foreign workers?
Toivo,
Separation as the Founders envisioned it, not Separation as a group of unelected (((judges))) invented.
Tyler
I have been marching to the tune of my Shrew for a number of years, of course she is of another Tribe, but knows what is right and what is wrong in life and would never put me in that position.
Now, ease up my friend as your loved and respected here.
TTG,
Excellent post, and I,like you, do not judge individuals by their group. It’s one thing to not allow a tribe to oppress you or any other group and another to think the only way to survive is by dominating or wiping out a competing tribe. Reverting to savagery is not the answer.
TTG,
Yes, “Some of you are light green Marines[soldiers] and some a dark green Marines[soldiers], but you are all green Marines [soldiers]” is good stuff and is the attitude I like to see in effect in any unit/team/town/country I am a part of.
However, that is not what the BLM movement is about. Nor is what the left’s immigration policies are about. Nor the motive behind Kaepernick’s actions, IMO. It may or may not be what the Alt Right is all about (I’m not sure yet). I get the sense that the alt right recognizes that the left has started a divisiveness and feels that the left’s attacks can only be defended against by adopting the same my tribe right or wrong mentality.
I read enough left wing material to know that the hate they feel for white America – nay America itself -is palpable and intense. You may think that by recognizing America’s shortcomings you are being fair and reasonable and thus extending an olive branch to those impacted by historic injustices. But you’re wrong. In their minds you’re contributing to the desired erosion of the moral authority of American values; especially values traditionally held by whites.
That said, I feel you. Most unfortunate that we do not have a viable leader to bring us all together as Americans.
Jackass1961
That is the most ignorant comment I’ve ever read on SST or the best satire. Even Paul Gottfried, the man that coined the term alternative-right, thinks Trump is inept.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/08/paul-gottfried/still-speaks-conservatism/
The colonel is more versed on the history of the City of Alexandria than I, but it is my understanding the city paid off the Brits not to bombard/raid the city. They proceeded up the Potomac, landed their troops and defeated the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg–if I’m not mistaken. After beating the Americans, they proceeded to Washington, DC, burned the White House and caused President Madison and wife Dolly to flee the city.
Eric Newhill,
I think it’s the same problem that I felt is the issue with the alt right types: they conflate “American tribalism” and “white tribalism.” Speaking as someone from a family of immigrants, we came here to be Americans, and to the degree that “America” is the work largely of people who are variously white, we are happy to assimilate. But we reject those who say that we cannot be completely “American” because we are not “white,” which I had encountered from both on the left and the right.
Tyler,
Citing right wing blogs (refugee settlement watch and vdare) only proves my point. I could cite articles from lefty sources to counter and this ass pulling will go on forever. Here’s a recent article from a local Bangor paper that doesn’t appear to push a viewpoint. I’ll drop it here.
http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/04/news/lewiston-auburn/crime-rate-in-lewiston-drops-and-residents-feel-less-safe/
Wow. I expect you to soon start growling and looking for a face to gnaw on. Best lay off the bath salts, son.
KHC,
I know what you are saying and I feel it too. My mother came from a long line of blue bloods. In fact George Washington was my ancestor’s nephew. My father was born just after his parents came from the MENA. Didn’t even speak English until in grade school – but here’s the thing. He and his parents wanted to be good Americans. They would go to the high end department stores and watch what Americans bought, how they acted, etc. My father strove to master the English language better than the native born speakers (and succeeded). They worked very hard. Dad put himself through the University of Michigan, graduated and enlisted to fight in WW2 the next day. Then he went to law school on the GI bill. He and I had our differences for sure, but I was always very proud of him.
But people like that (and your family no doubt) are not what the left is talking about. They’re talking the Michael Browns of the country. People that aren’t trying and actually do not want to try. People that are the antithesis of the hard working assimilators. The left has poisoned them into thinking that they won’t be given a chance if they try. Then, when the inevitable failure occurs, the left turns around and blames the “white” culture. It’s an evil dangerous game.
I don’t know much about the alt right. Sometimes I think I’m one of them. Other times I’m pretty sure I’m not. I guess it’s still forming and is a bit amorphous at this time.
I do think there is a tendency on the alt right’s part to throw the baby out with the bath water. Would the alt right approve of your family when they first came here or my father’s? I do not know. Are they just trying to set high standards for immigrants or are they totally against any immigrants? Or just against non-Anglo/non-Aryan immigrants? I have no idea. I’m not sure they do either to the extent that there is even a reasonably well defined “they”.
As far as the alt right placing a high value on “white” culture, well there is a lot of value there, for one. For another, it is the roots of this country. Would you expect me to able to immigrate to China and then demand the natives to accommodate my American sensibilities?
What is for sure is that the topic(s) have become so toxic that is difficult to have conversations like this without falling into one ugly trap or another.
TTG,
Selective interpretation is not “crime rates go down”. Furthermore, a cursory glance shows Bangor Daily is very invested in letting everyone know they love rapefugees.
You’re also making the beginners mistake of not considering the source and info separately. : /
I’m sad to see you virtue signalling so hard people with fillings get headaches and dogs are howling in pain. Ham Radio operators are stunned by the feedback and SETI is getting ready to do a press release.
I was always either a historian interested in mathematics or a mathematician interested in history. I used to think this made me a good fit for social sciences, but it turns out that this made me doubly incompatible with social sciences–who hate both history and math for different reasons. History, b/c it introduces a lot of complexities and grayness that they want to avoid, while math forces them to logical consistency and detachment from commenting on “real life” that they don’t want.
Re: The tend to be hard workers.
They must be working 24/7 to afford all
the new Honda and Toyota vans not to
mention the latest SUVs. Must also work
the night shift here in Mpls because the
only daytime workers visible are cab drivers
and check out females at Target and Wal-Mart.
They have replaced the Latino work force out state
in some agricultural industries however. What is
your definition of assimilation? They are
continually building new apartment complexes
for them because they wont mingle with any but
their own kind. Heavily subsidized also.
TTG,
Your quote of SSG Livingston reminded me of a comment Sgt 1st Class Rowan, my basic training platoon sergeant, said during the nuclear portion of the CBN warfare unit: “I’ll teach you what the training manual says we’re supposed to do during a nuclear attack but there’s really only one thing that’s effective: Put your head down between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye!” Somebody should pass that on to Hilary and her borgistas as they push their provocations up to the Russian border.
From what I recall the Colonial Marine units were originally raised in the Caribbean though they later accepted former slaves from the US as recruits. The British had some difficulty figuring out what to do with them after they were were demobilized. Eventually they were settled in an isolated area of Trinidad, far enough from the sugar plantations that they wouldn’t set an example for the slaves.
TovioS
Though I think New England as Calvinist/Puritan/Congregational/UCC whatever you want to call it would be more interested in protecting its religion from Anglican/Established Church/Episcopal Virginia.
Eric Newhill,
Thanks for the comments. These are the sentiments that I appreciate, respect, and agree with. (Except the bit about “China”: never been there, don’t know the place. 😉 )
To all,
One terrific essay on the broad topic from a guy who’d been getting a lot of press lately, JD Vance, that I thought I’d share with the SST participants. It’s on Nat’l Review, so it’ll get unfairly placed into partisan/ideological bins by many careless readers, which would be a huge shame.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439431/race-relations-getting-worse-america-why?target=author&tid=997024
Although it seems to be lost to memory, many of those calling for the strict separation of church and state as recently as the 1960s were southern protestants who feared that the state would provide financial assistance to Catholic schools, to some extent based on the presidency of JFK.
Times change, along with political allies.
So Francis Scott Key. Scion of prominent Marylander. Educated in Annapolis he settled in Georgetown and practiced his trade as a lawyer, with significant arguments given to both Circuit and Supreme Courts.
As a founder of the American Colonization Society I suppose we can have different takes on his relationship to slavery. We know he did emancipate some slaves, but not others, his argument that some would be incapable of taking care of themselves. We could see this as racist, biased, self-serving, or pragmatic. In the context of the 1820s-1830s, I think it is more pragmatic. The goals of the ACS might have been achievable to the benefit of most, except for the cotton gin which made short-staple cotton feasible and led to the great immigration of white Americans from the South East (So Carolina, Georgia) into the Southwest (Alabama, Mississippi) to engage in cotton culture. This created a tremendous demand for slaves and with the closing of the slave trade, made slaves a valuable commodity in the Upper South/Border South, where otherwise the goals of the ACS might have had more appeal.
I also object to the characterization of “the” north and “the” south. I find that way too simplistic (for example, marginalizes the strong unionism in the Appalachian regions of Virginia, Kentucky, No Carolina, and Tennessee).
As far as assimilation goes, Somalis working at Mayo in Rochester, mostly nurses, are a highly visible group, as are Muslims in general from physicians to orderlies.
This observation does not preclude the real possibility that those job positions are filled at the expense of non-refugees.
IIRC the freed slaves were settled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick after the war.
Where Kaepernick goes wrong is that he has swallowed an MSM narrative that Blacks are more likely to be killed by cops because of racism. It just isn’t true, as a recent study by a Harvard economics professor concluded.
In reality, Whites are killed in dubious circumstances too, but it just isn’t reported much – Deven Guilford is a recent example.
The MSM and Soros seem to be intent on pointlessly stoking Black rage. Maybe because it’s just simpler and telegenic to portray cops as Rod Steigers or Brian Dennehys out to get any Black guy they come across, rather than address the real, complex, deep-seated social issues.
Steve,
As someone who worked with Somali nurses in a prison, I would not put my trust in their skills.
Thanks TTG! reading your post I feel just like listening to the wisdoms coming from an older brother.
Tidewater to TTG,
What an interesting post. Thank you. Years ago I crewed on boats that sailed into Tangier Island. You had to be careful. They were not necessarily friendly. Sometimes you’d get dirty looks, and remarks. A couple of times there were incidents where they’d invited themselves on board a boat for a drink and refuse to leave. They speak an ancient English dialect. I’ve heard that a lot of people there have six toes.
>>Roland Fryer is wrong: There is racial bias in shootings by police
July 12, 2016
Roland Fryer, an economics professor at Harvard University, recently published a working paper at NBER on the topic of racial bias in police use of force and police shootings. The paper gained substantial media attention – a write-up of it became the top viewed article on the New York Times website. The most notable part of the study was its finding that there was no evidence of racial bias in police shootings, which Fryer called “the most surprising result of [his] career”. In his analysis of shootings in Houston, Texas, black and Hispanic people were no more likely (and perhaps even less likely) to be shot relative to whites.
Fryer’s analysis is highly flawed, however. It suffers from major theoretical and methodological errors, and he has communicated the results to news media in a way that is misleading. While there have long been problems with the quality of police shootings data, there is still plenty of evidence to support a pattern of systematic, racially discriminatory use of force against black people in the United States.
Breaking down the analysis of police shootings in Houston
There should be no argument that black and Latino people in Houston are much more likely to be shot by police compared to whites. I looked at the same Houston police shooting dataset as Fryer for the years 2005-2015, which I supplemented with census data, and found that black people were over 5 times as likely to be shot relative to whites. Latinos were roughly twice as likely to be shot versus whites.
Fryer was not comparing rates of police shootings by race, however. Instead, his research asked whether these racial differences were the result of “racial bias” rather than merely “statistical discrimination”. Both terms have specific meanings in economics. Statistical discrimination occurs when an individual or institution treats people differently based on racial stereotypes that ‘truly’ reflect the average behavior of a racial group. For instance, if a city’s black drivers are 50% more likely to possess drugs than white drivers, and police officers are 50% more likely to pull over black drivers, economic theory would hold that this discriminatory policing is rational. If, however, police were to pull over black drivers at a rate that disproportionately exceeded their likelihood of drug possession, that would be an irrational behavior representing individual or institutional bias.
Once explained, it is possible to find the idea of “statistical discrimination” just as abhorrent as “racial bias”. One could point out that the drug laws police enforce were passed with racially discriminatory intent, that collectively punishing black people based on “average behavior” is wrong, or that – as a self-fulfilling prophecy – bias can turn into statistical discrimination (if black people’s cars are searched more thoroughly, for instance, it will appear that their rates of drug possession are higher). At the same time, studies assessing the extent of racial bias above and beyond statistical discrimination have been able to secure legal victories for civil rights. An analysis of stop-and-frisk data by Jeffrey Fagan, which found evidence racial bias, was an important part of the court case against the NYPD, and helped secure an injunction against the policy.
Even if one accepts the logic of statistical discrimination versus racial bias, it is an inappropriate choice for a study of police shootings. The method that Fryer employs has, for the most part, been used to study traffic stops and stop-and-frisk practices. In those cases, economic theory holds that police want to maximize the number of arrests for the possession of contraband (such as drugs or weapons) while expending the fewest resources. If they are acting in the most cost-efficient, rational manner, the officers may use racial stereotypes to increase the arrest rate per stop. This theory completely falls apart for police shootings, however, because officers are not trying to rationally maximize the number of shootings. The theory that is supposed to be informing Fryer’s choice of methods is therefore not applicable to this case. He seems somewhat aware of this issue. In his interview with the New York Times, he attributes his ‘surprising’ finding to an issue of “costs, legal and psychological” that happen following a shooting. In what is perhaps a case of cognitive dissonance, he seems to not have reflected on whether the question of cost renders his choice of methods invalid.
Economic theory aside, there is an even more fundamental problem with the Houston police shooting analysis. In a typical study, a researcher will start with a previously defined population where each individual is at risk of a particular outcome. For instance, a population of drivers stopped by police can have one of two outcomes: they can be arrested, or they can be sent on their way. Instead of following this standard approach, Fryer constructs a fictitious population of people who are shot by police and people who are arrested. The problem here is that these two groups (those shot and those arrested) are, in all likelihood, systematically different from one another in ways that cannot be controlled for statistically (UPenn Professor Uri Simonsohn expands on this point here). Fryer acknowledges this limitation in a brief footnote, but understates just how problematic it is. Properly interpreted, the actual result from Fryer’s analysis is that the racial disparity in arrest rates is larger than the racial disparity in police shootings. This is an unsurprising finding, and proves neither a lack of bias nor a lack of systematic discrimination.
Even if the difference in the arrest vs. shooting groups could be accounted for, Fryer tries to control for these differences using variables in police reports, such as if the suspect was described as ‘violently resisting arrest’. There is reason to believe that these police reports themselves are racially biased. An investigation of people charged with assaulting a police officer in Washington, DC found that this charge was applied disproportionately towards black residents even for situations in which no assault actually occurred. This was partly due to an overly broad definition of assault against police in DC law, but the principle – that police are likely to describe black civilians as more threatening – is applicable to other jurisdictions.
I’ll also briefly note that there was another analysis, using data from multiple cities, that looked at racial differences in whether or not civilians attacked officers before they were shot. Fryer himself downplays the credibility of this analysis, because it relied on reports from police who had every incentive to misrepresent the order of events.
Racial inequality in police shootings
Fryer’s study is far from the first to investigate racial bias or discrimination in police shootings. A number of studies have placed officers in shooting simulators, and most have shown a greater propensity for shooting black civilians relative to whites. Other research has found that cities with black mayors and city councilors have lower rates of police shootings than would otherwise be expected. A recent analysis of national data showed wide variation in racial disparities for police shooting rates between counties, and these differences were not associated with racial differences in crime rates. This is just a small sample of the dozens of studies on police killings published since the 1950s, most of which suggests that racial bias is indeed a problem.
It is a failure of journalism that the New York Times heavily promoted this study without seeking critical perspectives from experts in the field. Fryer makes basic methodological errors, overstates the quality of his results, and casually uses the term “racial bias” in a way that is nearly guaranteed to be misinterpreted by anyone who isn’t an economist.<< http://scholar.harvard.edu/jfeldman/blog/roland-fryer-wrong-there-racial-bias-shootings-police
http://www.snopes.com/2016/07/15/harvard-study-officer-involved-shootings/
“To anyone who thinks I should fall in behind the banner of white nationalism or follow the hopping green hitler frog or whatever…”
A nice sentiment, TTG. Thank you for being so cogent. Our nation is going through a phase – staggering, not marching, through history. The alts are having their day, a loud obnoxious one it is! Trump is their tantrum, but that’s about it. From Know-Nothings to Know-It-Alls.
Morgan: Re Alexandria, yes, I read that also. The city fathers gave up 22 merchant ships loaded with goods to keep the city from being burnt like DC.
As for DC, it was in retaliation for our burning of York, the Capitol of Canada. The general who torched DC, Robert Ross, got his comeuppance at the Battle of North Point when a teenaged American shot him in the chest. He died shortly later and was transported to Halifax NS preserved in a barrel of rum. BTW, the Brits won that battle with enormous casualties, a Pyrrhic victory. Brigadier John Stricker’s 3rd Brigade of Maryland State Militia, mostly city boys from Baltimore, were on the American side. After decimating the Brits, they completed a retrograde to Baltimore, clogging the roads and trails with felled trees. That plus the heavy casualties on the Brit side delayed their march to Baltimore therefore ensuring an American victory there. Some claim that was the turning point in the war, despite all the Hollywood propaganda about Jackson in New Orleans.
The 12th of September is designated Defender’s Day in Maryland. It is an official State holiday. I am sure they will have a re-enactment at North Point.
DH –
Didn’t General Slim’s Fourteenth Army also have some West African Troops. Nigerian I think? I met a visiting Nigerian doctor once in a Denver hospital where my wife was being treated. He noticed I was reading one of George MacDonald Fraser’s works about the Burma campaign and he mentioned that his grandfather served with Slim. In a tank battalion I believe he said.
Morgan –
Ooops! 12 September is the official holiday but the re-enactment will be on Labor Day weekend, Sunday the 4th.
http://www.dundalkhistory.org/home.html
I am not a big fan of re-enactments plus I’m 3000 miles away on the left coast. But the society that sponsors this does raise scholarship money for history students. A worthy cause IMHO.
Optimax,
The adjective “anti-Semitic” seems out of step with the other adjectives in the adjective train. That seems to me to be a signal that this comment is satirical. I could be wrong, though.
Freyer’s study passes the sniff test.
50% of homicides in the US are committed by Blacks. About 30% of those shot by police officers are Black.
If a population sub-group has a very high rate of violent crime then they are also more likely to be involved in violent confrontations with the police. Racism, at most, will have a marginal impact.
Given the disparity in crime rates, it woild be astonishing if US Whites and Blacks were equally likely to be shot by police.
So, the real issue is why the disparity in homicide and violent crime? And the answers to that are varied and complex and inconvenient to the left and right of the political spectrum.
Market fundamentalists don’t want to acknowledge that globalisation has hit US Blacks badly. Liberals don’t want to acknowledge that the permissive society has undermined Black families.
Brunswick,
“Our own methodology proved us wrong, let’s misuse a bunch of statistical terms and do some really fast social science handwaving to muddle the issue.”
You could have typed that and saved yourself the trouble, but I believe you just cut and paste that.
Linking to Snopes. Holy hell how can you be so basic.
ked,
Did you type this under your bed with the covers over your head and all the doors locked?
KEK.
Eric,
I’m the AltRight and you can too.
In other words, there is no “leader” of the Alt Right. Just general principles with some people adding things or interpreting such differently. Because someone is of the 14/88 crowd doesn’t mean the rest of the AR agrees or even cares about their particular concerns.
For example, you would not believe the kind of arguments over things like Milo (the reporter) or even Christianity.
It is a very “deep blue sea” phenomenon where ideas get pushed out, then either supported or discarded on the strength of their thought. There is no Magisterium who says “No, you can’t think that”. It is more of a body of peers who either agree or tell you “No that’s stupid” or along those lines.
Struck me now how it’s ironically very Islamic in a sense, where one can declare yourself a imam, but it doesn’t mean people are going to follow you or give you that respect if your ideas are garbage.
Well, TTG, I’m not going to go into great depth (or research) re your ‘assertions’, about Maine. Suffice to say, I have been living in the state since 1983 and I would disagree with you on most things in your post. Especially the state of the economy. In Southern Maine, anyway. Where the immigrants live, it is booming. The North? Third World economy in the middle of great beauty in the landscape.
Re teaching of “civics and history”, it is tricky business where so many students have English as a second language. That is not meant to cast doubt on anyone. It is just a fact, and it is a significant issue in the school systems. And it is one Mainers impacted by talk a lot about….but it does not get covered so well in a PC policed Press. You can knock the so called Alt Right all you want. But the so called Left has its own tricks when it comes to the media.
There are issues up here between the immigrant community and the locals. Not terrible issues by any measure. But issues just the same. This is especially so in Lewiston Maine where the last two local elections for Mayor have focused on this divide. See for example:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/09/24/mayor-of-lewiston-maine-wants-to-publicize-whos-on-welfare-and-where-they-live/?utm_term=.6f38fd0a8ca6
In both contested elections the ‘locals’ candidate won. So, all is not sweetness and light up here. Neither is it terrible. But there is tension.
However, that tension, pales, pardon the pun, when it comes to out of state drug dealers coming up to Maine….AND setting up organized distribution rings. And the inevitable increase in ‘home invasions’ that come in its wake. That is a major issue….again, in an under reported manner. Until LePage, in his stumbling, counter productive way, put it high profile and SJW’s jumped on the opening he dumbly gave them.
that was exactly what my slightly autistic (tyler)* mindset disliked about history. The reduction to numbers, although I love them. 😉
* sorry if I misread.
Yes Mike……the irony, painful and deadly irony, it was thought they would be good ‘jungle fighters’, because they ‘lived in jungles’. Most came from desert areas of Africa. See Frank McLynn’s great work, “The Burma Campaign”.
Incidentally, they stuck the poor souls, initially, under Wingate’s rather unique command.
LeaNder
You did not mis-read. STEM thinking enables one to avoid the messy, self-doubt inducing complexity of the human condition. As Pope wrote man is “the glory, jest and riddle of the world.” pl
jonst
I could be said to be from “down east” having spent five formative years in York County. Even then, in the 50s, the economy of everything inland of the quite narrow coastal strip beloved by the Summah People was declining rapidly with the textile and shoe making industries rapidly departing to the US South for labor cost reasons They later decamped to overseas when encouraged to do so by the trade deals. But, an economy that had been extant for a long time simply disappeared in a few years leaving behind small communities largely without income in spite of fitful and rather pitiful re-development efforts. Paul Lepage IMO is a symptom of that decline. pl
Yes, I thought so too. Bravo TTG
The royal navy had already developed a habit of using African origin enlistees. They were prominent at Trafalgarfor example. When you think of how the royal navy recruited using the press gang, it’s not surprising. And West Indian sources of freed men and runaways were there to augment American. The royal navy was a good bet for a runaway or freed slave. On the one hand the risk of death or loss of limb was high. But if you stayed in the Americas you had a high risk of being enslaved again. I recommend Olaudah Equiano s possibly fictional story as a reference. He married a British girl and had a daughter who lived in London.
Without blacks the Royal Navy would have struggled to beat the French. Some estimates suggest 1 in 8 sailors were of African descent.
A cynical view and one which did occur to me.
A fine point. The US doesn’t need more workers right now. But that’s not the only reason to have moderate immigration.
Interesting anecdote from a Vietnam Vet who is now an Ivy League professor:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=27819
bks
Junior enlisted men (nor anyone else) did not have private handguns in VN. Revolvers were unknown in VN. I never saw one in two years there. So, I would say that it is likely that your Ivy League professor is a liar. pl
Eric Newhill
Am curious as to why you capitalize “marine.” It is not a proper noun. “marine’ in “US Marine” is a proper noun. pl
Given the Flynn effect most Americans a generation or two ago would have scored well below 100 on current IQ tests.
jonst,
Re: Civics in school
Somalis have an average IQ of 70 or 80. You’d need something on the level of electro shock therapy to imprint the understanding of the principles behind the Declaration, the Constitution, and all the rest.
Most of them will not grok it. But they do understand, especially with the culture they come from, someone saying “Vote for me and I’ll take from other people and give you free stuff”. There’s where the problem lies.
TTG
Black Americans who joined the crown’s forces during the War of Independence are not the issue in the case of the War of 1812. Those, earlier men, would have been middle aged by 1812. The previous war’s veterans had moved to the maritimes after the Treaty of Paris. Were these soldiers recruited there? We are discussing a small unit are we not? pl
Vance is definitely worth reading. Rod Deher interviewed him a month ago–
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-us-politics-poor-whites/
Harry,
The method continues to work so it will continue to be used.
bks
I take that back. a few staff officers in Saigon had issue Colt .38 revolvers with a 2 1/2 inch barrel.. these were decorative toys for REMFs (look it up). Your professor displays the tendency on the part of returned veterans to embroider their experiences. pl
bks,
Sounds like the type of story an Ivy League professor would create to get some credibility from his peers. You’ll notice he doesn’t say what unit he was in, what his MOS etc. He does highlight his grieve at being called bad names by unknown “NCO’s”. The story about some random guy in VN quoting John Birch Society pamphlets was a rather telling sign of bs nature of the whole story.
absolutely Col….and you can throw in the decline in the fishing industry, shrimp and mussels population declining precipitously. Along with Cod (Cod!! for God’s sake, the staple of NE) and Haddock. And as well, the logging and paper mill professions. And the closing of the two military bases in Maine, and the decline of Portsmouth. What a lot of people would not get is, these are not simply losses of jobs, they are losses of a way of life. Ok, I can hear some people push back….this is ‘progress’. Get over it. Well, if Trump, and Sanders, and Britex are any indication, some people are less than enthralled with “progress”. Maybe other people will be told ‘get over it’.
Harry
The US Navy and the Confederate Navy as well, signed up Black seamen in the first half of the 19th Century. Seamen on naval vessels were recruited for a cruise and were not “servicemen” in the modern sense of the word. this did not apply to officers who held a standing commission. in one of history’s little ironies there were Black confederate sailors at their posts when CSS Alabama sortied from Cherbourg to fight USS Kearsarge. pl
I have no way of knowing for sure about this guy…but this article seems–and now I’m gonna really date myself—straight out of a Billy Jack screenplay.
J
pl,
Yes, this was a small unit. Although called a corps, it just three companies or so. The British Navy encouraged slaves to escape to their ships in the Chesapeake beginning in 1813 to the tune of some 4,000 men, women and children. This eventually became the second wave of black migration to the Canadian Maritimes. I think the same thing was happening with the British fleet around Florida and the Gulf.
Harry
I understand the need to keep “looting” the rest of the world of talent and brains. I understand the need to keep importing agricultural labor on a migrant and temporary basis. What other reasons are there for encouraging immigration in today’s world? The US has a population of 340 million. Social Justice? As I recall you are a Brit. I presume you voted against Brexit. pl
TTG
OK. This makes sense. pl
@jonst “That is a major issue….again, in an under reported manner. Until LePage, in his stumbling, counter productive way, put it high profile and SJW’s jumped on the opening he dumbly gave them.”
LePage’s contra-Birkenstockian, anti-Rainbow Guard, crazy relative unseemliness is endearing. Why do you think it was counterproductive?
@pl “Paul Lepage IMO is a symptom of that decline.”
not disputing decline or symptomaticity thereof.
All
Rjj lives in central and rural Maine. Jonst lives the Pohtland area. (authentic pronunciation) I look at the Google Earth pictures of Sanford where my mother’s family labored in the textile mills and where my wife’s family labored in the shoe factories and what I see is a shrunken shadow of what was once a place that provided a good middle class living for people who worked hard but had little education. This was a good enough living to enable the college education of many in my mother’s generation and the possession of comfortable cottages either at the seashore or at the inland lakes. That is largely gone now and what remains is a 3rd World internal region in the US. I was ROTFL this AM to hear Mika and Joe-Joe go on about their astonishment that someone like LePage could be elected in Maine. they, of course, know only the Summah People world of Wells Beach, Ogunquit, and the like sort of places. pl
Interesting, ex-PFC. Strictly I am somewhat hesitant about historical page turners, blame it on the “The Cholmondeley Sisters”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cholmondeley_Ladies
Col.,
“they, of course, know only the Summah People world of Wells Beach, Ogunquit, and the like sort of places…” I had the joy of dealing with the winter version of these folks during my teenage years in Florida. I much preferred our prior summers in Westmorland county.
Harry,
These fine people we “need” don’t seem to be creating much of a civilization in the places they currently live. It would be better for all of us if they got busy making their current countries better places to live in.
thanx Jonst. I’ll see if I can get a copy. And also perhaps some of his writings on the Jacobites.
My mother came from Aroostook County up around Presque Isle. Potato farmers, loggers, and some worked at the former Air Force Base. Except for a few hardy ones most have moved to Houlton on the NB border or down towards your old haunts in the southern end of the state. I stayed with Aunts and Uncles there every vacation so I guess you could call me one of the Summah People. I loved it. No beaches like in York County, but we used to canoe the Aroostook River.
Sir,
“a. The word “Marine” is always capitalized when used in reference to
individuals or things associated with the U.S. Marine Corps. Placing the word
at the beginning of a sentence avoids calling undue attention to this
practice. Thus, “Marines, soldiers, and sailors crowded on board” is
preferred to “Soldiers, sailors, and Marines crowded on board.”
http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/MCO%205216.20A.PDF
I like the 3rd Worldliness of roots. Deracination [I prefer the term deradication] is the rule, but there are a few remaining out of the way relics of an age when people knew the names of their neighbors grandparents.
If one wants to learn real american history, they should read Gerald Horne’s Negro Comrades of the Crown to get a sense of what was really playing out. Africans fought valiantly on many fronts against the counter revolution of 1776.https://www.amazon.com/Negro-Comrades-Crown-Americans-Emancipation/dp/1479876399
Donald,
That’s an unproveable assertion on top of the fact that a cursory observation shows that historically the country that was built would have been impossible with a sub-100 IQ.
What a sad little ethnic masochist.
Hmm, I didn’t know Catullus influenced Ovid, who I love, admittedly.
SSG Livingstone = SSG Brad Livingstone?
And who, pray tell me, is “Papa Frank”?
In case of Iran, there has been consistent emigration for decades, since 1950s.
It seems that Iran, like India, cannot use her best and brightest.
It is like what Nixon said: there are 2 sorts of leaders; those that surround themselves with the best – even those who might be better than them, and those who surround themselves with the “Next Best”.
Did you know that none of the IIT graduates have remained in India for the last 15 years?
It is not that US (or Australia, or UK etc.) are looting the brains of the rest of the world; it is that the rest of the world wants to get rid of those brains.
It works well for all sides; the potential trouble-makers leave home and can prosper elsewhere.
LeaNder,
SSG Brad Livingstone – No
Papa Frank – Pope Francis
tyler, what should I read beyond The Bell Curve, once I have finished reading your books?
Colonel,
The .38 spl revolver was standard issue for aviators in all branches of service. In addition to regular ball ammo, tracer rounds were issued so it could be used for signaling if shot down. I personally carried an M-1911, but I had to ask for it.
OGP
OGP
I guess I knew that once. USAF pilots carried one as well as army pilots. What barrel length? Do you think the professor’s story is plausible? pl
LeaNder,
Culture of Critique by Kevin MacDonald and Adios, America by Ann Coulter.
It had the 4 inch barrel. The story sounds like fiction to me.
Guess I got to own up as one of them Summah People. In the late 50’s always remember my brother and I hanging out the back window of the station wagon as our Father yelled “passing through Paris”‘, then a while later Norway, Sweden or Denmark. Closest we ever got to Europe in our minds. We always stayed a few weeks in Limerick in August. When my children were young we always spent a few weeks on Brandy Pond near Naples. God’s Country as far as I’m concerned.
Heard that there was an oil pipeline that pumped oil from Portland to Canada for years and a few years back needed a permit to pump it from Canada to Portland. Well the newer citizens decided it needed a vote of the community and the vote turned it down. The pipeline still is pumping the oil north but will never have it pumped south till another vote occurs. I’m sure there is more to the story but thought it worth passing on as that is something a Down Easter would never do and I imagine they would consider that backward thinking. Being just a Summah Guy what do I know.
TovioS,
Now the Ivy League indoctrinated want to promote the establishment of the secular religion of the left nationwide. Soon to be a major export item no doubt.
TTG,
Thanks for the great read!
Regarding Minneapolis and refugees, we generally like them a lot up here, except for the Dakota and Chippewa tribes, everybody is an immigrant and proud of their heritage. Lots of great food here from the very large Hmong, Vietnamese, Karen, Burmese, Ethiopian, and Somali refugee communities. Oh, and Mexicans, too. Sure beats lutefisk. They are all hard working people, start many small businesses which create more jobs and are generally a great addition to our economy.
Sometimes, like with every population, you get some criminals. No more so than any other group. Minnesota still has rural areas where immigrant people speak German, Finnish and Norwegian. Nobody complains about that much. I mean, who cares?
Regarding Kaepernick, it’s too bad he can’t throw a football, seeing as that’s his job and all.
My son is a patient and treated at the Mayo Clinic regularly. I find the care there first class regardless of the ethnicity of the caregivers.
Mayo is an interesting place. In my neck of the woods–northern Iowa–it’s utilized as the local medical center. So you get folks from small towns in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin being treated for their routine arthritis or gall bladder flareups alongside world royalty for whatever exotic diseases they have.
Living in rural north Iowa my wife and I get our big city fix every couple of months by making the 2 hour drive up to the Cities. Perhaps I over generalize given my former home of New Orleans, but the Minneapolis area always seemed unusually pleasant and functional as far as most large US cities go. The Somali hood of Cedar-Riverside with its huge high rise housing projects sits cheek by jowl with music clubs, cafes, and the University of Minnesota’s business school without any apparent friction, and the area seems relatively safe.
Also, I question what Lake Street would be like without its immigrant communities–a real dump I suspect.
My mother was a civilian employee of the War Department during WW2, stationed at Fort Snelling. She told me that one of the Japanese POW camps was located there for the very reason that the local Minneapolis population would be less hostile to the prisoners’ presence than populations elsewhere.
None of my comments should be construed as support for illegal immigration which I view as a downward drag on wages and jobs.
Eric Newhill,
Well I’ll be damned. I would not have believed there is an actual Marine Corps Order covering this without seeing it. My father is a former Marine making SGT twice. His still blew up on the troop ship on the way to the Mediterranean. This was all before the Korean War. He went on to become a tool and die maker at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft.
He had his own immigrant experience. Although born here, his parents were from Lithuania and spoke only Lithuanian the first few years here. My father started school not understanding English. He learned quickly. Later, my cousin made his way here illegally after the demobilization of the Lithuanian Freedom Army. He brought his Mosin Nagant carbine with him. He and my father taught me to shoot on that carbine aiming at a caricature of Stalin out behind the barn. Being a former Marine, my father insisted I shoot right handed even though I was left handed. Unlike our M1 carbine, this cut down Mosin Nagant fired the full power 7.62X54R cartridge. It kicked like two mules. Good times.
Herb and steve,
Your comments about the Twin Cities area remind me of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon. Seems that at least in some parts of this country, Americans are strong enough and sure enough of the strength of their culture to stand up to this level of immigration.
SecNav in 1994(?), John H. Dalton, decreed the word Sailor when used in Naval correspondence and referring to Sailors of the U.S. Navy – Sailor will be capitalized.
Army Chief of Staff in 2003, General Schoomaker decreed the same for the word Soldier.
Air Force Chief of Staff in 2004, General Jumper did the same for Airman.
For the Marines it has been tradition since 1917. The story told to me was that confusion reigned early in the war in the French High Command about the status and utilization of the Marine contingent. That was because the French word ‘marin’ meant a generic sailor, whether on a fishing boat, a merchant ship, or in the French Navy. So the senior Marine in France, General Lejeune, started capitalizing the word. Unofficially of course, but it became tradition. And I understand the AP style Manual has capitalized since the Korean War.
The term Coast Guardsman has been capitalized forever as far as I know.
mike,
Son of a gun. The things we learn on SST.
TTG,
“this level of immigration.” Which level of immigration TTG? Minneapolis was a nice place the last time I went through there but it certainly hasn’t experienced Texas, Californian or Florida levels of immigration.
Minnesota was populated by people who came from Scandinavian countries. Need one say more?
There would have been a knife fight every day if Maltese were there instead.
mike
Yes. We all know you are a marine. If the general public starts applying the capitalization rules you cite I will start capitalizing “marine.” pl
It is called “Scientism” –
Sua Sponte as the Rangers would say.
mike
Well done. pl
Fred,
I’m speaking of the level of immigration in the Twin Cities area. The people and the infrastructure here seems to take those immigrants in stride. The same is happening in the Fredericksburg, VA area. We have only taken in around a hundred refugees and they are near invisible. As you said, the levels of immigration in Texas, California or Florida may be just too much for the infrastructure and/or the psyche of the existing Anglo inhabitants of these states.
Minnesota has seen a significant rise in its minority population, it has grown 4 times faster than than the white population, primarily Asian Americans. The age group of preschoolers under age four in Minnesota is over 50% minority. Generally, people in this part of fly-over country are not freaked out about it. In terms of concerns, it is somewhere way down below how hard the Twins suck, and definitely below the intense trauma of Teddy Bridgewater’s knee blow out.
If I have a complaint, it is too many crap drivers. Somali women like to drive like 10 miles an hour below the speed limit, yammering away into what my wife calls a “burka bluetooth”, where they jam their cellphone into their headscarf, burka or whatever they call those things.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2015/06/25/census-data-shows-growth-in-minnesotas-minority-population/
Steve,
That has more to do with the Mayo brand more than the Somali nurses, Steve.
jonst,
Obviously the solution to this is to import a few million more mouths to feed from the storm gutters of the world.
Herb,
Outside of the Narrative, let’s show off the problems that Herb doesn’t hear about from inside his gated commune.
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/tag/minnesota/
TTG,
That is precisely my point. The cost of immigration is not being born by those who support it. There are a multitude of policies on the left just like this.
Herb,
You’re rather selective with your data. A 3% increase from the 5.6% of the city’s population is still a less than a 800 people. It also doesn’t state they are “immigrants”. People do have children here after all. The US census data gives some better indication than the CBS piece you linked to:
http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/2743000
Not everyone is enamored of the public policy choices either:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/minneapoliss-white-lie/385702/
Do greenfrogs get night sweat fever dreams? Looks like yes, (((Tyler))).
Inside my “gated community”. Hahaha! Seriously, Lol. Earlier you were all bragging about how much more you made than me (so you conjecture), now I live in a gated community. In Minnesota. Have you ever been here? No. We actually live in the Somali/Hmong hood. They are culturally different from us, no question, but I think we are hardy enough to cope. Tyle and Fred, shivering under their bedsheets? Maybe not so much. Ultimately, they want the same things we all do
If you have the courage, you should come on up, go to University Ave. They don’t bite. No need to be fear-filled.
Fred says: Now the Ivy League indoctrinated want to promote the establishment of the secular religion of the left nationwide.
This leaves me puzzled. WTF does “secular religion of the left” mean?
Fred,
Thank you for the link. If you were familiar with the area, you would know that Minneapolis is the richer, whiter city of the Twin Cities, so just picking Minneapolis would be the example of being “selective” with data.
Regarding the Atlantic article. Well, the author says the Twin Cities are 80% white. He bases his whole crocodile tear, and incoherent premise on that. If you look at the census data, that number is just simply, provably false. No sense in dignifying falsehoods. The minority population of the Twin Cities is around 40%, not 20% and growing rapidly. That is mainly through the aging, decreased birth rate and dying off of the white population. It is also due to immigration. The people to carry on the expansion of the economy have to come from somewhere.
I’m unclear what this has to do with Francis Scott Key. TTG tweaked you and you can’t take it?
Hmm, interesting. Almost forgot the first, but stumble across the latter more often again recently. Evolutionary psychology makes sense as an inspiring source.
thanks, TTG, as you may have realized I may not have paid too much attention on specific names. I hope you don’t rate it as lack of respect to your PS. 😉
“Ultimately, they want the same things we all do.”
No, just no, “they” do NOT want the same things we (westerners) all do.
They only want the economic benefits of Western Civilization but NOT the culture, customs and intellectual achievements, all hail Sharia, no books (Boko Haram, that’s what this means).
So if you want to commit societal suicide go to those desolate places they come from and try to shore up their achievements in situ, don’t wreck the living of other westerners you disagree with.
ToivoS,
Start with “Political Correctness” and “Diversity”.
Was it ‘raisinjack’? That was the beverage of choice I remember on troopships. Raisins, baker’s yeast, sugar, and water. After a day or two those raisins were putt-putting around like a mass flotilla IRGC patrol boats.
Herb,
Is this response meant for Tyler? We are actually two different people with very different views. I’ve been to Minnesota. If you’re paying I’ll be happy to visit again. The boundary waters are great this time of year.
herb,
Thanks for pointing out my error in misreading your original piece. “The people to carry on the expansion of the economy have to come from somewhere.” That’s an interesting objective. Why is that an objective, who determined it and how?
“TTG tweaked you…” No, he posed a point of view and we engaged in a discussion. I don’t see any relevance to Francis Scott Key nor mentioned anything about him.
All,
An interesting article by Steve Sailer in the ‘American Conservative’ from January 2007 discusses the research of the Harvard scholar Robert D. Putnam on the effects of ethnic diversity. The fact that Putnam patently did not like the conclusions to which his research unambiguously pointed gives greater force to a paragraph Sailer quotes:
‘In the presence of [ethnic] diversity, we hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.’
(See http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/fragmented-future/ .)
The attempt by Putnam to find a way out of his dilemmas results in the extraordinary conclusion to the interview with John Lloyd of the ‘Financial Times’ which Sailer discusses:
‘In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: “What we shouldn’t do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us.’
What this ‘new us’ is to be, who is supposed to ‘construct’ it, and how it is envisaged they should do it is left unclear. Equally unclear is what makes a Harvard professor feel entitled to tell the indigenous population of Britain that they should be ‘socially engineered’ into something different from what they have been for quite a few centuries.
However, Putnam’s remark also brings up a fundamental point. Some immigrants are all too happy to be ‘more like us’; others aren’t.
Actually, ethnicity and culture have a complicated relationship. For example: The history of industrial South Wales in the late-nineteenth century, and also of India, have the spread of English-language education at their core.
In both cases, it was a key to getting on in the world – but also in both cases, it also involved, to a greater or lesser extent, absorbing a ‘high culture’ which was primarily English.
A belated result of this is that, as someone Anglo-Welsh by background, living in London, cultural differences with people I know whose origins are in the subcontinent operate in the context of a reassuring cultural familiarity. But then, the Asians I know are, almost by definition, those whose families have wanted to be ‘more like us.’
Elsewhere in the country, however, the kind of situation of described by Putnam has clearly been developing, as a result of the ‘social engineering’ attempted by Jack Straw and his ‘New Labour’ colleagues.
A report in the ‘Telegraph’ last month informed us that more than a quarter of children born in the UK last year were to mothers themselves born outside the country. In some parts, it was three quarters.
(See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/25/net-migration-hits-327000-in-new-blow-for-government-pledge/ .)
Some of these people will want, and be able, to assimilate culturally. An uncertain – but probably rather high – proportion either do not want to, or would have difficulty doing so.
In relation to the United States, as Sailer brings out, it is material that some hispanics assimilate but very many others do not. His remarks on the low levels of trust outside the family in Mexico – a cultural characteristic with very deep roots – seem to the point.
Mike,
I should not have left out the Africans – it turns out there were three divisions, the 11th East African, and the 81st and 82nd West African. And of course, there were the Gurkhas: Slim himself was a former officer of Gurkhas.
In an interesting 2007 article discussing how Slim in essence created the Fourteenth Army, after the terrible defeats of the early months of the war, Major N.R.M. Borton wrote:
‘Indians, Africans and Gurkhas provided the soul and the backbone of the 14th Army – without them, there would have been no Army and no victory.’
Some of Borton’s most interesting remarks actually concern how Slim analysed and confronted the problem of creating cohesion in such a diverse force. It is material that it was emphatically not the pre-war, professional, long-service volunteer Indian Army: there was an eightfold expansion in the Indian element in the Army.
But, as Borton makes clear, Slim clearly thought that his Indian volunteers were generally more natural soldiers than his British conscripts:
‘British troops contrasted with Indians, Gurkhas and Africans in other ways; the Indians were all volunteers from races with a proud martial heritage, whereas the British often saw themselves as “civilians in uniform” rather than professional soldiers.
‘Slim himself identified other advantages to Asian soldiers over Europeans: “The Asian fighting man is at least equally brave, usually more careless of death, less encumbered by mental doubts, little troubled by humanitarian sentiment, and not so moved by slaughter and mutilation about him.”’
This may be relevant to the ways in which Slim moulded his army into a cohesive fighting force. As Borton puts it:
‘The diverse nature of the multi-racial Army made nationalist and religious appeals irrelevant; the focus of the Army therefore became “to destroy the Japanese army, to smash it as an evil thing”.’
(See http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14702430208405039 .)
mike,
That raisinjack may have been the start of it. He said he started with a lot of dried fruit. He was going for something well beyond raisinjack. Actually, that raisinjack sounds a lot like the big crock of dandelion wine we always had fermenting down in our cellar when I was growing up. My job was to pick the dandelion blossoms. That and the beer were damned fine. My grandfather grew the hops himself.
My great uncle up in Presque Isle used to make his applejack without a still. He would ferment the apples into a really foul looking apple-wine, put it in wooden kegs, and then leave it out all winter where it underwent a freeze distillation process. I have experimented with cherries. But no luck as my winters aren’t cold enough. So I just fermented them and then added pure grain alcohol to make a cherry brandy. Too sweet for my taste but my wife’s girlfriends used to love it in their coffee for it when they visited.
DH –
I couldn’t find a copy of Frank McLynn’s book that Jonst recommended on Burma. But I managed to get a copy Russel Miller’s bio of General Slim titled “Uncle Bill”. He notes that the Slim’s logistics problems were thought impossible because of the varying diets due to the ethnic diversity of the Fourteenth Army: vegetarians, some meat eaters who would not touch pork, others with no beef, fish eaters, some who ate only rice, some who ate only wheat. There were 30 different ration issues for over 500,000 troops and 300,000 laborers and porters. At the time there was famine in India. And distribution must have been horrendous: his area of operations was bigger than Poland, stretching from China to the Bay of Bengal, much of it thru roadless jungle and mountains.
But he made it work. Impressive guy.
herb,
No Herb, I have no problem going near minorities. I just don’t want them here with all their BS problems and bringing their 3rd World problems.
You, on the other hand, love telling us how much you love minorities from your 95% white zip code.
“Go to University Ave” oh my lol. Go to MLK Drive and let me know how it goes.
herb,
Obviously, you also danced around any discussion of my link in order to virtue signal how much you love minorities.
Very telling.
Tell us for a fourth time about how very brave you are and not at all terrified.
David Habakkuk,
Thanks for that link to the excellent Steve Sailer article. I found it to be a level-headed and factual discussion of the volatile subject of diversity. The phenomenon of invasive species comes to mind. I lived in southern Germany during the Wiedervereinigung. Aside from the heady celebrations in Berlin, the resentment towards the Ossies was almost stifling. A generation or so of separation produced two peoples with very different cultural ways and heavy suspicions of each other. I don’t know if that exists today in the face of more pressing problems of “invasive species.”
I saw a different outcome of cultural mixing growing up in a small Connecticut town. This was a farming community of old families centered around the UCC Congregational church. In the 18th century this was a “new light” Puritan community. In the early to mid-20th century, a Roman Catholic mission was established in Prospect. The Congregationalists welcomed the Catholics who were largely European immigrants working in the large manufacturing mills outside the town. As the two communities grew to near equal size, the harmonious integration was shepherded by the larger than life pastors of the two churches. Without those two, I doubt the integration would have been as harmonious as it was. Obviously, the cultural diversity wasn’t as jarring as an influx of Africans or South Asians, but it was probably was close to the experience of East Europeans invading the UK as noted in that “Telegraph” story. Community leadership, especially at the local level, can make the difference whether the challenge of diversity will end up as a tragedy or success story.
While we’re trading factoids and learning….did you know that “son of a gun” is a phrase of naval origins? “gun” refers to “gunner’s mate”. If I recall correctly, it had something to do with the Philippines. Sailors on shore leave impregnating the local girls and producing “Sons of guns” (aka “bastard”).
My father, being a former Marine, was, of coursed, obsessed with marksmanship. But he also had a weird obsession with ambidexterity. He was naturally right handed, but as a boxer he was able to shift south paw at will. He could bat in the softball league as a lefty too. He taught me to shoot on guns reasonable for a boy of 8; a .22 rifle and a .32 revolver. However, I had to be able to hit a quarter size bulls eye at 50 yards with the .22 right handed (my natural) and left handed. The .32 had to be fired accurately with either hand too. He claimed to have qualified expert with the M1 Garand both right and left handed in the service (though I’m not sure how he managed to monkey around on qualification day with switching hands).
There is no question that immigrants like your father, Kao’s, mine can become top notch Americans. It’s so difficult to figure out what is going on with these things today. So much political noise on all sides.
Mike, My uncle here in upstate NY makes applejack in exactly the same manner. It’s not bad, but drinking too much of it leads to a bad case of the runs on top of the hangover.
I agree. I am going to quote him from here on in, name, rank, and all, if only to show I didn’t dream it up myself when quoting in polite company.
Thanks for it TTG. Couldn’t have been more appropriate.
You’ve got a comprehension problem, Jackson. How you got what you claim you got out of TTG’s post is beyond me, that and your obvious lack of real facts about European and Islamic history, no doubt gleaned from Hollywood and our badly educated media class.
Unless and until you can produce documented proof of your slave records, which fly in the face of actual auction records from 1641-1850–which believe it or not I bought from a seller of rare Jewish antique books and spent a weekend reading–then I call bullshit on your assertions.
Louisiana-based Touro (same guy whose name is on various universities and institutions around the US today) was a major Planation owner who brought the slave trade up from Central America where the first Jewish traders and families had introduced the Netherlands-based and Dutch-run slave trade to the Americas. These 12 Jewish families had first landed in Curacao from the Netherlands starting in the 1500s. Their birth, marriage, and death records, 400 years of them, show that all Jewish families today who can trace their ancestry from that time were descendants of those original 12 Curacao families, ranging from Recife, Brazil to present-day Montreal. These were rich, noblemen Sephardic Jews–Sephardic Jews were from Spain not the less educated ghettoed Eastern European Ashkenazi—who Queen Isabel kicked out of Spain in 1492 (after 10 years of ditching the Muslims) so she could convince the former Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia who had become Pope to move the Papacy from Italy back to his native Spain. To convince him, she “cleansed” the country. It wasn’t anti-semitism that drove her like Netanyahu Père insists. Isabel wanted consolidated power, because the Roman Catholic Church was all powerful at the time, and Spain was the reigning western world naval power (China had Spain beat, but who spoke Chinese in Barcelona, Rome, or London, so who knew?)
Isabel was the real royal; King Ferdinand was her consort, like Prince Philip is to Queen Elizabeth. She wanted to consolidate secular and religious power into a great Spanish empire. It’s also why Christian historians rewrote prodigious Islamic Science inventions as European, and their engineering, mathematical, and medical wonders as European starting in 1492—even though Christian monks and Jewish scribes had documented Islamic Science inventions for 500 years previous during pilgrimages to Cordoba, and these remained locked in monasteries and synagogues until the 19th C. Spain in particular renamed the great Islamic Science architectural creations in southern Spain, created one-to-five centuries before, as the creations of Spanish kings subsequent to 1492.
For example, Copernicus was a Polish monk with no particular astronomical skill. He is credited with inventing or discovering the heliocentric view of the world, dissolving 1200+ years of Ptolemaic understanding (and Roman Catholic worldview) based on the fact that he wrote it up. Records show that he got latin translations of Islamic Science papers on the heliocentric view from a Christian scribe (first name Luca, can’t remember the rest) who had brought them to Italy during Copernicus’ brief stay there.
mike,
Hollywood propaganda about New Orleans? The British attack that Jackson defeated was a couple weeks after the peace treaty had signed. Neither side new the war was over at the time. Hollywood didn’t come into existence until almost a century later.
Fred –
Yes, that was my point. I obviously missed by a barn door. Guess I am showing my age as Hollywood portrayed the Battle of New Orleans back in 1958:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051436/
And singer Johnny Horton is to blame also for his 59(?) song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL7XS_8qgXM
Mike,
Interesting link. I didn’t realize Anthony Quinn ever directed a movie. I do have to read up on Jean Lafitte, he sounds like an interesting man.
David, I think the US situation is a bit different in a few important ways.
1. We have Hispanics immigrating from a country that is often a short day’s drive from the location of settlement in the US. There is a sense that the immigrant really hasn’t permanently left. Adding to that, there is a sense that the area of settlement in the US historically belonged to the country of origin and can be virtually reclaimed by overwhelming numbers of immigrants.
2. The US already has a native sub-population (blacks) that have not assimilated well and whose crime rates, poverty rates, low education attainment, etc. serve as a painful salient red flag warning about the dangers of introducing large communities of “others”.
3. We have a large group of loudly vocal, politically active, liberal ideologues that are unabashedly using the “others” to attack and erode the culture and values of the traditional society. In addition, these same liberals have established a host of welfare programs that serve to allow – in some cases incentivize – maladaptive cultural behaviors.
Absent these three forces, IMO immigration an assimilation would be more readily accepted in the US. However, with the three forces in effect, there will be, justifiably, resistance to acceptance of immigrants and a lower rate of successful assimilation on the part of immigrants themselves.
@David Habakkuk and Eric Newhill,
Read this. It was a NYT Sunday Op-ed published during the height of Lou Dobbs’ anti-immigrant campaign on CNN in 2006. It was just a few weeks after the NYT instituted its first paywall (it failed some months later) so few read it.
Immigration — and the Curse of the Black Legend by Tony Horwitz. Of course, Americans don’t know this history . . . their own.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/opinion/09horwitz.html?pagewanted=all
Interesting to see you go off on a tangent on this obviously biased statement, MRW. Alhambra Degree, Spanish Inquisition?
But yes, I struggled a bit around Spain and earlier admittedly to a large extend only suspected influence of Islamic scholars and Scientist on e.g. the Scholastics too (see below). Never dived into it to an extend I wish I could. … I was viciously attacked by the members of leading neoconservative blog-voice too, when I dared to hesitatingly propose something along the lines.
Concerning slavery I personally wouldn’t mind to read something like a “diachronic” approach to the phenomenon. Ideally including related subjects, or putting it into the respective historical context over times.
More arbitrary quote from a fast cut and paste action, related fields:
“employee service, servitude, labour, labour service, bondage, peonage, subordination, subjection …”
versus “Freedom”?
unmasked/exposed “Cultural Marxist” by members of the SST community.
unmasked/exposed as “Granny Hasbari” see above.
lately as autist too.
oh boy, now everybody is doing the (((echo))). Isn’t it unseemly- like a secret code?
Does one have to be a publicly funded researcher at Harvard to come up with such profound inanities:
“And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”
I could have told him this from first hand experience.
I see that while in England they send the fools to become vicars – like poor Mr. Collins – in US they send them to become researchers at some university somewhere.
Babak Makkinejad,
Do not generalise about vicars.
Jane Austen’s family were English country people. Her father was a vicar, of her brothers, one went into the church, two into the navy, both rising to be admirals.
My mother’s family were also English country people. My grandfather and two great uncles were ‘padres’ in France. Of my three maternal great uncles who were not ‘men of the cloth’, two did not come back.
Eric,
The example of the blacks in the US is a warning against ghettoization, a lesson the Euros are also learning the hard way.
IMO cultures change only very slowly unless they are forced to mix, then a new culture will hash itself out and rather rapidly, and the affect of attempts to shape it are iffy at best, although some seem to believe it easy to do.
Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion” tangentially deals with this. On the surface it’s a story of a tightly knit logging “family” and some of their long time crew, and he makes the individuals as culturally different as he could plausibly do so for the situation, but that situation is not an uncommon one in such places of the American West. I believe he was channeling his service experience, but something like that happens.
Singapore is the model for a larger scale, I suppose, but it took an intrusiveness of state which is not easy for many to tolerate to force the various cultures to mix.
All
Charles Hugh Smith has a short note on identity politics worth your time to read.
http://oftwominds.bmobilized.com/?task=get&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oftwominds.com%2Fblogsept16%2Fidentity-politics9-16.html&width=360