TopShelf TG Fiction in the BigCloset!
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
If you prefer, you can donate through Patreon:
Become a Patron!
Thank you!
Comments
Unless
You are part of the right wing nut jobs which seemed to include the right to shoot your neighbors repress anyone you don't like and otherwise destroy democracy if it doesn't agree with you.
Not just that
I am sure they literally believe in the 'All men' part.
Probably
Since the text states "endowed". At least it doesn't say "well-endowed".
Seriously though, disregarding certain choices of words that can have more than one meaning, this really IS one of the most powerful texts in history.
*Snort*
Since when did a man not think mentally prepend the 'well' part when they hit on a woman ?
It is an amazing thing . . .
Sometimes, even the most deeply flawed people have a moment where they transcend the limitations of their time and their upbringing, to do something so unexpected, or pen something so profound, that it changes the world. This was one.
Emma
Hard to believe
Hard to believe those words were written by a man who owned slaves. Our democracy is still a work in progress.
And hopefully. . .
. . . it always will be — A project in which we are active participants and stewards.
Emma
It’s all about the journey……
The strife, the effort to be better - that is what sets us apart from others.
People are not perfect, nor is anything they construct. But the attempt to reach perfection is what makes us who we are.
Unfortunately there will always be those who abhor change, the ones who long for an imagined “better time”, the so-called “good old times” that when looked at impartially are not what they claim them to be. At least not for everyone. It is this group that we must fight against with our every breath.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Like many well to do families of the day…….
Many of our founding fathers were slave owners. Especially those who lived in the more southern colonies - keeping in mind that the only real reason slavery was not prevalent in the northern states was that due to the climate it was not economical to house, clothe, and feed slaves year round. However, indentured servitude was essentially slavery and it DID exist in those colonies.
Keep in mind that those self-same founding fathers “mutually pledge to each other our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor.” It was a group of wealthy land owners who had everything to lose who led the way.
I would also point out that my forefathers were also slave owners. My family left Scotland after the failed Scottish revolt in 1715, traveling through Ireland, and settled in the Carolinas in 1720. I come from old Southern Gentry. I am not proud of the fact that my family owned slaves, but I am proud of the fact that they were all freed long before the Civil War - a war in which members of my family fought on both sides. My family has fought in every war since the French and Indian War.
Our founding fathers were not perfect, but what they created has lasted longer than most governments. It is a living document, and it falls on us to make it and our country better.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
mutually pledge to each other our lives our fortunes and our sac
There is a speech that documents this and what happened to the men who signed The Declaration of Independence. It can be found here:
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/11/21/my-fathers-spe...
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
As long as you didn't own
As long as you didn't own slaves, you are not to blame. I don't believe in the "sins of the Father". I lost several of my ancestors to German bullets.I don't hate Germans because of that.
Leeanna
Not to get into the weeds
Jefferson had included a condemnation of slavery but it was taken out.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Always Wondered About That...
"[The king] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither."
Was he really able to dissociate his principles and practices that easily? Did he decide that since they were already here and enslaved that it was no longer his problem? Was he trying to sneak something else into the document and providing that article as a distraction, knowing it'd be removed?
Haven't seen an answer, though I'll admit that I haven't read a whole lot of commentary on the Declaration.
Eric
Sally Hemings
Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence three to four years before his sexual relationship with Sally Hemings started while they were in France.
Jefferson, Franklin, and Lincoln are in a category by themselves as far as leaders of our country.
History is comp!ex. Yesterday I read an explanation of why the northern states mostly rejected slavery. According to this theory it was because of the weather which only allowed full utilization of slaves as farm workers during the warmer months.
That doesn't seem right as Adam Smith devoted quite a bit of his Wealth of Nations to the economic folly of slavery. . . north or south -- when he wasn't pushing invisible hands.
Slavery was horribly wrong.
The recent supreme court ruling on affirmative action left me feeling lukewarm, as the further you get from merit the less of a democracy we seem to have. However, a pundit advanced the theory that the primary reason for this case was to throw a boulder in the path of reparations.
Would reparations help right the wrong of slavery? Possibly. But just as possibly it would be one more attack on the self esteem of the slave descendents!.
In most instances when I'm trying to understand things I follow the money. Supposedly, the affirmative action case was highly funded by those who believed reparations would hit them in the pocketbook.
When judging Jefferson and the other founding fathers and the way they handled things like 3/5ths of a person, it must be considered that their end goal was a union of states.
Often their personal beliefs were lost in the greater battle.
Today's SCOTUS is a lot like the writers of the Declaration of Independence. They're human beings with all the foibles that involves.
You gets what you pay for.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I think reparations are a
I think reparations are a silly idea.
Should Germany pay reparations to all those who lost loved ones in WW1 and WW2? Should Japan pay for the American lives lost?
Should America pay reparations for the Japanese Americans imprisoned during WW2?
Those events are a lot more recent than slavery.
Who pays it, the descendants of slave owners? Who do they pay it too? Anyone who is black in the USA? Or just those that can prove that their ancestors were owned?
The whole thing is an impossible mess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_slave_owners
Leeanna
Reparations aren't about the slavery itself per se
but about the lingering issues in our government and social structures due to the mindset(s) that kept slavery in power to begin with.
Reparations aren't because someone's grandmother was a slave as such: they're because the continued racial division in our country means that even decades after the civil rights movement, even decades after the last slave was freed (ONLY decades,) even decades after the abolishment of separate but equal and all of that, black Americans continue to be underserved by both our economic and political systems.
It's like if you had a marathon race where all the competitors are supposedly given an equal chance of winning, but one of them starts on foot, one starts on a bike, and one starts in an F1 car and has 1000 hours of track time under their belt. Reparations are making sure the foot and bike owners are allowed to drive competitive cars and trained on how to use them, so that that equal chance actually has a chance to bear out.
We also need stronger wealth distribution in our country: the F1 driver has their car taken away, and everyone is given Honda Civics to race. But that's an entirely different discussion to have.
Melanie E.
Also.
The last legal slave in the US wasn't freed until 1942.
As for the reparations to the victims of war...
Yes on all counts for the war crimes and damage committed by countries.
Melanie E.
Sorry can you explain
Sorry can you explain "decades after the last slave was freed (ONLY decades,) "
Do you mean this?
Neoslavery is a term to describe a whole range of ways in which all across the Southern United States in the late 19th century and deep into the 20th century millions of African-Americans found themselves in a form of de facto slavery and involuntary servitude. One part of neoslavery, "convict leasing," was the sentencing of prisoners to hard labor or to fine them outrageously, and [then] they were leased out to commercial interests such as farms, coal mines, turpentine production plants, lumber and railroad camps. This was the means by which the white South forced millions of other African-Americans to go along with de facto slavery that took on the form of sharecropping, abusive farm tenancy, land renting and labor contracts.
Yes that was disgusting
Leeanna
Should America pay reparations for the Japanese Americans ...
"Should America pay reparations for the Japanese Americans imprisoned during WW2?" Actuially, they did. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 gave surviving Japanese Americans reparations and a formal apology by President Reagan for their incarceration during World War II. However, the payments went only to those who were still living at the time the payments were issued (not authorized). The payments were not related to the losses incurred. Many Japanese-Americans lost their businesses as well as their homes due to 3 1/2 years of incarceration. No payments were made to descendants, though they suffered from the loss of inherited wealth. And prejudice against Asian-Americans continues today.
As a viewer from outside the US
I am depressed when culture warriors (in this case from the left) unnecessarily bring their battles into what should be a a simple celebration.
History over mythology
People bring up the important facts about the Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers is the opposite of unnecessary, it is vital. It makes sure that people do not believe in mythology over history. This is so some people who are waving the flag cannot just get people to follow them mindlessly. It is also so important words like freedom, equality, and justice have a true meaning and are not used as buzzwords. The 4th of July is a political holiday and by just letting it be a simple celebration let the people who want to use it to promote their political agenda to do so without the proper context.
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Moms
I'd give Sarah's comment multiple Likes, Loves and Thanks if I could. History must be more than just be a comforting mythology about flawless men guided by a Providence that favors the USA over everyone else. And words like Liberty can be chillingly Orwellian coming from the mouths of they (like these twisted fucks who call themselves Moms For Liberty) who think it should only apply to them; and who are working tirelessly to make sure it will someday. I would love the luxury of being apolitical, but to not engage in "culture war" when attacked + demonized (somehow my mere existence makes me a "groomer", a vector of degeneracy that must be rooted out else it destroys society, according to certain folks on the Right. A familiar authoritarian playbook, nicht war?) is a kind of capitulation that never ends well for people like us.
~Happy 4th (ok, 5th) of July; Veronica
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Free Numerical Tattoo
You make it sound like Moms For Liberty are baddies.
I guess I'll rethink accepting the free arm tattoo they've offered.
I almost sat for it today but was reminded that Leviticus prohibits gashing or incising our bodies.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Jefferson was consistent
In his early writing about the state of Virginia he called for an end to slavery but offered no plan for doing so. To the end of his life he said that slavery should be ended but he had no concrete plan for doing so. He said that future generations would have more experience in democracy and would address the issue. The truth of the matter is that he could not have freed even his own slaves because like most planters in Virginia at the time he had mortgaged them to British banks. While I don't condone or accept the idea of human beings as property, that is how they were looked at under the law at the time. They were valuable property their owners could and did borrow against to buy more land for tobacco growing worked by more slaves bought by mortgaging the land. The planter class were in constant debt to their English bankers. This was the cycle that would only be broken by the civil war and for which Jefferson could see no end without bankrupting himself and his peers.
From whom did they buy the land ?
I've not heard about this before.
From whom did they buy the land ?
My incorrect picture has them being settlers in a "new" land, so unless they were buying the land from the natives, wouldn't they just take the land ? What was the reality ?
Sounds as if there was an economic disconnect or fallacy somewhere too, if the only way to pay off the loans was to take out more loans. The quid quo pro for business profits is taking on the risk of bankrupcy if your guesses on the market are wrong. It is not acceptable to push the pain from those losses onto other people or groups.
Farming and debt
Farming and debt go hand-in-hand. Have a bad year, you need to borrow for seed, borrow for food, or both. Have a string of bad years and you’re done. And it’s mostly about weather, and their’s nothing they can do about that. So even if you — or more likely, your grandpappy — got the land for free, you’d still be in debt.
The same phenomenon fueled the rise of what was then called populism in the Great Plains and upper Midwest in the 1880s and 1890s, though the resentment in that case was directed at banks in New York.
Emma
Exactly
In North Dakota this resulted in the creation of a state-owned bank, which is still today the largest bank in the state. It's "loan committee" consists of the Governor, the Attorney General, and the Agric Commissioner.
Those three elected officials also run the State owned Mill and Elevator which is the largest flour mill in the country.
Some might think of this as socialism. Doug Burgum, current governor, is one of eleven who have announced their candidacy for president running as a Republican. If he makes it to the debate stage I wonder if anyone will ask him about this?
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
the frontier
By Jefferson's day the area making up modern day Virginia had been "settled" for over a hundred years. The frontier was to the West across the Cumberland gap where men like Boone, Kenton, and Duncan were actively displacing the native people leading to Tecumseh's allying with the British in the war of 1812. The problem of debt to British banks was a legacy of the colonial system combined with the nature of Tobacco farming where land was quickly used up and needed to left to other crops for many years. The whole thing is too complicate to explain completely here even if I was qualified to do so. What I do understand is that Jefferson and other planters who believed that slavery should be abolished were caught in an early "catch 22". They could continue as things were or go bankrupt at a time when creditors could claim everything down to your children's clothes and someone else would buy their slaves from the bank anyway.
Not all of them
Not all of them
The American Civil War and emancipation ended chattel slavery, and as a result, substantially reduced the fortunes of slaveholding households in the years immediately following the war.
In a paper in the American Economic Review, authors Philipp Ager, Leah Boustan, and Katherine Eriksson find that many former slave-owning White households rebuilt much of their lost wealth in just one generation, and within two generations, most had recovered entirely.
https://www.aeaweb.org/research/southern-wealth-persistence-...
Leeanna
"all men are created equal,
"all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Nice idea, but when that was written there were over 60,000 slaves in the USA. It increased year on year until abolition.
Most scholars today believe that Jefferson derived the most famous ideas in the Declaration of Independence from the writings of English philosopher John Locke. Locke wrote his Second Treatise of Government in 1689 at the time of England's Glorious Revolution, which overthrew the rule of James II.
Locke wrote that all individuals are equal in the sense that they are born with certain "inalienable" natural rights. That is, rights that are God-given and can never be taken or even given away. Among these fundamental natural rights, Locke said, are "life, liberty, and property."
Leeanna