Independence Day

[Backlighting]

Wishing all a safe and fun holiday, while remembering the Founders/ Framers of our great country. Here's a quote I like:

"The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of an idea - and the idea was liberty" ---Nathaniel Branden (brainyquote)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hear, Hear!

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

28 minutes ago, Backlighting said:

Wishing all a safe and fun holiday, while remembering the Founders/ Framers of our great country. Here's a quote I like:

"The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of an idea - and the idea was liberty" ---Nathaniel Branden (brainyquote)

In this Nation founded on the concept of Liberty,  chattel slavery was legal.  Go figure....

[jts]

53 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

In this Nation founded on the concept of Liberty,  chattel slavery was legal.  Go figure....

Can you point to a USA legal document where slavery was legal?

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.
— Declaration of Independence, 1776

 

[Backlighting]

I find this somewhat surreal:

"After leaving Washington, Thomas Jefferson spent the last two decades of his life at Monticello. He died on July 4, 1826--hours before his good friend and former political rival John Adams--on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence"

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/writing-of-declaration-of-independence

[merjet]

7 hours ago, jts said:

Can you point to a USA legal document where slavery was legal?

It was not explicitly said in the Constitution. It was made clear in the Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford. 

[Brant Gaede]

11 hours ago, jts said:

Can you point to a USA legal document where slavery was legal?

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.
— Declaration of Independence, 1776

I'd bet you'd find it in the Constitution itself even though you won't find "slave" or "slavery." The implication was over-whelming.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

11 hours ago, jts said:

Can you point to a USA legal document where slavery was legal?

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.
— Declaration of Independence, 1776

 

It was legal in the Southern States.  In fact it was the basis of the economy of the Southern States.  Before the 13, and 14 th amendments that States regulated such matter per  the 10 th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.   Slaves were bought and sold  in the United States until 1808 when importation of slaves to the United States was halted.  Since slaves were property   if Slave S were the property of master M  in State A  then if Master M  moved to state B with his property state B would have to recognize the owner ship by the provision in the U.S. constitution that says each state much recognized the judicial acts and decisions of other states.  The portability of slave property was the issue in the Dredd-Scott decision and the court  ruled (Justice Taney writing the majority)  that even if it were illegal to purchase a slave in a State  that State would have to recognize the ownership relation of a Master to a Slave who brought in a Slave from another state where ownership of slaves was legal.  It was decisions like this the cranked up the conditions for Civil War. That and the Fugitive Slave act that forced a state which did not have legal slave ownership to return a fugitive slave to the Master of the slave in another State where slavery was legal. If the owner of the slave authorized agents (slave catchers)  to get his fugitive slave back the  officials  of the state to which the fugitive escaped where obliged by law  to assist the agents in catching the fugitive  and turn over said property  to the agents of the owner. 

That is the way it was prior to 1861.  The land of the Free was also the land of the Slave. 

[Brant Gaede]

Hence, the underground rr--to Canada.

--Brant

[Peter]

5 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Hence, the underground rr--to Canada.

--Brant

Don't need no underground rail road, dadgummit! We elected a former slave, Barack Obama to be President. 

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

Don't need no underground rail road, dadgummit! We elected a former slave, Barack Obama to be President. 

Barack Obama was never a slave.  Neither were his parents. 

[jts]

About the legality of slavery.

1.  The Constitution of the USA does not allow slavery. Period.

2.  Therefore any law in the USA allowing slavery is contrary to the Constitution. And any ruling in the USA allowing slavery by a judge is contrary to the Constitution.

3.  But slavery was generally accepted and therefore was above the Constitution. Anything goes if it is generally accepted.

 

About USA being a capitalist country. That depends on the definition of capitalism.

By the conventional definition of capitalism, private ownership of the means of production:  YES. Slavery is private ownership of the means of production, slaves being the means of production.

By Ayn Rand's definition of capitalism, social system based on recognition of rights including property rights:  NO. Recognition of rights does not allow slavery.

 

Taxes. Taxes are violations of rights. Not consistent with Ayn Rand's definition of capitalism.

 

[merjet]

15 minutes ago, jts said:

About the legality of slavery.

1.  The Constitution of the USA does not allow slavery. Period.

True now. But it was not true prior to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution becoming law in 1865.

[Peter]

jts wrote: Taxes. Taxes are violations of rights. Not consistent with Ayn Rand's definition of capitalism. end quote

George H. Smith wrote on another thread: A few years ago, at an ISIL conference in Williamsburg, I gave two lectures on the topic, "Was the U.S. Constitution a Betrayal of the American Revolution?" My talk was very balanced, as I presented the strong and weak points of each side objectively. But whether one wishes to use the term "betrayal" or not, the fact that the Constitution departed radically from many essential principles of the Revolution is indisputable. This was a hot button topic at the time, widely discussed, and Hamilton discusses it in the Federalist Papers. He freely acknowledges the differences, but argues that the Constitution, by dramatically increasing the power of the federal government, was a change for the better . . . . Hamilton maintained the clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised for the general welfare. Many Antifederalists, such as Mercy Warren, saw this coming and insisted that the Constitution should be rewritten so as to leave no doubt that Congress had only those powers that were expressly delegated to it. end quote

I think my interpretation of Randian principles is correct and that is to start where we are now. Start with the fact that our citizens are currently taxed. Then lessen taxation and over time keep lessening taxation until government earns its keep through payment for services from its citizens. We have a President who is getting the job done, but we may need different Senators and Congressman.

I am amused by the wording “would and should” below.

Peter

From The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Taxation. In a fully free society, taxation—or, to be exact, payment for governmental services—would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government—the police, the armed forces, the law courts—are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance. The question of how to implement the principle of voluntary government financing—how to determine the best means of applying it in practice—is a very complex one and belongs to the field of the philosophy of law. The task of political philosophy is only to establish the nature of the principle and to demonstrate that it is practicable. The choice of a specific method of implementation is more than premature today—since the principle will be practicable only in a fully free society, a society whose government has been constitutionally reduced to its proper, basic functions. Any program of voluntary government financing has to be regarded as a goal for a distant future. What the advocates of a fully free society have to know, at present, is only the principle by which that goal can be achieved. The principle of voluntary government financing rests on the following premises: that the government is not the owner of the citizens’ income and, therefore, cannot hold a blank check on that income—that the nature of the proper governmental services must be constitutionally defined and delimited, leaving the government no power to enlarge the scope of its services at its own arbitrary discretion. Consequently, the principle of voluntary government financing regards the government as the servant, not the ruler, of the citizens—as an agent who must be paid for his services, not as a benefactor whose services are gratuitous, who dispenses something for nothing. end quote 

[Peter]

From the Atlas Society: In an ode to Independence Day, David Kelley, founder of The Atlas Society, describes why he thinks of the Fourth as the “Objectivist Sabbath.”

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Peter said:

From the Atlas Society: In an ode to Independence Day, David Kelley, founder of The Atlas Society, describes why he thinks of the Fourth as the “Objectivist Sabbath.”

The Day of Rest for Negro Slaves did not occur  until after 1865 when the 13 th Amendment was passed. 

On July 4, 1776   millions of African slaves regarded as nothing but property suffered under the lashes of whips and were forced to labor for others against  their will.   Slavery is the Original Sin of the American Republic.  We became an Independent Slave Holding Nation.  Britain outlawed slavery in 1832 some 33 years before slavery was outlawed in the United States.  In the early days of the Republic several of our Presidents owned other humans as property.  For example George Washington  and Thomas Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton, the original American fascist  never owned any slaves. 

[Peter]

The just had some story on TV about semi-slave, Sally Hemmings, who was either Thomas Jefferson’s or his brothers mistress. New evidence seems to suggest it was TJ who was the father of her six kids. Sally is described as very light skinned and almost white enough to pass by holding a basket without disapproving looks, at the market place. And of course everybody knows that TJ’s valet was his own son. The French published articles about how then Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, spoke and treated his valet like he was his son.

Quite a few black folk, many who knew each other and their family’s “stories,” claimed to be descendants of Jefferson and according to DNA evidence they were all telling the truth. His IQ and creativity were one of a kind, but some of that was passed on to his descendants.  

[BaalChatzaf]

5 hours ago, Peter said:

The just had some story on TV about semi-slave, Sally Hemmings, who was either Thomas Jefferson’s or his brothers mistress. New evidence seems to suggest it was TJ who was the father of her six kids. Sally is described as very light skinned and almost white enough to pass by holding a basket without disapproving looks, at the market place. And of course everybody knows that TJ’s valet was his own son. The French published articles about how then Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, spoke and treated his valet like he was his son.

Quite a few black folk, many who knew each other and their family’s “stories,” claimed to be descendants of Jefferson and according to DNA evidence they were all telling the truth. His IQ and creativity were one of a kind, but some of that was passed on to his descendants.  

Sally Hemming was a blood relation to Jefferson's  wife, Martha.  Jefferson did not become intimate with Sally until after his wife died. Hemming and  Martha Jefferson were related through Martha Jefferson's father.  It was very common in those days,  for white slave owners  to father  children with their female slaves.  John Wayles  and Betsy Hemmings produces Sally Hemmings.  So Sally and Martha Wayles Jefferson where half siblings.  That would make Sally and aunt to Jefferson's children.  Jefferson fathered six children with Sally.  

What should we call this Independence Day  gathering?   All in the family???