Post New

As in….. a real history lesson, not the fake stuff you find on FOXNews, the Federalist Society or The American Thinker.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on social media this morning:

“Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote. All visas are a bridge to citizenship. In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the US can do so, exercise the franchise in the US and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits therein.”

After his call for a “labor class” excluded from citizenship and a voice in government, Miller went on to reject the idea that Haitians living and working legally in Ohio should be described as part of Ohio communities. Calling out Democratic former senator Sherrod Brown, who is running for the Senate again this year, for including them, Miller posted: “Democrats just flatly reject any concept of nationhood that has ever existed in human history.”

History is doing that rhyming thing again.

In 1858, Senator James Henry Hammond (D-SC), a wealthy enslaver, rose to explain to his northern colleagues why their objection to human enslavement was so badly misguided. “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” he said. Such workers needed few brains and little skill; they just had to be strong, docile, and loyal to their betters, who would organize their labor and then collect the profits from it, concentrating that wealth into their own hands to move society forward efficiently.

Hammond called such workers “the mud-sill of society and political government.” Much like the beams driven into the ground to support a stately home above, the mudsill supported “that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.” The South had pushed Black Americans into that mudsill role. “We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves,” he said. The North also had a mudsill class, he added: “the man who lives by daily labor…in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.”

But Hammond warned that the North was making a terrible mistake. “Our slaves do not vote,” he said. “We give them no political power. Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they are the depositories of all your political power. If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than ‘an army with banners,’ and could combine, where would you be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided…by the quiet process of the ballot-box.”

Hammond was very clear about what he believed the world should look like. Black Americans should always be subordinate to white men, of course, but white women, too, were subordinate. They were made “to breed,” as “toy[s] for recreation,” or to bring men “wealth and position,” he had explained to his son in 1852. Hammond’s promising early political career had been nearly derailed when he admitted that for two years he had sexually assaulted his four young nieces, the daughters of the powerful Wade Hampton II (although he insisted he was being wronged because he should get credit for showing any restraint at all when faced with four such “lovely creatures”).

If women and Black people were at the bottom of society, southern white men were an “aristocracy” by virtue of their descent from “the ancient cavaliers of Virginia…a race of men without fear and without reproach,” “alike incapable of servility and selfishness.” By definition, whatever such leaders did was what was good for society, and any man who had not achieved that status was excluded because of his own failings or criminal inclinations.

The southern system, Hammond told the Senate, was “the best in the world…such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth,” and spreading it would benefit everyone.

The next year, rising politician Abraham Lincoln told an audience at the Wisconsin state fair in Milwaukee that he rejected Hammond’s mudsill theory. Lincoln explained that Hammond’s “mud-sill theory” divided the world into permanent castes, arguing that men with money drove the economy and workers were stuck permanently at the bottom.

For his part, Lincoln embraced a different theory: It was workers, not wealthy men, who drove the economy. While men of wealth had little incentive to experiment and throw themselves into their work, men on the make were innovative and hardworking. Such men could—and should—rise. This “free labor” theory articulated the true meaning of American democracy for northerners and for the non-slave-holding southerners, who, as Lincoln reminded his listeners, made up a majority in the South. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him,” he explained.

In the election of 1860, southern Democrats tried to get voters to back their worldview by promising they were reflecting God’s will and by using virulent racism, warning that Black Americans must be kept in their place or they would destroy American society.

But, in a nation of immigrants and men who had worked their way up from day laborers to become prominent men, Lincoln stood firm on the Declaration of Independence. He warned that if people started to make exceptions to the idea that all men are created equal, they would not stop. They would “transform this Government into a government of some other form.” “If that declaration is not the truth,” Lincoln said, “let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out!” To cries of “No! No!” he responded: “[L]et us stand firmly by it then.”

Miller’s white nationalism is not the concept on which this nation was built. The United States of America was built on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the sweat and blood of almost 250 years of Americans, often those from marginalized communities, working to make those principles a reality.

The hierarchical system Miller embraces echoes the system championed by those like Hammond, who imagined themselves the nation’s true leaders who had the right to rule. They were not bound by the law, and they rejected the idea that those unwilling to recognize their superiority should have either economic or political power.

The horrors of the Epstein files show a group of powerful and wealthy men and women who sexually assaulted children and showed no concern either for their crimes or that they might have to answer to the law. The public still does not know the extent of the horrors or the human-trafficking business in which Epstein and others were engaged. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters yesterday that the Department of Justice was not releasing any item from the Epstein files that showed “death, physical abuse, or injury.”

“You [know] the biggest problem with being friends with you?” Dr. Peter Attia wrote in an email to Epstein in response to an email with the subject line “Got a fresh shipment.” Attia answered his own question: “The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul.”

Trump echoed Hammond in a different way tonight on Air Force One as he traveled to Florida. Asked by a reporter how he would handle being on both sides of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, he suggested that taking the money of the American people into his own hands would enable him to use it for the public good. “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” he said. “We could make it a substantial amount, nobody would care because it’s gonna go to numerous, very good charities.”

Another story tonight indicated the degree to which the president sees himself as part of a wealthy caste that is above the law. Sam Kessler, Rebecca Ballhous, Eliot Brown, and Angus Berwick of the Wall Street Journal published a blockbuster report showing that four days before Trump’s 2025 inauguration, men working for an Abu Dhabi royal signed a secret deal with the Trump family to buy 49% of their brand-new cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial. The investors would pay half immediately, sending $187 million to entities held by the Trump family and at least $31 million to entities held by Steve Witkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial whom Trump had named U.S. envoy to the Middle East weeks earlier.

The deal was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is the brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates and oversees more than $1.3 trillion that includes the country’s largest wealth fund. Tahnoon has wanted access to U.S. AI technology, but the Biden administration blocked access out of concern it could end up in Chinese hands. The Trump administration, in striking contrast, has committed to allowing the United Arab Emirates to buy about half a million of the most advanced AI chips a year.

Federal agents acting for the Trump administration are trying to enforce the authority of those like Miller, tear-gassing, arresting, and killing American citizens. Thousands marched peacefully in Portland, Oregon, today but, as Alex Baumhardt of the Oregon Capital Chronicle recorded, “federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland…indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs” at marchers, including children. Portland, Oregon, city councillor Mitch Green reported: “I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had their families with them. Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions.”

Tim Dickinson of The Contrarian wrote: “Today I saw ICE gas little white kids in the streets of Portland with chemical weapons. Imagine what they’re doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps.”

And yet, in another echo of the 1850s, MAGA Republicans are reversing victim and offender, blaming the people under assault for the violence. Trump officials insist that community watch groups and protesters are engaging in “domestic terrorism.” Greg Jaffe and Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the New York Times flagged that Representative Eli Crane (R-AZ) told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on Monday that those people protecting their neighbors from the violence of federal agents want “revolution.” “They want to fundamentally remake and tear down the institutions and the culture of this country.”

In an order requiring the release of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, asylum seeker Adrian Conejo Arias, from detention, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery noted that in their crusade against undocumented immigrants, U.S. officials are ignoring the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. “[F]or some among us,” the judge wrote, “the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.”

Judge Biery signed the order after saying he was putting “ a judicial finger in the constitutional dike.” Under his signature, he posted the now-famous image of the little boy detained in his blue bunny hat and Spiderman backpack, along with the notations for two biblical passages: “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,’” and “Jesus wept.”

Tonight, voters flipped a seat in the Texas Senate from Republican to Democratic in a special election. Democrat Taylor Rehmet, an Air Force veteran and machinist, defeated right-wing Republican Leigh Wambsganss for a seat that Republicans have held since the early 1990s. Robert Downen of Texas Monthly noted that in the final days of the campaign, the Wambsganss campaign spent $310,000 while Rehmet spent nothing, and Daniel Nichanian of BoltsMag posted that overall, Wambsganss spent nearly $2.2 million more than Rehmet in the campaign. Both Texas governor Greg Abbott and Trump himself publicly supported Wambsganss.

And yet, asG. Elliott Morrisof Strength in Numbers noted, voters flipped a district that Trump won in 2024 by 17 points to Rehmet, electing him by a 14.4-point margin. After removing the minor-party candidates in the vote, the swing from the Republican in 2024 was 32 points toward the Democrats. In Texas.

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson...

Here's another history lesson:

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for people in states that were defying federal authority.

Lincoln also used armed force, and plenty of it, against states that were defying federal authority.

I fully agree with Heather Cox Richardson that Lincoln is an excellent example for Trump to follow in terms of using maximal force to crush insurrection going on in places like Minneapolis.

Deny these a-holes habeas corpus, send in whoever the modern equivalent of General Sherman might be, tear up the railroads, burn the crops to the ground, and burn Minneapolis to the ground, just like Sherman did to Atlanta.

Good example.

No, GREAT example.

Thanks!

Deny these a-holes habeas corpus, send in whoever the modern equivalent of General Sherman might be, tear up the railroads, burn the crops to the ground, and burn Minneapolis to the ground, just like Sherman did to Atlanta.

Good example.

No, GREAT example.

Thanks!

You’re welcome.

It’s good to know where you stand.

It's good to know where you stand, Reverend.

With the insurrectionist slave-states.

Lincoln was the Devil to you.

Figures.

good to know where you stand, Reverend.

With the insurrectionist slave-states.

Lincoln was the Devil to you.


Lincoln’s ideals have been banished from today’s Republican Party.

Today’s Republican Party now recites the talking point of the Pre-Civil War and Reconstruction/Jim Crow era Democratic Party.

And you still have no clue.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for people in states that were defying federal authority.

The ignorance in this one is strong.

Forget defying federal authority, the Confederacy withdrew from the Union and declared war on the United States. Further, they initiated armed conflict by attacking Fort Sumter. There were literally two armies fighting each other.

Perhaps you can inform us which states have currently seceded from the Union, declared war on the United States, and attacked the United States (at least the insurrectionists on January 6th only attacked us).

If you actually want to learn about the Civil War and Lincoln, I can recommend a bunch of books for you to read.

I mean if you want to read something other than comic boooks.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13...

Of course the grandson of Jewish refugees is the Heinrich Himmler of MAGA fascism.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus of those states who defied and rebelled against federal authority.

I support Trump doing exactly that in Minneapolis and perhaps other places where insurrection is occuring.

I am glad we are in agreement that Lincoln's principles should be emulated in this day and age, Reverend.

If you want to make stuff up about Lincoln, you can do that, but why don't we stick to reality for five minutes.

No, Alpha Wolf.

Not being an American (obviously), you're ignorant of American history.

The Confederacy did not withdraw from the Union.

Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and other heroes made sure of that.

Similarly, the claim of Minneapolis that they are not bound by federal law is equally a nullity.

And, as Rev. Zamboni urges, Lincoln's principles of protecting the Union by military force if necessary must be emulated.

I am glad we are in agreement that Lincoln's principles should be emulated in this day and age, Reverend.

Except that no states have seceded. You are advocating war on fellow Americans and are doing everything in your power to urge federal violence in order to provoke an armed response that you can use to justify a devastating attack by federal troops- WHICH YOU EARLIER PUT FORWARD AS YOUR PREFERRED OUUTCOME.

And, as Rev. Zamboni urges, Lincoln's principles of protecting the Union by military force if necessary must be emulated.

Marco Pollo is out of his everlovin’ mind.

The Confederacy did not withdraw from the Union.

That’s news to anyone who was educated in the United States and every historian that ever lived.

Here are the dates when each Confederate state officially seceded (that means withdrew in the English language) from the United States. They even had their own flag. Perhaps you’ve seen them on the rear window of Tesla Cyber trucks.

South Carolina: December 20, 1860
Mississippi: January 9, 1861
Florida: January 10, 1861
Alabama: January 11, 1861
Georgia: January 19, 1861
Louisiana: January 26, 1861
Texas: February 1, 1861
Virginia: April 17, 1861
Arkansas: May 6, 1861
North Carolina: May 20, 1861
Tennessee: June 8, 1861

They also attacked a United States fort. And the Confederate States of America fought the United States of America (yes, there were 2 different armies) in a very bloody war (which is known to Americans as the Civil War) for four years before the Confederate States of America surrendered and were forced to rejoin the United States of America.

If you don’t like reading (which you obviously don’t), you should watch the Ken Burns documentary, surprisingly called The Civil War. He does great work IMNSHO.

When you find yourself in a deep hole, I recommend that you stop digging.

South Carolina: December 20, 1860
Mississippi: January 9, 1861
Florida: January 10, 1861
Alabama: January 11, 1861
Georgia: January 19, 1861
Louisiana: January 26, 1861
Texas: February 1, 1861
Virginia: April 17, 1861
Arkansas: May 6, 1861
North Carolina: May 20, 1861
Tennessee: June 8, 1861

And every one of those states listed their reasons for secession in the “articles of secession” that each state legislature published.

And the first grievance that each state listed in their “articles”- was their fear that the United States would abolish their sacred right to enslave other human beings.

Now, it seems, as it seemed in the election of 1860, that the house and senate were controlled by the enslavers, the Supreme Court had been captured by the South- having made their Dread Scott decision some decades prior, buttressed now by legislation compelling northern states to return fugitive slaves to their “owners”.

The election of 1860 was a tight thing, but Lincoln won. One wonders what would have happened had Douglas won.


Federal troops sent to northern cities like Minneapolis to round up escaped slaves??


Marco’s appeal to Lincoln fails miserably and reveals either abysmal ignorance or a cunning misapplication of history

was their fear that the United States would abolish their sacred right to enslave other human beings.

Can't help but wonder what sort of nonsense TPTB fed to southern Proles, to motivate them to fight and die, so rich people could keep their slaves.

Steve

Can't help but wonder what sort of nonsense TPTB fed to southern Proles, to motivate them to fight and die, so rich people could keep their slaves.

You might enjoy reading The State of Jones (also a movie but the book is better). From Amazon:

The State of Jones is a true story about the South during the Civil War—the real South. Not the South that has been mythologized in novels and movies, but an authentic, hardscrabble place where poor men were forced to fight a rich man’s war for slavery and cotton. In Jones County, Mississippi, a farmer named Newton Knight led his neighbors, white and black alike, in an insurrection against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War.

In Jones County, Mississippi, a farmer named Newton Knight led his neighbors, white and black alike, in an insurrection against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War.

Even in the north today, perceptions about the Civil War are still filtered through so many layers of hagiography and horseshit that the war itself becomes a cartoon.

"You might enjoy reading The State of Jones (also a movie but the book is better)"
---------------

One of my all time favorite movies. I had no idea that white Southerners battled the Confederates, in the South.

Will look for the book at my local library, books are always better
than the movies, in my experience.

Here's a great book about the start of the Civil War and the true reason for secession (spoiler alert: it was SLAVERY). Well researched, as all this author's books are and fascinating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon_of_Unrest

Over and over again the southern secessionists make very clear they are leaving the Union to preserve sacred slavery. If you have any reason to think otherwise, this book would convince you that you are wrong.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for people in states that were defying federal authority.

It's also worth remembering that modern states are not defying federal authority. They are being sticklers for the limits of federal authority, it's true. And one can debate whether that's a good choice.

But the federal government does not have the authority to require states to enforce federal law. States have to comply with federal law, but they cannot be required to assist the federal government in enforcing federal law against other people. And they certainly can't be required to assist the federal government in the absence of any federal statute requiring it.

So, for example, if a local police department decides they don't want to honor ICE's detainer request, they are not defying federal authority. ICE itself has chosen only to make these voluntary and not try to force compliance, there isn't a federal law that obligates local governments to comply even if ICE tried to claim they were mandatory, and even if there were a federal law it would almost certainly violate Anti-Commandeering precedent.

That means this situation is not at all analogous to the Civil War use of the Suspension Clause and other measures. It also means these folks are not "insurrectionists," because it is certainly not insurrection to insist that the federal government stay within the lines of its authority.

https://www.ice.gov/immigration-detainers

One of my all time favorite movies. I had no idea that white Southerners battled the Confederates, in the South.

There was an even bigger contingent in Alabama. And Mississippi and Alabama were two deep southern states. The further north you got, the more northern sympathizers.

And of course, West Virginia separated from Virginia and became a state in the Union in 1863, the height of the Civil War.

There were several Union generals who hailed from the south. The reverse was also true- several Confederate generals were from the north.

A nasty war.

Over and over again the southern secessionists make very clear they are leaving the Union to preserve sacred slavery.

Yes, the result of a deep flaws in some of our most brilliant Founding Fathers such as Jefferson, writing so eloquently about freedom while owning slaves. We humans have many flaws.

I suspect my bookclubs’s next book (which I haven’t read yet), If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All will probably touch on this.

But the federal government does not have the authority to require states to enforce federal law. States have to comply with federal law, but they cannot be required to assist the federal government in enforcing federal law against other people. And they certainly can't be required to assist the federal government in the absence of any federal statute requiring it.

Is This explicitly stated somewhere in the Constitution, or is it only true because it wasn't stated that the states ARE required to enforce federal law?

Yes, the result of a deep flaws in some of our most brilliant Founding Fathers such as Jefferson, writing so eloquently about freedom while owning slaves. We humans have many flaws.

Which underlines the reason Heather Cox Richardson continuously hammers on the fact that among the founding documents, Lincoln continually lifted up the promises and aspirations contained in the Declaration of Independence, more-so than the Constitution.

The Declaration lays out the aspirations of Americans.

The Constitution is a first attempt to erect a framework within which those aspirations could be realized.

But as the framers were quick to note- that Constitution was to be “perfected” by future generations that would face the novel circumstances of their own times- times that demanded their own adaptations of the original aspirations embodied in the Declaration of Independence- that all [men] are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights- and that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Of note- the framers were all educated men who had received classical education- and “happiness” had a very particular meaning for them.

“Happiness” was attained- not by doing whatever one wanted, pursuing whatever pleasures one wished, but by pursuing enlightenment through education and civic engagement.


An educated citizenry necessary for the preservation of our liberties and all that.


Today, most Americans read at a sixth grade level or lower.

The Constitution is a first attempt to erect a framework within which those aspirations could be realized.

The Articles of Confederation were actually the first attempt, but its deficiencies showed up fairly quickly and it was supplanted by the Constitution.

The Constitution, with later amendments has lasted for over 200 years. Some say it’s getting long in the tooth and was not designed to face the issues faced by a country of 340 million people who are facing the particular challenges that we face in a connected, technological world.

Is This explicitly stated somewhere in the Constitution, or is it only true because it wasn't stated that the states ARE required to enforce federal law?

Both. It's not an enumerated power and the Tenth Amendment says that the States have all powers not granted to the feds. Plus, the courts have also grounded it in the very structure of the government. Most countries have both a national government and divide up into regional governments. Unlike virtually every other nation, in the U.S. the national government was formed by the states, rather than other way around. So there's also more of a structural argument against the notion that states are instrumentalities of the federal government the way that cities are instrumentalities of the states.

"Marco’s appeal to Lincoln fails miserably and reveals either abysmal ignorance or a cunning misapplication of history" - Pastor Bill

How do you expect a Russian Troll to comprehend the nuances of American history that happened ~165 years ago?

He thinks he is just arguing with American liberals, supporting conservatives, and sowing division. He doesn't realize he is making so many basic mistakes about American history that even nutters like Dope and BHM are probably starting to doubt him.

Both. It's not an enumerated power and the Tenth Amendment says that the States have all powers not granted to the feds.

Thanks. For some reason, this is always confusing to me.

Post New

US Policy FAQ

---

Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.