Reflections on the Fourth of July

As a Briton, I have an ironic joke about America's fourth of July celebrations that goes like this: a group of white, Protestant(one signatory was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a Catholic), heterosexual(presumably) firstborn property owning(and more than one such as my own nameskae George Washington were slaveowners) males put their heads together and declared that they were sick and tired and beaing oppressed by His Majesty King George III!

If I had to be asked how I feel about America I would reply that it was a bit difficult for me to "love" a country whose founding fathers seriously regarded people like me(ie of color) as "three fifths of a human being" . But in reality it would tend to fluctuate with the policies of the currtent Administration- there is just NO way to get away from the fact that certain Administrations(usually but NOT always Republican such as George W.Bush's) aroused either chilly inidfference at best on my part or at worst venomous loathing and contempt.

Still, America HAS been a force for good in world affairs(most notably during WWII and the Cold War) and the best I can say for it is that it produces Goerge Washington, Abraham Lincoln Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as well as right wing yahoos such as Father Charles Coughlin, "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy, William F. Buckley, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly , Sean Hannity and other birds of a similarly malodorous feather.

Who knows_perhaps the accession of Barack Obama means that America is beginning to make good on its promise of "liberty and justice for all"(not just white males)?

What do YOU think?

Terry

Thats some pretty heavy hitting stuff but I do agree with your last part about America, perhaps, moving towards a liberty and justice for all stance, however slow it may have been to get there.

Though you'd never know it from progressives rewriting of history, Father Coughlin was a leftist.

"Among the NUSJ's (Coughlin's organization) articles of faith were work and income guarantees, nationalizing necessary industry, wealth redistribution through taxation of the wealthy, federal protection of workers' unions, and decreasing property rights in favor of the government controlling the country's assets for public good.[12] Illustrative of his disdain for free market capitalism is his statement

"We maintain the principle that there can be no lasting prosperity if free competition exists in industry. Therefore, it is the business of government not only to legislate for a minimum annual wage and maximum working schedule to be observed by industry, but also to curtail individualism that, if necessary, factories shall be licensed and their output shall be limited."

Also, you do realize that the three-fifths clause was about taxation and representation, right? Would you prefer that the Constitution had defined slaves as a whole person and thereby given the Slave holding South greater representation in congress?

Probably not- as for Fahter Charles Coughlin see his Wikipedia bio entry for his (arguably implicit) racism and anti-Semitism!( Coughlin was "silenced" by the Holy See upon the request of the then Roosevelt Administration).

Terry

So? That's completely irrelevant.

Father Coughlin was a leftist as my quote from comment 2 proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, and his anti-antisemitism is no way dilutes his leftist tendencies. The National Socialists also managed to be both leftists and racists.

It's not as if the American political tradition is lacking for figures that are both racist and leftist. Progressive icon Woodrow Wilson? He was a notorious racist who screened The Birth of a Nation at the White House, a movie glorifying the KKK! Progressive icon FDR? He threw American citizens in cages because they were the wrong race! Progressive icon Lyndon B. Johnson? He blocked the Republican authored Civil Rights legislation twice and tried to intimidate MLKJ into silence! Even today, it's still the Progressives who look at every issue through the prism of race.