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Originally posted by occrider Hmmmm let's think about this for a second. So the sexual slavery of women is alive, thriving, and purportedly an even bigger epidemic than the historical slavery of Africans despite the fact that women's rights are equal today in every respect to the rights of men. So let's think back to what it must have been like in the 18th and 19th century when the lack of women's rights was implicitly universal, and perpetutated by the fact that they were officially inferior and unequal according to the law derived from the contitution. Yup, the sexual slavery of women must have laid dormant until after the 13th amendment because men were too busy enslaving blacks to enslave women . Ratification of the 19th amendment probably did as much to help end the slavery of women in the US by eliminating the official endorsement of inequity as the 13th amendment did for blacks. In actuality I would say less so because while I don't hear a lot about slavery among blacks today, I still hear a shitload about female slaves in the US and among the rest of the world.

Once again, I'm not disagreeing with the fact that women sex slavery exists and that it's really fucked up. That is NOT what I was referring to AT ALL, BUT, women not enjoying the same rights as men. And that is not equivilant to black people being owned, sold , tortured, and persecuted. I think I made this clear in my last post. I seriously don't know what the hell you're talking about now as I was NOT refering to the women sex slave issue, which is, yes, comparable to slavery (it is slavery, just a different form of it.) So for the last time, I was never arguing about that.

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Originally posted by occrider Ummm ok so what are you saying?? Women's rights are not universal or understood for quite some time? You DO remember my original argument don't you? The one you so solidly rejected because it's not the "same" as slavery? Why do we tolerate Lincoln on the $5 bill, why do we recognize his acheivements when he perpetuated the gross inequities of women's rights by failing to give them the same rights as men?

Yes, women's rights are universal. I'm not so sure if they're been "understood" in the same fasion we understand them now (equality). And I'm, by no means, saying that they're not.

First of all, I didn't say anythig about Lincoln, positive or negative, for all I care, yeah, go ahead and take him off the $5 bill.

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Originally posted by occrider I guess SOME VALUES are worth more than others when we look upon historical figures ...

Stop putting words in mouth. Just so you don't go jumping to conlusions again, YES, I BELIEVE IN WOMEN BEING ENTITLED TO EQUAL RIGHTS. Now, not having equal rights simply isn't comparable to slavery, where you have no rights at all, you're property, you're sold, owned, and tortured.

Jesus Occ, am I not getting through to you at all? For the last time, I'm NOT refering to women sex slaves.

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

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Originally posted by NeoPhono Welp...I guess if we're "drawing the line at slavery" we better get started. Tear down the pyramids...they were made by slaves. Wouldn't want to have those pro-slavery icons around anymore. Tear down the Coloseum in Rome too...how many slaves died there for enjoyment? Tear down the Great Wall of China...another structure built by slaves.

Did I ever say that the school should be torn down, did I? If the pyramids, coloseums, and the great wall were named after slave owners, then yeah, you could change their name to something else.

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Originally posted by NeoPhono When George Washington died, he had 316 slaves...it's time to remove his name and legacy from our history. Aristotle argued for the "naturalness" of slaves...no more reading his philosophical works. I'm sure we could go on.

Jesus, that's not what I suggested at all. I was talking about more objectivity and less bias when looking at history and historical figures, not wiping out historical records or works of the past, but being critical of it (and by critical, I don't mean it in the negative sense, critical as in crtical analysis).

quote:

crit·i·cal Audio pronunciation of "critical" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (krt-kl) adj. 1. Inclined to judge severely and find fault. 2. Characterized by careful, exact evaluation and judgment: a critical reading. 3......

source:dictionary.com

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Originally posted by NeoPhono punishing them for not doing so.

No one's being punished here. He's just not being revered. Have to look at the pros and the cons, not just the pros.

I think this is really my main point.

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crit·i·cal 2. Characterized by careful, exact evaluation and judgment: a critical reading.

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

I don't understand why can't you except the fact that what Jefferson was doing was not only exceptable, but can be argued expected of for a man in his time. Hindsight is 20/20 my friend. Yes, salvery is deplorable to us now, but at that time it was not, simply a natural part of the functioning of society.

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Lost Souls

To stir the pot, I am going to propose that if Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he would be appalled by the actions of himself 200+ years ago. Just how important is context? Pretty crucial, I must say. It's a bit unfair to apply today's standards to yesterday's mores and expect it to hold up to the court of public opinion.

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Originally posted by kush paintings I don't understand why can't you except the fact that what Jefferson was doing was not only exceptable, but can be argued expected of for a man in his time. Hindsight is 20/20 my friend. Yes, salvery is deplorable to us now, but at that time it was not, simply a natural part of the functioning of society.

Do I really need to repeat myself? Ok, I'll do it anyways. Yeah, I think you should look at different cultures/societies of whatever time period in context, BUT, at the same time ceratin things are simply unacceptable, slavery being one of them.

@everyone who thinks it's unfair to be critical of it since it was ok by their standards:

Try applying that same priciple to Nazi Germany and I think you'll realize that you have to put your foot down at some point. You should also come to the conclusion application of such priciple in all situations can be complete insanity.

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Yes, excellent point. Slavery is wrong, however I don't know where you get off comparing Thomas Jefferson owning slaves to a Navi officer sending Jews, homosexuals, and the mentally challenged to a gas chamber.

Do some research, rather than write the man off as a slave owning bigot. His insight into slavery, from at least my interpretation of this brief account, is actually extremely wise and can be applied to problems that still presist today.

An Excerpt from the Memoirs of a former slave Israel Jefferson.

Lafayette remarked that he thought that the slaves ought to be free; that no man could rightly hold ownership in his brother man; that he gave his best services to and spent his money in behalf of the Americans freely because he felt that they were fighting for a great and noble principle--the freedom of mankind) that instead of all being free a portion were held in bondage (which seemed to grieve his noble heart); that it would be mutually beneficial to masters and slaves if the latter were educated, and so on. Mr. Jefferson replied that he thought the time would come when the slaves would be free, but did not indicate when or in what manner they would get their freedom. He seemed to think that the time had not then arrived.

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Lost Souls

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Originally posted by kush paintings Yes, excellent point. Slavery is wrong, however I don't know where you get off comparing Thomas Jefferson owning slaves to a Navi officer sending Jews, homosexuals, and the mentally challenged to a gas chamber.

Using the same logic some ppl on this thread are. "Well, it was ok by their standards, eventhough it's completely deplorable by ours, so, looking at it in that context, it was ok."

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Systematically attempting to wipe people off the face of the earth is not in the same league as owning slaves. Also, in Jefferson's time he was raised to think nothing of owning a slave, just as you are raised to know that owning slaves is wrong. Hindsight again, looking back at that time and saying oh well a real man/ hero would have done this is ridiculous. You cannot speak objectively of such matters. Give me a response on my last post. I believe Jefferson's stance on slave owning is not exaclty what you think.

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Lost Souls

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Originally posted by shaolin_Z Using the same logic some ppl on this thread are. "Well, it was ok by their standards, eventhough it's completely deplorable by ours, so, looking at it in that context, it was ok."

No, that's not true at all. We're talking world standards here. How many places in the mid 1700's had done away with slavery, how many of them were just beginning to realize their errors? How many cultures still allowed slavery throughtout the world or at least saw it as acceptable?

In the 1940's, how many people, throughout the world, believed that it was okay to round up a religious group and exterminate them? Do you think you would have gotten a "yes" answer from a large number of the world's population?

And deciding to "no longer revere" a person of the past IS punishment. What else is it? If you had a school named after you, and then decided to later remove your name from it, because of something you had done...would that not be punishment? If not what would you call that?

Shaolin, you have a very black and white (heh, this phrase really fits here) view of slavery. Most slaves were not tortured, beaten, and murdered, after the civil war, a large amount of them stayed on their former owners' plantations and took their last names. The general attitude towards slaves at the time was not really much different from the general attitude towards women. They both had to work at home, didn't have legal rights, and were more or less the property of the man of the house. But only sadistic weirdos enjoyed beating them and seeing them suffer. Not that I'm saying here that slavery was ok (which I suppose everyone here except perhaps you realizes), I'm just saying that there wasn't a big difference between slave and women rights.

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1+1=10

Thank you Tito that was the point I was trying to make, unsuccessfully with the nazi officer slave owner comparison.

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Lost Souls