Only in Kentucky
To get back to the subject at hand, which in reality is ethnic discrimination today...
The civil war did not begin over slavery. It began over state's rights versus a strong federal government. The federal government had enacted protective tarrifs to help the emerging industry. Foreign nations reacted with agriculture tarrifs, which hurt the south's largely agrarian economy. That, and then President Buchanan's incessant waffling on the subject, kicked off the war. Slavery was an issue, but not the dominant one.
And let's turn to this PC tarring of people from the south as bigoted. I've lived in a lot of places around the country, and without a doubt, the most racial, bigoted, ethnically biased place I've been in was - Boston. They didn't just hate blacks, they hated anyone that wasn't from their religion, or didn't live on their street. During my time there, I heard more racial and ethnic slurs than anywhere. South Boston is not for the faint of heart.
For that matter, let's look at the slave trade in general, because the true villans have never been called to task.
During the slave trade heyday, approxamately half a million Africans were captured and sent to the US. Most survived the experience in reasonable health, although the cruel nature of slavery still existed. During the same period, almost five million slaves were sent to South America to work the gold mines, where most were dead within a year from tropical diseases. That was exclusively a Portugese effort, and so far, they have never had to answer for that horrific act of commercial genocide. The slaves were captured and sold not by Europeans, but by other Africans, as part of the great Zulu-Inthkala tribal war that raged across Africa in the early 1800's. They were sold because those crazy Europeans would pay money for prisoners. British and Portugese slave traders moved the slaves to the Carribean, where many died during the trip.
So why is it that southern Americans catch all the blame, when the real perpetrators have never been called to task? Why is it politically correct to apply an outdated and incorrect stereotype to one ethinic group, but not another? If you take the 'redneck' stereotype that some so gleefully perpetrate - stupid, biased, inbred - and apply it to any other ethnic group, you'd be strung up for saying those things. And they would be no more true as applied to rednecks as they would to any other ethnic group. It's the great PC hypocricy - perpetrating the very sort of etnic stereotypes they profess to abhor.
Meanwhile, no one is asking for reparations from the many British fortunes that began with the slave trade, or the Portugese who were probably the most cruel of all.
Oh, and by the way - people from KY are not rednecks. They are hillbillies. There is a distinct difference, and it isn't just the excellent whiskey the hillbillies make. Probably the smartest group in the civil war - they stayed out of it.
The civil war did not begin over slavery. It began over state's rights versus a strong federal government. The federal government had enacted protective tarrifs to help the emerging industry. Foreign nations reacted with agriculture tarrifs, which hurt the south's largely agrarian economy. That, and then President Buchanan's incessant waffling on the subject, kicked off the war. Slavery was an issue, but not the dominant one.
And let's turn to this PC tarring of people from the south as bigoted. I've lived in a lot of places around the country, and without a doubt, the most racial, bigoted, ethnically biased place I've been in was - Boston. They didn't just hate blacks, they hated anyone that wasn't from their religion, or didn't live on their street. During my time there, I heard more racial and ethnic slurs than anywhere. South Boston is not for the faint of heart.
For that matter, let's look at the slave trade in general, because the true villans have never been called to task.
During the slave trade heyday, approxamately half a million Africans were captured and sent to the US. Most survived the experience in reasonable health, although the cruel nature of slavery still existed. During the same period, almost five million slaves were sent to South America to work the gold mines, where most were dead within a year from tropical diseases. That was exclusively a Portugese effort, and so far, they have never had to answer for that horrific act of commercial genocide. The slaves were captured and sold not by Europeans, but by other Africans, as part of the great Zulu-Inthkala tribal war that raged across Africa in the early 1800's. They were sold because those crazy Europeans would pay money for prisoners. British and Portugese slave traders moved the slaves to the Carribean, where many died during the trip.
So why is it that southern Americans catch all the blame, when the real perpetrators have never been called to task? Why is it politically correct to apply an outdated and incorrect stereotype to one ethinic group, but not another? If you take the 'redneck' stereotype that some so gleefully perpetrate - stupid, biased, inbred - and apply it to any other ethnic group, you'd be strung up for saying those things. And they would be no more true as applied to rednecks as they would to any other ethnic group. It's the great PC hypocricy - perpetrating the very sort of etnic stereotypes they profess to abhor.
Meanwhile, no one is asking for reparations from the many British fortunes that began with the slave trade, or the Portugese who were probably the most cruel of all.
Oh, and by the way - people from KY are not rednecks. They are hillbillies. There is a distinct difference, and it isn't just the excellent whiskey the hillbillies make. Probably the smartest group in the civil war - they stayed out of it.
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anticlmber
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