In light of the consistent reversals of positions, incomplete answers and anything but subtle switches of subject from the issue at hand I was wondering about a couple of questions that the Presidential candidates could answer yes or no to. No trick questions, no bias based on political affiliation. Just something simple that should be able to get a simple answer. And to be fair, I will provide a follow-up question they can answer in any way they wish.

• 1. Do you believe the legal system in America is fair and balanced for all people regardless of their color of skin or economic bracket?


• 1a. What will you do about the obvious media and legal imbalances exemplified by the delay and then subsequent media coverage of the Jena case and the initial criminal charges, the sentence of Genarlow Wilson, and the complete avoidance of the Megan Williams case in West Virginia?


• 2. Do you find that the education system is adequate?


• 2a. How will you improve the incredible failure that is evident in the higher dropout rates and lower reading skills found now in students across the country?


• 3. Do you believe that religious fanatics who create violence are not motivated by monetary or political actions?


• 3a. How can America protect itself, under your guidance, against groups that have the singular desire to destroy the nations existence because of their religious belief?


• 4. Do you believe citizen taxes should be spent to benefit anyone but U.S. citizens?


• 4a. Why should Americans provide anything, funded by citizen taxes, to individuals that have committed a crime by entering the United States without legal documentation?


• 5. Do you agree that the work executed by Slaves in America provided the economic stability and physical labor that are the foundations of modern day America?


• 5a. Are you willing to consider and work on reparations for African Americans, similar to the reparations made to Native American Indians and Japanese Americans interned during WWII?

There are other questions that can be asked. Perhaps in the near future I will. But I would love to hear the simple and direct answer to each of these primary questions, and whatever answers is made for the follow-up. After all the soundbites, and incomplete answers we have heard in 2007 to date, on which the American public is expected to pick a Presidential candidate from each political party, it would be refreshing to have real answers.

I can only speak for myself, but I can have more faith and be more willing to vote for a candidate that gives me an honest and direct answer as opposed to somebody that appears to be playing at fears and polls to get elected.

Regardless of the answers, who do you think would actually answer these questions?

Labels: american taxes, Democratic Party, election 2008, illegal immigration, Japanese internment, jena 6, Megan Williams, Native American Indians, political debate, reparations, Republican Party, social services, WWII

Well here is a surprise and a disappointment all at once. The surprise comes from the fact that a Georgia lawmaker, Rep. Tyrone Brooks, has made a proposal for the state to apologize for slavery. Finally there is a renewed effort to make some kind of reparation for the centuries of abuse and mistreatment that was inflicted on African Americans. More importantly this is a real statement unlike the “regret” voiced by Virginia, The disappointment comes from the statements “I'm not sure what we ought to be apologizing for” voiced by Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson and others.

This is a sore subject for me. Ignorance and a refusal to acknowledge the factual past is infuriating. It is the main causes of why an apology at the least has never been made by the United States government to the millions of African Americans who’s ancestors were forcibly brought to this nation and treated worse than livestock. I am not alone in my thoughts in this issue, nor is it a new one. Perhaps the first call for reparations was in 1829, and there have been continuous efforts in the 178 years since that time.

Let me address the stupidity of the statements made by Speaker Richardson, and others including Mr. Frank Hargrove of Virginia. The argument goes that Americans today did nothing, and have no connection, involved with Slavery. This is the most obvious and persistent fallicy since perhaps ‘the world is flat’ or ‘the universe circles the earth.’

The fact is that since 1619 to 1865 African Americans were slaves. Those slaves were forced to work in plantations and fields, providing America with cotton, tobacco, and food crops, that created an economy that rivaled any nation in the world at that time. The economic power of the nation allowed the foundation of the nation to be formed and built upon. During this time slaves were used to also build the cities, roads, railroads and other forms of infrastructure that the nation grew upon. Without the efforts forced to be done over this 246 year period nothing that exists today would exist. That is a fact. It cannot be disputed.

The connection is obviously that without the unpaid, forced, demeaning work done by African slaves there would be no internet, highways, tobacco companies, skyscrapers, stock market, 37 states, or anything else we call America today. Everyone in this nation benefits from the 246 years that slavery existed in America and are thus connected to it. This is not a new view of causation or reasonable consequences. Similar arguments have been made and accepted in regard to the treatment of Native American Indians. Not only did they receive an apology various tribes have been given lands that are separate of U.S. jurisdiction and many visit the casinos on Indian reservations based on reparations to Native American Indians. Similar arguments were made against Germany and Switzerland in regard to their actions to the Holocaust, and both countries have made apologies and reparations long after the time of those that committed the acts. And we should not forget the apology and reparations made to the families of those Japanese Americans that were interred in camps during WWII. Again, these are facts. They cannot be disputed.

So in the first place, what we should be apologizing for (to answer Speaker Richardson and other of his mindset) is the labor, deaths, treatment and abduction of unknown millions of Africans over 246 years. I say unknown because while there are estimates that claim 4 million were slaves, records of African slaves were not accurately kept since they were considered on par with chairs. Those that do not wish to apologize should give up their houses, cars, clothes and money as each item they have and use that was created or exists in this nation is without question connected to the efforts made in the past, just as every law and right we have in this nation is connected to the Constitution and the American Revolution. That is a fact. It cannot be disputed.

Continued in part 2...

Labels: African American, American Revolution, American Slavery, Rep. Tyrone Brooks, Reparations for Slavery, WWII

I send out my condolences to the family of President Ford, as does the entire nation.

President Ford was a good President, especially as he had no intention of running for the position of Commander and Chief. Unlike any President before or since he rose to this position without being elected by the people. Not bad for a man who had a difficult early life. If there is any legacy that will be seen by historians on his Presidency I think it will be that he was a unifier on the level of perhaps President Lincoln.

President Ford was born in 1913, and lived through the great depression. He went to the University of Michigan and became a football star. When I say a star I mean that he had offers to join 2 professional football teams but turned them down to attend Yale law school, where he graduated in the top 3rd. Even earlier in his life there were trials for the President-to-be. His parent divorced shortly after his birth, a radically unusual fact at the time, and his meeting with his father was less than a classic fairytale. Later in his youth he joined the Navy to fight in WW II and became a Lt. Commander.

While President Ford may be best known for his pardoning of President Nixon it is not the thing he should be known for. He made in roads to improve the automobile industry, reduced inflation by half, and ended a war that had taken thousands of American lives for a decade. In virtually every way President Ford unified the nation and placed it on a better path. While some have worried about politics and partisanship, he sought unity and improvement of the average man’s life. He achieved these things without fanfare and little acclaim at the time he did them.

President Ford was a man from moderate roots, that followed a path to keep America whole. He was honest and direct, in a time when the nation needed exactly those things. Much like the advice parents gives their children, his actions weren’t appreciated then but are better understood today. For that we must be thankful. Too much is taken as a given, or overlooked today, by the government and the media. President Ford is a reminder that there is another path and it is effective.

I am reminded of my earliest political thought. In the election of ’76 I recall coming home from school. The nation was abuzz with the fact that President Carter had just won. A family friend was over and discussing the election with my mother. When I was asked about school I mentioned we had a mock election and I had voted for President Carter. I was asked why him, and I said because he was a democrat. I was scolded for making a choice for a silly reason, and the family friend chided me opening my eyes with the statement, “Do you realize that he [President Carter] wouldn’t let you go to church with him on Sunday?” It was my first lessons in politics. Lessons I remember to this day.

Change just to change is not worth it, you may not like what is the best thing being done for you today, doing what a crowd does for no reason beyond being in a crowd is worthless. These facets President Ford held, and guided the nation by. He led us in the same way as he raised his family, as best as I can tell, with compassion and an eye to our betterment. That defines a great President. Unifying a hurt and disillusioned nation is a task few would want, or have faced. It’s a testament to the man and the American people that he succeeded and did so well.

This is what I think, what do you think?

Labels: President Carter, President Ford, University of Michigan, WWII

Final part of reply on comment...

As to your final point of imposing views. Islam is not imposing anything on America. There have been Muslims in the world long before there was an America. There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world today (by some estimates) and that number is growing as it has been for centuries. Islam has not changed a single law in America. Actions of a small group of men that have a religious faith have caused change in America. It was not their religion but their actions that created the change. That is no different than Timothy McVeigh (non-Muslim), Eric Robert Rudolph (non-Muslim), or Pearl Harbor (Japan is mostly Shinto and Buddhist and during the time of World War II the emperor was regarded as a religious figure). In each case it was the actions and not the religion that caused change.

But if Rep. Goode is to impose his view then that is a problem. It violates our basic principles. The freedom of religion is one of the founding beliefs of this nation. To say that any religion should be restricted is to violate that principle. If one religion can be restricted then any can be. Why not restrict Jews, or Buddhists, or Lutherans. Where does it end, and who has the right to choose?

In addition Rep. Goode would restrict non-European [non-Caucasian] immigrants to this nation. I’m not speaking of illegal aliens, but legal immigrants. His basis is that too many Arabs and Muslims are entering the nation. He said this in an interview with Fox News on the same day I wrote the original post. That sounds racist to me. That is the voice of fear and stupidity. To my knowledge and understanding Rep. Goode has never met Rep. Ellison or any Muslims, yet he seeks to enact actions against both. Where does that come from beyond fear and ignorance and, I think, prejudice. It seems blatant and wrong. It goes against the principles of the nation and sets a precedence for future conditions by which citizens can be judged. Religious bias leads to racial bias and vice versa. Conditions on, or preferences of, citizenship leads to second-class or non-citizenship. I see that little different that how slaves were seen before and after the 13th and 14th Amendments. That is a road I never want to go down, nor allow my nephews and nieces to see.

Personally Rep. Virgil Goode can believe whatever he wishes. His religion is his personal choice as is the manner in which he acts with people of different races and religions that are not his own. That is a right that America is founded on. But as a representative of his state and a member of the government, he does not get that choice. He must work with all other members of the government to advance America, and not just his personal views. Whether he and any of his constituents like it or not America is made up of a mix of every religion and race and group in the world. That is one of the facts that make us great. The sum of our parts makes us greater as a whole. For Rep. Goode to impose his limited views is to weaken the nation and to reduce what America is.

That is the danger and the problem. Those are the issues at hand. To see it any other way is, to me, subterfuge and denial.

This is what I think, what do you think?

Part 2 Part 2 of reply on Rep. Virgil Goode's letter - 12.24.2006.2

Part 1 Reply to comment on Rep. Goode's Letter - 12.24.2006.1

Labels: 13th Amendment, Fox News, Muslim religion, Rep. Virgil Goode, WWII