Hatred

Sorry, but the only one of Thomas Jefferson's 650 slaves I can name is Sally Hemmings. But I have a feeling that if TJ didn't have all those slaves, he would have been too busy farming his own land to participate much in "building this country."

And maybe if some of those 650 slaves hadn't been so busy being, you know, enslaved, maybe the could have contributed to "building this country." Of course slaves were forced to help build the US Capitol building, the entire basis of the agricultural industry in the South, and those fine southern plantations. But none of that counts, right?

And based on that history, you write, "The ones who made it better are the white ppl." Well bless your heart.

I find as I'm getting older - I don't really, truely hate anyone so much as I get angry about certain behaviors.

I get angry about greed. It seems so many of the other ills in our country are caused by greed. Whether its war, oil prices, hunger, health care, and so many other things that are stressful and hard. The root cause seems to be greed.

I get angry about pride. Another root cause of a lot of things, pride can leave a lot of damage in its wake.

But hate is very strong word, and I choose very carefully when to use it.

I hate Blackjack for the reasons discussed here, I hate it when people with extreme political or religious viewpoints spew the crap they hear/see from extreme propagandists on TV, radio. or the internet.

Yeah I know what you mean. When I hear people like Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow, I just wish they would stifle their extreme political viewpoints.

Fixed.

I see our immature person is back. Who did you make fun of today? Someone with cancer, or the regular, someone's mother who is dying?

I dont think hatred or ignorance is a rare, inhuman quality that only magically manifests itself on internet forums. Almost everyone possesses the ability to hate and discriminate for one ignorant reason or another - and almost everyone has or does - Myself included. I've used the "N" word, suffered from homophobia, and felt feelings of bitterness towards muslims in the wake of 911. Its human nature to fear and discriminate against people you are unfamiliar with. Many psychologists will tell you it is a natural defense mechanism - and one that should be confronted.

Some people make an effort to overcome ignorance while others simply try to rationalize it. We have many people on this board who do the latter. Rationalizing discrimnatory views is probably the easiest thing to refute as its is typically full of contradictory arguments - something I've learned in my own education. One thing I've noticed here is if you point out any of those contradictions you are likely to be called out for some kind of foul - usually by people who have self appointed themselves as hometown referee (for whatever side they may be on - and we have them on both sides)

For the record, I've never called anyone here a bigot or synonymous term. I just point out ignorance when I see it and refute the (often) contradictory arguments used to rationalize it. People who have a problem with that are free to put me on ignore (I hope not out of hatred).

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Originally posted by: forkushV

And maybe if some of those 650 slaves hadn't been so busy being, you know, enslaved, maybe the could have contributed to "building this country." q]

but wouldn't they have been too busy being in Africa to build this country?

I suspect, but do not know, that most or all of Thomas Jefferson's hundreds of human slaves only lived in North America and never lived in Africa, making them more American than Bob Hope and John McCain.

While he certainly owned human slaves, throughout his life Jefferson worked to ban the importation of human slaves from Africa, at least a step in the right direction.