Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Just a short thought for today. I am writing something that will help describe my book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory! Race, Religion, Ideology, and Politics in the Civil War Era for potential publishers or buyers and in doing so I am having to write a synopsis of the book, which to really make interesting I have to go back and re-look at the draft text.
As I did this a quote from George Fitzhugh slaveholder and leading pro-slavery apologist in the 1840s and 1850s jumped out at me because of how similar it is to what I see being advocated by various people and agencies within the Trump administration, as well as the words and legislative actions of GOP lawmakers at the state and Federal level; of course all backed up by the 24/7 right wing propaganda industry. Despite their protestations over the years of supporting the Constitution they actually find it an encumbrance to exerting full executive, legislative, and judicial tyranny. Their views are very close to Fitzhugh who wrote:
“We must combat the doctrines of natural liberty and human equality, and the social contract as taught by Locke and the American sages of 1776. Under the spell of Locke and the Enlightenment, Jefferson and other misguided patriots ruined the splendid political edifice they erected by espousing dangerous abstractions – the crazy notions of liberty and equality that they wrote into the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Bill of Rights. No wonder the abolitionists loved to quote the Declaration of Independence! Its precepts are wholly at war with slavery and equally at war with all government, all subordination, all order. It is full if mendacity and error. Consider its verbose, newborn, false and unmeaning preamble…. There is, finally, no such thing as inalienable rights. Life and liberty are not inalienable…. Jefferson in sum, was the architect of ruin, the inaugurator of anarchy. As his Declaration of Independence Stands, it deserves the appropriate epithets which Major Lee somewhere applies to the thought of Mr. Jefferson, it is “exuberantly false, and absurdly fallacious.”
My friends, that is the message of President Trump and the Republican Party today. They are evidenced in almost every statement and tweet made by the President and were on full display as he discussed the Civil War. Equal rights and liberties for all are a existential threat to the champions of oligarchy and thus they must be suppressed even if it means destroying the foundations of liberty, and that begins by destroying our history.
Fitzhugh wrote:
“We conclude that about nineteen out of twenty individuals have “a natural and inalienable right” to be taken care of and protected, to have guardians, trustees, husbands or masters; in other words they have a natural and inalienable right to be slaves. The one in twenty are clearly born or educated in some way fitted for command and liberty.”
Sadly, there are all too many Trump supporters, especially Evangelical Christians who only care about their rights. They will have no hesitancy in ensuring that the rights of others are suppressed even as the oligarchy they support eliminates their rights under the Constitution as well. They are fools, and men like Fitzhugh realized this, as he wrote: “Liberty for the few – slavery in every form, for the mass.”
Such is not liberty, it is an Orwellian bastardization and twisting of the word and its meaning. Abraham Lincoln stated the matter well when he said “We all declare for liberty” but “in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other men’s labor.”
This is not about traditional differences between republican and Democrat or liberal and conservative, it is about the very foundations of liberty without which we will slide into authoritarianism, dictatorship and tyranny. So anyway, have a great day and until tomorrow,
Peace
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
Not sure I buy this article. Sometimes I wonder why certain people are so judgmental of Trump. The fact of the matter is that he is our President. He won the election fair and square against a candidate who was sketchy at best and who took a major header during the campaign. (please don’t bore me with conspiracy theories and Russia stories) As a nation we need for him to be a success, just as we needed the previous President to be a success, and the ones before them both as well. It is really embarrassing to watch the antics of some of these people.
I can only sigh. I honestly wanted him to succeed but this is not about conspiracy theories it is about his words and actions as well as those of GOP legislators. I’m leaving your comment up because it demonstrates the mindset of too many people. This isn’t Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, it is about the foundations of our political system. If you can’t get that I am truly sorry.