Slavery as a Foundation of America?

A question we seem to ask often today is how slavery could have been tolerated in American society. It seems like such a contradiction to ‘American’ and ‘Christian’ ideals. I feel slavery was justified in the mind of wealthy colonists through the profit it produced. This speaks to the corruptibility of man, and how morals get lost in the foundation industry. After which this loss of morality can be used, naively, as a source of cultural identity
In select cases however, the use of slavery might have been out of the need to found a new nation. In some sense it was in the interest of America as a nation to own slaves, as the use of slave labor became entwined with colonial economics. Jefferson for example, used slave labor to gain economic and intellectual status. Status that proved invaluable to Jefferson’s role as a founding father.
They question I’d like to ask instead is: Would the colonies have had the strength to form themselves into a nation without the use of slave labor. And if not, at what level is it acceptable to allow enslavement in the aid of a ‘just’ cause?

To Blog?

It’s been kind of difficult for me to blog consistently. I often find that I’ll start writing a blog then never finalize it. I’ll get it 90% of the way there; then become uncertain with the idea was trying to convey and never post it. I’m pretty slow writer and I think I would prefer to make one class response post a week, covering the whole week, and have the rest be about current events and cool stuff from the interweb. In fact I think that’s what I’ll do.

So here is a video on why you should always remain silent when dealing with the police (providing you are in a dire situation). I think law would be very interesting, but at the same time very frustrating to study.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

North Korea is Best Korea

Check out this very interesting documentary on traveling to North Korea. Earlier we were talking about positive vs. negative freedom. North Korea seems an obvious example of negative freedom. But it is interesting to think that its citizens have no understanding our terms of what freedom is. Does that in some sense give them a sort of freedom, freedom through ignorance? I think at least to some degree it does. Even if North Korean citizens don't have their basic needs met they find a perverted freedom in devotion to their leader. (that last sentence is almost a cynical commentary on religion)

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3#

Snow is Wonderfull

You might not have realized this, but snow happens to be the greatest thing ever. Calvin and Hobbes is up there too.

I think as a cartoon Calvin and Hobbes says a lot about american culture. It is part of our ever growing media, and is an example of american society's value of humor. What makes Calvin and Hobbes so special is that it uses humor to often provoke thought on American culture. I feel that the use of snow as a symbol of opportunity and possibility shows how natural landscape can shape the values of an individual or even a country. The eagerness C&H show to create something new reminds me of Jefferson's dream to create an new culture out of the "undeveloped" American territory. 

Washington Drove a Challenger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezk0e1VL80o&feature=player_embedded

All it needs is a Jesus bumper sticker and i'll be a tea partier's wet dream. But on a slightly more serious note it is interesting to see how often cars, the founding fathers, and the american west are romanticized (but never before in the same video). And it is hilariously ironic that he is driving a black charger. A nation founded on "freedom" by wealthy old men and built by the manpower of african american slaves. Oh yeah, and we have cowboys.

Tea and Time

I love the picture on this page in juxtaposition to the content of the article and the reality of the tea party. The image is a manifestation of the mythos we have about colonial Americans, a brashness that we have now come to feel as “American.” In reality the tea party was not a boisterous moment of political upheaval, but a swift and silent act of vandalism. An act perhaps less in the name of dissent, but committed out of simple frustration with the commonwealth. What I love about this image the most is the stars and stripes; already in use four years before its creation. Oh those time traveling colonials.

http://www.boston-tea-party.org/account-Joshua-Wyeth.html