Hump Day Hunnies

The Native Americans Who Owned Slaves

by Peter Partoll

 

Did you know that the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery did not apply to ALL slaves?

Most see slavery as a simple black-vs.-white issue. But those who do may not realize that the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the southeast — Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole — also participated in the institution of slavery.

Because these tribes were located outside the sovereignty of the United States, constitutional amendments did not apply to them.

In the period before the arrival of the Europeans, the Natives practiced flexible forms of slavery that often allowed slaves avenues to freedom through intermarriage. That all changed with the arrival of the Europeans, who introduced Native Americans to a system of permanent bondage based on race.

According to journalist Aliana E. Roberts, this switch occurred after the Yamasee tribe lost a war against the English Carolina colonists in 1717.  The Europeans began turning from Native slavery to African slavery, and the Native Americans followed their lead. Many Natives, especially those in the “Five Civilized Tribes” (so-called because they embraced the ways of American settlers) picked up on the trend. By 1800, they had developed “plantations that rivaled those of their white neighbors.” 

Roberts states that like most average Americans, many Natives did not own black slaves. Most slaveowners were part of the upper-classes, and were those who had the most influence in society.

In spite of this she also notes that the percentage of black slaves in the population was not insignificant:

In 1860…Cherokee Nation citizens owned 2,511 slaves (15 percent of their total population), Choctaw citizens owned 2,349 slaves (14 percent of their total population), and Creek citizens owned 1,532 slaves (10 percent of their total population). Chickasaw citizens owned 975 slaves, which amounted to 18 percent of their total population, a proportion equivalent to that of white slave owners in Tennessee, a former neighbour of the Chickasaw Nation and a large slaveholding state.

While many Native American nations allowed white slaves to earn their freedom through intermarriage, the tribes also had strict laws forbidding any intermarriage between a Native and a black slave, often punishing those who married their slaves with banishment from the tribe.

The Native slaveowners could also be horrifyingly brutal towards their black slaves. This is illustrated by the case of Lucy, a black slave burned alive for the murder of her native master. She had no part in the murder but was executed anyway at the request of the murdered warrior’s wife.

During the Civil War, the “Five Civilized Tribes” fought on both the Union and Confederate sides. After the war, the Treaties of 1866 freed the slaves. Even after that, blacks still faced discrimination in the Indian territories, with many tribes passing laws similar to the infamous “Black Codes” in the South.

This often-overlooked part of American history takes on new significance in light of today’s debates over slavery reparations and monuments to those who owned slaves or fought to keep them.

Do the descendants of the “Five Civilized Tribes” owe reparations for slavery? Should monuments to their leaders be taken down? The institution of slavery was rightfully eradicated with the passage of the 13^th Amendment. But any debate over how to deal with the legacy of this evil institution must remember that the phenomenon was much more complex than is often portrayed or remembered.

Originally published here:

The Native Americans Who Owned Slaves | Intellectual Takeout

Peter Partoll is a 2019 Alcuin Intern. He is currently a rising senior at Hillsdale College studying history and German. He spent last summer studying abroad in Germany and is especially interested in medieval history. In addition to his German skills, he is also studying Latin and Italian. Outside of school and work, his hobbies include reading, music, brushing up on his German, and watching soccer. After completing college, he plans on going to graduate school to study medieval history. 

Controlling the cost of college

By Bruce Walker

 

Democrats running for president are promising free college and promising forgiveness of student loans and all sorts of other silly things.  Like all the Left's absurd giveaway programs, the student loan program is an example of creating problems rather than solving problems. 

Does anyone even remember why the federal government felt it important to help students with the costs of college?  The National Defense Education Act of 1958 was a direct response to Sputnik and the perceived advantage the Soviet Union had developed over America in science and technology. 

This was absurd.  The Soviet Union routinely turned out huge numbers of physicists, engineers, mathematicians, and other "hard science" graduates, but it was always quality, not quantity, that mattered.  So by 1969, America was landing on the Moon, and the Soviet Union was hopelessly behind.  There is no reason to believe that student loans made any difference at all.

Indeed, by 1964, the Left removed those limiting words in the National Defense Education Act that made it clear that the purpose of this program was to help us keep up with the Soviets in science and technology.  Those familiar organs of leftism, like the National Education Association, supported these changes.

The consequence of the federal government guaranteeing student loans at below market interest rates was predictable.  Tens of millions of Americans who would not otherwise have gone to college did so using student loans, dramatically and artificially increasing demand.

Read more:
Controlling the cost of college

Ami Horowitz: How white liberals really view black voters

Americans Have Almost Entirely Forgotten Their History

In America, we celebrate democracy and are justifiably proud that this nation was founded on the idea that the people should rule.

That’s why it is so important that Americans be informed about their government. They are partakers in it. In fact, they control it.

Under tyrannical systems, it matters little if the people are informed about political life. Autocrats make decisions for the people whether they like it or not. But in our republic, we rely on the informed decision-making of citizens to judge policies and the leaders who will implement them.

Unfortunately, we are not very well-informed.

According to a recently released survey, Americans are woefully uneducated about the most basic facts of our history, to the point where most couldn’t even pass a basic citizenship test.

A study by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found that only 1 in 3 Americans can actually pass the U.S. citizenship test, which asks the most basic questions about our history and how our system of government works.

Passing the test requires answering 60 percent of questions correctly, but a majority of those participating in the survey couldn’t even do that.

Read more:
Americans Have Almost Entirely Forgotten Their History

Friday Funnies

Good Reads

 

Liberals Campaigning Hard To Re-Elect President Trump

We just had a hilarious meltdown in Georgia, where some Democrat state rep named Erica Thomas decided to jump into the express lane at the supermarket with more than 15 items, got called out, and then posted a YouTube video of herself crying about how this was the greatest racial injustice since the last greatest racial injustice. Such is the unholy hell of bigotry imposed by Donald Trump, which is quite an achievement for him since the world only discovered his secret dedication to white nationalism on the day in 2015 that he announced he was running as a Republican.

Full story:
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/07/25/liberals-campaigning-hard-to-reelect-president-trump-n2550465

Mueller Has a Reputation...

It is apparently part of Robert Mueller's contract with the media that he must always be described as "honorable" and a "lifelong Republican." (After this week, we can add "dazed and confused" to his appellation.)

Full story:

https://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2019/07/24/mueller-has-a-reputation-n2550571

Mueller’s serial senior moments today revealed he was a front-man for Trump-haters
The most important thing Robert Mueller revealed today in his testimony before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees was that he didn’t really know that much about the work of the investigation that bears his name -- and that he is prone to senior moments with alarming frequency.  That he could in no way have been the actual leader of a large team of high-powered lawyers is now obvious to everyone in cringe-worthy detail (a veteran prosecutor unable to come up with the word “conspiracy” as the legal term for collusion).  He was a BINO, a Boss In Name Only, or, colloquially, a front-man.

Full Story:
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/07/25/liberals-campaigning-hard-to-reelect-president-trump-n2550465

Hump Day Hunnies

Why the Second Amendment?

By Anna L. Stark
 
Once again and on cue, the gun-control zealots are calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment.  Former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens parroted the gun-grabber narrative in his recently published New York Times article: "[t]he demonstrators should seek more effective and lasting reform.  They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment."  He further bloviates that the Second is a relic of the 18th century.  It's a sorry state of affairs when a Supreme Court justice who was tasked with upholding the U.S. Constitution – including the Bill of Rights – must be reminded why the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  You'd think a constitutional scholar would know these things.  It's also proof positive that advanced age and wisdom are not necessarily synonymous.

The Bill of Rights Institute provides an excellent brief background on the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.  Simply put and stated eloquently, "[t]he Bill of Rights is a list of limits on government power."  Unfortunately, not only are there those in favor of surrendering their Second Amendment right, but these same people believe that government forces are incapable of oppression, subversion, coercion, or any number of other forms of tyranny.  My advice to this particular group of naïve, nattering nabobs?  Pick up any American history book and revisit why America's Founding Fathers were familiar with government oppression – they lived it, and many gave their lives fighting it.  As history has shown time and time again, tyrants conquer the populace by instilling fear.  They rely on killing or sinister threats of harm and injury to control the masses.  Heinous killing sprees and wretched oppression of the citizenry are the result of a people unable to defend themselves.

Read more:
Why the Second Amendment?

For Being Such an Idiot, Trump is Pretty Smart

 

 

By Brian C. Joondeph

 

We have been hearing now for four years, ever since that escalator ride at Trump Tower, how then-candidate, now-President Trump is such an idiot. The media, Democrats, and NeverTrumpers, virtually in lockstep assured us that Trump would never be the Republican nominee. When he was, they doubled down promising that he would never be president. Every so-called opinion poll confirmed their predictions.

So who turned out to be smart, winning the White House, and who turned out to be a bunch of buffoons? Yet they still couldn’t admit that they were wrong, predicting that Trump would be impeached or that he would resign from office under intense pressure from critics and scandal. From Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti to Robert Mueller to Megan Rapinoe, each one was portrayed as the dragon-slayer ready to bring down Trump.

All have come and gone like the seasons, bringing down nothing but their reputations and what little integrity they might have possessed. Yet Trump haters won’t give up. Trump is still too stupid and incompetent to be president, they tell us. He is an embarrassment to the country and the world.

Yet on Friday, July 19, Trump sits at 49 percent total approval in the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, four points higher than his predecessor, Mr. Perfect, exactly eight years ago. These approval numbers are despite what many have described as a bad week for the president with his “unforced error” of going after the four lovely patriots of the “Jihad Squad” and telling them that if America is so bad, they are welcome to “go back” to somewhere, anywhere, that is more to their liking.

Brit Hume, godfather of the Republican D.C. establishment, not a NeverTrumper, but more of a SometimesTrumper, said Trump’s tweets were “politically stupid.” When Rush Limbaugh and others suggested that Trump’s tweets were strategic and calculated rather than stupid, Hume dismissed this immediately: “I think that's too smart by half, too clever by half, Trump couldn't put something like this together, are you kidding me?”

Of course, Trump couldn’t put something like this together. He isn’t clever enough. Yet he was smart enough to defeat 17 competent and experienced contenders for the Republican nomination in 2016 despite having never run for political office. And he is still president after two and a half years of nonstop negative media coverage and criticism from Democrats and many Republicans.

Reuters reluctantly reported: “Republican support for Trump rises after racially charged tweets.” Jake Tapper, liberal CNN mouthpiece, had to acknowledge, “Dem sources admit Trump's 'brilliant' move to make stars of AOC, Omar.”

So, which is it? Did Trump stupidly make a racist, sexist, xenophobic, nativist, white-supremacist tweet as the media and NeverTrumpers claim? Or did he just make the Jihad Squad the new face of the Democratic Party?

Who hasn’t been in the news this past week? How about the 20-plus Democrats vying for the party’s nomination to go up against Goliath Trump next summer? Other than news of the next Democrat primary debate or who is ahead of who in the latest poll, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg are no longer newsworthy.

Instead they, along with Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrat party, have been forced to rally around Ocasio-Cortez and Omar. That seems a pretty smart move by Trump.

Axios recently polled what it called “white, non-college voters who embraced Donald Trump in 2016 but are needed by Democrats in swing House districts.” Only 22 percent had a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez with shockingly only 9 percent viewing Omar favorably. This same poll noted that socialism was viewed negatively by 69 percent of swing voters.

With a few tweets and comments, Trump has rebranded the Democratic Party as the party of socialism, with its new party leaders viewed negatively by the vast majority of swing voters.

Are Republicans fleeing the party over Trump’s tweets? Hardly. GOP support for Trump rose this past week. His rally in North Carolina was as enthusiastic as ever. And those hapless Democrats running for their party’s nomination became yesterday’s news as quickly as Trump-slayer of-the-week Megan Rapinoe.

Democrats, in a fleeting moment of honesty, understand the brilliance of Trump’s tweets and framing of the Democrat party, as they admitted to Jake Tapper. Rasmussen also reported that by a 42 to 29 percent margin, likely Democrat voters want the party to be more like Nancy Pelosi than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yet thanks to President Trump, Nancy Pelosi has had to shift towards Ocasio-Cortez rather than vice versa, defending the Jihad Squad against Trump’s tweets.

For Pelosi it’s the path of least resistance. If she denounces the squad, there will be an internal civil war within her party. If she defends them, she makes them the face of the party. Trump has put her in a box.

Some may call it 4-D chess. Instead it may be decades of street smarts developed in the trenches of the New York City real estate development world, along with the branding experience of running a successful television reality show for a decade. What it is not is Trump being stupid.

It’s not just politics. Trump’s supposed stupidity is on display elsewhere. His tough trade war with China is reaping benefits. The U.S. economy is humming along and as the Wall Street Journal reports: “China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas.” Trump has visited North Korea and has a constructive and personal relationship with Kim Jong Un, a first for an American president.

Mexico is suddenly securing its southern border and Trump is doing via executive order what Congress is too lazy to do for asylum-seeking and birthright citizenship. 

Spygate is ready to unfold and burst, with declassifications and hopefully accountability for its wrongdoers.

Jeffrey Epstein, the latest Trump-slayer for the wishful thinking Democrats and media, will be anything but. Does anyone really believe that if Epstein had dirt on Trump, we wouldn’t have known it before the election? Epstein and the Clintons were good pals. If Epstein had incriminating photos of videos of Trump with underage girls, Hillary would have used this in 2016 rather than paying millions for a phony dossier. Instead like everything else, Epstein will likely backfire on the left, as Vanity Fair described, “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names.”

For being so stupid, Trump continues to outsmart the smart set on the left, the media geniuses, Hollywood, academia, and the Democrat party. His opponents keep calling him an idiot and he runs circles around them. Trump is winning, and his supporters are not yet tired of it.

Originally Published at American Thinker:
For Being Such an Idiot, Trump is Pretty Smart

Brian C. Joondeph, MD, is a Denver-based physician and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn, Twitter, and QuodVerum.

The Perilous Mainstreaming of 'Democratic Socialism'

By Rose Tennent



It has been both shocking and terrifying to observe just how far to the left the Democratic Party has moved. While watching the debates last week, it was abundantly clear how radical both the candidates and their policies truly are.

The once-shunned label of “socialist” is now boldly embraced by many on the left. They believe it to be a fairer system than capitalism. But no one stops to think about what it means to have “free” education for all or “free” health care for all. There was scant mention of how we will pay for all the “free” stuff during the debates. 

Last week, Joy Behar targeted conservatives and mocked them by saying that the right is blind to the supposed virtues of “democratic-socialism.” She said that Republicans just don’t understand what the word “socialist” means.

We absolutely understand the big-government, redistributionist agenda they are pushing. That is why we are terrified and alarmed to see how the left has embraced it. Liberals love to talk about “free” stuff, but we Republicans take those impossible promises to their logical conclusion: there is no such thing as a free lunch — someone eventually has to pay for it.

We know that socialism eliminates free markets and does away with free enterprise. We know it doesn’t work — just look at Venezuela, a once-prosperous country that now faces mass starvation due to destructive socialist policies.

But there is something more alarming in what Joy Behar said, and it’s not the first time it’s been mentioned by the left. Bernie Sanders was one of the first to popularize the term in mainstream American politics, and since then it has become a leftist mantra: democratic-socialism.

This is a clever way to ignore socialism’s continued failures. The left can no longer explain away socialism’s epic fails. The word “socialism” is a turn-off to many people. So, Bernie and the others are redefining it. They aren’t talking about “that socialism,” they insist; they’re talking about “democratic-socialism.” 

“Democratic-socialism,” however, is just an innocuous-sounding term for the “tyranny of the majority” that the Founders were so anxious to avoid when they wrote the U.S. Constitution.
  
Read more:
The Perilous Mainstreaming of 'Democratic Socialism'

Hitchens: The Universe Doesn't Need a Designer.

Friday Funnies

Cries to 'Ban the AR-15' Based on Ignorance and Hysteria

 

 

February 21, 2018

By Michael Filozof

 

Yet another mass shooting has taken place in America – followed by all too predictable cries to ban the AR-15 rifle.
The pure ignorance of the people bleating for a ban on America's most popular rifle is appalling. With few exceptions, most of the calls to ban the AR-15 come from liberal, urban women and metrosexual men whose knowledge of firearms comes entirely from watching Rambo movies or playing "Call of Duty."

Even some in professional law enforcement know not of what they speak.  A local radio station interviewed a retired FBI agent who stated that he "could not understand" why people would want such a rifle.

I've shot service rifle competitions for nearly 20 years and held the classification of "Master" for nearly eleven.  I've probably put 20,000 rounds through AR-15 rifles.  Though I've never been in the military, I have more familiarity and proficiency with the weapon than most active-duty soldiers.  So I think I am as qualified as anybody to dispel the common myths about the AR-15.

First, the AR-15 is not a machine-gun or an "assault weapon."  The AR-15 is a semi-automatic version of the M-16, which is a machine gun.  However, in Vietnam, the military found that troops with early versions of the M-16 were using fully-automatic "spray and pray" fire – and often failing to hit the enemy.  So when the M-16 was redesigned in the early 1980s, its fully automatic rate of fire was reduced to three-shot bursts, forcing troops to actually aim rather than hip-fire.  But any fully-automatic fire is simply not an option for the civilian AR-15.

Second, the idea that the AR-15 is some kind of horrifically powerful weapon is absurd.  In its most common chambering, the 5.56 NATO, the AR-15 is actually underpowered compared to traditional American battle rifles like the M1873 "Trapdoor" in .45-70 or the M1903 Springfield in .30-06.  The AR-15 is a .22-caliber centerfire.  When its M-16 counterpart was introduced in Vietnam, it was derided as a "mouse gun" and a "poodle-shooter."  Many troops were dismayed when their .30-caliber M-14s were replaced with the new rifle.

Read more here:
Cries to 'Ban the AR-15' Based on Ignorance and Hysteria

Hump Day Hunnies

Logic vs. Common Sense

Is Logic the same thing as common sense?

1 – Eleven teens die each day because of texting while driving.
Maybe it’s time to raise the age of Smart Phone ownership to 21.

2 – If gun control laws actually worked, Chicago would be Mayberry, USA.

3 – The Second Amendment makes more women equal than the entire feminist movement.

4 – Legal gun owners have 300 million guns and probably a trillion rounds of ammo. Seriously, folks, if we were the problem, you’d know it.

5 – When JFK was killed, nobody blamed the rifle.

6 – The NRA murders 0 people and receives $0 in government funds. Planned Parenthood kills 350,000 babies every year and receives $500,000,000 in tax dollars annually.

7 – I have no problem with vigorous background checks when it comes to firearms.While we’re at it, let’s do the same when it comes to immigration, Voter I.D and Candidates running for office.

8 – You don’t need a smoke detector; that’s what the fire department is for. Now…if you think that sounds stupid, you know how I feel when you say I don’t need a gun.

9 – Folks keep talking about another Civil War. One side knows how to shoot and probably has a trillion rounds. The other side has crying closets and is confused about which bathroom to use. Now tell me, how do you think that’s going to end?


There’s more logic and common sense expressed here than probably anything you’ve seen on the news today!

Capitalism Is Alive and Well

If you listen to the talking heads of the mainstream media, influential politicians like Senator Bernie Sanders, and left-wing publications and blogs, you'll be led to believe that capitalism is nothing more than a greedy, immoral, inefficient system that uses citizens to fatten corporations and government leaders.  But when you step back, take a deep breath, and study the facts, it's quite clear that capitalism will always be the answer.

Four Reasons Why Capitalism Works

It doesn't matter the date or time – you'll find outrageous claims of the decline of capitalism all throughout history.  During the recent recession, the Huffington Post published a piece titled "Capitalism Is Dead. Now What Do We Do?"  Just last year, the Independent Online ran a piece in which it claims that capitalism has made itself obsolete.  During the recent presidential election, otherwise respectable politicians tried to push the idea of socialism on Americans with straight faces.

While there's always room in America for debate and the marketplace of ideas, it's astonishing that people continue to question the effectiveness of capitalism when it has become the gold standard for successful government over the past few centuries.

In case you've become so inundated with the calls for socialism over the past decade that you've started to question your sanity, let's have a bit of a refresher on why capitalism works and how it benefits the government, the marketplace, businesses, families, and individuals.
 
Read the four reasons here:
Capitalism Is Alive and Well

Hitchens Smackdown

Assault Behavior Is Not a Weapon

If you have one of those wi-fi video doorbells, your home is more secure than Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida was when the evil creature called Nikolas Cruz entered to begin his murder spree.  With all the "we must do something" hand-wringing we have seen before, the simple truth is that such a simple bit of modern technology might have prevented or mitigated this tragedy.
Again, there were warning signs, enough red flags to have a parade in Moscow.  Many did see things and say things, as the mantra goes, but the FBI, which was notified of the killer's intention posted on social media, was busy chasing Russians and fighting Trump.  The kids in the high school expected that one day the killer, who was expelled, would return.  Yet the doors were not secured.  In a society awash with cameras and surveillance, no one saw him walking in with a gas mask, smoke grenades, and a weapon.

Your local convenience store has better security.  The question to be asked is not how could this happen, but why is the killer still alive?  Why was there no one in the building able to shoot back?  Why are off-duty cops guarding junk food and soft drinks rather than in these schools, guarding children?  We have enough retired cops and returning veterans to put more than a few in every school.  Critics say that, like guns in the home, would be dangerous. More dangerous than what, exactly?  The number of armed guards who have perpetrated mass shootings remains stuck at zero.

So the usual suspects in the gun control zoo, like early man who worshiped and feared inanimate objects, focus on the weapon used, an AR-15, and lament that if only we could rid the planet of each and every one, then the lion would lie down with the lamb.  This is welcome news to the people in Nice, France who were slaughtered by a jihadi driving a truck.

After considering the Oklahoma office worker whose head was hacked off with a knife, the New York cops attacked with an axe, and the Paris assault with a knife, it dawns on one that assault is a behavior and not a weapon.  Ever since Cain slew Abel, it has been possible to kill people without using an AR-15.

Read the rest here:
Assault Behavior Is Not a Weapon

Friday Funnies

Food boxes instead of food stamps? Welcome to socialism.

President Trump reportedly floated the idea of replacing half of the food stamps doled out to the program's 42.6 million recipients with food boxes.

The outcry from the program's recipients and their advocates was spectacular.

While such a move was just floated out there, probably to see how it would play with the public, and may be unlikely to happen due to higher costs, it teaches an important lesson: when the government pays, the government controls.  With so much of the bureaucratic class, the wealthier elements of the left, Millennials, and the underclass in awe of socialism, it's a rather important lesson to get across.
Socialism is all about having the government choose for you, because government knows best.  Ask any person who has had to live under communism, in hellholes such as Ceaușescu's Romania, East Germany, today's North Korea, and today's Cuba.  Socialism chooses the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the transport you take, the place you live, the health care you get, the technology you are allowed access to, and everything else, all for "your own good."

Having money – and food stamps are not money, but they are close – means that one can make one's own choices.  Socialists don't like people having money.  They scream at the idea of happy Americans having a garage full of expensive sports equipment and "no proper control."  They don't even want the poor to have choices – remember that in Venezuela, the government handed out rabbits and told the people that was their "two pounds of meat."  Many Americans have already felt this with the Nightmare of Obamacare already, but not food stamp recipients, whose health care is subsidized, if not utterly free.

Read more:
Food boxes instead of food stamps? Welcome to socialism.

Hump Day Hunnies