Medved's Six Reasons Slavery Wasn't So Bad

[Doug]

DOUG writes:
Michael Medved, former movie critic and rational person, explains why people should not put down the U.S. with reference to its past including slavery.

See his article here. It's called "Six Inconvenient Truths About the U.S. and Slavery."

His points (cut and pasted):
1. SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION.
2. SLAVERY EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED LOCALES, IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC – INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE ANCESTORS OF TODAY’S AMERICANS.
3. THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL: LIVE SLAVES WERE VALUABLE BUT DEAD CAPTIVES BROUGHT NO PROFIT.
4. IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.
5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.
6. THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.

As one blogger noted, does the GOP wonder why African-Americans have left them?

[Dardedar]

DAR
That reads so bad it is almost as if a comedy writer wrote it attempting to make fun of rightwingers. They just keep digging and digging. It's like they don't even try to hide their racism anymore.

[Tony]

Man!
They never did do much to hide their racism.
As a current history grad student, this gave me heart palpitations. This country financed industrialization largely on the huge profits of the Cotton trade. It was our number one exporter for years. The idea that we did not benefit in a huge way from slave labor is absurd.
To get an idea, just read James Henry Hammond's "Cotton is King" speech in Congress, where he dared the north to make war on Cotton to see how important people thought Cotton was, but also how important it actually was. Sure, the North won the Civil War, but it was largely due to the industrial base that Cotton helped build.
Ok, enough with countering this absurdity.
Tred

[LaWood]

Unfortunately, to bring American blacks in line with their cousins who the slave-traders left behind in Africa would require a drastic reduction in their wealth, living standards, and economic and political opportunities.

Medved

Gee you mean the ones LEFT BEHIND would not have suffered the indignities of NOLA?

How in the holiest of Hells can any black person support this propaganda?
.