Progressive?

[Guest]

There have been many posts on this forum that denigrate the word "Progressive" and make it seem like it is a terrible thing to be called a progressive.

It means "going forward". Don't you want to be associated with a word that means going forward? I know I do.

The opposite of progressive is "retrograde". That means, "Tending or moving backward; having a backward course; contrary; as, a retrograde motion; opposed to progressive."

Personally, I would not want to be associated with a movement (political party or whatever) that wants to move backward or has a backward course. I would rather be involved with a political party that wants to move forward.

[Guest]

progressive is no more offensive than let's say...republican (and all the derogatory derivations used on the forum) or the word democrat or liberal or conservative (and many more).....they are all political intended words that mean no more than creating a cubicle or pigeon hole categorization solely for the intent of and interpretation of or opinion of the person that uses the word to give themselves comfort in their beliefs......as we all know right or wrong or accuracy is of no consequence in the political realm....

btk

[Guest]

Both the terms "liberal" and "progressive" have been changed away from their original meanings that varied by historical eras and western nations. In my estimation, when I hear these terms in today's U.S. society, these terms have been shifted toward another meaning that promotes micromanaging control by government into the individual citizen's freedom and rights to livelihood and rights to private property/money ownership. In other words, bigger, more meddling government that begs for more Big Brother in our lives.


"Classical liberals, who broadly emphasized the importance of free markets and civil liberties, dominated liberal history for a century after the French Revolution.

The onset of World War I and the Great Depression, however, accelerated the trends begun in late 19th century Britain towards a "new liberalism" (social liberalism) that emphasized a greater role for the state in ameliorating societal ills.

By the beginning of the 21st century, liberal democracies and their fundamental characteristics—support for constitutions, civil rights and individual liberties, pluralistic society, and the welfare state—were widespread in most regions around the world."
Liberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism)


"While the ultimate significance of the progressive movement on today's politics is still up for debate, Alonzo L. Hamby asks:

What were the central themes that emerged from the cacophony [of progressivism]? Democracy or elitism? Social justice or social control? Small entrepreneurship or concentrated capitalism?

And what was the impact of American foreign policy? Were the progressives isolationists or interventionists? Imperialists or advocates of national self-determination? And whatever they were, what was their motivation? Moralistic utopianism? Muddled relativistic pragmatism? Hegemonic capitalism?

Not surprisingly many battered scholars began to shout 'no mas!' In 1970, Peter Filene declared that the term 'progressivism' had become meaningless."
Progressivism in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_States)

[Guest]

There have been many posts on this forum that denigrate the word "Progressive" and make it seem like it is a terrible thing to be called a progressive.

It means "going forward". Don't you want to be associated with a word that means going forward? I know I do.


Just for fun and that is all!!! No ill meant toward Gays, (I can't believe I have to say this!)


What do you think of when I say, "let's have a Gay ole time" ?
Or to move along gay?
They change over time as has your word "progressive"

Words have different meanings and you have used it in a way to make YOUR point. It does not make your point true.

[Guest]

liberals use many terms which sound nice but when really investigated, do not stand for anything which many of us would welcome...for example, rather than say "pro-abortion" they sound nicer with "pro-choice", but the result is the same...sometimes going forward is not to be deemed a good thing...when you are approaching the edge of a cliff rapidly and spinning out of control, i would prefer the term "stand firm" or "dig in" to progressing over the cliff...i applaud the conservatives who are courageous enough to dig in their heels and not compromise with those who are pushing us along to doom...another case is "sustainability" of the Agenda 21 variety....this is a term used with the green programs as an excuse to take over private property rights and eventually tell people where they must live in order to "sustain" the earth...what they really are sustaining is their collectivist ideology against individual rights. semantics can be tricky!

[Guest]

Science and technology are both progressive in nature and a good thing but you must be careful because to must of a good thing can hurt or destroy you. Too much salt will ruin a good soup .

[Guest]

Interesting that one poster said that she prefers standing firm and not compromising to going forward. Where I come from, that is called mule stubborn. When a mule gets stubborn and will not go forward, it is usually replaced with a better animal that follows direction for the good of the community.

[Guest]

My initial impressions of the term "progressive" as it is understood today pretty much merge with what Chachcha said in the above posts.

If one looks at what has been presented as "progressive" in movies (TV) , other than technolgical advances are anything but progressive. In fact one could make a good argument that we have regressed socially, intellectually, civilly etc I mean just look at the horrendous crimes and the age and gender of the perpetrators, the very bad and rude behavior of people and the hedonistic advancement by many groups. Progessive means the solution to the unwelcome unborn is extermination...that is not progressive that is regressive.

If one views Obama's agenda it is not progressive but rather a throwback to the days of FDR and Johnson Administrations.

Succintly stated "progressive doe not mean the human race is advancing for its betterment. Chachacha "stand your ground" approach fits my view when it comes to the principles and belief of our Judeo-Christian Democracy

[Guest]

Exactly right Chachacha and Rubicon. Progressing to what, and to what end?

"Progressive" in today's political reality is another term for progressing to "social justice", or basically, to socialistic views of wealth distribution and equal outcome. Social Justice as an agenda has become linked with Marxist economics.

The "Rev." Al Sharpton preached that we won't have true social justice until everything is "equal in everybody's house."

Progressivism or Social Justice; whatever you want to codify the definition to relate to today's political reality, it shorthand for socialism or communism.

You can call a skunk another name if you like, but it will still stink.

[Guest]

Exactly right Chachacha and Rubicon. Progressing to what, and to what end?

"Progressive" in today's political reality is another term for progressing to "social justice", or basically, to socialistic views of wealth distribution and equal outcome. Social Justice as an agenda has become linked with Marxist economics.

The "Rev." Al Sharpton preached that we won't have true social justice until everything is "equal in everybody's house."

Progressivism or Social Justice; whatever you want to codify the definition to relate to today's political reality, it shorthand for socialism or communism.

You can call a skunk another name if you like, but it will still stink.

Al Sharpton is not the spokesman for the progressive movement by any means. He speaks what is on his mind but is not anyone's spokesman so let's just leave Al Sharpton out of the conversation just like conservatives will leave David Duke out of the conversation as he is not their spokesman.

I don't think anyone thinks we should have "wealth distribution" so everything will be equal in everyone's house. I have no idea where those ideas came from except maybe from out of context phrases put together into one statement.

Sort of like the out of context phrase of Mitt Romney saying he does not care about poor people. Not what he meant at all and just taken out of context.

The poster who stated the Obama administration is a throwback to the FDR days and the LBJ days must have forgotten that those two presidents were responsible for Social Security and Medicare. Would you like to be without either?

Conservatives digging in their heels and refusing to compromise is what is wrong with our Congress. We have to progress forward - not go backwards.

[Guest]

The Progressive movement in the US started early inn the Twentieth century and was originally located in California. It was based upon the belief that one group, specifically northern European people were superior to other races. It was to persist there until after WWII. Fully one third of sterilizations performed in the United States in the Twentieth century were done under the auspices of the California State Government.

Eugenics was not to remain restricted to California. The Progressives adopted it and one of their leading lights, Woodrow Wilson who came to the White House from Princeton, brought the ideas of Eugenics with him from his life in Academia. In the first year of his Presidency he ordered the segregation of the Navy, which throughout its history had been integrated. He also ordered segregation of the Civil Service in violation of the law. He also banned interracial marriage in the District of Columbia.

Segregation of the Civil Service quietly ended under subsequent Republican administrations, but full integration of the Armed Forces did not take place until ordered by President Truman.

The ideas of Eugenics continued to thrive and formed the intellectual underpinning of Hitler's 'master race'. Up until WWII, American support of Hitler and his ideas remained popular among Progressives. After the war, Nazi War Criminals cited California law in their defense. Today, the idea that there are special groups that are unable to succeed without government help is still alive and well with Progressives. They feel superior to those that they regard as underprivileged and feel entitled to decide for them what should be done. This was the origin of affirmative action in the 60's and these policies continue today. It's time to stop talking about 'fair share' and instead shift to an actual opportunity for everyone without consideration of race, gender, etc. The Progressive movement will never embrace this idea since it requires that all men/women be regarded as equal and the government stop trying to end discrimination by getting out of the discrimination business.

[Guest]

Al Sharpton is not the spokesman for the progressive movement by any means. He speaks what is on his mind but is not anyone's spokesman so let's just leave Al Sharpton out of the conversation just like conservatives will leave David Duke out of the conversation as he is not their spokesman.

I don't think anyone thinks we should have "wealth distribution" so everything will be equal in everyone's house. I have no idea where those ideas came from except maybe from out of context phrases put together into one statement.

Sort of like the out of context phrase of Mitt Romney saying he does not care about poor people. Not what he meant at all and just taken out of context.

The poster who stated the Obama administration is a throwback to the FDR days and the LBJ days must have forgotten that those two presidents were responsible for Social Security and Medicare. Would you like to be without either?

Conservatives digging in their heels and refusing to compromise is what is wrong with our Congress. We have to progress forward - not go backwards.

Your post just tells me that you have no clue to what the "Progressive" movement is.

I wish I knew that earlier; I could have saved my breath.

[Guest]

The Progressive movement in the US started early inn the Twentieth century and was originally located in California. It was based upon the belief that one group, specifically northern European people were superior to other races. It was to persist there until after WWII. Fully one third of sterilizations performed in the United States in the Twentieth century were done under the auspices of the California State Government.

Eugenics was not to remain restricted to California. The Progressives adopted it and one of their leading lights, Woodrow Wilson who came to the White House from Princeton, brought the ideas of Eugenics with him from his life in Academia. In the first year of his Presidency he ordered the segregation of the Navy, which throughout its history had been integrated. He also ordered segregation of the Civil Service in violation of the law. He also banned interracial marriage in the District of Columbia.

Segregation of the Civil Service quietly ended under subsequent Republican administrations, but full integration of the Armed Forces did not take place until ordered by President Truman.

The ideas of Eugenics continued to thrive and formed the intellectual underpinning of Hitler's 'master race'. Up until WWII, American support of Hitler and his ideas remained popular among Progressives. After the war, Nazi War Criminals cited California law in their defense. Today, the idea that there are special groups that are unable to succeed without government help is still alive and well with Progressives. They feel superior to those that they regard as underprivileged and feel entitled to decide for them what should be done. This was the origin of affirmative action in the 60's and these policies continue today. It's time to stop talking about 'fair share' and instead shift to an actual opportunity for everyone without consideration of race, gender, etc. The Progressive movement will never embrace this idea since it requires that all men/women be regarded as equal and the government stop trying to end discrimination by getting out of the discrimination business.

This is revisionist historical bunk. Progressives and eugenics — Crooked Timber (http://crookedtimber.org/2007/07/31/progressives-and-eugenics/)

Glenn Beck Claims Progressives Are the Most Racist People in US History (http://www.politicususa.com/beck-progressives-racist.html)

[Guest]

from MediaMatters.org

Glenn Beck is taking some withering fire from an unlikely corner. Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard has written a lengthy piece devoted, in part, to dismantling Beck's warped view of history and progressivism, at various points calling Beck's rhetoric "nonsense," "radically adversarial," and marked by "conspiracism." He also goes to great lengths to explain Beck's connections to the paranoid anti-communist movement of the 20th century, in particular his affinity for "the Mormon autodidact W. Cleon Skousen. -

Basically, reasonable people think whatever Glenn Beck says is a bunch of hokum.

[Guest]

from MediaMatters.org

Glenn Beck is taking some withering fire from an unlikely corner. Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard has written a lengthy piece devoted, in part, to dismantling Beck's warped view of history and progressivism, at various points calling Beck's rhetoric "nonsense," "radically adversarial," and marked by "conspiracism." He also goes to great lengths to explain Beck's connections to the paranoid anti-communist movement of the 20th century, in particular his affinity for "the Mormon autodidact W. Cleon Skousen. -

Basically, reasonable people think whatever Glenn Beck says is a bunch of hokum.

I will have to check that out buggyone. Matthew Continetti | The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/matthew-continetti#recent-article)

The Two Faces of the Tea Party | The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/two-faces-tea-party?page=3)

[Guest]

I have no desire to nor do I watch listen to or read Glen Beck. What I said was historically accurate including my description of the Wilson presidency and his actions. I do believe that the current Progressive doctrine of an elite making decisions for and looking after the disadvantaged is today's intellectual equivalent of 'carrying the white man's burden'. If you look at history and think about the policies coming out of DC today, you may discover you agree.

[Guest]

from MediaMatters.org

Glenn Beck is taking some withering fire from an unlikely corner. Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard has written a lengthy piece devoted, in part, to dismantling Beck's warped view of history and progressivism, at various points calling Beck's rhetoric "nonsense," "radically adversarial," and marked by "conspiracism." He also goes to great lengths to explain Beck's connections to the paranoid anti-communist movement of the 20th century, in particular his affinity for "the Mormon autodidact W. Cleon Skousen. -

Basically, reasonable people think whatever Glenn Beck says is a bunch of hokum.

So the vast left wing media is denying the true nature of the Progressive Movement and it's links to Marxist principles.

WOW!!; who would have thunk it?

[Guest]

I have no desire to nor do I watch listen to or read Glen Beck. What I said was historically accurate including my description of the Wilson presidency and his actions. I do believe that the current Progressive doctrine of an elite making decisions for and looking after the disadvantaged is today's intellectual equivalent of 'carrying the white man's burden'. If you look at history and think about the policies coming out of DC today, you may discover you agree.

Not buying it. This sounds more accurate that Wilson was taking on Jacksonian principles. Of course, there was a lot of racism in the 1910s. The Founding Fathers were very racist for the most part and also very sexist. The New Freedom: The Progressive Program of President Woodrow Wilson | Suite101.com (http://suite101.com/article/the-new-freedom-a90102)

The "white man's burden" is more a part of colonialism than progressivism.

[Guest]

The opposite of progressives are the republican candidates that ran in the primary who want to take us back to the 1950's, when women stayed home, there were no birth control pills, abortion was illegal, gays and lesbians were not even acknowledged let alone allowed to marry, only white men were allowed to govern, there was no Medicare or Medicaid or food stamps or Head Start, and everybody liked Ike.

Many posters on this forum long for those good old days, but it is doubtful anybody under the age of 60 would vote to continue those policies. Progressives equal moving forward, conservatives are stuck in the last century.

[Guest]

The opposite of progressives are the republican candidates that ran in the primary who want to take us back to the 1950's, when women stayed home, there were no birth control pills, abortion was illegal, gays and lesbians were not even acknowledged let alone allowed to marry, only white men were allowed to govern, there was no Medicare or Medicaid or food stamps or Head Start, and everybody liked Ike.

Many posters on this forum long for those good old days, but it is doubtful anybody under the age of 60 would vote to continue those policies. Progressives equal moving forward, conservatives are stuck in the last century.

Excellent posting, JANMCM. :BigApplause:

[Guest]

The opposite of progressives are the republican candidates that ran in the primary who want to take us back to the 1950's, when women stayed home, there were no birth control pills, abortion was illegal, gays and lesbians were not even acknowledged let alone allowed to marry, only white men were allowed to govern, there was no Medicare or Medicaid or food stamps or Head Start, and everybody liked Ike.

Many posters on this forum long for those good old days, but it is doubtful anybody under the age of 60 would vote to continue those policies. Progressives equal moving forward, conservatives are stuck in the last century.

When you stereotype all conservatives and republicans as "the republican candidates that ran in the primary who want to take us back to the 1950's, when women stayed home", you might want to read a little bit about these women who were wife and mother of one of those candidates, and a candidate herself (see below on Santorum's wife, Bachmann herself, and Romney's mother).

These women are hardly women who "stayed home (barefoot, pregnant and baking pies for the king to come home to his castle)":

"Karen Santorum is one of twelve children. By profession, she is both a nurse and attorney. She received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Duquesne University, and worked for several years in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Her Juris Doctorate degree is from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law where she was a Law Review member."
Speakers Access (http://www.speakersaccess.com/karen-santorum)

"Michelle Bachmann was raised by her mother, Arlene Jean (née Johnson), who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota.....

She (Bachmann) graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working on kibbutz Be'eri in Israel.

In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A.

In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law......

In 1986 Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the final graduating class of the law school at ORU, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University.

In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from the William & Mary School of Law. From 1988 to 1993, she was an attorney working for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)......

In 2000, Bachmann defeated 18-year incumbent Gary Laidig for the Republican nomination for State Senator for Minnesota District 56.

In the November 2000 general election, she defeated Ted Thompson of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) and Lyno Sullivan of the Minnesota Independence Party, to win the seat.

Two years later, in November 2002, after redistricting due to the 2000 Census, Bachmann defeated another incumbent, State Senator Jane Krentz of the DFL, in the newly drawn State Senate District 52......"
Michele Bachmann - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Bachmann)

Lenore Romney, Mitt Romney's mother:

"Lenore LaFount Romney was the wife of American businessman and politician George W. Romney and was First Lady of Michigan from 1963 to 1969. She was the Republican Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1970 from Michigan.......

Education and Acting Career:

......Lenore transferred to George Washington University, where she graduated with an A.B. degree in English literature in June 1929 after again spending only three years total in college. George returned from his missionary stint and soon followed her to Washington.

Acting Career
Encouraged by an aunt, LaFount moved to New York and enrolled in the American Laboratory Theatre to study acting, where she was taught Stanislavski's system under school co-founder Maria Ouspenskaya. She found the experience inspiring.

In student productions there, she starred in the Shakespearean roles of Ophelia and Portia and also appeared in roles from Ibsen and Chekhov plays. She received a performance award there in 1930.

Talent scouts attending the productions were impressed, and she received an offer from the National Broadcasting Corporation to perform in a series of Shakespeare radio programs and from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to go to Hollywood under an apprentice actress contract.

She decided on the latter, despite strenuous arguments against doing so from George, who had been visiting her on weekends. By then, he had a job with Alcoa, and arranged to be transferred to Los Angeles to be with her. In September 1930, the couple became engaged.

A 5-foot-6-inch slender woman with porcelain skin and naturally curly chesnut colored hair, LaFount earned bit parts in Hollywood. These included appearing as a fashionable young French woman in a Greta Garbo film and as an ingenue in the William Haines film A Tailor Made Man. She also appears in films that starred Jean Harlow and Ramon Navarro and was a stand-in for Lili Damita. Her trained voice made her valuable during this dawn of the talking pictures era, and she worked as a voice actor in animated cartoons.......

After a few months in Hollywood, she had the opportunity to sign a three-year contract with MGM that was worth $50,000 if all the options were picked up. However, she was dismayed by some of the seamier aspects of Hollywood and the studio's request that she pose for cheesecake photos....."

Lenore Romney - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenore_Romney)

[Guest]

You failed to mention Ann Romney, who chose to stay home to raise her five sons and never worked a day outside the home. Wouldn't you suspect she advocates that for all women?

And Karen Santorum gave up her career to stay at home and home school her seven children.

If Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann is such a model for working women, why did she and 98% of republican members of the house vote against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 and against the Violence Against Women Act earlier this year?
One can only assume that she is against equal pay for equal work and for violence against women.

[Guest]

Not buying it. This sounds more accurate that Wilson was taking on Jacksonian principles. Of course, there was a lot of racism in the 1910s. The Founding Fathers were very racist for the most part and also very sexist. The New Freedom: The Progressive Program of President Woodrow Wilson | Suite101.com (http://suite101.com/article/the-new-freedom-a90102)

The "white man's burden" is more a part of colonialism than progressivism.

T. You may want to reconsider after this PBS document on Wilson and segregation:

PBS - American Experience: Woodrow Wilson | Wilson- A Portrait (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html)

This open letter from W.E.B. DuBois – a pioneer in civil rights paints an honest picture of Woodrow Wilson:

Another Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson by W.E.B. DuBois (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=1115)

[Guest]

Of course, the framers of the Constitution were sexist and racist but that was the times they lived in. The Constitution declared that slaves counted only for 3/5 of a person in representation, women could not vote, and most of the rich framers who were farmers had slaves including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

[Guest]

T. You may want to reconsider after this PBS document on Wilson and segregation:

PBS - American Experience: Woodrow Wilson | Wilson- A Portrait (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html)

This open letter from W.E.B. DuBois – a pioneer in civil rights paints an honest picture of Woodrow Wilson:

Another Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson by W.E.B. DuBois (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=1115)

Agree that Woodrow Wilson was a racist. Probably about 90 of the white population of the U.S. right around World War One were also racists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_United_States

This is like arguing that because the Founding Fathers were racist and sexist the Tea Party members who want to go back to their original intentions are also racists. Barack Obama, Jon Stewart, George Clooney and other well known progressivists hardly share the same views as President Wilson.

[Guest]

Of course, the framers of the Constitution were sexist and racist but that was the times they lived in. The Constitution declared that slaves counted only for 3/5 of a person in representation, women could not vote, and most of the rich framers who were farmers had slaves including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

You do know that the South wanted slaves counted for representation purposes for the South's benefit, while depriving slaves of any semblance of human rights or dignity?

The 3/5 clause was a compromise and prevented the less populated South from expanding their representation in the Houses.

[Guest]

You do know that the South wanted slaves counted for representation purposes for the South's benefit, while depriving slaves of any semblance of human rights or dignity?

The 3/5 clause was a compromise and prevented the less populated South from expanding their representation in the Houses.

Yes. I am glad to see you were awake that day in high school American history.

[Guest]

The opposite of progressives are the republican candidates that ran in the primary who want to take us back to the 1950's, when women stayed home, there were no birth control pills, abortion was illegal, gays and lesbians were not even acknowledged let alone allowed to marry, only white men were allowed to govern, there was no Medicare or Medicaid or food stamps or Head Start, and everybody liked Ike.

Many posters on this forum long for those good old days, but it is doubtful anybody under the age of 60 would vote to continue those policies. Progressives equal moving forward, conservatives are stuck in the last century.

I thought the 50's were pretty good.

[Guest]

Yes. I am glad to see you were awake that day in high school American history.

Well, it illustrates how you liberals always bringing that up as a useless tool.

"Not counting" the slaves was to their benefit to curtail the power of their enslavers.

It was the enslavers who wanted them counted as "whole" people in order to exploit their own numbers against them.

When liberals bring this up, it's only to influence Americans who are ignorant about "American History". The liberal side of the ledger is overrun with people of that persuasion it would indicate.

[Guest]

Well, it illustrates how you liberals always bringing that up as a useless tool.

"Not counting" the slaves was to their benefit to curtail the power of their enslavers.

It was the enslavers who wanted them counted as "whole" people in order to exploit their own numbers against them.

When liberals bring this up, it's only to influence Americans who are ignorant about "American History". The liberal side of the ledger is overrun with people of that persuasion it would indicate.

I have no idea of what you just said in this post. I have read government gobbledegook that made more sense. I will wait to hear it in person next time at the watering hole.

[Guest]

You do know that the South wanted slaves counted for representation purposes for the South's benefit, while depriving slaves of any semblance of human rights or dignity?

The 3/5 clause was a compromise and prevented the less populated South from expanding their representation in the Houses.


The 3/5 clause helped the South have quite a lot of political clout before the Civil War. Three-Fifths Compromise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise)

"The three-fifths ratio, or 'Federal ratio', had a major effect on pre-Civil War political affairs due to the disproportionate representation of slaveholding states relative to voters. For example, in 1793 slave states would have been apportioned 33 seats in the House of Representatives had the seats been assigned based on the free population; instead they were apportioned 47. In 1812, slaveholding states had 76 instead of the 59 they would have had; in 1833, 98 instead of 73. As a result, southerners dominated the Presidency, the Speakership of the House, and the Supreme Court in the period prior to the Civil War." from the above Wikipedia article on the Three-Fifths Compromise.

[Guest]

The 3/5 clause helped the South have quite a lot of political clout before the Civil War. Three-Fifths Compromise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise)

"The three-fifths ratio, or 'Federal ratio', had a major effect on pre-Civil War political affairs due to the disproportionate representation of slaveholding states relative to voters. For example, in 1793 slave states would have been apportioned 33 seats in the House of Representatives had the seats been assigned based on the free population; instead they were apportioned 47. In 1812, slaveholding states had 76 instead of the 59 they would have had; in 1833, 98 instead of 73. As a result, southerners dominated the Presidency, the Speakership of the House, and the Supreme Court in the period prior to the Civil War." from the above Wikipedia article on the Three-Fifths Compromise.

Yes, but the point is the slave states wanted the slave counted as "whole people", and that would have had a more disproportionate effect.

The measure was passed with a compromise to count the slaves as "3/5ths a person".

My point is that liberals in order to paint a picture of racism in the retelling of this moment in history point erroneously to the "3/5th's Clause" as an example of racism. When, in reality, it was the real racists who wanted the slaves counted as "whole people" in census terms.

[Guest]

Yes, but the point is the slave states wanted the slave counted as "whole people", and that would have had a more disproportionate effect.

The measure was passed with a compromise to count the slaves as "3/5ths a person".

My point is that liberals in order to paint a picture of racism in the retelling of this moment in history point erroneously to the "3/5th's Clause" as an example of racism. When, in reality, it was the real racists who wanted the slaves counted as "whole people" in census terms.

You can see now that the "3/5th Compromise" was done in 1787 which was way before the Civil War. Why not just admit that it was racist to have slaves? Most Southern farms had slaves and some Northern farms and families had slaves but the main population of slaves was in the South.

Your faulty reasoning as I understand it is: Al Sharpton says slaves were counted only as 3/5 of a person and therefore the South is racist. You say that is not true because the South wanted to count slaves as a whole person - but still keep them as slaves. Ergo, the South was not racist because they wanted to count slaves as whole people. That really does not make sense.

[Guest]

Your faulty reasoning as I understand it is: Al Sharpton says slaves were counted only as 3/5 of a person and therefore the South is racist. You say that is not true because the South wanted to count slaves as a whole person - but still keep them as slaves. Ergo, the South was not racist because they wanted to count slaves as whole people. That really does not make sense.

NO; Sharpton says the clause meant the country was/is racist. I don't think he differentiates between north and south on this subject.

Wanting the slaves counted as whole people in the census while denying them rights was racist and unconstitutional. You're backward as usual.

You've misinterpreted everything else I've said also, but if you don't get it now, I'll leave you to it.