June 24, 2015

PBS might drop Henry Louis Gates for doing a show about Ben Affleck that avoided the unpretty news that he had slave-owning ancestors.

A PBS internal review has concluded that Gates (the eminent Harvard professor) used "improper judgment" helping the big movie star avoid an unpleasant confrontation with the information that might be seen as harmful to his image. I don't really see why it would hurt him, since we are not our ancestors, and Affleck could have used the occasion to show us the right way to respond to the legacy of slavery.

If he'd handled it well, it would have been to his credit. Affleck didn't know his email would be leaked, but we now know he just said he was "embarrassed." Embarrassed. That's so pathetic. So weak. To hear that his reaction was embarrassment and that he would prevail upon Gates to censor the information to spare him embarrassment... that's embarrassing.

UPDATE: "PBS will not run the show’s third season until staffing changes are made, including hiring a fact checker...."

92 comments:

Kyzer SoSay said...

Hypocrites, both of them.

Michael K said...

They deserve each other.

Gahrie said...

I don't believe Gates should have accommodated Affleck (who appears to be exactly the type of douche who would be embarrassed about this), however I also don't think Gates should be dropped. The information should merely have been disclosed to allow the public to form their own opinion, which is what happened.

campy said...

So Gates acted stupidly?

Humperdink said...

The left has established so many phony boundaries on our culture that it's only a matter of time before they all get caught up in the back wash.

Schadenfreude, it's what for dinner (minus the trans fats).

Owen said...

Affleck and Gates are both enslaved by this PC nonsense. As Michael K says, "they deserve each other."

Drive on.

jimbino said...

They both feel so "humbled" by the experience.

traditionalguy said...

Gates spoils the Racial war narrative by proving thar nearly everybody in America is a racial mixture. While it undercuts the stupid southern slavers message of 1% black is all black, it also exposes people to many thoughtful and successful racially mixed Americans all around us.

That acts to deter race war. We are cousins. Ergo:PBS wants it gone now.

Titus said...

Henry is my neighbor, so there....and he likes white women!

tits.

khesanh0802 said...

Any of us whose families have been in this country since colonial times might be surprised to find slave holders somewhere in the family tree. Slavery was certainly not confined to the south. Boston was full of slaves. Crispus Attucks of the Boston massacre was most likely a slave. Affleck and Gates should have dealt with the issue forthrightly. It would have been an instructive piece of history. That Gates covered it up makes one wonder about the honesty of the rest of his work, but the world will not end.

iowan2 said...

The left lies and obfuscates on a regular basis. They are forced to shade every single thing they touch. Gates shades his entire body of study. After all, their's is a message that must be delivered and not muddied by, uncomfortable, embarrassing facts. Who knows what happens if people are provided the truth and reached their own conclusions.

Joe said...

I don't have any slaveholders in my American ancestry, but I do have polygamists and a direct ancestor who was part of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I'm sure going back, there were drunks, whores and those who would make the worse slaveholder look pleasant.

Crimso said...

"since we are not our ancestors"

The problem is that I would estimate that about 95% of the U.S. population does not hold this view. That's on all sides.

David said...

Damn fool. It was your great something grandfather, not you, that owned slaves.

I blame vanity.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

Bawahahaha.

Damn, the Left hates uncomfortable truths. Very entertaining to watch their discomfort, though.

Does Affleck actually believe the ridiculous concept (btw, thanks, Original Sin dogma) that there can be such a thing as inherited guilt?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

How are they determining that it was his decision? When I read the initial news, he was asking for advice from the chiefs (supposedly) on how to handle it, which would have meant it was their call.

Anonymous said...

So this Affleck guy is, what, some actor? And I'm supposed to care that his ancestors were slave-owners, why, exactly? What are the odds that any humans alive today don't have ancestors who were slaves and ancestors who were slave-owners, if you go back far enough?

(Oh, it's PBS. Sorry, some turgid wank-fest that doesn't concern me...)

trad-guy: Gates spoils the Racial war narrative by proving thar nearly everybody in America is a racial mixture.

If Gates told you that, he's either having you on or doesn't know what he's talking about. Unless by "nearly everybody", you mean "non-whites". Some groups are fairly mix-y, but American whites are pretty, well, white, genetically. (Cue "Here's why that's a problem!" from some Vox/Salon/Slate retard.) And still a fairly substantial part of the population, painful though that demographic fact is to some people.

tim maguire said...

A PBS internal review has concluded that Gates (the well known Harvard professor)...

FIFY

Yancey Ward said...

Affleck is a vain fool. Gates is liar.

LYNNDH said...

I have no idea if any of my ancestors owned Slaves. I do know that my Great Great Grandfather lived in SC. No slaves were listed in the census. My Great Grandfather and his 3 brothers all fought for the South, and two of them died. One of wounds in battle in TN, and the other the day after he arrived in the Union prison in Chicago.
My Granddad was born in Memphis, and my Father in Atlanta. I feel no desire or whatever to fly a Confederate flag. However, I think the desecration of the memorials is despicable and cowardly. Good men on both sides died. But after the Civil Was we became The United States.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So this Anglelyne robot is, what, some sort of… anything?

rcocean said...

I can't imagine anything more worthless than the hearing an under educated Hollywood actor talk about his slaveholding Great-great-Grandfather who died`at least 120 years ago.

And what would Ben have said? "Oh, I hate slavery. I'm so sorry my family owned slaves 150 years ago. I wish I could have gone back and told him he was so wrong - cause blacks are people too. And I really, really hate racists."

Good grief. If you don't have a racial soap opera - create one.

kcom said...

Maybe Ben Affleck has a time machine and he didn't just meet his great-great-grandfather but he is his great-great-grandfather. That might explain the cover-up and the embarrassment.

madAsHell said...

I share a surname with a lot of African-Americans. I can also point to my great-great grandfather that fought for the Union Army at Natchez, MS.

It must be a slow news day.

traditionalguy said...

Just for discussion, how does a 40% genetically Scotsman pass as non-white because he has an ancestor from Liberia?

The one drop of black blood rule was always a legal fiction. So who is ready to leave fictional slave enforcement rules behind.

That way of Thinking just helps the White Privilege meme to live.

As I recall Tiger woods is 5% Scots and 40 % black and 55% Chinese.

CatherineM said...

Ben is happy to tell everyone about his freedom rider mom. If either of them were sharp they could have suggested it spoke to the journey this country has made. From a slave owner to someone who was dedicated to the civil rights of all Americans.

Blinded by the past, they didn't notice the answer was right in front of them.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And what would Ben have said? "Oh, I hate slavery. I'm so sorry my family owned slaves 150 years ago. I wish I could have gone back and told him he was so wrong - cause blacks are people too. And I really, really hate racists."

Or he could have been like rc and found it to be a defining point of pride, let out a rebel yell, waved a flag and denounced "n-word equality".

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...
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Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...
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narciso said...

about that:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3053945/Now-Ben-Affleck-s-MOM-reveals-mistakes-documentary-censored-star-s-family-s-slave-owning-past-says-did-NOT-Freedom-Summer-Freedom-Rides.html

rhhardin said...

Slavery was long thought to be preferable to killing the defeated enemy.

That was the economic system based mostly by hitting the other guy on the head and taking his stuff.

Free markets and trade changed the economics. You get more from a slave if he's free to work in his own interest in a free market than from his slave labor.

So slavery died, there being nothing to justify it.

MikeR said...

I don't understand this story, and I don't understand why everyone here is knocking Affleck. Of course he was embarrassed, and I don't see why it was wrong to leave out that section of his story to spare him. Is there some reason why we need to know every gritty detail of his past? Is it, like, important news? Or is it just supposed to be interesting and maybe heartwarming? Why drag him through the mud for something that is not his fault in any way?

Drago said...

R&B's: "I don't think any of the apologists on this thread would identify as black by virtue of having a black man rape their non-black mother."

Why would R&B bring up lefty apologists for radical islamist rapists and enslavers in a thread on PBS and Henry Louis Gates?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...
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William said...

I've seen the Gates show on occasion. Part of the fun is that people's ancestors aren't always who they hoped they would be. Sally Fields distant foremom was the widow of an American who fought and died on the British side during the Revlutionary War. After the war, she moved to Canada with he other Loyalists. Sally swallowed hard and praised her foremom for her courage and principles. Valerie Jarrett had an ancestor who was a free black in Louisiana in the eighteenth century. Worse yet, as a free black she owned slaves. Valerie accepted the news with good grace. She had quite a few distinguished and accomplished relatives in her family tree.

paminwi said...

Ben acted like a wuss. He was mostly afraid of what his fellow libs would think about him. You know how they can turn on people.

Lewis Wetzel said...

MikeR wrote:
"Of course he was embarrassed"
Why? I'm not embarrassed about anything my ancestors did, because, you know, I didn't do it. That is what I find curious about the Affleck-Gates thing. Why in the world would he be embarrassed by being the descendant of slave-owners? Isn't that as stupid and illogical as being embarrassed because your ancestors were slaves?

Meade said...

"Free markets and trade changed the economics. You get more from a slave if he's free to work in his own interest in a free market than from his slave labor.

So slavery died, there being nothing to justify it."


Free markets and trade changed the economics. You get more from a woman if she's free than if she's oppressed.
So female oppression died, there being nothing to justify it.

William said...

I think the Gates' show is a subliminal advertisement for Ancestry.com. I think immigrant parents in the 19th century were eager to wipe the traces of Europe off their feet and didn't much want to carry the traditions of the old country forward. They left a lot of shame and bad memories behind....... I did the Ancestry.com thing. My great great grandmother was an illiterate housemaid. She had an illegitimate daughter who was half Jewish. So you can see how the Jewish DNA entered the family. On the Irish side of the family, my father was a quarter Anglo Saxon. I'm guessing that a similar scenario also took place........I don't know how I'd feel discussing these things on national television. People do what they have to do to survive, but that's not what they want to be remembered for.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Shouldn't Affleck be more embarrassed because he preaches environmentalism and has carbon footprint a hundred times bigger than the average American?
Also he should be embarrassed about his tiny, even teeth. they are so tiny, like he got them from ventriloquest's dummy. Jesus they creep me out.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Slavery plantations were part of a "free" market economy. Just one where labor had even less rights than it has today.

Just the way Republicans like it.

Labor is a unit of production, no different than a machine part.

Laborers need to accommodate to that fact.

So saith the Party of Capital.

RichardJohnson said...

A relative doing genealogical research found out that we had 18th century ancestors in Pennsylvania who were slave owners. The relative found a notice the ancestors had posted about an escaped slave. The ancestors were a white husband and an Indian wife. A biracial couple in Pennsylvania that owned a slave. Whooda thunk it?

I feel sorry for Ben Affleck for not being able to acknowledge his ancestors.

Many Australians are the descendants of criminals whom the Crown sent to Australia, as Australia was once a British penal colony.

PB said...

Both of these two are Democrats. Their party is the home of slavery and Jim Crow. Shouldn't they be required to renounce their party and their support of a racist institution?

narciso said...

wow removing all doubt, at the speed of light, Lincoln was for free man's labor,

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

While Ben's ancestors were defending slavery, mine, were with the 5th Iowa fighting to end it. Since Ben's a Democrat and I'm a Republican, isn't it great the way we both continue to honor the beliefs of our ancestors?

Etienne said...

Television is purely an advertising medium. One should only be entertained by it.

MikeR said...

"Why? I'm not embarrassed about anything my ancestors did, because, you know, I didn't do it." Meh - what it were your father? Still not your fault in any way, but you identify with your father, so it would mean a lot to you. Maybe he identified with these ancestors in whichever way, or had been proud of them, and it bothered him. Not really my business to psychoanalyze him: he was embarrassed. I don't see what's wrong with protecting his feelings.
Of course, if Gates never protects anyone's feelings, that the kind of show it is, and then bends over backwards to protect Affleck because he's famous and rich - that is pretty contemptible. Still don't know if Affleck did anything wrong.

n.n said...

Individual dignity is held in low regard through class diversity policies. Intrinsic value is held hostage and aborted under the selective-child policy. Affleck and Gates's cognitive dissonance has well-documented causes. Hopefully, Americans will succeed to defeat the institutional "slavery" and "segregation" of the 20th and 21st centuries.

William said...

Who freed the slaves on the Empress Josephine's plantations in the West Indies? It wasn't Napoleon. Wellington was an abolitionist. At the Congress of Vienna, he insisted, over the objections of both the Bourbons and the Bonapartists, on the abolition of slavery in the French West Indies.. The English were a nation of shopkeepers, and Wellington was their champion. Napoleon was the French Revolution on horseback. Freedom. Equality. Fraternity....It is interesting and informative to note that it never occurred to Napoleon to free the slaves in Egypt or the serfs in Russia and that Wellington was an abolitionist. Perhaps shopkeeper values have more to do with freedom than revolutionary ideals........Wellington was hardly a champion of women's rights, but even here his record. Is better than that of Napoleon. The Napoleonic Code for which he was much praised stripped women of all independent judgment in the management of their property.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Labor is a unit of production, no different than a machine part."
That's Marxism, you moron.

Lewis Wetzel said...

MikeR wrote:
"Meh - what it were your father? Still not your fault in any way, but you identify with your father, so it would mean a lot to you."
No.
I think that you believe, MikeR, that a person should be embarrassed by things his ancestors did, and so it strikes you as odd or wrong that other people don't think that way.
The opposite side of the coin is being proud -- of yourself -- because your ancestors made a fortune, or found a cure for smallpox or whatever.

Be said...

I really appreciated the miniscule 'e' in eminent.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Deep in the bowels of Mad Marx:

As a man you have, of course, a human relation to my product: you have need of my product. Hence it exists for you as an object of your desire and your will. But your need, your desire, your will,are powerless as regards my product. That means, therefore, that your human nature, which accordingly is bound to stand in intimate relation to my human production, is not your power over this production, your possession of it, for it is not the specific character, not the power, of man's nature that is recognized in my production. They [your need, your desire, etc.]constitute rather the tie which makes you dependent on me,because they put you in a position of dependence on my product. Far from being the means which would give you power over my production, they are instead the means for giving me power over you.

narciso said...

he's gone full otto,

n.n said...

Affleck needs to discover his individual dignity. Gates, however, has actually been surprisingly honest about slavery's progress. Blacks were enslaved by other blacks and Muslims, resold to pro-choice Americans and Europeans, then finally liberated by conservative Christians in America and Europe.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

--Richard Marx.

Lewis Wetzel said...

More of Marx on labor:

The first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, is that humans must be in a position to live in order to be able to "make history". But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life.

Marx defined man as "the being that labors". This definition is literally the foundation of what Marx taught that it means to be human.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Land, labor and capital are the three factors of production according to Adam Smith and classical economics as a whole.

You really never bother to even have the faintest clue as to what you're talking about before you spout off, do you?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Wow are you a dumbass. Now going to work against not only Keynesian economics, Terry's gone full-on radical and declared Adam Smith's classical economics to be taboo Marxism. LOL!

The classical economics of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and their followers focuses on physical resources in defining its factors of production, and discusses the distribution of cost and value among these factors. Adam Smith and David Ricardo referred to the "component parts of price"[6] as the costs of using:

Land or natural resource — naturally-occurring goods like water, air, soil, minerals, flora and fauna that are used in the creation of products. The payment for use and the received income of a land owner is rent.
Labor — human effort used in production which also includes technical and marketing expertise. The payment for someone else's labor and all income received from ones own labor is wages. Labor can also be classified as the physical and mental contribution of an employee to the production of the good(s).
The capital stock — human-made goods which are used in the production of other goods. These include machinery, tools, and buildings.
The classical economists also employed the word "capital" in reference to money. Money, however, was not considered to be a factor of production in the sense of capital stock since it is not used to directly produce any good. The return to loaned money or to loaned stock was styled as interest while the return to the actual proprietor of capital stock (tools, etc.) was styled as profit. See also returns.


You never even took an econ course, didn't you? Never even sat in on one.

Chickenhawk capitalists. Hahahahaha

Lewis Wetzel said...

Once again, you've fallen into self-parody, R&B.
Perhaps you lack the insight to see to see the humour in writing that to these Republicans "Labor is a unit of production, no different than a machine part.", followed by "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
Let me be clear: You seem to think it wrong that Republicans (by your lights) believe the Marxist notion that labor is the only source of human value.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The humor is how different self-styled "Republicans" of today are from when they started in the 1850s.

Who do you think wrote the second quote?

Not Sheldon Adelson?

Not David Koch?

Not Donald Trump?

Hmmmm.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Yep. Republicans in 2015 are really all about high standards for labor.

Really. Really and truly.

They'll be the first ones to tell the 80% of Americans who want more parental and sick leave that they're wrong.

They'll be the first ones to rail against safe labor and environmental practices.

Or the minimum wage increases supported by the majority of the country.

But they really do see labor as more worthy of respectful attention than they are the capital that Shelly and Davie and Donny will shell out to the most obsequious among them.

Right.

Lewis Wetzel said...

You've lowered yourself to quoting wikipedia in a political discussion, R&B. Steady, man, steady . . .

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I chose the most basic resource to school you on your bizarre rejection of the most basic definition for factors of production.

If you need an even simpler one, I can't help you. Maybe the counting series on Sesame Street?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The definition of a factor of production is only political to someone who has a political problem with Adam Smith.

So if Terry is any guide, Republicans have gone beyond rejecting Keynes, and now reject Smith.

Very interesting evolution there, Sir.

Lewis Wetzel said...

You and I would probably agree on quite a bit, R&B. I have no love of capitalism as capitalism. Like marxism, it reduces human beings -- creations of a loving God -- to mere units of economic production. But you make weird, polemic statements that are really just an expression of hatred.
"They'll be the first ones to tell the 80% of Americans who want more parental and sick leave that they're wrong." I don't think anyone would tell anyone else that they are wrong for wanting more free stuff. The problem is giving it to them without taking it from someone else. It should be obvious that if person A wants person B to pay for their "parental and sick leave", person B should have a say in the matter.
Or is person B merely a unit of economic production to you?

Anonymous said...

'Wherever you go, whatever you do
I will be right there waiting for you'

-Richard Marx

narciso said...

of course, pupils of Zinn like Daamon and Afleck, would absorb the genetic burden of their history, and consequently would omit it, they also have a tendency to gild the lily re that other Daily Mail piece,

Lewis Wetzel said...

You know, R&B, I am of the few human beings who has actually read Wealth of Nations. Cover to cover. I think your knowledge of Smith's writing is gleaned from the Wikipedia.
Hey, Smith described Zuckerberg and his open-borders pals:

Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion) is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over the country gentleman is not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It's good to know there's some agreement, so I'll try to break it down to its constituent parts.

More leave is not necessarily a problem, economically. What the research shows is that being able to care for an infant or sick kid or one's own health improves productivity.

Of course, cultural inertia in America presumes that any time away from work is baaaaaad. Because people are used to being short-sighted and penny-wise, pound-foolish.

You'll probably respond by demanding that this be left up to managers and executives. Why, however, I should believe that managers and executives are any less infallible than the people, their elected representatives or economists, is not clear to me.

So, what happens is that a change is encouraged and then, lo and behold, people adjust to the new cultural and socio-economic norm that made sense all along. Oh my gosh! We don't have to always compete merely in some sort of race to the bottom.

Economies don't exist absent people, with souls, their families, and their healthy societies. On one hand, there's a presumption of everything being a fool-proof ledger sheet. On the other, people who realized how much is lost by not seeing the big picture ask why they have to force so much uphill climbing for an easy ride downward. It's because the middle managers and mediocre CEOs see a foot of upward travel as not worth the cost of a 30 foot glide downward once they simply do a very obvious and straightforward thing. And indulging them as if they're right is simply not worth any social, political, economic or ideological cost.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

FYI - I ascribed to "Richard Marx" something that A. Lincoln wrote. Just as a joke. And as a test.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Country gentleman", in Smith's day, referred to a hereditary holder of land, a person who had influence in government and helped to form national economic policy.

Lewis Wetzel said...

I dunno who Richard Marx was. A singer?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

A singer who shared a last name with someone else.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"What the research shows is that being able to care for an infant or sick kid or one's own health improves productivity."
Who gives a flyin' F about productivity? You've gone back to imagining the highest purpose of humans as being engines of material production. While cursing "Republicans" for seeing people only as engines of material production.

narciso said...

he must be a pupil of Zinn, as well,

Fen said...

Short version - Winston Smith gets canned for not memory-holing embarrassing info on a Party VIP.

Skeptical Voter said...

For what it's worth, if Affleck's family has lived in this country long enough, it's probable that, like me, Affleck not only had slave owning ancestors (although not many of them because we were generally poor folks) and ancestors who died fighting for the Union to end slavery.


And if he didn't have any damn Yankee soldiers in his family tree, he could have done a Rachel Dolezal and invented some.

The man makes his living pretending to be someone else, and he can't figure this out? Sheesh, Hollywood actors are dumber than I thought.

Sebastian said...

"He was mostly afraid of what his fellow libs would think about him."

Most public disputes and "embarrassments" come down to neo-Puritanical shaming of Progs (and clueless Cons) by Progs.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Who gives a flyin' F about productivity? You've gone back to imagining the highest purpose of humans as being engines of material production. While cursing "Republicans" for seeing people only as engines of material production.

Uh, why the dickwad who wrote this, of course!

"I don't think anyone would tell anyone else that they are wrong for wanting more free stuff. The problem is giving it to them without taking it from someone else. It should be obvious that if person A wants person B to pay for their "parental and sick leave", person B should have a say in the matter."

Lewis Wetzel said...

Skeptical Voter wrote:
"Sheesh, Hollywood actors are dumber than I thought."
Look at their biographies. I don't think that it is possible to underestimate the intelligence of popular Hollywood actors. It's a weird business. People quit college and go into acting because there is a premium paid for youthfulness, and they can make more money without finishing their education. This is not true for most people.

Todd Roberson said...

Bravo, Mr. Balls. You really cut the word count and used fewer unnecessary insults. You're making progress. Nice work.

Rusty said...

Meade said...
"Free markets and trade changed the economics. You get more from a slave if he's free to work in his own interest in a free market than from his slave labor.

So slavery died, there being nothing to justify it."


I think the economics was tenent farming. All the advantages and none of the responsibilities of slavery.

Free markets and trade changed the economics. You get more from a woman if she's free than if she's oppressed.
So female oppression died, there being nothing to justify it.

Had nothing to do with it. Something had to be done about the incessant whining.

Brando said...

What I love best about this is that Gates (being the hacky idiot he is) tried to cover up an embarrassing "revelation" that Ben Affleck had a slaveowning ancestor, and as a result this news is now far more well known that it would have been if it were merely revealed on PBS. Besides, who cares? Go back enough generations and we all had awful ancestors! It doesn't make Affleck a slaveowner, but the fact that these clowns tried to hide it is making them both look terrible.

Bruce Hayden said...

I like the point that both are card carrying members of the party of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, etc. They can go through this and never question the past and continuing racism of their party, colleagues, and fellow progressives. Most of us here appear to be just fine with our ancestors, because we aren't leftists or progressives, and therefore not fixated on our own racism. In my case, I expect that my southern ancestors were too poor to own slaves, but wouldn't be upset if the had owned them. Offsetting that, some of my northern ancestors agitated against slavery, demon rum, and for female suffrage, voted for Lincoln, fought my southern ancestors in the Civil War, etc.

Barry Dauphin said...

And one day, the great, great grandchildren of Afflek will be embarrassed to learn that their ancestor made Gigli.

Brando said...

"I like the point that both are card carrying members of the party of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, etc. They can go through this and never question the past and continuing racism of their party, colleagues, and fellow progressives. Most of us here appear to be just fine with our ancestors, because we aren't leftists or progressives, and therefore not fixated on our own racism."

It's true that the Democratic party has the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and rebellion (an old GOP slogan said "not ever Democrat was a rebel, but every rebel was a Democrat") but I think blaming today's Democrats for what yesterday's Democrats did is as unfair as blaming today's Republicans for isolationism, hostility to free trade, or anti-immigrant bias. The parties definitely evolve over time--though of course if the Democrats aren't willing to call out their old heroes (such as FDR for racist policies and war crimes, Wilson for his racism, or Robert Byrd for his opposition to civil rights) then they deserve as much scorn as possible for that. You can't be blamed for the actions of others, but if you don't account for them you're just whitewashing your history.

Peter said...

Well, surely if your politics are sufficiently Correct, and if you've acknowledged your ancestors sins, you should be forgiven. "Ego Te Absolvo," or something.

But when did politics become a substitute for religion?

Matt Sablan said...

How will a fact checker help?

The facts were known, they just weren't acted on. A fact checker is useful if people don't find out important things or unknowingly say false things.

Knowingly not saying things cannot be helped by an army of fact checkers.

Meade said...

Rusty said...
"Meade said..."

Thanks, Rusty, but the quote should be credited to rhhardin. Below it, I lazily appropriated his quote and plugged in a few changes for my own propagandistic purposes.

damikesc said...

Free markets and trade changed the economics. You get more from a woman if she's free than if she's oppressed.
So female oppression died, there being nothing to justify it.


In the West there is no female oppression. Young women make more than young men and in STEM fields women have a 2:1 preference in hiring. It's just that young women don't want to do STEM work. Women have significant advantages, whether people wish to notice it or not.

But there is a nice cottage industry in otherwise-unemployable women with useless degrees bitching for money. Victimhood is big business in America.

ken in tx said...

In 1955, the Alabama Democratic Party emblem was a white rooster with a banner over the the top that said "White Supremacy" and a banner under the rooster that said. "For the Right". Now the emblem is the same except the banner over the top says, "Democrats" instead of "White Supremacy". I don't think they have really changed that much.