The 400th anniversary of Jamestown provides an opportunity for Americans to relearn their nation’s history, and unlearn the sanitized versions of its beginnings that often dominate political discourse. The legacy of American slavery that started in Jamestown undermines the idea of American exceptionalism.
Normally I skip audio files, not having the time to devote to the longer ones. But this one is just a bit over 2 1/2 minutes long. The way a connection was made between a “city upon a hill” to recent or current(mis)treatment of prisoners was such an extreme example of the straw man argument I was embarrassed for the speaker and / or writer. The claim was “The rationalization goes like this: since the US is a moral nation, whatever our behavior, it must be justified.” The only problem, of course, is I’ve never heard any rationalization close to this to support treatment or mistreatment of prisoners, and I would like to see an example produced, following this logic.
Thanks for reminding me why I never liked NPR. It is nothing but a mouthpiece for the liberal left. What bunk. No America isn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But American has done more for the world than any other nation in history and deserves a place of honor among the nations. Slavery was wrong, sex descrimination was wrong, but they were the accepted mores of the time. We got past that so lets move on. We have too much to be proud of to waste our time in morbid reflection of the past.
There is no question about slavery being a great wrong. But why does not NPR and their ilk blame the countries which received 93% of the slave trade. 7% of the slaves came to America and we get 100% of the blame.
Ok, I’m sorry, I’m guilty, I was a verrry bad Nation. Now can I come out of my room and play?
The slavery of the past was wrong but it is past. I am more concerned with the slavery that exists today. Go to the State Departments website they have some excellent reports on human trafficking. The main victims are children and women. Instead of lamenting the evils that we fought and won, we should be gearing up to battle the evils that are growing daily.
Apparently the now-daily presentation at the Jamestown historic site was put together by a politically correct liberal hack who spends most of the presentation time denigrating the US.