See below:

(Letter to Mrs. Lydia Parker Bixby)

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,–

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

REPARATIONS?
Mark us PAID IN FULL!

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-slave02.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~mjwhitney1/index.html

Merry

Great discourse, and I’d really like to pursue it, but do not want to abuse and misuse LaShawn’s space and hospitality.

If you feel like it, go to my blog-under-construction, the contact link, and e-mail me.

Merry

Because government has assumed such behemouth proportions, we are suffering from a fundamental disconnect between those who pay for it and those who benefit from it. Our net beneficiary group grows ever larger, as government expands (the number of government employees is expanding exponentially), while our donor group diminishes…a recipe for disaster…

What to do?

Why shouldn’t Indian Casinos pay real estate taxes? All other casinos do.

The Native American Act provides subsidies, still, even to casino tribes that aren’t impoverished any longer.

Corn: You may be right – I was regurgitating a remembered elementary school lesson from more than a half-century ago. As Will Rogers* said, “T’aint the things I can’t recall that bothers me… it’s what I clearly remember that just a’int so.” I should probably just stand corrected, therefore, I do.

Treaty: I didn’t say I agree with it, I wasn’t around (no matter what my kids say). But something worse than a bad treaty is a government that doesn’t stand by its solemn pledge(s).

Reparations = separate states: Apples and oranges. Hawaii is a US state; its citizens, like blacks and whites and every American in a US state, of whatever ethnic or racial status, EXCEPT those exempted by treaty, are bound to and by the one same sovereignty (Puerto Rico isn’t a state).

I think American Indians would be much better off if THEY ripped up the treaties and demanded a Constitutional right to equal treatment. But that’s not my call … even though my ggg-grandmother was an Indian (something I learned digging into genealogy. I was never part of the culture).

Welfare, no argument from me, and I don’t even care about the cost in taxes. It’s a travesty that has created and perpetuated misery, racial antagonism, and class warfare, and has relegated multiple generations to permanent underclass.

“Free land” is another matter, and it wasn’t “free.” Those pesky treaties again. Casinos? IF there is a direct taxpayer subsidy, I don’t see how that could be legal; but casino profits belong to casino operators. You can’t start taxing Indian land because they figured out how to make a profit with it.

Merry
* My father always quoted Will Rogers; I never heard Rogers himself say it.

The pro-reparations people tend to look at the government of the U.S. as the monolithic entity responsible for perpetrating or allowing past affronts, so government is supposed to pay, using its own money. Trouble is, government has not one penny of its own.

Seldom do pro-reparations advocates think in terms of that money coming out of the pockets of their neighbors, relatives and co-workers, which it must. When viewed that way, the whole reparations scheme starts to fall apart, just on the grounds of fairness and common sense.

My family first came to the United States in 1922. They never owned slaves, they never trafficed in slaves, they never even benefited by the labor of slaves in the United States. My family struggled to succeed in a country where the opportunities for Jews who didn’t speak english were limited and have always supported the rights of blacks in this country.

Now, given the above facts, how do you justify that I or my family should pay reparations to Afro-Americans?

Hehe, if only I had time and a high-speed link, instead of sharing this satellite link with scores of people — slower than dialup. Oh well.

Needless to say, reparations is but a scheme for the elite chosen (self-nominated) few to rake in the dough on behalf of the unfortunate — translation: untrustworthy — masses.

Race relations won’t begin to heal until the race pimps & -pimpees REPENT!

Ciao.