One Citizen Speaking

HOW CAN BLACKS SUPPORT THE DEMOCRAT PARTY?

Coleman Hughes' testimony before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on the matter of House Resolution H.R. 40 which proposes a commission to study the feasibility of reparations for historical slavery…

Coleman Hughes: ‘If we were to pay reparations today, we would only divide the country further’ It is an honor to testify on a topic as important as this one. Nothing I’m about to say is meant to minimize the horror and brutality of slavery and Jim Crow. Racism is a bloody stain on this country’s history and I consider our failure to pay reparations directly to freed slaves after the civil war to be one of the greatest injustices ever perpetrated by the US government. [OCS: It is a historical fact that slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, and the anti-civil rights movement were official policies of the Democrat Party. And, that our nation fought a bloody civil war to do the right thing and end slavery. If anything is owed to the Black community, it was paid – in blood – during the Civil War.] But I worry that our desire to fix the past compromises our ability to fix the present. Think about what we’re doing today: we’re spending our time debating a bill that mentions slavery 25 times and incarceration only once, in an era with no black slaves but nearly a million black prisoners. A bill that doesn’t mention homicide once – at a time when the Center for Disease Control reports homicide as the number one cause of death for young black men. I’m not saying acknowledging history doesn’t matter. It does. [OCS: If one were to be intellectually honest, one might find that the majority of Black-related criminal activity and gun violence occurs in the inner cities with long-time governance by Democrats. In spite of some of the most stringent and restrictive gun control laws, these areas remain violent reminders of the type of lawlessness when perpetrators are considered victims of the system, real victims are often ignored, and law enforcement is universally denigrated and attacked, often physically. Considering that the taxpayer’s funds are not unlimited, one might theorize that handing out money without achieving some socially worthwhile goal does not solve problems but exacerbates them.] I’m saying there’s a difference between acknowledging history and allowing history to distract us from the problems we face today. [OCS: And it is a distraction, because the intent is to gain and maintain power for the Democrat Party by pandering to a segment of the American people in order to solidify their voting block.] In 2008 the House of Representatives formally apologized for slavery and Jim Crow. In 2009, the Senate did the same. Black people don’t need another apology. We need safer neighborhoods and better schools. We need a less punitive criminal justice system. We need affordable healthcare. And none of these things can be achieved through reparations for slavery. [OCS: But there is only so much that can be done by the government if the community continues to be lead by people who derive power, prestige, and profits from continuing to exploit racism for their own self-benefit. A community that accepts that status quo and refuses to enforce social norms when it comes to promiscuity and lack of responsibility which ensures one-parent households will only perpetuate economic suffering and social unrest. Safer neighborhoods are impossible where people spit at law enforcement and will not help members of law enforcement police their neighborhoods.] Nearly everyone close to me told me not to testify today. They told me that even though I’ve only ever voted for Democrats I would be perceived as a Republican and therefore hated by half the country. Others told me that by distancing myself from Republicans, I would end up angering the other half of the country. And the sad truth is that they were both right. That’s how suspicious we’ve become of one another. That’s how divided we are as a nation. [OCS: Consider that this is the same mentality where some Blacks oppress other Blacks if they excel at academics in school. If they even partially assimilate into the “white culture” of staying in school, dressing and using standardized English grammar, get a job, marry, have and support a family. The sad fact is that the Democrats are haters – despising anyone who speaks out against their political agenda, or even worse, speaks truth to Democrat power. The Democrats seem to accept political corruption on the theory that everything is OK – it’s our turn to loot the treasury.] If we were to pay reparations today, we would only divide the country further – making it harder to build the political coalitions required to solve the problems facing black people today. We would insult many black Americans by putting a price on the suffering of their ancestors, and turn the relationship between black Americans and white Americans from a coalition into a transaction, from a union between citizens into a lawsuit between plaintiffs and defendants. What we should do is pay reparations to black Americans who actually grew up under Jim Crow and were directly harmed by second-class citizenship, people like my grandparents. But paying reparations to all descendants of slaves is a mistake. [OCS: I hate to say this, but paying reparation to senior citizens may only endanger their health and make them prone to attacks from within their own family or from within their own neighborhood. This is simply a fact of life as we can see from those attacked over their Social Security payments.] Take me, for example. I was born three decades after the end of Jim Crow into a privileged household in the suburbs. I attend an Ivy League school. Yet I’m descended from slaves who worked on Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation. Reparations for slavery would allocate federal resources to me but not to an American with the wrong ancestry, even if that person is living paycheck to paycheck and working multiple jobs to support a family. You might call that justice. I call it justice for the dead at the price of justice for the living. [OCS: Justice? You mean equal justice under the law that has been denied to qualified people who lost positions, promotions, and raises in order to pursue some form of “affirmative action?” I understand that reparations are about what people are owed regardless of how well they are doing. I understand that. But the people who are owed for slavery are no longer here, and we’re not entitled to collect on their debts. Reparations, by definition, are only given to victims. So the moment you give me reparations, you’ve made me into a victim without my consent. Not just that, you’ve made one-third of black Americans who poll against reparations into victims without their consent. And black Americans have fought too long for the right to define themselves to be spoken for in such a condescending manner. The question is not what America owes me by virtue of my ancestry. The question is what all Americans owe each other by virtue of being citizens of the same nation. And the obligation of citizenship is not transactional. It’s not contingent on ancestry. It never expires and it can’t be paid off. For all these reasons, bill HR-40 is a moral and political mistake. [OCS: We need to be Americans, not hyphenated-Americans. Unless the Black community chooses to assimilate into American life – keeping and celebrating their culture – we will be forever divided by the Democrat Party which uses such class warfare to gain and maintain political power. ] Thank you. Coleman Hughes is an undergraduate philosophy major at Columbia University and a columnist at Quillette, an online magazine with a primary focus on science, technology, news, culture, and politics

There were several disruptions during the proceeding, some causing the Chair, Steve Cohen, a white Democrat, to shout out, not Order! Order! – But Chill! Chill!.

Questions…

How can any thinking and well-informed Black support a political party that supported and fought a bloody civil war to keep slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, and anti-civil rights legislation? Has anyone else noticed that the Ku Klux Klan was the enforcement arm of the Democrat Party to keep Blacks and Republicans from opposing Democrat Party and its racist principles?

For those who believe that systemic or structural racism is omnipresent in the United States and is responsible for the disproportionate incarceration of Blacks, ask yourself, how is this possible in the areas of a Democrat majority and governance where Black Democrats form the leadership of the local government, including the police, prosecutors, judges, and juries?

What are reparations, other than a Marxist wealth redistribution scheme to divide Americans and to buy votes and political power? And how is the government running healthcare, dictating the services that must be provided and how much healthcare workers will receive, different from high-tech slavery?

Truth be told, it was the policies of the Democrat Party that destroyed the Black nuclear family, turned a blind-eye to promiscuity, and promoted population control in the form of abortion in Black areas. Where are the billions of dollars that were targeted specifically for improving the housing, employment, healthcare, and other infrastructure in the inner cities? Last time I checked, many of them feature areas of oppressive cesspools.

How is it that the Democrat Party promotes open borders and supports illegal aliens who destroy many of the safety nets, employment, and housing in formerly Black communities?

And how is it possible, under the leadership of former President Barack Hussein Obama, a Democrat, our country spiraled into economic and social despair – including some of the worst political scandals in the history of the United States?

Bottom line…

Who is being asked to pay these reparations? Who will be eligible to receive these reparations? And, what about those whose ancestors came after slavery, did not own slaves, and are not descendants of slaves? Once Americans accede to reparations, there will be no end to government misuse of the program in perpetuity.

But more importantly, how much of this money will be siphoned off by the government, the special interests, and politically-connected organizations and individuals? How much money will be used to promote awareness – media schemes featuring politicians taking credit for the programs they implement?

I have always found it interesting that many domestic Blacks wallow in conditions of poverty, relative illiteracy, crime, and disease, while Black immigrants from other parts of the world are prospering and thriving. If America is such a hateful, racist place, why aren’t American Blacks rushing to other predominantly Black countries to live in a land of freedom and opportunity? Oh, wait, there are no such countries.

We are being screwed by the Democrat Party – while the GOP stands by and does nothing. Not to mention a corrupt press who ignores or slants the news of our impending slide into the abyss of socialism.

-- steve

L

L

L

HOW SCARY IS AN AR-15?

Today’s post is courtesy of my friends at GunPros.com and is especially relevant here in California where the “looks” of a firearm is believed to be progressive shorthand for the potential lethality of the weapon. A crazy progressive socialist democrat viewpoint that ignores the fact that evil individuals will always find a way to manifest their evil intent and the criminals, crazies, and terrorists do not respect nor obey the law.

Unfortunately, most people have never handled a weapon, taken a safety course, or fired one on the range, a controlled environment predicated on teaching and enforcing safety principles as well as improving one’s marksmanship. Their knowledge of weaponry comes from the progressive Hollywood hypocrites who denounce violence, murder, mayhem, and guns while using those very themes to earn enormous amounts of money. And, these useful idiots would rather blame a “collective society” and systemic racism and victimhood rather than hold an individual responsible for their own actions.

How do you explain that Chicago, Illinois has some of the strictest anti-gun controls in the nation, and yet it is slaughter alley in the inner cities – all under the benevolent, watchful eye of the progressive socialist democrats who believe that socialism is the answer to all questions – even if it leads to totalitarianism?

Of the 19 people arrested in Chicago for gun violations over the Memorial Day weekend, 11 were back out on the street by Tuesday. Seven of them were previously convicted felons and six had prior gun charges. <Source>

Which brings us to the real reason the progressive politicians want to disarm the law-abiding population of gun owners. POWER! They know that law enforcement cannot respond to where they are needed when they are required, and at some point, citizens will respond to domestic criminality and terror with force – relying on their inalienable right of self-defense and the Second Amendment. They know that the Second Amendment had little to do with hunting, sport, or even individual self-defense, but as the final check and balance against a dictator and a tyrannical government.

I am not advocating that individuals be allowed to own fully-automatic weapons (precisely because they are inaccurate and hard to control in untrained hands), grenades, rockets, mortars, or nuclear “one and done” weapons. But to outlaw a weapon because it looks scary or like a weapon used in the military is absurd – but the progressive socialist democrats have to start somewhere.

Visit GunPros.com and learn the truth for yourself …

Demystifying the AR-15 Beloved by many, despised by many others, the AR-15 is the most controversial firearm in America. The gun’s notoriety primarily stems from its use in some of the deadliest mass shootings in United States history, including Parkland, Sandy Hook, and Las Vegas. Critics suggest that it is a military-grade killing machine that is too powerful for unrestricted civilian use, while the AR-15’s millions of owners suggest that its power is the exact reason why it is so valuable for self-defense and sport. The frequent media coverage and controversy over the AR-15 have made it a symbol of the debate over firearms in America. But many people who are not members of the firearms community still know relatively little about it. What is it about the AR-15 that makes it so special—and so deadly? The following article will give some background information about the AR-15, explain what makes it so effective, and point out some of the reasons why the gun has been wrongly vilified. Read the truth at www.gunpros.com.

Bottom line…

Common sense informs us that it is the individual and their intent that is dangerous, the actual weapon is simply a means to an end. Even if firearms were outlawed today, the progressive socialist democrats would allow those who perpetrate gun-related intimidation and violence to plea bargain the gun-charges to a lesser charge to continue pandering to minorities and other segments of the population with disproportionate crime rates.

The best defense against a criminal, crazy, or terrorist is a well-trained individual who is not afraid of the consequences of engaging. In capable hands, you have ten members of law enforcement a split-second away and who can save your life, your children’s lives, or the lives of your neighbors. Are you willing to allow politicians and billionaires, surrounded by armed guards and living in gated communities, to determine how you will respond to an existential threat?

We are so screwed.

-- steve