Obama's mother's family owned slaves....

[RgrF]

[quote Grateful11]So now we're responsible for everything our really lazy, cheap and stupid dead ancestors did?
Well yeah. Especially those lazy, cheap and dead ancestors that wrote the Contitution and especially that dullard Munroe for holding out for the inclusion of the Bill of Rights. If we accept responsibility for some of our ancestry, don't we de facto accept responsibility for it all?

[Seacrest]

[quote RgrF]By that standard we're all related to Dick Cheney. Sleep on that without waking in a cold sweat.
Well, where's my Halliburton money then?

[RgrF]

It's in a blind trust, just like mine.

[Effin Haole]

[quote RgrF][quote Grateful11]So now we're responsible for everything our really lazy, cheap and stupid dead ancestors did?
Well yeah. Especially those lazy, cheap and dead ancestors that wrote the Constitution and especially that dullard Munroe for holding out for the inclusion of the Bill of Rights. If we accept responsibility for some of our ancestry, don't we de facto accept responsibility for it all?

Absolutely not! Well, maybe only in the sense of preventing it from happening again.

Laws have been changed to address freedom and slavery. While not the "equality" that some would deem acceptable or just, minorities have it a hell of a lot better than their parents and grandparents ever did.

Laws were changed and amendments made to the Constitution as well.

The Bill of Rights? Well, we have seen how little it seems to mean to our leaders in recent years.

I regret slavery happened, but I don't feel guilty or in any way responsible for it, much less obligated to "pay off" anyone because of it.

Some my ancestors were slaves, others were killed or put on reservations, and some were ostracized and forced out of their own country only to keep searching until they found sanctuary in the swamps and bayou's of Louisiana. I have heard first hand from some of them as a kid what they and their parents, g'parents went through.

No one owes me or my family a thing because of it.

The level of success I have had so far in my life is directly related to those situations as I have learned that to have the best chance to prevent falling into the vacuum of poverty or having my life completely controlled by others, I have to work harder and learn more to have the best chance at a successful and rewarding life. If you want more freedom or equality or a better life, then do what 90% of the population does, get educated and/or work hard at it.

Don't expect handouts unless you are willing to have your life dictated to you. That is nothing more than slavery as well.

[vision63]

Well Effin, the majority of the most successful people in this land had that success literally handed to them.

[Effin Haole]

There is no way in hell that a majority of those with successful lives had it handed to them.

A a majority worked, and worked hard for it.

If you aren't willing to work hard for it you don't deserve it.

And working hard is no guarantee that it will happen.

But a guaranteed way to make sure you aren't successful is to not work hard enough at it.

Too many folks have been raised to think that the world owes them and then they are all upset when they don't get what they think they deserve.

[Panopticon]

handed to them??

Tell that to Warren Buffett, Colin Powell, Cal Ripken, Oprah Winfrey, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, or Larry Ellison; to name just a few.

Effin Haole is right on the money. The vast majority worked damn hard for it.

[vision63]

Literally handed to them. They're just never in the news. Think.

[lafinlouie]