Re: $12 billion buyout of US tobacco industry

From: Robert J. Kolker (robert_kolker_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 07/18/04 

Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 15:58:23 GMT

RueTheDay wrote:

> And that bothers you why?

It does not bother me that slaves should walk from their masters. I
don't own any nor would I own any. You could not pay me enough to keep a
negro slave in my household as property. The thought is repugnant.

It -does- bother me that white boys who did not give a damn about ***
slaves were drafted (to their peril) to free them.

> As Roy has frequently pointed out, the folks on
> here who constantly state that slave owners should have been compensated for
> the loss of their "property" in slaves never say a word about compensating

Legally the slaves -were- there property. That is how the law worked
-then-. One does not compensate his horse or mule for pain and suffering
or his buggy or his wagon for wear and tear. Slaves were property first
and foremost.

> the slaves for their suffering. I find that very telling.

It tells me that 620,000 would not die and 1.5 million would not be
maimed, that is what it tells me. The idea of avoiding a bloody war is
much more appealing to me than the dubious benefit (to Northerners) of
freeing slaves. You don't seem to comprehend. Very few Northerners gave
a damn about slavery or Negroes. They just did not care. Abolition was a
minority viewpoint at the time. Please do not confuse your current
Political Correctness now, with what was so THEN.

Avoiding death is much more important than freeing slaves. Most people
in the North were in no danger whatsoever of being enslaved so freeing
slaves was not their problem.

What difference would it have made to the industrial north of
agricultural slaves were kept in the south even into the twentieth
century. Aside from offending your sensibilities, what damage would
-you- suffer if there were still negro agriculatural slaves in the
south? Would it make you an inch shorter. Would it take a year or a day
off your life. Would it take bread from your mouth. Tell me, aside from
sentimentality why do you object when (1) other people are enlsaved and
(2) you are in no danger of sharing their fate?

Even as we converse there are people in the U.S. who are buying goods
produced by stringent, cruel and nasty child labor. So what? It isn't
their children to to hard work and it keeps the price of the goods down.
In fact they are benefitting from child labor so why should they want to
do away with it? If you had to choose between a moral principle (which
is just plain sentimentality) and paying lower prices for what you need,
why choose morality? Ethics schmethics.

I subscribe to the principle --- what is mine is mine what it theirs is
theirs. In particular, my problems are mine and their problems are theirs.

Bob Kolker

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