Crops without plowing

Via ABL on Balloon Juice, this quote from loathesome con-man “historian” David Barton in a Sept. 2009 Texas textbook review (.pdf link):

Multiple locations in the TEKS even suggest that it is people from “racial, ethnic, and religious groups” who “expand political rights in American society.” This is an absolutely false premise. Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society. In fact, in every case where a constitutional protection has been established for a minority, whether of race, gender, social status, or age, each protection was extended by the consent of the majority of eligible voters at that time.

Frederick Douglass saw things differently:

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang:

If you believe that blankets keep you warm, then it’s inconsistent of you to believe that emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere cannot possibly cause a rise in the Earth’s temperature. And if you still don’t believe it, then I politely invite you to go to Venus.

That’s the punchline. Siegel’s set-up is an extremely patient introduction to the basic science of climate change. It’s a good post to bookmark if you’ve got a relative who’s spent too much time watching “Nickelodeon for people with dementia.”

– – – – – – – – – – – –

My sense, though, is that today’s exclusions stems from fear and from the need to generate enemies so that we can justify our own need for violence. Clearly, concern about “creeping sharia” in the United States is absurd; chances that sharia will be implemented in the United States are only slightly better than that Martians will invade. And yet people are really exercised by the perceived threat of Muslims “taking over America.” A few exceptions notwithstanding, there is no real enemy to speak of, but people create the enemy. Why? Because they harbor enmity and are plagued by fear and resentment. This is a deeply unchristian stance. We are supposed to love enemies and, if possible, make friends of them; we are not supposed to manufacture enemies so we can have targets for our fears and resentments.

— Theologian Miroslav Volf, interviewed by Patheos’ Patton Dodd

Can we just repeat that one bit where Volf echoes one of my obsessive hobby-horses?

A few exceptions notwithstanding, there is no real enemy to speak of, but people create the enemy. Why? Because they harbor enmity and are plagued by fear and resentment. This is a deeply unchristian stance.

For some of the fearful and resentful, it’s Muslims. For others it’s the Satanic baby-killers. Those Satanic baby-killers are everywhere.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

Kudos to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley for standing up for the victims of alleged extortion and intimidation by the landlords of a Cape Cod manufactured housing community or “trailer park.”

According to a press release from Coakley, the company’s sales team “aggressively solicited homeowners at Peters Pond to pay up to $16,000 as a membership fee to remain in the community.” The fee was on top of the $6,000 annual fee owners paid to lease their properties at the Sandwich, Mass., housing community.

Coakley’s lawsuit seeks to end the collection and also return fees already paid by residents. She alleges the practices are a violation of the Consumer Protection Act and Manufactured Housing Act.

According to the lawsuit, nearly 100 homeowners have paid to join the club out of fear that they would lose their home.