Sunday, April 13, 2008

Obama's spiritual advisor spews hatred for the founding fathers

 
Many have counseled silence for Pastor Wright on all topiques controversiale (that's not a French phrase -- I just made it up, like any other unedjicated, small-town hilljack would). But Wright hasn't gone to ground. He's decided to really stir things up.

...America’s founding fathers “planted slavery and white supremacy in the DNA of this republic,” and adding that Thomas Jefferson wrote, “ ‘God would punish America for the sin of slavery.’ I guess that makes Thomas Jefferson unpatriotic...”

Actually, Wright, you need to read a little American history before you spout these ridiculous falsehoods.

Many of America's founding fathers battled fiercely to outlaw slavery in the Declaration of Independence.

In the north, the antislavery movement began to gain momentum as early as 1773. In Rhode Island, Reverend Samuel Hopkins [Ed: a founding father], became the leader of the antislavery movement. He utilized his position as minister of the First Congregational Church of Newport to preach against the evils of slavery. Reverend Hopkins took the issue to another level by going door-to-door amidst church members and neighbors and pleaded for the release of their slaves. In Philadelphia, with the arrival of Thomas Paine [Ed: one of the leaders of the Independence movement], the antislavery movement took another leap forward as Paine’s first tract entitled “African Slavery in America” was published...
.
In 1774, the delegates to the First Continental Congress together pledged to abolish the importation of slaves to America.

The Founding Fathers present as delegates included:

* John Adams [Massachusetts]
* Samuel Adams [Massachusetts]
* John Dickinson [Pennsylvania]
* Joseph Galloway [Pennsylvania]
* Patrick Henry [Virginia]
* John Jay [New York]
* Richard Henry Lee [Virginia]
* Phillip Livingston [New York]
* Thomas Mifflin [Pennsylvania]
* Peyton Randolph [Virginia]
* Roger Sherman [Connecticut]
* Charles Thompson [Pennsylvania]
* George Washington [Virginia]

Hopkins, of course, was a founding father who led the abolitionist movement.

But despite this number, several Southern states -- whose economies were predicated upon slave labor -- refused to ratify the Declaration of Independence so long as it outlawed slavery.

Edward Rutlege, among others, demanded that slavery remain unaddressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Along with his brother John, [Edward] Rutledge represented South Carolina in the Continental Congress... Like other Southern planters, Rutledge did not want the American Revolution to change the basic social structure of the South. He worked to have African Americans expelled from the Continental Army, and led the successful effort to have wording removed from the Declaration of Independence that condemned slavery and the slave trade...

Thus, in order to create the United States, the abolitionist founders compromised with the Southerners. But the founders weren't finished.

Once the Constitution of the United States was in place, the Federal Government in 1787 passed the Northwest Ordinance outlawing the institution of slavery where many of the new states would be formed. The Founding Fathers passed this law and it was to this law that Abraham Lincoln referred throughout his Presidency.

Put simply, Wright is either a serial purveyor of falsehoods or completely ignorant of American history. I suspect the former, as he has sided before with the enemies of civilization and virulent racists.

As for America's punishment for slavery: some would consider the 700,000 killed during the Civil War a devastating measure of punishment.

The scope of Wright's false assertions are astounding: from the government's invention of HIV to positioning the founding fathers as creating the DNA of white supremacy. That Obama relied upon this loser for 20 years, listening to his idiotic fabrications, tells us all we need to know.

No comments: