Tag Archives: Slavery

Bill Lockwood: How to Change Society-A Look at Philemon 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Philemon was a Christian brother who lived in Colossae, Asia Minor (Turkey). The apostle Paul was imprisoned in Rome where,  by God’s providence (Phile. 1.1) he met a runaway slave named Onesimus. It so happened that Onesimus was a slave to Philemon, with whom Paul had been closely associated in Christian fellowship. What then occurs is instructive to all.

Paul sent Onesimus back to his owner Philemon with the inspired cover letter in the New Testament by the same name. After introductory matters, the apostle begins in (v. 8) with Accordingly, though I have all boldness in Christ to enjoin [command] you to do that which is proper … Paul is asserting he can be more assertive that he is presently.

An Alternative

But instead, he writes (v. 9), because of love’s sake, I would rather encourage you as Paul the elder. What is the essence of Paul’s encouragement? I beg you for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus (v. 10). The prisoner of the Lord recognizes that Onesimus was “once unprofitable to you [Philemon] (v. 11), but now, because of his conversion to Christ, he is profitable to you and to me.

Now comes the key point. Paul says, I have sent him back to you … (v. 12), but at the same time I would like to have kept him with me that in your behalf he might minister to me in the bonds of the gospel; but without your approval I would do nothing.

The word “approval” in my translation above is from the Greek word (gnome) which is “purpose, intention, mind, mind-set, opinion, opinion, judgment, approval.” In other words, Paul needed Philemon’s agreement to have kept Onesimus on in Rome as his assistant. Note that the apostle considered the slavery of Onesimus still binding.

Slavery

Slavery is an institution at variance with the gospel of Jesus Christ. As one writer puts it, the principles of Christ “cuts up slavery by the roots.” “The principles of the gospel worked into the conscience of a nation destroy slavery.” However, the institution of slavery has imbedded itself in nearly every society and culture in the world. Instead of overturning society by upheavals or riotous behavior, the gospel of Christ works like leaven upon not only the hearts of men, but upon societies and cultures (Matt. 13:33).

Changing a person begins with the heart and works outward in behavior (Matt. 12:33). Changing society is much the same. It is gained one heart at a time, not by taking a wrecking ball to a culture to overturn what is despised.

In 1 Corinthians 7:20 Paul gives us further insight into the question of slavery. Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called. That is, whatever life situation you may find yourself in, so remain in Christ. One does not come to Jesus Christ to be removed from a physical situation. Were you called being a slave? Care not for it; even if you can be free, use it rather! (ASV). Colloquially the text reads: Even if you were called into Christ being a slave—don’t worry about it. Use your slavery – that is, for Christ. The word “use” has often the sense of “undergo” or “endure.” That is, “use your slavery” for Christ.

The central point here is that there are greater questions of import to men’s souls than whether they are slaves or not, or descendants of slaves or not. The chief question is a spiritual relationship with God. Would that America would learn this simple truth from Paul’s letter to Philemon.

Bill Lockwood: The Bible and Slavery 5 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

The 1619 Project, sponsored by the New York Times, is a series of essays and multimedia creations designed to “reframe American history” by claiming America’s founding is based on racism and slavery instead of freedom and liberty. The chief writer for the project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, calls white people “savages” “bloodsuckers” and “murderers” who used Christianity as an excuse to enslave different peoples of the world. Her vitriol, which seems to know no bounds, is now being picked up by many others who are concerned about slavery in America’s history.

A slave is considered to be a person owned by another, without rights, and—like property—to be used and disposed of in whatever way the owner may wish. 1 The Encyclopedia of Religion defines slavery as “[A] social and industrial system in which the person and labor of one individual may be disposed of as the property of another.” 2

Setting aside Hannah-Jones’ ignorant vilification of “white people” as the sole perpetrators of this institution, as well as her abysmal lack of knowledge of American history, what is particularly concerning here is that she assails the Bible in her diatribes as somehow teaching the practice of chattel slavery.

What Does the Bible Actually Teach Regarding Slavery?

Moses writes by inspiration that are human beings are created in “the image of God” (Gen. 1:26-27; 9:6). Of all the philosophies of the world, this Divine assertion alone gives all men and women equal dignity. All persons are equal in value to one another. Life itself is a gift of God.

Placing man in the Garden of Eden, God ordered him to “dress the garden and keep it” as well as to “eat of the fruit” which he gathered (Gen. 2:15). These commands imply freedom as well as the right to property. “Thou shalt not steal” is built into the very foundations of the created order.

From these simple premises it is easy to see that God never intended one human being to be the property of another. However, as is the case with polygamy which departed from the marriage institution that God created (Gen. 2:24)— mankind departed sharply from God’s design.

Separated from God men have concocted many schemes which ignore these plain biblical ideals, particularly regarding the value of human life. Aristotle, for example, developed the theory that some persons were servile by their very nature. 3 The school of philosophy known as Stoicism later considered slavery as a mere accident of fortune and therefore it was not a just cause about which one could complain.

The ancient world was actually steeped in slavery, whether it be the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, or Roman world—all practiced slavery. As Everett Ferguson writes, “Slavery was pervasive in ancient civilization.” Thomas C. Edwards, in his superb commentary on the book of 1 Corinthians, notes that the practice of slavery actually sprang from a rejection of God’s Word regarding the dignity of man. “Slavery was an institution that sprang from other fundamental ideas—namely, the superiority of men over women; the religious preeminence of Jew over Gentile; the Greek consciousness of creative political genius …” 4 It was the devaluing of human life that brought about slavery.

1 The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, p. 1462. 2 Ed. Vergilius Ferm, p. 714. 3 Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 854 4 Commentary on 1 Corinthians, p. 182.

Old Testament

Slavery was almost universally practiced in all cultures during Old Testament times. Men and women were enslaved by capture in war (1 Sam. 4:9) or by purchase (Gen. 17:12-13, 27). The Law allowed Hebrews to purchase slaves from foreigners at home or abroad (Lev. 25:44ff). Children born “into the house” of slave-parents were evidently called “house-born slaves” (Gen. 17:12-13).

Interestingly, slavery could be entered by other methods as well. God legislated that if a convicted thief could not make “restitution” and pay his damages and/or fines, money could be raised for this purpose by selling him as a slave (Ex. 22:3). This law showed that slavery involved the production or labor of a person was considered to be his property, which now became the property of the one wronged.

The insolvent debtor, as well as his family, became enslaved to the creditor (2 Kings 4:1). It was also possible for one to sell himself and his labor to escape poverty (Lev. 25:39-43).

However, there are some important considerations that the Old Testament includes. First, in the case of the insolvent debtor, he was not to be treated as a chattel slave, but as a “hired servant” and to be released at the Year of Jubilee (every 50 years on the Jewish calendar) (Lev. 25:39-43). The person who purchased him was instructed “not to rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear thy God.”

Second, to abduct a person and to reduce a stolen person to slavery was punishable by death (Ex. 21:16). Third, to murder a slave was punishable by death (Ex. 21:20; Lev. 24:17,22). The reason for this is once again because of the intrinsic value of a human being. Fourth, the enslaved debtor was to be released after six years (Ex. 21:2). There was no lifetime enslavement.

God, in the Old Testament, taking men where they were, regulated the practice of slavery and softened the edge of it. Contrast that with Roman law whereby a slave is not considered a person.

Old Testament scholar K.A. Kitchen summarizes the spirit of the Old Testament.

Generally, a more humane spirit breathes through the OT laws and customs on slavery, as illustrated by the repeated injunctions in God’s name not to rule over a brother Israelite harshly (e.g. Lev. 25:43,46,53,55; Dt. 15:14ff). Even when Hebrew law and custom on slaves shares in the common heritage of the ancient Semitic world, there is this unique care in God’s name for these people who by status were not people, something absent from the law codes of Babylon or Assyria. 5

 5 The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, p. 1464.

The New Testament

When asked about marriage, our Lord refers questioners back to the beginning and God’s initial intention with the sacred institution (Matt. 19:3-9). In similar fashion the New Testament elevates the dignity of man (Jas. 3:9) by carrying him back to God’s created order. The beautiful principles of Christianity, influencing cultures one heart at a time, eventually eradicated the practice of slavery by re-asserting the value of human beings.

It is important to see however, that New Testament teaching did not smash with a sledge-hammer one single social institution that had imbedded itself in society. Instead, the doctrine of Christ works as a leaven in the soul of individuals, nations, and cultures. Slavery was one of those institutions.

This explains why the inspired apostles, when discussing the the question of slavery, not only advise masters and slaves how to behave in their particular life-situations, but address themselves to the deep antagonisms in the social world. This will be brought out below.

A cursory reading of the NT might cause one to think that sometimes the apostles seem to sanction slavery; at other times to proclaim its abolition—in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female; all are one man in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28).

But Christianity abolishes slavery by assimilating and sanctifying the relation of master and servant in its inmost nature. While it refuses to wield the sword and destroy civil institutions by violence, it so transforms their ruling ideas that those institutions become what they never were before. For instance, Christ bestows on the most degraded and despised slave who is a believer, spiritual endowments that cannot fail to inspire him with a consciousness of freedom. He ceases to be a slave by the very fact of knowing that in the sight of God he is free, and his service ceases to be a bondage because it is now a willing obedience to Christ. 6

What about those deep antagonisms that exist in all societies between different peoples? Paul’s overall theme in teaching is summarized in 1 Corinthians 7:10-24 which might be entitled, Live in Harmony with One Another. Like several NT passages in which slaves and masters are addressed, and who were part of local congregations to which the apostles ministered 7 some of the Corinthians were slaves and some were slave-owners. How did God counsel them?

“Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called. Were you called being a slave? Care not for it [that is, do not be overly concerned with your social condition. Your calling in Christ ECLIPSES this consideration]. Even if you can be free, use it rather …” (7:20-21).

The phrase “use it rather” following “even if you can be free” has been variously interpreted. It is either interpreted as (1) “… use your freedom,” or, (2) “use slavery …” Many modern commentators, and even the translators of the NIV, consider the phrase to be saying, “if you can gain your freedom, do so” –opting for the first alternative.

But it seems out of character with the theme of the entire section which is to Live in Harmony—even in challenging situations. Further, the next line in the passage (v. 22) begins with the word “for”—which is explanatory of that which has just been said. “FOR, he that was called in the Lord, being a slave, is the Lord’s freedman …” That explanation does not follow if Paul has just said, “if you can become free, do so.”

As John Peter Lange points out in his classic commentary, the “whole drift of the argument is—to make men content with their lot …” 8 That being the case, the translation is, “but even though you may be made free, use your servitude rather [as a means of discipline, and an opportunity for glorifying God by showing fidelity therein].”

6 Edwards, p. 186 7 See Eph. 6:5-8; Col. 3:22-4:1; 1 Pet. 2:18ff. 8 Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 10, p. 153.

In any case, the main point should not be lost on us. The important thing is to serve God “and the slave should not worry unduly about the fact that he is a slave. If God has called him as a slave, He will give him grace to live as a slave.” 9

F.W. Grosheide understands the verse as simply saying, Use your vocation—whether slave or free. 10 The entire argument of Paul is that the over-riding concern for the Christian is that of spiritual blessings “in Christ”, and this outweighs all other concerns—including slavery! The dominant factor is being a Christian.

How does this fit within the current context of so many churches and Christians all at once becoming extremely exercised about black slavery in history, or stirred to the point of anger about discrimination in the Jim Crow era? How does Paul’s advice comport with emotionally driven screeds today that demand a removal of a Christians’ name from Christian college buildings because those preachers lived during the segregation era but did not stomp it out with vengeance?

Onesimus

An interesting New Testament episode involves the runaway slave Onesimus. Paul met him while a prisoner in Rome (circa 63-64 A.D.), converted him to Christ, and sent him back to his owner, Philemon, a Christian man who lived in Colossae. A cover letter was sent with the returned slave (Col. 4:7,9). It is the book of Philemon.

In it Paul admonishes Philemon to “receive him back” and treat him no longer as a slave, but as a brother in Christ. “Not now as a slave, but more than slave, a brother beloved specially to me, but how much more unto you, both in the flesh and in the Lord?” (16) It is noteworthy that Paul does not command Philemon to “free him” but appeals to him on the basis of brotherhood. It is also worth mentioning that Paul actually sent Onesimus back to his slave master.

Once again, Christianity revolutionizes and changes the world, but not by pouring out into the streets, holding a nation hostage with violence and smashing its cultural symbols. It does so with the teaching of the peace of Jesus Christ.

Summary

John Peter Lange summarizes the entire disposition of biblical Christianity to slavery. Christ and his followers “assailed no existing social institutions from without—marriages, callings, and conditions were to remain as they were.” Christianity wrought “from within” a “sanctifying and ennobling” influence over individual character.

Biblical principles “employed the existing bonds of society as conductors through which to diffuse its saving power—sanctifying wives through husbands, and husbands through wives, children through parents, and parents through children; and even servants through masters and masters through servants.”

Further, as seen above, Christianity aims at the preservation of peace in a society—as far as possible—in consistency with being faithful to God (See Rom. 12:17-21). Christ wants us to “ignore outward distinctions—counting outward distinctions as of little moment, in comparison with the inward state.” How our society needs this lesson! What a difference this would make to the writers of the New York Times and the 1619 Project!

9 Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, 1 Corinthians, p. 113. 10 NICNT, 1 Corinthians, p. 170.

Christ’s teachings “begot contentment with the outward estate, by imparting a blessing which more than counterbalanced all earthly ill.” Not only so, but the Lord Jesus “reconciled the opposite poles of human condition, freedom and obligation in the love it engendered, making the slave a freeman, and putting the freeman under obligations to serve, and making all alike free, and all alike obligated.”

Finally, the Bible places “all in the presence of God, in whose sight it constrained believers to live; whose honor it urged all to sub-serve, and from whom it invited all to derive their chief good.” 11

The gospel brings to mankind a belief and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Faithfulness is commanded which involves the improvement of one’s character which in turn improves the conditions of society. When people place the glory of God foremost, not only is slavery eradicated as a social condition, but it is seen to be a very little thing in the ultimate scheme of things. It is past time for people to come to Christ and lift themselves above the grievances of slavery past or racism present.

11 Lange, p. 156.

 

Communists Cry Racism; Walter D. Kennedy, Confederate Mythbuster (5/14/20) 0 (0)

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Recorded May 14, 2020: American Liberty with Bill Lockwood

(1) Communism. In this segment is discussed “Dialectic and Conduct.” The prime idea here is that communism has ALWAYS sought to subvert America along Racial lines. Witnessing the current culture shows how successful this strategy has been.  

(2) Constitution. How Did America become a Welfare State?  

(3-4) Walter D. Kennedy, author of The Confederate Myth-Buster. This is not simply about the War Between the States, but about the basic concepts of our Constitution and whether or not states have a right to secede in the face of federal takeover of personal liberties?  

American Liberty with Bill Lockwood is about the culture of America — not simply about politics. Bill Lockwood is a preacher, teacher, writer, and longtime radio host dedicated to educating the people. Read his blog AmericanLibertyWithBillLockwood.com 

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Bill Lockwood: The American War on God & the First Amendment 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

American leaders have been hostile to God for over a century. Our cultural landscape has been re-shaped because of it. One of the most recent battles involves a High School in West Virginia.

The Rutherford Institute, led by John Whitehead, has a press release this week which once again shows the depth and nature of this war against Christianity. A high school student-led club called Youth Alive in Weston, West Virginia has practiced posting sticky notes with inspirational messages to encourage each other on a bulletin board in one of the hallways. It is student-led, featuring Young Republicans, Young Democrats, Youth Alive, and other groups–all which use the board.

The trouble apparently came when students began posting Bible verses of a self-help nature on the board. That was too much for the Lewis County High School administration, which promptly shut down the bulletin board completely. No Bible allowed. It probably would have still been in use had students posted a quote from Karl Marx such as “Workers of the World, Unite!”

The nature of the America’s struggle is here seen. It is The Bible that is under assault. With concerns over a non-constitutional measure called “Separation of church and state,” the Lewis County High School actually has capitulated to the onslaught of secular forces in America.

John Whitehead, a constitutional attorney, comments, “What a missed opportunity to support young people in their efforts to find positive, constructive methods of engaging with fellow students who might be struggling with feelings of depression, unhappiness and stress.”

Whitehead has been fighting this secular onslaught for forty years. “Not only is the removal of these inspirational notes a clear act of censorship that violates the First Amendment,” he said, “but it also sends the disheartening message to young people that school officials care more about doing what is politically correct than doing what is right.”

The Rutherford Institute is leading the legal fight for liberty in Lewis County, demanding the Youth Alive be allowed to re-post inspirational notes, including selections from Bible verses. Students need faith, encouragement and forgiveness in a world where people are broken-hearted, alone, insecure, stressed and confused. The Lewis County High School has actually violated the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act, a federal statute that guarantees religious and political clubs equal rights in public schools.

First Amendment?

Two things here. One, the First Amendment is designed to forbid government from endorsing or supporting one particular church in the Christian world—nothing to do with removing Bible, Christianity, or godly principles from the public square. The forbidding of “establishment of religion” in the First Amendment simply refers to a “National Denomination” in the sense that America was to have a State Church supported by public taxes.

As a matter of fact, Fisher Ames was the Founding Father who offered the final wording of the First Amendment. From his own writing it is clear that “religion” means “single Christian denomination.” The original version of the amendment, proposed in the Senate on Sep. 3, 1789, stated, “Congress will not make any law establishing any religious denomination.” The second version read, “Congress shall make no law establishing any particular denomination.” The third version reads similarly.

Note that the word “religion” is interchangeable with “denomination.” The founders were unanimous that the First Amendment merely forbade the establishment of a National Church. It had nothing to do with excluding God from the public square, least of all from schools. But what do secularists care about original intent?

Second, Dr. Samuel Mitcham, Jr., a military historian who has authored the recent It Wasn’t About Slavery: Exposing the Great Lie of the Civil War, stated in a recent interview on the American Liberty with Bill Lockwood radio show, that which we term “political correctness” is actually nothing less than Cultural Marxism. Everything has a place in the market-place of ideas—except the Bible.

Dr. Mitcham knows whereof he speaks. A college professor for over twenty years and author of more than 40 books on military history and the culture, Dr. Mitcham is right on target. Who would have guessed that none the less than Karl Marx would have been the dominant force in American political “correctness” within two hundred-fifty years of his Manifesto?

 

David Horowitz: Anatomy of a Lynching/The political uses of race. 0 (0)

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by David Horowitz

Editor/Writer’s note: Anti-white racism and generalized ignorance so permeate our media elites and elected officials today that some common sense reminders are in order. Lynching – named after a Judge Lynch – was a form of Alice-in-Wonderland Frontier Justice: first comes the verdict and the punishment, then the trial.

Although a repugnant racial dimension eventually entered into its practice it was carried out against criminals — white as well as black — whose victims lynch mobs feared would not get justice in the courts. One third of all lynch victims were white. Impatience with due process is endemic to the progressive Left, the #MeToo mobs, the Destroy-Brett-Kavanaugh-Feminists and the Remove-President-Trump-Democrats. Why hold Star Chamber impeachment “inquiries” where the president has no rights if their purpose is really to inquire rather than what it obviously is — to convict and punish?
Below we are reprinting a Frontpage article by David Horowitz about how he learned the truth about the most famous lynching of all, and discovered what its real political agendas were. We are also linking a talk he gave on “progressive racism” which is in effect the lynching mentality of our time.

According to President Obama racism is “part of the DNA” of America, transmitted through the generations from its origins right to the present.  This statement is perhaps the most malicious libel ever uttered by an American president against his own country. It is true that racism became one of the rationales for slavery, an institution America inherited from the British Empire before abolishing it. But slavery existed in Africa for a thousand years before a white person ever set foot there, and for 3,000 years in all societies. It is what peoples of all races and ethnicities imposed on their enemies when they conquered them. Moreover, for 3,000 years no one declared slavery to be immoral – not Aristotle, not Moses, not Jesus, not the African slavers – until white Protestant Christians in England did so towards the end of the 18th Century. At that time, in Britain’s North American colonies a white slave owner named Thomas Jefferson wrote into the birth certificate of a new nation the proposition that liberty is a God-given right, which government cannot take away – and equality too. Within little more than a generation, and at the cost of 350,000 Union lives, slavery was abolished in America, and then rapidly throughout the Western hemisphere.

In other words, every black person alive in this country today owes his or her freedom to America – to the Americans who conceived this nation in liberty and gave their lives to make it so. That is the true DNA of America: liberty, not racism. An unappreciated effect of Obama’s libel is to persuade large numbers of black Americans that it is true, and thus to alienate them from their own country and make them feel like outsiders in a land whose heritage they are a part of. Black people are as American as any race or ethnicity who came or were brought to these shores. They arrived in 1619, before the Mayflower and have been an essential part of America’s culture and history ever since.

Sometimes it takes years to ingest so crucial a fact. Sometimes, even a lifetime is insufficient as President Obama has shown. Even then, the knowledge can be lost through the ignorance or prejudice of the next generations. In the 1960s radicals rallied around the slogan, “You can’t trust anyone over 30,” which was an expression of youthful arrogance and poor judgment. Because youth lack real world experience, the slogan “Be cautious about the conclusions of anyone under 30” would have been a more reasonable counsel.

When I was eleven years old, a book came into our progressive household titled We Charge Genocide. It was published by an organization calling itself the Civil Rights Congress and was a book-length petition calling on the United Nations to condemn the United States for conducting genocide against American Negroes (as they were then referred to). The frontispiece to the book featured a photograph of a lynching that took place in Indiana in August 1930. It was, in fact, the most famous photograph of a lynching, one that was the direct inspiration for Strange Fruit, Billie Holliday’s elegy for the victims. The photograph shows two black men hanging from the limbs of a tree surrounded by a crowd of whites. One man facing the camera points at the hanging bodies with a ghoulish grin.  Everybody who has seen any picture of a lynching has probably seen this photograph.

The image is horrifying but it took me more than 10 years before I had read enough to understand that lynching was actually not devised for black people. To be sure, as practiced, there was a racial dimension to lynching, and an evil one.  But in its origins lynching had no racial dimension. It was just frontier justice – “Let’s not waste time with trials and get on with the punishment.” In the course of my reading I also learned that a third of all known lynching victims – more than a thousand – were white. This tells us two important things: First, that lynching wasn’t just a practice against black people, and second that the victims were punished because they had allegedly committed crimes worthy of hanging. In other words, most lynchings were not about mobs of white racists grabbing black people and stringing them up because of their skin color. They were extra-judicial hangings to punish people for serious crimes of which they had been accused. This is not to say that racial prejudice was not an important factor, as evident in the fact that two-thirds of the lynching victims were black. There were probably prejudicial aspects to the cases where whites were targeted as well, though less obvious and fewer. That is why we provide due process to all as a constitutional right. In any case, the photograph of one lynching or many is not evidence of genocide.

The two men hanged in the famous photograph in We Charge Genocide were named Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. A third man with them, James Cameron, who was sixteen and also black was not lynched. The three had been arrested, after being accused of murdering a young white factory worker and raping his girlfriend. A mob 2,000 strong had broken into the jail where they were being held, and taken the three men out, and then hanged Shipp and Smith from the tree.
I learned these facts by accident nearly fifty years after I first saw the photograph. I had tuned into a National Public Radio program on which James Cameron, who was then an old man, was being interviewed about what had taken place. According to Cameron, Shipp and Smith had actually committed the murder they were accused of. As for the rape, the white woman who was the alleged victim said afterwards that she had not been raped. So the rape charge was spurious. But the murder charge was not. This does not make the lynching right, but it does call into question whether there was a racial dimension to this incident after all.

Why didn’t the lynch mob hang James Cameron, who was also black and who was accused of the same crime? The answer is that Cameron claimed he didn’t want to participate in the robbery and murder, and stayed in the car. It is possible that he would have been hanged by the lynch mob anyway but the reason he wasn’t was this:  A member of the lynch mob, a white man, stood up for him and affirmed his innocence. Afterwards, Cameron was tried in court and convicted of being an accessory to the crime before the fact. He served four years in prison, and then spent the rest of his life fighting for civil rights, founding three chapters of the NAACP in Indiana. In 1991, the State of Indiana pardoned him. One can find all this out on Wikipedia, if one just looks up “Marion Indiana lynching.”

We Charge Genocide featured the photograph of this lynching as a symbol of America’s racism – of its genocidal white racism. But once the facts are known, this claim is shown to be an unscrupulous misrepresentation of a troubled but more complicated reality. Other facts complicate it more. The genocide petition was presented to the U.N. in December 1951. But at this time a great civil rights revolution in America had already begun, in large part because Americans had just defeated an enemy dedicated to the idea of a “master race.” The conscience of a nation had been awakened, and racial barriers had begun to fall. In 1947 the military was integrated along with the civil service, and Jackie Robinson became the first black athlete allowed to participate in America’s national sport. It was only a couple of years before Brown v. Board of Education integrated the nation’s school systems, and only a few more before segregation and racial discrimination were banned by the Civil Rights Acts.

So why the charge of genocide – a campaign to exterminate an entire people – since it is obviously a malicious libel? It took me 40 years to put together all the facts to arrive at the answer: The Civil Rights Congress, the organization responsible for the petition, was a Communist Party front, and thus the genocide campaign was designed by people who wanted to create a “Soviet America” and help Russia – America’s mortal enemy – to win the Cold War. The extent of Moscow’s control of the American Communist Party was something that the world only learned as a result of the opening of the Soviet archives after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

At the same time the We Charge Genocide petition was being put together, Moscow was conducting a series of arrests in its East European satellites, followed by purge trials and executions many of whose targets were Jews. In Czechoslovakia these purges climaxed in a show trial of the top leaders of the Czech Communist Party who were accused of being part of a “Trotskyite-Titoite-Zionist conspiracy.” Of the thirteen Czech leaders hanged, eleven were Jews, which prompted an international outcry in which the Kremlin was accused of anti-Semitism, a charge it was desperate to counteract. In other words, the “We Charge Genocide” campaign was not about black Americans at all. It was about using blacks as a battering ram against the United States as part of a Kremlin effort to neutralize the bad publicity Moscow was getting for its purges of Jews in Eastern Europe, which then spread to the Soviet Union itself.

The use of blacks as a battering ram against opponents of the left is a progressive tradition that lives on today in the Democratic Party, and the latest version of the Civil Rights Congress is the heavily funded organization called Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter is officially endorsed by the Democratic Party and Democratic funders like George Soros have raised tens of millions of dollars to create a professional army to support its divisive mission. A month before the 2016 elections 100 of Black Lives Matter activists gathered at the University of California Irvine to attack the Los Angeles police department with this chant: “LAPD what you say? How many people have you killed today? LAPD you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.”

The protest was one of hundreds in the last couple of years conducted across the nation to attack police departments for an alleged “genocidal” war against blacks. There is no factual basis for this charge. According to the Washington Post, for example, police shootings make up 12% of all white and Hispanic homicide deaths, which is three times the proportion of black deaths resulting from police shootings. According to FBI data, over the last 10 years 40% of cop killers have been black, while police officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher  than the rate at which blacks are killed by police.

Equally preposterous is Black Lives Matter’s claim – echoed by many Democrats – that America is a “white supremacist” nation. This is a racist claim, implicating all whites, and particularly absurd since America – now completing the two terms of a black presidency – is perhaps the most tolerant nation on earth. Since the 1990s, America has had two black Secretaries of State, a black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, three black heads of the National Security Council, and thousands of black elected officials at state and municipal levels. Major American cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia and Baltimore are run by blacks, and many more are governed by black mayors, black police chiefs, black judges, non-white majority city councils and black superintendents of schools. How ironic that more than half a century after the end of segregation and the passage of the Civil Rights Acts, after the integration of America’s military and schools and popular culture, this racist incitement should be the emblem of a movement for “social justice.”

FPM: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/anatomy-lynching-david-horowitz/

David Horowitz is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and president of the think tank the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center’s publication, FrontPage Magazine; and director of Discover the Networks, a website that tracks individuals and groups on the political left.

Jesse Lee Peterson: NOBODY LOVES AMERICA LIKE WHITE PEOPLE DO 0 (0)

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Jesse Lee Peterson applauds those who support our country

by Jesse Lee Peterson

One man, President Donald Trump, is restoring America to its original greatness. God bless America, and God bless the Great White Hope, President Trump! With this year’s Salute to America on Independence Day in the nation’s capital, it’s finally clear that America is back!

I am 70 years old. I have not seen such an inspiring patriotic celebration since I was a kid. The president’s speech, and the event that he put together for the Fourth of July, expressed his pure love for our country.

I have noticed that no other group of people in the United States truly loves America as a whole like white people do. While growing up on the plantation, and throughout my life, I’ve watched white people proudly honor the country with visible displays of affection and respect. They support freedom, independence, true justice (not fake “social justice”), and adherence to our laws and Constitution like no one else. They work hard, create businesses, jobs and inventions, and – right or wrong – share these opportunities with others, and selflessly support others’ rights. President Trump is a perfect example of this love.

I wondered why it is that white people love the country so much, while blind people of color don’t share an appreciation for their opportunities. I realized that it’s because white men founded and built America, the greatest country on earth. Everybody and their mama want to come here – we can’t even keep the illegals out! But once they’re here, whether by choice or by force, they turn on the country and the white people who allowed them to be here. Nowadays, only whites have it in them to love and preserve America.

When I worked picking cotton as a boy with my grandparents, when blacks were moral and hard-working, we loved the country too. It only makes sense to love the place where you were born – especially the United States of America. But as blacks fell for the lies of socialism and communism, they also fell away from love. Blacks abandoned morals, fathers and real belief in God. Now they cling to false victimhood, government taking care of them, and insane hatred toward white people.

You can find some people of color who like the country. A few even really love the country, those who’ve awakened out of their fallen state. Thanks to the president, his courage and realness, many people of all races are awakening and finding that love.

Order Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson’s book, “The Antidote: Healing America from the Poison of Hate, Blame, and Victimhood.”

I’ve been working for over 29 years, telling the truth, encouraging blacks to wake up, drop anger, and return to their fathers and to God. People of all races have tuned into my radio show, church services, and my interviews with people on “the Fallen State.” Many of them call in to talk on-air about the issues they’re going through, or get private counseling through my nonprofit, BOND. They commit to prayer, get to know themselves, forgive their parents – and their lives return to order.

Last year, I declared July to be White History Month. Doesn’t July just feel white? It’s because of white people that we have Independence Day in America. In this country, we have the ridiculous “Black History Month” for so-called “African Americans” who don’t feel like they’re part of America. Homosexuals get two separate months! One celebrates so-called “Pride” and the other “LGBT history,” as if there’s anything good about homosexuality, transgenderism or any of that crap. Why not White History Month? Decent whites are hated – for no reason – by the people of color and children of the lie.

Disgracefully, we’ve allowed communism to take hold in America – an evil, anti-American, hate-based ideology that demonizes good white men like Trump. Some filthy communist scumbags burned an American flag in front of the White House, clashing with the Proud Boys and other normal patriotic people celebrating. But one man wearing a “Make America Great Again” T-shirt grabbed the tattered flag from America’s enemies as it burned. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he refused to step on the flag, but put out the fire with his bare hands. It’s beautiful that a veteran would show this love.

Unfortunately, the children of the lie have propped up a mixed-race black thug to falsely demonize our country, our flag, our military and police. You’ll recall Colin Kaepernick was the former NFL football player who refused to stand for our National Anthem, turning his back on America. Knowing that most blacks support evil, the shoe company Nike sponsored him with an advertisement promoting him as a hero.

On the first of July, Nike bowed again to the thug Colin Kaepernick, canceling the release of their patriotic shoes. Retail stores reportedly already received Nike shoes emblazoned with a “Betsy Ross Flag,” styled after the American flag from the time of the American Revolution. But because Kaepernick complained that America’s founding represents white people and “slavery,” Nike cancelled the release of the shoes!

This is why I want white people to marry and make white babies. I call on all people of good will to appreciate white people. If we lose whites as a majority, we lose America.

WND: https://www.wnd.com/2019/07/nobody-loves-america-like-white-people-do/

Read Jesse Lee Peterson’s Biography

Brainwashing Americans on the Founders and Slavery 0 (0)

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Brainwashing Americans on the Founders and Slavery– “The opinion of the Founders as a whole was that slavery was an evil to be eradicated.”

by Bill Lockwood

Those familiar with the techniques consistently used by Communist and/or socialist nations know that brainwashing has been a major factor in controlling people. By methods of thought control via propaganda totalitarian regimes are able to indoctrinate citizens by inculcating beliefs that are helpful to massive population control measures. This is precisely what is occurring in our halls of learning today.

Destructive behavior among students is being bred and fed against America itself by a constant drum-beat of ill-informed, even sinister, castigation of the Founding generation. The chief charge is that the Founders were slave-owners. With that snippet of information student firebrands are enlisting in communist Antifa groups and pouring onto the streets to destroy our free society.

Consider the fact that every single leading “founding father” acknowledged that slavery was wrong. “Slavery was legal and practiced in every state in 1776; by the end of the founding era, more than a hundred thousand slaves had been freed by the outlawing of slavery in seven of the original thirteen states or by individual acts of manumission, especially in the South” (Thomas G. West, Vindicating the Founders, xiii).

Most importantly, the Founders themselves laid the groundwork for the eventual abolition of slavery. This was done by their dedication to the “equality principle” as well as written directly into the Constitution. This was unlike any nation in the history of the world.

Article 1.9 of the Constitution became what has been called the “first milestone” on the long road back from slavery. This compromise provision delayed the prohibition against the importation of slaves by twenty years. Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina were thereby insured to come into the union by this measure. The program of the Founders was that slavery was to phase out.

Liberals and enviro-fascists today who despise the Founders understand this perfectly. For example, many of them harangue against the oil-based industry upon which our economy is built, going so far to categorize America’s use of coal and gas as “unethical” and a “rape of the environment.” Nevertheless, these same pontificators do no suggest the shutting down in one day the entire oil industry, but instead work to transfer us to more “clean energy” sources. As misguided as they are, they know the wisdom of a slow and gradual change in an economy.

Thomas Jefferson

When Jefferson was only twenty-five years old he was elected to the Virginia legislature. His very first legislative effort was to emancipate slaves. Though a slave-owner, Jefferson recognized the evil of the system. The failure of this measure was due to the fact that Virginia was a British colony which disallowed the manumission of slaves.

Later, Jefferson wrote right into the Declaration of Independence the following commentary on “all men are created equal.”

He [the king of Britain] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere … Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.

“All men are created equal” included blacks. Jefferson’s subsequent career included proposing laws for the emancipation of slavery in Virginia (1779); proposed a law to outlaw slavery in the Northwest Territories (1784); he penned “the most eloquent denunciation of slavery written by anyone in the founding era” in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1787); he publicly supported the abolition of the slave trade as president (1807); and throughout his life expressed his fervent opposition to slavery (Woods, 3).

The entire founding generation was so opposed to slavery that historian Thomas Woods characterizes the Revolution as an “antislavery movement.” The opinion of the Founders as a whole was that slavery was an evil to be eradicated. In keeping with this sentiment the adoption by various states of emancipation laws they directly tied to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Due to the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 cotton was made king in the South and changed the trajectory that the Founders had mapped out for the abolition of slavery. Cotton and slavery ruled while the principles of the Constitution were ignored. Nevertheless, the Founders themselves cannot be blamed for this course.

Inscribed on Panel 3 of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. is this compendium of Jefferson’s own words regarding slavery. They are compiled from his A Summary View of the Rights of British America and his Notes on the State of Virginia, “Query 18.” That he speaks for the founders, generally, cannot be denied by the fair-minded.

God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish a law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state and on a general plan.

Because of the greatness of the Founding generation of principled men who based their system of belief upon biblical values, America became a leader in the western world in the emancipation of slaves. Today’s general and growing disdain for the founding generation by young radicals who parrot prejudiced professorships about early American slavery illustrates only one thing. There is a homegrown hate of our own nation begin incubated in the halls of learning. By this methodology mobs are being indoctrinated to destroy our culture.

Defacing Confederate Monuments: The Latest Communist Destruction of American Culture 0 (0)

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Defacing Confederate Monuments: The Latest Communist Destruction of American Culture- “This is not about slavery.”

by Bill Lockwood

It is happening in Charlottesville, VA; Durham, NC; Baltimore, MD; Jacksonville, FL; Gainesville, FL; Lexington, KY; Brooklyn, NY; Hollywood, CA; New Orleans, LA; Wilmington, NC—the list goes on. Statues honoring Confederate soldiers are being toppled and defaced. In a similar vein, earlier this year at Pepperdine University a statue of Christopher Columbus was removed in the wake of protests.

This is not about slavery. No one honors slavery in any form in America. This is about destroying the culture of America. To do that history must be revoked. Violent protests are therefore being organized, funded and implemented by hardcore leftists, communist, socialist, and anarchist groups. They are not spontaneous.

The World Workers Party (WWP), which helped organize the Durham, NC anarchy, proudly states on its website that participating mobsters are “freedom fighters.” The WWP describes itself as “a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party dedicated to organizing and fighting for socialist revolution in the United States and around the world.” Other groups at the rally included members of the Triangle People’s Assembly, Industrial Workers of the World and the Democratic Socialists of America, reported The Herald Sun. It is the culture of America that is being toppled.

If this was about slavery we would be seeing mosques picketed and destroyed while stacks of Korans would be burning in the streets. Islam sanctions and encourages slavery. Mohammed himself, the founder of Islam, was a slave owner, slave wholesaler, slave retailer, slave torturer and sex slave user. Enshrined for all time in the Koran is the command from Allah that each Muslim man may have up to four wives plus “those whom his right hand may posses” (4:3). These commands are being carried out in Islamic countries.

On the subject of slavery in America it is worth noting that Muslim slave traders sold America every slave that came to our shores, yet Islam has never acknowledged this fact nor apologized.

If this was about slavery America would quit honoring the Native American or Indian culture of yesteryear. Indian tribes throughout America regularly captured, bought, sold, and used slaves from enemy tribes as well as the whites. Slavery was a part of their culture.

Perhaps Pepperdine president Andrew Benton, who quickly ceded to a small minority demand to remove the Columbus statue, should have considered this fact. Instead, he participated in mourning the “painful human tragedy” that Columbus supposedly represented by bringing the terrible “white man” to these shores.

Even socialism itself is a system of slavery. On the Socialist Alternative website the placard “Health Care for People, Not Profit” is displayed in prominent fashion. If I am a health-care provider their goal is for me to “serve” for free the public needs—in spite of years of personal training and financing to earn my credentials. What is this? Forced labor is slavery. This boldly requires the government arm to force my service. Let Bernie Sanders wrestle with this—for socialist organizations are calling upon him to assist them in their “struggle” for a socialist America.

Most disconcerting in all of this is the complete capitulation jelly-spined political leaders have demonstrated. Jim Gray, the mayor of Lexington, hurries himself to cleanse that city of Kentucky of Confederate memorials. We must please the revolutionaries.

Spineless and ill-informed Governor Cooper of NC tells that “My first responsibility as governor is to protect North Carolinians and keep them safe. The likelihood of protestors being injured or worse as they may try to topple any one of the hundreds of monuments in our state concerns me. And the potential for those same white supremacist elements we saw in Charlottesville to swarm the site, weapons in hand, in retaliation is a threat to public safety.”

Cooper was referring to the Durham incident where leftist Antifa and communist Black Lives Matter agitators clashed with white nationalists. But Durham only focused on white nationalists in the incident.

All of this reminds one of the Universities during the 1960’s. Once again, fomented by communist and socialist organizations, student hippie brigades lawlessly took over administration buildings on various campuses to demand a hearing with the authorities. Instead of forcibly expelling these thugs, school presidents and superintendents sheepishly sat down in the halls with Marxist protestors to pow-wow about their discontent.

Surrendering to this lawlessness which is bent on erasing American culture means feeding the Left enough oxygen to complete the destruction of our way of life. Mobs are organizing across the United States which behave more like ignorant juvenile delinquents than reasonable adults. They are coming to a town near you.

Selected Slavery: Loving to Hate America at UVA 0 (0)

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Selected Slavery: Loving to Hate America at UVA-“Why is it necessary to define slavery for the professors at UVA and other institutions of selected learning?”

by Bill Lockwood

According to The Daily Caller, a group of 469 professors and students “at the University of Virginia (UVA) are calling for the school’s president to stop quoting school founder Thomas Jefferson, on the grounds that Jefferson was a slave owner.” The public letter composed by the group went on to add that “We would like for our administration to understand that although some members of this community may have come to this university because of Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, others of us came here in spite of it.”

In a related story, “the president of San Francisco’s board of education wants to remove George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from the names of all tax-payer funded schools in the city because the forefathers owned slaves.” The San Francisco Examiner reports that “Board of Education President Matt Haney is expected to introduce a resolution as early as next week encouraging schools in the San Francisco Unified School District that bear the names of men with questionable human rights legacies to consider proposing new monikers.”

The Examiner explains that “The idea came to him after listening to a sermon Sunday at Third Baptist Church, a black church in the Western Addition, about 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick protesting the national anthem in recent weeks. The song’s slave-owning author, Francis Scott Key, has a school named after him in the Outer Sunset.”

Why the Selected Slavery?

What shall we say to these things? First, I suppose the UVA crowd and the San Francisco authorities will be banning the reading of the Koran and building mosques. If it is SLAVERY that they so despise, then consistency drives them to ban the Koran because it teaches “chattel slavery” as a continuing positive institution endorsed by Allah. “Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; But if ye fear ye shall not deal justly with them, then only one, or a captive [slave] that your right hand possesses …” (Surah 4:3).

Mohammed himself was involved in every aspect of slavery. He had non-believing men killed so that their women and children could be made slaves (Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Mohammed, 466). He gave away slaves as gifts. He owned slaves, even a black slave by the name of Safina, whom he called “ship” because he carried Mohammed’s baggage for him.

Mohammed passed around slaves to his lieutenants that they might be used for sex. He stood by while others beat slaves. After one major battle he enjoyed the pleasures of forced sex with the widows of men he had recently slain. He captured slaves and wholesaled them in order to finance jihad. Mohammed received slaves as gifts from other rulers.

Mohammed’s pulpit from which he preached was made by slaves; he ate food prepared by slaves; he approved of an owner’s having sex with his slaves. The “prophet of Islam” put it right into the Koran for modern-day Muslims that they may “own those whom their right hand possesses.”  Slavery has always been a part of Islam; it is taught in the Muslim holy book.

Will our professors and student body at UVA therefore ban the Koran, or ban mosques, or ban Muslims? No. Because like all wild-eyed liberal, socialist and/or communistic societies, it is only our America, and its foundations, that they love to hate—not the institution of slavery.

Second, it would be interesting to hear the professors at UVA define slavery. I am going to launch out here and suggest that they do not even understand what is slavery. What is slavery? We normally say, “one person owned by another.” But what is it to “own” another? It means that all my production belongs to someone else. In other words, I work for free for someone else, and not on a voluntary basis.

Slavery is a “legal or economic system” in which the “principles of property law” are applied to persons. In other words, “While a person is enslaved, the owner is entitled to the productivity of the slave’s labor, without any remuneration” (Encyclopedia Britannica online).  A person is a SLAVE if he or she is “forced to work for another person without ability on the worker’s part to unilaterally terminate the arrangement.” Forcibly using one person by another. Forced labor is “the forced exploitation of a person’s labor.”

Why is it necessary to define slavery for the professors at UVA and other institutions of selected learning? For this. Many college students are completely in the dark, made so by liberal professorships. A government that forcibly removes the production of my labor, or forces me to labor for others is practicing slavery. But this is exactly the definition of SOCIALISM. Socialism is slavery at the government level. But this the professors want! See the vast numbers of college students who supported Bernie Sanders—the avowed socialist.

ObamaCare, which is on the way out, is a perfect illustration of socialism. Doctors may have financed their own education to the tune of a million dollars and need to re-coup their costs by the fees they charge—but Big Brother Government FORCES them to work for free. It steals their production and re-distributes it among others. This forcible labor the government calls “caring for the poor.” Collegiate masses favored this system of plunder!

If UVA professors or the San Francisco mayor wish to oppose slavery, they can start with the modern-day version of it—socialistic government. The legs of the lame are not equal. Slavery to the White House is fine with them; but slavery to a white’s house in American history is criminal.

Third, the Founding Fathers with one voice condemned slavery. It was a horrific institution which they tried to expunge from America from the colonial period forward. Thomas Jefferson’s first effort as a representative at the Virginia state assembly was to abolish slavery. The year was 1776. He and Madison both wished to clear out the “rubbish of feudalism, aristocracy, and slavery.” His proposed bill would eradicate slavery in one generation. The reason it did not occur was due to the fact that England forbade it. The founders later put right into the Constitution that slave trafficking would cease within 20 years of 1787 (Article 1.9.1).

At least the Founders were honest about it, recognizing that an institution which they had been born with was evil. They all set it on a course for extinction. The UVA letter also repeats the unfounded allegation against Thomas Jefferson that he had illegitimate children by Sally Hemings, a black slave he owned. Once again, what is occurring on campuses or in the halls of San Francisco government is nothing less than hatred of America. It is on display as they continue to libel the Founders of our great nation.

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