America's Greatness and Exceptionalism Has Been Great For All People Around The World

When Michelle Obama exclaimed that she could now finally be proud of America because her husband was running for president, she displayed her ignorance of history and disdain for untold millions of black Americans. That ignorance and disdain set a path now followed by a growing number of other misinformed individuals who question the great and exceptional role that America has played in the world.

By Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL

      Originally published Oct. 31, 2020

Marc Rauch

At the time that the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in 1776, human slavery had existed for thousands of years, perhaps as long as eleven thousand years. Human slavery knew no racial, ethnic, or religious bounds; it was an accepted feature - a right - of all societies, including those that had experimented with some form of democracy (i.e. Roman, Greek, Britain, Viking, etc.). Slavery was rampant throughout the continent of Africa for many centuries before, during, and even well after the commencement and abolishment of the Atlantic slave trade that dragged black Africans into Europe and the New World. Slavery existed among and between the sub-Saharan tribal nations with no help from external interests, and slavery continues to exist in Africa today.

It wasn't until the Declaration of Independence that the notion of universal democracy and freedom (without need of a 'divine-right' monarchy to lead the masses) began to take hold. Of course, when the founding fathers publically announced the Declaration of Independence, the British king and his government didn't roll over and say "Oh well, as long as they issued a formal declaration then that's that; we'll just let the Americans go."

The Declaration hardened British efforts to destroy the troublesome American rebels and a long war ensued. A second war against the British broke out about three decades later in 1812 (the War of 1812, aka the 2nd War of Independence). A decisive British victory in this 2nd war might have cost America its independence. Such a decisive victory never came for the British, and so America remained an independent nation.

It's a terrible tragedy that although the Declaration of Independence in 1776 declared all men (males and females) equal with certain inalienable rights, the document didn't free all humans in the new nation. A huge number of black men, women and children remained in bondage; along with a much smaller number of white slaves.

It would take more than four score and seven years (92 years to be exact) before the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution would put an official end to slavery in America. But there are several things to remember when certain people in today's society ignorantly question America's greatness:

The Declaration of Independence lit the fuse that ignited the global revolution that freed millions of people; these millions subsequently evolved into billions of people as the years rolled by and populations grew. There is practically no evidence to show that without the American Declaration of Independence and Revolution that similar uprisings would have spontaneously erupted in any other region of the world.

In just 92 years, 1776 to 1868, America ended slavery. For those who had to endure these 92 years there is nothing "just" about it; it was an eternal hell. But until that time, no other country, society, treaty, or people ever did as much for their fellow man. For instance, Britain's Magna Carta of 1215 (which is often considered a ground-breaking episode in the struggle for civil rights) merely set forth some terms in how the King would theoretically thereafter deal with his "barons." The most famous clause in Magna Carta that ostensibly grants extensive rights to all free men and protects them from slavery only referred to a very small portion of the population (those with some level of royal standing). The common people were not considered 'free men,' the common people were 'villeins' (feudal tenants). More specific to the issue of black slaves, the British-African slave trade existed for 245 years, from 1562 until 1807. However, it wasn't until around 1840 that slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. Slavery in Britain existed before the Roman era in Britain. But if we only calculate the time from Roman rule (approx. the year 80 CE) in Britain until 1840, it took Britain roughly 17 centuries to do what the U.S. did in less than one century.

France's history with general slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade mirrored much of Britain's. Rome with their slavery institutions conquered France (then called Gaul) around 50 BCE - 130 years before Britain. Slavery was continuous until the 1840's with a brief period of abolishment as a result of the French Revolution in the 1790's. The French Revolution was, of course, triggered by the American Declaration of Independence and Revolution. However, after only about 8 years, slavery was re-instituted and it remained in place until the 1840's. Therefore it took France very close to 19 centuries to do what America did in 92 years.

Spain and Portugal's history with slavery is the longest. The Romans conquered the Iberian peninsula in 206 BCE, and Spain/Portugal started enslaving black Africans in the 1400's. Portugal abolished slavery in 1761, and Spain abolished slavery in 1867. So it took Portugal 19 centuries and Spain more than two millennia to do what the new nation of the United States of America did in 92 years.

By comparison, slavery continued to exist in several parts of the world right up into the 20th century (and there are reports that chattel slavery still exists in some of these same areas). Countries that have yet to experience full freedom for its citizens and residents (and continue to permit some slavery) include China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Ethiopia, Mauritania, and Turkey.

As I stated above, absent the American Declaration of Independence and Revolution, there is virtually no proof that slavery wouldn't have continued to exist in force for many more years. If this doesn't make America great and exceptional for all people around the world, then nothing does.

But there's a bigger part of the story. The American Civil War was a war fought over the issue of slavery. The argument over slavery didn't begin in 1860 or anytime near the outbreak of the Civil War, it had been an intensely hot issue in the American colonies since the 1680's. It finally came to a head when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Some people try to minimize slavery as the cause of the war so they say the issue was "state's rights." However the "state's right" that was at issue was the right to own slaves. The slave-holding states weren't concerned about Lincoln because he was tall, or because of his beard, or because he wore top hats. They hated him and were afraid of him because they believed he would try to end slavery.

Somewhere between 320,000 and 420,000 Union soldiers died fighting to end slavery. Approximately 80%-90% of these Union deaths were white soldiers. This is a number close to the total number of Americans killed during the Second World War. There was never a situation like this anywhere. World history is replete with slave rebellions, and some of the slave rebellions cost many thousands of lives, but these slave rebellions were fought by the slaves themselves (and those numbers never approached the number of Union soldiers who died). The great difference...the exceptional difference...with the American Civil War is that the largest number of people killed were not fighting for their own freedom or to retain the right to own slaves: They were fighting to stop slavery...to free other people.

Furthermore, the number of Union soldiers killed fighting to end slavery doesn't include the tens of thousands of white Union soldiers who were permanently disfigured and disabled from the war. The Union forces were victorious, slavery as a national institution was over. This does not just make America exceptional or great, it makes America exceptionally great! To be a part of a nation with such selflessness should make every American proud, including Michelle Obama.

Black Americans have served valiantly and with tremendous honor in every war America ever engaged in, from the Revolution to the recent Middle East wars. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Black soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen have died fighting for America. Michelle Obama should have felt great pride in their honor and sacrifice, just as how other Americans belonging to other ethnic and religious groups feel pride over the sacrifices made by their landsmen and compatriots to the well-being of the overall citizenry.

On the other side of the coin, who were the people who fought and died (or more correctly, who was it that commanded others to fight and die) to maintain the right to own slaves? It was the Democrats. And in the years immediately after the war, right up until today, the Democrats have tried their damnedest to put black Americans back in bondage. For example, immediately following the Civil War, "...hundreds of thousands of African Americans were re-enslaved in an abusive manipulation of the legal system called 'peonage.' Across the Deep South, African-American men and women were falsely arrested and convicted of crimes, then 'leased' to coal and iron mines, brick factories, plantations, and other dangerous workplaces. The formal peonage system slows down after World War I but doesn’t fully end until the 1940s."

(SEE: https://www.freetheslaves.net/about-slavery/slavery-in-history/
ALSO SEE: https://www.businessinsider.com/two-forms-of-slavery-that-still-exist-in-america-2012-2)

Added to the peonage system were the Jim Crow laws enacted by Democrat politicians that were designed to negate any civil rights extended to Black Americans (https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws).

Then there was the creation of the Ku Klux Klan (widely considered to be the "military arm of the post-war Democrat Party). Racist anti-Black Democrat and Socialist activities included Margaret Sanger's founding of Planned Parenthood, an organization whose goal was to eliminate the birth of new black babies. This and other Democrat-Socialist created white supremacist eugenics programs were the models for Nazi Germany's murderous eugenics programs. There were continuous segregation efforts by Democrat politicians and voters to keep black Americans from attending schools, movie theaters, restaurants, and public restrooms. The longest filibuster in U.S. Senate history was the attempt by Democrats to derail proposed Civil Rights legislation. The 1964 effort was led by former KKK member Senator Robert Byrd (Hillary Clinton considered Byrd one of her mentors). When the filibuster finally ended and Democrat president Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights act it was nothing more than subterfuge designed to lure black voters to the Democrat Party with grandiose promises that did little to help advance the quality of life for black Americans. Johnson bragged about this.

Yet Michelle Obama, her husband, and millions of other black Americans align with and serve, the Democrat Party while ignoring the atrocities committed by Democrats against black Americans over the past two centuries. The ignorance has spilled over to infect vast numbers of young Americans of all racial and ethnic heritage who somehow think that the Democrats and socialism represent their best opportunities. And leading the way is an elderly, demented, infirm bigot by the name of Joe Biden - also known as Jim Crow Joe.

Comments made during this presidential campaign by Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the other significant voices of the Democrat Party, that America is just an idea that never came to fruition, or that America is dead, or that America was never great and exceptional are as ignorant and demented as Joe Biden himself. These comments are as corrupt as Joe Biden's son, and as politically corrupt as the Democrat Party has been throughout all the years of Tammany Hall, Chicago's Daley family, the decades of political corruption in the Los Angeles area (that isn't defined under any one singular term), the same in Boston, and likewise in cities across America.

The election of Joe Biden as president, and the control of both houses of Congress will be a disaster, and the disaster will be felt the most by the minority groups that have been suckered into believing that the party with the Jackass as its mascot will do anything to help them and the country.

Bonus Commentary

Diversity Is NOT America's Strength

And saying so doesn't make me a racist, it makes me a realist

By Marc J. Rauch

A slogan that has been overused lately is "Diversity Is America's Strength." It's been used to claim that certain illegal acts are okay because the deeds are perpetrated by people who are "diverse." I have a couple of problems with this, the first is trying to ascertain how they are "diverse" from other humans. Do they have three eyes? Do they have four arms and ten fingers on each hand? Do they fly like Superman? Are they able to stay alive without breathing? Unless these are the kinds of diverse features that they have, they're just regular people, and we don't need any additional regular people breaking laws in the United States, we have plenty already, thank you.

But the real problem with the slogan "Diversity Is America's Strength" is that it's not true; it's not even close to being true.

America's strength comes from three things:

1. An economy based on capitalist principles.
2. A political democracy.
3. Laws based on moral principles.

Socialism is a fraud. Communism is just a flavor of the same fraud but on steroids. The premise of socialism/communism was created by people who wanted to be the undisputed rulers of other people and they needed a good scam to hoodwink the other people into following them. This has been proven time and time again. And the excuse that the purveyors of socialism offer is that the instances of socialism/communism that the world has seen are not true examples...not pure examples. But they are true and pure examples because socialism/communism can only exist when there is subjugation and corruption. It can only exist in a state (and a State), where anyone with any spark of enterprise and initiative is killed off.

Are there problems with capitalism, sure. But guess what? The problems of capitalism are the aspects that permit some people to act like they're dictators in a socialist regime... they try to control the marketplace and consumers using means other than legitimate competition to achieve the domination.

Democracy is essential to a capitalist economy, and it is an anathema to socialism/communism because no large group of people would willingly allow themselves to be dominated for long. Yes, sometimes the people in a democracy will elect a socialist government, in the hope that their variety of socialism will be the one that works, but what you get is Venezuela. Sometimes people living under a dictatorship will fight and die to replace the dictatorship with new socialist leadership, then you get Cuba or Cambodia or China, and the dying really gets going.

Democracy is not represented by the Democrat Party, the similarity of words is merely a coincidence - a contronym of sorts. The Democrat Party is actually the political party of racism, of segregation, of slavery, of laws that keep people subservient, of widespread corruption, and of denying individuals rights under the guise that the individuals aren't competent enough to make their own decisions. This has been proven by historical facts, and by present day actions.

Our laws and our general conduct are a product of the moral precepts set forth in Judeo-Christian scripture, as identified by not just the Ten Commandments, but by all of the 613 Commandments of Hebrew tradition. This is how and why stealing, murder, vandalism, and incest (to cite just a few things) are considered "bad form." Some people don't want to know this about our laws (they run from the mention of the word Bible); and there appears to be many within these ranks who are trying their best to make stealing, murder, vandalism, and incest legal, excusable and honorable.

Yes, the morality of the 613 Commandments can also be traced to other cultures and civilizations, but we only know about this because we have the freedom to learn about these other cultures, to discuss them, and to debate them. Socialism/communism doesn't permit the open and free discussion of these things or the adherence to the principles. Some other religions theoretically based on Abrahamic tradition don't permit the open and free discussion of these things, instead they'll chop your head off...literally.

It's because our country is rooted in capitalism, democracy, and moral principles that people of all races, religions, national origin, gender, age, and various states of physical enablement have the opportunity to lawfully achieve greatness in their lives - in any rational way that greatness can be measured and defined. This is America's strength.

The following short random list are people who didn't become successful because they are "diverse," they became successful because of the opportunities available to all people in the capitalist, democratic, and moral United States of America:

Ben Carson
Oprah Winfrey
Howard Schultz
Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Adriana Cisneros
Lionel Sosa
Charles Wang
Toni Ko
Jayshree Ullal
Sanjay Gupta
Amir Abo-Shaeer
Mona Hanna-Attisha
Janice Gould
David Anderson
Ralph Braun
Diane Grover