Then, government fought a terrible war, to prevent Southern states seceding; but during its course Lincoln found it useful to declare slaves in the South to be free. It did not apply to the only area he controlled (the North) so it didn't actually free anyone, but it sounded good and might have hurt his enemy by fomenting a slave rebellion. Ending slavery was emphatically not one of his aims in waging the war. Had he simply repealed the Fugitive Slave Act and granted judicial standing to slaves, the institution would have dissolved without conflict, as it did in the British Empire three decades earlier; the bloodshed left a long-lingering resentment between the races.
Next, his Republican government imposed harsh penalties that kept the Southern economy crippled, while cynically calling the process "Reconstruction." This kept black unemployment there high for decades, increasing resentment.
The Southern Democrats did all they could to keep blacks out of jobs that low-skilled whites could fill, and even banned guns that blacks might buy; so giving the discord extra momentum. This government-sponsored bigotry continued well into the 20th Century.
Government appeared to change course in the 1960s and gave preference to blacks, so further exacerbating the ill-feeling between them and whites. It also forced "integration" on both, even though few of either wanted it. However, was this reversal real? In America's Underclass, I showed nine ways in which government is systematically hindering blacks; as well as the above they are excluded from "nice" suburbs by zoning laws, bribed with handouts to stay out of the work force, bribed by other handouts not to maintain two-parent families, mis-educated by being forced to attend government schools where chaos prevails and learning is impossible, and terrorized by the "war on drugs." In reality government is continuing to repress blacks - and even this takes no account of the disproportionate police killings of unarmed blacks, which has recently attracted so much attention.
So much for the background of hatred and discord that government produces.
Now consider Dylann Roof, the alleged (and confessed) killer. Government had a big hand also in turning him into what he is. First, it conditioned him in its schools - as it had conditioned his parents, and theirs, and theirs; so helping produce the poor background and broken family in which he grew up. The schools taught him little (not even to spell) but did convince him that he is a member of a collective, rather than a self-owning individual. Government schools do that to everyone, if nothing else. Roof then applied the lesson, not to the tribe of "America" as intended, but to that of "Whites", an idea he found elsewhere.
Because even his parents had been dumbed down in government schools, unfortunately Dylann would have ended up little better off if he'd been home-schooled. The end result, given that he's not too bright, is that at age 21 his work skills cannot command the wage that government forces employers to pay. Thus the government made him unemployed; and in his case, the old saying about the devil finding work for idle hands came about in spades. Some are drawn to ISIS; Roof stayed home to wage war on blacks.
This sorry excuse for a young American obtained a gun, which he is fully entitled to do, and set out on his murderous spree as is well known. The government did one more thing to cause the nine to die: it prohibited the ownership of unlicensed guns, as a result of which none of the participants in the Emanuel bible study group happened to be carrying one in holster or purse. Had they been, as was once a matter of course, some of the nine would have lived. This very obvious high probability was pointed out by the NRA, upon which the statist Guardian promptly jumped, accusing it of "blaming the victims."
Happily, when everyone has walked out on his government job and so caused it to vanish, none of this dire situation will remain - except the history. The repression of one race by another over three centuries leaves a memory impossible to erase, and it may be that in the coming zero government society some lingering resentment will cause violence. I hope not, and think it will rapidly diminish as opportunity for everyone steers attention to the future.
Then, government fought a terrible war, to prevent Southern states seceding; but during its course Lincoln found it useful to declare slaves in the South to be free. It did not apply to the only area he controlled (the North) so it didn't actually free anyone, but it sounded good and might have hurt his enemy by fomenting a slave rebellion. Ending slavery was emphatically not one of his aims in waging the war. Had he simply repealed the Fugitive Slave Act and granted judicial standing to slaves, the institution would have dissolved without conflict, as it did in the British Empire three decades earlier; the bloodshed left a long-lingering resentment between the races.
Next, his Republican government imposed harsh penalties that kept the Southern economy crippled, while cynically calling the process "Reconstruction." This kept black unemployment there high for decades, increasing resentment.
The Southern Democrats did all they could to keep blacks out of jobs that low-skilled whites could fill, and even banned guns that blacks might buy; so giving the discord extra momentum. This government-sponsored bigotry continued well into the 20th Century.
Government appeared to change course in the 1960s and gave preference to blacks, so further exacerbating the ill-feeling between them and whites. It also forced "integration" on both, even though few of either wanted it. However, was this reversal real? In America's Underclass, I showed nine ways in which government is systematically hindering blacks; as well as the above they are excluded from "nice" suburbs by zoning laws, bribed with handouts to stay out of the work force, bribed by other handouts not to maintain two-parent families, mis-educated by being forced to attend government schools where chaos prevails and learning is impossible, and terrorized by the "war on drugs." In reality government is continuing to repress blacks - and even this takes no account of the disproportionate police killings of unarmed blacks, which has recently attracted so much attention.
So much for the background of hatred and discord that government produces.
Now consider Dylann Roof, the alleged (and confessed) killer. Government had a big hand also in turning him into what he is. First, it conditioned him in its schools - as it had conditioned his parents, and theirs, and theirs; so helping produce the poor background and broken family in which he grew up. The schools taught him little (not even to spell) but did convince him that he is a member of a collective, rather than a self-owning individual. Government schools do that to everyone, if nothing else. Roof then applied the lesson, not to the tribe of "America" as intended, but to that of "Whites", an idea he found elsewhere.
Because even his parents had been dumbed down in government schools, unfortunately Dylann would have ended up little better off if he'd been home-schooled. The end result, given that he's not too bright, is that at age 21 his work skills cannot command the wage that government forces employers to pay. Thus the government made him unemployed; and in his case, the old saying about the devil finding work for idle hands came about in spades. Some are drawn to ISIS; Roof stayed home to wage war on blacks.
This sorry excuse for a young American obtained a gun, which he is fully entitled to do, and set out on his murderous spree as is well known. The government did one more thing to cause the nine to die: it prohibited the ownership of unlicensed guns, as a result of which none of the participants in the Emanuel bible study group happened to be carrying one in holster or purse. Had they been, as was once a matter of course, some of the nine would have lived. This very obvious high probability was pointed out by the NRA, upon which the statist Guardian promptly jumped, accusing it of "blaming the victims."
Happily, when everyone has walked out on his government job and so caused it to vanish, none of this dire situation will remain - except the history. The repression of one race by another over three centuries leaves a memory impossible to erase, and it may be that in the coming zero government society some lingering resentment will cause violence. I hope not, and think it will rapidly diminish as opportunity for everyone steers attention to the future.