Dennis — More so — virtually none were free, which is why “Roots” was ridiculous. White men did not go running through the jungle or the savannah to capture slaves. They sailed up to slave ports which had existed for centuries, sat down at the auctions run by Arabs and African princes, and bought.

The problem is we are equally as blind when it is our own grievances.

Much of conservative media had been playing those grievances up, creating the groundwork for a man like Trump to successfully run for GOP lead.
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BLM could have done themselves a huge favor by two things:
1) Sticking to cases that are real police abuse (i.e. not perpetuating the false narratives, such as “hands up, don’t shoot”, but focus on cases like Walter Scott in NC).
2) Paying as much or more attention to events beyond police shootings (e.g. Chicago, July 4th), and proposing solutions to that (i.e. don’t all black lives matter? not just who is at the trigger end of the gun?).

Until they do, they won’t get buy-in and support from a majority, but merely from a core set of grievance based agitators and their sympathizers.

It seems that the MSM is paying way more focus on the Dallas police deaths than BLM ever received cumulatively in the past 12 months. The Dallas tragedy has probably reset their “brand” or “goodwill” way back.

Maybe they would be better called Stop Police Abuse (SPA) – probably more on mark with what their focus is, and one that is inclusive of everyone – and adjust their policy proposals accordingly. But, won’t happen, if it is merely about perpetuating a grievance.

Lets not forget that most American slaves were slaves before they were bought by the White man and transported over here. They were enslaved either by other Black tribes or by Muslim Arabs and transported to the slave auctions.

It is a legacy of nihilists in academia validating the behavior because of the thrill it adds to their morally and sexually disordered little neurotic niche seeking lives.

I assume she meant that “having to follow somebody else’s rules” is the price for civilization. Thus, she’s talking about the “Social Contract”, in which we give up some of the freedoms of Natural Man (where the rules are essentially “Jungle-Ball!! Might Makes Right!!”) and submit ourselves to certain norms and standards and laws in order to keep that Jungle at bay.

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Using the Social Contract and necessity for Law as a jumping-off point: I think a whole lot of the political divide in our country is the EXACT SAME THING as in the Bible, when Moses comes down the mountain with the Ten Commandments. “OK”, he says, “you’ve got God’s covenant – if you will keep His Law”. “Waitaminnit, hold on” says the crowd, “We need a king; give us a king.” Moses says, “I just TOLD you, you’ve got The Almighty Creator on your side, and you’ve got His Law. You don’t need some despot ruling over you according to his whim and caprice.” Still they insisted, “Give us a king.”

Same thing at work here-and-now: self-governance is HARD. Reining in those human emotions — don’t covet, or lie, or steal, or murder; understand that when bad things happen, or when “the other guy” is provoking you, YOU have the duty and responsibility to control YOUR BEHAVIOR — requires work and practice and commitment and training.

It’s much easier to have a “king” — yes, people have to obey his edicts when he’s looking, but they can slack off when he’s not. When things go well everybody gets a share of the harvest; when things fall to pieces, the people feel free to criticize his rules and policies. HE gets the responsibility, THEY get subsidized (not to mention “subsistence”) living.

Self control, “self-governance”, is much more difficult than serfdom. And yet for some upside-down reason, the half of our electorate who want “A King” (ie, a government big enough to take care of everything) seem to think they’re demanding “freedom” when they’re really demanding to be relieved of responsibility — which is to say, “enslaved”.

Western Civ depends on the notion of each individual’s “personal responsibility” to control their speech and actions, to behave according to social norms even when they might prefer NOT to. Voluntary acceptance of our culture’s Social Contract is what makes our open/ tolerant/ liberal society function. Western Civ assumes as its most-basic element that we are all people of good will, reasonable and fair and tolerant. This assumption works as long as a majority of people ARE willing to control themselves and be tolerant of others.

But this “Give us a king” mentality takes the onus of responsibility OFF the individual, and places it — somewhere else. Somewhere unenforceable. And the social contract breaks down, as more and more people decide that they’re suckers for playing by the rules when Jungle-Ball is the winning game now. And as we toss away the notion of personal responsibility (which derives from the old Judeo-Christian idea of The Created owing obedience to the Creator and His Law), we’ll find we’ve also tossed away the glory of Western Civilization. Third World, here we come!