Fredrick Douglass

I got to thinking about him after watching an interview with one of his supposed "successors". You know..people like Jesse Jackson, the right Rev. Al Sharpton, Quanell X, Louis Farrakhan and others. I got to wondering what he'd think of all these "successors" and all the hate, intolerance and outright STUPIDITY they preach.

A few choice quotes from the man..:
" I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress."

"A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me."

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
true but somehow I doubt he meant by preaching hatred and contempt of your fellow man just because he has more than you.

I find this next one particularly astoundingly accurate:
"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. "

Something the occupiers need to learn:
"People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose."

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."

also true to my mind. The question is...are the current batch of blacks on welfare not the masters of their own slave chain? Frankly..I begin to wonder if that is not what our welfare system is. A 'financial' chain about the necks of those who WILLINGLY surrender to it. Why willingly? Because they don't want to have to take 'responsibility', for their own actions.
They WANT someone to make the decision FOR Them so that they can thenblame the decision maker later..instead of themselves.

I wonder what he'd make of the OWS movement. The vast majority of which, want something for nothing, don't want to make decisions, don't want to have to take responsibility for their decisions and actions...and want to take from others who EARNED what they have. I think I'll have to go dig up a biography of him. I seem to recall reading one waaay back when I was young but I disremember it.