Letter: Defends his statements

Dear Editor

This is a response to Lyndsay Anderson’s Feb. 23 letter tilted “Disliked analogy” critical of my Feb. 16 letter tilted “Parallel with Slavery.”

In my letter I offered an ex-slave’s (Frederick Douglass) definition for master and slave, as being applicable for today. Anderson contends: “Having read the writings of Frederick Douglass, I can assure you that this is not the slavery Douglass spoke of or fought against.” Not true. Once free, Douglass fought against all forms of slavery: the chattel slavery from which he escaped, the semislavery of free blacks in the north, the South’s caste system for non-slaveholding whites, and the spiritual slavery that possesses all slave masters.

Anderson continues to mischaracterize Douglass: “those who endured slavery…had no rights under the Constitution (which, at one time, counted them as three-fifths of a person).” Douglass taught otherwise, that the three-fifths clause was a “disability laid upon the slaveholding states” that deprived them of “two-fifths of their representation.” And, “that the Constitution not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, it is, in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery…”

Anderson peddles victim status for President Obama: “The scourges of slavery and racism continue to today, although usually in more subtle ways. I’m sure our current president knows a little something about that.” Not true again. Obama always gets a pass.

Anderson concludes: “I hope that in the future... people... will continue to focus on promoting understanding and working together for the greater good rather than division and extremism bolstered by fallacy.” Me too! However, it is the left that divides: by race, by creed, by gender, by income, etc. It is leftist ideologies that are fallacious and extreme, ideologies that history has proven to be destructive to the “greater good.”

Greater good is what liberty produces. It is fitting that an escaped slave has become its greatest advocate, and our greatest American. Douglass’ concluding comments in his letter to his old master reveal much of his character; and how well he modeled his Heavenly Master: “I entertain no malice toward you personally. There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there nothing in my house...which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other.”

Tags: opinion, letters, politics