Some might say that knowledge or rational thinking of any kind is expected of most who inhabit the chambers of Congress these days.
Then there is Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine.
During a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, the Democrat Kaine actually said this:
“The United States didn’t inherit slavery from anybody, we created it. It got created by the Virginia General Assembly and the legislators of the other states. It got created in the court systems in the colonial America. We created and maintained it over centuries.”
Kaine went on to say that, even though the U.S. stopped those practices, “we’ve never gone back to undo it. Stopping racist practices at year 350 of 400 years, but taking no effort to dismantle it, is not the same as truly combating racism.”
The Democrat senator's speech has been posted to Twitter. And Twitter has not fact-checked it.
The ultimate fact-check on Kaine's claim may well be from conservative economist and author Thomas Sowell, who noted in his book, The Thomas Sowell Reader:
Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century. People of every race and color were enslaved – and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed.Breitbart's Hannah Bleau noted: "Kaine’s false claim follows weeks of political opportunists seizing on widespread civil unrest, originally sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd. Progressive politicians and activists have since called for the defunding of police departments and have argued that America is teeming with systemic racism within its institutions. Meanwhile, the brutal institution of slavery is still embraced in many areas of the world, from China and its mistreatment of Muslim Uyghurs to the active slave trade in Libya."
Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others. Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much less among political leaders, until the 18th century – and then it was an issue only in Western civilization. Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and other American leaders. You could research all of the 18th century Africa or Asia or the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there. But who is singled out for scathing criticism today? American leaders of the 18th century.
It is clear from the private correspondence of Washington, Jefferson, and many others that their moral rejection of slavery was unambiguous, but the practical question of what to do now had them baffled. That would remain so for more than half a century.
As Twitter users called on the social media platform to fact-check Kaine's claim, one lamented: “The worst part is that some people will believe this.”
While others on social media directed Kaine to look up some history on the subject, one Twitter user had this response Kaine's assertion: "Thankfully, The Republican Party was formed to end slavery."
Thousands sign petition to shut down UK liberal news outlet over past links to slavery
Even the most liberal of newspapers in the United Kingdom can't escape the woke mob.
More than 12,000 people have signed a petition calling for The Guardian, Britain's ultra-liberal, pro-Black Lives Matter media outlet to be shut down over its historical links to slavery and for siding with the Confederate states during the American Civil War.
The Change.org petition to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) was spurred on by accusations against the newspaper of hypocrisy for backing the far-left BLM while having a history connected to slavery.
The then-named Manchester Guardian was founded in 1821 by John Edward Taylor, who profited from cotton plantation slavery, according to political website Guido Fawkes. After he died in 1844, the newspaper continued its relationship with the slave trade, making money from the slave-backing cotton mill owners of Manchester who paid for advertising.
During Black History Month in 2008, The Guardian published a letter revealing that the newspaper had printed Confederate propaganda against Abraham Lincoln in October 1862, writing that “it was an evil day both for America and the world when he was chosen President of the United States”.
London Assembly member David Kurten remarked on the petition: “The Guardian was founded using money from slave labor. By its own logic, it should abolish itself.”
Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens tweeted on June 12: "I do think this (beautifully honest) confession of the SuperWoke Guardian's support for the slave-owning Confederacy (and its furious loathing for Lincoln) in the American Civil War is one of the great discoveries of the day. 'Who shall 'scape whipping?' "
Free Press International
