Yesterday was “Juneteenth” – a new federal holiday with free time off for federal (and most state and local government employees as well as Woke businesses). Originally remembering the day that victorious, conquering Union troops landed in Texas in 1865 to (among other things) enforce the official end of slavery (although it lingered on for one day short of six months longer in “loyal” states like Kentucky and Maryland and Uncle Joe’s Delaware).
No one today was liberated on either 19 JUN 1865 or 18 DEC 1865, of course. They are all long departed. Probably no one alive today was a child or grandchild of a freed slave. And no one alive today in the Fifty States legally has ever owned a slave. I don’t even know if there is anyone alive today who even met a freed slave: though I would not be surprised: our links to history are far closer than we usually realize.
But we all are punished today for the deeds of some American ancestors – even those whose real ancestors migrated to this country long after slavery ended legally. Punished to the tune of billions of dollars paying the salaries of bureaucrats not working because it is now a legal holiday.
Now, please remember, that TPOL does NOT advocate MORE legal holidays and MORE time off for all these people. But we bring up the issue of how we are NOT remembering other important days of expansion of liberty to other people: people whose ancestors were abused in many ways similar to the way slaves were before 1865.
We could talk about Irish and German immigrants who were indentured servants. We could talk about the descendants of penal colonists in places like Georgia (ours, not the one in Asia). But we won’t.
Rather, let us talk about American Indians: AmerInd. Until 2 June 1924, 95% of American Indians, including full and mixed blood, were denied US Citizenship and the rights of free people, in accordance with little-known provisions of the US Constitution, twisted and perverted by Congress (and many States). That was the day President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act. Before then, people enrolled as AmerInd, regardless of tribe or actual blood quantum, were denied citizenship and the rights to vote or even mostly be treated as humans.
Indeed, many States had laws on their books forbidding the free assembly and freedom of religion and speech for American Indians. And despite the Act of 1924, many of these rights were still denied by the FedGov and States for most of a century more. Some are still defacto denied in practice today in many localities.
But we can be fairly certain there will never be a federal legal holiday on the 2nd of June. Or indeed, much if any recognition of such milestones and victories for liberty.
Why? Am I being racist to suggest it is because they have the wrong skin color? Or because they do not constitute a large enough voting bloc to be important to either of the old parties? Or because in many places the discrimination against AmerInd is still a major problem? Like Minneapolis? Denver? California? New York?
Perhaps.
The story of the States’ and the FedGov’s shameful record against almost all the nations of the AmerInd is a stain on our history.
But at the same time, unlike the original nations and peoples of the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, and large parts of South America – to say nothing of Europe and North Asia – AmerInd people and nations still exist in the Fifty States (well, Forty-nine if we exclude Hawai’i) and also in Canada (First Nations as they are called there). Without the fundamentals of liberty established and still surviving here, they would be one with the Etruscans, Samaritans, Elamites, and thousands of other tribal and even larger nations of Eurasia and Africa. And most of Latin America.
It took decades, even centuries, to get Americans – American governments, especially – to do the right thing for black slaves and for “untaxed Indians.” But ultimately it has done so. Despite to claims of modern African American and “Native American” activists and the do-gooders and Woke social justice warriors who supposedly champion them.
The solution, then and now, is liberty: simple and pure liberty. And personal responsibility to use that liberty.
Think about it.
About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.
The Price of Liberty 
Special: on this “Juneteenth” what about others with historical abuses heaped on them?
Yesterday was “Juneteenth” – a new federal holiday with free time off for federal (and most state and local government employees as well as Woke businesses). Originally remembering the day that victorious, conquering Union troops landed in Texas in 1865 to (among other things) enforce the official end of slavery (although it lingered on for one day short of six months longer in “loyal” states like Kentucky and Maryland and Uncle Joe’s Delaware).
No one today was liberated on either 19 JUN 1865 or 18 DEC 1865, of course. They are all long departed. Probably no one alive today was a child or grandchild of a freed slave. And no one alive today in the Fifty States legally has ever owned a slave. I don’t even know if there is anyone alive today who even met a freed slave: though I would not be surprised: our links to history are far closer than we usually realize.
But we all are punished today for the deeds of some American ancestors – even those whose real ancestors migrated to this country long after slavery ended legally. Punished to the tune of billions of dollars paying the salaries of bureaucrats not working because it is now a legal holiday.
Now, please remember, that TPOL does NOT advocate MORE legal holidays and MORE time off for all these people. But we bring up the issue of how we are NOT remembering other important days of expansion of liberty to other people: people whose ancestors were abused in many ways similar to the way slaves were before 1865.
We could talk about Irish and German immigrants who were indentured servants. We could talk about the descendants of penal colonists in places like Georgia (ours, not the one in Asia). But we won’t.
Rather, let us talk about American Indians: AmerInd. Until 2 June 1924, 95% of American Indians, including full and mixed blood, were denied US Citizenship and the rights of free people, in accordance with little-known provisions of the US Constitution, twisted and perverted by Congress (and many States). That was the day President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act. Before then, people enrolled as AmerInd, regardless of tribe or actual blood quantum, were denied citizenship and the rights to vote or even mostly be treated as humans.
Indeed, many States had laws on their books forbidding the free assembly and freedom of religion and speech for American Indians. And despite the Act of 1924, many of these rights were still denied by the FedGov and States for most of a century more. Some are still defacto denied in practice today in many localities.
But we can be fairly certain there will never be a federal legal holiday on the 2nd of June. Or indeed, much if any recognition of such milestones and victories for liberty.
Why? Am I being racist to suggest it is because they have the wrong skin color? Or because they do not constitute a large enough voting bloc to be important to either of the old parties? Or because in many places the discrimination against AmerInd is still a major problem? Like Minneapolis? Denver? California? New York?
Perhaps.
The story of the States’ and the FedGov’s shameful record against almost all the nations of the AmerInd is a stain on our history.
But at the same time, unlike the original nations and peoples of the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, and large parts of South America – to say nothing of Europe and North Asia – AmerInd people and nations still exist in the Fifty States (well, Forty-nine if we exclude Hawai’i) and also in Canada (First Nations as they are called there). Without the fundamentals of liberty established and still surviving here, they would be one with the Etruscans, Samaritans, Elamites, and thousands of other tribal and even larger nations of Eurasia and Africa. And most of Latin America.
It took decades, even centuries, to get Americans – American governments, especially – to do the right thing for black slaves and for “untaxed Indians.” But ultimately it has done so. Despite to claims of modern African American and “Native American” activists and the do-gooders and Woke social justice warriors who supposedly champion them.
The solution, then and now, is liberty: simple and pure liberty. And personal responsibility to use that liberty.
Think about it.
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.