This view is what enabled slave holder and slave breeder Thomas Jefferson to write,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….
In Jefferson's day in the US, many assumed (believed) that only white men were fully human, so there was no contradiction between the belief that all men are created equal and slavery.
The rest were accordingly not enfranchised in the US Constitution.
Non-white males were franchised subsequent to the Civil War, but women did not get the vote until the Constitution was amended in 1920, and this came only after a long fight by the women suffrage movement.
Psychologists surveyed hundreds of alt-right supporters. The results are unsettling.
Brian Resnick
1 comment:
Tribalism is common, it's in our DNA
If for the sake of argument it is true that the alt-right is unusually tribalistic, what is the root cause? Is there a biological factor that makes some people more tribalistic? Is it linked to how other studies have found that conservatives are more fearful by nature? Or is it a result of the person's environment and upbringing? I don't know the answer but I'd like to find out.
If it is either biological or environmental, then it is not a moral choice, and if it is not a moral choice then we should not be quick to judge them.
A possible flaw with the study is the nature of the questions asked. What if, instead of asking about Muslims, the study had asked liberals to rate the human-ness of White Nationalists or NRA members? Cuz I'm witnessing a lot of tribalistic dehumanization of the white nationalists. I.e, labeling them as "nazis" or "fascists" is dehumanizing (tho I don't doubt that some of them are card carrying nazis and fascists).
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