Pharyngula

Posted by: Drake | January 25, 2011 10:06 PM

It's painful knowing other Minnesotans could have elected someone so...clueless. Good thing I don't know one person here in St. Paul that likes the annoying idiot.

Posted by: MonkeyBoy | January 25, 2011 10:11 PM

video at mediate.com.

Chris Matthews was nearly apoplectic in his questioning of Tea Party Express co-founder Sal Russo on the topic of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and her controversial re-imagining of history where the founding fathers found a way to end slavery in their lifetime. Repeatedly calling Bachmann a “balloon head,” Matthews demanded to know why Russo and the Tea Party wanted Bachmann to give a response to the State of the Union address or, more generally, why they ever wanted her to open her mouth in the first place?

And note the preponderance of comments there defending Bachmann and attacking Tweety.

Posted by: Brian | January 25, 2011 10:15 PM

If only that was why they had put her up there in the first place.

Posted by: PeteJohn | January 25, 2011 10:16 PM

As a history teacher in training, my brain hurts...

Posted by: iknklast | January 25, 2011 10:17 PM

Of course, she totally ignores another aspect of our history: women were, and still are, second class citizens...oops, we're not citizens at all. The 14th Amendment defines citizen as male...and the Supreme Court has interpreted it that way, as well.

Thanks to idiots and Mormons (oops,redundancy, my bad), these sort of inequities remain, and since we continue to elect idiot women to Congress, it's difficult to see why anyone would WANT to give us equality. Except, thinking humans can see that Michelle, Sarah, and Christine don't speak for all women.

Posted by: gadow | January 25, 2011 10:26 PM

"Flubs" history? Being willfully ignorant is not a "flub."

Posted by: rather be fishing | January 25, 2011 10:32 PM

Can someone from Minnesota write this person and tell her it is disgraceful that a Canadian knows more of American history than she does. Use small words and write slowly, it may help.

By how much did this looney tune beat the runner-up?

Posted by: jimspice.myopenid.com | January 25, 2011 10:44 PM

Sorry about that. How about this. http://n.pr/word-cloud

Posted by: andrew.mogendorff | January 25, 2011 10:55 PM

Actually I'm thankful for Michele, horrible as she is. It's because I read some stuff about her in the local paper and then googled her that I found Pharyngula. And it's Pharyngula which then led me to think more deeply about religion. And it's thinking deeply about religion which helped me stop being religious. So, congratulations Rep. Bachmann, you helped create another atheist (see, it all works out for the best)

Posted by: NMLevesque | January 25, 2011 11:02 PM

Oh I think I get it now. The interest of pretend history and fake narrative is shared between the tea party representatives and their ridiculous followers.

Posted by: SteveInMI | January 25, 2011 11:15 PM

She's using Rexella Van Impe's TV voice.

Posted by: bluescat48 | January 25, 2011 11:20 PM

Evidently the way to get elected to congress is to be a dunce when it comes to US History. In some ways Bachmann makes Palin seem intelligent. Of course Palin makes a Parakeet seem intelligent.

Posted by: orogeny | January 25, 2011 11:25 PM

America has survived for twenty-one generations? Does the Bachmann family typically start breeding at 11 or 12?

PZ, is that a Minnesota thing?

Posted by: mikeyB | January 25, 2011 11:57 PM

Watching her speak makes my skin crawl. Reminds me of Anita Bryant mixed with a little Palin and O'Donnell to add character. We're turning into a nation of fucking idjuts....

Posted by: 朴競花/박경화 (Gyeong Hwa) | January 26, 2011 12:13 AM

PZ, I've already linked to revisionism by teabaggers in the previous ending thread, so Bachmann's lies shouldn't be news to anyone.

I would like to think that this will reveal how insane the tea-party really is, but alas people will still nod in agreemnet thinking that Bachmann is some type of political genius.

Posted by: R. Johnston | January 26, 2011 12:23 AM

The official Republican response was given by a goldbug who forces all his staffers to read Atlas Shrugged and who believes you can balance the budget by a combination of tax cuts, military spending increase, and ditching Medicare in favor of Medicare Advantage for all.

The official Republican response was given by someone every bit as crazy as Michelle Bachmann, even if he's somewhat better spoken and of more level temperament.

Posted by: Capital Dan | January 26, 2011 12:47 AM

To elevate America as an exceptional nation by eliminating the incredibly vital and necessary embarrassments of our country's history destroys our nation's identity as well as the efforts of those who overcame what must have been a near-crippling shame in our past to make this nation what it is today.

Michele Bachmann and her Tea Party thugs seek to destroy all that with petty lies that serve no purpose other than to replace an education of facts and truth with a cult-like indoctrination of worship and fable.

She's not qualified for the job she been elected to do. She's violated her oath of office in egregious and embarrassing ways. Why she is still allowed to call herself a Congresswoman is one of the most sickening displays of the lack of accountability we hold our politicians to.

Posted by: Numad | January 26, 2011 12:55 AM

I think it's significant that Sal Russo really, really tried to ignore the distortions that Bachmann used to lend her sloganizing weight in favour of the slogan itself, even when asked about it point blank.

Posted by: Capital Dan | January 26, 2011 1:11 AM

Numad | January 26, 2011 12:55 AM

I think it's significant that Sal Russo really, really tried to ignore the distortions that Bachmann used to lend her sloganizing weight in favour of the slogan itself, even when asked about it point blank.

I agree. It's tremendously significant. In any rational group, such a display of ineptitude and cowardice would lead to a near exiling of that person. Sadly, however, the irrational and incurious Tea Party groups will see this interview as an "attack" of some sort, and they will probably accuse Matthews of interrupting Russo in an attempt to make him look stupid. They only hear what they want to, and they sure as hell didn't listen to a word Chris Matthews said. They will be simply happy Russo stuck to his programmed response regardless of the fact that he never answered the question at hand, and they will simply vilify the host by labeling him a nazi, fascist, commie, or what have you.

This is the state of political debate in America today. It runs from these little talk shows all the way to the halls of our legislative bodies.

Posted by: geralcorasjo | January 26, 2011 1:11 AM

Her response to the SOTU speech was pretty dreadful too.

Sigh. Her and Palin are an embarrassment.

Posted by: Hercules Grytpype-Thynne | January 26, 2011 1:18 AM

America has survived for twenty-one generations? Does the Bachmann family typically start breeding at 11 or 12?

In fairness, she may mean to include the colonial period, which brings the generation length up over 18.

Posted by: Travis | January 26, 2011 1:40 AM

I am not a big fan of interviewers interupting speakers constantly, especially if they are making a real point, but sometimes it is nice. People get to run wild and often answer completely unrelated questions to what was asked and are so rarely pushed to actually address the real question, and sadly they are rarely questioned effectively about their answers.

I remember watching CBC News: Poltics one night and Don Newman doing just that. When the Conservative person on the panel started mindlessly repeating the party line and not really talking about what was said he simply cut him off and let the next person speak.

Posted by: chimpanzee.myopenid.com | January 26, 2011 1:49 AM

"Suppose you were a congressman, suppose you were an idiot, but I repeat myself"
-- Mark Twain

"Wise men speak, FOOLS DECIDE"
- Anacharsis

Nothing has changed (generally), since the time of Greeks to a relatively young country (USA). The WORST presidency of USA (George Bush Jr) has created a power vacuum, allowing CRACKPOTS (newbie wannabee rookie) to enter the political fray. I.e., the "Tea Party", who falsely claim some sort of perverted similarity to the rebellion founders of America.

CBS News did a report on Christine O'Donnell (NJ candidate, practiced witchcraft, "if evolution is true, then why aren't chimpanzees evolving into humans?") & XX (guy in Ohio who got caught doing German SS re-enactments):

"you have these neophytes..."

US Govt has turned into a CIRCUS..a "comedy of errors".

"I want a Clean Solution, without any INFIGHTING"

Bipartisan bickering has been "complicated" by a 3rd party "wackos". The circus of Washington politics has a new "clownish" element, to complement the existing CLOWNS.

"the clowns got CLOWNIER"

Q: how many clowns [ in Washington ] does it take to get "circus" America back in shape [ "change a light bulb" ]?
A: as many bozos as it takes

"California is like Granola Bar: after the fruits & nuts, you're still left with flakes"

Washington DC is turning into California: Kooksville.

"Consider yourselves SUCKED"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGw3soM07Yw

"Stupid.. Hurts"
"Stupidity is its own Reward"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yZFbzaWbg

Washington DC is like watching monkeys "peeing into their own mouth" (sh*t talking)

Posted by: Ternon | January 26, 2011 2:28 AM

So basically, the majority Of people in Minnesota are stupid?

How would one otherwise interpret her being where she is?

This reminds of Bush being elected TWICE, anyone who heard him speak before the first election could see how ignorant, stupid and incompetent he is, then he was elected to be the president, and then he was elected again.

It really frightens me that the majority of Americans are stupid ignoramuses.

Posted by: theskepticalape | January 26, 2011 2:41 AM

Wow... just wow. This crazy fascist is trying to rewrite history so that she can claim that white Christians are the saviors of the U.S. and the world. Next I can see her trying to get "God with us" on the U.S. Army belt buckles and "True Science (TM)" (only things she already thinks) taught in schools. Does anyone else hear those goose steps getting closer?

No Gods, No Masters
Cameron

Posted by: glenister_m | January 26, 2011 3:04 AM

ratherbefishing #14 beat me to it, but I think its a good point that as a Canadian, I also knew her statements were wrong. I think I even learned about the founding fathers owning slaves from an episode of 'Head of the Class' - so its not like I did an in-depth study of American history.

Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it...

Posted by: The Laughing Man | January 26, 2011 3:22 AM

Ternon | January 26, 2011 2:28 AM

So basically, the majority Of people in Minnesota are stupid?
How would one otherwise interpret her being where she is? This reminds me of Bush being elected TWICE, anyone who heard him speak before the first election could see how ignorant, stupid and incompetent he is, then he was elected to be the president, and then he was elected again.
It really frightens me that the majority of Americans are stupid ignoramuses.

No, just the majority of Voters. However. Since there had to have been millions of people who didn't give two shits about this in the first place, this is what happens. Because i cannot fathom people being that affirmatively stupid. No, Americans are just worthlessly lazy. They don't give a fuck about America. Just like most catholics don't give a fuck about the bible or their god, Americans are only given that title becasue they happen to live here.

I thought Obama's speech was great. But, unless people speak the fuck up and flood the whitehouse with letters and emails DEMANDING slashing the Defense budget in this country,nothing will get done. Short of a motherfucking riot in Congress, nothing will get done. The Ballsack in Mouth Movement will continue to strangle this country.

JESUS MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST. CARLIN is missing this! Oh fuck, the things he would say. T_T

Posted by: Aquaria | January 26, 2011 3:39 AM

#48:

The majority of people in her district are stupid. She represents one section of it, not the whole state.

Sort of the reverse of Texas, where the liberals are concentrated mostly in Austin/South Texas, and the rest of the state is one festering pustule of Michele Bachman-crazy/stupid.

Posted by: wombatwal | January 26, 2011 4:23 AM

PZ, you had a recent blog about Australians laughing at Americans.
Well this is the reason that the world laughs at America, George Bush JR., Sarah Palin and now this next balloon head.
What is it with the conservative movement in the U.S.A.?

Posted by: Robin J | January 26, 2011 5:10 AM

Interviewer: Why did Bachmann say such-and-such about slavery?
Russo: [Something completely different]
Interviewer: Why are you saying that? We're talking about slavery.
Russo: You keep changing the subject!

Posted by: JThompson | January 26, 2011 5:17 AM

Wait, what? Since when did the Tea Party acquire the credibility to share equal time with Republicans?

Since it became necessary to give people this crazy and stupid a platform to make regular Republicans seem moderate. See, now we have the left, center, and right on the TV machine, so everything is fair and balanced. Never mind that what we actually had was the center right, the far right, and the batshit crazy right.

It's less about revising history than it is about moving the Overton Window further to the right. Something they've been quite successful at, since both political parties are doing their best to make it happen, or at least that's what the major parties get out of it. The teabaggers are just morons and many of them believe this garbage. That's what happens when everyone pays lip service to accepting whatever bollocks people have faith in without question for as long as we have.

Posted by: wombatwal | January 26, 2011 5:34 AM

Maybe.
A bunch of radical theocrats = conservative.
Is there a difference in the U.S.A.
Even your progressive polys. sprout religion.

Posted by: Andyo | January 26, 2011 5:49 AM

Love the question marks after otherwise obviously true headlines.

America Fuck Yeah?

Posted by: David Marjanović | January 26, 2011 6:36 AM

In fairness, she may mean to include the colonial period

...which would completely contradict her point about "passing the torch of liberty".

This reminds of Bush being elected TWICE

Tsk, tsk.

The first time, Gore won Florida and thus the presidency under any legal way to count the ballots, except that the Supreme Court made a coup (Bush v. Gore), usurped the power to stop the counting of the votes, and simply declared Bush the winner of the Florida election because counting the votes would have damaged Bush's right to win, or something.

The second time, Kenneth "Katharine" Blackwell counted the votes of Ohio on his desktop computer. In addition to being the governor of Ohio, he was the head of the Bush "re"election campaign in Ohio. Enough "irregularities" have been discovered that it's safe to say Kerry won Ohio.

I grant, of course, that both elections were frighteningly close. There are indeed tens of millions of clueless people in the US of A. It took the economy crisis to make enough of them wise up, at least temporarily, that it wasn't possible to steal the 2008 election.

Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it...

Cannot be said often enough.

Posted by: Gyro A. Gearloose | January 26, 2011 7:03 AM

"Are you hypnotized?" was definitely my favourite.

Posted by: matthone11 | January 26, 2011 7:43 AM

To anyone complaining about Chris Matthews: google Jeremy Paxman. Here in the UK we already have someone who holds people to task for being stupid. Good on Chris Matthews for hitting these people hard.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 26, 2011 7:48 AM

I don't know if people get it. The scary thing is not that conservatives lie about history..and science, and law and politics and the news.... The scary thing is that Americans are now listening to them without laughing them off of the political stage. It seems that the Overton window is stuck shut on the left while the entire wall has been blown out on the right.

Posted by: Miss. Ann Thrope, Death's PR consultant | January 26, 2011 8:02 AM

None of these ass holes have read the constitution, ever. Here we see speaker of the house Boner confusing the constitution & the declaration.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/boehner-pulls-boner

I had one teabaggger try to tell me that the government has no constitutional right to collect taxes.
I emailed him a copy of the constitution & told him where to look.

Posted by: Liriodendron, Latin macaronique sous le soleil | January 26, 2011 8:07 AM

No one mentions the Japanese internment camps. If that isn't treating people differently based on descent...

Posted by: JBlilie | January 26, 2011 8:17 AM

Drake @2:

Here's Greg Laden's take on Bachmann and why she actually does fit the 6th disctrict.

Sad but true. I'm pleased to say I live in the 4th district as well. I'm not a big fan of McCollum (she's OK); but she's hugely better than Bachmann.

Posted by: Flex | January 26, 2011 8:26 AM

David Marjanović wrote

... the Supreme Court made a coup (Bush v. Gore), usurped the power to stop the counting of the votes, and simply declared Bush the winner of the Florida election....

This isn't quite accurate. It's a little more subtle than that.

The federal constitution says that the legislatures of a state choose the electors to represent the state during the process of selecting a president.

Florida law says that whichever party wins the general election gets the ability to select all the electors for the electoral college. Florida law also says that the electors selected by the party must vote for the winner of the popular vote. These laws are common in most, but not all, states.

The Florida legislature passed a bill declaring Bush to have won the popular vote and thus all the electors for Florida would be required, by Florida law, to vote for Bush during the actual presidential election. (Not the election in November where technically all the voters were voting for were for the selection of electors. The electoral college meets in January to elect the president.)

All the supreme court did was confirm that the federal constitution allows a state legislature to select the electors.

Did the decision of Florida disenfranchise voters? Absolutely.

Could the USSC have made a different decision? Yes.

However, it would have established a precedent that legislatures no longer have some of the power granted to them in the federal constitution. With that being the result, I really can't see the USSC deciding this question in any other way.

If anyone is to blame for the election of Bush over Gore it was Florida legislature. A Republican-dominated legislature under a Republican governor who was the brother of one of the candidates for president.

Posted by: QuestionAuthority | January 26, 2011 8:49 AM

So how is Bachmann's ignorance of the US Constitution any different than the Right's repeatedly demonstrated lack of knowledge of their own holy (holey?) book?

Why read it when you can just lie and get the answers you want?

Posted by: scooterKPFT | January 26, 2011 9:07 AM

Tweety is usually too annoying for me because he is a compulsive interrupter, and was a war-mongering tool for too long, but he's the best at staying on point and demanding the question be ANSWERED.

This is a great clip.

Posted by: rlrrlrll | January 26, 2011 9:13 AM

There's a lot of tea-baggers on the internet:

http://rlrr.drum-corps.net/politics/5510

Posted by: Don Quijote | January 26, 2011 9:23 AM

Is that some kind of new sign language Bachmann uses when she´s speaking, or is it to demonstrate what she´s saying to the literatly challenged members of her audience?

Posted by: Zeno | January 26, 2011 9:28 AM

Michele Bachmann is an exemplary spokesperson for moron-Americans.

Posted by: llewelly | January 26, 2011 9:47 AM

andrew.mogendorff | January 25, 2011 10:55 PM:

Actually I'm thankful for Michele, horrible as she is. It's because I read some stuff about her in the local paper and then googled her that I found Pharyngula. And it's Pharyngula which then led me to think more deeply about religion. And it's thinking deeply about religion which helped me stop being religious. So, congratulations Rep. Bachmann, you helped create another atheist (see, it all works out for the best)

PZ, you have achieved greatness. When people google Michele Bachmann, they find you.

Ed Brayton has a picture of him arm-in-arm with Michele Bachmann, of which he is quite proud. But when people google Michele Bachmann, who do they find? PZ.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | January 26, 2011 9:51 AM

I don't know what it was, but I remember not liking Cooper the first time I saw him. Lately he's been hitting it out of the park though. Since Bachmann appears to not be very bright, maybe a comic would help to introduce her to the real immigrant experience: http://gohomepaddy.com/2010/03/17/go-home-paddy-page1/

Posted by: scooterKPFT | January 26, 2011 9:59 AM

@88

There's a lot of tea-baggers on the internet

Yeah, I wonder where they found the free gov't handout program for laptops?

Posted by: Greg Laden | January 26, 2011 10:15 AM

It turns out that it is almost as interesting that the Civil War was/was not fought over slavery: http://tinyurl.com/48bnge4

The thing about Bachmann is that it is too easy to not take her seriously. Here in Minnesota, she did introduce the first "Academic Freedom" legislation to take root (though not get passed) in the state. Very serious efforts have been made to unseat her and she remained in place. She did single handedly found the tea-party. Unlike Sarah Palin she currently holds elected federal office. Unlike Sarah Palin she is utterly consistent in her ...well, her babbling. It is babbling but she babbles the same thing over and over and her babbling resonates with nearly half the country, sadly.

I go back and forth between thinking she will melt down and disappear (like that time in the woman's room out in Big Lake) vs. thinking that she has a shot at the White House.

Posted by: jfbode1029 | January 26, 2011 10:16 AM

Ternon @ #48:

So basically, the majority Of people in Minnesota are stupid?

The majority of people in Bachmann's district (MN-6) are stupid.

We bitch at Bachmann for failing basic history, but most of the commenters here are just as guilty for failing basic civics and government. Representatives are not elected at large; Bachmann doesn't represent all of MN.

Similarly, dinguses like McLeroy are elected by district; most of us Texans had no say in his election one way or the other.

I'll take heat for people like Cornyn, Hutchison, Perry, etc.; they're the fault of all Texans. But not McLeroy.

Posted by: dezcrawford | January 26, 2011 10:23 AM

It's consistent. She is also a so-called Christian who worships the vindictive teachings of the Old Testament over the peaceful teachings of Christ, whom they purport to worship, and like most "Christians," she probably either has no clue, or refuses to acknowledge, that the Bible endorses the repression and murder of women, infanticide, child sacrifice, slavery, etc. etc.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | January 26, 2011 10:29 AM

@scooterKPFT - LOL! (Every time I type that I feel like I'm back in an AOL chat room in the 90s.)

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 26, 2011 10:39 AM

@Greg

1) love your blog
2) Hey she shouldn't get all the credit. The Koch Brothers funded it and Glen Beck threw his hissy fit until the other news channels started paying attention.

Posted by: Canadian | January 26, 2011 10:45 AM

I can't believe a Canadian (me) knows more about the constitution than her. Is this type of thing common in the USA?

I am sad for all intelligent Americans in Minnesota.

Posted by: Royce Bitzer | January 26, 2011 11:01 AM

Pixienut Michele Bachmann (R-Mars) asked:

Will we be the ones for whom this great experiment in human liberty will end on our watch? ....Will we be the first generation to fail to pass that torch of liberty?

After listening to her, I'm feeling more and more confident that the answer is "Yes!"

We know that [slavery] was an evil and a scourge and a blot and a stain upon our history...

And Bachmann giving this speech in Iowa and actually being taken seriously here was an evil and a scourge and a blot and a stain upon our state.

Re: PZ's rejoinder

Wait, what? Since when did the Tea Party acquire the credibility to share equal time with Republicans?

It did so at precisely the same moment the Republicans lost the credibility to share equal time with Democrats.

Posted by:   | January 26, 2011 11:07 AM

GET OUT! A right-winger with nothing but shit between her ears, vomiting out lies and ridiculous twists on history?

And yet the army of right-wing mindless followers will defend this demonic shithead.

Posted by: wyogold | January 26, 2011 11:15 AM

"who worships the constitution but has no idea what's in it."

Sounds like most christians and the bible.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 26, 2011 11:18 AM

Cuttlefish@91,
OK, I gotta know. Was the allusion to the Dorothy Parker poem, "Unfortunate Coincidence" conscious? Because, while the poem is sheer brilliance, the allusion hits the ball utterly out of the park.

Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings | January 26, 2011 11:26 AM

wyogold:

Putting the mock back in democracy.

As well as the "crass."

Posted by: Royce Bitzer | January 26, 2011 11:31 AM

@ #10 iknklast:

Thanks to idiots and Mormons (oops,redundancy, my bad), these sort of inequities remain, and since we continue to elect idiot women to Congress, it's difficult to see why anyone would WANT to give us equality.

Absolutely! If such women do get elected, the Right gains new foot soldiers for credulity and ignorance. If they don't, women in general lose credibility in the eyes of what remains of the informed electorate. It's a win-win for our nascent theokleptocracy!

Except, thinking humans can see that Michelle, Sarah, and Christine don't speak for all women.

Which is why the Right is so doggedly waging war on thinking humans. Thinking is what they most passionately wish to evade and eliminate.

Posted by: stvs | January 26, 2011 11:33 AM

Ryan is giving the "official" statement.

Krugman's takedown of Ryan's abysmally stupid response would be very funny, if Ryan wasn't actually their "leading light" on this issue:

You’ve been chosen by one of America’s two great political parties to respond to the president of the United States. That’s a fairly awesome responsibility … I suspect that Ryan is honestly unaware that Ireland, far from being a spendthrift … I also suspect that Ryan is honestly unaware that the UK has not, in fact, experienced a debt crisis … if your whole public act is based on your supposed knowledge of the importance of fiscal responsibility, wouldn’t you long ago have made sure that you actually know something about the fiscal crises now taking place in Europe? … So let’s see: to avoid cuts in benefits to seniors, we must … cut benefits to seniors.
I’m reasonably sure that Ryan hasn’t thought any of this through.

Posted by: Flex | January 26, 2011 11:37 AM

David Marjanović wrote,

You just said that's not what the Florida legislature did – you said the Florida legislature declared "Bush to have won the popular vote". That established who the electors had to vote for, but not who was going to be an elector.

Sorry about the delay, meetings. And yes, I was less than clear, I was trying to be concise and sometimes that introduces inaccuracies.

The laws governing the selection of electors vary from state to state. Every state legislature has established laws to do so, with the caveat that they must comply with requirements of the federal constitution for selecting electors. The law passed by the Florida legislature did, in fact, comply with the requirements of the federal constitution. That was the question in front of the USSC, and that was the decision they made.

When we cast our votes for president, we are really casting a vote for the slate of electors chosen by the party associated with the president. The slate of electors is chosen by the party and submitted for approval by the state legislators (because there are limitations about who can be an elector, e.g. a person holding a federal office is barred from also being an elector).

In 24 states, Florida included, there is a law stating that all electors are legally bound to vote for the person chosen by a popular vote. Which means that who the electors are really doesn't matter, an elector who is a democrat is legally bound to vote for a republican if a republican nominee wins the popular vote. Electors take a pledge to vote for the winner of the popular vote, or face legal action, or as in my home state of Michigan, their vote is disqualified if they don't make the pledge.

In 1952 the USSC ruled that state legislators have a great deal of autonomy in selecting electors (Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214), and that pledge laws are legal.

So, by the Florida legislature passing a law stating that the results of the popular vote was a victory for Bush, the electors, however they were selected, became legally bound to vote for Bush.

Legislators pass laws of that nature on a fairly regular basis. There are several reasons that legislators will ignore reality. In this case I suspect that aside from party politics, there was a feeling that something needed to be done to get the election over with. A hung election costs the state a great deal of money.

There are other reasons, for example, in 2001 the Michigan legislature passed a law declaring that the population of Detroit was greater than 1 million people. The reason for this was because there are a lot of Michigan laws which are written to help Detroit, but could not be written to specifically name Detroit. So the laws were written for 'cities in Michigan with a population of greater than one million people.' When the 2000 census found that Detroit had lost enough population for invalidate all those laws, the state legislature, knowing that they were legislating against reality, simply decreed that Detroit had a population of 1,000,001 people.

Was the Florida legislature's decision the correct one? I don't know. At the time I thought they were acting prematurely, there was still time to complete a hand count when they passed this law. Of course, once the law was passed all the counting in the world wouldn't change the course of the election. In hindsight I think they were wrong to pass this law, but what they did was legal.

What happened in Ohio was, for as little as I know, a completely different problem. It does seem clear that some of the voting procedures used violated the Ohio laws governing voting. Whether these violations of Ohio's voting laws affected the outcome of the elections is less clear. Possibly, possibly not. I don't have enough information to say, and I doubt anyone ever will.

Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies! | January 26, 2011 11:46 AM

@Royce Bitzer
#122
Terrifyingly, that makes a lot of sense.
I always wonder, out of all the possible women politicians, why did they have to pick the dumb one. My original guess was that those are really their best female candidate (which says something about Republican party).
Now, it just show that they pick the stupid women to parade around to say "Hey look! All women are stupid like this!"

Posted by: AmVik | January 26, 2011 12:02 PM

She did single handedly found the tea-party.

No. She founded the Tea Party Caucus.

Posted by: KG | January 26, 2011 12:25 PM

So, by the Florida legislature passing a law stating that the results of the popular vote was a victory for Bush, the electors, however they were selected, became legally bound to vote for Bush. - Flex

Suppose the popular vote had been overwhelmingly for one candidate, but the Florida legislature had passed a law saying another had won it. Would that still, in your understanding, have been legally binding on the electors?

Posted by: Gus Snarp | January 26, 2011 12:38 PM

@Antagonizer - Get help, please. Or at least, for the love of all that is unholy, put down the crack pipe.

Posted by: ursulamajor | January 26, 2011 12:45 PM

I still firmly believe that most Fox watching Teabaggers and a large number of regular old Rethugs don't watch the SOTU, or indeed any other speech from Obama. They just go to people like Limbaugh, Palin, Hannity and Bachman to find out what they're supposed to think about said speech. Is this really surprising? They do the same with their preachers and the bible. SOP.

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 26, 2011 12:50 PM

Are you sure there aren't some meds the docs could prescribe?

Classic teabagger rebuttal.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 26, 2011 12:53 PM

Tommy we agreed we hated you. Your goal is met, off you go now.

Posted by: JBabs073 | January 26, 2011 12:57 PM

I hate Michelle Bachmann and was happy to see the person who put her up to speaking on the spot, and clearly the guy wasn't answering the question Matthews wanted, but I couldn't help comparing Matthews to O'Reilly. Both don't allow the guests they bring on to speak if they've already decided they don't agree with the guest. Sal is trying to speak and Matthews just wouldn't let him most of the time. If you know all you are going to do is lambaste your guest relentlessly when bringing them on the show, just skip the interview altogether and do a monologue segment doing just that.

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 26, 2011 1:02 PM

I hate Michelle Bachmann

Yes, you hate. I get that already.

You are an America, no?

Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy | January 26, 2011 1:05 PM

Classic teabagger rebuttal.

Only if said teabagger thought that you had expensive private medical insurance.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 26, 2011 1:08 PM

@145

You do realize Tommy that being a big enough asshole that people don't like you doesn't' say anything about THEM right? Yet for some reason you find this a major moral victory? It's not like people of violent crime or rape or torture are 'bad people' because they have hate towards their tormentors. And it's not like some guy who insists on pissing on the salad bar every day and farting in people's faces can claim that the people who loath him have something wrong with them. The fact that you want people to hate you, and we oblige doesn't really say anything about us.

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 26, 2011 1:11 PM

The fact that you want people to hate you

No, the fact is you hate. You said so yourself.

There is nothing much to say except acknowledgment.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 26, 2011 1:16 PM

Not like hating Tommy means that people are Klansmen, so it's a big non issue

I guess the ultimate point is that people talk about Tommy rather than about the topic at hand.

Either way, not a big accomplishment.

Posted by: reboho.pip.verisignlabs.com | January 26, 2011 1:23 PM

Does this mean that usuns in Texas relinquish the crazy train mantle to all y'all in Minisoda?

Posted by: Flex | January 26, 2011 1:27 PM

KG wrote,

Suppose the popular vote had been overwhelmingly for one candidate, but the Florida legislature had passed a law saying another had won it. Would that still, in your understanding, have been legally binding on the electors?

According to the federal constitution and what I understand of Florida state law, maybe.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but the reason it is would be so is because as long as the state legislators meet the requirements outlined in the body of the federal constitution, and the 12th amendment, the feds would stay out of the selection of electors.

What Florida did was against Florida state law, but because the legislature creates the law it also can amend it, which is what the Florida legislators did.

The reason it's not an emphatic "yes" is because there are two possible checks on the power of the Florida legislature from making such legislation stick.

First, the governor could refuse to sign such a law, requiring an over-riding vote. Second any Florida citizen would have standing to challenge such a law in the courts. (It is possible that non-Floridians could also have standing if the results would make national changes.)

There is a third reason why such a thing is unlikely to happen. The public outrage would be so great that most of the legislators who voted for such a bill would be removed from office in the next election. This wouldn't change any law already passed, but it does put a damper on any enthusiasm for legislation which would so greatly be against the will of the people. Recall proceedings would probably be started immediately.

Remember, we do not have a direct democracy, we have representative democracy. We elect people who are supposed to reflect the will of the general population but are not legally bound to agree with and abide by what the general population wants. We are supposed to elect people who do represent our interests, but in recent years with declining voter turnout we have seen how a small group can elect representative who do not reflect the will of the general population. (As well as electing representatives who are unaware that they are supposed to represent all their constituents, not just the people who elected them.)

The laws affecting the electoral college are the result of 200-year-old political compromises and are somewhat nutty. One of the ideas, which clearly didn't work out, was that the elections for President shouldn't be politicized. Every state legislature would select their wisest and least politically involved men to deliberate and select the man who is best suited to lead the country at the time. That this clearly wouldn't happen was found by the election of 1796.

The 12th amendment (1804) was the first change to the electoral system after the debacle in 1800 when electoral college votes for President were tied.

While many people have advocated scrapping the entire system over the last couple of centuries, I'm not certain a simple popular vote is a good idea either. The parliamentary system, where the head of state is selected by the legislature directly seems to have some advantages. You will still get idiots, but since the legislature has a wider selection of idiots to choose from it is possible to get the best of a bad lot, rather than having a choice of two.

The reformation I would like to see tried first would be a requirement that electors must represent the proportion of the popular vote. A couple states already do this, so if 30% of the population votes democrat, 30% vote republican, 20% vote green, and 10% vote libertarian then in a state with 10 votes in the electoral college the democrats get 3 votes, the republicans 3, etc. The increase in granularity would, IMHO, help clarify the will of the people without making it a strictly popular vote nationwide.

At this point a federal constitutional amendment would probably be the fastest way to make such a change. I would put one more thing in such an amendment, and that would be setting the primary election day for all states.

Of course, I'm also simply one of the nuts on the internet.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 26, 2011 1:43 PM

@157

LOL really? No sorry Tommy. It's entirely personal.

Posted by: bluescat48 | January 26, 2011 2:11 PM

No. She founded the Tea Party Caucus.

Shouldn't that be Circus?

Posted by: Flex | January 26, 2011 2:17 PM

Wait, that may have sounded a little snotty.

Ibis3, I do appreciate being reminded of this because I did use the wrong term.

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 26, 2011 2:30 PM

No sorry Tommy. It's entirely personal.

Then get out there and do something about it! Coward. Greedy, Hateful, Fearful, Violent American Cowards. It's the McCarthy Era and the Vietnam War and Apollo all over again. You authoritarians missed out on all the fun the first time around, and this is your big chance to relive all of those past glories! Only this time, you are too stupid and to broke to pull it off.

Post Sputnik Moment Indeed.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 26, 2011 2:43 PM

Tommy "But not enough to admit what a colossal screw up you and your country are, nor even admit that you have made any mistakes."

See, Tommy, this is precisely the sort of thing I'm talking about--how you can post something like this on a thread where every other post is about how the country's gone off the rails. It kind of brings into question whether your combo plate has its requisite allotment of tacos. And frankly, I don't even see evidence of a Chimichanga.

Tommy, believe it or not, we get that the country is fucked up. Unlike you, many of us are actually working to change that--oh, and here's a hint: it'll take more than a fricking rocket ship.

So, Tommy, nobody really hates you. You are too pathetic to be worth hating. Hell, nobody has even told you to go die in a fire! In fact, I don't know what is more pathetic--your exaggerated sense of self importance or your delusion that you can actually change things by being abusive in a blog on the intertubes.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | January 26, 2011 3:02 PM

My point is that I can come in here as a rational conscious individual and point out obvious glaring failures, of you as individuals, and as Americans, something that you should all be used to by now, something that should, as indeed has been done, for decades now by rational and conscious individuals just like me, with the difference being that NOW, what I get for my troubles, is called jerk and reviled and hated.

If that's indeed the case, then you're gloatingly proud to blame your students for the fact that you're one of humanity's lousiest teachers.

Anyway, we've had this conversation before, Tommy. You're happy being the guy who's right but nobody listens to. It feeds your martyr complex. We know this. The funny part is that you think you're special; unique.

Face it Tommy; you're a fucking over-used Hollywood trope. You're a goddamn character in a Michael Bay movie, for fuck's sake. Hold your head up proudly, man: you, with all your self-claimed superiority over American culture, are nothing more than the literary contribution of a journalism school drop-out to shitty, hack writing.

Why, you deserve a high five, fucker.

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 26, 2011 3:20 PM

Tommy, believe it or not, we get that the country is fucked up.

Who's we? You and all the voices in your head?

What 'I' get is that the reason this country is so fucked up is YOU, Dilbert, because you can't admit that YOU PERSONALLY made a mistake, right here on this forum, and then you lied to cover that up.

Now multiply that by 100 million retards, JUST LIKE YOU, many of them in positions of power and inhabiting halls of our scientific institutions.

Thus, Sputnik, Redux, and Constellation, Redux.

We know this.

Sure you do, you and all the other yous in youz headz.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | January 26, 2011 3:43 PM

Geez, ray_in_dilbert_space, What'd you do? You fucked up the whole country with a comment on Pharyngula? Your power is staggering.

@Tis - Yeah, I don't want to hear one politician talk about reducing the deficit if they aren't going to talk about cutting the single largest item in the budget (at least, I think it's the largest now, used to have to be called the largest "discretionary" item) - the military. Until they do they're just not serious about cutting the deficit.

Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD) | January 26, 2011 4:29 PM

It's so weird how Tommy thinks that he can fix the country by going to a blog about biology and atheism, then wailing about rockets in the comments. I have decided to apply Tommy's logic myself. In an effort to reduce my mortgage payment, I'm going to find a feminism blog now where I will piss and moan about how slow the service is at my local Taco Bell. I will then complain to Phil Plait about the way iTunes keeps freezing in Windows 7, in an effort to raise awareness for our poorly underfunded education system.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 5:45 PM

TG sez:

Well, it wasn't just Jefferson who had slaves (and for all his crocodile tears, never freed them, including the one he was raping on a regular basis)."

What's your proof that Jefferson raped Hemmings? The fact that he (probably) had sex with her?
AFAIK, (as long as we are talking science and proof here, not faith and belief), we don't know for sure if Jefferson even had sex with Hemmings (though if I'd have to bet, I lay my dollar on "yes"), let alone raped her.

Is your view based on the idea that there could NEVER be consensual sex between masters and slaves (despite the evidence that there certainly was), or are you referring to some other sort of proof that I'm not aware of?

Posted by: chigau (◦_◦) | January 26, 2011 6:10 PM

Thaddeus G. Blanchette
oh you poor fool

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 26, 2011 6:35 PM

TGB,
Really? I mean, really?

Self-determination, the human right which is at the base of our repudiation of both slavery and rape, is predicated on the autonomy of the individual.

She wasn't free. Period. How could she be free to say yes or no if she wasn't free? The obligation existed to obey as she was owned.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 26, 2011 6:38 PM

One cannot say yes unless one also has the authority to say no. This is similar to why a person below a certain age cannot consent to sexual activities and thus any contact between, say, a 22 year old and a 13 year old is considered rape. Enslaved women legally lacked the legal authority to say no to sexual acts. I admire Jefferson a great deal, but I have no problem with describing his sexual relationship with an enslaved woman as rape. I will grant that our consensus of consent and sexual activities has changed over years, however, and that therefore neither Jefferson nor Hemmings may have considered their relationship in this way.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | January 26, 2011 7:09 PM

TGB,
How in the world can you expect someone who was owned to be able to say no? Jayzuz, can you imagine what would happen if a slave did say no? *shudder!*

Unless you're arguing that slavery really wasn't that bad what with the aaaaaalllll of the respectful slave owners and whatnot.

Fuck. This is entirely too white man's burden-y for me.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 7:22 PM

Dear Ing,

From our previous interactions, I'm aware that you have a penchant for strawmen. But this one confuses me:

Ah yes. So a Father can have sex with his 11 year old daughter and it not be rape right?

Are you claiming that Jefferson was Hemmings father and had sex with her when she was 11? If not, what relevance does that comment have to this conversation?

And then you say...

...as long as he has the power over her life and death and the threat of an institutionalized slave system, there's no way she can demonstrate consent.

So what you're logically saying is that ANY sexual relationship Hemmings could have needs must be rape. After all, she had no power to say no to ANY man her owner might decide to "breed" her with. That "life or death threat of an institutionalized slave system" was excercized over her sexuality, globally. So if one neeeds must have freedom in order to be able to consent to sex, then pretty much any sexual contact between men and women in slavery must be classified as rape.

I'm also wondering if this definition of rape applies to male slaves too. After all, they were also not free to choose partners and were very often told whom they should have sex with.

What pisses me off is the fact that you don't seem to be willing to give Hemmings any agency at all in this. To you, her desires needs must be completely defined and controlled by her social role.

And you think you're a feminist, do you?

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 26, 2011 7:27 PM

TGB,
NOw we are getting somewhere. Yes, I do think that given a lack of autonomy sexual freedom cannot happen, regardless if it was Jefferson or another slave owner having sex with one of their slaves, or a slave owner telling one of their slaves who to have sex with, the slave doesn't have control over their own bodies. Likewise, I think that any culture in which a woman cannot say no to her husband has abandoned any moral rectitude regarding autonomy and that any sexual act between husband and wife becomes tainted by that fact, even if I am the inevitable outcome.

Rape is more than just physical assualt, it's coercion as well, and that coercion can be endemic to society as easily as it can be situational. I will always be uneasy with people being denied the right to say no, because it means they can't truly say yes either.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 7:34 PM

Dear Our Dead Selves,

Who said anything about whether Hemming could say "no"? Go back and read what I actually wrote, please.

What I said is that if one presumes she is human and thus has the right to autonomy, one must presume that she can at least say "yes" as well as "no".

Your logic - and the logic of many people here - is that she must've wanted to say "no" because she had no right to not say "no". According to you, until she has the freedom to say "no", we must presume that she was always saying "no".

Well, as I've pointed out before, very few of our great grandmothers had the right to say "no" to sex. Fact.

So how do you deal with the rapists in your own family tree, then, ODS? Grandma didn't have the right to say "no" to grandpa, so that makes grandpa a rapist and grandma a passive victim whose sexuality needs must be defined by her legal status?

Is that it?

I mean, because if that's it, at least you're being logically consistent. I want to know why there's this repulsion among Americans for the Jefferson/Hemmings match but no repulsion for the equally legally-morally rape cases envolved in white-white marriage of the times.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 26, 2011 7:45 PM

Your logic - and the logic of many people here - is that she must've wanted to say "no" because she had no right to not say "no". According to you, until she has the freedom to say "no", we must presume that she was always saying "no".

This is not what I said. Her desires were guided by pressures that you probably can't even imagine, and it is those pressures that render her autonomy non existent. In a life without choice desire has been broken. Or put another way, until you can say no, saying yes doesn't mean the same thing.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 7:58 PM

Her desires were guided by pressures that you probably can't even imagine...

But you think that you can?

This is what I think: we need to respect people in situations where their autonomy is curtailed and realize that even oppressed, even enslaved, they do have agency and are indeed human beings, not simplistic two-dimensional cut-outs to which we can attribute whatever emotions we find politically convenient.

My area of research is sexual tourism, prostitution and trafficking of women and I, personally, am disgusted with how many "well meaning" activists feel that they can, for instance, tell you all about prostitutes and their lives without ever having met one, let alone having listened to one. And as someone who's studied quite a bit about the history and politics of slavery - including the sexual politics of slavery - I have my doubts that our 21st century, individualist, rights-based morality is something that was moving many people at the time, men or women.

I can hypothesize several things about the relationship between Hemmings and Jefferson, all of them more or less equally likely given what we actually know. One of those hypotheses is that the whole thing was a slander made up by Jefferson's political enemies. Another was rape. A third was that Sally was playing a very dangerous game involving using her own sexuality in order to achieve freedom for herself and her children.

There are a lot of things that could have been going on there which we will never know for certain. I say keep an open mind and try to look at the evidence as to what really happened, in all of its historical messiness, instead of trying to judge the situation based on abstractions created from our 21st century morality.

After all, isn't that what distinguishes us from the creationists?

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 8:10 PM

Dhorvath, divorce and the right to say "no" to sex with one's spouse are not one and the same thing.

First of all, no fault divorce is a recent development in most western countries. You couldn't just say "I want a divorce" and let that be that: you had to prove a problem. Secondly, even in those cases where divorce was allowed, that had no bearing on the sexual rights of the husband to the wife's body. In fact "frigidity" and denial of sex was considered to be a cause for divorce but not "my husband wanst to have sex and I don't".

So no, divorce wasn't the same thing as the right to say "no".

Furthermore, you have to know this, so my question is why are you trying to sugarcoat rape in the case of your family?

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 8:29 PM

As an anthropologist, I'll tell you what impresses me the most about the Hemmings/Jefferson myth: the fact that, structurally speaking, it has remained so consistently stable in American cultural life for 200 years, in spite of all the supposedly radical changes in the ways Americans perceive race.

It started out as a means of taking Jefferson down a peg, used by the American white, racist and nativist right. It was unspeakable that Jefferson not only supposedly had sex with Sally. That was an abomination because what right-thinking white man could be attracted to a black woman?

Now it's turned into a means of taking Jefferson down a peg used by the (anemic and barely political) American left. Now, it is unspeakable that Jefferson would have sex with a slave.

What remains taboo in both cases is the specter that, slavery aside, the two might have actually nourished some positive feeling for one another. That possibility is simply beyond the pale of the American imagination. So beyond the pale that to even utter it as a hypothesis is to run the risk of being drummed out of polite society.

By contrast, Brazilians traditionally have seen interracial sex and love as AFFIRMING - against the strictures of slavery and racism - that both parties are human beings with human emotions and desires.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | January 26, 2011 8:48 PM

TBG,
Trying to make this personal isn't going to work.

I don't know about your family, but in my family, my grandfather didn't own my grandmother. My grandmother had more bodily autonomy than any slave did. That is to say, in my grandparent's day, there were men that respected women's autonomy- just because marital rape was common doesn't mean that it was universal. Slaves by definition do not have any sort of autonomy at all.

Not being able to say no automatically means that one can't say yes. Coercing someone into sex, especially when we're talking about life-long coersion of all sorts (with the threat of violence, seperation from your family, death, etc behind it) takes away the freedom to say yes.

You want to over-simplify a really complex question of consent, to twist consent into what you want it to mean.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 9:00 PM

ODS, first of all, I very much doubt you know much about slavery, let alone enough to make the blanket claims you're making about bodily mobility and such. I've studied slavery quite a bit. There were many different types here in the Americas alone and not all of those types qualify as the little antebellum S&M fantasy your fervid imagination seems fixated on.

Secondly, your point was stated in absolutist terms: if you don't have freedom to say no to sex, it's rape. Independent of what your grandmother's life was like in comparison with a slave's, she didn't have the right to say no to sex.

What this means, then, ODS isn't that slavery was a big happy, go lucky affair. What it means is that if we truly want to distinguish what made your grandma's sexual life different from tat of a slave, abstract legal rights aren't where we should be looking.

In other words, your understanding that "no legal right to say no = rape" is what's simplistic and problematic here.

And let me tell you as someone who has studied slavery quite a bit that slaves have indeed had quite a bit of autonomy. Much more than you would suspect. Old slave holders knew this very well: just because someone had their rights juridically stripped from them didn't mean they couldn't react or revolt in a million subtle ways - ways which could cost you a lot of money or even your life. 19th century slave holders respected slaves potential for autonomy, even if you find it hard to conceive that such a thing existed.

As for over simplifying, your the guy who's trying to make a just-so story out of a hugely complex and diverse set of relationships in one of the oldest institutions on the planet, not me. And you're doing this based on what, exactly? A poorly remembered viewing of "Roots" as a teenager?

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | January 26, 2011 9:27 PM

John Morales:

Even granting your assumption, you seem to be confusing use of power with abuse of power.

An abuse is an improper or excessive use.

At first I was all, "Whaaaa?" and then I thought about it and you're right. Sex with a slave wouldn't have been viewed as an "abuse". (That doesn't make it right, but that's not the point that you're arguing. Just trying to make myself clear.)

Thad,
I never said anything about the legality of rape, I was talking about coercion.

Kindly explain to me how you can argue that there was no coercion implicit in slavery, since you are obviously much more educated in this than I am.

As a side note, I don't take anyone seriously that assumes I'm a guy. It doesn't do much for my opinion on your reading comprehension, either.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 9:35 PM

John, I used the word "guy" in a generic sense, as in "hey guys!". I guess I should have used "one" or "person".

As for confusing "use of power" with "abuse of power", I think that you're going to have to explain that a little further. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, or what the yardstick is that you're using to measure "improper". Is it the legal and moral understandings of our time or Jefferson's?

Posted by: Chaos Cryptic | January 26, 2011 9:44 PM

Oh, and sorry about the typos and inconsistent punctuation in my post. (After a lifetime of indoctrination in the American system of punctuation, I'm attempting to shift to the more logical British system, but bad habits die hard.)

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 9:57 PM

ODS, please define "coercion".

It seems to me that you are conflating and flattening two different types of coercion: a social structural coercion (excercised by the institution of slavery) and an individual coercion (excercized, presumably, by Jefferson. What bothers me is that you only seem to care about the first kind of coercion when it's slavery in question. You seem to be making the false assumption that if Hemmings were not a slave, she'd be a non-coerced, free individual with all the rights to her body that you presume that you have today.

In sexual terms, Hemmings, like most women of the time, was constrained by social structural coercion. To attempt to define one of these types (slavery) as more sexually coercvie than the others (marriage) is polyannaism at best and historical blindness at worst. Women, slave or free, did not have sexual autonomy in 1803. It wasn't on the mneu for anyone, period. So to accuse Jefferson of raping Hemmings because she didn't have sexual autonomy is simply ridiculous.

There are two ways of looking at this. One is to use the concept of rape as it was defined AT THE TIME. And this is where you need a bit of history behind you. When we look at early 19th century sex laws, we find one that's no longer on the books but which is more likely to covers Jefferson's crime than rape, if one were an abolitionist and thought in these sorts of moral terms: seduction. Seduction was the crime of taking sexual advantage of a virgin who had no male protector to defend her honor. An anti-slavery proponent of the times would most likely understand Jefferson and Hemming's relationship in that light and not as rape.

A second way of looking at it is to look at what the women themselves were concerned with at the time. That waqs CERTAINLY not sexual autonomy: it was family coherence. When one reads what slave narratives are out there, one finds that slave womens' big fear was to have their families broken up. Why? This was because, by law and by custom, a woman's position in society was definied in regards to her family. The big difference between a free white woman and a black slave woman wasn't that one had sexual autonomy and the other didn't: it was that the first was afforded some means of protection via the institution of the family while the second couldn't legally HAVE families.

The degree that a woman was porotected from sexual violence in 1803 was the degree that she was considered to be a "proper" woman and that meant either a virgin until marriage or chaste and obedient after marriage. A woman couldn't be sold or forced into a marriage against her will, but she remained her father's ward until she married, upon which point she became her husband's ward.

Now, this is simplifying greatly, but those are the basic facts of the situation. So a married free woman still had no sexual autonomy at all. If she tried to assert sexual autonomy, she was by law a "loose woman" and had LESS protection against sexual villence than a slave.
A slave's sexuality was "owned" by her master/mistress and s/he could make use of it or give it loan it rent it or whatever to anyone s/he pleased. But if you came onto a plantation and raped a person's slave, you were damaging their property and where legally liabel for that.

In other words, you couldn't just go about raping slaves at will.

You could, however, do precisely that to free woman understood to be "whores". A woman avoided being labled a whore by "pledging" her sexuality to the control of one man, either her guardian (usually her father) or her husband.

When we look at things this way, slave women's constant complaints about family destruction (and corresponding lack of complaint about sexual autonomy) make perfect concern. A woman, slave or free, in 1803 was preoccupied with protecting herself from sexual violence through the establishment of family ties. Because slaves were prohibited from doing that, they lacked even the rudemntary protection free women had.

THIS is the problem of sexuality and slavery, in a nutshell, and not your imaginary line between sexual autonomy and no sexual autonomy.

Bringing this back to the Jefferson and Hemmings case, it's notable that Sally's family was established and respected by Jefferson. This, to her, was probably of far greater concern than our modern discussions about female sexual autonomy.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 26, 2011 10:05 PM

Jefferson was a brilliant man, but a flawed one as well. We do him no credit by refusing to admit his flaws.

Why is this so hard for people to do? It's like the entire Bill of Rights becomes meaningless because it was written by people with actual flaws. All or nothing thinking is really not useful in the real world, and I suspect Jefferson would have agreed.

Posted by: John Morales | January 26, 2011 10:09 PM

Thaddeus:

As for confusing "use of power" with "abuse of power", I think that you're going to have to explain that a little further.

ODS understood me fine, and I'm surprised you haven't.

A slave's sexuality was "owned" by her master/mistress and s/he could make use of it or give it loan it rent it or whatever to anyone s/he pleased.

Would so doing be an use or an abuse of this power of ownership? ;)

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 26, 2011 10:26 PM

Mattir,
I suspect that the American Exceptionalism we've had drummed into us plays a role--that and the fact that Jefferson was such a great writer and political chameleon that both right and left can find support in his sayings. Jefferson was very much a man of the Enlightenment--and as such, not yet very enlightened.

Personally, the flaws of the Founding Fathers and how they dealt with them are among the things that made them great. Jefferson--brilliant but difficult to rely upon. Adams--Fearless but socially inept. Washington--Noble but choleric and overly ambitious. Franklin--wise and vain.

I do not view Jefferson as a monster for his relationship with Hemings, but it is clear that even he was bothered by it. If his conscience was telling him what he was doing was wrong, I'm willing to believe it.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 10:37 PM

Mattir, funny you should bring up trafficking and sexual tourism, as that's what I've been writing about all day.

This is why we have laws about human trafficking and about sex tourism - or would you argue that people who have sex with functionally enslaved prostitutes are not rapists?

Like most laymen, you seem to assume that trafficking laws are set up to support the human rights of people who are forced into sex work. In most cases that is not true: trafficking laws are often set up to punish prostitution and illegal or irregular migration, independent of whether or not the person in question has had his or her rights violated.

First of all, laws in Brazil and the U.S. regarding trafficking having nothing to do with rape and/or slavery, either historically or currently. In fact, they run counter to the United Nations' suggestion that trafficking be conceptually dissasociated from prostitution. Both the U.S. and Brazil's trafficking laws define "trafficking" as the simple movement of prostitutes from Point A to Point B, if said movements involve third parties. No reference to human rights violations are made. It is assumed, erronesously, that prostitution is an ipso facto violation of human rights. So think twice the next time you lend a prostitute friend money for a cab so that she can go to work safely: by U.S. and Brazilian law, you are "trafficking" her. In nfact, under these laws ANY interaction with a prostitute at all could be argued to be trafficking. These laws are set up to isolate and repress prostitutes, not support their human rights.

As for "sexual tourism", lord, don't get me started. In ithe final analysis, it simply means a tourist who engages the service of a prostitute while on vacation. Again, the concept has no necessary implications regarding human rights violations, but the U.S. (thankfully not Brazil, yet) seems to believe, again, that prostitution is in and of itself analogous to slavery - something which always gets a big horselaugh from my prostitute friends and informants on Copacabana here in Rio.

In 8 years of studying prostitution in this city, I have yet to meet a "functionally enslaved prostitute", though I'm sure some must exist. All the people I've interveiewed left other jobs to become a prostitute and could go back to those jobs any time they like - provided, of course, that they'd be willing to accept much lower salaries.

I should remind you that I'm studying the most sexual tourism intensive neighborhood in the most sexual tourism intensive city in one of the countries that's most frequently pointed out as a source of "sexual slaves". All I can say is that North Americans and Europeans have some very lurid and disturbing imaginations when it comes to thinking about what goes on in your typical Brazilian whorehouse. It's enough to sometimes make me wonder if they are not a bunch of secret B&D fetishists at heart. :D

Thaddeus, I hope that next time someone brings up Mohammed and Aisha you will rush in to discuss the complexities of consensual sex relationships between middle-aged men and nine-year old girls.

First of all, I think it's very problematic to believe that grown adult women's sexuality needs to be protected in a manner analogous to nine year old girls. Are you saying that you consider childrens' sexuality and womens' sexuality to be essentially the same thing, Mattir? If not, then what's the logic behind presuming that because I defend adult female sexual autonomy and agency, I needs must defend the idea that adult men should be allowed to have sex with children?

Do you know what your point reminds me of, Mattir? Those born-again loons who say "Well if we accept homosexuality today, then we're bound to defend peadophilia tomorrow."

No we're not. The person who cannot grasp the idea that an adult human being has moral agency and autonomy to a much greater degree than a child is a fool. If you want to play the fool, go right ahead, Mattir, but please don't expect me to.

Secondly, how do you know what Aisha's age really was? Do you think there's a birth certificate for her somewhere? And are you sure that Mohammed had sex with her immediately after marrying her? I'm no Muslim scholar, but it seems to me that I recall that it was a political marriage and that the whole emphasis of her young age in the writings was a political point having to do with Muslim succcesion.

Sure, diests lie about everything else, but when it comes to Aisha's true age - where they'd apparently have a great motive to lie for political reaosns - they were telling the plain simple truth. Is that what you're saying, Mattir?

Tell me Mattir: how do you choose what you believe or disbelieve from the twaddle that are the "sacred writings"? Is it just a matter of convenience or is there some sort of methodology at work there?

Finally, let's both hope that future societies don't raise the age of "enthusiastic consent" to, say, 30 or so. We'll all be pedos then.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 26, 2011 10:57 PM

A ray sez:

Even a prostitute has more rights.

No she didn't. It's amazing what people think they "know for sure" about sex relations back then, having never studied them. I guess we're supposed to belive that what they pick up from Hollywood is good, solid information.

Seriously, don't you biologist types have to take at least ONE history course?

Ray, prostitutes had no legal protection againstb rape AT ALL, WHATSOEVER, PERIOD. A slave could not legally be raped by some random guy in the street because she was someone else's property. If her owner objected, the guy could be charged for damaging his property. That's some small protection and little cold comfort for the slave, I know, but it is at least a legal protection against some forms of sexual abuse.

A prostitute had NO legal protection against rape in 1803. At all.

So you are simply wrong, mate. Sorry. I know that it makes great rhetoric and all, but what you said is, historically and legally speaking, pants.

I think it is hard to define this as anything other than rape. What else would you call it?

As I mentioned above, following the sexual crime definitions of the time, if one were to presume that Sally were to have the same sexual rights as a free woman of the day, it could quite easily be understood as "seduction": the crime of "taking advantage" of a virgin who is without adequate male tutelage. Seduction was separate from rape. Both rape and seduction were crimes predicated on offenses to another man's property (i.e. the woman's sexuality, which either her father or husband controlled) and neither was based on the idea that somehow the woman's sexual autonomy had been violated.

By the way, because both crimes were understood as more-or-less theft of sexual goods from the family who "owned" them, often the legal remedy for both was to force the violator to MARRY the victim.

Sally Hemmings had no autonomy we could strip her of. She was the property of Thomas Jefferson to be used or sold as he saw fit. If the choice was between submitting or risk being sold away from your children, it probably wouldn't enter your mind to say no.

Ray, it's a simple fact that people are not reduced to autonomons by their circumstances. I understand that Americans' Calvinist heritage often makes them want to look at human beings this way, but you can't seriously support the notion that Sally Hemmings was a human begin with human rights AND msimultaneously try to reduce her to an agencyless autonomon that you can understand with no effort on your part at two centuries remove.

Seriously, guy, that's some major arrogance that's at work there. I bet you haven't read a single book on Hemmings, Jefferson opr their life and times, but you think you know all you have to know about them, don't you? It seems to me that you're acting a bit like a creationist who says "I don't know anything about evolution, but I know that it's WRONG! don't try to tell me about something that's wrong. I know all I need to know already".

Great attitude for a critical thinker to have, isn't it just?

John asks:

Would so doing be an use or an abuse of this power of ownership? ;)

It would depend on what position we're looking at such power from: today or then, slavery supportive or abolitionist.

Posted by: Shala | January 26, 2011 11:32 PM

I REAM HIS FUCKING ASS OUT. Consider Michael Griffin's ASS REAMED.

you like the thought of michael griffin's ass reamed a bit too much there, dear Thomas

Posted by: chigau (◦_◦) | January 27, 2011 12:55 AM

Thaddeus G. Blanchette
I don't understand why you are being so belligerent.

Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right | January 27, 2011 1:00 AM

Michelle Bachman: "When you got here, it didn't matter what color your skin was."

* Slave markets in the U.S.
* The Forks of the Road Slave Market in Natchez, Mississippi. "In the decades prior to the American Civil War, market places where enslaved Africans were bought and sold could be found in every town of any size in Mississippi. Natchez was unquestionably the state’s most active slave trading city, although substantial slave markets existed at Aberdeen, Crystal Springs, Vicksburg, Woodville, and Jackson."
* The middle passage: slave prisons and the slave trade. "Many African captives commited suicide by leaping into the ocean when they got the chance. Other captives refused to eat the rotten gruel. Their front teeth were knocked out and a funnel was inserted down their throat to force feed them."

I often wonder why Americans spend so much school time leaning every little skirmish in their civil war and nothing at all about the huge festering wounds in their history, slave trading, slave-holding, racism, systematic rape, sabotage of the Emancipation, domestic terrorism, lynching, Jim Crow laws, discrimination in lending, discrimination in employment, discrimination in education, denial of civil rights, prejudice, segregation, intimidation, and the centuries-long struggle to overcome them.

Posted by: «bønez_brigade» | January 27, 2011 2:39 AM

goddamn, that was schadenfreuderific. Ripped, indeed.

Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom | January 27, 2011 3:44 AM

Oh, side note, Thaddeus:
You claimed Prostitutes had no legal protections from rape, and that even a slave had more. You then proceeded to list how, on paper, a slave may be protected from rape.

The others might not have argued that so effectively, so let me throw my hat in the ring.

You offered a Slave's On Paper legal defenses while taking a Prostitute's real world ones (Minus one critical one. This was highly disingenuous. On paper, a Prostitute has the exact same protections 'Normal' Middle Class White Women get. A slave has no realistic hope of justice. I strongly suspect the slave would just be bought rather then have a legal battle fought. Does a prostitute? Not really. But they have the same real world protections, and amazingly, astoundingly different theoretical ones, and they're all in favor of the prostitute. ARIDS was less wrong to say "Prostitutes have more protection than slaves" than you were to say "Slaves had more protection than prostitutes".

What I said before about finding his personality annoying aside, I have to say this is well thought out and makes good points about the current state. However, it still completely ignores the reality slaves were in. That owners could demand sex from slaves and bred slaves like chattel was an institutionalized policy and culture of rape.

Exactly. As shitty as it is now for a prostitute, it was worse for a slave.

None of which changes that a slave's consent was a nonissue, therefore they couldn't grant it. I could maybe argue that this was different if I was there and saw it, but absent time travelling ninjas with video cameras, the only reason to think it was is a dead old privileged white man's say so, and that's not very strong, all things considered.

Posted by: Thaddeus | January 27, 2011 8:21 AM

Kiyaroru sez:

I don't get why you're so beligerent.

And again, isn't this the same la-de-da we here from holy rollers when we come in and say "Look, your moral beliefs do not science make?"

Kiya, let me refresh your memory what your very first comment on this board to me was:

oh you poor fool

And I'M the one being beligerent? :D

Go on, Kiya, pull the other one now! :D :D :D :D

Posted by: Thaddeus | January 27, 2011 9:28 AM

Dear Rutee,

You claimed Prostitutes had no legal protections from rape, and that even a slave had more. You then proceeded to list how, on paper, a slave may be protected from rape.

This isn't some theoretical or "on paper" distinction, Rutee. There are cases on the books where free men were punished for beating, raping, or otherwise damaging another man's slave.

There are also thousands of cases on the books where as soon as it was proven a woman was a prostitute, rape charges were tossed right out the window. In fact, this sort of thing goes on TODAY.

So both of these "defences" (as you call them) were very much real world affairs.

On paper, a Prostitute has the exact same protections 'Normal' Middle Class White Women get.

No she does not. It would be interesting to go back and look at the plethora of rape laws that were around back in the day, but I know that at least some of them specifically applied to "women of good moral standing".

But hell, prostitutes don't even have the same on paper protections as so-called "normal" women TODAY. There are plenty of laws and punishments that are specifically geared to prostitutes and to prove that a prostitute has been raped is almost impossible. Futhermore, the U.S., runs on a common law system, does it not? This means that case law is integrated into the body of "on paper" law. If tens of thousands of judges have thrown out rape charges once it was proven that the victim was a prostitute, that's as "on paper" as anything else in a common-law based system.

Your ignorance when it comes to the history of sex laws in the U.S. is stunning. Please do a bit more research if you want to argue this point with me, OK? No, prostitutes in early 19th century America DID NOT have the same protections, in theory or practice, as "good women of the community". Not even close. When the question was sexual violence, they had NO PROTECTION AT ALL, on paper or even in custom. Hell, they don't even have it today.

I could maybe argue that this was different if I was there and saw it, but absent time travelling ninjas with video cameras, the only reason to think it was is a dead old privileged white man's say so, and that's not very strong, all things considered.

Look up the word "historiography", Ruttee. There are logical and rational ways of reconstructing the past, as PZ can tell you.

Funny that you seem to be immitating yet ANOTHER creationist meme, though: "no one was alive back then so we simnply can't know".

This seems to be a recurring theme in this debate: so-called critical thinkers swiping the exact same types of arguments used by creationists whenever they get a bit emotional.

We can't understand history because we don't have a time machine, Rutee? Do tell. I guess that must logically mean that the Creationists are right when they say that it's just a metter of opinion if the world is 6 thousand years old or 6 billion. After all "absent time travelling ninjas with video cameras, the only reason to think it was is a dead old privileged white man's [Darwin and other Victorian scientists] say so, and that's not very strong, all things considered".

And by the way, Ruttee, the ignorance and arrogance of that comment is just stunning. We know quite a bit about Hemmings and Jefferson and hardly any of it comes from Jefferson's hand. In fact, guess who the principal informants are in this case? Sally Hemming's descendents. And they do not claim that she was raped by Jefferson. In fact, historically the Hemmings family has been very proud of the fact that their ancestress got their freedom for them and they've not been exactly ashamed of ol' Tommy, either.

It should also be pointed out in this context that "rape by masters" stories live on for a LONG time in the oral histories of families descended from slaves. I've met people who can accurately tell you about what their great great grandma went through back in 1870s Brazil and those stories will be confirmed by the documentary record. This stuff stays in the collective memory a LONG time. So if Sally had been raped by Jefferson, you'd think she'd have mentioned it. After all, she DID tell her kids who their daddy was and that was as big a taboo as rape, back in the day.

So given that you think race is an acceptable reason to ignore historical data, Rutee (after all, you disqualify what you THOUGHT was the main evidence with the claim that it was supposedly an "old white man" who wrote it), can we now expect you to use a similar racist argument to disqualify Hemmings' descendents as well?

Nice one, Rutee. It takes talent to be able to deny that the past is real AND to imply that historical facts should be veted for race in one small post.

Posted by: drbunsen | January 27, 2011 9:50 AM

Getting pissed because someone has challeneged your dogmas, are you?

AFAICT, people are more pissed off that you're (in their opinion) doing it badly, condescendingly pronouncing from historian Authoritah and misrepresenting their arguments, rather than engaging with them. Your #231 is profoundly condescending, and the first half of your #232. Your second half is more informative, and a clearer statement of your points.

so to say "slavery is bad because slaves lacked [sexual autonomy]"

No-one said that.

many white owners with slave lovers were legally prohibitted from freeing them.

Did this apply only to those slaves they had taken as lovers? What was the legal rationale for that?

I don't think such a woman should be cast as an agencyless, hapless victim.

I really don't think anyone's been doing that here. It seems a bit strawmanny.

Posted by: Gyro A. Gearloose | January 27, 2011 10:17 AM

Yup, that's official. Rewriting history is the motto of all Teabaggers around. Because yup, Neil Armstrong was Russian.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sarah-palin-calls-obamas-sputnik-mention-a-wtf-moment/

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 27, 2011 11:09 AM

And despite what you may believe, not everyone who comments on Pharyngula is a biologist, and many of us have professional degrees and/or doctorates in various social sciences, including psychology, anthropology, economics, law, and sociology. (Some of us have more than one such degree.) Nice try at that high horse, though.

I think that's called argument by authority and credentialism. It wouldn't look so stupid if you were bragging about your knowledge of the hard sciences. Even biology isn't considered 'hard'.

Posted by: Chaos Cryptic | January 27, 2011 11:27 AM

Antagonizer, I know it's kind of worthless to even respond to you, but I'll point out for anyone who might have missed it that, rather than bragging, Mattir was responding to a specific and incorrect implication by Thaddeus about the likely educational background of the commenters here, namely:

I admit that this is rather like shooting goldfish in a barrel. After all, most "hard scientists" have zero to little training in the so-called "soft sciences" and vice versa, so no one should expect the folks on a biology board to be great guns when it comes to thinking about history.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 11:51 AM

Thanks, Angel. In thumping Thadeus's stupid point, I carefully avoided stating that I have any education whatever, except for the training I've had in reading stuff online and typing. I certainly don't have any degree in either biology or a "hard" science.

Posted by: Shala | January 27, 2011 12:33 PM

Even biology isn't considered 'hard'.

you are a fucking idiot

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 27, 2011 12:39 PM

@Shala

That's true but really don't get into it. Frog Inc made a defense of why biology isn't hard and it's better to just say fuck it and let them think what they want.

Posted by: Gaebolga | January 27, 2011 12:42 PM

My dad, biochemist that he is, likes to refer to the biological sciences as "wet."

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 27, 2011 12:45 PM

@Antagonizer

Dude, you do not get to claim credit for that. You did jack shit. Idiot.

Posted by: KG | January 27, 2011 12:48 PM

AFAIK, (as long as we are talking science and proof here, not faith and belief), we don't know for sure if Jefferson even had sex with Hemmings (though if I'd have to bet, I lay my dollar on "yes") - Thaddeus

We're talking evidence, Thaddeus. DNA evidence shows clearly that at least one of Hemings' children was fathered by either Jefferson or a male relative. Jefferson was present at Monticello every time Hemings became pregnant, and her children are reported to have strongly resembled him. She was his slave, not that of any of his male relatives. Not a proof, but as someone so historically sophisticated will be aware, proof is not easy to come by in any empirical domain.

In simple terms, being married meant that only one man had the legal right to rape you.

How about unmarried, free women - the status which Jefferson could have given Hemings any time he chose? Are you claiming they had no legal or social protection from rape?

Being a slave meant that several men could have that right: the master (who owned your sexuality), any man he gave or loaned you to, and your "husband", especially if the master gave you to him. - Thaddeus

Which, of course, means that the position of slaves was worse than that of married women, because the slave's master had a thoroughly credible threat the husband did not. A woman married to someone from the same social stratum could also look for help to family and friends, which a slave could not. Jefferson could easily have freed Hemings, making her a woman without a male "owner" - either slaveowner, husband, or father, and given her a real choice as to whether she had a sexual relationship with him. He chose not to. We know he was a hypocrite about slavery, decrying it yet failing to free his own slaves. Why, then, should he be given the benefit of the doubt?

Posted by: drbunsen | January 27, 2011 12:53 PM

Yup, that's official. Rewriting history is the motto of all Teabaggers around. Because yup, Neil Armstrong was Russian.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sarah-palin-calls-obamas-sputnik-mention-a-wtf-moment/

Weeeell, in fairness, they did "win" the space race for the first orbital object (Sputnik), which is what I think she's referring to, and several milestones after that. I certainly didn't read her comment as referring to the moon race.

Although claiming ~that~ is what bankrupted the USSR is just stoopid.

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 27, 2011 12:54 PM

Dude, you do not get to claim credit for that.

Naaa, I haven't been a commercial space advocate and a NASA critic. I didn't write a bunch of papers, and indeed, I didn't prevent Dilbert the subservient fuck, from giving his boss Michael Griffin some really bad technical advice, and speaking up and telling Michael Griffin all about physics and reality and nature, thus stopping tens of billions of dollars and a decade of national treasure from being wasted on a retard's wet dream rocket, leading directly to the current American 'sputnik moment' which we are now discussing. Now tell us what you didn't do Ing. Inquiring minds want to know your contributions.

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 27, 2011 12:59 PM

I have to say how fucking hilarious it is that someone describes agriculture as 'easy'.

I guess it would seem hard for someone who has never grown a single plant in his or her life.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 27, 2011 1:01 PM

oh you poor fool

And I'M the one being beligerent? :D

I went back and looked, and it seems that the "oh poor fool" remark was in response to this:

What's your proof that Jefferson raped Hemmings? The fact that he (probably) had sex with her?

...

Is your view based on the idea that there could NEVER be consensual sex between masters and slaves (despite the evidence that there certainly was), or are you referring to some other sort of proof that I'm not aware of?

Oh, and before anyone starts yelling at me about coercion and slavery and sexual exploitation and what not, let me remind you of an important point of the illuminist, democratic, individualist, rights-bearing philosophy that you will certainly be basing your arguments on: [Ed. note: what does "illuminist" mean anyway?]

Self-determination, the human right which is at the base of our repudiation of both slavery and rape, is predicated on the autonomy of the individual.

For freedom to mean anything at all, it must also mean the freedom to say "yes" as well as "no". If you support Sally's right to say no, you must logically support her right to say yes. Otherwise you're simply pissing in the wind.

Hemmings may indeed have been raped, although we have no historical proof that she was that I know of. Absent such proof, all we can do is hypothesize and guess.

Yes, you were pretty damn belligerent right from the get-go.

It's unclear if you're more upset about the (perceived, existing only in your brain) slight to Sally Hemmings' autonomy or to the (actual) slight to Thomas Jefferson's status as a non-rapist. Either way, you were setting up straw arguments from the beginning. All you had to do was say, "Hey, listen, although it's true that in modern society any sex between slave and owner would be considered rape, and although there were societal and cultural forces conspiring to coerce Hemmings' decisions about sex with Jefferson, there's absolutely no evidence to show that Jefferson personally coerced, whether mentally or physically, Hemmings into having sex with him."

See? Not hard, no need to be preemtively rude about the arguments you predict will be raised in counter to your question about whether consensual sex is ever possible between an enslaved person and his/her owner.

Could have saved yourself a whole lot of trouble and typing, not to mention the bad blood you've created now, by being such a terrific ass about the whole thing.

Posted by: Antagonizer | January 27, 2011 1:03 PM

You didn't' have any effect other than bitching and screaming

and publishing.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 1:10 PM

Dr Bunsen,

I think I ahve a right to be just a LITTLE condescending when a band of self-proclaimed critical thinkers base their reconstructions of history on their present day moral beliefs, Dr B. Especially when it's in commentary responding to a post that Tea Baggers are awful because they let their moral and political beliefs determine what history should be.

I think that hypocrisy on that scale deserves to be skewered with a bit of condescension. Your mileage obviously varies.

As for me basing my arguments on my "authoritah" (as you put it), where have I said, "Shut up, I ahve authority and you don't?" I've tweaked people for making blanket statements about slavery and sexual relations when they've obviously never studied either. Again, I think such tweaking is justified when it's directed at folks who make categorical claims and never back them up.

But you say my argument is "bad". How so? You've discussed consent and I've discussed - very clearly - why consent really isn't what's at stake here if we are indeed talking about HISTORY and not morals, ethics, or politics.

I note that you've basically decided to let your appeal to "consent" lie like the lame duck that it is, so I presume that you've nothing useful to add to refute the point I made. So what is "bad" in my argument, precisely?

Did this apply only to those slaves they had taken as lovers? What was the legal rationale for that?

It applied to everyone as matches between slaves and anyone weren't legally recognized. As for the legal rationale, they didn't need one, given the pre-existing status of humans as chattel. The state can indeed block you in legally disposing of your property as you see fit, if there's supposedly an overriding social need. In this case, the "need" was fear of encroaching abolition.

As for Hemmings being cast as an agencyless victim, Dr B, that's precisely what's implied with this "consent" thing. You are basically saying that since she had no jural human rights, she couldn't excercize preference at all.

If that isn't "agencyless", I don't know what is. Would you perhaps like to explain better how you can maintain that Sally had agency while simultaneously and absolutely negating to her the ability to say "yes" and "no"?

Posted by: Shala | January 27, 2011 1:12 PM

But don't you realize. You hate! That apparently means something!

perhaps Antagonizer is something akin to Zeromus from Final Fantasy IV, where the hatred of mankind is what fuels his non-sequitur responses and persistence.

Well, at the very least, that probably qualifies him as a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 27, 2011 1:14 PM

@Shala

I prefer to imagine Antagonizer as the Holovirus Insane Rimmer from Red Dwarf.

I can just imagine him having Mr. Flibbit proof read his posts before he hits send

Posted by: Shala | January 27, 2011 1:17 PM

I can just imagine him having Mr. Flibbit proof read his posts before he hits send

Oh dear

I don't know, he gives the HIR a run for its money with the insanity.

American soldiers are so buff and beefy!

between this and the ass-reaming you mentioned earlier, Tommy, I think there's something you're not telling us

don't worry, let it all out. we can help.

Posted by: KG | January 27, 2011 1:24 PM

You are basically saying that since she had no jural human rights, she couldn't excercize preference at all. - Thaddeus

Crap. No-one has said that. What has been pointed out to you repeatedly is that not being able to say "no", vitiates the right to say "yes". What I've pointed out above is that Jefferson could have given Hemings more sexual autonomy (obviously not the extent of sexual autonomy a free American woman has now) by manumitting her, and did not; he preferred to keep her as his slave. Is this not relevant evidence about the quality of their relationship?

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 27, 2011 1:25 PM

@Tommy

I've read what you wrote. Frankly I don't think an ability to read would necessarily help them figure out what you're saying even if it was good advice.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 27, 2011 1:28 PM

Crap. No-one has said that.

I'm glad to actually see this because for the while I assumed it was bad communication on my part when I talked to Thad before.

Thad, I really actually want to like you. You make some good points and don't seem evil or anything. The problem is that you are frustrating to talk to because people find themselves being told to argue things they didn't say.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 1:32 PM

Dear Mattir,

Surely you can't believe that there are no cases, worldwide, in which sex workers are functionally enslaved?

First of all Mat, "functionally enslaved" is a weasel term. There's no consensus - not by a long shot - on what that "functional" means. Slaverry is a pretty clear cut thing, but "functional slavery"? I routinely see that concept being radically abused by well-meaning people every day, who use it to cause appalling human rights violations and then feel self-righteous about their "abolitionist" activities afterwards.

So it's hard for me to answer you when I have no idea what your definition of "functional slavery" is.

As for there being sex slaves in this world, there certainly are. Unfortunately, anti-prostitution activists have so muddied the waters by intentionally conflating prostitutes with slaves that those of us who look into this seriously can tell you next to nothing about how many there are or where or in what conditions.

What I know is what I said: Rio de Janeiro and Brazil are rergularly painted in the most negative terms possible when it comes to sexual slavery by the media, and yet working in what should be logically "ground zero" for that sort of thing, I've never encountered it. This leads me to two hypotheses:

1) Either the media reports of sexual slavery are greatly exagerated, or...

2) The sex slaves aren't systematically integrated into the sexual commerce scene.

In either case, it's up to the folks who sustain the hypothesis that there are millions - neh, tens of millionjs - of sex slaves in the world to give good proof to sustain their hypothesis. This has not yet been forthcoming. It's logically impossible to ask that I provide proof that such a phenomena DOESN'T exist. Science is positivistic and all that.

I have no idea why the case of Aisha and Mohammed is not pertinent here, with the caveat that I recognize that it might be fictional.

Why would you possibly think it's relevant? We're not making arguments based on today's legal and moral understandings: we're talking about history, correct? So given that focus, why should I "defend" anything about Aisha and Mohammed? Whether or not you personally like Muslim diests and their beliefes, there's not much historical evidence one way or the other about Aisha. There's quite a bit about Hemmings and Jefferson.

I am arguing that the society in which they lived made the relationship that they might have wished to have impossible.

I would agree with that. It's where this relationship gets transformed into rape, based on the moral and philosophical arguments and political desires of the 21st and not on the historical evidence.

Sally Strange

This has been confusing rather than educational. What exactly set you off in the first place, who are you arguing against, and why are you seemingly incapable of being succinct about what you're trying to say?

Certain topics are complicated. They require a lot of fat chewing and can't be resumed in sound bites. I am being very clear about what I am saying and why. If you are having difficultites understanding a point in particular, please feel to point it out and I'll be happy to try to clarify it for you.

As for what instigated this discussion, it's the fact that in the video these comments relate to, both sides arem talking about myths rather than history. Bachman's are easy to see, but the idea that "all those guys" (i.e the founding fathers) had slaves and were happy about slavery is a myth, too. When I brought that up, someone mentioned the mythical accounbt of Jefferson's supposed rape of Hemmings as if it were history.

Since then, it's been a good excercize in illustrating why people - even supposed critical thinkers - prefer myths and moral arguments over science. We criticize this when its creationsist laying down the absolutism. When we feel that our moral views are being questined, however, we're often just as quick to respoind dogmatically.

Posted by: KG | January 27, 2011 1:35 PM

Incidentally, Thaddeus, would you judge it the same sort of grave historical solecism to call, say, Chinggis Khan a rapist? We have evidence (although no proof - maybe he was really a paragon of gender equality) that he was in the habit of appropriating the wives and daughters of defeated enemy rulers, and fathering children on them - but this was apparently standard behaviour among the leaders of victorious Mongol armies at the time, and would have been thoroughly approved of by his associates.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 1:38 PM

Regarding authority and people's probable skill sets here, if people here DO indeed have some training in history, how come we aren't seeing any historiography based arguments?

I'm playing fast and loose with certain assumptions. A trained historian should be able to easily see them. But instead of picking my argument apart on THAT basis - which is what y'all should be doing if you feel that your grasp of history is so much better than M. Bachman's - people keep on returning to these moral, philosophical and legal arguments.

I'd be willing to bet there's some lawyers out there, but no historians to speak of. I'm an amateur historian myself, with only a master's level training in the field. It wouldn't be hard for a person with some really significant study/reading/training in the history of gender and slavery to bring up a few key points I'm glossing over.

So where are those people if, in fact, we have scientifcally oriented historians in the peanut gallery? :D

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 1:44 PM

Dhorvath, so what I understand you as saying is that you couldn't give two figs for history: you're concerned with yourself in the here and now.

Fine. Great.

But then you have no call to smirk at Bachman's little historical faux pas, do you? nor at anyone's for that matter.

And I particularly enjoyed this bit:

I am not, as you mention, in possession of anywhere near enough data to judge what Hemming's feelings were.

And yet you repeatedly do. Beginning with the claim that you can understand Hemming's life but she couldn't possibly understand yours.

As for divorce, I suggest you look up the history of the concept. It wasn't fault free (i.e. simply based on saying "no') until really recently.

Oh, I forgot. You don't care about history. History is whatever you can use to make a political or emotional point in your own selfish interst today. Just like Michel Bachman and the Tea Baggers.

Forgive me, Dvorath. I thought I was debating with someone who actually cared about history.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 27, 2011 1:51 PM

"Just like Michele Bachman and the teabaggers."

Golly, I'm starting to think that Thaddeus is not capable of arguing in good faith.

Posted by: Shala | January 27, 2011 1:55 PM

Reading technical and scientific papers requires a minimum of familiarity with the subject matter at hand, which you apparently do not possess. Sorry.

I have a PhD in insanity and still can't comprehend a fucking thing you say. :/

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 2:07 PM

Ahn! Now we FINALLY get down to some historiographical evidence. Thank you, KG KG sez...

DNA evidence shows clearly that at least one of Hemings' children was fathered by either Jefferson or a male relative.

Yep, I too feel that the evidence certainly leans that way, especially if we take our understandings of human nnature into consideration. But that DNA evidence has been rationally challenged: 8 male Jeffersons lived in or near Monticello at the times and there are testimonys from other people (the Monticello overseer, for example) that Jefferson wasn't the father but that they knew who was.

It is not at all beyond the realm of possibility that another Jefferson male fathered Eston hemmings, the only child of sally's for which we have good DNA evidence.

What I'd have to say, going on critical thinking alone, is that the evidence points to Jefferson, but that the issue is far from closed. Someone would have to turn up a smoking gun infavor of another Jefferson male being the father at this point, however, say a card detailing a visit to Monicello by Randolf during the period when Eston was conceived.

How about unmarried, free women - the status which Jefferson could have given Hemings any time he chose? Are you claiming they had no legal or social protection from rape?

First of all, I have my doubts that Jefferson could have given her freedom any time he chose. There were several serious barriers to legal manumission, the most relevant one being that Sally was technically the property of his wife's family and also part of an estate that was often in arears. As I said before, someone would need to look into this more to see if it's a valid concern, but I know for a fact that your presumption that manumission could occur at the snap of an indivisual owner's fingers is an incorrect presumption.

Secondly, as a free black woman, Hemmings would not have had protection from rape. Very few rapists of black women are prosecuted - let alone convicted - TODAY in the U.S. In 1803, there were serious questions in Virginias as to whether or not the lwas even applied to free black citizens, or how if they did.

Thirdly, unmarried free woman had protection from rape, such as it was, as long as their sexual reputations were intact - i.e., as long as they were the wards of some male. Once that went away, their protection did too.

Which, of course, means that the position of slaves was worse than that of married women, because the slave's master had a thoroughly credible threat the husband did not.

I'm not contending that slaves' lives were equal or better than those of free women. What I AM contending is that this "consent" shit makes very little difference if were talking about the history of this issue.

And as for the subjective effect of "thoroughly credible threats", a husband had PLENTY of those. While you might be able to squint and claim that, OK, this form of abuse was better than that, I think that such hair-splitting, in moral terms, is pretty vacant.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | January 27, 2011 2:09 PM

Man, between this thread and one over at Bad Astronomy, it's been a nutty day on the ol' interwebs.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 2:28 PM

KG comments:

Crap. No-one has said that. What has been pointed out to you repeatedly is that not being able to say "no", vitiates the right to say "yes". What I've pointed out above is that Jefferson could have given Hemings more sexual autonomy (obviously not the extent of sexual autonomy a free American woman has now) by manumitting her, and did not; he preferred to keep her as his slave. Is this not relevant evidence about the quality of their relationship?

KG, I agree with that point in a philosophical sense. Where I have difficulties is when you want to take it, apply it to a completely different understanding of life, sex, and what not and then enshrine the resulting conclusion as HISTORY and not as the morally-based MYTH that it most certainly is.

And as I've said before regarding your presumptions on manumission:

1) It was not necessarily an easy thing to do. I'm not even sure if Jefferson had the legal right to do so in Hemmings' case.

2) As someone else pointed out above, its questionable whether such a situation would have resulted in a better life for Hemmings. From what the oral history says, she wanted freedom for her CHILDREN. I've never seen anything that indicates she wanted it for herself. Have you? Perhaps Hemmings was a bit more realistic about the probable constraints on her life and happiness than we give her credit for.

3) It was not in the power of Jefferson to give Hemmings sexual autonomy. The law wasn't set up that way. As a grown woman, by law, Hemming's sexuality was under the control of a man or an instituion, NEVER under her own control. She could perhaps have traded Jefferson for another male "protector", but that wouldn't have given her measureably more sexual autonomy. Furthermore, you seem to presume that Jefferson and Hemmings should have been concenred about the issues that we are concerned about today. "Sexual autonomy" wasn't even a concept, let alone a rallying cry in 1803, so to hypothesize that Jefferson should or even COULD have been worried about it is utopian in the extreme.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 27, 2011 2:33 PM

Thaddeus,
Even the "polite society" of the time considered sexual relations between master and slave problematic--and the concerns were not entirely miscegenation. Jefferson certainly went to great lengths to keep the secret. Even today, the Jefferson descendents are uncomfortable about including the Hemmings branch of the clan...now why would that be.

Jefferson was troubled by the institution of slavery, but was trapped by the economics of his time. He was way too smart not to understand the problematic nature of his relationship with Hemmings.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 27, 2011 2:37 PM

Thaddeus G. Blanchette

Dhorvath, so what I understand you as saying is that you couldn't give two figs for history: you're concerned with yourself in the here and now.

No, what I posted is how you are characterising me. We are clearly not going to have a conversation because you have already decided how I think, what I think, and that I cannot understand you. Why would I make any attempt to engage when you repeatedly miss my point? Instead I just might as well confirm your worst views of me so you can go on feeling smug.

Did you or did you not say this:

For freedom to mean anything at all, it must also mean the freedom to say "yes" as well as "no". If you support Sally's right to say no, you must logically support her right to say yes.

This is my problem. Right there in your words. How else can I say this so that it might bite through your smug exterior? I wish that Sally had the right to say no so that she could have yes mean something. This doesn't say anything about what I think she felt, which I have not as of yet made any conjecture about. This is my core problem: you seem to be making the case that she could have said yes and I dispute that. I dispute that because she couldn't say no, not because other people in her age also shared similar strictures, not because people today share similar strictures, but because there are people today who can say no and thus their ability to say yes has more meaning. Everything else was window dressing of the most manipulative kind that I am capable of producing because you don't seem to be adressing my problem.

I am agitated by your ignoring my primary issue to focus on the historic facts. I get that you are a history buff, and I am sure that I could learn some very interesting things from you, but so long as this issue looms I can't stop thinking about it.

Posted by: cicely (Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniac) | January 27, 2011 2:43 PM

Okay, Thad, you're not talking to me. Gotcha. In leaving, then, I'd like to suggest that you have a porcupine and a smile.
-

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 2:43 PM

KG asks:

Incidentally, Thaddeus, would you judge it the same sort of grave historical solecism to call, say, Chinggis Khan a rapist? We have evidence (although no proof - maybe he was really a paragon of gender equality) that he was in the habit of appropriating the wives and daughters of defeated enemy rulers, and fathering children on them - but this was apparently standard behaviour among the leaders of victorious Mongol armies at the time, and would have been thoroughly approved of by his associates.

The answer is quite simple, KG: Genghis himself obviously classified what he did as something very similar to the notion of rape. The evidence indicates that he understood it was sexual, that it was violent and his victims and contemporaries understood it that way to. You find me similar evidence that Jefferson, his contemporaries or Sally Hemmings considered what he did to be "rape" and then you may have something.

And just heading Ing off at the pass here, if you feel the need to judge Jefferson based on your contemporaru moral values, judge away. Just don't call those moral judgements historiography, OK? If you're happy using the same yardstick for jistory that Michelle Bachman uses, that's your call. But then please don't whine about "politicized views of history" because from that point, it all becomes a question of who can yell louder, you or Michelle.

My money's on the loudmouth from Minnesota. :D

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 27, 2011 2:52 PM

Tommy, If you want to play rocket scientist, go right ahead. Hell, put on your Captain Marvel cape and save the world while you are at it. But drop in sometime and visit reality? You've forgotten what it even looks like.

Posted by: KG | January 27, 2011 3:01 PM

Thaddeus,

Jefferson could certainly manumit Heming's children, because in at least some cases, he did. How could that be, and yet he could not manumit her? Surely her children legally belonged to whoever owned her. Assuming he could have freed her (incidentally, what man or institution would have owned her sexuality, as a free unmarried and fatherless woman?), he could certainly have done so while making clear that he would act as her protector, and that anyone who mistreated her would answer to him.

It was not in the power of Jefferson to give Hemmings sexual autonomy.

I didn't say it was: I said he could have given her more of it, and I think that as a free, unmarried woman known to be under his protection, she would have had more than as his slave.

"Sexual autonomy" wasn't even a concept, let alone a rallying cry in 1803

That it was not "a concept" does not mean that people of the time could not distinguish between having more or less of it. You might like to consider the life and writings (together) of Mary Wollstonecroft, before making such categorical statements. Perhaps your historical knowledge is not quite as complete as you like to think.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 27, 2011 3:05 PM

Why not? You apparently think pumping your fist about 19th century slavery and female circumcision on the internet is some sort of big moral accomplishment.

Don't belittle your achievements, Ing

Oh go fuck yourself with the rotting corpse of Jefferson...sideways.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 3:15 PM

@Ing - No, that is not a good thing to do with the corpse of Thomas Jefferson. I may not admire ever single decision he made, but his corporeal remains deserve better than to be used as a SideWays Instrument For Fucking Yourself (SWIFFY™).

Also, ARIDS wins a Sniny Internet for #303. It's like the Ocham's Razor of Sexual Ethics.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 3:23 PM

Mattir sez:

What I'm saying is that there is a difference between personal assent and legal consent. Hemmings did not have the ability to consent legally, and any relationship she had with Jefferson must be viewed in the context of that inability. My argument all along has been that we look at history through our own social and legal standards, and some relationships that may have seemed fine to the participants are now recognized for having some complicated moral or ethical aspects. Why can't we do this at the same time that we try to understand how people in earlier periods viewed their own lives?

OK, so essentially you're making a legalistic argument based on your understanding of 21st century law in your country. Your saying that said law is superior, morally speaking, to the law and Jefferson's time and thus should be used to understand Jefferson, not the laws of his peers or the customs of the society he lived in.

We can of course both do history and judge the past on our present day morals. The problem comes when you try to PORTRAY the past through your present day morals, calling that "history".

That's what both sides of the Bachman video above do. And it is not history. Just like creationism isn't science.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 27, 2011 3:26 PM

Thaddeus,
Jefferson's relationship with Hemmings was of necessity adulterous, and so condemned by the moral authorities of the time. There was also, as you say, the fear of miscegenation--a fear Jefferson shared. And while rape of female slaves by their masters was hardly rare in the South, it was not referred to in "polite society". Now add to this, the great lengths Jefferson went to to keep his relationship secret. Are you really going to tell me that Jefferson was so dim as to not realize that what he was doing was wrong? I'm not saying he would call it rape. I'm saying he would realize that it was wrong, and maybe not know why.

Perhaps Jefferson would not have realized what he was doing was rape. Perhaps he even deluded himself into believing that Hemmings wanted a sexual relationship with him.

Thaddeus, then as now, there are frat boys who delude themselves into thinking that having sex with a girl who has passed out is not rape. Their failure to recognize it does not mitigate the crime.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 3:37 PM

Thaddeus, you nitwit, I'm saying that we can see how people's decisions and behaviors are shaped by factors that they are not aware of. A hypothetical male slaveholder might have thought that his relationship with a female slave was fully consensual or he might have thought that he was doing something wrong but not been able to articulate why (thanks, ARIDS). It is not bad history to point out the ways in which the female slave might not have been able to consent and to point out that in contemporary society such behavior on the part of the slaveholder would be classified as rape.

History does not require one to exclude one's own experience or context, only to make it clear whether one is discussing the standards of the period in question or the standards of contemporary society. The problem is that the Michelle Bachmans of the world don't seem able to make this distinction or to identify which standards are under discussion.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 27, 2011 3:51 PM

But we'll never do that if we presume that we already know everything we need to know about this case because OF COURSE Jefferson must have raped Hemmings.

The straw man is having deja vu right now...

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 3:57 PM

Sally

You have continued to ignore the multiple requests to explain exactly who was arguing, and where, and how, that if a person lacks the ability to give legal consent, then she/he must also lack personal autonomy.

Why would I want to "explain how if a person lacks the ability to give legal consent, then s/he must also lack personal autonomy"? that is not my point.

The point is that people are making the claim that sex under these conditions necessarily amounts to rape.

I dispute that claim, unless we are going to transform the concept of "rape" into something completely different than what it has been in Western jurisprudence. And if we do that, it's not history we are concerned with.

On a personal level of agency, the people who do this are claiming that they know better than the people the events happened to. Because their understandings of the interface between sex and consent are morally superior (or perhaps "more evolved"), they claim the right to ascribe accusations to an event independent of the evidence left by the people who went through it.

As I said before, Sally Hemmings and her descendents never claimed she was raped and that sort of thing DOES INDEED percolate down through the family histories of descendants of slaves. The accusation wasn't made then or at any time in the past, though it was made against countless other masters of slaves.

Suddenly, 'round about 20 years ago when we began to serious look at the effects of power on sexual relationships, the relationship started being called "rape" - and mostly by people who hadn't done the slightest research into the specific situation at hand or the more general situation of slavery and 19th sexual relations.

Essentially, then, the people who do this - whether they want to admit it or not - are ultimately saying they know more about what went on in Hemming's life than she did herself. After all, they don't think they need to look at the historical evidence: their moral and legal definitions are more than enough for them.

This is indeed a rejection of the concept that Hemmings could have significant agency or autonomy in the way she lived her life. If you're not concerned with what she DID do and say, but concenred instead with your philosophical views on what she SHOULD have did or said, you are not at all respecting her agency.

That's pretty damned clear, Sally.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 4:05 PM

Wait, so this whole discussion is about the meaning of the word rape? You have got to be kidding me.

OK, so Jefferson had not-fully-consensual-sex with a female slave owned by his household and who was his dead wife's half sister. Said female slave may have been exercising personal agency within the limits of the social and legal system of 18th century Virginia but could not give or withhold legal consent within that system.

It would be nice if we had a whole range of words to denote varieties of coerced or non-fully-consensual sex, but we don't.

Posted by: Shala | January 27, 2011 4:09 PM

Science science is generally funded by money

whoa

deep revelation there broski

Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD) | January 27, 2011 4:15 PM

As a result, you look like an arrogant, myopic douchenozzle who happens to be well-informed about certain specific historical periods.

Can can he write lucidly about the Congo?

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 27, 2011 4:29 PM

Thaddeus,

Explain to me one thing, Dhor: how is that in any ways different from Michelle Bachman's mythological use of history? She too is cherry picking data and making mythological just-so stories in order to make sense of her world, her morality and her way of life.

Michele Bachman has mischaracterized her nation's history as if it was sunshine all the time for immigrants. I am saying that a slave was in fact owned and did not have the same rights that I enjoy. If you see the two of us as doing the same thing, I just don't know where to go from here.

I am not saying that I am right because of a reworking of history. I have never claimed to know what was going on in Sally Hemmings mind, only that she did not and could not understand my life. I haven't said that she wasn't human, I have argued that her specific situation robbed her of opportunities that I take for granted. In doing so I have attempted to make a point about ownership and sexual agency which I think is valid and important.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | January 27, 2011 4:36 PM

Judging from the results, the folks at NASA have not been playing the role of rocket scientists very well at all, and indeed, Americans have been playing science very poorly, if the national debt is any measure of performance.

Science science is generally funded by money, then the national debt seems to be a reasonable metric.

National debt as a metric of performance in science?!

Oh, that's excellent!

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | January 27, 2011 4:41 PM

And you sound so hysterical

Really? That's hysterical? You don't get out much.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 27, 2011 4:47 PM

You are arguing against this position: that “if a person lacks the ability to give legal consent, then s/he must also lack personal autonomy".

No, I am arguing that lack of legal ability of consent in this case does not necessarily make what occurred "rape" in any sense but, perhaps, the 21st century legal.

Ah, well. I think you are misrepresenting what you already wrote, but I'll have to check that later.

In the meantime, you continue to misrepresent the arguments of those objecting to you, because as far as I can tell, nobody is saying that what occurred between Hemmings and Jefferson should be viewed as rape in anything but a 21st century context. You can have the opinion that categorizing their relationship according to those standards is useless, and that's fine. But applying a different set of standards to the same set of facts and interpreting accordingly is a very different thing from making up a whole new set of facts, which is what Michele Bachman did.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 27, 2011 4:53 PM

Thaddeus,

Yes, I understand. To you, history is apparently about creating politically useful myths. History is to guide us how to live now, so we must be very, very careful about what examples kids get of the past and how they are allowed to interpret them. Only if we do this will they grow up into good human beings.

Are you saying that history should just be viewed dispassionately ? How then are we to learn anything from it?
How can we appreciate our benefits without understanding that our ancestors did not have them? How can we avoid the pitfalls that surround us without seeing the results of previous societies that succumbed to them? In order to do that we need to know what happened, yes, but I think we also need to keep a clear idea in our head about what is right so that we can learn. Disgust at gladiators, people don't kill people for sport. Disgust at the divine right of Kings, people are equal, only opportunities are different. Digust at exorcisms and leeching, medicine saves lives. Disgust at slavery, people don't belong to other people.
All of these are appropriate reactions in my mind, do you disagree?

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 27, 2011 5:04 PM

And you sound so hysterical

Really? That's hysterical? You don't get out much.

Who knew that Brazilians are actually Vulcans?

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 27, 2011 5:18 PM

Thaddeus G. Blanchette

Actually, Michelle was saying things were once bad, but the Founding Fathers fixed them and made all the boo-boos go away because they loved us thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much.

Well, that wasn't quite what I took out of the quoted video, but I am willing to admit that my interpretation is not the only one, nor does it have to be correct or even maintained by me.

And your comment makes a pretty big historical error in that it sets you, a 21st century person living a middle-class existence off against a nineteenth century slave as if that comparison was in any way, shape or form historically relevant. Like Michelle, you do this to prove a moral and political point about your existence today, not because you are concerned with what really went on back then.

Indeed, I am certainly using an historical example to lend some weight to a contemporary conversation. I think that is a valuable thing to do with historic examples, but you seem to disagree with that. The difference is that I see it as valuable to contemporary society to be compared to historic societies.

I'll admit that your argument is more subtle and sophisticated than Michelle's, but the underlying view of history is still the same: history is to serve our political and moral needs today. The big difference between you two isn't your view of history, but your view of the political and moral goals that should form said view of history. Michel's comes from Fischer-Price while yours comes from American Girl but neither of you are talking about actual history: you're talking myths.

Do you dispute that Thomas Jefferson owned Sally Hemmings as a slave? Have I been incorrect in stating or assuming that in this discussion? Have I attributed to either of them any thoughts or actions which are unsupportable? My only supposition has been to say that Sally could not say no to Thomas. Was that incorrect?

As I said, you are presuming that you can understand HER life but she can't understand yours. You presume that you take for granted opportunities she didn't have and that's almost certainly correct. But are you entirely sure that she didn't take for granted some things in her life that would entirely confuse and amaze you?

I don't see how your last question is in anyway different from me saying that I don't know what was going on in her mind, or my previous comment that I doubted you could imagine what her life was like from her perspective. I don't understand her life because it is too different from mine, any attempt to put myself in her shoes is inevitably coloured by the world that I live in, one in which rights and opportunities and knowledge exist in a state that I do sincerely believe no one who lived in 1800 could have imagined.
Having said that, I realize that may sound like I don't think they were intellecually capable which was not my point, merely that their lack of experience precludes them from understanding my world and most especially consent in the way that I understand it.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 5:24 PM

Dhorvath sez:

Are you saying that history should just be viewed dispassionately ? How then are we to learn anything from it?

Again, you presume that history must have a moral purpose. It must teach us the right things or it is useless. That's not a scientific view, Dhorvath: it's essentially a moral and political view.

As the universe is morally neutral, so ultimately is history. There is no great mission to be discovered in the study of human events, no guiding hand of progress moving us from barbarity to enlightenment.

How can we appreciate our benefits without understanding that our ancestors did not have them? How can we avoid the pitfalls that surround us without seeing the results of previous societies that succumbed to them?

How can you be so sure that you truly understand what the real pitfalls and benefits even are or were?

In order to do that we need to know what happened, yes, but I think we also need to keep a clear idea in our head about what is right so that we can learn.

As PZ has reminded us all time and again, that's not how science works. Now, I'm not saying you don't need morals or a sense of right and wrong: I'm saying that it's not scientific to use that sense to judge the veracity of historical evidence.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 27, 2011 5:32 PM

Thaddeus,

Now, I'm not saying you don't need morals or a sense of right and wrong: I'm saying that it's not scientific to use that sense to judge the veracity of historical evidence.

I think you mistake me: I do not like the idea of using my particular moral views to determine what actually happened in the past. What happened is best attributed by the historic record, whether that is archeological evidence, primary written sources, or what have you. Determining what happened is, and should remain, a scientific endeavour as you seem to be saying.
However, life is happening right now. How can we ignore the information that history gives us in determining how to live that life? And in doing so, how can we not show examples of things that did not work or that we don't approve of in order to better understand why we are doing what we do now?

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 5:38 PM

KOPD

Really? I guess I grew up in a fantasy world.

I live in one of the most violent cities on the planet: Rio de Janeiro.

Where'd you grow up, KOPD? Sarajevo?

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | January 27, 2011 5:55 PM

I live in one of the most violent cities on the planet: Rio de Janeiro.

Besides, who gives a fuck what they do or don't do in Rio, because you're not there, you're here, and in this particular slice of the 'real world', crying over nasty words isn't fucking done. Go faint somewhere else or get over it.

Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD) | January 27, 2011 6:01 PM

Where'd you grow up, KOPD? Sarajevo?

I didn't know that Sarajevo was known for its quantity of personal insults. How did we get from insults to violence? You said that in the real world people don't insult each other to their faces. To disprove that I apparently have to get shot by a sniper.

I'm really not following this conversation.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 6:12 PM

Wait, I thought KOPD grew up in Missouri. That's one scary place, judging from the folks at the gun show SonSpawn went to. Very polite, though.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 6:26 PM

KOD, kindly piss off.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 6:30 PM

I am really not sure why you took such ridiculous offense at my Mohammed/Aisha question. I am totally serious when I say that what was considered appropriate then is not considered appropriate now. In the story, at least, Aisha did have some agency, even if she was a child when she was married.

I get extremely provoked with people who point out that the Bible stories are filled with genocide, that Mohammed was a child rapist, just as you are getting annoyed about using the word "rape" to describe Jefferson's treatment of Hemmings.

For the record, I am female, I have worked extensively with people who have been sexually abused as children, and I don't think it's pedophilia is acceptable. Nor do I think it's admirable to have sex with women one literally owns. It may have been acceptable, or even moral, at one time, but it's not now. The word "rapist" is equally appropriate or inaccurate for Jefferson as it is for Mohammed, even if neither they nor Aisha or Hemmings would have used that word for their own relationship.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 7:03 PM

if there's "belligerence" being created here, I'm certainly not the person who created all of it.

Yeah, because this, offered early on in this discussion,

I admit that this is rather like shooting goldfish in a barrel. After all, most "hard scientists" have zero to little training in the so-called "soft sciences" and vice versa, so no one should expect the folks on a biology board to be great guns when it comes to thinking about history.

is certainly not belligerent or insulting to a a diverse, thoughtful, and educated group of commenters.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 7:09 PM

Seriously, Ing: if you're going to vent your spleen at a drop of a hat - and you do - you'd better expect some back.

:D

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 27, 2011 7:26 PM

So basically it's unscientific to call rape "rape" when it wasn't called rape by the people doing the raping/being raped?

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 7:38 PM

Dhorvath, slaves did indeed say "no". It was risky as hell, yes. But a master who acted like he could do whatever the hell he wanted, ignoring the slaves wishes competely, found his crops mysteriously burning, equipment destroyed, work ruined.

Read a bit about what Max Weber has to say regarding "domination". Jural domination is one thing: actually getting people to internalize the legitimacy of said domination is something else entirely and that, under slavery conditions, required a complex game of violence, cajoling, alliances.

I mean seriously, Genovese, Freyre... Everyoine who's looked into this has made that point. The plantation management manuals were also really clear on this point: sex with slaves was the quiskest way to incite unrest in the quarters and foment runaways, sabotage, possibly even assassination.

If you tried to run a plantation based on what your jural rights supposedly were, you'd probably quickly be bankrupt or dead.

So I don't think we can necessarily assume that Sally saying "no" to Jefferson meant violent rape or a whipping. Her brother found a way to get to freedom. Sally was right there with him in Paris and certainly KNEW that she had the opportunity as well. She could have killed Jefferson on several occasions. She could have run away (apparently it wasn't that hard of a thing to do at Monticello).

At the very least, she could have told her descendants that she had been raped. Other slave women did this.

There were plenty of means by which Sally could have made her displeasure known. Even though these all fall into what Scott calls "the weapons of the weak", they are indeed weapons and one should not handwave them as irrelevant.

Do you have any reason to suppose that she could make the leap from the mindset of early ninteenth century slavery to the mindset of early twenty first century middle class? I know about both ways of life and I don't think I can do the reverse.

My point is that you can't, but several of your comments seem to indicate that you think you can. If you can't, how can you positively compare your life to hers in such categorical terms as you have? You think you are free, do you? Someone very probably owns your work and where you live. As for "reproductive rights", you can get an abortion, no problem? Most women in this world still can't.

I admit that I personally feel that my life is more comfortable than Sally's, too, but I feel very uncomfortable making those kind of statements, based as they are on an understandable priveleging of the life I know.

And I would hazard a guess that you don't know nearly as much about her way of life as you presume.

That doesn't change that Sally Hemmings could not say yes in the manner that I understand it. Consent could not be given in the modern sense by which I understand the word and coercion was present in the manner in which I understand the term. I hate that Sally did not have the opportunity to live in my world because I am quite sure that Sally could not enjoy the same freedoms in her world that I enjoy in mine.

And what does it do, in terms of HISTORY, for you to kake that statement? Exactly zip. I'm FINE with that sort of judgement. My point from the get go is that it is a moral and political judgement, not history. And in the video posted above, what we see is one man's moral and historical judgements colliding with a woman's moral and historical judgements.

Listening to the MSNBC commentator's complaints that "Bachman doesn't know history" is a bit like listening to Herr Ratzinger complain that Muslims support pedophilia because of the Aisha story.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 8:01 PM

KOPD sez:

Because I challenged your assertion that people don't insult each other face to face in the "real world"?

Nope. Simply an illogical, moral-political reaction to trolls.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 27, 2011 8:27 PM

Wow! Did I ever waste a day!

Massively avoiding work here. Just can't gear myself up to do anymore serious writing, so I shot the shit on the internet all day. I bet this doesn't happen to people in the "Hard Sciences" (tm).

Thanks for the thoughtful commentary, to those folks like Angel, Dhorvath and Mattir.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 9:02 PM

If you can't understand why it's insulting to my position to say I should be defending Mo's ficticious relationship with a nine year old girl, then you need to think a wee bit harder. You didn't drop that as an example of "what was OK then isn't OK now": you specifically targeted at me, as if I were saying that such a thing WAS OK.

Be honest now.

Yes, I actually was being serious and honest. The way we view past social standards is complicated, and what was OK then is not OK now. I was pointing out that you appeared to have a double standard as related to the agency or consent that might be exercised by a child-bride or a slave approached sexually by her owner. I did not appreciate being told that I was protecting the helpless wiminz from the bad scary menz when I was discussing sex work and trafficking and being extremely careful to be gender neutral.

You further decided that I was a transhumanist with a belief in Universal Moral Standards™.

I did thank you for the list of books, though.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | January 27, 2011 9:14 PM

As for "condemning rape", you are a courageous man, Mat.

Tell me, Thad, is there anyone here that you don't automatically assume is male?

(You don't have to include Nerd of Redhead in your list. We all know he's a lady.)

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | January 27, 2011 9:24 PM

Ing,
Oh, I missed that! We should coin a law stating something along the lines of "If a person tries to guess a Pharyngula commentator's gender, they will inevitably be wrong".

They are lovely torpedoes, by the way (if you don't mind me saying). Loving the new 'nym, too.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 27, 2011 10:00 PM

*Sticks a dollar in Nerd's bra*

Posted by: llewelly | January 27, 2011 11:12 PM

Dr. Pangloss. Someone has stolen your Shtick.

Posted by: KG | January 28, 2011 5:42 AM

I wrote most of this yesterday, and have not had time to catch up with the thread, so I apologise if any of the points have been dealt with.

In the meantime, you continue to misrepresent the arguments of those objecting to you, because as far as I can tell, nobody is saying that what occurred between Hemmings and Jefferson should be viewed as rape in anything but a 21st century context. - Sally Strange

Indeed: my original description of Jefferson as a rapist was not, of course, based on any misapprehension that this is how he would have been viewed by his contemporaries (although as has been pointed out, sex with slaves was viewed as immoral by many, perhaps most of them). It was, rather, a response to the absurdity of Bachmann and her ilk pretending that the "Founding Fathers" were admirable by modern standards, and to Thaddeus's pompous well-not-all-of-them-had-slaves-and-the-interviewer-should-have-let-Russo-refuse-to-answer-the-question comment@67. I use the description of Jefferson as a rapist, despite being aware of its anachronistic nature, because so many Americans, even among liberals, have an absurd quasi-religious reverence for the man, which his slaveowning, racism, and hypocrisy over the issue of slavery, do not merit. Mattir, I'm not in the least offended that you find my use of the term "inadvisable", but I disagree.
Thaddeus,
I see you don't actually know what the laws on manumission were in Virginia. As far as I can discover, from 1782 to at least 1806, there were few restrictions, and thousands of slaves were freed. Reports of Jefferson’s sexual relationship with a slave date from at latest 1802. By the time of Jefferson's death in 1826 freed slaves normally had to leave the state, but he was able to arrange for Heming's children to be allowed to stay - so presumably could have done the same for her even at that point.

I haven't seen anything in her [Wollstonecroft's] writings which indicates that she was in favor of sexual autonomy or even understood that concept.

That's why I said look at her life and her writings together. She persuaded her sister to leave her husband and child, lived with Gilbert Imlay without marrying him, and when she married William Godwin, they maintained separate homes in order to retain their independence. Of course she did not have 21st century ideas, but it is equally absurd to pretend that ideas of emancipating women from the position of their sexuality being owned by some man or institution were not already current. For that matter, they can possibly be traced back at least to the “ranters” of the English Commonwealth period
While not a historian, I have read a great deal of history - and few if any historians actually adopt a completely morally neutral stance toward the people and events they describe. Concern for historical accuracy, and moral judgements about these events and people, are not incompatible, and I consider it thoroughly dishonest of you to pretend that anyone here has taken the same contemptuous attitude to the former as Bachmann. Your main concern appears to be demonstrating your own superiority. Nor, contrary to your claims, does judging people from the past, or other cultures, by our standards, imply any claim that these standards are absolute: you have apparently fallen for the fallacy that the only alternatives are an absolutist morality, and complete moral relativism. We can say why we consider our standards better than some other we are comparing them with, defend them rationally, and be prepared to change our minds in the light of evidence and argument.

He knew it was wrong and he knew why. Jefferson was a white supremacist. There's no doubt about that at all. His relationship to Hemmings was wrong, in his eyes, because it "amalgamated the races". This is what made it shameful to him.

Ah. So we can't have any idea what was in Heming's mind, but you know exactly what was in Jefferson's. But let’s assume you are right: what sort of sexual relationship is it where one partner is not only the slave of the other, but considered a racial inferior by that other, who also considers the relationship shameful?

As I said, you are presuming that you can understand HER life but she can't understand yours.

Well, there is something of an asymmetry here: we know something of her life and times, while she (and Jefferson) knew absolutely nothing of ours.

We don't because people consistently expand the word "rape" until it's a catch phrase for everything from brutal sexual violence to bad sex someone had second thoughts about two or three days later.

Well, I think this gives us a better idea just where Thaddeus is coming from.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 6:26 AM

KOPD leers,

You have a strange definition of "troll". Apparently it means "people who don't fellate me...

KOPD, while I appreciate the offer, I’m happily committed to a monogamous relationship. I’m flattered, though, believe me. Please don’t take this as rejection.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 8:23 AM

Dear Dr. Bunsen,

First of all, it's hard to keep mall these conversational threads seperate, so forgive me if I'm not tracking well on every single topic. Rereading the question which inspired your complaint, I see that it refers to the very beginning of this debate and a ´presumption that I said something I didn't. When it came up again yesterday, my initial reaction was "well, hell, what does that have to do with anything?" Now I see, however, the misconceptions that allowed he question to grow.

Why would I want to "explain how if a person lacks the ability to give legal consent, then s/he must also lack personal autonomy"? that is not my point.

The question really doesn't address the point I originally brought up or the points I brought up later one, though it seems, superficially, that it might. And the confusion seems to hang on a conflation of the notions of consetn and autonomy.

Here's my original statement and it presumes the person I'm responding to (KG) holds the very common belief that "sex under slavery must've been rape". That was the belief it was addressed to:

Self-determination, the human right which is at the base of our repudiation of both slavery and rape, is predicated on the autonomy of the individual.

For freedom to mean anything at all, it must also mean the freedom to say "yes" as well as "no". If you support Sally's right to say no, you must logically support her right to say yes. Otherwise you're simply pissing in the wind.

Note that this doesn't talk about "consent" at all, nor does it presume that Sally was indeed autonomous. What I'm getting at here is the fact that Sally's lack of jural rights does not tell us a damned thing about how she felt regarding sex with Jefferson.

One can argue - and several people do - that "what she felt" is of no import to the charge of rape and that's apparently where this "consent" issue is brought up. The underlying belief appears to be a pop version of the UN Palermo Protocol's understanding that consent can't be given in situations involving violence, coercion, or fraud.

To me, the whole "consent" issue, in this case, is importing a 21st century legal definition backwards in time to morally judge an early 19th century situation. I believe that if you are truly concerned with people as autonomous beings, you need to look at the world as they saw it and understand their actions within their horizons of possibility.

Could Sally have defined what occurred to her as "rape"? Yes, she could have. Many slave women did and we have their stories regarding that today. Slaves were conscious of their state and made distinctions between things like "seduction", "taking advantage of" and "rape" which were all 19th century concepts which described "bad sex".

When one brings up the blanket, generic, 21st century legal definition of "consent" and relabels the past without paying attention to what those who lived it said, one runs rough-shod over what practical agency the slaves did have - which in some cases could be quite considerable.

Now, if one does this in order to prove a moral or political point TODAY, that's properly called "rhetoric" and it's completely acceptable, as long as we remember what it is. But rhetoric is not history and the comment I made was SPECIFICALLY aimed at KG, and she does indeed seem to conflate rhetoric with history in that statement. KG says:

Well, it wasn't just Jefferson who had slaves (and for all his crocodile tears, never freed them, including the one he was raping on a regular basis).

First of all, KG mentioned that other founding fathers had slaves as if I were claiming they didn't. That's kind of a rhetorical cheap shot, because I neither said nor implied anything of the kind. The MSNBC guy claims "All those guys [founding fathers] owned slaves" and my point was that most certainly all of them did not (In fact, I'll bet that MOST of them did not).

Secondly, the discussion was regarding whether or not it was just Michelle Bachman who blew her history lessons or both sides. This was the topic under debate. So when KG makes a rhetorical point in this debate, you can see, I hope, why I would presume he is conflating rhetoric with history.

So, coming full circle, my point was that if you're truly interested in human autonomy, one needs to pay attention to it, even in situations where one would think there is none. This point is made in the CONTEXT of my general argument regarding history, which is what we were discussing at the time. To make it perfectly clear, it should hav included a rider to the effect of "...if what we're discussing is history and not simply the construction of competitive, moral or political myths about the past."

Does that answer your question?

Short synthesis: "If what we're doing is history and not moral/political rhetoric, what we need to be concerned with, when we express concern for autonomy, is how people could've excercized their agency given the horizons of possibility they had at the time. We should be sensitive to how THEY viewed the world in their actions in it and not try to bulldoze those perceptions with interpretations based on our notions of rigth and wrong."

That said, early 19th century people did indeed recognize sexual injustice. They had, in fact, a wider vocaublary to describe it than we currently do. Slaves did indeed recognize that their situation was unjust - they were well aware of that. And within those limits of possibility, slaves made very clear distinctions regarding sexual relationships between slaves and non-slaves. These could be described as based upon love, lust (mutual or non-), seduction, abuse of power ("taking advantage of"), or rape.

My point is, if one is concerned with human rights, one should listen to how "the victims" describe their situation and take that into consideration. Slaves did not describe every sexual contact between bound and free as involving sexual abuse, even when it didn't meet our exacting standards of what an egalitarian relationship SHOULD be. They very well could have and did not.

Based on what authority, other than than presumptive moral authority, can you override their understandings of what went on and emplace your own? And if you're saying that your moral views are what constitute your view of history, then you're essentially making the same error as Michelle Bachman. That "error" persists, in scientific historical terms, whether I morally agree with you or not (it turns out that I mostly do).

YES today's moral and legal understanding of sexual autonomy and power is better! FFS! Why is saying so a BAD thing?

It's not a bad thing if you're spouting rhetoric (and rhetoric has it's place). It's an absolutely horrible presumption if you're trying to do history.

Why? Because it's PREJUDICE, the anathema of science. You're approaching the past in the same way that Great White Explorers (tm) approached "the uncivilized", assured of your morally superior positioning and convinced, beforehand, that you know what's relevant, good, righteous and awful. You don't even really know what the moral and legal understandings of sex and power back then really were, but you feel you can already make a qualitiative comparison between that time and ours and an incredibly reductionist and simplistic explanation as well.

That's building a "just so" story, Dr B: it's not doing history.

Throughout the thread, you seem to be attempting to set up Historiography as the ONLY frame for discussion of ANY historical event, ever. Why is it not also possible to have useful and valuable discussions about historical events that touch on legality, morality and ethics AS WELL?

Oh, c'mon, Dr. Bunsen! I've said about a dozen times above that people are free to make moral judgements or political or legal judgements. I've even said such judgements are NECESSARY and INEVITABLE. What they are not - and should not be confused with - is history. You can indeed do history in an empassioned, politically informed manner - viz Howard Zinn. But you cannot not do history in the scientific sense if you presume, beforehand, that your current moral and political understandings of the world are universal in scope and should be the yardstick against which all historic events and personages are labeled "good" or "bad".

It is possible to use history to sustain moral and political arguments. That's what it's good for. And that is, I repeat, necessary and inevitable. The problem comes when those moral and political arguments STAND IN for history. In other words, while history can and should be used to build your moral and political views, the opposite should be avoided, presuming that one approaches history as a science. I do. Many of the people posting here seem to feel, along with Michelle Bachman and the post modernists, that history is simply a branch of rhetoric.

So if someone were to say "We know that slavery incites sexual abuse," THAT would be a proper use of history in a political and moral argument. It's sustainable given the observable facts in the historical record. You morally and politically believe that sexual abuse is bad and that looking at history, we can see clear causal links between what we define as "sexual abuse" today and the institution of slavery.

"Thomas Jefferson raped Sally Hemmings" goes the opposite direction, absent some solid proof that what occurred was understood to be rape at the time and - principally - by the person labled as "victim": Ms. Hemmings.

No-one is disputing that the concept and fact of rights was radically different at the time.

Actually, Dr B, a couple people have implied just that. And secondly, it's not a lack of a belief that "things were different back then" that's the problem here. It's the belief that "things were different back then and, even though I really know very little about what happened, I can morally judge the folks who lived back then according to the laws of today because my views and understandings of the world are superior".

THAT'S the problem. I mean, everyone here's got really solid views about Hemmings and Jefferson's relationship and sex under slavery in general, but I don't think it's unfair to say that APPARENTLY I'm the only one who's actually read anything about it - or at least retained what I read (someone mentioned having once read Genovenese and "forgotten" him). This isn't an appeal to authority, it's an observation of dogma. If you have rock solid beliefs about Jefferson and Hemmings relationship, like KG, but you've not bothered to read anything about it except, perhaps, a Wiki entry, then what are your beliefs founded on if not dogma?

I often wish I could crack it through the thick skulls of my contemporaries that the rights they take so for granted today that they are invisible to them aren't some magically inherent property of the universe, didn't always exist, and were at times unimaginable, in the strictest sense of the word.

Agreed. But it's almost as bad to presume that such rights represent a general "progress".

Here's one thing about slavery which a lot of people don't know or gloss over: wage slavery was considered as bad or worse by many contemporaries who looked at the two systems. And we've got comentaries from all over the political spectrum of existence on this point: from the left, the right, from slaves, slave oweners, abolitionists, etc.

And almost everyone here on this board is what those folks would call a "wage slave", with very few substantive "rights" to anything at all.

Now this view of trhe world can and should be debated, but it existed. Plenty of people saw the world that we live in coming and were appalled by it and for good reason. As both Marx and Max Weber very cogently pointed out, slavery collapsed because there were BETTER and more effective forms of social and political domination to be had. You live in those chains right now and are smugly convinced that, compared to those of the past, said chains don't exist.

So that's one of the reasons I look in askance upon progressives like yourself who seem to think we are on an ever-increasing slope of improving rights. Most Americans are trained from birth to ignore their constraints, so it's not at all surprising to discover that they feel they are so free in comparison with the peoples of the past and the other peoples of the world today.

Now, personally I prefer to live the life I live today. But realize, Dr, Bunsen, that you and I are in the small minority of the globe for which capitalism more-or-less works. Would you rather be a slave in Monticello in 1802 or a "free worker" contracted to a sweatshop and living in some shanty town in India or Brazil today? Its those loads of cheap laborers in their billions, that allow you to truck on down to Wallmart in order to buy a cheap cotton t-shirt whenever you want. Those folks are the majorit on the planet, not people like you or me. They are the "typical" face of the early twenty-first century. Comparing their lives to the lives of the slaves at Monticello, it's hard for me to decide what is "worse".

So I wonder, Dr, Bunsen, if you tske these sorts of things into consideration when you confidently proclaim that your life as a middle class person in twentyfirst century North America is so inately superior to what came before.

For you and me, perhaps. For others? I wonder how much use those notional rights are in their day-to-day lives.

And please..., Don't build a strawman and say I'm advocating a return to 19th century slavery for the masses because it was "better". What I'm saying is that these notions of "better" and "worse" that you so confidently toss about as inescapable truths can and should be relativized.

De jure ≠ de facto.

When we get right down to it, in the social world as it REALLY exists, there is only "da facto". As Pierre Bourdieu would put it, it's all essentially practice. There is no formal abstract structure which determine practice.

"De jure" is a comforting myth. In socio-historical practice, when "de jure" is used to interpret "de facto", then a principal rule of scientific observation is being violated. Things aren't what they are because we think they SHOULD be that way.

In 1990??? Jeebus, now who's rewriting history?

I keep on forgetting how time flies. 30 years might be better. :D

But I'm interested, Dr B.: can you find me a peer-reviewed historical work that argues that Jefferson raped Hemmings from BEFORE 1990? I can't think of one, though they may indeed exist. And in popular culture, this particular accusation only became hegemonic in the last 20 years or so. If you can find me good examples of its hegemonic enunciation before then (say in Time Magazine or some similar pop sounding board), I'd be very much obliged.

#361: Asshole.

LOL! Hey, you'll notice that Ing called herself "the mistress of the snark torpedoes". You get what you put out and she seems quite happy to be seen as a snarkmeister (perhaps Odious can give me the gender correct version of that?). Every time Ing has begun a discussion with me, she begins it with personal abuse, ad hominems, drect insults and what not. She excuses this because "I make her mad", even though I certainly wasn't trying to, initially and even though, upon further reflection, she generally says she agrees with me.

I figure that anyone who considers themselves to be free to piss on others as the mood takes her deserves a bit back.

And frankly, Ing's repeated yelps about what a moral and commited person she is because she's notionally against whatever evil she watched on T.V. or read about in the HuffPo last week is getting kind of stale. Oh, she's against rape and slavery. That's brave, considering that I'm sure she personally knows nobody who is actually FOR them. And it's doubly brave when you make these sorts of claims anonymously, especially to a person who is using their real name and identity.

And it was truly memorable and special to hear Ing bang her chest about how committed and moral she is on the day I learned that David Kato was beaten to death. That really put it all into perspective for me. Your mileage obviously varies.

#338 and thread in general: "History is the nightmare from which we are struggling to wake."

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 28, 2011 9:48 AM

Thaddeus: We don't because people consistently expand the word "rape" until it's a catch phrase for everything from brutal sexual violence to bad sex someone had second thoughts about two or three days later.

KG: Well, I think this gives us a better idea just where Thaddeus is coming from.

Indeed. I also think it’s quite telling that Thaddeus pretends that taking a stand against rape in all its forms is entirely socially accepted, and requires no moral courage, because everyone (except presumably for criminal psychopaths) agrees that rape is always a horrible thing. Of course, if Thaddeus is one who joins society in defining rape only as sex that happens as a result of violence or threatened violence by a complete stranger, then he would be correct. Everyone does agree that it’s a terrible thing when a man jumps out of a dark alleyway, waving a gun or a knife, and forces a woman to submit to sex with him against her will. Everyone condemns “rape-rape,” as Whoopi Goldberg might call it.

But those rapes make up a small minority of rapes and sexual assaults. When you start to get into the more common situations, where the woman is acquainted with her rapist, accepted drinks or a ride from him, is in a relationship with him, etc., condemning rape is not socially acceptable and often does require some courage to speak out about it. Roman Polanski, Ben Roethlisberger, and Julian Assange can all testify to this reality.

Thaddeus’ posts above were generally unreadable and what parts were decipherable were quite insufferable, mostly because it’s more example of the bad communication that has already been identified several times. He shows an inability to accurately perceive what people are saying to him. He seems incapable of expressing his own thoughts in a clear and concise manner. He seems to adore looking down his nose at people who condemn rape, apparently he thinks condemning rape and slavery is rather passe and bourgeois, because there are new forms of enslavement to worry about, and anyway, a Ugandan gay rights activist was beaten to death recently, and being disgusted about his death is ever so much more cutting edge than being disgusted at the continued professional success and social acceptance of convicted child rapist Roman Polanski.

Calling sex between an enslaved woman and the man who owns her “rape” is accurate. It may be anachronistic, when talking about people in the past for whom the concept of consent did not exist, but it is still accurate. It does not in any way imply a disregard for the personal agency of the enslaved woman. I believe that Thaddeus has an exaggerated and inaccurate understanding of what the modern concept of consent entails and has been reacting, in a rather over-emotional way, to his own misperception of this concept from the very beginning. Either way, it’s really not worth engaging with him any more, because he has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s not able or willing to communicate clearly and honestly. It’s a pity, because it seems like he has plenty to add to the conversation.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 28, 2011 10:01 AM

I have worked pretty hard in these comments to make clear that I do not think that either Hemmings or Jefferson thought of their relationship as rape.

INTENT IS NOT FUCKING MAGIC

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 10:17 AM

I also think it’s quite telling that Thaddeus pretends that taking a stand against rape in all its forms is entirely socially accepted, and requires no moral courage, because everyone (except presumably for criminal psychopaths) agrees that rape is always a horrible thing.

Have many anti-rape activists gotten killed, lost their jobs, lost their reputations or otherwise were repressed for their beliefs in your neighborhood, Sally? If so, please name three.

The very tone of moral superiority you adopt in implying that I somehow support rape is pretty good proof of how complacent you are in your unstated belief that calling someone "rape supportive" puts them beyond the social pale. If you weren't entirely assured of the stigma that's attached to people who are accused of rape or of supporting rape in your society, you wouldn't even attempt to construct that particular strawman.

So no, it doesn't take any moral courage at all to say that you're against something that 99% of your fellows would agree with you on.

Whether or not you are right in your beliefs has no bearing at all on your moral courage regarding them. If 99% of the people around you say "rape is bad", then it takes very little moral courage to sustain that point of view and one shouldn't be patting oneself on the back for saying what everyone around you expects you to say, anyhow.

What David Kato did: THAT takes moral courage. Or, if you want a less extreme version, try talking to an audience of committed prostituion abolitionists and telling them that their beliefs regarding trafficking are wrong:

http://www.lauraagustin.com/bbc-world-debate-dates

Anonymously beating one's chest about how one is against rape and female circumcision on a comment board filled to the brim with feminist supportive people who agree with those positions... That takes no courage at all. That's just someone wanting to give themselves a pat on the back for being a hell of a swell human being.

And to imply that another commentator SUPPORTS rape simply because he doesn't think the 21st century definition of it can be used in a historically coherent sense to understand Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson's relationship, that's simply bullshit. Political grandstanding on the order of what the Tea Party regularly engages in.

Your belief that this sort of ridiculous strawman/ad hominem assault constitutes rational debate simply reinforces my earlier stated belief that both the right and the so-called left in the States have jumped the shark when it comes to reasoned discourse.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 28, 2011 10:44 AM

Thad, you really are a bully. You have no idea who the people commenting or reading this list do in their meatspace lives, you simply assume that they live in a neighborhood a lot like Pharyngula. You have no idea whether a particular commenter has been raped by a teacher, parent, or partner. You have no idea who works with five year olds who've been raped. You don't know anything about us at all. The problem is that you think you know a lot about us, including that we don't know enough Official Anthropology Jargon™ to understand the Deep Truths of sex work and slavery.

You might have a great deal to add to this conversation, but you need to lose the army of strawmen.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 11:56 AM

You don’t have to make presumptions about my views regarding modern notions of rape, Sally. I wrote an article about them and you can go read it on my blog.

Regarding the current debate on what constitutes rape, there seem to be two main positions in the U.S., neither of which requires much moral courage to hold and neither of which I hold to.

The first is the conservative position that rape involves violent, forced sex and that anything that doesn’t fit this definition is ipso facto not rape. You hear this position a lot on Fox News. You’ve probably heard it so much that you now reflexively think that anyone who doesn’t agree with you regarding your views of rape needs must believe in this position. At least, that seems to be what you’re doing in my case.

The second position seems to be that any time a person engages in sex without being 100% compos mentis or completely enthusiastic it’s rape. This position, while often labeled “feminist”, ironically also usually implies a dual sexual morality because most of its proponents only concern themselves with women in such circumstances. Drunk men are imagined to be in complete control of themselves and never subject to unwanted advances and, when they are, it’s a motive for crude humor if they complain.

What both ides of this debate share in common I a complete disregard for each other and a tendency to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being evil and inhuman.

For the record, my position follows Foucault and Paglia (odd bedfellows, to be sure). I think that sex is increasingly under surveillance and subject to rules and discipline and part of that is an increasing tendency to include what Paglia calls “bad sex” under the rubric of rape. A guy (never a woman) paid for sex? That’s called “rape” by quite a lot of people these days, including U.S. lawmakers who use that definition in their understandings of sexual tourism and trafficking. Two people got drunk, had sex and can’t remember what the hell happened or why the next day? Rape (and, again, the presumption is always that the man was the aggressor and the woman the victim). A condom breaks and the man doesn’t pull out? Rape. The sex was less than good and enthusiastic? Rape (and, again, only if it’s the women who’s less than enthused).

Personally, I think we need to develop a better vocabulary to describe “bad sex” rather than attempt to stretch “rape” to cover everything. While I think the Assange case is quite ridiculous, the concept that the Swedes have of “surprise sex” is actually not such a bad idea: sex which was not at all what one thought one was agreeing to when it started.

Knowing what I know about the history of sex and sexual violence, I, personally, am very, very leery about blanket moralities applied to sex. I’m especially leery when someone starts defining another person’s sexual experience as “rape” when that person themselves chooses not to. I follow the Brazilian Constitution’s ruling on this: what happens between two people is their own personal affair as long as it doesn’t involve third parties. If a person – whatever their gender – charges rape, that charge should be taken very seriously, always remembering that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. The basis for that decision should be, to my mind “Did the person give consent to sex?” Someone passed out at a party and you have sex with them and they didn’t want that and didn’t give consent? Rape.

What I tend to disagree with is the attribution of “rape” when the supposed victim hasn’t made the charge, especially when the argument for this essentially boils down to “I know more about that person’s life and choices than they do themselves”.

Now, if you and Ing still want to froth about how horrible I am (and when it comes to me, Ing seems to need froth more than a Starbucks barrista), go read the article I wrote here…

http://omangueblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/bullshit-patrol-one-in-four-college.html

…and the follow-up to that article, here:

http://omangueblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-why-i-have-my-doubts-about.html

Go froth there. I’ll be happy to discuss. At least there, discussions of what constitutes rape and what doesn’t in the modern world would be on topic.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 28, 2011 12:10 PM

Considering what a horrible communicator you are, how prone you are to misrepresenting the views of those who disagree with you, and your complete inability to effectively communicate your own views, I think I'm justified in staying far, far away from any articles you've written, Thaddeus.

Was that frothy enough?

Froth, froth, froth...

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 12:49 PM

KG, if you wondering why I'm not replying at length to you, it's because of comments like this:

Says the man who was sure, wrongly and without bothering to find out, that Jefferson could not have freely manumitted his slaves.

In fact, that`s the exact opposite of what I clearly aid, on at least two seperate occasions, in posts #233 and #292.

This isn`t just a case of miscommunication or misundertanding: this is you claiming that I said the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I really said.

If you're going to argue in that sort of bad faith, hell, why bother? Why not claim I eat little kiddies for breakfast and have done with it?

It's interesting that you assumed me to be female.

You obviously missed my statement to ODious. In the interests of not assuming anything about peoples` gender performances, when I want to use a gender specific pronoun or whatever and can`t remember what a person say their gender is and/or can`t be bothered to niggle out clues from their writings, I`m just going to throw a die.

That`s exactly what I did in your case and the result came up "female". If you don't like that, I'll be happy to call you whatever you want. Hell, I'll call you "it" if that's what you want. If I forget your preference, however, it's back to the old throw a die method because, frankly, I can't be bothered worrying about what sex/race/gender or what have you anonymous posters say they are on the internet.

Pot your real name and a photo and I guarantee I`ll remember that.

"It's interesting"(to use your buzz-phrase), however, that you think such presumptions are relevant in any way, shape, or form. Especially given the fact that I've now been chastized for "presuming" people are men or women.

:D

Chattel slavery remained highly profitable both to the slaveowners in the southern USA (indeed, you've noted the slave boom of the early 19th century yourself), and to the mill-owners of Britain.

That`s highly debatable, as you well know. There have been entire thesis written on whether it was or not. But in the specific case we`re talking about, it certainly wasn`t. Slavery aat Monticello was most certainly NOT profitable.

By the way, Brazilian historian have been some of the main voices involved in discussing the (non)profitability of slavery under capitalist conditions. While there is some hypothesizing that slavery COULD`VE remained profitable, the consensus as far as I`ve seen it is that it only was under very specific market conditions where there was a huge need for labor that far outstripped the supply of it. It simply wasn`t competitive, long term, under market capitalism. While Marx (who is the guy who first makes that claim, IIRC and not libertarians) was incorrect in thinking that capitalism in and of itself caused the fall of slavery, his overall point was correct: once wage-slavery became established, acceptable and hegemonic, chattel slavery's days were numbered except in very specific or marginal situations.

Britain, by the way, most certainly didn`t need slavery to make their mills profitable and the Civil War proved that conclusively.

Now, fair enough: you may disagree with that, but I`d like to see a citation of work that shows that slavery was inherently profitable under industrial capitalist conditions in general.

Citation needed, please?

And do you know what's REALLY libertatian? The idea that slavery ultimately ended because people decided to put an end to it, good and moral souls that they are. That is, essentially, Michelle Bachman`s reading of the situation.

Abolitionism has been around forever: it only became a politically sustainable position - and not the view of random nutters - when the dominant class discovered, on the whole, that it was a barrier to profits.

Marx is quite correct in the general gist of it, if not in its specifics.

Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem | January 28, 2011 12:59 PM

So no, it doesn't take any moral courage at all to say that you're against something that 99% of your fellows would agree with you on.

But they don't agree. 6% of men in college admit to raping. Defense of rape is common, even in college newspapers.

Many women who report rape are then harassed or assaulted by friends of the rapist. Or do you suppose they're all lying?

The Julian Assange case has demonstrated that rape is not so widely condemned as we'd hope, and so there is a great deal more work to be done. I'm not commenting on whether or not he's guilty, but on how the acts he's charged with have widely been argued to not be rape. If someone does not give prior consent for sex without a condom, then taking the condom off is rape. If someone does not give prior consent for sex to be initiated during sleep, then it's rape. Yet this is not widely accepted, because we live in a rape culture.

Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem | January 28, 2011 1:06 PM

the concept that the Swedes have of “surprise sex”

No, they don't. You are deliberately misrepresenting Swedish law.

You are a rape apologist. You are pro-rape.

Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem | January 28, 2011 1:12 PM

A condom breaks and the man doesn’t pull out? Rape.

If someone's consent depended on use of a condom, then yes, that's rape.

It's disgusting that you try to dismiss this. Thaddeus G. Blanchette, you are a rape apologist, you are pro-rape.

Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem | January 28, 2011 1:22 PM

If someone says, "I want you to use a condom", and the condom breaks, and you don't pull out, then you are engaging in a sexual act without the other person's consent, and that is rape.

The very fact that people like Thaddeus, pro-rapist lowlifes, feel safe defending rape, is exactly why it does take courage to speak up. When your pro-rape arguments are in fact unspeakable, only then would it take no courage to speak against you.

As it is now, you feel safe defending rape culture, which is an indication of just how widespread rape culture is.

You should not be permitted to feel safe.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 2:24 PM

Strange Gods, yes, I have read Lisak and Miller - the actual study, mind you, not the blog report of it.

In the study, 120 men out of 1822 admit to having engaged in behavior which could easily be qualified as rape or attempted rape. It's interesting to note that, although they surely have the data regarding this, they make no distinction at all between the acts they identify as rape and and those the identify as attempted rape. So we have no way of knowing which of those 120 guys actually raped someone. Strictly speaking in legal terms, then, we don't know how many off those men are actually rapists, but in any case, the difference can be argued to be moot for moral purposes.

Another point regarding Lisak and Miller's study, which you should really take into consideration if you are a scientist: it in fact conflated the results of four seperate studies at one mid-sized university. Selection of respondents was not random, but voluntary. The percentage of identified rapists in their four studies went from 4 to almost 10 percent. All this raises serious questions as to how representative a study it is for the population at large.

What Lisak and Miller find most significant is that the gross majority of these cases were done by only 4% of their study sample. A good third of their "rapists or attempted rapists" tried it once and never did it again.

Lisak and Millers' point is not that rape is a socially acceptable behavior engaged in by the vast majority of men. In fact, as they point out, it is a SMALL MINORITY of men who do this.

So Lisak and Miller's study is not good evidence of the hypothesis that rape is widespread socially acceptable behavior among young American men. EXACTLY to the contrary: they conclude that a tiny minority of men do this stuff and do it REPEATEDLY. They point out, in fact, that this is one of the probable roots of the difference between men and women's understanding of how common rape is.

Furthermore, Lisak and Miller conclude that these men get away with it not because there's a general "rape-supportive culture", but because, absent use of a weapon or physical injuries, it's very hard to prosecute these cases (whether rape or other violence). The perpetrator consciously choose victims in their social network and AVOIDS use of weapons or physical damage. L&M give a great remedy for that: investigate the accused's social network and see if additional cases turn up.

So what's "hiding" these crimes isn't the gleeful complicity of a rape-supportive culture: it's the fact that the rapists know full well that if there's no evidence there's no crime and they do their best to avoid leaving physical evidence.

Your hypothesis, then, that rape is a socially acceptable activity in the U.S. is NOT SUSTAINED by Lisak and Miller's data. Their data in fact indicates that rapists KNOW that what they're doing is wrong and that it needs to be shielded from the eyes of the general public. They tailor their methodologies accordingly.

As for the Julian Assange case, the woman accuses (with there being no possible proof, mind you) that Assange took the condom off during sex. She went to breakfast with him the next day, threw a party for him shortly thereafter and apparently only decided that she had been sexually abused some time long after the fact when she compared notes with another women and found out that Julian had been snaking on her.

Now I'll respect your opinion and listen to you present arguments that what went on was, in fact, rape. But I think it's hyperbolic in the extreme to accuse those of us who look in askance on this very confused and fishy story as "supporters of rape culture".

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 2:44 PM

I appologize.

I told myself this morning that, no matter how many flames I recieved, I wasn't going to get lured into a big discussion regarding what constitutes rape or not. It's completely off topic.

I guess people who use solid social scientific research in ways in which it was not intended just pushes my buttons.

I'm sorry I didn't keep to that.

If you want to discuss with me what rape is and isn't, or argue that there's a widespread and socially acceptable "rape culture" in the U.S., or argue that I'm morally required to call for placing Julian Assange in the bastinado, go to my blog and do it there, please. I will ignore you here, no matter WHAT ad hominems you toss out.

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | January 28, 2011 2:52 PM

Thaddaus, you took a quote out of context just so you can take a swipe at an ill defined group of people? You are a sad and silly man.

Also, your definition of rape is stomach turning.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 3:08 PM

Here's the kicker, Dhorvath:

Given the evidence, how can you prove rape over, say, an illicit love affair?

Or do you believe that the situation of slavery made such a thing impossible?

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | January 28, 2011 3:38 PM

You've already had the chance to defend yourself, right here, Thaddeus. You've written hundreds if not thousands of words by now, and they're all unconvincing. Why should I assume that your other writings are going to be any less arrogant, meandering, and myopic?

You're a rape apologist who got pissed off that someone described the sex between Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson as "rape." You simply refuse to allow that is quite possibly an accurate description, according to our 21st century standards. Of course, that's an indefensible position, because any rational person can see that if you apply the standard of consent as presently understood to Jefferson's and Hemmings' relationship, it is entirely reasonable to describe the relationship as inherently coercive.

Of course, trying to maintain that contemporary observers CANNOT and MUST NOT interpret their relationship that way is an indefensible position, and since you can’t defend an indefensible position, you’ve wasted thousands of words trying to convince yourself, and us, that you are arguing against people who insist that Hemmings and Jefferson themselves must have known that what was happening between them was coercive sexual exploitation, and known that it was wrong.

When people counter that no, obviously there’s no way to really know what they thought about it, and they probably didn’t think about it in those terms anyway, and all we’re doing is interpreting their relationship through the lens of our present, 21st century understanding of consent and sexual assault, you either ignore this, or you insist that such an interpretation merely reveals ignorance of the Great Science of History on the other person’s part, and that it’s impermissible to interpret historical events according to modern standards. Furthermore, you’ve also argued that anyone who does this, and complains about Michele Bachman’s slaughtering of history is a hypocrite, because in your mind, interpreting historical facts according to varying standards is exactly the same thing as fabricating a whole new set of facts.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t get into a discussion about the meaning of the word rape, but that’s illogical, because this whole discussion was predicated on your being upset by the inappropriate use of the word rape. You presented many reasons for why you think using the word "rape" was inappropriate, and they have failed to convince, because your ideas are not coherent and you have extremely poor communication skills. You have revealed yourself over and over to be a pompous, bullying idiot who can’t understand what other people say to him and can’t communicate his own thoughts clearly. And you’re a rape apologist to boot. You’re contemptible. Note that this is not an ad hominem attack; my reasons for dismissing your arguments against using the word “rape” in the context of a sexual relationship between an enslaved woman and the man who owns her are laid out above and have no relationship to your asshattery. The fact that you are, in fact, a self-absorbed douchebag is really just icing on the cake.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 28, 2011 3:58 PM

Let me get this straight: Ing has been insulting me from her very first exchange with me. I'm the bully? Do tell, Mattir.

Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar

Ing: Another question, I'm seriously asking not being snarky, is what is the point of Evo Psyche?

I mean we know humans evolved, we know evolution is a source ultimately for a lot of our behavior, we know we build our culture and minds off of the meaty building blocks we're given. So...what does evo psyche bring to the table though? Does it hope to treat anything? Modify behavior? Change social normatives? What?
#182

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette Author Profile Page | January 19, 2011 6:47 AM

Ev psyche allows reductionist determinists to recover some fragment of the scientific credibility they lost when racsim was proven to be a non-starter. The folks interested in ev psych today are by-and-large the same sort of folks who were crowing about sociobiology 30 years ago and who were incredibly enthused about eugenics 90 years ago.

The fact of the matter is that sociology and anthropology have so far had a much better track record at describing, explaining and even predicting complex human social behaviors than biodeterminism. The disiciplines do this largely by presuming that Comte, Durkheim and Max Weber were correct when they pointed out that symbolic behavior is a different realm of phenomenology from the biology and physics.

Cultures and societies evolve at a much quicker rate than the human body and this, my friends, is a FACT. There is not one single cultural artefact that you can point to that has been constant over time and across the whole of human existence. Nor is there one single cultural artefact that has been convincingly linked to a biological root. Therefore, while our biological make-up does indeed INFLUENCE our socio-cultural behavior, it cannot logically determine it.

Folks, as an anthro, I had to study evolution, biology and human anatomy. I am not an expert and I'm not qualified to teach biology, but I can at least get through a book by Cavalli-Sforza sand understand what it is he's talking about and explain that to students. I also understand things like why the debate over what is and what is not an adaptation is endless among you biologists.

But in my experience, most biologists and even more evolutionary psychologists haven't sat through a single class of athropology or sociology beyond the freshman level. They talk about "culture" and "society" but most of them couldn't give a scientifically solid definition of those concepts without cribbing from the computer.

It thus amuses me no end to see people say things like "we build our culture off the meaty building blocks we're given".

Again, the best metaphor one I can think to describe why this is wrong is that hardwear does not determine the content of softwear. It DOES limit what kind of softwear can be run, but not its content.

Ev psych people not only need to engage with the last 50 years of research and innovation in evolutionary theory, they need to grapple with the last 130 years of sociological theory and research.

If, in order to justify your field's existence, you need to start off by ignoring everything that two other well-established and proven fields have to say about your topic of study, you're in a bad way.

My personal opinion? Absent some earth-shaking advance, ev psych will go the way of eugenics and sociobiology in another decade or so. Über biodeterminists will by then have come up with another Theory of Everything which will supposedly give us simplistic answers for why people perfom incredibly complex behaviors and thus the circle of academic life rolls merrily on.

Posted by: Ing, universally recognized as a mature and responsible adult Author Profile Page | January 20, 2011 9:34 AM

It thus amuses me no end to see people say things like "we build our culture off the meaty building blocks we're given".

Really? That amuses you. Than pray tell oh mighty anthropologist who is so much smarter than us biologist dick heads, from what magic realm did culture come from if it isn't part of the development of a biological race.

Biology is the start, the START, THE START, of culture, long long long long way back when. And it's the start in the same way a zygote is the start of a human, the development of one leads to the emergence of another that is so vastly different from the starting point.

My whole point was, yeah we known I guess somewhere down the line culture started with a biological/evolutionary base, but who really cares when studying it since save for the limits it had by the biological machinery that made it I don't see how evolution can have that huge an impact on the study of culture. I can see it having an overlap way back in the beginning, like how I guess geology or geochemistry would have an overlap with biochemistry in the beginning as life emerged, but I don't see the real value of the model. It seemed to me that explanations of cultural ticks or the like would better be found studying the mind in its current state if you wanted a biological basis. The brain would be a much more sensible start (Which I guess could lead to an evolutionary answer based on the brain's form and function) than looking for ancestral developments first. That way you would look at the brain studies, see that there IS something there and then study it rather than the evopsyche way which seems to be 'research behavior, presume it's from evolutionary advantage and explain it through that lens without even looking at the underlying biology'

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette Author Profile Page | January 20, 2011 1:52 PM

A computer does not determine the content of the softwear that is run on it.

I am not arguing that human symbolic capacities do not have a biological base: I AM arguing that the CONTENT of these symbols is not determined by that bilogical basis.

Let me give you the classic example of the wink. What does a wink MEAN? While the wink itself is a biological act and the capacity to attribute meaning to it is likewise biological, its MEANING is not determined by the biological wiring of our our brains.

The only way one can attribute meaning to a wink is through context, which is made up by environment and one's previous exposure to the symbolic content of winks.

This seems to me to be a very simple point and yet you've consistently misconstrued it, Ing.

Why?

It seems to me that you believe I'm presupposing some sort of faith position regarding human symbolic capcities. I'd argue that the belief that all meaning is ultimately determined by biological wiring is a far more "faith" based position. I can take you into the field and show you thousands of examples where people attribute meaning based on their prior experience with symbols. You can't show me the same with regards to meaning being constructed by biological wiring. You PRESUME that such a thing exists, but where's the beef? Where's the proof for it? I can give you proof that a person thinks, for example, that my wink is malicious becuase that's what the person has learned in prior symbolic manipulations involving winks.

So if anyone is invoking belief in some sort of transhuman agency here, Ing, it's you, not me.

At which point I said fuck it because you clearly weren't actually arguing with me and were just being condescending and arguing points I didn't make. I responded snarkily to you at first because of your attitude talking down to biologists, because you were coming off as holier than thou...and what a shock you continued that.

I looked through the first thread. I asked questions to your position you went on long rants against points I didn't make. I gave up, you continued it over here being insulting. You threw the first goddamn insult.

So don't give me that 'she started it' shit. You were ass from dime one and I went out of the way to try to talk to you civilly.

Oh and for reference cupcake

"Thad is actually argueing that Jefferson was right to rape his slaves" is a REAL strawman and

"Thad is wrong because he's a dipshit anthroplogist rather than a real scientist" is a RAL adhom. not "Thad is a rape appologing idiot because of these arguements".

Just thought having a real one out there would make it easier for you. Idiot.

Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem | January 28, 2011 4:01 PM

Of course there is a pro-rape culture in the United States, as demonstrated by the fact that pro-rape op-eds can even appear in college newspapers.

The 6% study demonstrates something else. If 6% of men attempt rape, your 99% assertion is false. Basic maths.

Now let's look at your illiteracy:

The Julian Assange case has demonstrated that rape is not so widely condemned as we'd hope, and so there is a great deal more work to be done. I'm not commenting on whether or not he's guilty, but on how the acts he's charged with have widely been argued to not be rape. If someone does not give prior consent for sex without a condom, then taking the condom off is rape. If someone does not give prior consent for sex to be initiated during sleep, then it's rape. Yet this is not widely accepted, because we live in a rape culture.

As for the Julian Assange case, the woman accuses (with there being no possible proof, mind you) that Assange took the condom off during sex. She went to breakfast with him the next day, threw a party for him shortly thereafter and apparently only decided that she had been sexually abused some time long after the fact when she compared notes with another women and found out that Julian had been snaking on her.

I don't know if Assange is guilty. I didn't claim anything about his guilt. It is irrelevant to my point.

If Assange did take the condom off during sex, then he continued sex without consent, and that's rape. Having breakfast with him the next day doesn't grant consent. Throwing him a party doesn't grant consent. If Assange did rape her, and she still wanted to fit in with the Wikileaks crowd and not be seen as attacking their leader, such social pressures are not unheard of.

Wondering whether the alleged acts occured, in this unusually geopolitical case, is not necessarily an endorsement of rape.

But denying that the alleged acts themselves would constitute rape? Yes, that is a defense of rape and an endorsement of rape. You are a rape apologist. You are pro-rape. You are part of the rape culture.

Again:

As it is now, you feel safe defending rape culture, which is an indication of just how widespread rape culture is.

You should not be permitted to feel safe.

My own safety is not at stake here. The fact that you feel safe is a problem. You should not be permitted to feel safe.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 28, 2011 4:07 PM

Shala, an ad hominem "is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise".

Calling me a "rape supporter", "a fucking slimeball" in order to disqualify my point (actually Paglia's) that not all bad sex needs must equal rape is indeed an ad hominem.

Thad is a rape apologist so his points are invalid==Ad Hoc

Thad made these points therefore he is a rape apologist is insulting but not an ad hom

Thad can't tell the difference between an ad hom therefore he is a ass hom

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 28, 2011 4:12 PM

@SGBM

WEll you see the evopsyche people excuse rape because of biology

Antievopsyche anthropologists excuse rape because of CULTURE

Totally different

--------------------------------------------------
And yes, that WAS a strawman.

Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline. | January 28, 2011 4:20 PM

You don't have to include Nerd of Redhead in your list. We all know he's a lady.

Once, twice or three times?

Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death | January 28, 2011 4:33 PM

I'm not surprised that somebody who would take a refusal as an offer would be a rape apologist.

Bears repeating.

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 28, 2011 7:09 PM

Thaddeus, I'm sorry to say that you've sort of volunteered for this excoriation, which is sad, because all you really had to say is "yes, we today view the power differential between slave and owner as negating any individual consent, and thus by today's standards, Jefferson's behavior would constitute rape. This does not mean that Jefferson or Hemmings viewed their relationship as non-consensual, just that our ideas about consent have changed." This is precisely the same argument that I think applies to the Mohammed/Aisha relationship - thought to be acceptable then, but with current understanding of power differential, child development, etc., very harmful and wrong. This argument does not make one a rape apologist, as far as I know, because one acknowledges both the original actors' views and how that behavior would be viewed today. Saying this does not prevent one from exploring in great detail the ways in which the actors understood their own behavior, how their society viewed it, or how they exercised what agency or consent they had. You don't even have to do this in your professional anthropological work, you just have to do it in this sort of public forum where the topic at hand is the morality of the historical figures by today's standards. Not history, not anthropology, but how we today would view that behavior were it taking place today.

You've said these things, more or less, and then gotten totally derailed into responding to fairly flippant and, by Pharyngula standards, mild insults. This is really tempting on Pharyngula (and I've done it), but it's generally counterproductive. The culture of Pharyngula is pretty harsh at times, but I've enjoyed it and learned a lot. My advice would be to lurk for a bit and then start posting again.

Posted by: btthegeek | January 28, 2011 7:43 PM

Bringing it back to Jefferson, what you need to show is that he wronged her a second time when he had sex with her, in addition to the wrong of owning her.

For fuck's sake, where do these people keep coming from?

Dhorvath wrote:

I think that the power imbalance of slavery necessarily produced a coercive force on Sally Hemmings in her dealings with Thomas Jefferson. I think that coercion taints any and all relations between the two.

What the hell is so hard to understand about this?

Posted by: John Morales | January 28, 2011 8:09 PM

AKASquared [my emphases]:

Going back to the start of the whole rape thing, the accusation that Thomas Jefferson raped Sally Hemmings, as far as I can see rape has two ordinary usages. The first is for one party to have sex with another despite the other's not wishing the sex to take place. I've seen certain sex acts between dolphins, birds, and even beetles called rape; the foregoing definition seems to be the operative one. The second is conduct falling under the legal definition of rape, whatever that happens to be.
[...]
Perhaps what you really have in mind (some of you have come close to saying this, and it's implicit in many of the comments) is to propose a third definition of rape (or even, absurdly, insist that it is and always has been the "right" definition), namely sex when there is a power imbalance. This is not, yet, even a view, because you need to define which kinds of power you have in mind (presumably not physical strength, unless you have in mind to literally drive the species to extinction), and how much makes the sex rape.

You don't think circumstances circumscribing the range of choices practically available are relevant to the emphasised portion in the first part of my quotation?

My second emphasis relates to the first; it's not a "third definition", rather the necessary consideration of the degree of coercion applicable to the available choices.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 28, 2011 8:28 PM

Thaddeus is the only one here thinking clearly

Um no sorry. He lost that title when he started bludgeoning people with the "oh look at you you think you're so moral. What a little shit you are for talking about that! That's just grandstanding and disgusting". Nice of you to volunteer for serfdom in his grand Douchery.

Posted by: AKASquared | January 28, 2011 8:47 PM

Mattir;

The best you can manage is to apply modern law (or "standards") to Jefferson. But if modern law had applied the situation wouldn't have come up in the first place. You're left with an incoherency like, 'if the law had been based on modern ideas of autonomy but also allowed slavery...'

Please enlighten me as to why this is an incoherency.

Are you serious?

A legal system based on personal autonomy would not permit slavery. Duh.

Power differentials are why contemporary standards criminalize or otherwise prohibit (via professional codes of conduct, civil causes of action, etc.) a variety of sexual relationships,

And that's fine. None of that means that Sally Hemmings didn't wish to have sex with Thomas Jefferson, or that he violated the law. What's the point?

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 28, 2011 8:54 PM

Thaddeus and AKA^2,
I think you are both minimizing the constraints under which slaves--especially female slaves lived. Not only did they face the threat of violence, they or their children could always be sold never to see each other again. Faced with this prospect it is not surprising that they submitted to rape rather than resisted.

In the end, it does not matter that Jefferson, or even his peers might not have recognized their actions as rape. Rape it was. In the end, Jefferson need not have had sex with Hemmings. He made a conscious choice to do so. That he knew it was wrong, even if he didn't know it was rape is indicated by the lengths to which he went to keep the relations secret. Sorry, he doesn't get a pass simply because he authored the Declaration.

Posted by: AKASquared | January 28, 2011 9:04 PM

John Morales;

The thing that seems mostly likely to have actually happened is now "a specific hypothetical"? That's a bit odd.

Of course I know what Stockholm syndrome is. Hemmings may even have had it. That doesn't mean she didn't want what she wanted. Everything you want is the effect of some cause which is itself outside your conscious choice, after all.

Patty Hearst was convicted of bank robbery, so at least sometimes we're willing to accept that a person's choices "count" even in clear cases of Stockholm syndrome. Of course in some (all?) American jurisdictions all sex between a kidnapper and his victim is defined as rape by statute, but I already covered that in the second definition.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 9:09 PM

Mattir sez:

All you needed to say was "Yes, we today view the power differential between slave and owner as negating any individual consent, and thus by today's standards, Jefferson's behavior would constitute rape. This does not mean that Jefferson or Hemmings viewed their relationship as non-consensual, just that our ideas about consent have changed".

I said similar things several times, Mattir.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 28, 2011 9:19 PM

Thaddeus, What utter horse crap! Yes, perhaps Sally Hemmings could have risen above her position as a slave. Hell, maybe she could have become Wonder Woman and saved the fucking world. What you are doing is simple, thinly-veiled, intellectualized (not intellectual) blaming the victim.

Now perhaps a woman may rise up when all she has to lose is her life. Most would not, but there are many brave women. How many women, though, would stand against thier opressor if it carried the risk of their own children being SOLD into an unknown fate. Choice? Agency? Please. Sally Hemmings did not have time to worry about choice. She had to devote all of her thought and time and talents and even her body to survival--to staying in control of a situation she had no control over.

I have to say, that you have demonstrated an astounding lack of capability for empathy. The problem is not that you are not expressing your ideas adequately. We get what you're saying. We dismiss it because it is crap.

Posted by: AKASquared | January 28, 2011 9:33 PM

John Morales;

If it's not a hypothetical, how is it only "most likely"?

People usually use "hypothetical" to refer to things which are conjured for illustrative purposes, not things which are probably true.

Yes, and in the case of a slave-master relationship, who has control of the "cause which is itself outside your conscious choice"?

People are much more complicated than that. Or do you suppose Jefferson had super mind-control psychology techniques and also genetically engineered all the slaves to his liking?

Of course in some (all?) American jurisdictions all sex between a kidnapper and his victim is defined as rape by statute, but I already covered that in the second definition.

Well, does this apply?

Did it apply? No.

Whether it should have applied is a different question, but you must have already rejected slavery to pose it, and if the slavery is out of the picture the question no longer exists.

Posted by: AKASquared | January 28, 2011 9:37 PM

a_ray_in_dilbert_space;

The trouble is, you're begging the question.

Posted by: John Morales | January 28, 2011 9:51 PM

AKASquared:

People usually use "hypothetical" to refer to things which are conjured for illustrative purposes, not things which are probably true.

Nonetheless, I used it appropriately.

I note that your rephrasing into "probably true" still indicates a hypothetical.

Everything you want is the effect of some cause which is itself outside your conscious choice, after all.

Yes, and in the case of a slave-master relationship, who has control of the "cause which is itself outside your conscious choice"?

People are much more complicated than that. Or do you suppose Jefferson had super mind-control psychology techniques and also genetically engineered all the slaves to his liking?

Yes, people are complicated, but that was not my question.

Your evasiveness is noted.

Of course in some (all?) American jurisdictions all sex between a kidnapper and his victim is defined as rape by statute, but I already covered that in the second definition.

Well, does this apply?

Did it apply? No.

Well then, if it didn't apply and there are two ordinary senses as you claim, you should notice I've been addressing the first (the one which does apply).

Posted by: John Morales | January 28, 2011 10:12 PM

Thaddeus:

You think the Stockholm Syndrome is bullshit

I knew it! You can't have a discussion about Hemmings without someone eventually reaching for the good ol' Stockholm Syndrome. :D

Do you consider the concept bullshit, or is it you consider it does not here apply?

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | January 28, 2011 10:24 PM

This discussion of the realities of manumission answers my question posed back in #263.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 11:11 PM

@ Ray:

Thaddeus, What utter horse crap! Yes, perhaps Sally Hemmings could have risen above her position as a slave. Hell, maybe she could have become Wonder Woman and saved the fucking world. What you are doing is simple, thinly-veiled, intellectualized (not intellectual) blaming the victim.

Now THERE'S a great example of a strawman for you. Neither I nor Kamala mention anything about vicitms "rising above their position", let alone "saving the fucking world".

What Kamala is saying - and I support in the Hemmings context - is that ascribing victim status to someone is not a neutral thing. It risks completely blotting out their existence as a person in order for them to fulfill a role in relation to their victimizer. That role can be set as defining their entire identity as a human being and defining it, ironically, completely based on the person who vicitmized them.

Now perhaps a woman may rise up when all she has to lose is her life. Most would not, but there are many brave women. How many women, though, would stand against thier opressor if it carried the risk of their own children being SOLD into an unknown fate.

Note that you are ASSUMING that this was Hemming's circumstance. The fact is that she did rise up and demanded something of Jefferson. She got it, too. So given that, why are you assuming not only that Hemmings couldn't but that she didn't? You're creating a hypothetical situation and setting it off as more real than what actually occurred according to Hemmings' decendents.

Choice? Agency? Please. Sally Hemmings did not have time to worry about choice. She had to devote all of her thought and time and talents and even her body to survival--to staying in control of a situation she had no control over.

Here you go again, using structure to blot out Hemming's humanity. In spite of what YOU say needs must occur, her children told it different. If we are to believe her son Madison, Hemmings thought long and hard about the situation and was at no point in risk of losing her life. In fact, one could argue that one of the reasons Sally was successful in pressuring Jefferson is that she was relatively highly educated and had more time and resources to think over her problem than most slaves. Instead of being a poor, agencyless waif blown anywhere Jefferson wanted, doing whatever he said, she pressured a President of the United States to keep her family together and to give her children freedom and to keep that promise. How did she do that, according to her son? By saying "Either promise me this or I'm leaving."

That's a pretty good show for someone you'd cast as an agencyless slave with no will of her own, nor means to of leverage.

I'd say Sally knew her man pretty well.

I have to say, that you have demonstrated an astounding lack of capability for empathy.

Funny, I feel the same thing about you. I think you're more enthused with the hypothetical slave you're drawing in your mind than you are with the real flesh and blood human said woman's children describe.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 28, 2011 11:33 PM

John asks:

Do you consider the concept bullshit, or is it you consider it does not here apply?

John, I don't think the concept itself is bullshit. I think that reaching for it when you want to de-authorize behavior you consider to be inappropriate, without considering what the Stockholm Syndrome is, is bullshit.

The people who try to use this to explain Sally's behavior - and truly, it comes up every single time I have this discussion, like a damned meme or something - don't have any evidence at all that Sally was under threat of violence, that her life was in danger, that she was being beaten or tortured... in short, all the stressful stuff that makes the Syndrome occur. This stuff has to be real and immanent, not abstract. So when was Sally being tortured and fearing for her life at the hands of her captors? When she was being treated for seasickness on the way over to France? When she was getting paid close to a frenchwoman's wage for her work their? When she was freely walking the streets of Paris? When she was living in Monticello? Where, in short, is the evidence of mistreatment on the level needed to create Stockholm Syndrome? And a case of Stockholm Syndrome that lasted 38 years, no less, and was powerful enough to apparently affect Sally's children, to boot? And where are the other symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome? The fawning attitude towards captors? The praise for them? Madison called Jefferson a just but cold and distant man. That's hardly the kind of discription one hears from victims of Stockholm Syndrome.

No, John: there's only one reason why people even bring up Stockholm Syndrome in this situation and that's because they can't bear the thought that Sally may have done what she did willingly. The very hypothesis is enough to set people frothing and flaming about "rape defense" and whatnot.

Posted by: John Morales | January 28, 2011 11:49 PM

Thaddeus:

John, I don't think the concept itself is bullshit. I think that reaching for it when you want to de-authorize behavior you consider to be inappropriate, without considering what the Stockholm Syndrome is, is bullshit.

Had that been what I've done, I grant you'd have a point.

Look at the context, please. (I've referred to it in my previous.)

No, John: there's only one reason why people even bring up Stockholm Syndrome in this situation and that's because they can't bear the thought that Sally may have done what she did willingly.

"Only one reason", yet you were wrong.

See above.

Posted by: John Morales | January 29, 2011 12:58 AM

AKASquared:

It seems there's some deeper meaning intended in your using the terminology incorrectly. Perhaps you think this is clever of you.

Your metacommentary is predicated on your correctness regarding my own.

Perhaps you think this is clever of you.

Well, yes, ignoring the entire course of the conversation afterward.

That's a yes.

No, I meant to say it makes no sense.

Fair enough. You didn't forget.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 29, 2011 8:03 AM

Thaddeus: "Here you go again, using structure to blot out Hemming's humanity."

Go die in a fire with a porcupine stuffed with a pineapple shoved up your ass sideways, assclam!

How dare you accuse me of blotting out Hemming's humanity. The humanity of a slave was utterly denied by the laws and institutions of her time. And as Ms Hemmings has been dead nearly 200 years, you will forgive me if I do not share your view that recognizing the fact that she was a victim who made the best of the poor hand life dealt her robs her of anything but her due recognition of her hardship.

Did it not occur to you that one of the reasons she was successful if obtaining a better deal for her children was the GUILT Jefferson felt for having given himself over to desire? Everything about Jefferson's behavior regarding this matter shows that he knew what he was doing was wrong. We also know it was wrong, because we recognize it as rape. We also recognize that most of what passed for seduction in that era was rape.

You claim it was not rape because Jefferson's peers would not have recognized it as such. No, most of the slave owners of the time so denied the humanity of slaves that they would have considered it akin to bestiality. So I think that perhaps you should think twice before advocating that we judge Jefferson by the standards of his time. I believe that saying his conduct toward Hemmings constituted rape is much more charitable to him than the alternative. Certainly, it is more affirming of Ms. Hemming's humanity.

Thaddeus, I've tried to be civil. All I have gotten for my efforts is accusations of dehumanizing slaves. I can only conclude that you are more interested in rhetoric and sophistry than in honest discussion. I cannot even begin to speculate why you insist on being an apologist for rape. I do not know whether you even realize it, or if you are in denial of it. I do not care, as either way, your position is reprehensible.

The fact of the matter is that rape victims are victims. Equally true is the fact that most of them rise above victimhood. The experience, though, leaves indelible marks. I believe we must do what we can to restore the victim's life. We cannot do that if we deny the crime.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 29, 2011 10:59 AM

Dear dr. Bunsen, I'm struggling to be polite to you and I would appreciate the same.

I posted Kamala Kempadoo's words because I think they speak for themselves regarding the problem of vicimhood and agency that's apparently troubling you and me. You say I'm a poor communicaotr: OK, fair go. That's why I brought in what Kamala says. You've simply ignored her entire argument as if it didn't exist while returning to attacks on my person and professional abilities, as if that was what we were discussing.

For a man who chides me for not listening, you're not doing very well yourself.

So if you can, I would like to hear WHY you think Kamala's argument is pants, please?

As for Hemming's keeping her family together as if that was a small thing or no big deal, as I've mentioned above, it was a HUGE deal to the slaves themselves and not a small deal in general, given that one of the main results slavery was to completely eliminate any sort of cohesive slave family. Furthermore, "family" itself wasn't the simple apolitical "comforter" we think of it today, but a key socio-political unit. So I wouldn't say that preserving a prosperous family and getting one's kids an education, freedom and a decent life was a minor achievement for a person who you claim had no agency whatsoever.

As for whether or not this was a big deal in some sort of more cosmic scheme, Dr. Bunsen, women who did as well in her life as Sally Hemmings weren't exactly common on the ground in the early 19th century. So personally, where you seem to think I'm appologizing or romanticizing slavery for pointing out Sally's accomplishment, I think you're undercutting a true human achievement. I also think that you probably have never run into a true slavery appologist if you think that my esteem for Sally and what she did qualifies as "appology" for slavery.

But then again, that seems to be a general problem in American politics, perhaps brought about by your country's protestant roots: Americans are much more willing to tear into their nearest allies and accused them of heresy than attack the folks who really are their ideological enemies.

But hell, if you want to believe that I'm romanticizing slavery, go ahead. My view is that you should read more about it and more case studies of what actually happened because from where I sit, you seem to have a very shallow view of the institution, what it did to people and how they reacted.

As for "situational autonomy", let's pull back a bit, because we obviously seem to be talking past each other.

You seem to think that Hemmings had no autonomy, is that your point? I understand agency and autonomy to be fundamentally the same thing, which is why it's hard for me to understand why you think I'm lying when I say "Some people have trouble understanding that one can be a victim and still demonstrate agency". So my first question is, are differentiating agency and autonomy them, and if so, how? And I mean a definition in logical terms, not a dictionary or sophists' definition.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 29, 2011 11:24 AM

Dear Ray,

I don’t think you are consciously trying to blot out Hemmings’ humanity, but I think that that is very much the effect of your argument when you try to relate everything she did and was to the fact that she was a slave.

When you say, “The humanity of a slave was utterly denied by the laws and institutions of her time,” that’s true. But when you then go forward and say or imply that slaves thus couldn’t make choices or that those choices made no differences in their lives, what you are effectively doing is reducing slaves to the level of autonoma: their reactions to the world aren't just AFFECTED by slavery, they needs must be DETERMINED by it.

This is precisely the argument Kamala makes when she says that victims are treated as if they were a blank slate, imprinted by the mark of the victimizer.

And please note that I can disagree with you without pitching a fit and name-calling. Similar respect would be nice.

Did it not occur to you that one of the reasons she was successful if obtaining a better deal for her children was the GUILT Jefferson felt for having given himself over to desire?

Oh, no doubt. But notice how you've subtly movced things back to where JEFFERSON is the focus and where all action comes from him? You claim that you want to see Sally as a human being, but you don't allow the possibility that she could do anything: all moves come from Tommy. That's called "objectification" in feminist theory, Ray: treating human beings as if they were inanimate objects. what you do, ironically, is attempt to turn the de jure status of slavery (no rights, no agency, just an object) into a de facto reality.

I mean think about it: can Sally do ANYTHING in your understanding of the world, or is she just a little shuttlecock batted about by forces beyond her control?

I'm sure Jefferson did feel guilty, by the way, though I doubt it was because he knew in his subconscious that he was violating your rules of morality. The fact of the matter is, if this was the case, Sally knew and perceived enough to successfully work that guilt. My reading of Jefferson's guilt, based on his writings and the oservations of others is this:

1) He was a white supremacist, but still believed that supposed white supremacy was not a good excuse for keeping a people enslaved (her remarked upon this several times).

2) Because he saw blacks as childlike and underdeveloped, made even more dependent by slavery (oddly enough, similar to the way many of the people here see Sally Hemmings), he believed that they needed to be taken care of and provided for. It was wrong to take them from Africa, but now that they were here, it would be worng to simply turn them out in the world to fend for themselves because how would the poor things possibly survive?

3) Given that, a conscientious slave holder needed to "take care of his people". This was an immensely popular ideology all across the slave holding Americas, btw. A sort of "noblise oblige" view of the universe (which, again, maintains strange resonances with much anti-slavery discourse today) whereby those who "knew better" and were Christian and civilized needed to care for their darker brethern who were sadly unable to care for themselves. Please note, those of you who are irony resistent, that I'm parodying the typical "good" slave owners' view of the world.

4) Also, like many men of his class, Jefferson believed that race-mixing was a terrible evil, for it "degenerated" both "stocks". Again, this view of things is quite alive in the world today. I occasionally catch an echo of it in the unspoken assumptions of those who claim to "support third world peoples", in fact.

So yeah, given his views, it's quite obvious that Jefferson thought that miscegenation was a very bad thing. I very much doubt he believed that sexual contact with slaves was necessarily bad in and of itself: it was bad because of the consequences it would bring in the form of little brown children.

So I've no doubt that Tommy said "Oh, fuck..." when Sally said she was pregnant. And his actions, as reported by Madison and the other Hemmings, bare out what we know of the man. He tried to provide for his children as best he could WITHOUT the world knowing that they were his.

Was Thomas Jefferson vain and a bit of a hypocrite? You betchya. Was he a rapist? No. Not unless, as AKSquared points out, we make the ahistorical (and completely irrational and unscientific) presumption that our way of looking at human rights was instituionalized back then. Of course, if that had been the case, as AKSquared most cogently points out, there wouldn't have been slavery, would there?

Bit of a case of "If we had bread, we could have a ham sandwich, if we had ham", don't you think?

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 29, 2011 11:42 AM

He had a choice whether to exercise his power over Hemmings or show restraint. He chose not to restrain himself.

Sure. Which makes Jefferson a typical human being, doesn't it? Let his genitals get in the way of his head? Now THAT never happens in human society, does it? Hell, it's only a theme in pretty much 90% of the movies, plays, films and songs humanity produces.

As for "excercizing his power over" this presumes, once again, that only Thomas Jefferson, the white male, had any power to act. It ipso facto dismisses two very possible hypotheses:

1) Sally came on to HIM. (Oh, but she'd NEVER do that because slavery removes women's sexual appetites, even though people seem to presume that it has absolutely no or even the opposite effect on slave men...)

2) The attraction was mutual.

Oh, as for Jefferson being a lecherous old fart, sure. That's logical. I mean, knowing what we know about human nature, there's absolutely no reason to supose that a lonely old man could feel tenderness towards a beautiful girl who was his beloved dead wife's half sister and, by all accounts, looked very much like her. He was probably chasing every slave piece of skirt he could, which is why we have so many reports of Jefferson-slave matches out there and why Hemmings family reports that he was faithful to Sally for 38 years.

Yeah, no human feelings of love, tenderness or anything else could possibly bloom there IN SPITE of slavery. It was all one long bondage and discipline session.

Ray, frankly, I think your presumptions reveal a lot more about how you feel (or fear) you'd deal with power, if you had it, rather than what Jefferson probably did. I mean let's face it: you obviosuly haven't looked into the evidence of what was going on, or the historical record regarding slave concubinage. So what, exactly, are you basing your presumptions on?

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 29, 2011 12:01 PM

Thaddeus: "Which makes Jefferson a typical human being, doesn't it? Let his genitals get in the way of his head? Now THAT never happens in human society, does it?"

Actually, no. Most men do not victimize women. They do not press their social advantage over those less fortunate or dependent on them. Every day, there are professors who resist having sex with students, bosses who resist having sex with subordinates, fathers who do not commit incest, and even priests who do not rape children. Sex by coercion is not the norm. Indeed, it was not even the norm in the antebellum South. In the end, I suspect that Jefferson's dalliance with Hemmings was probably similar to Clinton's with Lewinsky. He managed to use his considerable powers of persuasion to delude himself that he was not being a cad. Jefferson had a talent for self delusion. He remained deluded about the French Revolution long after it turned bloody. He allowed himself to be used by his political allies and his reputation suffered greatly over it. He allowed himself to be deluded into thinking that one could win at the game called Virginia Plantation and so wound up bankrupt. (Note: Most of his peers did likewise. It seems that only Washington fully appreciated how heavily the deck was stacked against the planters.) Jefferson was a brilliant writer, philosopher and "thinker," but he was unfortunately rather lightly teathered to the world. These flaws are among the things that make him interesting.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | January 29, 2011 12:11 PM

Thaddeus,
Again, you're a fucking idiot. I just wanted to remind you of that fact.

As a matter of fact, I have been in a situation of very asymmetric power--working in development in Africa. White male volunteers had a steady stream of African women "interested" in them. Our passports were irresistable. If you really wanted to help them, though, both of you were better of if you taught them to read, taught them about AIDS or maybe just patronized their businesses.

Not everyone is a self-interested little wanker like you, Thad.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | January 29, 2011 1:59 PM

Thaddeus,
I understand what you are trying to say a little better now. You think that all I see is a VICTIM and so it decreases the humanity of Sally Hemmings. The problem I am having is that you keep talking about Sally and her life and the overarching impression I get is that you are diminishing the impact that being an owned, black, woman in early ninteenth century America would have on her life. I feel after every reply I read from you that it is you who is reducing her to an actor in some play instead of honouring the real pressures that she faced.

It seems that we are both seeing the other as dehumanizing a person by focusing on different aspects of their lives. What I wonder is whether we can both do so, and whether that makes us both wrong, both right, or just different. I am wholly disturbed by this conversation and perhaps that is the best outcome for me, I can only hope that it might have some impact on you as well.
And then I read this:

All you needed to say was "Yes, we today view the power differential between slave and owner as negating any individual consent, and thus by today's standards, Jefferson's behavior would constitute rape. This does not mean that Jefferson or Hemmings viewed their relationship as non-consensual, just that our ideas about consent have changed".

I said similar things several times, Mattir.

And it makes me angry and I know that I just need to stop reading.

Posted by: John Morales | January 29, 2011 5:20 PM

Thaddeus:

John, let's use Occam's Razor on the Stockholm Syndrome hypothesis. Let's act like scientists or at least like logical philospophers for cthulhu's sake.

Why? I didn't claim it was what occurred.

I brought it up (as an example) to a specific question posed to me as part of the answer to that question.

Posted by: KG | January 29, 2011 6:24 PM

Says the man who was sure, wrongly and without bothering to find out, that Jefferson could not have freely manumitted his slaves. - Me

In fact, that`s the exact opposite of what I clearly aid, on at least two seperate occasions, in posts #233 and #292. - Thaddeus

You also said (#319):

What would be interesting to know are Virginia's laws on manumission at the time. I can practically guarantee you that they weren't a matter of "Hey, let your slaves go whenever you want to". [Emphasis added]

This is the comment of yours that prompted my response - so don't blame me for your inconsistency. In fact, as far as I can discover online, that's pretty much what they were between 1782 and 1806, a period covering the start of Jefferson's relationship with Hemings, and thousands of slaves were indeed freed during that time. The only restriction I can find (I have not found the full text of the law of 1782) was that slaves unable to look after themselves through age or disability could not simply be turned loose to do so. I at least made an effort to find out what the law was; you did not.

Britain, by the way, most certainly didn`t need slavery to make their mills profitable and the Civil War proved that conclusively.

Now, fair enough: you may disagree with that, but I`d like to see a citation of work that shows that slavery was inherently profitable under industrial capitalist conditions in general.

Citation needed, please?

And do you know what's REALLY libertatian? The idea that slavery ultimately ended because people decided to put an end to it, good and moral souls that they are. That is, essentially, Michelle Bachman`s reading of the situation.

Abolitionism has been around forever: it only became a politically sustainable position - and not the view of random nutters - when the dominant class discovered, on the whole, that it was a barrier to profits.

I did not, of course, make any of the claims you (directly or by implication) attribute to me: neither that British mill-owners required it to be profitable, nor that it was "inherently profitable under capitalist conditions in general", nor that it was abolished solely or mainly as a result of moral revulsion - although you might like to consider the case of Kansas (see below). Slavery, (and the very similar bonded labour) was profitable in the 19th century capitalist periphery - which in the early and mid 19th century included the southern states, as well as much of Latin America. Even considerably later, it was profitable in much of Africa, as King Leopold could attest.

If slaveowners in the southern states thought slavery was unprofitable, why exactly did they press repeatedly for its extension to western states as they were admitted to the Union? For example, in 1857, southern leaders pressed President Buchanan to approve a slavery-permitting constitution for Kansas. Buchanan, fearing for the Union, sent it to Congress, and the House added a clause making approval dependent on a referendum. When this was held, the Kansas electorate voted it down by an overwhelming margin. This was a crucial point in the lead-up to the Civil War - and was the result of a popular (although of course male only) decision, not one by the dominant class. And if southern slaveowners thought slavery unprofitable, why were they willing to go to war to defend it? There are statements by senior confederate leaders that this was a major reason for their declaration of independence.

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | January 29, 2011 11:06 PM

KG, there is one reason why the slave holding states were trying to spread slavery in the western territories; it was a power play for the Senate. Those territories were being working on becoming states. In those times, senators were appointed by the state legislature, not voted in through a popular vote. So a slave owning state would appoint senators who supported slavery.

It was not just because it was profitable, it was a power play. If enough slave owning states were admitted, they could keep their power base in Washington. If the new states admitted into the union were free states, the southern states would lose out and it would have been possible to enact federal laws that ended slavery.

As a side note, it is funny that England, which outlawed slave owning and slave trading, were supportive of the Confederacy. Not that there is any parallel to the modern day US.

(I have no interest in Thad.)

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 29, 2011 11:13 PM

Thank you for stating the obvious, Janine. KG thinks s/he's an hisrtorian, but has apparently never read about mid 19th century U.S. politics, something most Americans get in junior high, even in the most benighted public schools.

The Missouri Compromise, KG? Surely you've heard of it?

(I have no interest in Thad.)

Oh, such pain, such rejection! Another cool kid at the cool kid's table snubs me. Ah, well...

Posted by: KG | January 30, 2011 6:49 AM

Blanchette,

Christ, the wikipedia article on Hemmings mentions one BIG restriction on manumission: freed slaves had to leave Virginia for good.

I mentioned that in an earlier comment; it was not the case when their sexual relationship started. Here's what I said @384:

I see you don't actually know what the laws on manumission were in Virginia. As far as I can discover, from 1782 to at least 1806, there were few restrictions, and thousands of slaves were freed. Reports of Jefferson’s sexual relationship with a slave date from at latest 1802. By the time of Jefferson's death in 1826 freed slaves normally had to leave the state, but he was able to arrange for Heming's children to be allowed to stay - so presumably could have done the same for her even at that point.

This also seems to dispose of your claim that debt prevented him from freeing Hemings. Grade "F", Blanchette.

The Missouri Compromise, KG? Surely you've heard of it?

Er, yes, of course I have. If southern slaveowners thought slavery unprofitable, they would have had no incentive to push for its extension in order to avoid legislation against it, would they? Or to risk war to keep it.

Yreah, because the rubber boom in the Congo and the Amazon was EXACTLY the sort of marginal situation slavery flourishes in: the need to lots of labor and no way to get it other than through force. I already said that, above.

Exploitation of this kind was certainly not marginal to 19th century capitalism. We are agreed that it did not occur in the capitalist core (western Europe and northern North America), but capitalism was already a world-wide system, crucially dependent on a huge flow of cheap raw materials from other parts of the world. Forced labour and indentured labour were common in India, and fundamental to the 19th century growth of European empires in Africa and south-east Asia, in addition to the slavery practised through much of the Americas - and as you noted at an earlier point, booming in the southern USA. Grade "F" again, Blanchette.

Your point was that somehow the mill owners of Great Britain were making bank on slaves because they were more efficient than paid labor.

No, it was not: it was that they were able to extract profit from slavery, as were the slaveowners. The simple fact is that slavery in the US did not end because it was unprofitable, nor because those profiting from it thought waged labour would be more profitable.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 30, 2011 8:25 AM

Janine sez:

KG is not from the US. I was just said what I did just in case he did not know.

KG seems to think he's a scholar of American History. One would presume, then, that he would have read about the American Civil War and its proximate causes. I know about the English, Spanich, Russian and Chinese Civil Wars. And you'll note I didn't presume that he was American in the first place. Read what I wrote.

Also, it is funny how the only people who call me "cool" are smug assholes on the internet.

You should get out more.

Posted by: KG | January 30, 2011 9:09 AM

Blanchette,

It's notable that when slavery ended in the US, it was for the most part not replaced by the oh-so-profitable waged labour, but by the sharecropping system, which of course reproduced many of the features of slavery (you were saying earlier - wrongly, of course, in general - that there is only "de facto"). Startlingly perverse in their economic decision-making, that southern dominant class, hmm?

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 30, 2011 9:51 AM

Hey if you think you've found a smoking gun, then by all means post your sources, KG.

That would be the correct thing to do, presuming of course that you're trying to do history and not simply trying to create a moral "just-so" story.

So why the reluctance to cite where you're getting your information from? You claim that the laws only tightened in Virginia AFTER 1806 and that you have a good source to back you up on this?

Fine, KG. Citation needed.

I never claimed to know what the laws on manumission were: in fact, I claimed the opposite and I made that very, very clear.

You're now saying that you're research has lead you to believe that manumission was pretty much automatic in Virginia up until 1806?

Great! State your sources.

Because seriously, KG, a guy like you doesn't make a statement like this and avoid disclosing his sources UNLESS there's some sort of smoking gun in the material which would undermine his hypothesis.

Here's what Eugene Genovese has to say on the question of manumission and Virginia:

The constitutions of slave states left room for manumissions, but the laws made them increasingly difficult. Virginia's attitude harded after a flurry of liberalism during the Revolutionary era. By the end of 1793, the legislature had banned free-Negro immigration and by 1806 it had declared that a freedman must leave the state within a year or suffer re-enslavement.

(RJR, 51)

Genovese's work "Roll, Jordan, Roll" is still considered to be a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the conditions of slave life. Apparently, however, even Genovese doesn't know exactly when this law came into play. All he says is that it was on the books by 1806.

So you see, KG, if you actually have a source that points out a date for when this law was established, it would be EXCELLENT and would clear up a big gap in my bibliography of the case.

So do you ahve that source?

I doubt it. Reading your words attentively, one notes how carefully you avoid actually saying that you know the date when that law was passed. What you are trying to do, then (again, unless you have a source), is a basic scientific error, one which PZ constantly points out: you're claiming that lack of proof for a date BEFORE 1806 is in fact proof of a date OF or AFTER 1806.

That's rhetorical bullshit you're engaging in there, KG, and not science.

UNLESS, of course, you have a source pointing to a post-1806 date.

But even if we presume that there were no legal barriers to manumission in Virginia before 1806 (which could of course be the case, as I've hypothesized all along - again, I repeat what I've said since the beginning on this topic: we need more research and data), that doesn't remove the fact that Hemmings could have manumitted HERSELF through the simple expedient of staying in France.

Now why wouldn't she have done that?

I can guess two reasons...

1) During the Revolution and immediately after, there was great foment for freedom in the U.S. Most of the founding fathers - including Jefferson himself, presumed that slavery was on the way out. It already wasn't very profitable in Viriginia and it was losing profitability in the Carolinas, too. Sally, a house slave who by all accounts was very intelligent, could have picked up on the fact that the Jefferson family expected emancipation to come quite soon. That, in and of itself might not have been a reason to stay, but consider this...

2) We know from the historical record that family was the most important thing in the lives of most slaves. In fact, given a choice between freedom without one's family and slavery with one's family, most slaves presented with that choice seem to have taken the second option. Masters were aware of this and ENCOURAGED the formation of slave families (though not their formalization under law), where possible. It was universally recognized that this "settled the slaves down" and "tied them to the land". Sally's family is at Monticello, along with the only community she's ever known. And look at this here: Sally's MOTHER dies in 1807, a year after the latest date for the passing of Virginia's exile law.

So we have a young woman faced with the option of starting a new life for herself, full of uncertainties and pregnant to boot, in a situation where she may or may not have been allowed to continue at Monticello or even in Virginia. She's pregnant with her masters' child, but apparently regards him as a just man (or at least aa intlligent enough to tacitly understand that he can't get rid of her and her child without some sort of scandal occuring). Her life is fairly comfortable and she can be assured that her and her child's needs will be taken care of.

Also, she's been hearing that slavery is probably on the way out anyways.

Under such a situation, it might seem the wiser thing to stay at Monticello and stay a slave, for the time being. By the time she would have been in a position to rethink her options, the legal doors were already closing.

The probelm, KG, is that in spite of your GOogle search, we really DON'T KNOW what the situation was in Hemmings' case.

Find out what those laws were, and we'll at least have a PIECE of the puzzle. That doesn't mean that the whole thing will be nicely solved, however.

Regarding the Missouri Compromise, KG, it's pretty much universally recognized by American historians that, except for a few small areas, slavery-based agriculture in the West was a non-starter. Agriculture of any kind, was in fact a non-starter. Missouri had a strip in the south that was amenable to cotton farming. "Bloody Kansas", which the South fought tooth and nail over, was less so. The south itself admitted that there wasn't much hope of expanding cotton agriculture (which was the driving motor that kept slavery going, economically speaking) beyond east Texas.

The political record on this is quite, quite clear: the South wanted an equal share of the Western territories not because they represented an economic boon to slavery: they represented TWO SENATORS EACH when they became states and as long as the South had parity or near parity in the Senate, slavery could never be legally abolished.

So no, the Sotuh did NOT want the west because they thought it was a great money-making venture. They sought it to maintain their political power in the American Congress.

Literally ANY historian will back me on this point, KG. I suggest that you read Bruce Catton, however, as he's probably the most easily accessible.

There have been a few counter-historical hypotheses that suggest that slavery might have been able to move into new areas - perhaps even industry - in the late 19th century, but the very solid consensus among historians is that it was no longer needed to ensure profitability.

The proof of this comes from what actually did occur. After the abandoment of Reconstruction, the South very quickly configured another form of bondage that wasn't strictly slavery and was, in fact, MORE flexible than slavery: sharecropping and debt bondage.

It didn't save their economy, however. The end of slavery wasn't what killed the south, KG. That's a Confederate myth and it's ironic to hear you, someone who probably thinks of themselves as anti-slavery, parrot one of southern racist's most hoary alibis ("slavery was needed to make profits").

The production costs of cotton dropped drastically in the late 19th century, even with emancipation. But the global price of cotton dropped even quicker. Under such conditions, it was better to have a work force that could be let go at any time and that is indeed what most southern planters politicians came to believe in the post-bellum era.

So no, slavery wasn't an economic option that could continue forever. Not if we're talking chattel slavery.

Exploitation of this kind was certainly not marginal to 19th century capitalism.

Of course not, but that wasn't my point: "marginal" in terms of "very unusual and restricted economic niche". By the way, have you even bothered to read Roger Casement's studies of the Amazon and the Congo? In many cases, if not most, it wasn't chattle slavery that was being used, but good old debt bondage.

Forced labour and indentured labour were common in India...

As many better historians than I have pointed out, all labor is inevitably "forced" to one degree or another. 12 year olds weren't working in Lowell's textile mills in Massachusetts because it was fun or because they thought it was a way up in the world: they did it because it was that or starve. Chattel slavery is a very specific form of bondage. If you want to start looking at coerced labor in general, then we're back to Marx, who made the claim that wage slavery could often be worse and more violent than chattel slavery.

Posted by: Shala | January 30, 2011 9:53 AM

So Thaddeus, have you enjoyed shitting up this thread for the last 300 comments or so?

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | January 30, 2011 10:32 AM

That's rhetorical bullshit you're engaging in there,...and not science.

Oo! I want, like, a rubber stamp that sez that.

let me try it out here...

That's rhetorical bullshit you're engaging in there, and not science.

I like it.
but, man, I could piss some people off that way...

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | January 30, 2011 11:23 AM

KG #493

The Confederate leadership thought Britain would have to recognise it in order to keep the cotton flowing, but there was a year's supply in store, and an alternative supply from Egypt; while Britain was heavily dependent on wheat from the northern states.

There was an interesting* bit of economic machination involving cotton and the Confederacy. In early 1863 the Erlanger cotton loan was a high-risk commodity speculation in cotton.

Cotton shortages in Europe** caused by the Federal blockade had cause the European price to rise to 50 cents a pound whereas a glut of cotton in Southern warehouses lowered domestic prices to 12 cents a pound. Holders of Erlanger bonds could redeem the bonds for cotton but only in the Confederacy. Plus the buyer was responsible for transporting the cotton out of the Confederacy. This was a driving factor for the large number of blockade runners attempting to deliver goods to the Confederacy and bring cotton to Europe.

The loan was guaranteed by the sale of £3 million in 7% 20 year bonds. Émile Erlanger et Cie. anticipated large profits, since they bought £100 bonds for £77 and sold the bonds in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Liverpool for £90. Originally the bonds were oversubscribed by buyers but Erlanger's success in selling the bonds was short lived. Within a few weeks after the initial offer, prices were falling. Southern sympathizers suspected Union agents of tampering with the markets, but prices declined irretrievably after the Confederate losses at Vicksburg and Gettysburg.

Nevertheless, Confederate purchasing power in Europe was sustained for several months, allowing Southern agents to buy desperately needed war materials. And although dramatically curtailed, trading in Erlanger bonds did not stop entirely. By February 1865 five-sixths of the bonds had been sold****, with the Confederacy realizing returns estimated at between $6 million and $8.5 million*****.

*Interesting to me, at least.

**The Egyptian and Indian*** cotton supplies could not meet the European demand.

***Industrialization of the textile industry meant it was cheaper to ship cotton from India to Britain, manufacture it into cloth, and ship the cloth back to India than to make cloth in India. During the last half of the 19th Century India was a major market for British textiles.

****Some as cheaply as £17 for a £100 bond.

*****In 1863 Confederate dollars.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | January 30, 2011 12:05 PM

they'll be right

qft

*sigh* my Jeep needs gas...

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | January 30, 2011 12:45 PM

Sally Strange: apparently still a flaming troll.

Worse than Slavery, Oshinsky.

An excellent book which shows two things:

1) Slavery wasn't needed to practice gross racial injustice and economic exploitation.

2) The limitations of laws. When you can have manumission and it doesn't make much of an effect in terms of the improvement of human rights, this should be a warning that an obsessive, almost fetishistic, view of the law and rights isn't sufficient to understand what went on during slavery or after.

Posted by: SC OM | January 30, 2011 1:38 PM

1) Slavery wasn't needed to practice gross racial injustice and economic exploitation.

Complete strawman which counters your argument.

2) The limitations of laws. When you can have manumission and it doesn't make much of an effect in terms of the improvement of human rights, this should be a warning that an obsessive, almost fetishistic, view of the law and rights isn't sufficient to understand what went on during slavery or after.

Another strawman which does nothing to help your argument.

an agencyless victim

And this strawman is the root of all of your problems.

Posted by: SC OM | January 30, 2011 5:44 PM

Those women correctly perceive the facts of the situation.

The facts of their situation, for the vast majority, are of violently constrained options, fear (with often not just yourself but your children and family to consider), and oppression. Recognizing this in no way denies agency, and recognizing agency in no way erases this reality. Appreciating the weapons shouldn't blot out the of the weak.

Understanding rape as coercive sex (or sexual relationships) is a positive thing, and expanding the understanding of what is coercive is necessary.

THEY would probably be much better off if you had sex with them, got them pregnant, married them and moved them up to wherever your from. Better yet, you could fulfill a role that the women down here call "Father Christmas": you could leave them where they are (if that was what they wanted), visit them every time you can and give them money and pay for their kid's education.

...For the record, I think that you are right: you SHOUDLN'T have gotten sexaully involved with those women. Not because it would have been an abuse of power, but because you probably don't have the werewithall - emotional, financial, or otherwise - to give her what she wants over even the medium hall.

I can't...you aren't...I can't believe you're seriously suggesting that people should sexually exploit desperate people with limited options. Because you can't help people or fight injustice unless you're getting your rocks off? How very...Jeffersonian.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | January 30, 2011 10:20 PM

@Sallystrnge

Since Thad is big on accusing people of sexual impropriety can we call him specifically Humbert Humbert?

Cause you know, fuck it, if we're just going to be seen as trolls might as well earn the title.

Also Thad, how the fuck did you get through a social science degree without apparently taking a rhetoric class?

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | February 1, 2011 5:45 PM

SC warble:

The facts of their situation, for the vast majority, are of violently constrained options, fear (with often not just yourself but your children and family to consider), and oppression. Recognizing this in no way denies agency, and recognizing agency in no way erases this reality.

Given that all Ray has said is that he spent time volunteering in Africa, apparently teaching HIV awareness and literacy, I find it interesting that you've jumped to the conclusion that the women he mnentions were all "violently constrained" and "oppressed" when most probably all they were was poor and maybe a bit ignorant.

I'm wondering what the logic is here: are all African women violently constrained and oppressed or is it all women in the so-called "third world"? In any case, you seem to be making a boatload of presumptions based on few facts.

I can't...you aren't...I can't believe you're seriously suggesting that people should sexually exploit desperate people with limited options.

Apparently, you think any sex with anyone who you consider to have less "power" than you must ipso facto be "sexual exploitation". And, given your presumptions above, you apparently consider anyone darker or poorer than you or not a citizen of your country to be "less powerful", independent of any other factors.

Let me give you a quick overview of "power", SC: if I were to drop you and Ray off in the middle of the Complexo do Alemão here in Rio, you'd be lucky to find your way out in one piece. And yet you seem to think you generically have more "power" than the people who live there. Where, how and in what kind of situations doesn't enter into your reckoning at all, does it? Only you act. All us poor violently oppressed sods here in the "developing" world can do is react. Just like the folks in Egypt are showing the Yanks, Brits and Canadians right now, huh?

Because you can't help people or fight injustice unless you're getting your rocks off? How very...Jeffersonian.

And apparently you can't fucking read worth a good god-damned.

Let me repeat the point for the simple minded: the women who were hitting on Ray understood the realities of their position better than he did. They are CORRECT in presuming that if Ray had fallen in love with one of them and either taken them back to wherever or stayed and help them construct a better life with his resources, they'd probably be better off. In choosing not to have sexual relations with these women, Ray wasn't protecting them so much as he was protecting himself.

Yay! Applauses for the gringo who acted in his own best self-interest. What a guy!

As for "power", both Ray and you talk about it, but so far neither of you seem able to define what "power", exactly, Ray had over these women or how that power was "coercing" them. In your view of the universe, there seems to be room for only one sort of actor: white, male and from the developed world. All activity revolves around him. Apparently, he has "power" simply by being what he is and not because of anything he actually does or does not do. It's inherent, perhaps even genetic, neh?

How.... Spencerian. How social darwinistic. How fucking unbelievably racist and sexist and - what's as bad - how fucking smug.

In case you haven't got it through your think head, NO I don't think Ray should have had sex with those women, not because it would have "exploited" them, but because I doubt a short-term volunteer like Ray has the wherewithall to ethically follow through on such a commitment in the ways that the woman would have expected. He was RIGHT to not have sex with them, but not because he "had power" and they didn't: he was right because he DIDN'T have power and a personal relationship with them, absent marriage and immigrant papers or staying himself and becoming an immigrant, wasn't going to do shit for their lives.

So Ray wasn't being all "noblise oblige", ethically restraining his burgeoning while male power: he was realistically protecting himself from other people's presumptions that he in fact HAD power.

Those women mistook Ray for someone who actually had power and not for what he probably was: a young and most probably feckless first world man who was doing "human rights tourism". Ray's rejection of that presumption protected HIM far more than it protected the women in question.

Posted by: John Morales | February 1, 2011 6:12 PM

Thaddeus addresses SC and ARIDS:

In your view of the universe, there seems to be room for only one sort of actor: white, male and from the developed world. All activity revolves around him. Apparently, he has "power" simply by being what he is and not because of anything he actually does or does not do. It's inherent, perhaps even genetic, neh?

How.... Spencerian. How social darwinistic. How fucking unbelievably racist and sexist and - what's as bad - how fucking smug.

I see you get a nice work-out bashing your straw dummy.

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | February 1, 2011 7:25 PM

Oh, I should also point out that Abagond himself is a devout Catholic who has several times defended the Church and its moral outlook on life.

Nice job, Sally!

Posted by: Thaddeus G. Blanchette | February 1, 2011 7:34 PM

Nerd, refresh my memory on this: have you contributed ANYTHING to this discussion, anywhere above, that can't be resumed as "Fuck you, Thaddeus!"?

No...?

I thought not.

And you're worried about my preaching? :D :D :D >D