Hmm. Comments:

[Hugh R]

NOT condoning his association. BUT, Sammy makes a good point about groups like La Raza (The Race). Their motto is "For the race everything, for others nothing" or something close to that. La Raza's main reason to exist is to take back the western US for mexico. In today's politically correct ether, being in the KKK is probably not a good career enhancer. A few months ago I watched the silent film "Birth of a Nation" on netflix. Pretty old, and poorly done movie, but considering its almost 100 years old, you have to take it in context. The movie suggests the rise of the KKK in response to post civil war South Carolina and the politics then. The movie suggests, and I'm not saying it's true or not, that post Civil War when the blacks got the vote, they stuffed the ballot boxes and turned the SC legislature into an almost 100% black legislature and in the perspective of the movie swung the pendulum the other way and tried to legislate lots and lots of "rights" for blacks in deference to whites. Don't know if it's true to fact, but that is what the movies purports to support the rise of the KKK.

Remember, the victors write the history books. Not to sound like Fastpat (for those who remember whom I'm writing about), but a very interesting read is the Rise and Fall of the Confederacy by Jefferson Davis. I inherited a 1st and only edition of that 2 volume set from my Dad. Davis has an interesting perspective on the Civil War that seems to be based in fact. 1) Slavery was legal under the US Constitution in that it excluded from regulation foreign born "property" (slave), until a certain future date, 2) that the Federal government went to the congress on several times to ban slavery,and that the Supreme Court several times told Congress that they needed a constitutional amendment to chage the constitution, and that 3) the Feds couldn't get the 2/3 states to ratify an amendment. The Feds then, unable to get a constituonal amendment proceeded to do a series of harbor blockages against southern state harbors to compel them to abolish slavery. That is why, according to Davis, the South attacked Fort Sumner, which started the Civil War.

Additionally, the Emancipation Proclamantion was (according to Davis) a publicity stunt, that had no legally binding effect. If it did, why didn't Lincoln issue it at the beginning of the war, not the end? In fact, after the Civil War, the Feds actually paid off slaver owners for the "taking" of their property (the slaves) under the requirements of the part of the 5th amendment that you don't necesarily think about (ban against taking of arms or property without just compensation).