As for 'group responsibility', or however else anyone wants to put it, I am not a group that lived 150 years ago. I am not responsible for slavery regardless of whether it was 'immoral' or 'evil', and I will not be held responsible for it. If you try to hold me a part of some group, and then say that that group has committed a 'crime' real or imagined, then you hold me personally responsible for something which you know very well I never did. That is indeed corruption of blood if we are talking about racial or ethnic groups, no matter who may wish to deny it. You are also being dishonest by saying I am responsible for something you know I never did.

My money, what little I have, is hard earned while having to tolerate discrimination and bigotry from politically correct scum and their favourites, including some Yankee immigrants who come into my homeland and try to treat me as their inferior. My money did not come from the labour of any slave. It's mine, and nobody has any right to steal it from me using some pseudo-moral, pseudo-historical excuse.

For those who wish to hold me responsible for something I never did, if you endeavour to steal what is mine and what belongs to my family and neighbours because of the mere colour of our skin, then be prepared for a fight. To hell with all of your silly self-righteous 'group responsibility' abstractions. We are talking mass robbery of people who are already becoming economically dispossessed and have a bleak future ahead. You words are irresponsible and will only serve to encourage and justify a real crime, and lead to further social discord and further breakdown of good will and harmony between black and white, just as the crimes of the Lincolnites, reconstruction and the so-called 'civil rights' movement and all that related propaganda have done.

I agree one hundred percent, I was replying to James at 81 with sarcasm. I should have used quotes.

However, slavery was rampant in Africa - you cannot say that removing blacks from slavery and taking them to another land as slaves is wrong.

That such is done by whites over blacks actually makes it more just, since blacks appear weaker in both discipline and intellect. As Aristotle points out: it is just that the better rule over the lesser.

Was slavery in America a case of the equal ruling over the equal, such would be unfair. The black / white divide allows for a clear division between who is citizen and who is slave, since even free blacks did not have equal rights. Similarly skin color seems to have partially distinguished the Hindu classes, as well as those of the Central and South Americans both before (Incas) and after the Spanish.

Blacks blame whites because they are told they are equal and were mistreated. They do not know history any better than do American whites. Accepted history has become a fairy tale.

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Regarding how Northerners do not share in the blame: who do you think sold a large share of the slaves to the Southerners? Are merchants innocent?

I never wrote what was attributed to me above, "Slavery is a very immoral act". If you check, you'll see that I was talking specifically about American slavery. I know essentially nothing about the history, but even granting all my correspondents' factual claims, the institution of American slavery (including the overseas slave trade) still seems immoral to me. I don't think that slavery is always immoral per se.

The suggestion that there is no white group responsibility/guilt because no living member of the group is responsible/guilty ignores the fact that a group extends through time (as Burke said about the nation). Seems to me the concept of group responsibility is easily grasped by everyone except educated modern Westerners.

the point you seem to be missing is that: all masters are not bad masters, and slavery does allow for the protection of the weak and the stupid: those who would not be able to take care of themselves.

It is just that the most capable and virtuous rule over the less so. Someone must gather the crops, someone must build the farming tools etc., and someone must undergo strenuous education and training to become well suited for governing and heading the local militia. Slavery provided a system to resolve the questions of who should do what, just as does a class system.

Our modern society today expects an aloof federal government and aloof mega corporations to take care of us all. If they treat us well, then such a system is just. However, if they give into temptation and treat us badly, then such a system is unjust. The masters knew their slaves; our masters in Washington and Wall Street do not. The masters were Christians; our masters in Washington and Wall Street are predominantly not.

In my opinion slavery was a mistake, but morality is not one of the reasons.

That the Catholic church now opposes slavery means the church was wrong for all of those years? The Bible and the traditional teachings and interpretations from it ought to be what a man looks to, not to some leader's new interpretation, unless said interpretation has some solid foundation. Even the Catholic church is surely not immune to public opinion - so it must be advisable for a wise man to look to previous ages for a more objective view of the truth.

How about this...... can we not, however, still say that their behavior was different than ours, if it were to be the present day it may be considered morally wrong by some.

You see, I hesitate to condemn peoples actions as wrong in the past. The way we were in the past required that we live in the moment. Just as we do today. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be things that we practice and do today that will be seen as morally wrong in 100 years (rightly or wrongly).

Of course societies differ in their views of morality. In eras where slavery was economically beneficial, it was always rationalized. But societies which have no economic use for slavery have never condoned the practice, which is probably a clue that slave societies justify their behavior for selfish reasons, rather than deriving it from moral principles.

Your point about limiting how we judge other societies strikes me as valid. Surely we should not judge people's behavior as criminal, simply because future laws would have made their conduct illegal.

Can we not, however, still say that their behavior was wrong? That they treated their fellow human beings in terrible ways, for their own selfish interests? That they either couldn't see, or else ignored, how wrong that was?