From "Readers React" in the NYT today

To elaborate my point, the founding fathers created a system in which "inalienable rights" didn't apply to tens of thousands of human beings being owned as property in their own country. The creator of those people didn't give them human rights. Government did (and took them away) and gave them back.

 

Government did not take away those rights. Government failed to secure those rights. This was, of course, the original sin of the U.S. in its founding.

 

During, Jim Crow state "Redeemer" governments indeed took away rights included in the Reconstruction Amendments.

 

Why do you think Europe as a polity does not exist? I don't see it a black or white, but more of a trend in changing identity. I see Europe resembling the U.S. pre-Civil War with strong identification with a state under a European umbrella. A change to primarily identifying oneself as European is going to take a generation or two.

Think of German and Italian states prior to unification in the 1860s and 1870s. Germans and Italians didn't have national identity up until post World War I. Bavaria had its own army until 1918.

 

"Jim Crow" laws did not take away rights. They allowed governments to shirk their responsibility to secure rights. In pursuing and enforcing such legislation, those governments were rendering themselves invalid.

I know this is semantics, but semantics are very important here. The philosophical charter of this country rests on the idea that human beings have inherent rights, and that government's primary duty is to ensure that these rights are not abridged.

 

Seeing yourself as a European rather than a German -- or a Greek or an Italian -- is going to take more than a generation or two. National identities forged over centuries do not dissipate simply because we wish them to. Look at Belgium. It was pieced together out of French- and Dutch-speaking peoples in the 1800s, and they still get on one another's nerves. It's a helluva job ensuring that all parties feel adequately represented. And this is in the center of the EU!

 

The Reconstruction Amendments. Ah yes, the ones the teabaggers want to get rid of.