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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
in the past, woman and children were chattel. mere possessions. less than full citizens..
[rant]That was when men stopped meaning people; when to be a man you had to be male. I'm talking about back when there was another word for male human beings, wæpman, to go with wifman meaning female human being. You'll not gain back full equality until you take back your manhood.[/rant]
[back to subject at hand]We don't need no steenking badges, which was a conflation of:
We don' got no badges.
We don' need no badges.
We don' have to show you any steenking badges.
Play it again, Sam in my opinion, got its extraneous again, Sam from Ilsa's previous line, Play it once, Sam, but that's just my WDI.
Gilding the lily has been discussed elsewhere and need not be mentioned again except, perhaps, to note that it, too, is a conflation.[/back]
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
I do actually use men (sometimes) to mean people-- but its very rare. and i don't expect people to go about re-writing documents and replacing man or men with person or people... but there has been a sea change about the word...
Lots of words have changed meanings..
but i think men and man always meant 'adult male(s)'-- and that is was synonimus with people, only because adult males were the only people with any power in the society.
now, i fully realize that a adult male farm hand, or tenent farmer had very little power in 18th century (or earlier) society.. and that there were a lot more farm hands and tenents than lords. but as little power as a farm hand had, he had more than power and standing in society than his wife.
i do think women carved out places for them selves, but women legal standing were never acknowledged. a poor tenent farmer might be able to buy an old broken down nag of horse. but his wife couldn't, in many cases. she couldn't own property! (less true in England, in later years, but change has been slow)
and through out the world, remants of these types of behaviours remain-- even in modern societies like ours.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
I'm a most agreeable man... - Rex Harrison Give 'em Hell? I just tell 'en the truth and they call it Hell - Harry S Truman I don't know but they tell me that the english translations by FitzGerald of of Omar Khayyam's quatrains, improved the Rubaiyat.
They say (but no one will tell me) that Poe's The Raven was improved when translated into the french. - milo washington Hell Harry, I didn't come here to give 'em Hell Harry, I'm a most agreeable man. I came here to [Anti-rant]. Yes "men" used to mean people, because for all intents and purposes, in many societies in the past, woman and children were chattel. mere possessions. less than full citizens.. - of troy I agree, of troy. When seen from the perspective of modern women who have adopted the man's point of view of life, chattel does seem like a viable way to describe those unfortunate wretches. Thank God it is bullshit. Instead let us celebrate ten thousand years of men and women together overcoming overwhelming obstacles in bringing forth a new world, a world where those born after them can live in relative safety and comfort, and have a hope for a future that is free of injustice and ignorance. Yet I am a most agreeable man. I'll fight to the death for the right of women to work outside the home, to fight wars, and, in general, to do all the fun things of men. - mw PS: ...and counted (to our shame) slaves as 2/3 of a person. - of troy of troy, were you using this stat as an exaggeration in order to enhance a point? Who and when counted slaves in two-thirds?END [/anti-rant]_________ ________
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 320
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 320 |
For what it's worth:
NPR: MYTHS ABOUT THE FOUNDING
BY DINESH D’SOUZA
I frequently lecture at American high schools and colleges, and I must acknowledge that many educators do not share my enthusiasm for the founding. “The constitution was a racist document,” they say. “After all, it says that a black person is three-fifths of a human being.” I hear this all the time. Some teachers allege that even their good ideas the founders plagiarized from nonwhites. “They stole all their ideas from the Iroquois Indians,” a history teacher informed. I expressed surprise: “You mean,” I said, “that concepts like free elections, separation of powers, checks and balances and freedom of speech and religion were all invented and practiced by the Iroquois?”
“Absolutely,” I was told. And then, in a condescending tone: “Maybe it’s time you went home and did your homework.”
Well, I have done my homework, and here are the facts. The notorious three-fifths clause of the constitution, the central exhibit in the claim that the document is racist, in fact reflects no denial of the equal worth of African Americans. Indeed the three-fifths clause has nothing to say about the intrinsic worth of any individual or group. It arose in the context of a debate between the northern and southern states over the issue of political representation.
It turns out that the South wanted to count blacks as whole persons in order to increase its political power. The North wanted to count blacks as nothing, not for the purpose of rejecting their humanity, but in order to preserve and strengthen the anti-slavery majority in Congress. It was not a pro-slavery southerner but an anti-slavery northerner, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who proposed the three-fifths compromise.
The effect of the compromise was to limit the south’s political representation and thus its ability to protect the institution of slavery. Frederick Douglass, the great black abolitionist, understood this. He praised the three-fifths clause “a downright disability laid upon the slave-holding states” depriving them of “two-fifths of their natural basis of representation.” So the notion that the three-fifths clause demonstrates the racism of the Constitution is both wrong and unfair.
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Joined: Jun 2001
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enthusiast
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OP
enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273 |
Thank you all for your replies. I take it that's a "no" to my original question, then?
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