{"id":55529,"date":"2023-07-29T00:05:59","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T00:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55529"},"modified":"2023-07-29T00:05:59","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T00:05:59","slug":"slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55529","title":{"rendered":"Imagine being &#8216;sold&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/house.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-55530\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/house-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/house-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/house-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/house-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/house-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/house.jpg 2016w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>POPLAR FOREST, Va.<\/strong> &#8212; The thought came to me as I was touring Thomas Jefferson&#8217;s &#8220;getaway house&#8221; in rural Virginia that made me ponder the debate among Republicans over whether &#8220;slavery had its benefits.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course it didn&#8217;t! The third U.S. president owned slaves. They were property, just like the farm implements he kept in his storage places, or the horses he let roam in his corrals.<\/p>\n<p>Yet we&#8217;re hearing from a Republican candidate for president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who suggests that students need to be taught about the &#8220;benefits of slavery.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I was struck when I read about how President Jefferson needed cash to pay off a big debt. What did he do? He decided to sell the human beings he owned as slaves to help retire the debt.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine for just a moment being sold. Imagine that you might no longer be the property of one man and would become the property of another, a stranger.<\/p>\n<p>I cannot for the ever-lovin&#8217; life of me wrap my head around such a thing. Nor can I see any benefit at any level the idea of being owned by someone who thinks of me as three-fifths of a human being.<\/p>\n<p>My brief visit to this relatively unknown exhibit near Lynchburg opened my eyes even wider to the utter stupidity of such a pronouncement coming from an individual who wants to settle into the Oval Office and lead a nation that comprises <em>descendants <\/em>of slaves.<\/p>\n<p>We venerate Thomas Jefferson to this day as one of our nation&#8217;s founders, but oh brother &#8230; he had his serious flaws. <em>Owning<\/em> human beings was one of them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPLAR FOREST, Va. &#8212; The thought came to me as I was touring Thomas Jefferson&#8217;s &#8220;getaway house&#8221; in rural Virginia that made me ponder the debate among Republicans over whether &#8220;slavery had its benefits.&#8221; Of course it didn&#8217;t! The third U.S. president owned slaves. They were property, just like the farm implements he kept in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55529\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Imagine being &#8216;sold&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1941,7419,9758,4286],"class_list":["post-55529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-gop","tag-maga","tag-ron-desantis","tag-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55531,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55529\/revisions\/55531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}