The reason Paul used the phrase “this witness is true,” is because he was afixin’ to quote someone who belonged to a people that were known liars. If believing this were a sin, it would seem more realistic for Paul to reprove his listeners for holding generalized beliefs about various groups. But no, he actually validates the practice.

BTW, am I to assume you have accepted the dictionary definition of “racism” that I gave as a standard by which moral conduct is to be judged? You have offered nothing against it. I’d like to know where you stand on this.

Having said all this, even if my interpretation of Titus 1: 12,13 had been erroneous, it would not have proved your case. You have taken the position that racism exists as a valid concept. But disproving the example I used to argue against your position, would in no way prove yours. (By proving something is not blue, does not prove it is green.) Although this bores you, I would be pleased if you would make the effort to give some evidence for your position.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

#28.

[Editor's note: Chuck would not answer me directly. He was trying to maintain I wasn't worthy of his lofty attention. But the next day in a message to Mike Broadwell, he wrote the following paragraph.]

CB The passage I shared in another post (Titus 1:12-13 ) is a prime example of all this. I could really care less what Calvin said about the verse, he was human fighting his own war in his own day. What does the passage say to you with prayer and fasting? What does the “clear” meaning of the words in proper context say to you personally? No need to move to allegory or perhaps when the verse is clear as written

[Editor's note: Now there's a fine how-do-you-do. He mentions Calvin as some sort of authority, then he twists the Bible verse to mean exactly what it does not mean. And when I use Calvin to show how his interpretation of the verse was wrong, this guy says he doesn't care what Calvin said.]

#29.

To: Thomas Roche

August 31,

Thomas,

I’m awfully sorry about misstating your name. Please accept my sincerest apology. And thank you, Mr. Underwood, for pointing out the error.

Before I start, I’d like to give you a word of personal advice, for your own safety: “Don’t go to Mississippi.” I heard some of the boys talkin’ the other night. And after your last post, they are waitin’ for you down there. So, please, stay out of Mississippi.

(1) You wrote: “Is this OT history relevant? Are black folks clearly Hamites? In any case, Europeans are Japethites, and the Semites were the chosen line. You see where I am going here, if you want to resort to Genesis evidence to prove your points, you will need to be most careful.”

As a youngster, I was indeed taught that the blacks were the descendants of Ham and the curse of Ham was still valid. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. I believe Arthur Custance placed the blacks in the family line of Shem. My main points from Genesis are that God’s world order of separate peoples and separate nations were enunciated there first, and that a lot of information is given there to define a people and a nation.

Arthur Pink wrote: “Without these two chapters [Genesis 10-11], we should be without any satisfactory solution to the ethnological problems presented by the different nations and tongues;”

So I think there is important instruction in Genesis for us.

(2) You wrote: “Are you saying that the European southerners were the chosen people of the land, given exclusive ruling rights to it by God, and thus did not have any need to grant full equality to the Africans they brought it, and of course also had the right, as they did for good in the 1830s (note, before the Yankee war) to expel the Red natives of the place from their own land, on analogy of what Israel had been ordered to do by God to the Canaanites?”

No, I’m not saying that, although I see how you could reasonably draw such a conclusion. I used the comparison between the relation between the Hebrews and their slaves and the Southerners and their slaves as just that, a comparison. If God sanctions an event one time, then it cannot be said to be wrong under all circumstances. Perhaps in the future I should use a different comparison.

(3) You wrote: “So God does not consider the black folks Christian southerners just because they live in the South and believe in the Christian God? Even OT law allowed a man to convert to Judaism.”

That’s correct. When Abraham dwelt in Canaan, he sent his servant back to his own people in Chaledea to fetch a wife for Isaac. Physical proximity doesn’t beget peoplehood.

(4) You wrote: “How exactly do you define “peoplehood” then?”

Truly an excellent question. Genesis 10:5 states: “By these were the lands of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”

In previous posts I have shown how this linguistic division meant more than simply the words one spoke, but included the mindset which caused one to conceive of certain concepts in certain terms, while others of a different mindset conceived of the same concepts in different terms.

Also, the Greek word for “nations” is “ethnos,” which Strong has defined as “a race, (as of the same habit), i.e., a tribe; specifically a foreign (non-Jewish) one (usually by implication pagan): Gentile, heathen, nation, people.” I’m assuming that “of the same habit” equates to our phrase “a common culture.”

These nations, or ethnic groups, into which God divided mankind early in human history, shall persevere into eternity. Revelations 21:24 states: “And the nations shall walk by its [the New Jerusalem] light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it.”

In the NT, there is a differentiation between a nation and a geopolitical empire. John 11:48: “If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him; and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” Israel was a separate nation within the Roman Empire.

John 18:35″ Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delievered thee unto me; what hast thou done?”

An even better verse is found in John 11:50, where Caiphus declares: “it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish. Two things: we are not to believe he was speaking of the Roman Empire when he used the word “nation,” but of the Jewish nation which existed within and was governed by the Roman authorities. And the next verse says he didn’t speak this of his own initiatve, the implication being that God put the words in his mouth.

So the distinction is drawn between a nation and a government. And the same distinction is drawn between a nation and an area. Perhaps you could state a working definition of the above concepts better than I can, but I’ll say that peoplehood revolves around family — blood lineage and marraige — a common language and mindset, resulting in a common culture.

The Humanists of the Civil Rights Movement have removed these God-given aspects of peoplehood and replaced them with an ideological relationship — belief in democratic, equalitarian, integration is said by them to make one an American.

(5) You wrote: “If we follow your apparently covenantal thinking here, the white folks had an obligation to civilize and Christianize their African slaves, which they didn’t really do, because such a policy would have led to their becoming free. Remember, the traditional policy throughout Christendom had always been, that a pagan slave became free upon accepting baptism. The Southern folk did away with this by the end of the 17th cent.”

Dabney freely admitted we hadn’t done enough, although evangelism is not the duty of the society, but of the church and in the case of slaves, the family. Certain of our people did introduce them to the Christian religion; and did provide for them access to the gospel, regular instruction of the Bible; and did introduce them to the Christian concept of the family and taught them about marraige and child-rearing. All this is much more than their previous masters in Africa did for them, but sadly, they have forgotten much of what was taught them.

I was not aware that freeing converted slaves was the traditional policy throughout Christendom. But by your own principles, a uniform tradition does not make right. In Philemon, the Christian slave-owner of the recently converted slave was instructed about many things concerning his slave. But freeing him was not among them. The same can be said about instruction given to Christian slave-owners in Ephesians and other epistles.

(6) You wrote: “No, I don’t suppose you do, since you are evidently committed to he notion of keeping the black folks in the south as an inferior ‘alien’ race for generations to come?”

Ooh! Cheap shot! Heretofore, I have not made any statements concerning my plans or desires for the future. In my way of thinking, three or four different policies have been tried already: slavery, emancipation and repatriation to Africa, emancipation without repatriation resulting in Jim Crow, and integration. None of them have been satisfactory and the present one is the worst of all for my people and the blacks. (Recently there was a huge debate at the NAACP annual meeting about the wisdom of integrated schools. It seems a meaningful minority of that organization has seen how destructive this is to their people.)

I’m open to future creative solutions to our ethnological dilemma, although I don’t think anything positive can occur as long as the government in Washington retains the muscle to dictate the situation.

Today, the problem is not simply black/white. Millions of Mexicans and other Hispanics now reside within the South and the greater United States. Millions of Asians have also come. A comprehensive settlement will have to be achieved. The time for this has not yet arrived. And, sadly, I’m willing to predict that there won’t be enough forward-looking people to realize a comprehensive settlement of ethnic partition is advisable, and eventually, events will force that realization onto them with violence and great hardship on all of us.

But I want to be on record as favoring a negotiated settlement now instead of a violent settlement later.

(7) You wrote: “Your points on immigration are excellent, but the black folks have been here for almost 400 years now. Black folks are no more foreigners in say, Alabama, than whites are.”

While this is true, it is not such an important issue. The fact remains that we are not one people, we are two peoples living in the same land — and since one of the divisions God made between peoples was land, for two peoples to inhabit the same land is always a dangerous, potentially explosive situation. Please recall what has happened in the recent past in Chechnya, Georgia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Burundi, India, Palestine, the Sudan, Iraq, Angola, South Africa, Liberia, Zimbabwe, and, to a lesser degree, Canada.

And there are many more of these problems brewing in Great Britain, Spain, the United States, Mexico, Tamil, and virtually every country where integration is the policy and two or more peoples inhabit the same land.

You could say the Palestinians are not foreigners in Palestine. But that doesn’t make them Jews. Nor are the Hutus foreigners in Burundi, but that didn’t make them Tutsis. Nor are the Russians foreigners in Chechnya, but that doesn’t make them Chechnyans. I could go on and on.

(8) Concerning the O.J. Simpson jury, you wrote: “Perhaps they feel that they are retaking things stolen from them.”

Perhaps so. I would like to hear one or more of them make a case for that. But what I really think is important is the ethnic solidarity they operate under. That’s what lets them get away with murder, demand extortion money from the Congress under threat of riots and violence, demand laws granting them priviledged status in the workplace, the university, the business establishment, and many other places. Our people cannot deal effectively with black solidarity. Their nationalistic aspirations are a very potent force shows no sign of abating of their own accord, but are actually growing stronger as the blacks move from triumph to triumph. Their own limitations and lack of numbers are the only human impediments keeping them from taking virtually everything we have.

(9) You wrote: “If you had taught them (the blacks) the scriptures earlier, they wouldn;t have been susceptible to abolitionist lies.”

This is pure speculation on your part. Who can know authoritatively what would have happened upon some change in events other than God Himself who knows all conditions and possibilities?

I don’t want to beat on the blacks, as I’ve shown the problem has become much more comprehensive with the advances made by the abolitionists in the last 30 years. So I won’t say anymore here except that the South was not and is not responsible for the moral condition of the blacks. Their tub must stand on its own bottom.

(10) You wrote: “But they were denied true preaching from those who knew when they didn’t, quite unlike the Europeans who had the advantages of say, Paul of Tarsus.”

You’ll have to admit your grammar wasn’t up to par here and I can’t fully make out what you are saying. I think you’re saying we Europeans had the advantage of hearing Paul and in the South, we didn’t make this available to the blacks.

Within the last five years, a professor at Reformed Seminary, Jackson — whose name escapes me right now and I’m down here in Sarasota, FL on vacation without my library handy — wrote a book on Southern preachers. One of them was a black fellow from the Civil War period, whose nam also escapes me. I’m here to tell you, he didn’t gain his knowledge from Africa. The Christianity he knew was taught to him by Southern Christians and no one else.

I’ll accept the charge that our people didn’t do as much as they could have done, but, let’s face it, there are a lot of Southerners from that period in Hell today, sad to say. More and more I see evidence that it was the Civil War period that crystalized the South as the Bible Belt, as many people searched the Bible earnestly during that time to see what it had to say about slavery. And as a result a meaningful percentage became Christians through the reading of the Bible.

Before that, many weren’t in much of a position to teach the blacks about true religion as they didn’t possess it themselves.

(11) You wrote: “I am no new world order man, sir, merely a Reconstructionist who wants a unified and godly society.”

I’m sorry I used the term “new world order.” That was an unfortunate choice of words. I certainly don’t think you believe in THE New World Order. Those are the words I used, without realizing the connotation that could be drawn from it.

As to your desire for a “unified and godly society,” perhaps there is some framework under which those two terms can go together, but the one espoused by the integrationists is not it. The Martin Luther King Cult’s program of unity destroys the God-made divisions of mankind.

The purpose of the division of the nations was to restrain sin. I quoted Harold Stigers. Rev. Joe Morecraft has made the same observation in another place, as have others. I am interested in hearing your plan for a unified society. Perhaps you’ve got some information I need to know.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

#30.

Originally from: Thomas P Roche

Originally dated: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 20:04:26 -0400 (EDT)

To: Dennis Wheeler:

On Sun, 31 Aug 1997, Dennis A. Wheeler wrote:

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I’m awfully sorry about misstating your name. Please accept my sincerest apology. And thank you, Mr. Underwood, for pointing out the error.

Before I start, I’d like to give you a word of personal advice, for your own safety: “Don’t go to Mississippi.” I heard some of the boys talkin’ the other night. And after your last post, they are waitin’ for you down there. So, please, stay out of Mississippi.

Thomas Roche speaking: Oh don’t worry ’bout it. The first time I am going to go down there will be when I am in command of a Yankee artillery unit.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: My main points from Genesis are that God’s world order of separate peoples and separate nations were enunciated there first, and that a lot of information is given there to define a people and a nation.

Arthur Pink wrote: “Without these two chapters [Genesis 10-11], we should be without any satisfactory solution to the ethnological problems presented by the different nations and tongues;”

So I think there is important instruction in Genesis for us.

Thomas Roche speaking: Yes of ocurse there is, indeed, but it must be read in light of the superior revelations of the NT. Also accurate history is an absolute prerequisite.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I used the comparison between the relation between the Hebrews and their slaves and the Southerners and their slaves as just that, a comparison. If God sanctions an event one time, then it cannot be said to be wrong under all circumstances. Perhaps in the future I should use a different comparison.

Thomas Roche speaking: Neither can it be said to be right under all circumstances. What about those Red Indians?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: (3) You wrote: “So God does not consider the black folks Christian southerners just because they live in the South and believe in the Christian God? Even OT law allowed a man to convert to Judaism.”

That’s correct. When Abraham dwelt in Canaan, he sent his servant back to his own people in Chaledea to fetch a wife for Isaac. Physical proximity doesn’t beget peoplehood.

Thomas Roche speaking: Yes, it doesn’t necessarily do so, but you yourself have allowed for amalgamations of various European ethnicities to create your “southern people”– I wait longingly for an assessment of why it would be impossible to also amalgamate the Africans thereinto.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: So the distinction is drawn between a nation and a government. And the same distinction is drawn between a nation and an area. Perhaps you could state a working definition of the above concepts better than I can, but I’ll say that peoplehood revolves around family — blood lineage and marraige — a common language and mindset, resulting in a common culture.

The Humanists of the Civil Rights Movement have removed these God-given aspects of peoplehood and replaced them with an ideological relationship — belief in democratic, equalitarian, integration is said by them to make one an American.

Thomas Roche speaking: You have excellent points here. Trouble is, they’re not relevant to the discusison at hand.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: In Philemon, the Christian slave-owner of the recently converted slave was instructed about many things concerning his slave. But freeing him was not among them. The same can be said about instruction given to Christian slave-owners in Ephesians and other epistles.

Thomas Roche speaking: Philemon isn’t exactly a blanket endorsement of slavery, you know, and certainly not the kidnapping based chattel slavery practiced here.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: A comprehensive settlement will have to be achieved. The time for this has not yet arrived. And, sadly, I’m willing to predict that there won’t be enough forward-looking people to realize a comprehensive settlement of ethnic partition is advisable, and eventually, events will force that realization onto them with violence and great hardship on all of us.

But I want to be on record as favoring a negotiated settlement now instead of a violent settlement later.

Thomas Roche speaking: What kind of settlement do you want to see negotiated?

(7) You wrote: “Your points on immigration are excellent, but the black folks have been here for almost 400 years now. Black folks are no more foreigners in say, Alabama, than whites are.”

Dennis Wheeler speaking: The fact remains that we are not one people, we are two peoples living in the same land — and since one of the divisions God made between peoples was land, for two peoples to inhabit the same land is always a dangerous, potentially explosive situation. Please recall what has happened in the recent past in Chechnya, Georgia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Burundi, India, Palestine, the Sudan, Iraq, Angola, South Africa, Liberia, Zimbabwe, and, to a lesser degree, Canada.

Thomas Roche speaking: But unlike those places, black and white southerners share a common language and religious tradition, and the vast majority of basic culturalia.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: (9) You wrote: “If you had taught them (the blacks) the scriptures earlier, they wouldn;t have been susceptible to abolitionist lies.”

This is pure speculation on your part. Who can know authoritatively what would have happened upon some change in events other than God Himself who knows all conditions and possibilities?

I don’t want to beat on the blacks, as I’ve shown the problem has become much more comprehensive with the advances made by the abolitionists in the last 30 years. So I won’t say anymore here except that the South was not and is not responsible for the moral condition of the blacks. Their tub must stand on its own bottom.

Thomas Roche speaking: You assert this, absolutely, without countering the contrary evidence I have provided.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I’ll accept the charge that our people didn’t do as much as they could have done, but, let’s face it, there are a lot of Southerners from that period in Hell today, sad to say. More and more I see evidence that it was the Civil War period that crystalized the South as the Bible Belt, as many people searched the Bible earnestly during that time to see what it had to say about slavery. And as a result a meaningful percentage became Christians through the reading of the Bible.

Before that, many weren’t in much of a position to teach the blacks about true religion as they didn’t possess it themselves.

Thomas Roche speaking: Which does sadly undercut the romanticized notion of the Ante-Bellum south as being a Christian paradise. See also “Cracker Culture” hereupon.

(11) You wrote: “I am no new world order man, sir, merely a Reconstructionist who wants a unified and godly society.”

Dennis Wheeler speaking: The purpose of the division of the nations was to restrain sin. I quoted Harold Stigers. Rev. Joe Morecraft has made the same observation in another place, as have others. I am interested in hearing your plan for a unified society. Perhaps you’ve got some information I need to know.

Thomas Roche speaking: I don’t have a deeply defined plan, beyond evangelism, but we are still faced with a choice, unity or balkanization. Then we really would become like Yugoslavia.

[Editor's note: Before I wrote back to Roche, another skirmish broke out with Rev. Terry Gorden. Him calling me a secular humanist reminds me of the time Ted Waltrip called me a P.C. idiot.]

#31.

Originally from: AWVZ26A@prodigy.com ( TERRY D GORDEN)

Originally dated: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 08:39:56, -0500

Dennis,

You remind me of the controversy between Democrats and Republicans. When it really comes down to it, they are in the same bed. I believe that the same charge can be made about your conservative sociology and the liberal sociology that you hate. Neither is Bible centered.

You are lowering yourself to a secular humanist style in order to win points and influence people. And by doing so, you lose your credibility both with man and with God.

I have spent all of my time as an ordained pastor south of the Mason and Dixon line. The cultural differences between southern conservative Christian whites in the South is so large that another war could be fought. I spent too much of my time in Mississippi and Alabama to ignore this fact. But enough of that. I do not want to get on your train.

You have lots of interesting and often good thoughts. But your secular humanist manner of argumentation does not give you much of a chance of a hearing.

Terry Gorden

#32.

To: Terry D. Gorden

Sept. 6,

Dear Terry,

I read your message. My first thought was that I doubt secular humanists would agree with you. For instance, I can’t imagine Bill Clinton, Norman Lear, Jesse Jackson, Madonna, Whoopie Goldberg, and Barney Frank acknowledging that I am representative of their views.

Also, there exists a Humanist magazine. It’s quite difficult to square my views with the views in that magazine.

Since this is the second time you have mentioned this, I did some more thinking. (You have not given any examples of “secular humanism” in my perspective; and you haven’t shown any evidence of a tie between secular humanism and my perspective.) I decided that your statements exhibit one of four possibilities:

(1) I don’t know what secular humanism is;

(2) You don’t know what secular humanism is;

(3) You are confusing the discussion of secular topics with secular humanism;

(4) You believe my views are not only wrong but evil and you are therefore at liberty to attack me anyway you want to.

There may be other possibilities that I haven’t thought of, but this is what I’ve come up with so far. Since secular humanism is an anti-Christian religion that makes man the measure of all things and seeks unity among men as a substitute for unity between men and God, I take your charge quite seriously. If you would be so kind, I would ask you to do three simple things.

(1) Give a working definition or description of the phrase secular humanism;

(2) Show a few examples of statements I have made that demonstrate secular humanism;

(3) Show a little evidence of the tether between my views and secular humanism.

This could be a real benefit to me. So I anxiously await your reply.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

[Editor's note: No reply was ever forthcoming from Rev. Gorden.]

#33.

To: Thomas Roche

September 5,

Thomas,

It appears to me there are still some unstated presuppostions that one or both of us are operating under that keep us from agreeing on what is important and unimportant within this topic, let alone what is the right answer and what is not. At one point you wrote: “You assert this, absolutely, without countering the contrary evidence I have provided.”

I certainly don’t want to be guilty of ducking a legitimate question. I want to give a full answer to all relevant questions. So I went back and looked at your answer. And according to the text I have, the above statement was quoted in its entirety. There was no contrary evidence tied to it. So you must be referring to something else.

I don’t know what it is and I think the reason is the problem I have stated above. But if there is any evidence you have presented that is relevant to the issue and I have not addressed it, would you please restate it? I’ll make sure to give it an answer.

Now you have asked about the Red Indians. I have not seen the relevance of that issue to this discussion and so have not answered it. If you think it is relevant, tell me why and I will.

The key issue as I see it is “What is a people?” And more specifically “Are the Southern people and the blacks living in the South one people and one nation?” My answer to the last one is no and your answer is yes.

If you disagree with this, then I don’t want to put words in your mouth. So, please, speak up.

(1) You wrote: “Yes, it doesn’t necessarily do so, but you yourself have allowed for amalgamations of various European ethnicities to create your “southern people”– I wait longingly for an assessment of why it would be impossible to also amalgamate the Africans thereinto.”

The amalgamation of other groups into the Southern people has been piecemeal and on such a small scale that the nation could easily absorb the outsiders and keep its identity. In fact, it hasn’t been an amalgamation of groups at all. It has been an amalgamation of individuals from other groups — a very important distinction. Germans, Dutch, and other Europeans have migrated to the South, married a Southerner, adopted our language and cultural ways, and, over time, become Southerners. This has been no problem.

To amalgamate the blacks would require the melding of two separate peoples into a new nation. The Southern people would no longer exist but a new nation would be created. While physically possible, certainly not advisable from either our point of view or that of the blacks.

Also, necessity threw the three European peoples together as one nation in 1861. The Scotch-Irish and the Cavaliers were more easily assimilible to one another than to the Cajuns, who remain distinctive. Nonetheless, it happened.

With the blacks, every external attempt has been made to force amalgamation to happen. And yet it hasn’t happened. There is hardly any intermarraige between the groups. And the great majority of what little intermarraige there is, falls by the wayside with relative ease.

Also, the Southern people will not accept the offspring of these unions as Southerners. They remain blacks, who aren’t particularly fond of them either.

Also, within the last 18 months CNN produced an expose about segregation in the churches. It called 11:00AM on Sunday morning the most segregated hour of the week.

I think the great differences between the two peoples — physically, emotionally, cognitively, culturally, etc. — is the reason for these phenomena.

The federal government had to pass laws forcing Southerners to sell their houses to blacks, forcing Southerners to hire them in their business establishments, forcing Southerners to accept social intercourse with them. It has not occurred very much by its own impetus.

(2) After I discussed the NT teaching on nations, empires, governments, etc., you wrote: “You have excellent points here. Trouble is, they’re not relevant to the discusison at hand.”

I believe the reason you hold this is that you don’t see the two peoples as separate and distinct, but as one. Therefore, you don’t see biblical points differentiating between nations and governments, nations and geographical proximity relevant. But again, this is only a guess on my part. You didn’t state why you don’t see my statements as relevant. You simply stated they were not.

But I see this of great importance. It shows us that the present-day policy of integration has been tried before. And it is part of the Bible’s fuller explanation of what a people and a nation is. And what it was that God divided in Genesis. And what will remain divided until at least the end of time.

In short, it shows us the viewpoint that God takes when looking at nations and peoples.

(3) You wrote: “Philemon isn’t exactly a blanket endorsement of slavery, you know, and certainly not the kidnapping based chattel slavery practiced here.”

I don’t see the slavery issue as relevant to the issue at hand except as evidence as to whether or not the Southern people and the blacks living in the South are indeed one people or not. But let me correct something you assert here.

The “kidnapping-based” charge will not stick. Although the slave trade was not carried on by Southerners, but was almost entirely a New England commerce, indeed much of the wealth of New England was built on money from the slave trade, still the New Englanders did not send raiding parties to Africa who would invade and capture free Africans running around in the bush.

No, the ships sent from New England were laden with rum. The rum was traded to the local African slavelord for the slaves. You might remember my quote from Rushdoony that slaves were used as money in Africa. The slavelords purchased the rum with the money at hand, slaves.

There were places off the coast of Africa where slave auctions would be held. The slavelords would bring their slaves there to these auction houses and sell them to European, North American, and Islamic slave traders.

Kidnapping was not part of the practice, as far as the New Englanders were concerned.

Also, my understanding of the term “chattel,” if used in conjunction with the slaves, would dehumanize them. By law, they had congressional representation, they had the right to apply to the local magistrate if they believed themselves to be unlawfully detained, they were protected from capital punishment from their masters, they were allowed to marry and have families, and many other things that separate them from “chattel,” if I understand the term correctly.

Most of the time, “chattel” is used as an emotional club rather than a term of enlightenment. I have seen it used on this list before in such a manner.

(4) In answer to my discussion about negotiating a settlement between the peoples rather than allowing it to devolve into an ethnic brawl, you asked: “What kind of settlement do you want to see negotiated?”

Although it will be hard to sell to the Southerners living in the affected area, I will favor giving up some of what is now Dixie to the blacks. What part that will be, I don’t know; basically, the areas in which they own the most property.

Louis Farrakhan has a plan and so do other black nationalist groups. I don’t want to accept their plans as delivered, but they do have some reasonable basis for them.

Of course, I’ve heard New York is real nice, with plenty of fertile farmland and great ports and financial centers. Perhaps the blacks would like to go there, to the new Promised Land.

But come what may, I’m essentially talking about an ethnic partition. As wild as that may seem, it’s happening all over the world. And it’s a megatrend I see continuing well into the next century. And I think Americans who believe this land is immune to it are playing the ostrich.

(5) After my roll call of the countries that have recently undergone ethnic warfare because of having two or more peoples share one land, you wrote: “But unlike those places, black and white southerners share a common language and religious tradition, and the vast majority of basic culturalia.”

I find this statement a real head-scratcher. Evidently you are accepting as reasonable the ethnic break up of these other countries, but believe it would be inappropriate, and perhaps even sinful, to allow it here.

The fact is that we are not one people, but different peoples as much as many of the peoples who separated in the lands mentioned. We don’t live together, but mostly in separate neighborhoods. We certainly don’t live together in the same families, and there has been very little legitimate admixture between us.

Your assertion about the same language is debatable. Recently there has been a flap about Ebonics, which evidently you don’t take seriously. It was alleged by black leaders that their people spoke a language different from English and the schools should recognize this. Although a local phenomenon, in Los Angeles, the idea gained widespread approval.

What I recognize is that English is a language that has been imposed on this people. They never would have thought it up themselves as it is foreign to the mindset I have talked about in the past that you have never addressed. (The divided languages God placed upon mankind did not only refer to the mechanical expression of the lips — the lips were not the only affected organ — but also to the manner in which concepts are conceived.) The mindset of the various African peoples is much different than the mindset of the various European peoples. This is just as true of the Southerner and the Africans living among us.

Also, we don’t worship together, much to the chagrin of the integrationists who endlessly badger white congregations for not being either open enough to blacks or not doing enough to bring affirmative action to the church and make special efforts to bring blacks in.

The histories of the peoples are quite different also. Despite the sorry moral and religious condition of our people today, we have descended from families of the Reformation. This isn’t true of the blacks. Their families have mostly been pagans as far as can be remembered. The only period in their collective lives when they were under the influence of the gospel to any great degree was the time when they lived under our tutelage as slaves.

Your idea about us sharing the same religion is also quite debatable. This for the reasons stated above and at least one other. For instance, our religious tradition is no more similar to theirs than those traditions of England and Wales, or England and Scotland. Yet those remain distinct peoples, with operating separatist movements in both Wales and Scotland.

The Southerner shares a similar language, religion, and cultural tradition with the British people, not the Africans in America.

I think you must explain this more thoroughly.

(6) You closed with: “I don’t have a deeply defined plan, beyond evangelism, but we are still faced with a choice, unity or balkanization. Then we really would become like Yugoslavia.”

Your plan effectively amounts to “more of the same.” Evangelism has been ongoing since 1965. If we are left with no other choice, then we are consigned to slavery and ultimately, destruction.

Also, you speak of balkanization as though it is a negative concept. I see it as a very positive concept totally in line with God’s creation order of separate peoples and separate nations. Now it is an evil matter that the people had to come to war with one another to balkanize, but the worst evil occurred when the Communists united the peoples in the hope of destroying God’s creation order.

Once this had been imposed on them, I think it quite cruel to sentence them to eternal unity by calling attempts to win their freedom sin. But Secretary of State James Baker essentially did this when he went to Belgrade and implored them not to separate. (Much like George Bush’s “Chicken Kiev” speech when he counseled the Ukrainians not to seek independence from Russia.)

You have claimed not to be an advocate of the New World Order. I have accepted this. But I think you should see that your program effectively consigns the peoples of the world to that condition, despite the fact that this is not your intention.

And even in this you are not consistent. It seems that you accept the separation of many of the world’s peoples, but deny it to the Southerner alone.

I think it’s your turn to present a comprehensive and consistent plan that both respects God’s creation order and serves your concepts of unity.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

We are a band of brothers related to the soil, Fighting for her liberty with treasure, blood, and toil. And when the Yanks came calling, the cry rose near and far. We’ll rally ’round the bonny blue flag that bears the single star.

Hurrah, hurrah, for Southern rights hurrah. We’ll rally ’round the bonny blue flag that bears the single star.

#34.

Originally from: Thomas P Roche

Originally dated: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 14:43:03 -0400 (EDT)

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I certainly don’t want to be guilty of ducking a legitimate question. I want to give a full answer to all relevant questions. So I went back and looked at your answer. And according to the text I have, the above statement was quoted in its entirety. There was no contrary evidence tied to it. So you must be referring to something else.

Thomas Roche speaking: Out of context and at this late date, I am unclear as to what you refer.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Now you have asked about the Red Indians. I have not seen the relevance of that issue to this discussion and so have not answered it. If you think it is relevant, tell me why and I will.

Thomas Roche speaking: I remain unclear as to their role in the South, as they are the original inhabitants thereof, and to whether you justify the white folks’ forcible removal thereof.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: The key issue as I see it is “What is a people?” And more specifically “Are the Southern people and the blacks living in the South one people and one nation?” My answer to the last one is no and your answer is yes. If you disagree with this, then I don’t want to put words in your mouth. So, please, speak up.

Thomas Roche speaking: No, you have it.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: To amalgamate the blacks would require the melding of two separate peoples into a new nation. The Southern people would no longer exist but a new nation would be created. While physically possible, certainly not advisable from either our point of view or that of the blacks.

Thomas Roche speaking: Why is this?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: With the blacks, every external attempt has been made to force amalgamation to happen. And yet it hasn’t happened. There is hardly any intermarraige between the groups. And the great majority of what little intermarraige there is, falls by the wayside with relative ease.

Also, the Southern people will not accept the offspring of these unions as Southerners. They remain blacks, who aren’t particularly fond of them either.

Thomas Roche speaking: Can you justify these attitudes, on the part of either blacks or whites?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Also, within the last 18 months CNN produced an expose about segregation in the churches. It called 11:00AM on Sunday morning the most segregated hour of the week.

Thomas Roche speaking: Again, is this biblically justified?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I think the great differences between the two peoples — physically, emotionally, cognitively, culturally, etc. — is the reason for these phenomena.

The federal government had to pass laws forcing Southerners to sell their houses to blacks, forcing Southerners to hire them in their business establishments, forcing Southerners to accept social intercourse with them.

It has not occurred very much by its own impetus.

Thomas Roche speaking: Again, justify this racism, which is exactly what it is.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I see this of great importance. It shows us that the present-day policy of integration has been tried before. And it is part of the Bible’s fuller explanation of what a people and a nation is. And what it was that God divided in Genesis. And what will remain divided until at least the end of time.

Thomas Roche speaking: You are committing an exegetical leap here, and conveniently forgetting why it is the black folks are in the south in the first place.

Dennis Wheeler speakingL: In short, it shows us the viewpoint that God takes when looking at nations and peoples.

Thomas Roche speaking: Prove that God views white Cjuns and Crackers as one people, but the blacks as another.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: The “kidnaping-based” charge will not stick. Although the slave trade was not carried on by Southerners, but was almost entirely a New England commerce, indeed much of the wealth of New England was built on money from the slave trade, still the New Englanders did not send raiding parties to Africa who would invade and capture free Africans running around in the bush.

No, the ships sent from New England were laden with rum. The rum was traded to the local African slavelord for the slaves. You might remember my quote from Rushdoony that slaves were used as money in Africa.

The slavelords purchased the rum with the money at hand, slaves. There were places off the coast of Africa where slave auctions would be held. The slavelords would bring their slaves there to these auction houses and sell them to European, North American, and Islamic slave traders.

Kidnapping was not part of the practice, as far as the New Englanders were concerned.

Thomas Roche speaking: If I buy a kidnapped man, I share in the kidnapper’s guilt.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Also, my understanding of the term “chattel,” if used in conjunction

with the slaves, would dehumanize them. By law, they had congressional representation, they had the right to apply to the local magistrate if they believed themselves to be unlawfully detained, they were protected from capital punishment from their masters, they were allowed to marry and have families, and many other things that separate them from “chattel,” if I understand the term correctly.

Thomas Roche speaking: You insult my intelligence, Brother. ‘Married’ couples could be sold apart, and I doubt that a slave, even had he been given liberty to learn to read, could have ‘written his congressman’. Simply put, you are distorting facts here, for a dubious agenda.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Although it will be hard to sell to the Southerners living in the affected area, I will favor giving up some of what is now Dixie to the blacks. What part that will be, I don’t know; basically, the areas in which they own the most property.

Louis Farrakhan has a plan and so do other black nationalist groups. I don’t want to accept their plans as delivered, but they do have some reasonable basis for them. Of course, I’ve heard New York is real nice, with plenty of fertile farmland and great ports and financial centers. Perhaps the blacks would like to go there, to the new Promised Land.

Thomas Roche speaking: B;ack folks have been here since the earliest days of New Netherland. They are welcome, but not to all the land. Besides, the natives are still here, the reservation is just down the road.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: But come what may, I’m essentially talking about an ethnic partition. As wild as that may seem, it’s happening all over the world. And it’s a megatrend I see continuing well into the next century. And I think Americans who believe this land is immune to it are playing the ostrich.

Thomas Roche speaking: Which will foster war.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I find this statement a real head-scratcher. Evidently you are accepting as reasonable the ethnic break up of these other countries, but believe it would be inappropriate, and perhaps even sinful, to allow it here.

Thomas Roche speaking: Where real cultural difference exists, certainly.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Your assertion about the same language is debatable. Recently there has been a flap about Ebonics, which evidently you don’t take seriously. It was alleged by black leaders that their people spoke a language different from English and the schools should recognize this. Although a local phenomenon, in Los Angeles, the idea gained widespread approval.

Thomas Roche speaking: The vast majority of blacks rejected it.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: What I recognize is that English is a language that has been imposed on this people. They never would have thought it up themselves as it is foreign to the mindset I have talked about in the past that you have never addressed. (The divided languages God placed upon mankind did not only refer to the mechanical expression of the lips — the lips were not the only affected organ — but also to the manner in which concepts are conceived.)

The mindset of the various African peoples is much different than the mindset of the various European peoples. This is just as true of the Southerner and the Africans living among us.

Thomas Roche speaking: This is arrant nonsense, and I suspect you know no linguistics. A basic test– what is an affricate? Remember, I am a scholar of classical languages.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: The histories of the peoples are quite different also. Despite the sorry moral and religious condition of our people today, we have descended from families of the Reformation. This isn’t true of the blacks. Their families have mostly been pagans as far as can be remembered. The only period in their collective lives when they were under the influence of the gospel to any great degree was the time when they lived under our tutelage as slaves.

Thomas Roche speaking: You conveniently ignored my reminder about your ancestors’ state in 500 ad. Why?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Your idea about us sharing the same religion is also quite debatable. This for the reasons stated above and at least one other. For instance, our religious tradition is no more similar to theirs than those traditions of England and Wales, or England and Scotland. Yet those remain distinct peoples, with operating separatist movements in both Wales and Scotland. The Southerner shares a similar language, religion, and cultural tradition with the British people, not the Africans in America. I think you must explain this more thoroughly.

Thomas Roche speaking: Why, your teachings are nonsense.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Your plan effectively amounts to “more of the same.” Evangelism has been ongoing since 1965. If we are left with no other choice, then we are consigned to slavery and ultimately, destruction.

Also, you speak of balkanization as though it is a negative concept. I see it as a very positive concept totally in line with God’s creation order of separate peoples and separate nations. Now it is an evil matter that the people had to come to war with one another to balkanize, but the worst evil occurred when the Communists united the peoples in the hope of destroying God’s creation order.

Thomas Roche speaking: You think Bosnia a garden spot? You move there.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: You have claimed not to be an advocate of the New World Order. I have accepted this. But I think you should see that your program effectively consigns the peoples of the world to that condition, despite the fact that this is not your intention.

Thomas Roche speaking: Define the New World Order for us.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: And even in this you are not consistent. It seems that you accept the separation of many of the world’s peoples, but deny it to the Southerner alone.

Thomas Roche speaking: I ask: What will happen to the black folks in your south? Can a Yankee become a Southerner by moving there? Where are the territorial limits of the South? Who are the Southerners?

Dennis Wheeler speaking: I think it’s your turn to present a comprehensive and consistent plan that both respects God’s creation order and serves your concepts of unity.

Thomas Roche speaking: What is God’s creation order?

#35.

To: Thomas Roche

Sept. 13

Dear Thomas,

So far our exchange has not been much of a discussion or debate. No. It’s been more of a cross-examination. It’s time for you to come forth with some ideas of your own. I’ve answered enough questions for now and believe I have explained my perspective fully, especially when compared to what you’ve come out with.

You say that my ideas on linguistics are “arrant nonsense.” Then, instead of showing that to be true you state your credentials. BTW, I didn’t forget you are a linguistic scholar. Fact is, I never knew it to forget it.

And since you are a scholar, it should be easy for you to show how my perspective is “arrant nonsense.” What you’ve done is kind of like what happened to the guy who went to the doctor and heard the doctor pronounce him a very sick man. And then, instead of the doctor telling him what was wrong with him and what to do about it, the doctor told the guy he had gone to Harvard Medical School. At the time, that wasn’t doing anyone any good.

And so it is with your linguistic scholarship. With such a formidable background, it should be easy for you to refute the “arrant nonsense” of someone who doesn’t even know what an “affricate” is.

Also, we are still waiting for your biblical definition of “racism” or some biblical justification for using the word.

Last time I wrote: “I think it’s your turn to present a comprehensive and consistent plan that both respects God’s creation order and serves your concepts of unity.”

And your response was another question: “What is God’s creation order?”

I think I’ve explained myself on that issue several times. It’s your turn. If you have some perspective we need to see and understand, out with it.

You have claimed my perspective is “nonsense.” Now let’s see your ideas and how much sense they make.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler

#36.

Originally from: Thomas P Roche

Originally dated: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:39:14 -0400 (EDT)

Thomas Roche speaking: Last response to Dennis:

Dear Dennis:

Dennis Wheeler speaking: So far our exchange has not been much of a discussion or debate. No. It’s been more of a cross-examination. It’s time for you to come forth with some ideas of your own. I’ve answered enough questions for now and believe I have explained my perspective fully, especially when compared to what you’ve come out with.

Thomas Roche speaking: Lemme see here– I have been consistently responding to you rpoints and asking counter-questions, but your general m.o. is to ignore my questions and rephrase your questions, as though I didn’t hear them, and hadn’t responded.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: You say that my ideas on linguistics are “arrant nonsense.” Then, instead of showing that to be true you state your credentials. BTW, I didn’t forget you are a linguistic scholar. Fact is, I never knew it to forget it.

And since you are a scholar, it should be easy for you to show how my perspective is “arrant nonsense.” What you’ve done is kind of like what happened to the guy who went to the doctor and heard the doctor pronounce him a very sick man. And then, instead of the doctor telling him what was wrong with him and what to do about it, the doctor told the guy he had gone to Harvard Medical School. At the time, that wasn’t doing anyone any good.

And so it is with your linguistic scholarship. With such a formidable background, it should be easy for you to refute the “arrant nonsense” of someone who doesn’t even know what an affricate is.

Thomas Roche speaking: OK, here goes, the nutty “lip size” crapola you slopped about as a suppossed proof of black folks’ inability to speak correct English is belied daily by millions of blacks who speak flawless English as their mother tongues (various dialects thereof), in many many countries. You do know this, don’t you? The fact that their lips tend to be thicker than ours is as irrelevant as the difference in their hair.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Also, we are still waiting for your biblical definition of “racism” or some biblical justification for using the word.

Thomas Roche speaking: Racism is not a biblically defined concept, per se, sir, neither is gravity.

Dennis Wheeler speaking: Last time I wrote: “I think it’s your turn to present a comprehensive and consistent plan that both respects God’s creation order and serves your concepts of unity.”

And your response was another question: “What is God’s creation order?”

I think I’ve explained myself on that issue several times. It’s your turn. If you have some perspective we need to see and understand, out with it.

You have claimed my perspective is “nonsense.” Now let’s see your ideas and how much sense your ideas make.

Thomas Roche speaking: I could continue with this debate, but owing to Mr Wheeler’s record of consistently racist advocacy and practice here and on other lists and even within his own southernism partisanship circles, I choose instead to disavow further fruitless discussions with him and brand him as the repentance-requiring racialist that he is.

Thomas Roche

[Editor’s note: I noticed that in Roche’s next to last post he seemed to be getting a little frustrated. But I didn’t expect him to blow his cork like this. I wonder what set him off?

Still, the lesson of this debate is that the integrationist churchmen have no leg to stand on. They preach their doctrine because it’s easy, not because it’s true.

And there’s another lesson to be learned here. When a people will stand up for themselves and not be dissuaded, it unleashes a power and a fury that’s very hard to deal with. This must be reinstilled in the Southern people. We are a separate people with our God-given right to govern ourselves in our own land unfettered by others. We must demand that right and let no one keep us from it. The world will someday tremble before us, if we will only stand together as one.

THE END