Be Careful

     It's been another noisy week here at Bloody Nib Manor. A cohort of the local yokels continue, in fact, have increased, their nightly celebration of nothing at all by lighting fireworks of various types that are illegal in the county; quarter sticks of dynamite, half sticks of dynamite, aerial mortars, and sky rockets. It has become tiresome. One, in a cooling evening, is reading the works of Montaigne, John Owen, or John Locke, only to be interrupted by an explosion of some sort caused by a person who is barely able to speak or read the King's English or appreciate what Independence Day is all about. But that's modern America: the disruptive are listened to while the maintaining are ignored.
      Speaking of which, dear reader and friend, have you noticed that during the current racial strife that caucasians, specifically those of European heritage, (and even some Asians, for some reason) are expected apologize to those of African heritage for the sins of not their fathers and not their grandfathers, and perhaps not even their great-grandfathers regarding slavery and racism?
     Now, consider this dear reader. The majority of those of European heritage arrived in the United States after the Civil War (this writer is outside that group since his forebearers arrived in the Americas in the 1600s-- all of them) and none of those people owned or even had the opportunity to involve themselves in the practice of chattel slavery (regarding which this some of this writer's ancestors were indentured servants and some of them may have owned African slaves in the 18th century, but all, as far is as known, fought for the Union during the Civil War). In other words, most of those of European heritage, whether Irish, Swedish, Italian, German, etc. never had an ancestor who owned a slave simply because when their ancestors came to these blessed shores there was no such thing as slavery in the United States. And even for those who are descended from slave owners, their family has not owned a slave since 1865. That is 155 years. Think about it.; 155 years. Outside of people who read old books like Dickens, Austen, and Irving, very few people know anything about life 155 years ago. Ask yourself, dear friend, can you name a song that was popular in the United States 155 years ago? In fact, can you call to mind the old motto for Camel cigarettes or Bon Ami scouring powder?
     It is an undisputed fact that African-Americans were discriminated against up until the 1960s by some people of European heritage, as were Asian people from the 1840s until the 1950s and perhaps later. But that discrimination was not institutional after the late 1950s. That discrimination was based on personal prejudice, not law. A nation cannot make a law that applies on the persona;l level against personal prejudice as much as it would like to do. People have their oddities, whether it be that Jews are cheap and grasping, Japanese are sneaky bastards, Mexicans are lazy, Poles and Swedes are blockheads, or that the English are as cold and cruel as ice. Those are things that come down from families and don't matter in the larger world. Even the most anti-Black person, in public, will give an African-American a job simply because of law if that person can do the job. That person may keep a closer eye on the African-American to make sure that he or she is not doing something that the employer assumes that the person will do that is an infraction of the company policy than he will for a white trash snuff dipping Confederate flag waving cracker and be quicker to fire the Black person fro an infraction than the Redneck. To be short, haters gonna hate. But in modern America, there may be a lot of haters of various races, when it comes down to cases it's all about making a nut to store into the business. A Ku Kluxer will sell Slim JIms or Cherry Coke or a house to a Black person if it means a bit of money into the bank account.
      Now, let's get down to cases.
     During the current unrest the Black Lives Matter and their allies and tools have demanded that white people people apologize for the sins of what the BLM crowed assumes are their fathers. And too many people have done so. They've bent the knee to BLM as did many of the Hebrews did during the Babylonian captivity. They have bent their knee to the modern Baal. They have denied themselves in the hope that they will not be considered "racist" by a group of people who see everything through a racial lens as do the few remaining Ku Klux Klan members or neo-Nazis. They have apologized for things that they, in reality, have no need, in fact, no right, to apologize for. They are apologizing for people who are long dead and who may have had reasons for their prejudice. Can one really apologize for one's great grandfather to one's cousin when it is found out that the great grandfather was a rounder and perhaps wife beater? One might as well apologize for the local feral pigeon crapping on the neighbor's car because the bird usually sits on one's phone line.
     And apologizes are all too often dangerous to one's self when meant in the best of intention. To apologize without any expectation of forgiveness, as is the modern thing, is to really leave one open to a form of never ending extortion. One admits one was wrong and apologizes. The other person, instead of granting a form of forgiveness, holds that apology as a brick-bat to be used again, again, and again. The apology that was intended to make a sort of peace all to often becomes a weapon against one.
     Perhaps that's the reason that, despite the insistence of the U.S. in past years that Japan apologize for the attack on Pearl Harbor Japan never did so. And despite the fact that Japan has called for an apology for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the U.S. never did so.
     To apologize for things that one is not responsible, or things seen as required, is to put one's neck on the block with the constant threat of the ax coming down. It makes a man a into a mouse.