What was special about America was not that it had slavery, which existed all over the world, but that Americans were among the very few peoples who … - Thomas Sowell

Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true, but many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.

However much history may be invoked in support of these policies (affirmative action), no policy can apply to history but can only apply to the present or the future. The past may be many things, but it is clearly irrevocable. Its sins can no more be purged than its achievements can be expunged. Those who suffered in centuries past are as much beyond our help as those who sinned are beyond our retribution.

Nothing is easier than to get peaceful people to renounce violence, even when they provide no concrete ways to prevent violence from others.