Derby Day

This Saturday, full of horses, pomp and circumstance, a tradition partially based on slavery, with lots of mostly white people wearing fancy getups.

There is something similar to that going on in Bloodye Olde Englande on the same day, except for the racing. But, from my perspective, we fought two wars so that we don't have to put up with that shit.

The other day, I walked a forest preserve in southern New England. The land is somewhat hilly, with lots of rock coming through the ground. There are ancient stone walls there, from when the land was farmed. But it got me to thinking: The land was farmed, in part, because the previous inhabitants were all but exterminated in one of the bloodiest wars in American history (going by percentage of the populations killed). After that, those stone-laden fields were farmed by generations of farmers, who endured back-breaking labor to eke out a living from the land. They were as tough as woodpecker lips.

What overfed, sclerotic bureaucrats an ocean away thought that such people would be easily cowed?