It's Mea Culpa Week
By Michael Reagan
August 1, 2008
Like altar boys who used to strike their breasts and mutter "mea culpa" ("through my fault") during the beginning of the Latin mass while confessing that they had sinned, Democrats are in full confessional mode, apologizing for every real or imagined sin against a particular group they believe their country once offended.
In the latest example of sheer looniness that has marked the current Democrat-controlled Congress, surely the worst if not the craziest Congress in all U.S. history, the House officially sought forgiveness from Native Americans and the victims of Jim Crow-ism.
They did that in our name, laying upon our shoulders the alleged sins of long-dead Americans and having us cringe at the feet of today's casino-rich Native Americans, and our black brothers and sisters whose votes they lust after.
Just a minute here. Neither I nor any of my immediate ancestors ever lifted a finger against a single American Indian or black American. I have no apologies to make to people I have not offended. If offenses were committed they weren't my fault, or for that matter yours or that of any living Americans.
How dare these congressional demagogues associate us with alleged sins of the distant past committed by people who have long been gone from this world.
Then there are the people who think that we should pay reparations to the descendants of slaves, or bow and scrape before the offspring of long-dead Native Americans for having maltreated their ancestors who themselves were not lax in maltreating paleface settlers who they tended to scalp when the opportunity arose.
They say we owe black folks for slavery and Jim Crow laws, forgetting that the debt was fully paid by the 360,000 Union soldiers who died in the Civil War to free the ancestors of today's black Americas. The debt was marked "paid in full," written in their blood.
I'm sure that one of my ancestors offended somebody or other at one time. Am I expected to reimburse their present-day offspring if any happen to show up for a handout?
And, by the way, if we are going to pay reparations to the descendants of any group who was grievously mistreated, sign me up. I'm Irish, and no group of immigrants was more badly treated.
Poor, hungry and impoverished, they arrived on these shores where they were welcomed by help-wanted signs proclaiming, "No Irish need apply." The New York Times of the day was full of ads reading "Wanted, coachmen. Must be sober, industrious and reliable. No Irish need apply."
Not that there were many Irishmen available to be coachmen because vast numbers of them, many brand new arrivals here, were elsewhere, fighting and dying at places like Gettysburg and Antietam so that the native born dandies in New York who wouldn't fight for their country would be safe at home and able to hire coachmen or mistreat their Irish chambermaids.
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