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Entry: The Right's Science Problem Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_rights_science_problem#17785 Post contents: BURKE will find little comfort in The Voyage of the Beagle-- "On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil. I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, ...Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horsewhip (before I could interfere) on his naked head...These latter cruelties were witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in which it has always been said, that slaves are better treated than by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations. ... I will not even allude to the many heart-sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of; - nor would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met with several people, so blinded... as to speak of slavery as a tolerable evil... It is an argument long since protested against with noble feelings, and strikingly exemplified, by the ever illustrious Humboldt... Those who look tenderly at the slave-owner and with cold heart at the slave... who profess to love their neighbors as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty" Sent at: 2008 07 24