Post by John Reid on Aug 22, 2017 8:02:03 GMT -5
I was going to post this on FB but did not want to start an instant flame war.
Does anyone really understand why we have statues honoring the Confederacy in the first place? I hear the pro statue people saying "It's our heritage". True but it is a shameful heritage and I can't believe any one wants to even remember it let alone honor it?
Nazi Germany is a brief part of German history. It is their heritage, yet immediately after the war all Nazi propaganda was destroyed.
The Confederacy was an attempt to rise up against the United States and separate it into two countries. We did fight a war to decide what flag we were going to fly after all. To fly the confederate flag is to spit on the graves of the 50,000 union soldiers who died on the battlefield to prevent it from being flown.
In any other country on earth after the war was over Jefferson Davis, General Lee and all the top ranking Confederate generals would have been taken to the nearest wall and shot by a firing squad as traitors to the United States.
It was Abraham Lincoln who decided to just let them go and let by-gones be by-gones. Of course he was rewarded for his forgiveness by being assassinated.
Then there are the historian revisionists who try and sell people the idea that the Civil war was not about slavery. They try and re-direct it by saying it was about States rights vs Federal rights. True, it was about the states rights to buy and sell slaves, and nothing more.
Ever wonder what would have happened had the south won? This is a writer's sight and I think that might make a very eye opening story of a parallel world where that happened?
I used to work nights in nursing homes and had many black co-workers and friends. One of them once said to be, "I can't understand the concept of slavery? How could anyone justify buying and selling people?"
So I explained it to him. I said "Each of us have jobs we go to every day to earn money to live on. Now imagine if you could buy this guy (pointed to his friend sitting next to him) and train him to do your job and then he would do all the work and you would get the money. Now imagine you could buy a 100 guys like him and send them all out to work and you got to keep all of the money and sit on your porch each day sipping tea in your mansion. Now imagine this had been going on for 300 years and everyone you knew did it. Not just them but their fathers and grand fathers and great grandfathers before them? Imagine every Sunday the preacher at church read from the Bible, Leviticus which says it is a Holy thing to take slaves from a neighboring country. So now you had the word of God saying it was ok. Then there is the flip side...Imagine you could buy 100 women and those women had to do whatever you said? Even Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the declaration of Independence and the words "all men are created equal" found that to be far too great of a temptation and that is why today he has more black relatives than white ones.
One further thing. Always look next to you and see who is protesting beside you. Anytime you find yourself on the same side as Neo-Nazis, KKK and Aryan Nation folks, then I think it is time to stop and reflect.
Just my two cents
John Reid
Does anyone really understand why we have statues honoring the Confederacy in the first place? I hear the pro statue people saying "It's our heritage". True but it is a shameful heritage and I can't believe any one wants to even remember it let alone honor it?
Nazi Germany is a brief part of German history. It is their heritage, yet immediately after the war all Nazi propaganda was destroyed.
The Confederacy was an attempt to rise up against the United States and separate it into two countries. We did fight a war to decide what flag we were going to fly after all. To fly the confederate flag is to spit on the graves of the 50,000 union soldiers who died on the battlefield to prevent it from being flown.
In any other country on earth after the war was over Jefferson Davis, General Lee and all the top ranking Confederate generals would have been taken to the nearest wall and shot by a firing squad as traitors to the United States.
It was Abraham Lincoln who decided to just let them go and let by-gones be by-gones. Of course he was rewarded for his forgiveness by being assassinated.
Then there are the historian revisionists who try and sell people the idea that the Civil war was not about slavery. They try and re-direct it by saying it was about States rights vs Federal rights. True, it was about the states rights to buy and sell slaves, and nothing more.
Ever wonder what would have happened had the south won? This is a writer's sight and I think that might make a very eye opening story of a parallel world where that happened?
I used to work nights in nursing homes and had many black co-workers and friends. One of them once said to be, "I can't understand the concept of slavery? How could anyone justify buying and selling people?"
So I explained it to him. I said "Each of us have jobs we go to every day to earn money to live on. Now imagine if you could buy this guy (pointed to his friend sitting next to him) and train him to do your job and then he would do all the work and you would get the money. Now imagine you could buy a 100 guys like him and send them all out to work and you got to keep all of the money and sit on your porch each day sipping tea in your mansion. Now imagine this had been going on for 300 years and everyone you knew did it. Not just them but their fathers and grand fathers and great grandfathers before them? Imagine every Sunday the preacher at church read from the Bible, Leviticus which says it is a Holy thing to take slaves from a neighboring country. So now you had the word of God saying it was ok. Then there is the flip side...Imagine you could buy 100 women and those women had to do whatever you said? Even Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the declaration of Independence and the words "all men are created equal" found that to be far too great of a temptation and that is why today he has more black relatives than white ones.
One further thing. Always look next to you and see who is protesting beside you. Anytime you find yourself on the same side as Neo-Nazis, KKK and Aryan Nation folks, then I think it is time to stop and reflect.
Just my two cents
John Reid
