[Vision2020] Slavery's Delights are Illusory (from North Carolina)

[Art Deco aka W. Fox]

Nick, et al,

Have you ever read or seen depictions of snake-oil hucksters?

No matter what the evidence presented, these con artists will cleverly and 
successfully continue to claim the truth of their assertions that snake-oil is a 
cure-all.  Why?  Because there are many, many sheep that will buy snake-oil 
because, to their uncritical minds and deep needs, the huckster has charm and 
certainly would not mislead them about something so important.

Christ Church Cult Master Douglas Wilson is no different than these snake-oil 
flimflammers.  I am sure he knows what he writes and preaches is pure hog-shit 
(it must be hard for him to keep a straight face at times) but as long as there 
are gulls to buy his fecal utterings, he'll stick with his claims.  Why not? 
The ovine in the cult and elsewhere enrich him materially and give him power and 
control over their lives, all of which fulfills his most pressing worldly 
desires.  Wilson has mastered the art of pushing the right buttons of the 
emotionally needy, especially those needing a strong authoritarian/father 
figure.

We ought admire Wilson's flimflamery as we do that of P. T. Barnum's.  His 
success is another example of showing the truth of Barnum's "There's a fool born 
[at least] every moment."

Wayne

Art Deco  (Wayne Fox)
deco at moscow.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Nick Gier
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com
  Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2004 12:14 PM
  Subject: [Vision2020] Slavery's Delights are Illusory (from North Carolina)


  Hail to the Vision,

  Just in from the News Observer, Raleigh NC, Dec. 11, 2004

  Slavery's delights illusory

  By DENNIS ROGERS, Staff Writer

  It's clear where my ancestors went wrong. Instead of working hard to keep a 
roof over their heads and the babies fed by farming a few acres of North 
Carolina dirt, they should have been slaves.
  "Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the 
poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence."
  So says a ridiculous propaganda pamphlet called "Southern Slavery, As It Was" 
that claims to present the truth about slavery. The booklet was being used at a 
Wake County private school until the principal wisely called a halt to such 
silliness this week.
  This kind of trash masquerading as historical fact shows how far some people 
will go to excuse the inexcusable. That its authors are closely involved with 
the goofy League of the South tells you all you need to know. The league, among 
other things, still advocates seceding from the United States. It is the same 
kind of revisionist pap being peddled by those wackos who claim the Holocaust 
wasn't all that bad.

  A sample of the booklet's lunacy is this jewel of fractured history: "Slavery 
... was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. ... It 
was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence."
  I can just hear the happy slaves serenading Ol' Massa now, can't you? Have 
another mint julep, Miss Scarlett.
  Mutual affection and confidence? I don't know about you, but if someone came 
to my village, put me in chains, crammed me into a ship and hauled me halfway 
around the world to a land where I, my wife and my children could be auctioned 
like cows, I think I'd be pretty darned adversarial and not at all affectionate.
  Sounds to me like someone has watched "Gone With The Wind" a few too many 
times. Great movie, bad history. The truth is, slavery was the great sin, shame 
and ruination of my beloved South.
  I love the South. I love Southern people, Southern food, Southern music, 
Southern women, Southern weather (except for August) and Southern history. I'm 
proud my great-great grandfather Warren Biggs served with the 1st and 10th North 
Carolina Artillery at Fort Fisher. I am proud that when his remains were 
reinterred in 2000, he was laid to rest with full Confederate Army honors.
  But I am not proud of slavery. It was inhuman. It turned innocent people into 
chattel and shamed all who profited from it, whether they were Southern slave 
owners or Yankee slave traders. That it is condoned in the Bible, as the writers 
of the pamphlet labor to point out, is no excuse. Stoning is in the Bible and 
it's wrong, too.
  Such twaddle as "slave life was ... a life of plenty, of simple pleasures" is 
profoundly embarrassing to those of us who have proudly defended our Southern 
heritage. There is much about our Southern history that we can be proud of --  
including fighting an invading army -- but slavery, in all its forms and in all 
its times, is indefensible.
  To those who claim to find even a flicker of decency in slavery, I have an 
offer: I'll feed, clothe and work you humanely. But first I'll sell your spouse 
and your children. And if you cause a fuss, I'll sell you, too.
  Any takers?

  Dennis Rogers can be reached at 829-4750 or drogers at newsobserver.com.


  "Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part by 
itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the 
interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual life. It 
is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole 
is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." --Max Planck

  Nicholas F. Gier
  Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
  1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
  http://users.moscow.com/ngier/home/index.htm
  208-883-3360/882-9212/FAX 885-8950
  President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
  www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/ift/index.htm

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