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

Sun Dec 12 18:15:42 PST 2004

Very true, Wayne.

As I said a long time ago, the only difference between Doug "His Whineyness"
Wilson and Jimmy Jones is the fruit punch.

Cheers,

Tom "49er" Hansen

We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are
dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all
exist very nicely in the same box. 

  _____  

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Art Deco aka W. Fox
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2004 5:31 PM
To: Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Slavery's Delights are Illusory (from North
Carolina)

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 <mailto:ngier at uidaho.edu>  

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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