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<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4>Nick, et al,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4>Have you ever read or seen depictions of
snake-oil hucksters? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4>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."</FONT></DIV><FONT face="Verdana Ref" size=4>
<DIV><BR>Wayne</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Art Deco (Wayne Fox)<BR><A
href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">deco@moscow.com</A><BR></FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=ngier@uidaho.edu href="mailto:ngier@uidaho.edu">Nick Gier</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, December 12, 2004 12:14
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] Slavery's Delights
are Illusory (from North Carolina)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Hail to the Vision,<BR><BR>Just in from the News Observer,
Raleigh NC, Dec. 11, 2004<BR><BR>Slavery's delights illusory<BR><BR>By DENNIS
ROGERS, Staff Writer<BR><BR>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. <BR>"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." <BR>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. <BR>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. <BR>
<TABLE border=0>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD width=193></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>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." <BR>I can just hear the happy slaves
serenading Ol' Massa now, can't you? Have another mint julep, Miss Scarlett.
<BR>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. <BR>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. <BR>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. <BR>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.
<BR>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. <BR>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. <BR>Any takers?<BR><BR>Dennis Rogers can
be reached at 829-4750 or <FONT
color=#0000ff><U>drogers@newsobserver.com.</U></FONT> <BR><BR><X-SIGSEP>
<P></X-SIGSEP><FONT size=2>"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<BR><BR></FONT>Nicholas F. Gier<BR>Professor Emeritus,
Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho<BR>1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID
83843<BR><A href="http://users.moscow.com/ngier/home/index.htm"
eudora="autourl">http://users.moscow.com/ngier/home/index.htm</A><BR>208-883-3360/882-9212/FAX
885-8950<BR>President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO<BR><A
href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/ift/index.htm"
eudora="autourl">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/ift/index.htm</A><BR></P></BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>