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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Jim,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Thanks for the note. Idealizing the past is precisely what I intended
not to communicate in my short response. I think that both the north and the
south had a more respectable culture than the one we live in now. This was
merely a weak comparison. It was a time a bit more saturated with fidelity,
honor, morality, discipline, respect, love, chastity, beauty, architecture,
religion, love of God, etc. The land was not as filled with idolatry, hatred,
bitterness, disloyalty, adultery, infidelity, dishonor, laziness, paganism,
immorality, relativism, general cultural breakdown, statism, impiety, and just
about any cultural non-good the western world spent 1500 years enumerating.
That’s all I was referring to. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Half of my country came and destroyed another half of my country, and
it is not clear that we are better off because of it. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The North’s propaganda for the war was able to continue since the
North won the war. The North was no utopia for blacks and the real primary
motivation for the war was not to extend mercy to blacks (says many historical
scholars as I understand it). I would certainly call this a more balanced view
of the civil war. The years Wilkins has spent researching primary documents
certainly puts him in a better position than many of the teachers who had their
way with us, including high school teachers, college teaching assistants, and
even history professors who’s expertise was not the civil war. I
don’t privilege Wilkin’s scholarship; however, I’ve heard
enough primary documentation to know the confederate flag is not the same thing
as the Nazi swastika. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael Metzler <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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