-Caveat Lector-
Hawk,
Thank you for serving our country. As a veteran, you put your life on the
line for the country and that is to be respected. That's why I don't
quite understand your political position.
I'm descended from people who owned slaves. If you want to look in the
historical records of the state of North Carolina, you will find that
twenty-two members of my family fought FOR the Confederacy. They were not
"bad" people...they thought they were fighting for their friends and
neighbors...defending their "southern way of life," a way of life that
involved the enslavement of human beings... My grandfather, born in 1886,
would tell me stories about how much our family loved their slaves..how
well they treated them, etc. My grandfather wasn't deliberately lying...
sure, my family loved the slaves. They were valuable property. And they
treated them humanely (if one can argue that owning a human being is a
humane idea). They didn't separate family members... I still have
visions of my grandfather, old H.B., sitting in his chair, puffing on his
cigar, telling me about how much the family lived their "....." My
grandfather was a product of his generation.
And,for your information, the family had stories of the damned Yankees who
came into North Carolina, seizing the food and valuables of everyone. In
order to save their smoked hams, the family placed discolored flour on the
cuts of meat, hoping that the Yankees would think them poisoned. I was
raised on Civil War stories and states rights arguments.
Most white southerners were too poor to own slaves. Slavery was a complex
institution--the large operations in the Deep South (cotton) were run
differently from the the tobacco plantations of the border states (Ky,
Tenn, NC and Virginia)... But slavery was an evil institution. ...and
it brutalized both the slaves AND their owners.
In order to justify the system, white Southerners had to practice a form
of denial. How many Yankee boys had to have their guts and brains blown
out to put an end to slavery? The Civil War was a vicious, evil
affair...all
of that nobility/romanticism/chivalry crap is a false portrait that does a
disservice to both sides of the conflict.
When the southern military commanders took up arms against their
government...that was a TREASONOUS act in my book. At the very least, they
should have been
barred from political office when they returned home from the war. And in
my opinion, the Union was far too conciliatory in their treatment of
people who had taken up arms against it.
Murderous scum like Nathan Bedford Forrest, the heinous commander who
supervised the massacare of Union soldiers at Fort Pillow, Tenn., were
allowed to remain at large.... The Klan was the inevitable product of
their treasonous activities...
On my grandmother's side of the family, the Curtis clan, they were
northerners who served with the Wisconsin Volunteers during the Miss
Valley campaign. Old "Grandpa Em," (named after Ralph Waldo
Emerson) answered his country's call to duty and wore a blue uniform
during the war. The Curtis family, descended from New England Yankees
who had settled into the Upper Midwest during the 1850s, believed that
slavery was a stain upon the nation's honor. The Curtis family were
hardheaded, stubborn people who believed that no human being should be the
property of another. And they could point to Biblical passages that
celebrated the idea of freedom and the dignity of the individual (the same
Bible being read by my southern forebears). They weren't interested in
getting a handout from the government. They believed in hard
work and personal integrity....They were proud to consider themselves
American. Both my Tunstall and Curtis forebears were descended from
people who had participated in Revolutionary War.
But in that terrible conflict which side would point the way to a better
future? a better America? Do you really believe that the United States
would have been better off to have tolerated the institution of slavery?
...that the enslavement of human beings was a good idea? Do you believe
that the New South of today would have been possible if the days of Jim
Crow would have continued?
The Union was in the right to put an end to slavery. The South was in the
wrong. The issue has been decided.
Regards,
Wm
On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Hawk wrote:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> William Hugh Tunstall wrote:
>
> > -Caveat Lector-
> >
> > Re: "sending kids off to war." Your caustic comment notwithstanding, you
> > nor I wouldn't be enjoying the freedoms we do have, if it wasn't for the
> > sacrifice of others... Perhaps, they were "stupid" to fight for this
> > country. I don't think so.
>
> They, and I was one of "them", did not do anything that promoted freedom in this
>country. We
> killed folks IN THEIR COUNTRY. I've been in five wars (OK, some were small wars,
>but it was
> wholesale killing non-the-less) in "my country's" uniform. And in NOT A SINGLE CASE
>was this
> country's "freedom" threatened. The last American soldiers to fight for "freedom"
>were
> Confederate soldiers. Since then, Amercian soldiers truly have fought gallantly...
>but they were
> not fighting for American freedom. WWII was fought "to make the world safe for
>communism." The
> outcome -- bottom line -- of that conflict was two-thirds of the world's population
>falling under
> communism.
>
> > Re: "paying bills." People have been paying YOUR bill for a long time.
> > They paid at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Omaha, and a helluva lot of other places..
>
> That's my point. I didn't have any bills to pay in Tarawa, Iwo Jima, etc....
>
> > so you OWE something to this country...
>
> I don't owe anything to anyone for going half way around the world to kill people
>who were not a
> threat to me. Why is that so difficult a concept to understand?
>
> > A lot of Americans have paid the price so that you can have your miserable
> > little life.
>
> My "miserable little life?" Pardner, I myself have "paid the price" .... It is
>absurd for anyone
> to say that Americans sent to kill people in their own country "paid the price" so I
>could have
> ANY kind of life.
>
> > You should be proud to be a citizen...greatful to have the money to pay.
>
> So the next time some mugger pokes a gun in my face he should tell me, "You should
>be proud to be
> an American, and grateful that you have money for me to take." After all, he's
>taking my money so
> he can maintain his lifestyle of robbing and killing other people...
>
> > Or maybe it's time for you to move to the Cayman Islands or some taxhaven with
>others of your
> > ilk.
>
> My ilk? Maybe its time for "others of my ilk" to sack up people "of your ilk" and
>ship THEM
> somewhere so we can live our lives without deadbeats robbing us of the fruit of our
>labor.
>
> Hawk
>
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
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http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
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