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To: IronJack
And not all were motivated by racism as much as a somewhat coarse sense of "justice."

Justice was very much influenced by racism. No way that those events were anything other than appalling.

lynchings were actually far rarer than the revisionists would have us believe.

Semamtics.

What number would each side consider to be "rare" or "common" ?

37 posted on 02/09/2004 10:05:24 AM PST by happygrl
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To: IronJack
whoops, Semantics
38 posted on 02/09/2004 10:06:24 AM PST by happygrl
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To: happygrl
No way that those events were anything other than appalling.

Too general an indictment. I think each case needs to be examined on its own merits.

On a frontier where little or no institutionalized judicial system existed, lynching was an expedient vehicle for dispensing justice swift and certain. I suspect the victims were actually guilty as often as they were innocent. Not that that's a particularly good track record, but the false impression from modern propaganda is that crowds of citizens were just milling about looking for someone to hang.

I don't mean to be an apologist for brutality, but I think it's important to view history as it happened, not as we see it from a hundred years away.

42 posted on 02/09/2004 3:21:55 PM PST by IronJack
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