Posted on 09/19/2003 12:38:59 PM PDT by the_greatest_country_ever
We produced our way out of the cold war.
Apparenly we intend to import our way of of this one...
All of that in other words, "We can't be blamed for all the crimes we committed against civilians. The confederates made us do it by failing to stop us."
I suppose you also blame rape victims for not being able to hold off their attackers during the crime.
It is brilliant sophistry. Hanson uses the tool of analogy to argue his case and does a decent job of appealing to the selectively stimulated recollective memories of his readers. Though it makes for a nice little story, it is also an argument without intellectual merit. So in that sense it is not a matter of brilliance but rather cheap trickery. Hanson's argument only works so long as we accept his presentation of the historical events, his own assignment of analogous roles to historical persons, and his own underlying assumption that Lincoln's reelection was a good thing. If any of these items contain flaws - and IMHO they do - his entire house of cards comes tumbling down.
Lincoln or Sisyphus?How about Sissyfag?
Luke Sissyfag
Luke Montgomery, the organizer of this "consumer choice" action, is an animal rights activist and a one-time D mayoral candidate. Montgomery, who legally changed his name to Luke Sissyfag, achieved U.S. notoriety for heckling President Clinton during a Georgetown University speech on World AIDS Day. While working as a program staffer for Last Chance for Animals, Montgomery/Sissyfag hypocritically promoted the philosophy of animal rights in a world which requires animal research to find a cure for AIDS. According to their website, Last Chance for Animals (LCA) "does not accept a difference in species as justification for wanton exploitation or oppression for any purpose. LCA opposes the use of animals for food, entertainment, clothing, and scientific curiosity. In addition, LCA recognizes the use of non-human animals in experimentation designed to cure human disease as both immoral and of questionable scientific validity." http://www.furcommission.com/news/newsC.htm
"I suppose you also blame rape victims for not being able to hold off their attackers during the crime."
So, I suppose, by that line of thought, you also would have opposed to bombings of Germany and Japan during WWII as well, right?
That is an historically incorrect view. The northern armies far exceeded the ammount of destruction that is usual or tolerable for a large army to move through. In the more famous cases, they torched entire towns and cities - a wholly needless act of destruction intended solely to inflict harm upon the civilians there. Even if they had simply wanted to stop war productions they did not need to torch homes - rather simply dismantle the armaments factory. But they did not and instead levelled the entire town. Far more appalling were the little known executions they committeed on confederate civilians behind enemy lines. In Tennessee one union general drafted multiple "murder lists" of local civilians and sent firing squads out to execute them in bizarre and tortuous ways without trial and for "crimes" such as having a son in the confederate army. That kind of stuff may have been normal for large armies in the time of Rome but not in nineteenth century America.
Historically incorrect or politically/ideologically incorrect?
Sources?
"Far more appalling were the little known executions they committeed on confederate civilians behind enemy lines."
Sources?
So little-known that they are unwritten about in the general literature of the war?
Historically incorrect.
Sources?
One of the more recent books on it is "With Blood and Fire: Life Behind the Union Lines" by Michael R. Bradley. If you desire though I can direct you to the location of the original orders complete with 50+ name murder lists on file at the National Archives.
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