Tennessee: VU professor's essay sparks 'Confederate' backlash

Your story is an excellent example of stupidity and arrogance on the part of self-proclaimed "experts." What Thomas Sowell calls the "tha annointed." I fail to see, however, why you believe this attitude is limited to Yankees. I believe it is much more widely spread than that. I'm sure many southerners consider themselves to be members of that elite. Then and now.

What do you think of people who not only give themselves the right to criticize uninvited the laudable efforts of others to improve their situation, but even believe they have the right to competely take over the lives of other humans by force? To own others. To sell them away from their families. To rape them whenever they feel like it. To torture them when they don't behave or if even when they just feel like it.

I guess what I find most appalling about the Confederate defenders is their determination to absolve the South of even great crimes, like that of slavery. Perhaps the greatest crime against humanity that can be committed, with the possible exception of genocide.

Meanwhile they are equally determined to focus intently on what are by comparison minor crimes. For instance, Reconstruction. I know there were huge mistakes and crimes committed. However, the aftermath of the WBTS resulted in less mistreatment of the losing side than following any other major civil war in history.

Yet Southern apologists refuse to recognize this fact.

ah yes, the damnyankees were so blameless in regard to slavery! like H they were. not a single slave ship was ever "flagged" from a southron port; furthermore as slavery became less profitable in the northern states, slaveowners sold their slaves in places where slavery was still profitable, rather than manumitting the slaves!

the damnyankees wanted to KEEP their slaves and free southron slaves. the final end of slavery in the north was over a YEAR after richmond fell. if the damnyankees were truthful, they would themselves admit that they did NOT free their slaves because they had some monetary value, even in 1865. morality had ZILCH to do with their actions.

slavery was DYING a natural and un-lamented death in the southland by 1860, as a result of the industrial revolution's coming to agriculture. most experts on the subject state, that absent the WBTS, the "peculiar institution" MIGHT have lasted another 15-20 years. personally i think five years is more likely. a MILLION killed (and not a few thousand of them blacks!) is a high price to pay to end slavery five years earlier than it's natural death!

the slaveowners would have manumitted their slaves, when the cost of keeping them in bondage exceeded their "worth" to the owners;people act in their own self-interest.

free dixie,sw

the damnyankees, especially those from New England, have ALWAYS seen themselves as "the anointed" AND they see themselves in every way superior to the southerners. self-righteousness has ever been the position/curse of the damnyankee.

BTW, did you know that the same damnyankee army who suposedly came south to free the slaves in that "grand crusade" were the very ones who robbed, raped and murdered the slaves, because they COULD. they were well aware that crimes cimmitted in the southland against civilians were un-likly to be prosecuted, and those committed against slaves were even less likely to be even investigated, much less punished.(BTW, 92 members of my family were raped,robbed,tortured and murdered by the damnyankee army, only because they were NOT white. nothing was done to the "oh, so wonderful" soldiers in blue who committed these crimes. NOTHING!)

as to why i think that my true story of the rural re-development project is illustrative of damnyankee attitudes toward the south and southrons, i would simply say that it was southron schools and citizens who provided ALL the money & supplies to the project. ALL the un-wanted advice, hatefilled comments and condescension came from the northern schools/newspapers/periodicals. is that only coincidence? i think NOT!

free dixie,sw

Attacking the Confederacy has been tremendously profitable for the NAACP, at least here in S.C. The S.C. chapter of the NAACP saw its contributions nearly quadruple between 1998, the year before it began its boycott of S.C. regarding the state flying the battle flag over the State House, and 2000, when the battle flag was moved. You're right, the Civil Rights movement is largely dead, but these groups need bogeymen to keep attention on themselves and to bring in money, and who better to attack than white males who've been dead for a century.

All I can say is that your tactics are unlikely to be effective. I have tried very hard to engage you in logical discussion. I am always interested in the rationale of those who attempt to defend the indefensible.

Instead of replying specifically to my comments, you respond as if I wrote the article that started this thread. I have never claimed that northern armies were made up exclusively of saints, or that all southerners were devils.

Your "cause" has got the deck stacked against it. Yet you seem determined, in your bitterness (over events well over 100 years in the past!), to alienate those who are more than 1/2 on your side.

The Confederacy has a slight possibility of being portrayed in future history books as a failed, deeply flawed, but in many ways noble attempt to reinvigorate an already anachronistic theory of government, that of aristocracy. If you don't alienate most possible supporters with vitriolic hyperbole.

It hasn't a chance in hell of being portrayed as a simple, unmixed battle for liberty against oppression.

you are welcome to your opinion. it is difficult for me to engage you in "logical discussion", as you persist in believing the wartime,self-serving damnyankee propaganda about the TRUE causes of the WBTS.

as for forgetting what happened to my family, may i ask a gentle question?

the HOLOCAUST was a LONG time ago too. would you ask a Jew to just forget that his/her family was slaughtered for no other reason than being, according to the Nazis, a "sub-human race that deserves death"?

free dixie,sw

Based on your screen name and some of your other comments, I suspect that the family you reference was of Indian ancestry. Whatever happened to them probably had little directly to do with their support for the Confederacy, and a lot more to do with general American attitudes towards Indians in general.

These attitudes were by no means limited to Yankees. Southerners were at least as brutal in dealing with their Indian problem as Yankees were. The single most explicitly racist incident in all the Indian conflicts, the expulsion of the Five Civilized Tribes, was done because southerners demanded it, and under the orders of a slave-owning southern president.

Never forget.

However, 100 years from now none of the perpetrators will still be alive, as will none of the victims. At such a point, nursing anger towards people who are descended from the perps because you are descended from the victims becomes itself ludicrous, not to mention racist.

Should the French be eternally bitter towards the Italians because Julius Caesar killed or enslaved over a third of their population? Should the Germans hate the Russians forever because many German women were raped at the end of WWII? How long should the Spanish and English be mad at each other over the 100 Years War?

It is obvious that at some point historical grievances become ridiculous. I put the point where dropping the ANGER is appropriate at the point where all participants in the events aren't around anymore. Where do you put it?

YES, i'm Indian. i took a diminutive of the name of one of our tribe's hero-martyrs, because my ancestors WARNAME was already being used by another FReeper.

virtually all my extended family was slaughtered for 3 reasons:

1. the "filth in blue that came down from the north" were FAR more extreme in their hated of indians, latinos & blacks (both slave & free), than the local populus.

2.comitting WAR CRIMES against civilians was an intentional portion of the yankee high command's plan to destroy the south; the MANY thousands of WAR CRIMES happened because the "common soldier of the union" KNEW he would NOT BE PUNISHED for acts such as rape, robbery,torture,looting,arson & murder against civilians.

3. ALL the males in our family (as well as SEVERAL women & older female children, who served as warriors,cooks, teamsters & nurses!), who were capable of bearing arms, were away with the CSA military fighting for freedom. there was no-one capable of protecting the elderly men, women & children, under the age of 12,left at home.

thus, you add the fact that the damnyankees HATED indians,latinos & blacks TO knowing that war crimes would not be punished TO opportunity and you get the result that happened, not only to my family, but to MANY southron familes.

southrons have LONG memories. i wouldn't expect southrons to forget the ATROCITIES committed by the bluebellies EVER!

the soulution is JUST one thing: dixie LIBERTY.

free dixie NOW,sw

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