Something so shocking from "Human Events" that I had to share

[jsmirman]

I have received emails from "Human Events" for years, as I like to see what those folks are up to.

It has been interesting to watch them descend into complete lunacy as the Bush "presidency" drew to a close and then Obama won, and now Obama is President.

Their stuff used to be completely wrong, but marginally rational - somewhere around two and a half years ago, their mailings started to contain way more stuff that I would read and think, "Oh my God. These people are completely insane."

So every now and then, they send me something that I think simply has to make it to a broader audience. You have to get a load of this one:

It's a solicitation for a book called "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War," and the promotional tag line is the the oddly ungrammatical "The Civil War: Reality was different."

The verbiage starts with the accusation that History has painted the Southern actors as close matches to Hitler and his cronies.

It then continues with this gem:

"But reality was different: the Old South... had slavery, but also immense charm."

Stupefying.

That sentence continues with "(charm) charm, grace, and merit -- not to mention a very strong Constitutional case" - but none of this that follows makes it wrong to use the above snippet as proof of their insanity and loathsomeness. That phrase stands for that phrase. You can't write that shit and back away from the fact that you just said that something "had slavery, but also immense charm."

Astounding.

I don't want to deal with the Constitutional issues right now, so please, let's leave that out of this (I think about law too many hours of the day already); I just wanted to share this doozy with you.

One other delightful contention:"if the South had won, we might be able to enjoy holidays in the sunny Southern state of Cuba."

They actually said that. They are actually supporting the disastrous, illegal, and thoroughly shameful combination of filibustering (the old meaning) and the strain of Southern politics that promised "The Gulf of Mexico will be a Southern lake" - a strain of politics that desired to extend the stain of slavery over vast and ever growing new territory.

Yet another case of "these people are so fucking stupid that I'm certain that they are scary."

Republicans hope that the visual chicanery of their puppet muppet, Steele, will convince black people to vote for them. And yet their tent includes horse crap like the above. They are appalling.

[demwing]

1. You just don't get it - It was a kinder, gentler racism.

And many of the slaves were allowed to live in the mansions with their owners.

Isn't that just ever so quaint?

[TwilightGardener]

2. Sick.

[SoxFan]

3. "Nazi Germany had concentration camps, but also good beer"

WTF is wrong with these people?

[awoke_in_2003]

4. years of bad education...

and misinformation combined with absolute lack of intellectual curiosity.

[jsmirman]

8. Guess what - it's alive and well on this very board

and I am pretty damn depressed to see it is so (this is a reference to one of the other XYZ President: discuss threads).

Really depressed.

[jsmirman]

6. As much as I'm wary

of references to Nazi Germany... they started it, and yours is a pretty good one!

I think you pretty much nailed it.

[depakid]

9. ...

:rofl:

Nothing that these type say should surprise anyone. Of course, it bears mentioning that much of this is recycled from attitudes and beliefs from years and years ago.

Having grown up in a Southern family, I've heard this sort of shit since I was a kid. Hasn't really changed very much- which goes to show that in the South, as Faulkner's character in Requiem for a Nun noted: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

[SwampG8r]

12. southerner here too

i always felt that there was a lot of fluffed up justification in the old stories
i guess at the end of the day no one wants their daddy to be the bad guy

[SwampG8r]

11. great cars and the autobahn too

and come on now admit it...that black dress uniform with the silver death heads and the leather trenchcoat?
you know all the ladies wanted to smell hans' cologne

[Thothmes]

15. So did the United States

though instead of locking up Jews and Homosexuals, we locked up Japanese American citizens.

[southernyankeebelle]

5. Beware of a quiet person because you never know what they are

thinking. I know many southerns like that. Many are kind of shy and polite in front of you yet beware. They will stabb you in the back while smiling to your face.

[SwampG8r]

13. but ...

wouldnt they have to have you in their arms to stab you in the back while looking you in the face

im generally quiet and polite and southern and i have yet to stab anyone other than myself
and these are all documented as being on the front
so i will only stab myself in the front to my own face

i am also 50 percent native and from my viewpoint evryone will pretty much stab anyone anywhere for anything

[Ozymanithrax]

7. It's springtime for Jefferson Davis, and the Confederacy...

It's winter for Lincoln and the North.

Southern soldiers were treasonous dogs who made war against the government of the United States. Charm had nothing to do with it.

[SwampG8r]

14. most soldiers of the south

had little to no choice
their states conscripted them and they could only desert under penalty of death and be labeled traitors or serve and be traitors
its the same deal that we always as humans use
very few of the people who have actually been in wars through history had much choice in it
with the exception of pure mercenary armies which are few historically

the men who fought these battles on both sides
while each may have served gladly and truely
really had more to do with how much money their families had
and where they were living
than any other factors


and i dont know if this is the place but i urge you all to visit savannah georgia to see one of the most gracious and beautiful cities on earth
a place so full of the definition of the charm of the south that sherman would not burn it but instead presented it intact,
more or less,
to POTUS Lincoln
i do not live there but if i love that town
it glorifies not its past but allows it to live with us

[Ozymanithrax]

16. Those who take up arms against their country are treasonous dogs...

The leadership should have been tried after the war and hung for their treason. It was a decision by the North not to do so. To do so would have utterly destroyed what was left of the Southern economy, necessary for the country. But that doesn't mean anyone should ever think of the Southern Cause, the war of Northern Aggression (or any other euphemism you choose) as anything more than vile treason by oath breakers and liars who preferred a system where they could own humans as we own farm machinery, house keepers, and blowup dolls.

I have visited
Savannah, but the "Charm" of the south includes generations of rape and of selling ones own half white children to other men so they could be raped.

And Sherman was a man who by todays standards committed war crimes. In general, I try not to judge historical people by "todays standards." But I do not believe that what these people did should be covered with the cloak of respectability or charm. We can recognize that beauty and ugliness are inextricably intertwined.

[SwampG8r]

18. i was not defending the leadership

just noting that most of the rank and file soldiers of that war were without choice
by your standard the revolutionary war was a treason against england

i do not defend any of the political ends wanted by the southern leadership
no one could
but the rank and file soldier of the day had no more choice than my cousin andy when the army took him to viet nam

[nemo137]

10. I think I'm going to make it my project to turn "charm" into a dirty word.

[and-justice-for-all]

17. Of course they are OK with slavery...

the bible is an advocate for it.

Human events is awash with delusions and nonsense, they also love to sell fear and paranoia.