I've no words for what I just read in this article - I never even heard of some of the things he believes in (false flags??). If this guy gets elected, he's going to make Alabama look extremely scummy forever.
I didn't think I did either, but some part of me keeps thinking there must be an end to the depravity.
And his party is trying to be all "Oh, you misunderstand the context" and... there is NO context for "I think we should specifically not have ratified the amendments about ending slavery".
"That would eliminate many problems," Moore replied. "You know people don't understand how some of these amendments have completely tried to wreck the form of government that our forefathers intended."
Yeah, they intended a form of government that allowed them (and I mean that in the personal sense) to own people as property. That is what they intended. Because every last one of them owned slaves and they wanted to keep that party going, no matter that it was inhumane and also really bad, economically, for the entire nation.
Because every last one of them owned slaves and they wanted to keep that party going, no matter that it was inhumane and also really bad, economically, for the entire nation.
It's part of the same false veneration of the past as fundamentalist Christianity: the idea that the way a thing was first codified is not just the right way but the only way and that to alter it is not only presumptuous but sinful, as opposed to recognizing that societies change, civilizations change, languages change, mores change, and it is always a moral action to try to wreck something immoral.
(People who follow this line of thought rarely perceive the past with any clarity, either, which is the part that really burns me, on top of the part where I have to live through them trying to make their retrograde fantasies fact.)
They seem to think we all do the same thing, too. This is why they keep trying to debunk evolution by saying that Darwin was wrong about this thing (dinosaurs!) or convince us all abortion is wrong because Sanger (may have been) a racist. It's like, so? Even if dinosaurs still exist or Sanger was a raving bigot, that's got nothing to do with anything. (And if you point out that Washington DID own slaves and DID commit genocide and DID illegally move his slaves between Philadelphia and his plantation so as to avoid having to free them, in compliance with the law, they froth at the freaking mouth. We're not going to dismantle the USA just because our founding fathers had feet of clay, dudes.)
I think they have a hard time with nuance. They don't get that we can appreciate some things about a person and not others, or that we can be glad for something that exists even if the way it started wasn't so great, or that a person could make mistakes and still be good.
So they have to either ignore the mistakes, or downplay them, or they have to utterly reject everything connected to that person. If George Washington did bad things, then he was a Bad Person. If he was a Bad Person, then everything he did is tainted. They could never be proud again.
It's a weird artifact of authoritarianism and they don't even see how weird it is.
ETA: Oh, and Alexander Hamilton, he was an abolitionist, wasn't he?
ETA2: Wikipedia says Thomas Paine and Sam Adams never owned slaves either.
Sorry, bit of a hobby-horse. I don't mind people saying, "Lots of the founding fathers were terrible, they owned slaves." I object to promulgation of the notion that everybody important back then owned slaves, that there weren't any people of privilege who objected to slavery. It encourages the notion that people back then didn't know better and engaged in slavery because they never heard that it was immoral. Of course they knew better: John Adams told them better. Sometimes, being John Adams, at very great length.
Okay, fair note, I've never even heard of Rufus King. And google suggests that Sam Adams is not one of the people considered to have written the Constitution, which leaves Hamilton and Paine. And Wikipedia says it's debatable whether or not Hamilton was an abolitionist or even owned slaves.
Not much, but in the last round they'll have an actual cage match for finalists in a Secret Exclusive Location and sell tickets, gaining revenues that exceed the reward.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 06:24 pm (UTC)I have no estimated bottom for these people.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 06:45 pm (UTC)And his party is trying to be all "Oh, you misunderstand the context" and... there is NO context for "I think we should specifically not have ratified the amendments about ending slavery".
no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 06:46 pm (UTC)Nope.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 06:48 pm (UTC)Yeah, they intended a form of government that allowed them (and I mean that in the personal sense) to own people as property. That is what they intended. Because every last one of them owned slaves and they wanted to keep that party going, no matter that it was inhumane and also really bad, economically, for the entire nation.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 06:53 pm (UTC)It's part of the same false veneration of the past as fundamentalist Christianity: the idea that the way a thing was first codified is not just the right way but the only way and that to alter it is not only presumptuous but sinful, as opposed to recognizing that societies change, civilizations change, languages change, mores change, and it is always a moral action to try to wreck something immoral.
(People who follow this line of thought rarely perceive the past with any clarity, either, which is the part that really burns me, on top of the part where I have to live through them trying to make their retrograde fantasies fact.)
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 01:25 am (UTC)Do you think this is a real concern? (Real question. It seems obvious to me, but maybe for people who panic about Confederate monuments, it's not.)
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 01:31 am (UTC)So they have to either ignore the mistakes, or downplay them, or they have to utterly reject everything connected to that person. If George Washington did bad things, then he was a Bad Person. If he was a Bad Person, then everything he did is tainted. They could never be proud again.
It's a weird artifact of authoritarianism and they don't even see how weird it is.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 04:28 am (UTC)John Adams has stopped spinning and has simply ripped himself free of his grave and is shambling in your direction.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 07:16 am (UTC)ETA: Oh, and Alexander Hamilton, he was an abolitionist, wasn't he?
ETA2: Wikipedia says Thomas Paine and Sam Adams never owned slaves either.
Sorry, bit of a hobby-horse. I don't mind people saying, "Lots of the founding fathers were terrible, they owned slaves." I object to promulgation of the notion that everybody important back then owned slaves, that there weren't any people of privilege who objected to slavery. It encourages the notion that people back then didn't know better and engaged in slavery because they never heard that it was immoral. Of course they knew better: John Adams told them better. Sometimes, being John Adams, at very great length.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 07:37 am (UTC)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton_and_slavery
no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 06:49 pm (UTC)Not much, but in the last round they'll have an actual cage match for finalists in a Secret Exclusive Location and sell tickets, gaining revenues that exceed the reward.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 05:33 am (UTC)