Slavery a green herring
 
From: torpenhow@charter.net
 
RE: <<<My 2 cents worth>>>
 
The above was a good message, but I’ll attempt go bjpershing@juno.com one better: slavery is all but irrelevant to discussion of North versus South in the War or anywhere else. That is because, as Mr. Ashwood points out, the North was very slave-ridden too, and history reveals it was grossly more racist than the South. The yankees’ huge, vicious antebellum slave operations have made the "mainstream" media in recent years, and only a fool would attempt to deny that yankee states forbade former slaves (read blacks) from crossing their borders after the war.
 
For any crowd that has their eye on the ball and really means to win — hopefully, us — this should be all that needs saying about slavery in most argumentation. Confederacy-haters have no ground left under their feet, because yet again, yankees are proven the real offenders at what they accuse others of! Our job is to keep the discussion on point, which means AS NEEDED laying down the above simple, brief foundations and moving on — preferably to further discussion of yankee sins, crimes and atrocities. Anyone who is not prepared to take charge of the discussion and keep things doggedly on point might as well give up — they’ll lose every time!
 
Concurrently, I think it is a bad mistake to get into a Biblical defense of slavery, even if one can be made. I’m a serious Bible student and staunch Confederate activist, but I really don’t think anybody playing with a full deck can expect that to matter to our assailants, and it is IMHO custom-designed to turn a lot of our present and potential friends off. In fact it’s nothing but a huge embarrassment because of the way the System has trained everyone literally from the cradle to regard slavery as the worst evil of which humanity is capable.
 
The irrelevance is, I believe, the real stick of dynamite we need for the slave thing.  Our problem is that as rational people in search of the ideal society we love to reason things out and get to the bottom of major issues. The enemy doesn’t work like that but by lies, tricks and memes. Yes to full airing and expounding of what matters here in SHNV, but debating Dixie’s critics and haters elsewhere calls for completely different weapons and ammunition.
 
I wonder if any other readers by me would love it if the foul-smelling theology of slaveowning were a closed file for SHNV purposes. There is certainly enough of it in the archives.
 
Meaning no offense — /\/.\/\/.