06-04-2022, 10:27 AM
(10-12-2021, 09:23 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-10-2021, 03:33 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:(10-05-2021, 11:37 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-04-2021, 08:59 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: And Robert E. Lee encouraged unity once the issues of the Civil War were decided. And yet statues of him were defaced and destroyed. Not too long ago I was talking with someone who is of the opinion that statues like this along with, say, Columbus, should not be destroyed because they are part and parcel of history, regardless of whether you believed what they stood for. When two popular music groups along with one sports team changed their names due to such political correct pressure, that is going a bit too far, IMO.
You obviously don't live where the "Lost Cause" has been celebrated since the 1880s and later -- more in the 1920s than any other time. Statues were erected everywhere! Everything has (well, had -- times are changing) a name commemorating the "Confederate heroes". A major stretch of US 1 is just now losing its assigned name: Jefferson Davis Highway.
This is long overdue. Yes, the North won the war, but the South won the peace. That's a large part of why we're so divided today.
But, even if the Confederate side had won the war, don't you think that by the next century the descendants of former slaves would have gotten very tired of being treated as livestock at best, vermin at worst? Surprised it took nearly an entire century as it is.
I remember reading a book to that effect decades ago (and now lost to me in the mists of time). The premise, to the extent I remember it accurately, hinged not so much on the enslaved but on the planter class. As mechanization improved yield at reduced cost, the economics of slavery disappeared. In short, the slaves would have been freed to cut costs. There was speculation about how that would have been resolved socially, and most of those details I've forgotten. In no case was the result very equitable for the former slaves and their descendants.
Does slavery still exist today? Certainly not on paper, but in practicality it just might. We are literally slaves to the dollar signs from the time we reach adulthood right up until we die. And the cost of funerals is totally barbaric. Right now in fact the cost of just about anything is becoming barbaric, and while the current record cost of gasoline has reduced automobile traffic somewhat, it still is not enough to make a huge dent in consumption I do believe. Anyone care to guess how high it would have to get to for the highways to become nearly empty?
Now that the warm season is here plenty of folks are taking in outdoor dining at establishments that I really can't afford to eat at. And ordering expensive cocktails to boot. So someone must have the bucks to be able to do this. I often do wonder how they manage. There has really been a big upscaling trend ever since the 1980s and have often been puzzled as to what's behind this.