If someone were choking me, if I just let him do that instead of striking out, I'd be dead, but someone could argue that I showed such high moral fibre by not using violence.
Same thing. An "Uncle Tom" is not someone who uses his moral values; it's someone who is USED and hamstrung by his OWN high moral values by those who don't share them. And his knowing he was a good guy doesn't make him any less of a fool.
Slaves who didn't violate their "morals" stayed in bondage when they should have violated them and got their freedom.
If you're going to tell me that if we were taken over by Islamofascists tomorrow and enslaved you still would not let me insult the moral fibre of our captors, or violate the commandment against killing, then I respectfully say I won't believe you. :)
>> That's putting a happy face on what's an illustration of how oppressors use one's own values to keep them in bondage.
No. It isn't. That's the cheap NAACP version of what "Uncle Tom" means, and if that's how you read it, then you've entirely missed the most salient point. Tom was no longer in any position to fight in any degree or capacity. He was completely beaten down, vanquished and dying. Your choking illustration just doesn't apply to this situation, nor does your islamofascist illustration apply. In both you assume a state of existence where resistance and/or escape remain possibilities. Tom, dying as he was, had access to neither.
That "Uncle Tom" has been contorted to denote someone who caves, or kow-tows to oppression instead of resisting (real or imagined) is flatly disgusting. The principle lesson of Uncle Tom is that, even at death's door, he refused to yield the moral high ground. He could no longer fight his captors, nor resist them, but he could still resist the evil of slander, which he did to his last breath and so died a better man before God, a better follower of Jesus Christ, than all of his captors. If that makes Tom a fool, then, fine; Tom's a fool for Jesus. Who's fool are you?
I cannot overemphasize, however, that none of this is to argue against active resistance where such can be effected. As I clearly conveyed earlier, had not such active resistance been undertaken on this continent, this Republic would not exist.
Now, if you want to play "what if", and get us captured by islamic fanatics, fine. I'll allow you to insult their moral fibre as much as you like; they don't have any, predicated upon the sham of a hollow religiosity as it is. Nor will I deny you any opportunity to kill them should opportunity arise. In fact, I'll help. You see, the Commandment is NOT, in the Hebrew, "Thou shalt not kill", but "Thou shalt not commit murder". The difference is crucial and you would do well to demote in your estimation any translation that misstates is as a moratorium on killing in general. Some of the modern English versions are extrememly limp-wristed at this very point.
I'll advocate and participate in whatever degree of active resistance and warfare may become requisite in order to preserve life, liberty and this Republic that enshrines both. If I survive to enjoy victory, so much the better, but if I am slain, I will not, in the throes of death, yield also to evil. THAT is the rightful legacy of "Uncle Tom".