Frankly, the slave question is not even really a racial issue; not in the historic sense as a White/Black issue.. Almost every land, where agriculture with large landed estates, among any of the principle races, had a period when the land was worked by unpaid--so far as a medium of exchange--labor. Whether called serfs, slaves, bondsmen, or whatever, the quality of the life, depended upon all sorts of factors, and is not really suitable for the sweeping generalities, indulged in by people trying to smear other people, over historic phenomena.
Thus, one can talk about a cruel taskmaster, whether in Exodus, Rome, medieval France or Germany, or in the slave era in America. One can also celebrate the same institution in the Song of Roland--if one recognizes that many of those in Charlemagne's army were just such bondsmen, brought to service by their feudal lords--or as in Henry V, by Shakespeare, in the speech honoring those who served on St. Crispin's day.
It is a trap--intended as a trap--for Conservatives to get side-tracked into these Beck type apologies for what is certainly a non-issue in a debate over the BLM maliciously killing a rancher's live-stock. That does not involve speculation as to historic elements in the lives of people in other centuries. The cruelty there is documented by photographs taken this very month.
I am sorry that Beck, who does have something to say on real issues, keeps going off on tangents. We should applaud him, when he gets to the real point; but do not follow him into the pursuit of irrelevancy.
William Flax
Beck seems to have a need to keep proving that he is not a "racist," whatever that is even supposed to mean, anymore. His past adulation for Martin Luther King, is totally inconsistent with the rest of his normal Conservative message. (See Plastique In The Foundation--Honor & Martin Luther King).Frankly, the slave question is not even really a racial issue; not in the historic sense as a White/Black issue.. Almost every land, where agriculture with large landed estates, among any of the principle races, had a period when the land was worked by unpaid--so far as a medium of exchange--labor. Whether called serfs, slaves, bondsmen, or whatever, the quality of the life, depended upon all sorts of factors, and is not really suitable for the sweeping generalities, indulged in by people trying to smear other people, over historic phenomena.
Thus, one can talk about a cruel taskmaster, whether in Exodus, Rome, medieval France or Germany, or in the slave era in America. One can also celebrate the same institution in the Song of Roland--if one recognizes that many of those in Charlemagne's army were just such bondsmen, brought to service by their feudal lords--or as in Henry V, by Shakespeare, in the speech honoring those who served on St. Crispin's day.
It is a trap--intended as a trap--for Conservatives to get side-tracked into these Beck type apologies for what is certainly a non-issue in a debate over the BLM maliciously killing a rancher's live-stock. That does not involve speculation as to historic elements in the lives of people in other centuries. The cruelty there is documented by photographs taken this very month.
I am sorry that Beck, who does have something to say on real issues, keeps going off on tangents. We should applaud him, when he gets to the real point; but do not follow him into the pursuit of irrelevancy.
========
Such an excellent post, it bears repeating.