Posted on 07/24/2020 4:08:32 PM PDT by dmam2011
(CU News) - Playwright George Bernard Shaw is credited with saying; “Every man deserves to be judged in the context of his times.”
If you’ve spent any time with history books, you've probably heard the story of Egyptian Pharaoh Tuthmosis III and his orders to destroy all public monuments dedicated to his predecessor Pharaoh Hatshepsut. The story is one of the most widely taught lessons around the world, but it wasn’t the first instance of iconoclasm. The lesson of these stories is time. The political actions of destroying the memory of anyone, or anything, standing as an obstacle to gaining power is a timeless story.
The US protests have risen to the level of questioning the Founding Fathers. The current protesters have already worked through presidents, anti-slavery activists and civil rights supports based almost exclusively on emotional directions. However, debates regarding the founders uncovers a lack of knowledge and failure to understand the political realities of that time. Example? Any attempt to abolish slavery in 1787 would’ve forced a disunion of the United States into 2 or 3 confederacies with each being hostile to one another. Would the lives of slaves have improved in the south if they established their own confederation 50 years prior to the Civil War? It’s a difficult question. And that decision needed to include the predatory nature of many European countries witnessing a break-up.
What changed? A Yankee named Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which enabled the cotton plantation economy in the South. A planter could get rich despite the high cost of American slaves.
You poor sap, trying to inject some measured rationality into the current scene.
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