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Judging the Past Solely by Today’s Ethics Flattens History into Simply Heroes v. Villains
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:45 pm
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:45 pm
My wife’s siblings live in Virginia and their neighborhood is hosting a large “counter” Fourth of July gathering to illuminate what some see as hypocrisy in our founding ideals. I support the right to assembly, but it highlights an important consideration I wish both sides remembered more.
For context, of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence (often referred to as the “Founding Fathers”) 41 owned slaves at some point in their lives.
However, choosing to ignore how people actually thought and acted in the constraints of their time waters-down history. Humans are complicated figures.
Slavery’s abomination doesn’t negate the Founding Fathers’ other achievements any more than it erases those of countless other flawed humans across other eras.
We can (and should) condemn the ownership of human beings unequivocally while recognizing why the founding principles are still taught and their importance to American institutions.
Statues, names on schools, and currency reflect gratitude for what they built, but don’t have to be a blanket endorsement of every aspect of their lives.
For context, of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence (often referred to as the “Founding Fathers”) 41 owned slaves at some point in their lives.
However, choosing to ignore how people actually thought and acted in the constraints of their time waters-down history. Humans are complicated figures.
Slavery’s abomination doesn’t negate the Founding Fathers’ other achievements any more than it erases those of countless other flawed humans across other eras.
We can (and should) condemn the ownership of human beings unequivocally while recognizing why the founding principles are still taught and their importance to American institutions.
Statues, names on schools, and currency reflect gratitude for what they built, but don’t have to be a blanket endorsement of every aspect of their lives.
This post was edited on 7/3/26 at 12:45 pm
17
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:46 pm to RFK
quote:
My wife’s siblings live in Virginia and their neighborhood is hosting a large “counter” Fourth of July gathering to illuminate what some see as hypocrisy in our founding ideals.
Why does this not surprise me?
I’m sure you’ll be there front and center.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:46 pm to RFK
quote:
My wife’s siblings live in Virginia and their neighborhood is hosting a large “counter” Fourth of July gathering to illuminate what some see as hypocrisy in our founding ideals
You and your family are a bunch of fricking idiots. Illuminate that.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:47 pm to RFK
Your ilk hates America.
Go wallow in their stupidity.
Go wallow in their stupidity.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:47 pm to RFK
Explain that to a group of people with an average IQ of 85
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:48 pm to lsuguy84
I won’t be there. I don’t live in Virginia.
I think we should all honor our great experiment and celebrate 250 years together, not apart.
I think we should all honor our great experiment and celebrate 250 years together, not apart.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:49 pm to RFK
I read this recently in a center-left substack. I thought it was extremely well put.
quote:
It’s easy to say that F.D.R.’s internment of Japanese Americans was bad and Ulysses Grant’s blind eye to corruption was bad and Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears was bad and Thomas Jefferson owning slaves was bad. Because all that stuff is really bad! It’s also genuinely important and interesting to understand how F.D.R. pulled the country out of the Great Depression and persuaded a largely unwilling nation to come to Europe’s aid. Jefferson wrote an incredible charter of human freedom. Jackson popularized our modern understanding of democracy. Grant saved the country. There’s nothing wrong with criticizing these figures, but it quickly becomes self-congratulatory and lame to gas yourself up compared to the heroic figures of the past just because you have conventional contemporary ethical views.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:50 pm to RFK
You posted an awful lot of drivel just to point out that 41 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were slaveowners. Because, whether or not you admit it, THAT was your point.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:51 pm to RFK
quote:
My wife’s siblings live in Virginia and their neighborhood is hosting a large “counter” Fourth of July gathering to illuminate what some see as hypocrisy in our founding ideals
I’m sorry but I can’t imagine being this eaten up with hate and bitterness. These are not the activities of sane adults.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:51 pm to RFK
Well…yeah. The inventor of toilet paper may have been a serial killer but that doesn’t mean i’m going to stop using it.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:53 pm to RFK
quote:
My wife’s siblings live in Virginia and their neighborhood is hosting a large “counter” Fourth of July gathering
Yeah, like you and she won't be taking part.
Please take some photos. I have an odd fascination with psychopaths.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:54 pm to Godfather1
quote:
I’m sure you’ll be there front and center.
This is exactly why Trump is having such a huge celebration. He wants your neighbors to see other neighbors dissing the United States and finally get tired of this shite. Tarzana, four cubbies, power bottom.
He wants them front and center so people will start to see that negativity is definitely not the way to win the day.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 12:58 pm to RFK
What about ….
Black slaveowners?
Native American slaveowners?
White slaves ?
Native American slaves?
etc.
etc.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 1:01 pm to RFK
There is no such thing as nuance anymore. History is the most complicated subject in existence because you are studying people. People aren't black and white. They are tremendously complicated organisms.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 1:30 pm to RollTide1987
Yet these same people, who bitch about slaveowners and corrupt politicians from 150-200 years ago, fail to call out the gruesome genocides at the hands of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Guevara, Castro, and Chavez, all of whom lived more recently. (And I’m not even touching the Communist-led slaughters in Africa or by Islamists in the Middle East.)
One set is far more disturbing than the others.
One set is far more disturbing than the others.
This post was edited on 7/3/26 at 1:31 pm
Posted on 7/3/26 at 1:33 pm to RFK
quote:
My wife’s siblings live in Virginia and their neighborhood is hosting a large “counter” Fourth of July gathering to illuminate what some see as hypocrisy in our founding ideals.
Fairfax?
Posted on 7/3/26 at 1:34 pm to bluestem75
So those with a counter 4th want to have no AC, rape gangs, and arrest people that post mean tweets……. Losers….
Posted on 7/3/26 at 1:38 pm to Penrod
quote:
It’s also genuinely important and interesting to understand how F.D.R. pulled the country out of the Great Depression
Many historians say his policies extended the Great Depression by a number of years.
Posted on 7/3/26 at 1:45 pm to RFK
Absolutely.
1) Humans are flawed, but nuanced. Humanity has progressed and likely will continue to progress.
2) That was then.
3) This is now.
1) Humans are flawed, but nuanced. Humanity has progressed and likely will continue to progress.
2) That was then.
3) This is now.
This post was edited on 7/3/26 at 1:47 pm
Posted on 7/3/26 at 2:12 pm to RFK
I could tell you a story about a president and his brother that were both cheating philandering pieces of shite. They both got what they deserved in the end though.
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