On the heels of last week’s Soapbox in which I systematically dismantled the myths surrounding Black Lives Matter and Antifa not being hate groups, a new strain of idiocy emerged with vigor. It was fascinating to read people refute what I presented based solely on the “sources,” used, even though in most cases, video supporting the reporting, accompanied the stories. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether Breitbart or Huffington Post is reporting that BLM supporters chanted “what’s better than 14 dead cops? 15 dead cops,” because video proving that it happened was present. Yet, somehow that was what was argued.
Apparently, it never occurred to anyone that perhaps right leaning media outlets are the only ones willing to report such actions. Fox News doesn’t report on people walking out on Trump’s rally in Phoenix, while MSNBC can’t wait to report any poll that shows Trump’s approval ratings below 35%. Just like Slate and The Nation refuse to report on the fact that the entire Trump/Russian collusion story has been proven false, perhaps only Fox News and the like is willing to report on the violent nature of Antifa. Grow up.
With that established, I remain painfully aware that unveiling the lies told by both the right and the left is a fool’s errand when it comes to those who are ideologically driven and refuse to listen to facts. But that won’t stop me. Shall we get started on a few more truths?
ROBERT E LEE WAS ABSOLUTELY A RACIST SLAVE OWNER: I am so tired of hearing people say that Lee “never owned slaves,” that he “wasn’t a racist,” and that he only fought for the Confederacy out of love for his home state of Virginia. All of these things are known to be provably false from Lee’s own writings at the time, and the writings of those around him. There is no historical commentary needed; just read his words. The re-writing of Lee’s legacy is part of a 150 year old attempt to claim that the Civil war wasn’t about slavery, when it was. Why we insist on lying about this is beyond me save one simple point; it’s a method of self-soothing. We believe that if we claim it was about states’ rights, maybe we weren’t a horrible group of people in the 19th century. And, incidentally, I don’t care if people were “taught wrong,” as ignorance is never an excuse. Children have been taught wrong for decades about our founding fathers, global climate warming change, capitalism, and countless other things that need to be corrected by either their parents or life experience, or, seeking out the truth as they age. Accepting as fact the teachings of anyone is dangerous and painfully stupid and ignorant. As writer Lonnae O’Neal once wrote about such people “They want to wave their flags and do in the streets what they could not on the battlefield: Destroy the country with ignorant refusals to evolve. That is the shame that continues to stain the sons and daughters of the Confederacy.”
As to Lee’s own words, his own views on slavery were explicated in an 1856 letter to his wife that is often misquoted to give the impression that Lee was some kind of an abolitionist. In the letter, he describes slavery as “a moral & political evil,” where the quoting usually stops. but after claiming that it is evil, Lee goes on to explain that:
“…The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.” http://fair-use.org/robert-e-lee/letter-to-his-wife-on-slavery
In other words, them colored folks are too stupid to know what’s good for them, torturing them is necessary to wisen them up, and God will decide if, and when, they can ever be set free. What a great guy.
Additionally, Lee inherited slaves via his wife’s family. His father-in-law asked that the slaves be freed, but Lee ignored that request for years as he brutally and viciously beat them regularly or had them beaten. Most notably, Lee is best known within the history of slavery for his non-physical form of torture: Lee’s cruelty as a slavemaster was not confined to physical punishment. In Reading the Man, the historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor’s portrait of Lee through his writings, Pryor writes that “Lee ruptured the (George) Washington tradition of respecting slave families,” by hiring them off to other plantations, and that “by 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate, some of whom had been together since Mount Vernon days.” The separation of slave families was one of the most unfathomably devastating aspects of slavery, and Pryor wrote that Lee’s slaves regarded him as “the worst man I ever see.” The trauma of rupturing families lasted lifetimes for the enslaved—it was, as my colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates described it, “a kind of murder.” See below for further links including a full reading of all of Lee’s known letters and writings. They are horrifying even in the context of understanding that times were different back then.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION BETWEEN THE MOON AND HUMANS: Allow me to be clear…if you want to say that you “believe,” that humans are affected by the moon and that our behaviors, or moods, in some way are connected to the moon and its fullness or orbit, so be it. I will never take away someone’s faith. I don’t have to agree with it, but I’m not going to rip it away from you. But for the love of all that is holy, stop walking around claiming that crime goes up, car accidents go up, more reports of strange behaviors come in, people have trouble sleeping, animals act weirdly, or any other asinine claim that you hear people make to justify their mumbo-jumbo. Here’s what you’re allowed to say if you want any sort of intellectual credibility: “I believe, despite no evidence whatsoever to support my position, that the moon affects humans.” Beyond that, you’ve got nothing. Decades of research shows that there are no statistically relevant changes in sleep patterns, crime, reports of strange behaviors, sightings of big-foot, or any other silly notion in any way related to the moon. Believe what you want, but stop claiming it as truth or fact. You look just plain stupid.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lunacy-and-the-full-moon/
ANTIFA IS ABSOLUTELY A VIOLENT HATE GROUP AND THEY OPENLY ADMIT IT: Antifa, the lovely group that we’re told showed up in Charlotessville to “protest hate,” is a hate group whose mission it is to use violence to silence those that they don’t agree with. They hide behind protesting Nazi’s, but they also hate Capitalism, America itself, and anyone who does not hold far left positions and they believe that they have every right to use rioting and property destruction as a way to silence people that speak things they don’t agree with.
“We are unapologetic about the reality that fighting fascism at points requires physical militancy,” Rose City Antifa’s Facebook page reads. “Anti-fascism is, by nature, a form of self-defense: the goal of fascism is to exterminate the vast majority of human beings.” And remember, they define Capitalism as being a form of fascism. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/23/what-antifa-and-what-does-movement-want/593867001/
As I said last week, as long as we refuse to acknowledge facts we’ll never be able to have constructive discussions and move forward. Sadly, that ship has sailed.
LEE LETTERS:
http://archive.org/stream/recollectionslet00lee/recollectionslet00lee_djvu.txt
