[ExI] hero worship

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 11:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> As for just keeping slaves, just about every plantation owner did so.


True, and unlike Washington and Jefferson most plantation owners didn't
free their slaves even in their wills, sure you could say its too little
too late but historical figures have to be judged by the standards of their
own day. By standards of 1760 they were ahead of the curve but in 1860 most
Americans would not be willing to kill and commit treason to preserve the
institution of slavery, but Robert E Lee did both and so the world would
have been a better place if he had never been born. Whatever their faults
that could not be said about Washington or Jefferson; we honor them in
spite of the fact that they were slaveowners not because of it, but without
slavery there wouldn't have been a Civil War and history wouldn't even
remember who the hell Robert E Lee was.

John K Clark
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