The conservative people at large, or republicans in general are nice reasonable people. This is what I would like to think. I assume they are intelligent and reasonable, and I am usually disappointed.
An example:
On the subject of slavery during a conversation on Lincoln....
"Most slaves weren't treated that bad"To be fair, the conservative in question really didn't know anything about the emancipation or history in general, mixed up Lincoln and Jefferson, and didn't believe me when I mentioned that Andrew Johnson was the 17th president. Thought I meant Andrew Jackson, then argued the point for a while. Needless to say the 'political discussion' didn't get too far. Unfortunately this person has been able to vote for the last 30 years. I am surprised that even this little mind would hold to such a blatant lie.
Slaves were not treated well in general. This is not a point upon which there is debate.
So where did this lie originate? Who would believe this lie and why?
I remember hearing this lie as a child. Did it come from television or elementary school? I did live in a small white town. I hope it was a lie told to kids so they would not be upset about slavery. I suspect it was the true belief of some of our less educated neighbors and family. What began as a way to sugar coat history turned into denial of the sins of the nation's past.
I guess that the original lie came about more or less as a response to the great shame that America feels about its past. We are this land of opportunity with a lovely infallible constitution. Our great forefathers were guided by God to fight the revolution and forge this new country with a bill of rights for all people.
The story sounds good until you find slaves building the White House and Thomas Jefferson raping Sally Hemmings.
The story of our forefathers is complicated. It is a story of flawed people sometimes doing great good, and other times inexcusable evil. It is a lot of stories together. It is natural to cherry pick the best stories and hide others under the rug.
There is a natural tendency to canonize ones relatives, especially the ones long dead. No one speaks of their flaws so we assume they had none. We are their progeny. The strong rising generation, perhaps we have greater opportunity presumably as a result of their hard work. What are we if our own lives are not a testament to the good character of our ancestors?
To be sure respect and honor for ones parents and relatives is very appropriate. However we must not be blind to their imperfections. Many great evils have been accomplished by 'basically good' people. Stanley Milgram conducted his electric shock experiment in an effort to discover why the German people had allowed the holocaust to occur. His original hypothesis was that the German culture was such that people were overly compelled to follow authority. What he discovered is that the German people were not unique. He was able to get lots of people from all walks of life to inflict pain via electric shock.
What exactly would our venerated ancestors want to tell us, if they could leave us with a message, I would hope it would be to learn from their mistakes. We can't do that as long as we are content with an easily digestible story of our nation's part.
I tell my kids the truth. It may be upsetting, but that is the lesser evil.
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