Connie Chastain gets angry when she says I question people’s intelligence (including hers, of course). I guess she sees this discussion as an example of the intelligence of the Confederate Heritage ™ movement.My opinion is that a lot of misinformation travels through the Southern Heritage community because of the misinformation that abounds on the Internet. Anyone who thinks this happened on this scale beFORE the Internet, please step forward with some proof. I say this because the same sort of misinformation percolates throughout the web regarding nearly any subject you wish to name, not just Southern heritage or the civil war.
So do I.
Please save Confederate heritage from those who proclaim that their job is to protect it. “In order to save that heritage, we had to destroy it.”
There are also the factors that most Southern heritage advocates (1) are working people and don't have the leisure time to spend hours at the library, and (2) don't have the money to pay others to do the research and (3) don't live close enough to sources such as university libraries to travel there and, you know, spend hours researching.
It really doesn't have all that much to do with level of intelligence. But if it did, that would make Brooks Simpson an even more despicable person for denigrating people for a trait they have no control over. I wonder if he also makes fun of kids born with a club foot, harelip, spina bifida or other factors they have no control over ...
If, however, the misinformation is distributed by people who can but simply don't want to go to the trouble of authenticating it, or who know it is bogus but circulate it anyway, the problem is not intelligence. They have the same problem Simpson does -- questionable ethics -- which he continuously demonstrates on his blog ... a prime example being his "research" into my family history for the purpose of embarrassing me (chronicled here: http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-professor-of-history-does-history.html )
I freely acknowledge that no one in Southern heritage is morally perfect. However, like the yankees that came down and killed Southerners and laid their land waste, Simpson doesn't have the moral authority to criticize Southern heritage advocates today. Sorry, he just doesn't.
Pots and kettles. Motes and beams....
Addendum: Simpson's comment says he "questions" people's intelligence. Sometimes. More often, he denigrates it, mocks it, makes fun of it, and thus exhibits animosity for the person whose intelligence he ridicules. I guess that's his version of tolerance.
One thing I noticed about Simpson is he likes to make a “Catch all” statement and then slam the door.
ReplyDeleteHe tried that stuff with me, Well Bubba I will give ya all the blank checks ya want, but I aint gonna sign em. So anytime ya try to cash one it’s forgery !