American Values

MendotoManteo said:
You're falling for the "richies" propaganda. Yes, he murdered people. Slave holders.

If, however, we truly believe in the values professed by our founding, he should be considered no different than Washington.

Don't be a patsy. If you think being a slaveholder means you shouldn't be murdered, alright. But, as far as I see it, once you cross that bridge you have decided you should determine another's life.

And John Brown then determined their lives, in turn.
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I just have to disagree. He murdered folks who were doing something completely legal. Its horrible now but somewhat normal at the time and no one expected to be murdered because of it.

It would be the rough equivalent of someone murdering you today because you eat meat and 150 years from now, someone with a different value system dismissing you as an animal killer. Cultures change, laws change, mostly for the better, but murder is murder.

I should also note that he didn't only murder slave holders. During his Harper's Ferry raid that he led, they killed a free black man who was a railroad employee who thought they were robbers, a Marine from Ireland, a grocer, and the Mayor of Harper's Ferry, who was a slave owner, but only because he was helping a slave buy his family's freedom and the slave couldn't legally do it.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I just have to disagree. He murdered folks who were doing something completely legal. Its horrible now but somewhat normal at the time and no one expected to be murdered because of it.

It would be the rough equivalent of someone murdering you today because you eat meat and 150 years from now, someone with a different value system dismissing you as an animal killer. Cultures change, laws change, mostly for the better, but murder is murder.

I should also note that he didn't only murder slave holders. During his Harper's Ferry raid that he led, they killed a free black man who was a railroad employee who thought they were robbers, a Marine from Ireland, a grocer, and the Mayor of Harper's Ferry, who was a slave owner, but only because he was helping a slave buy his family's freedom and the slave couldn't legally do it.
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What do you think the Revolution was about?

Humans eat meat because they require it. No, we don't necessarily here in our country, but it's still acceptable. Because it's understood we need it.

There's no equivalency between that and holding slaves.

You're overthinking this.
 
MendotoManteo said:
What do you think the Revolution was about?

Humans eat meat because they require it. No, we don't necessarily here in our country, but it's still acceptable. Because it's understood we need it.

There's no equivalency between that and holding slaves.

You're overthinking this.
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Of course I don't think eating meat is equivalent to slave holding, but some future person might think killing an animal would be pretty terrible. I'm trying to have you consider how you might have felt 150 years ago, if you owned a slave or two like most of your neighbors and if you thought slaveholding was just the way it was, like most your neighbors, and you were murdered by a terrorist because of it.

Eating meat today is perfectly normal. No one outside of some vehement activists are going to be upset with you. But if that attitude changed in 150 years, would it be right for someone to dismiss your murder, and celebrate your killer? I don't think so.

Or if the eating meat example doesn't grab you, what if someone 150 years ago judged you as some evil person for wearing clothes that a 9-year-old made? What if they thought you deserved to be killed because you were driving a global warming machine. There's plenty of normal things that are happening today which may look pretty horrible to the future.
 
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