Revisionist History-OT

[postfux]

I bring this up again one last time but not to continue the downward spiral but to clarify things and perhaps even find some common ground.

I absolutely share your opinion of Churchill beeing the right man at the right time at the right place. He stood up against Hitler at a time when it was not easy and when there were other options and thereby contributed greatly to the downfall of the Third Reich. This is an outstanding historic achievement that puts him among histories greatest and cant be taken away from him.

Like every historic figure it does not put him beyond criticism. You yourself also hint at an unpleasent streak of character. One that was checked in this special case thanks to your countries military leadership.

Me making an unfounded and premature Churchill smear? Please reread my post, especially the last line. The shock I expressed clearly did result from the fact the memo did NOT fit into my expectations. In no way I wanted to put water on the mills of revisionist and relativists, people that annoy me big time (perhaps partly because I have "lost" a great grandmother to the Nazi euthanasia program and no family member to allied warfare).

I must add that I ABSOLUTELY dont share what seems to be your opinion about the legitimacy of the use of poison gas. I guess you said more than you wanted in the heat of the action or that I misunderstood you.

Allow me to add a last line that I see a difference in beeing attacked about the facts my opinions are based on (I can stomach that) or about the perceived motives and intentionts my opinions are brought forth.

Anyway, its springtime. I am off to the garden and will be back in autumn.

[warspite1]

You'll be back in the autumn? Sounds like a bloody big garden! Enjoy [:)]

Sadly its wet and miserable here so the grass goes uncut for another week......It'll be a jungle by the time I get to it [:(].

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: BattleMoose

This has come up before, and the idea that we are using today's values to judge historic actions. But it should be okay to judge historic actions with historic values, and the historic values were certainly a respect for the protection of non-combatants in war.

There was outrage in WWI, regarding German treatment of Belgium citizens (perceived Guerrilla fighters). The treatment of Boer civilian populations by the British in the Anglo-Boer war was regarded as a moral wrong. There was moral outrage at the sinking of the Lusitania, killing many civilians, American civilians, moral outrage, even though she was a valid target and carrying war munitions. Didn't stop the moral outrage of killing civilians.

From the 1907 Hague convention.

Article 25: The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.
Article 26: The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.
Article 27: In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.
It is the duty of the besieged to indicate the presence of such buildings or places by distinctive and visible signs, which shall be notified to the enemy beforehand.[2]

While these clauses relate to land and naval bombardment, the moral understanding of the appropriate behavior of bombarding (aerial or otherwise) is absolutely there.

It is possible that you do not understand the significance of the wording of these articles ... I would commend to you the commentaries on the Hague and Geneva Conventions available on the ICRC website as well as the US Army FM on the US interpretation of the Laws of Land Warfare (also available online).

The clauses in question do not, necessarily, mean what most laypersons assume they mean and, indeed, the commentaries I mention make that most clear.

Clause 25. "Undefended" is the key here. All German (and British) cities were 'defended' ... this was taken to mean that they had active and/or passive local and or national air defence systems. Even a single AA gun or Barrage Balloon anywhere in the vicinity was enough ... heck, the stationing of any Fighters of any sort anywhere within a couple of hundred klicks was regarded as enough.

This was acknowledged as a problem in the inter-war period and all major powers tried to come to some agreement of how to update laws clearly unsuited for the new technology to some that were ... and they failed, miserably. They could come to no mutually acceptable agreement.

That self-same problem remains. The recent(ish) decision by the International Court over the legality of the use of Atomic Weapons made a similar decision ... it said that first use was probably not acceptable, but follow on use was ... and, of course, the US and USSR do not accept the judgement (and, afaik, neither do the other nuclear powers), so the decision is like fairy floss, nice, but ultimately of no nutritional value.

Clause 26 has the same sort of problem ... "Except in cases of assault" ... or, to put it another way, you do NOT have to give warning if doing so would give away your plans in such a way as to increase your casualties, even if not doing so would cause increased civilian casualties.

Reality bites. Air attacks are, in that definitive sense, "assaults" ... and no warning need be given.

In fact, the only case(s) where such warnings would normally be given would be in sieges ... where you would warn the besieged that you were going to attack at some undefined time and would, perforce, be unable to direct the attack so as to ensure no civilian casualties would be caused ... putting the onus on the defenders.

Which is fine, as far as it goes, but the Hague Convention then allows as how the besieger may FIRE ON CIVILIANS ATTEMPTING TO LEAVE A BESIEGED PLACE, and, indeed, kill them, even if they are unarmed, because that would be placing a military advantage in the hands of the besieged military forces (that is, allowing them to hold out longer by ridding themselves of useless mouths to feed, provide medical aid for, and protected shelter for) ... so, in fact, the provision is not at all what most uninformed people assume is the purpose of the Hague Conventions.

Article 27. "As far as is possible" ... don't you recognise weasel words typical of lawyers? With the level of accuracy available to Bombers in WW2, or even today, you cannot come even close to guaranteeing no 'collateral damage' ... all you are required to do is, really, state 'I am attacking that factory producing military equipment over there ... it is really sad that 95% of my bombing will be so inaccurate that it will miss by up to several miles and even sadder that the factory is surrounded by worker housing etc. which will inevitably be collateral damage."

The key for understanding the Hague and Geneva Conventions is that they are meant to *reduce* the inherent nastiness of war ... NOT eliminate it.

They generally do a good job of that, even if after the fact (as with Nuremberg), but reality has little to do with what most uninformed bleeding hearts believe.

The Postwar conventions have not been universally adopted, especially by the US, and, if you read their actual wording closely, again are so full of weasel words, exceptions, exclusions and all sorts of wriggle room as to be completely unfit for the purpose said uninformed bleeding hearts often assume they have.

Sherman had it spot on ...

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace.

Phil

[bobdina]

Outstanding post.

[Canoerebel]

I'm the publisher of a magazine devoted primarily to Georgia history. Recently, I've come across writers and historians who show evolving thought in how to measure the morality of people in the distant past. I think this line of reasoning is growing rapidly in American higher education and will will be asserted more vigorously in coming years.

This new insight into measuring morality is to do so by modern standards. Thus, the slave owner of 1860 or 1750 or 1300 was evil because today we know that slavery was evil. The same line of thought would apply to other moral issues - the treatment of women, the treatment of prisoners, the causes of war, etc.

The people who espouse this viewpoint are militant and highly opinionated. On the issue of slavery, for instance, they hold that anybody who doesn't agree with them is a racist. Thus, if you suggest that it's more accurate to measure the people of 1860 by the morality of that era, you are deemed racist.

That sounds extreme to many of us, but it's the developing academic viewpoint. I think it will soon come to dominate American education and historial interpretation and presentation.

I work with a historian and writer in California who has deep roots in ante bellum Georgia. He is the finest writer/historian I've ever worked with. I admire and respect him and we have a strong professional working relationship. He is a good man with the best intentions. Several months ago he told me why he agreed with this developing line of thought. It was novel to me, so I gave it much thought and eventually wrote him back in detail.

I find that it works better to measure morality be the morays of the time. Thus, in 1860, it was basically universally agreed that it was wrong to mistreat a slave. The law of the southern states encoded prohibitions against mistreating them. But it was not universally agreed that owning humans as chattel property was wrong. Many people (abolitionists) felt that it was and societal views on the issue were evolving, and the evolution seemed to be gaining momentum. But slavery had been in existence since the dawn of time and it was possible for well-meaning (if misguided) individuals to believe it was permissible.

To measure a slave owner in 1860 by 2016 standards yields extreme results. My California friend holds that all slave owners and officers and leaders of the Confederacy were evil: Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, etc. To write about them in anything but condemning terms is wrong. To honor them is racist.

To me that's an immature view of history and an impossible way to take the measure of those who lived in the past.

I gave him an example that I think shows that measuring a man by the times in which he lived yields more accurate results. Adolph Hitler is correctly viewed as evil whether by the standards of 1940 or 2016. Throughout history it has been deemed immoral to kill indiscriminatly and without just cause. So we are on solid ground to say that he was an evil man worthy of disdain, and we do so by applying the morality of 1940 rather than 2016 (though in this case both eras would yield the same result).

Taking measure of a man by the morality of his time should nearly always yield a better evaluation than trying to reach back decades or centuries using or knowledge today.

By the same token, a doctor of 1780 who believed in "bleeding" patients can't be said to be "stupid." He might have been very smart. We can, however, say that he was ignorant by our standards today. Similarly, the slave owner of 1860 wasn't evil by the standards of that day, but he was clearly ignorant (on the issue) by our standards today.

On the topic of slavery, I should add that we today recognize that slavery was impossibly immoral. Giving manking absolute power over "chattel property" was a power that mankind could not wield. Some slave owners were kind or noble or attentive to every need of their "property." And some slaves loved their owners and were loyal to them. But many slave owners were cruel in punishment and in sexual subjugation (rape; there can be no such thing as consent between master and slave). We know that slavey was an evil and that the sooner it was eliminated the better. But many southern leaders of 1860 were too close to the issue (too close to the time when slavery was almost universally permitted) to understand. We're still paying for that ignorance today.

[Alfred]

You are giving too much professional credit to your historian colleague.  With his attitude he is just a journeyman "historian".
 
Far too many people give credit to people with a paper qualification.
 
Alfred

[Canoerebel]

Alfed, I wish that was the case. He's no journeyman. He has a MA in history from UMass, has been widely published, and has recently published a new and very highly regarded book on the Civil War. He is an up and coming writer/historian. As a storyteller, I think he's on a par with Stephen Ambrose (who could flat out write stories that keep a reader riveted).

In explaining his position, he referred me to various blogs and articles by American historians. And in the year since we went through this exercise, I've seen similar thoughts expressed in newspaper articles and commentary by some historians (and some politicians, too).

So I think this movement is developing apace in American academia.

So we see this burgeoning movement to do away with statues honoring Confederate soldiers and leaders. More than half the population are still scratching its head over this. But the movement is gaining strength in the general population and it dominates political thought, education and the media on the left. So in Georgia today there is a movement to blast the Confederate memorial off the side of Stone Mountain. And if you disagree with that, you are deemed racist.

It kind of reminds me of the "white privilege" political and society argument made commonly these days. I first heard of this 25 years ago while teaching at a local college. Now it is widely presented and is cropping up commonly in Democrat Party meetings on the local level. I'm not commenting on the legitimacy of that argument - just that it's a relatively recent evolution that has exploded in political discourse in the past year or two.

[Alfred]

Still doesn't change the fat he is a journeyman "historian".
 
As a subject, history is essentially story telling of past events to a current audience, in a manner which is understandable to the current audience.  All historians have a bias.  The great historians, even with their bias, are able to weave a telling which transcends their time.  Burckhardt and Gibbs (? he of the rise and fall of Rome fame) are great historians notwithstanding their bias. The journeymen have no impact on future historians because their bias pollutes their work to the point that it is unreliable.  IOW a journeyman historian might be highly regarded during their lifetime by others who share the same biases but subsequently are discarded as merely being fashionable for their time period.
 
That your colleague has an MA and has been published means very little.  There is a lot of mediocrity in academia nowadays and it survives because it exists within a bubble of mediocrity from fellow colleagues.
 
As a lawyer you would be aware of judges who were feted in their time for their judgements but who nowadays are considered to just be wrong.  Then there are judgements which have been overturned purely because of fashionable views but the logic of the original judgement remains irrefutable.  The great historians, even with their bias, take into account the logic of the time period they cover. 
The journeymen just go with the fashion and fail to deal with the logic of the time period.  In a sense the journeymen are indulging in the "historical" equivalent of passing retrospective legislation to make something illegal which was not illegal.  I don't know any legal practioners who are in favour of retrospective legislation.
 
Alfred 

[desicat]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Still doesn't change the fat he is a journeyman "historian".

As a subject, history is essentially story telling of past events to a current audience, in a manner which is understandable to the current audience.  All historians have a bias.  The great historians, even with their bias, are able to weave a telling which transcends their time.  Burckhardt and Gibbs (? he of the rise and fall of Rome fame) are great historians notwithstanding their bias. The journeymen have no impact on future historians because their bias pollutes their work to the point that it is unreliable.  IOW a journeyman historian might be highly regarded during their lifetime by others who share the same biases but subsequently are discarded as merely being fashionable for their time period.

That your colleague has an MA and has been published means very little.  There is a lot of mediocrity in academia nowadays and it survives because it exists within a bubble of mediocrity from fellow colleagues.

As a lawyer you would be aware of judges who were feted in their time for their judgements but who nowadays are considered to just be wrong.  Then there are judgements which have been overturned purely because of fashionable views but the logic of the original judgement remains irrefutable.  The great historians, even with their bias, take into account the logic of the time period they cover. 
The journeymen just go with the fashion and fail to deal with the logic of the time period.  In a sense the journeymen are indulging in the "historical" equivalent of passing retrospective legislation to make something illegal which was not illegal.  I don't know any legal practioners who are in favour of retrospective legislation.

Alfred 

Alfred is totally correct in my opinion. Take this example from Caesars campaign in Gaul:

When battling foreign enemies, Caesar was ruthless. Besieging rebels in what is now the Dordogne part of France, he waited until their water supply ran out and then cut off the hands of all the survivors.

By today's standards this would be considered a War Crime and impossibly cruel (he only had their right hands removed btw), but in Caesars day it was a mercy (as opposed to killing all the males outright) and also served as an example to those who thought to resist. Caesar thought it would save lives on BOTH sides, that was why he did it. He deviated from the norm of the day of killing all the males as selling the rest into slavery.

It is ridiculous and incredibly pompous for someone who intends to present a historical view in a manner that neglects the historical context and norms. The Romans were a civilizing force in the world, as were the English, to consider them barbarians or war criminals is downright negligent.

[desicat]

To measure a slave owner in 1860 by 2016 standards yields extreme results. My California friend holds that all slave owners and officers and leaders of the Confederacy were evil: Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, etc. To write about them in anything but condemning terms is wrong. To honor them is racist.

Some of those southern gentlemen were the noblest and most honorable men alive in that era. To read their memoirs and try to grasp the emotional struggles that they had to endure; forced to choose between State and Country, loyalty to comrades in arms and family or to personal principle, and yes - their beliefs in God.

In those days Honor meant something (to honorable men and the general public perception), many of today's PC politicians would not have been able to show their faces in public. A lot can be said for the virtues of dueling, yet again, without applying today's standards of course.

To erase the history of the Confederacy from the public record would ease the conscience of a few, yet the cultural degradation and moral chasm it would leave would further accelerate today's rapid descent into cultural relativism or nothingness. Only the accepted norms will be tolerated, leaving on future stagnation and decadence.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

So I think this movement is developing apace in American academia.

So we see this burgeoning movement to do away with statues honoring Confederate soldiers and leaders. More than half the population are still scratching its head over this. But the movement is gaining strength in the general population and it dominates political thought, education and the media on the left. So in Georgia today there is a movement to blast the Confederate memorial off the side of Stone Mountain. And if you disagree with that, you are deemed racist.

warspite1

Scary. Where does it end? Well presumably it ends with no monuments to anyone in the past? If you remove monuments to the southern soldiers, generals etc, what about the north and (south) and the wars against the native Indians?

Nelson's column, any memorial to Napoleon, any King and Queen of just about every country, Churchill - any Prime Minister - Truman - any President - all have to be removed - streets, buildings, towns have to be re-named! Also, where is the line drawn and who draws it? So an explorer who helped open up Africa - is he feted for that work or denounced for any involvement with the subsequent colonisation of the continent?

Humans are humans, none of us are whiter than white and none of us (well with some exceptions perhaps) are all bad. If only good men and woman (by the standards of today) can be remembered, that doesn't leave too many memorials does it?

The people who espouse this viewpoint are militant and highly opinionated.

Yep I said scary and that is a good word here - but so too are the words simple, lazy and ignorant. It's like taking the easy way out. e.g. I don't want to have to deal with analysing the actions of an historical character and deal with the complexities of looking at their actions in the context of the time.... Nah, that's too much like hard work. I'll just denounce him as racist instead and win brownie points with the militant right-on herd. A very very troubling development.

[Canoerebel]

Yes, where does it stop?

I'd like to believe that Alfred's analysis is on target - that those with what seem to be whacky theories will be proven wrong and will eventually be dismissed. That would be justice.

But from what I've seen in academia (and politics), strange notions can gain hold and become dominant, and those who view things differently are scoffed at, denied tenure, denied admission to graduate schools, and lampooned as idiots. I've seen it happen many times. And I think that's exactly what's happening with the developing views about what constitutes racism.

[Canoerebel]

Another point I made to my California historian/writer friend is that it can be helpful to look at how the "enemy" viewed the conduct in question as an aid to determining if it was "evil."

Thus, in the case of the American Civil War, after the war a majority of northerners (all but the most fervid abolitionists and militant "punishers of the rebellion") looked upon their former enemy with high esteem. Most northerners thought very highly of Robert E. Lee. There was no notion that he was an evil and racist man. Similarly, many northerners held antiquated (ignorant) opinions of slaves and free blacks, so that the idea of slavery didn't disturb them.

Then look at Hitler in 1945. His enemies looked at what he had done with horror. There was no question that he had perpetrated many evils.

It isn't necessary to measure them by 2016 standards, and to do so will usually perpetrate an injustice and an inaccuracy.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Yes, where does it stop?

I'd like to believe that Alfred's analysis is on target - that those with what seem to be whacky theories will be proven wrong and will eventually be dismissed. That would be justice.

But from what I've seen in academia (and politics), strange notions can gain hold and become dominant, and those who view things differently are scoffed at, denied tenure, denied admission to graduate schools, and lampooned as idiots. I've seen it happen many times. And I think that's exactly what's happening with the developing views about what constitutes racism.

warspite1

Maybe the argument would be "lets move away from monuments to wars and conquests and move onto other things".

That would be interesting. In the last few years alone I can think of more than one person (politicians and TV personalities) who were honoured and feted and had things named after them for their charity work. Only problem was these people were later exposed as kiddie fiddlers and/or sex-fiends!

Well at least in this brave new world the unemployment problem is being solved - we will forever be erecting and tearing down and erecting and tearing down monuments and place names and statues as secrets are exposed and times and values change [:D]

[desicat]

Maybe the argument would be "lets move away from monuments to wars and conquests and move onto other things".

This is an interesting note. Most monuments I have seen were dedications to loss and sacrifice to achieve victory. Small towns all across the US have Civil War, WWI, and WWII statues and memorials in "remembrance" of the men (and some women) who did not return. The principles of those who left and never returned (in a country like the US that has seen very little outside invasion) should provide lessons for following generations. I do not think I have ever seen a monument in the US that celebrated "conquest", I have been often inspired by the inscriptions I have read on small town memorials.

Several folks in this thread have quoted Sherman, Churchill, and Lee, and none of those quotes glorified war. They were first hand witness to its horror and understood the need to end war quickly and to resist tyranny (yes, even the Southerners thought they were taking a stand on principle). The denizens of today's Ivory Towers owe their freedom of thought to those "brutal" warriors who paved the way for them to exercise their freedom of thought, too bad so many of today's academics fail to understand that civilization and progress is not the natural state of human kind.

Immanuel Kant, "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch":

"The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural state; the natural state is one of war. This does not always mean open hostilities, but at least an unceasing threat of war. A state of peace, therefore, must be established, for in order to be secured against hostility it is not sufficient that hostilities simply be not committed; and, unless this security is pledged to each by his neighbor (a thing that can occur only in a civil state), each may treat his neighbor, from whom he demands this security, as an enemy."

[warspite1]

And the latest historical figure in the firing line is Horatio Nelson....

Stop the world I want to get off..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... olumn.html

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: warspite1

And the latest historical figure in the firing line is Horatio Nelson....

Stop the world I want to get off..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... olumn.html

I am extremely saddened by this whole sad affair... and now Nelson... [:(]


Leo "Apollo11"

[Lecivius]

Nelson supported slavery? [&:][&:][&:]

Am I missing something?

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Another point I made to my California historian/writer friend is that it can be helpful to look at how the "enemy" viewed the conduct in question as an aid to determining if it was "evil."

Thus, in the case of the American Civil War, after the war a majority of northerners (all but the most fervid abolitionists and militant "punishers of the rebellion") looked upon their former enemy with high esteem. Most northerners thought very highly of Robert E. Lee. There was no notion that he was an evil and racist man. Similarly, many northerners held antiquated (ignorant) opinions of slaves and free blacks, so that the idea of slavery didn't disturb them.

Then look at Hitler in 1945. His enemies looked at what he had done with horror. There was no question that he had perpetrated many evils.

It isn't necessary to measure them by 2016 standards, and to do so will usually perpetrate an injustice and an inaccuracy.

This movement has truly offended me.

I am a Historian. Many of my colleagues hear the name Robert E. Lee and think evil slave owning Southerner. They do not understand the love and respect that was felt for that man by BOTH sides and how he, personally, probably prevented the Civil War from turning into a Guerilla War. After he lost and surrendered, what did he do? As they say in Game of Thrones, he bent the knee. He pledged his loyalty back to the United States. That act probably saved countless lives because it took the legs out from under any long-term clandestine resistance after the war.

What is happening presently sickens me. This is our HISTORY. History should not be a whitewash. Sure--there was good and evil during the war but, as said above, many of these monuments commemorate the fallen and praise the sacrifice that so many gave for what they believed in.

If I go farther, I will truly get in trouble. This is my .02...

[Canoerebel]

We are going to lose this battle because academia and the media see things differently. They have a strident view that does not tolerate debate or disagreement. Right now, in colleges across America, leading professors are teaching that honoring Confederate soldiers and officers is an act of racism. Does that sound nuts to you? Maybe. But that is holy writ to them. You are their enemy. You are a racist.

Right now, all across America, people are being told that slavery and Nazi Germany were equivalent. They believe that. They hate those who believe differently.

There is no equivalence, but they don't have the time, patience, or inclination to reason this through.

I had a gifted writer make that claim, so I spent hours and days thinking through things. I felt like there wasn't an equivalence but was I necessarily right? I needed to reason it through to figure that out.

That writer - an academian who is now part of the mainstream in collegiate America - said that is was racist - racist! - to claim that you can't judge an 1860 man by 2017 standards.

Can you? I say no.

In 1860, mankind had lived most of its history with slavery an accepted fact of life. That sentiment was in the process of changing and those changes would probably accelerate over time. But there was still a substantial number of people who believed that slavery was the natural order of things and that slaves were chattel property. Some of the men who believed that were bad men. Some of the men who believed that were good men. At least by 1860 standards. But not by 2017 standards.

Why doesn't it make sense to measure 1860 men by 2017 standards? Because the 1860 men didn't have the benefit of the evolution of thought and morality that we've had. We know slavery was an evil and the sooner it was eradicated the better. Too many of them didn't recognize that.

Were they evil? Some were. Some weren't.

How do we know that? By how they were perceived by their enemies. In 1865, most northerners did not view slavery as wrong or the southerner as evil. Both sides mostly respected the other side, during and after the war. If there was a feeling that southerners needed to be punished, that was more for breaking the Union than for practicing slavery.

Compare that to Nazi German in 1945. How did the enemies of Nazi Germany view the Holocaust? We all know that. All right-thinking people in 1945 deplored the wholesale slaughter of innocent human beings. The Nazis were not respected by their enemies. By 1945 standards (and really by the standards of all time) the Nazi was an evil person. By 2017 standards the Nazi was an evil person.

By media and academia standards of 2017, the southerner was an evil person. By the standards of most of mankind in 1865, the southerner was not an evil person.

If we can measure people of 150 year ago by 2017 standards, what's to stop the people of 2160 from measuring us by their standards? If the people of that era view the killing of innocent unborn children as a modern holocaust, won't they be justified in removing every vestige of honor accorded to those who today support abortion rights? Won't they be justified in tearing down the monuments to Barrack Obama and taking him off the face of the $17 bitcoin?

And what about me? I am an employer who tells my employee when to come to work, when to go to lunch, when to go home, what are her off days, how much she gets paid, what the dress code is, what she can listen to on the radio, and how many weeks of paid vacation she gets each year. By our standards today, this is the way employment works. What if, in 2125, that's viewed as some kind of oppressive slavery? Am I therefore evil? Must my great-grandchildren spend their days with heads bowed in shame?

But the masses of 2017, educated by academia and indoctrinated and inflamed by the media, are incapable of reasoning things through.