Kevin Levin has a post about an account of a slave whipping in a camp situation during the civil war. The account -- one paragraph as he posts it -- was written by the man who did the whipping, a lieutenant from Georgia, in a letter to his wife. What the letter describes is brutal; I can't think anybody in their right minds would claim that it isn't.
Levin's post includes butt-covering phrases like, "I do not take a firm position on this..." and "Joe may have been punished for.." and "Evans may have owned ... additional slaves..." and "Perhaps he hoped to have this account shared with his other slaves..."
All this means that Levin doesn't know these things but he likely believes them, and he wants to put the seed of the idea into your brain where it will take root and you will believe them, too.
But the cake-topper is when he uses this one instance of one man's brutality to make the case (unsuccessfully) that most enlisted men in the Confederate Army had an interest in perpetuating or defending slavery. The purpose of this is to negate the claims of those who say most CSA soldiers did not own slaves and weren't fighting to perpetuate slavery. This one instance proves something about hundreds of thousands of soldiers who did not participate and presumably knew absolutely nothing about it. (Smearing the many with the few, or the one, is an extremely common, oft-used tactic of the left.)
He concludes, "The more you read about impressed slaves and camp slaves the more you begin to understand that the distinction between slaveowners and non-slaveowners makes little sense within the context of the army." (I.e., owning slaves wasn't necessary to make white Southerners evil. They were all evil, evil, evil.)
The best illustration of Levin's motives, however, occur in the comments. Someone asked how this treatment differed from the flogging of white sailors and soldiers for similar offenses, before flogging was banned. Another commenter replied that the short answer is there is no difference between flogging a white soldier or sailor and a black slave.
Levin fires back, "Of course there is a difference. One is subject to military law and the other the absolute power of the master."
What are we supposed to take from this? That military floggings HURT LESS than slave whippings? That white skin wasn't capable of feeling the depth of pain that black skin felt?
That is one of the principles that underlies Levin's entire concept of slavery and the white South, and underlies the writing on his blog and elsewhere -- slave misery exists in exact inverse proportion to white evil. Levin is really, really obsessed with slave misery -- the better to make the case of Southern white evil. And he brings that assumption of Southern white evil into the 21st Century, with his crusade against the Confederate heritage community.
Do you have a case against his obsession? Even an exception to it? Forget it. Don't expect him to consider it. He has an elaborate smokescreen, and a mountain of convoluted "reasoning" to maintain his concept and not recognize that another way of looking at it even exists.
His mind is made up.
Levin's post includes butt-covering phrases like, "I do not take a firm position on this..." and "Joe may have been punished for.." and "Evans may have owned ... additional slaves..." and "Perhaps he hoped to have this account shared with his other slaves..."
All this means that Levin doesn't know these things but he likely believes them, and he wants to put the seed of the idea into your brain where it will take root and you will believe them, too.
But the cake-topper is when he uses this one instance of one man's brutality to make the case (unsuccessfully) that most enlisted men in the Confederate Army had an interest in perpetuating or defending slavery. The purpose of this is to negate the claims of those who say most CSA soldiers did not own slaves and weren't fighting to perpetuate slavery. This one instance proves something about hundreds of thousands of soldiers who did not participate and presumably knew absolutely nothing about it. (Smearing the many with the few, or the one, is an extremely common, oft-used tactic of the left.)
He concludes, "The more you read about impressed slaves and camp slaves the more you begin to understand that the distinction between slaveowners and non-slaveowners makes little sense within the context of the army." (I.e., owning slaves wasn't necessary to make white Southerners evil. They were all evil, evil, evil.)
The best illustration of Levin's motives, however, occur in the comments. Someone asked how this treatment differed from the flogging of white sailors and soldiers for similar offenses, before flogging was banned. Another commenter replied that the short answer is there is no difference between flogging a white soldier or sailor and a black slave.
Levin fires back, "Of course there is a difference. One is subject to military law and the other the absolute power of the master."
What are we supposed to take from this? That military floggings HURT LESS than slave whippings? That white skin wasn't capable of feeling the depth of pain that black skin felt?
That is one of the principles that underlies Levin's entire concept of slavery and the white South, and underlies the writing on his blog and elsewhere -- slave misery exists in exact inverse proportion to white evil. Levin is really, really obsessed with slave misery -- the better to make the case of Southern white evil. And he brings that assumption of Southern white evil into the 21st Century, with his crusade against the Confederate heritage community.
Do you have a case against his obsession? Even an exception to it? Forget it. Don't expect him to consider it. He has an elaborate smokescreen, and a mountain of convoluted "reasoning" to maintain his concept and not recognize that another way of looking at it even exists.
His mind is made up.