Democrat pillow talk

I have this theory about the Civil War. I could go into any level of detail about it, but to way over-simplify this conflict, I believe it was primarily that human history was marching beyond the institution of slavery, and the southern planters weren't willing or able to accept that fact.

Was talking to a friend of mine once, who's black, about the Civil War. We were talking about the slave-owners' view of their slaves and their "peculiar institution." My friend said, "What the hell were they thinking?"

Funny, because that's exactly my take on it.

The planters justified slavery in several ways. They needed slave labor for one thing, although the more gentile among the southern gentry (and they all wanted to be gentile), would admit to grubby economic motives only as a last resort.

No, the planters maintained their "dependencies" primarily for the good of the slaves. I mean, the slaves were ignorant, uncivilized, child-like, not overly bright, and habitual liars and thieves. The slaves were lazy and irresponsible and, if left to their own devices without the control of white masters, they'd never be able to manage their own lives. They'd end up shiftless beggars, criminals, rapists, drunkards, etc. etc.

Of course, much of the bad behavior perpetrated by the slaves -- and there was plenty of it -- was because they were slaves. They weren't allowed to develop their intellect or their skills. Like, by the mid-1800s, most slave states had made it illegal to teach slaves to read. A lot of historic evidence indicates that slaves didn't work any harder than they had to, slacked off when they could, and even might runaway and hide in the woods for a few weeks vacation, though most of them were eventually hunted down and returned to their masters, or came back willingly.

Anybody forced into slavery behaves the same way. Matter of fact, this kind of behavior is very similar to that in totalitarian nations. I mean, why work so hard? You don't get anything for it. Lots of theft and even black markets because honest effort for your own advancement and unregulated trade is illegal. People are child-like and irresponsible because they aren't allowed to make their own decisions.

On the other hand, many slaves oraganized and managed the plantations very successfully when their masters were "at the Springs" during summer for months and "in town" or "on tour" sometimes for years at a stretch. The slaves built much of the South brick-by-brick, and they even made the bricks. Many were trained in skilled work and hired out as blacksmiths, ironworkers, mill workers, carpenters, etc. Frederick Douglass was a ship-fitter. But the slave-owners overlooked all this and clung to their belief in the slaves' inborn inferiority and incompetency.

So in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, how did the slave-owners convince themselves that they were acting in the slaves' best intersts? I mean: What the hell were they thinking?

If you read what many of the planters wrote at the time, it's almost funny, and some of it has a really disturbing, almost hysterical edge to it. I mean, let's not forget, in a few slave states, the whites were outnumbered. The planters had this bizarre mind-set. I'll try to describe it:

The white planter -- usually, but not always -- a man, saw himself as the wise, beneficent, intelligent, tough, independent master of the universe. God simply made him that way. It was the planter's job on earth to run things. Some of the pro-slavery crowd even believed they were the product of a certain strain of Scots-Irish and had a birthright to rule. Their superiority was somehow bred into them, so they were obligated to wear the heavy crown of the lord and master.

Generally speaking, their arrogance was insufferable. They even considered white Yankees to be mongrels -- so many of them "mixed" with Irish and Germans -- and quite famously regarded the Yankees as nothing more than "mechanics and mudsills," crass, greedy money-grubbers.

No true gentleman dirtied his hands with manual labor. That's what the "other races" were for. The planter was above all that. His task was to rule.

What reminded me of all this was, I was reading a couple liberal blogs and video clips of Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman. You can cut the arrogance with a knife. The sense of superiority and pomposity is positively suffocating. Like, want a laugh? Go read Paul Krugman's blogs in the NY Times... and more importantly, the rah-rah -- yet tasteful -- comments his supportive readers leave like little gifts on his doorstep.

The thing is, the planters' views of slaves is eerily similar to the liberals' views of "everyone else." And in neither case do these views even come close to a useful paradigm for human life on earth.

So how do liberals sustain their silly world-view in the face of reality? They prop each other up with little lies. It's like they all stay drunk together, or spin a soft, quiet cocoon around themselves. They can't afford dissenting opinion, they interpret it -- like the planters did -- as uppity ingratitude. They go completely ballistic when you don't agree with them, and especially if you have a stronger argument. They view it only as back-sass from the great unwashed. Or, since liberals suspect that those who disagree with them are incapable of rational thought, the liberals insist that anyone who disagrees with them must be dupes and marionettes for the truly evil: capitalist mechanics and mudsills.

As a marxist, Comrade Osama has adopted all the liberal crap -- I mean, the whole load. He even takes it a couple steps further than most white liberals would dare. That's why other liberals love him so. For them, he's living proof of their silly beliefs and.... (breathless squeal) he's President!

So here's my challenge to liberals: Try to imagine what it would be like to deal with another human being as an equal rather than as an inferior or as a demigod. Try to conduct a town hall with both give and take. Listen to your consituents, don't just talk at them. They probably have a couple better ideas than you do. They made the country and pay your salary.

But you know what? Like the planters, the liberals just don't know how to act except as bosses or toadies. They don't understand what equality really means. And, like the slave-owners at the time of the Civil War, history is marching past these people and they're clinging deperately to their outmoded delusions and clutching at the reins of power to try to postpone their own obsolescence.

I refuse to call liberals "progressives." They're the true reactionaries, blocking the path to real growth and development.