It’s really sad how lionized Lee is despite being worse than average even by slaver standards.

Like, history is my center of interest. I am acutely aware that morals and norms are deeply contextual things, and that most people will grow up absorbing the morals and norms of the time and place.

But how can someone be such a piece of shit that their own slave overseer refuses to carry out their orders? The man’s job is literally to brutalize slaves, and HE thinks you’ve gone too far?

I mean, shit, at least lionize some blinkered fanatic like Stonewall Jackson. He was a slaver, but at least he was willing to break the law for the sake of treating slaves more humanely, rather than less humanely. It doesn’t absolve him from being a slaver at a time when it was increasingly clear that slavery was not some fundamental piece of existence, but it at least absolves him of being worse than his fucking peers.

I believe so, yes!

Explanation: During Caesar’s Civil War, the Republican general Pompey escaped to Egypt after a crushing defeat in the hopes of gathering more allies against Caesar. The Egyptian King, Ptolemy XIII, decided instead to kill Pompey, in the hopes of garnering support from the increasingly-powerful Caesar, who seemed poised to win the civil war. When Caesar came seeking Pompey, Ptolemy presented Caesar with Pompey’s severed head.

This was a massive miscalculation on several levels.

First, Caesar had a policy of extremely generous mercy towards his opponents in the civil war - he wanted to avoid appearing as a tyrant, and pardoned almost all of his enemies without preconditions, not even a pledge of support. This was an extremely powerful tool to exercise, as it made resisting Caesar less appealing than surrendering - if you lose nothing by surrender, not even your honor, and your cause appears hopeless… why not? By killing Pompey, Caesar was robbed of the opportunity to grant his most powerful enemy - both practically and politically - mercy, which would have been a massive PR coup.

Second, the Romans generally frowned on others dealing out justice (or ‘justice’) to Roman citizens. Roman citizens acknowledged only the authority of the Republic over them, not foreigners! While some of this posturing is just that - posturing - Roman citizens who had been mistreated by foreign rulers, or even treated fairly-but-harshly, were often the centers of calls for retribution - whether legal or military - upon those who punished them. For Pompey, a member of the Senate and consul, one of the two highest-ranking officials of the Republic, to be murdered by a king he came to with a hand opened in friendship, asking for help? That was deeply offensive to Roman norms - and perhaps more dangerously, Roman pride.

Third, Caesar and Pompey were old allies, going back decades - while some of the rhetoric between them is buried in Roman cultural norms and the forked-tongue statements typical of politicians, it’s often considered that there was some amount of genuine goodwill between the two men, even if their ambitions (and egos) led them to opposite sides of a war. They may even have genuinely been friends, at one point. To see a man he may have genuinely liked, had known for years, had worked with closely, and certainly wished to pardon from death or even dishonor or loss of property, served to him as a severed head? That undoubtedly provoked some strong emotions.

For those reasons, Ptolemy’s gift was… not well-received by Caesar.

HE WAS A CONSUL OF ROME!

Beauty is only skin-deep - she was an investment banker before she met him 🤢

Imagine being there - that being the first expression of civilization in the most literal sense - the rise of the city, civitas, for the first time in human history.

It’s awe-inspiring on its own, but as a novel and regionally unique development at that time, I imagine it must have been even moreso.

It’s tracing where candidates predominate, with blue and deep blue being Sanders - the impression is given, by the presence of blue across a large swathe of the country, that Sanders is winning an overwhelming victory. However, much of the area that is blue is not considerably populated; while Sanders enjoyed plurality support at this point in the primary (I remember it well, because I was so fucking excited and hopeful), it’s not even vaguely close to the implication of overwhelming support that the map gives off.

Explanation: In the pre-modern, early modern, and industrial era of Western civilization (ie just about everything before WW2), it was extremely common to blame social unrest or natural disasters on the Jews or the Christian God punishing Christians for allowing the Jews to [checks notes]… exist.

Luckily, when the Jews weren’t available as a scapegoat, for one reason or another, the gays were always an alternative target! Such as by the great and celebrated preacher John Chrysostom, who considered homosexuality worse than murder, and linked sexual immorality of cities with earthquakes which killed hundreds of people!

How… lovely.

https://romanmagic.wordpress.com/2016/08/05/about-chime-roman-tintinnabulae-in-britain/

Explanation: Robert E. Lee, the foremost general of the Confederate forces in the US Civil War, was a Southern Gentleman™.

And by that, I mean a horrific fucking slaver using civility towards white people as a mask for immensely inhumane cruelty.

Robert E. Lee personally owned slaves that he inherited upon the death of his mother, Ann Lee, in 1829. (His son, Robert E. Lee Jr., gave the number as three or four families.) Following the death of his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, in 1857, Lee assumed command of 189 enslaved people, working the estates of Arlington, White House, and Romancoke. Custis’ will stipulated that the enslaved people that the Lee family inherited be freed within five years.

Lee, as executor of Custis’ will and supervisor of Custis’ estates, drove his new-found labor force hard to lift those estates from debt. Concerned that the endeavor might take longer than the five years stipulated, Lee petitioned state courts to extend his control of enslaved people.

The Custis bondspeople, aware of their former owner’s intent, resisted Lee’s efforts to enforce stricter work discipline. Resentment resulted in escape attempts. In 1859 Wesley Norris, his sister Mary, and their cousin, George Parks, escaped to Maryland where they were captured and returned to Arlington.

In an 1866 account, Norris recalled,

[W]e were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to lay it on well, an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.

Explanation: Robert E. Lee, the foremost general of the Confederate forces in the US Civil War, was a Southern Gentleman™.

And by that, I mean a horrific fucking slaver using civility towards white people as a mask for immensely inhumane cruelty.

Robert E. Lee personally owned slaves that he inherited upon the death of his mother, Ann Lee, in 1829. (His son, Robert E. Lee Jr., gave the number as three or four families.) Following the death of his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, in 1857, Lee assumed command of 189 enslaved people, working the estates of Arlington, White House, and Romancoke. Custis’ will stipulated that the enslaved people that the Lee family inherited be freed within five years.

Lee, as executor of Custis’ will and supervisor of Custis’ estates, drove his new-found labor force hard to lift those estates from debt. Concerned that the endeavor might take longer than the five years stipulated, Lee petitioned state courts to extend his control of enslaved people.

The Custis bondspeople, aware of their former owner’s intent, resisted Lee’s efforts to enforce stricter work discipline. Resentment resulted in escape attempts. In 1859 Wesley Norris, his sister Mary, and their cousin, George Parks, escaped to Maryland where they were captured and returned to Arlington.

In an 1866 account, Norris recalled,

[W]e were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to lay it on well, an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.

What the fuck

While it is a lunatic statement, it isn’t antisemitic. It’s only antisemitic if it applies to jewish Palestinians that have a connection to the land. The jewish Israelis of European descent aren’t connected to the land. Thus, this isn’t antisemitic. But I do agree that it is a lunatic statement anyway.

Oh my fucking God, when did leftism become Blut und Boden nationalism?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/as-trade-deal-deadline-looms-trump-says-he-ll-write-letters-to-countries-about-tariffs-dear-mr-japan-here-s-the-story/ar-AA1HDZbJ

“Even if Israel did, Israel deserved Israel”

Most of them were executed or committed suicide to avoid being executed.

Me: “Watch, the chemicals in my brain are going to go wild when I pet this facsimile of a dog”

Hannibal even invited Scipio to stay with him, but Scipio reluctantly declined, noting that his fellow Romans would find it suspicious.

No, no, you see, if we just convince enough people NOT to vote in the primaries, the whole system will collapse!

Great, now we’re doing “land votes” takes just like conservative boomers posting minion memes on Facebook.

I’m so glad to see that the ‘left’ isn’t as fucking braindead as the ghouls on the right. /s