[pasquinelli]

"At any rate, I think that when you dismiss figures of the past as human sewers, you overlook just how past atrocities happened, which makes it easier for them to happen in the here and now."

i disagree. how past atrocities happened is less (probably not at all) from name-calling the victimizers of the past and more from wiffle-waffling intellectual obfuscation of pure self-interest as something more than what it is. what could justify kidnapping people, putting them in mortal danger by shipping them across the ocean against their will, selling them to masters who had liberty to anything they liked with them?

flip it around: there're plenty of horrible things happening right now, and lots of people proffering up weak-ass justifications for them. i have a low opinion of them. why should i have a higher opinion of their counterparts for 150 years ago?