[leftyted]

> Do you? Not to over simplify things, but freedom, liberty, and equal treatment were pretty much empty words and applied only to white American men (see: treatment of Native Americans, the Mexican-American war, slaves, and women).

This is nonsense. The US was a left-wing experiment. It was a repudiation of the way things were done in Europe. The fact that it didn't solve every single inequity in one blow is not an interesting observation.

It's fair game to criticize the US, but to misunderstand its history to this extent is just sad. The US was radically egalitarian at its founding and served as the example for the rest of the world for at least a century and a half.

John Adams: "I always consider the settlement of America as the opening of a grand scheme and design in Providence for the illumination and emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."

[jessaustin]

It's understandable that you have been misled in this way; enforcing this particular myth seems to be the primary purpose of USA public schools. I recommend historian Gerald Horne. He has identified Somerset v Stewart as an important event in inspiring American slaveholders and their sometime lawyer John Adams to start the Revolutionary War. That is, they fought a war in large part so that they wouldn't have to give up the practice of slavery.

[leftyted]

Horne is a clumsy propagandist and you've been thoroughly propagandized.

In this kind of history, all nuance (like Adams' views on slavery) is lost and all historical events are made to fit a predetermined narrative. In addition to being wrong, it's incredibly boring stuff.

[jessaustin]

A clumsy propagandist for whom? A secret cabal of evildoers who plot the day that USA will do less racist shit?

[leftyted]

Just because you view all history as the result of a "secret cabal of evildoers" (in this case, plotting to preserve slavery) doesn't mean I have to.

As you let slip here, Horne's writings aren't about history: they're a form public of agitation so that "the USA will do less racist shit". Which would be fine if he was a social critic or a politician. But he's been passing himself off as a historian.

[jessaustin]

Words have meanings. "Propaganda" isn't just funny stories; it is done for particular interests. You claim he's a propagandist, so you should identify which interests those are. Failing that, you could retract your vicious slur...

[leftyted]

I identified his interest. Are you getting all the way through my posts?

> Horne's writings aren't about history: they're a form public of agitation so that "the USA will do less racist shit".