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Comment by SolaceQuantum | Hacker News Reader

I'm not actually certain that the Civil War era is viewed universally as a barbaric time, or that slavery is universally viewed as a black mark in American History. There is still plenty of popular music and subcultures that look on those times positively, perhaps even fondly. In some sense the culture behind the civil war is still very strong in America, and whether or not it was bad is still heavily debated.

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What? There's certainly debate around whether or not slavery was the cause of the Civil War, but slavery is absolutely universally viewed as a black mark in American history.

These delusions that hateful ideas don't have any traction in America are exactly why Trumpism has been able to succeed. There are sizable groups of people in this country with terrifying beliefs. You've got to take off the blinders.

"The Times found that nearly 20% of Trump supporters did not approve of freeing the slaves, according to a January YouGov/Economist poll"

http://time.com/4236640/donald-trump-racist-supporters/

Well, apart from all those people who protested the removal of Confederate statues.

Those people will also be viewed as a black mark on American history

There's not really a debate about whether or not slavery was the cause of the civil war, at least not among historians. You can go a lot deeper on this if you want, but take for example one of the first sentences in the Mississippi Declaration of Secession: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery"

I entirely agree with you, such statements can be found in every one of the secession declarations. Unfortunately, those documents don't make their way into discussions involving the history of slavery and the Civil War on the right.

I think when we use the word "debate" like this, we're doing a huge favor we don't owe to a group of people who are — in bad faith — not acknowledging a set of facts. Just because a group of people hold some belief doesn't make it valid. There's no "debate" over whether vaccines cause autism, there's no "debate" whether climate change is real or affected by humans, and there's no "debate" over whether slavery was a central issue in the Civil War.

Who is "heavily debating" slavery? Among whom is it not "universally viewed as black mark in American history"? Not any black people, I bet!

There's a fairly heavy debate about whether or not people in jail should be forced to work for no pay.

The 13th amendment calls it out as an exception to the ban on slavery and there is not universal support to change that amendment

The parent is very clearly referring to pre-Civil War-era chattel slavery.

You mean just like we're still debating whether the Nazis were wrong and whether it was right to stop them? I bet you no Jewish people are debating that like no black people are debating whether slavery was wrong. How can you possibly make an argument that any type of slavery is not wrong? I'm very curious to hear this argument if you have one.

Yes, marginalized people will not be discussing whether their marginalization was a good things. However, there are neonazi or Nazi sympathetic subcultures, some of them fairly large. It would by incorrect to then state that it is universally agreed upon that nazis were evil and a black mark on history. Similarly, there is a significant movement in the United States that either waxes nostalgic about or outright prefers the pre-civil war era with its slavery.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think such people's hateful opinions should be counted when speaking about such things. There are always going to be people who do not think murder, slavery, and torture are not wrong but right. They are a small minority and while it's important you make note that such scum and their opinions exist, it's also important to note that they do not represent a significant portion of people either in number or in strength of opinion. There will always be outliers but I'd say most people and all decent people agree that slavery and the nazis were both wrong.

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