The Civil War holds lessons for today, but not the lessons conservatives want to hear.

When you talk to conservatives here about the Civil War, the amount of historical revisionism is off the chain

Which makes sense, as they pretty much only seem interested in the Civil War to the extent they can somehow paint the modern-day Democratic Party as aligned with the Confederacy

That is compete and utter horseshit, as even a 6th-grade understanding of the Civil War would tell you

(If you really were inclined to draw a comparison between the Confederacy and a modern-day political party... well, the OP meme speaks for itself)

It’s a dark, interesting period of our country’s history with lessons for today

But no: it’s not the lessons they draw

It disgusts me how some people idolize the Confederacy, pretending that they were fighting for some kind of just cause. Even worse is the revisionist history they use to support this absurd claim: you'll hear people say that the Civil War was about 'states rights', or that slavery 'wasn't that bad'. Yeah, states rights' to literally f***ing own people! The war was at its core about slavery, despite what some people would have you believe.

TBH though: the North didn't really give a s*** about blacks. Reconstruction was abandoned, perpetuating oppression and giving the white supremacist ideology of the Old South a new lease on life. There were so many opportunities to right these wrongs, all forgotten and ignored.

Both the war and its aftermath were indeed a dark time.

Exactly. I made this meme awhile ago in response to a conservative to point out exactly that.

The Civil War was about slavery from the beginning: Not because the North wanted it to be, but because the *South* wanted it to be.

Early on, Lincoln said something to the effect of: If he could save the Union without freeing a single slave, he would; and if he could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, he would. He also did everything he could in his First Inaugural Address to assure the nation he had no intentions of touching slavery, because by early 1861 the South was already arming itself and a few states had seceded although no shots had been fired yet.

Meanwhile Southerners are the ones who ranted about protecting their “peculiar institution,” as well as states’ rights and combating an overbearing federal government, as a propaganda tactic to make their cause seem more palatable.

But they would never have broken the Union and sent hundreds of thousands of Americans to their deaths in defense of such abstract principles.

No, the Civil War was about slavery, plain and simple. The rest is window-dressing.

Oh by the way could you make me a Stream Mod or go ahead and give this meme a title and some meme tags? I submitted it to the stream before thinking to add those

so you want in or not?

Oh hey sorry I meant to reply earlier. Yes, these stream terms sound great, very comprehensive, and I will happily enforce them. Thanks for taking the time to spell it out.

Btw, I don’t want to be a stream owner since I’m already near my limit. Just a Mod.

Yeah, he harassed me and some other users a couple days ago. This is just one example of it.

imgflip.com/i/40f1jo

I actually submitted a feedback complaint to ImgFlip about him (rare for me), since deleting his nonsense from my stream was sucking up a bunch of my time. If he goes too far (and I think he has), ImgFlip should delete his account.

Don’t let it get you down, he’s just a particularly obtuse and insane user even by this site’s woeful standards.

Please know that your stream’s mission is not a failure. I understand if you need to cool off for a bit, but don’t let him win!

You can always blame me too, he ought to know there are two Mods of this stream and he can’t be sure who deleted his shit.

I won’t touch it though unless you instruct me to.

Once again thanks for spelling out these terms in such detail. More comprehensive and well thought-out than ImgFlip’s Terms of Service, honestly.

If only everyone on ImgFlip was capable of abiding by such basic principles of decency. But as OlympianProduct once said (in so many words): ImgFlip’s user-base is broad, and therefore in enforcing its terms ImgFlip must cater to the needs of its assholes as well.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to abide their hateful nonsense in our own streams.