Found this interesting and informative video today :

It’s about that whole “the Civil War was not about slavery!” bullshit that has been making people from the South look bad for a surprisingly long time.

See, what struck me was how quickly the “Lost Cause” lie emerged after the Civil War. It was barely a year after the war when that journalist coined the term.

And that narrative caught on quickly for obvious reasons.

But wait… were they so obvious?

Only when you add the missing ingredient : shame.

A mere year later, Southerners were deeply ashamed of the very thing they had so recently believed in so fervently they went to war to protect it.

What changed them so radically? The plausibly facile answer would be “losing the war”, but losing wars does not always cause such a radical shift in the very heart of public morality and private belief.

Sure, Germany was ashamed of Hitler after WWII, and that shame transformed them into one of the most liberal and progressive nations on Earth. ^[1]

But losing WWI didn’t do the same thing.

It has to be that even before the war, and even as they fought for it, a lot of Southerners were ashamed of slavery. My guess is that the biggest pro-slavery movers and shakers were all rich plantation owners who stood to lose a lot of money if they were forced to give up their slaves and that everyday poor Southerners went along because they were victims of manipulation by rich people and their political flunkies just like today.

So the fact that those same poor Southerners are STILL defending slavery is so tragic as to be not even one bit funny.

What I do find funny is the nature of the lie. They claim the war wasn’t about slavery, but the state’s right to CHOOSE slavery.

How is that any better? If someone said “I’m not fighting to fuck geese, I’m fighting for people’s RIGHT to CHOOSE to fuck geese”, nobody would be fooled.

You’re a goose fucker either way, dude. The argument is semantic at best.

So I think we should start mocking these modern deniers by partly agreeing with them.

Say “I agree that the Civil War was really about state’s rights… to choose slavery.”

“The South was the victim of the North’s aggressive desire to end slavery.”

Or, “The Civil War was really about economics… the economics of slavery.”

Go ahead and nod along with their cowardly obfuscating bullshit but always add that it was about slavery nevertheless.

And if they say, “It doesn’t matter what it was about…. “, reply that it therefore doesn’t matter that it was about slavery.

And if you are in the right frame of mind, remind them that the only honorable way to deal with shame is to face the facts, admit to everything, take your lumps, and then retreat with your dignity intact.

If they could have brought themselves to do that after the war, or at any time since. it would be ancient history. All peoples have historical monstrosities in their past. Confessing and owning up to them simply means you are grown-ups now.

But denying it shows you are not mature enough to sit at the big boys’ table at all.

Yes, I’m looking at you, Turkey!

More after the break.

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It is just barely possible to believe something not because one knows it to be true but because one knows it to be a good thing to believe.

The ability to do so is called “faith”, I think.

It cannot be learned.

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No child under 5 has ever liked their mother’s new haircut.

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It’s called Normal Food

And it’s a restaurant.

Hear me out.

There is a market, at least here on the Wet Coast, for a restaurant that serves “normal” food. By that, I mean straight down the middle standard North American cuisine.

Things like pot roast. Mashed potatoes. Corn on the cob. Pork chops. Green salad. Apple cobbler. Chocolate cake. And so forth.

All done exactly the way it is traditionally done. No “fun twists”. No “a new take on…” No “comfort food” that forgets that the most important part of comfort food is its familiarity.

“You love your mom, right? Well here’s a fun twist : your mom with onions for eyes!”

Just absolutely bog standard North American food. Nothing remotely weird on the menu. Just good old home cookin’.

There are people out there desperate for the familiar foods of their childhood and the crazy thing is how hard it is to find it sometimes.

Even Denny’s sneaks a “twist” in there now and then.

The idea is that this would be a haven for both cuisine conservatives and the merely nostalgic for simpler and more innocent food.

And when you really start to dig, you realize there is a huge number of dishes in the standard North American cookbook.

Here’s some more : Fried chicken. Green beans. Chicken Noodle Soup. Baked ham. Donuts. Chocolate chip cookies. Dinner rolls. Onion rings.

Oh, and no attempt to make them healthier either. I am as concerned about public health and our toxic eating habits as anyone, but this ain’t the place for that.

And it doesn’t have to be a fixed list either. Foods can become “normal” over time. Nor does it have to be the same everywhere.

After all, there’s plenty of variation both in what is standard cuisine in your region and exactly how the more standard dishes are cooked.

So a great deal of market research would go into creating the menu for each region. And constant attention will be paid to diner’s feedback.

Like Fox News, this business model requires staying as close to the customer as possible in order to tune its product to their needs.

Ambiance would be “homey”. Tables styled like kitchen or dining room tables. Wallpaper like you’d see in anyone’s house. Atmosphere relaxed and informal.

All in all, I think it could be a very profitable restaurant chain. And if it really catches on not just as a chain but as a movement, it could expand into other eras to provide “normal” versions of other things with bewildering numbers of “weird” options.

Normal Shampoo. Normal Toothpaste. Normal Motor Oil. Normal Sheets. Normal Dog Food. Normal Television, even.

The possibilities are endless. The popularity could be enormous.

And just think of how happy it would make people!

Only problem is, now I’m hungry!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.