I have new idea for the Conservatives - , Instead in abortion, why are you not interested more in vasectomy? Ban the vasectomy, fight against the vasectomy, go in man’s underwear, not in women’s!

Taking his comments as they mean in the English language, here is the translation:

“Washington made us give up our slaves, and we’re not going to have Washington tell us that our women have a right to make up their own minds about their lives and bodies. I and the rest of my white male brethren will make those decisions.”

I don’t see how any other meaning can come out of Stevenson’s rant.

I just wonder if he really speaks for his constituents or if they will relegate this clown to the dustbin of history where he belongs.

This is why people that really care about unborn children will need to unhitch their wagons from the Republican party. It is nothing short of amazing to me that Republicans have highjacked that movement, done very little to help advance it and many of those individuals and groups continue to devote their time, money and loyalty to politicians such as Rep. Stevenson. Some of these individuals would do well to speak with Democrats that are pro-life. This movement would do even better with efforts from the middle. Many people would support the idea of reducing the number of abortions. A lot of us would support efforts to reduce funding for Planned Parenthood equal to the amount that they spend in however they arrange for women to get abortions. Of course we will only get more “preaching” and posturing from pro-life/pro-choice zealots instead of reasonable solutions.

Daddo,
You are absolutely correct. Except for the part about the Civil War being about more than slavery. That is how the rich plantation owners sold it to the poor farmers to get them to fight for them. “States Rights” is a bunch of hogwash. They wanted to take their slaves with them when they moved West, to make more plantations, but the new states wanted to be free, so they said, “fine, as soon as your slaves come into our states, they are free.” And the rich white folks didn’t want to abide by the new states’ laws. The state’s rights argument was not for them in that case. SO yeah, it really does all boil down to slavery in the end. And it really does all boil down to racism, when an entire group of people have been subjugated because of their race, and a war was fought to end it, whether you realize it or not.

The University of Texas Press has published “Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction,” 2008. There is a web page for the book where you can read the introduction and browse the book. It is at:

http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exhagneo.html

One thing the book discusses is the mainstreaming of neo-Confederate ideology into politics which seems to be happening in Jefferson, Missouri.

Sincerely Yours,

Edward H. Sebesta
Dallas, TX

The tragedy popularly known as the Civil War cannot be explained or discussed in sound bites. Most people today possess no more knowledge of the Civil War, its causes and events than one can obtain from the most simplistic of public school texts: the Confederates (bad guys) were out to preserve slavery and destroy the Union, the Federals (good guys) were fighting to bring about the end of slavery and save the Union, and to achieve victory, Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator suffered martrydom at the hands of the murderous Confederate sympathizer Booth. Others, perhaps in spite of what they know - or think they know - about the war choose to misrepresent it in a way that enables them to mold historical events to fit a modern political agenda. To such people, the honest, intellectual discussion and historical investigation of the Civil War and all its complex issues and events is sadly irrelevant.
If any apologies are due here they should be for the trivializing, politicizing, misstating, and misuse of history by all connected with this story — Mr. Stevenson and his critics alike. Remember when you use the war to advance your modern agenda, you are standing on the graves of over 620,000 Americans, North and South, black and white.
Ambrose Bierce, American author was a soldier who fought for the Union during the war, and his short stories were influenced by his personal wartime experiences. Some time after the war had ended, a Republican orator denounced the act of paying honors at the graves of Confederate soldiers. Angered by this denunciation of the fallen, Bierce reacted in verse,
“The brave respect the brave. The brave
Respect the dead, but you - you draw
That ancient blade, the ass’s jaw,
And shake it o’er a hero’s grave.”
The enormous sacrifice born by both sides demands at minimum the subject of the Civil War be approached with respect and intellectual honesty, if not reverance. Try cracking a variety of good history books on the subject to help yourself to a better understanding of the war that arguably shaped modern America like no other. Otherwise, please choose something other than the Civil War or the vanquished Southern Confederacy to either appropriate to your cause - or to scapegoat - and shake your “ass’s jaw” over that.