Benjamin Hestley seems to think that saying something "was one of the causes" of something leaves the impression that it "was the total cause" of that result.
Is Benjamin dumb, bad at set theory, or deliberately misreading something because he's an apologist for slavery? You decide!
I'm Anil Dash, and I've been blogging here since 1999, writing about how culture is made. Contact me at anil@dashes.com, at +1 646 833 8659, or at anildash on Twitter or IM. Find out more »
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I don't think that Benjamin is necessarily dumb. Delusions are often independent of intelligence. Many people think that slavery was the sole cause of the civil war, while some, like Hestley, seem overanxious to leave slavery out in order to get across the other political and economic reasons (or to alleviate ancestral guilt). Either way, he's wrong--the paragraph should not have been ommitted because its ommission caused a half-truth and a disservice to a portion of Alabama citizens. If Hestley wants to feel better about which side of the war his ancestors fought on, he can fool himself on his own time.