Friday, May 3, 2013

Playing to an extreme base Part 1– shound familiar?

The run-up to the Civil War was an age of the ever-increasingly strident, of people utterly sure that they were right. And of course they were right - as long as the perspective didn't change, as long as the situation wasn't looked at from the other guy's (equally?) valid perspective.

The age is profligate with examples. In 1856, five years before the war broke out, Charles Summer delivered a rousing anti-slavery speech in the US Senate that played well to the Abolitionists in his home state of Massachusetts but infuriated the South - and led to a relative of a Southerner whose honor was besmirched to enter an almost empty senate chamber and attack Summer as he sat at his desk, beating him with his walking stick with sufficient vehemence that Sumner took years of recuperating before he returned to his senatorial duties.

In the meantime Representative Brooks, the assailant, received any number of replacement walking sticks from well-wishing fellow Southerners. - to be used again in case any other Northern hypocrite stepped out of line!

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