Re: Baton Rouge

[Martin Eden]

63. "And yet history vindicated Brown"

That vindication is not universally accepted among legitimate historians. Last summer my wife and I spent a weeklong vacation in Harpers Ferry and became fairly immersed in the subject of John Brown and his raid. He tried to enlist the help of Frederick Douglas, who wanted no part of it. One of the first casualties in the raid was an innocent black railroad worker.

Whether or not the Civil War would have ensued without Brown's additional fanning of flames can only be speculated. To believe it wouldn't have, you pretty much have to argue that Lincoln wouldn't have won the 1860 election or that having won, the South wouldn't have seceded. I'm very skeptical those outcomes would have been different without Brown.

I'm even more skeptical that a spate of murders of white police officers will be a catalyst for positive change, and I would bet heavily against the Dallas and Baton Rouge shooters being "vindicated" by history as some kind of heroes.

No reasonable person can dispute the cause of abolition or the cause of ending police brutality/racial bias, but that doesn't mean that all violent acts committed by people who believe in the cause are justified or help the cause. A deranged individual can do much more harm than good.

Personally I condemn these murders, and really have nothing more to add on the subject.