On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:40:31 -0500, Sunshine49 wrote
> In a relationship, a person who has  
> been wronged needs that sense of acknowledgment and validation of 
> the  wrongs done to them, even if it is decades later. It's stupid 
> for an  abuser to say oh, I knocked your teeth out 30 years ago, 
> it's over  and done, why don't you just get over it? 

The difference in your analogy is that the abuser is still present. It's a 
lot different if the person actually responsible for an injustice is present 
vice a mere descendant who had no control or involvement in the original 
offense.

> How would you feel if it was your 
> great- great  grandfather's brothers, two little boys aged 8 and 11, 
> who were sold  away from a farm in Amelia County? Ask yourselves how 
> your gr-gr-gr-  grandmother must have felt, to have her children 
> torn away from her,  probably never to be seen again? I think you'd 
> be pretty resentful.  

You may be resentful, but the descendants are not culpable for the original 
offense. So they should apologize for something they did not do on the 
pretense it is to make someone else feel good? That makes no sense.

The purpose of an apology/confession is to seek forgiveness. You truly cannot 
apologize on behalf of someone else if the original perpetrator does not seek 
forgiveness. It's meaningless and all show.

A person can be bitter or resentful about injustices done to their ancestry 
all they want, but it gets them nowhere. It hasn't really served the people 
in Northern Ireland very well, has it?

To judge the actions of the past according to our present-day morals and 
beliefs is called presentism. Presentism is not an objective lens through 
which to view and analyze history.

For example: it amazes me when some people try to denigrate the efforts of 
our Founding Fathers by dismssing them as "rich, slave-owning, white men."

I would be curious to know how many cultures in the 18th century (numbering 
in at least the thousands) did not practice some sort of involuntary 
servitude. I believe you would be hard pressed to find any.

We can be passionate about studying history, but we should not be passionate 
in our analysis of it.

Best Regards,

Tom Apple

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