Think anew (LTTE)
Posted: Friday, November 6, 2015 12:00 am
... My great-great-grandfather fought for the Confederacy during the entire course of the civil war. Instead of feeling pride, I feel shame that he wasted four years of his life in a senseless struggle trying to maintain a cruel and unjust system enslaving human beings just like himself.
Had he been given a choice, I am positive he would not have chosen a life of enslavement. People then and now get caught up in the thoughtless hysteria of mob behavior and often do things they would not have done had they been able to think intelligently and independently about the issues.
It should give us all pause to consider our beliefs and behaviors that could cause us to do stupid and senseless things like our own forebears. Almost 150 years have passed since that war, and I now feel a deep need to say for my great-great-grandfather, “Forgive him, because he did not understand what he was doing” ...
http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/letters/lambert-think-anew-about-a-symbol-of-hate-embedded-in/article_36bf50e5-522c-53f3-abcc-cb94b025e66f.html