| Atticus Grinch |
04-08-2004 12:02 PM |
A Good Test for Media Bias
Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Atticus point's out that the Civil War reference was benign because West Virginia was on the side of the Union! I question whether Byrd would have voted to stay in the Union if he had been in W. Virginia at that time, particularly if the question was framed solely on slavery.
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Not sure I agree, and the way you phrased your post leads me to conclude that you're a little fuzzy on exactly how W.Va. came into existence. Did your H.S. history teacher run out of time after the Age of Jackson?
Many people in W.Va. hate snobby Virginians and are proud of their secession from the Commonwealth over the slavery issue. Do not assume that white men with southern accents are appropriately classed as pro-Confederacy, especially in border states like W.Va. I highly doubt that if Byrd had made pro-Confederate statements, Dodd, who has an electorate of his own to answer to, would go out of his way to say that he would have been on the right side of that war. It seems more likely that Dodd meant that if Byrd had been alive in that time, he would have fought with his state. Also, many people opposed to slavery (then and now --- duh) are nonetheless virulent racists. So Byrd's racism, past or present, is not evidence of his position vis-a-vis the War Between the States.*
I'm not on the KKK Platform Committee (damn redistricting), but I'm pretty sure they didn't have the reinstitution of slavery as a high priority. By the 1940s, there were new methods of internecine warfare between poor whites and blacks.
*This has always bothered me. "Among"?
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