What a piece of work is man... the paragon of animals. The paragon of animals? Six thousand years of brutality, murder, and slavery. An animal does not do this to its own kind. Byron: [Hamlet]
This article is a rather harsh critique of deeper Failed Conservative Values. In interviews, Richard Wagner told me he thinks thuggery is a failed conservative value and Herman Blackmon mentioned the lynch mob. I didn't think that either the lynch mob or thuggery were actually values. They seem more like manifestations of a value or perhaps of multiple values.
Sometime it's hard to know what is a value and what isn't. The largest listing of values that I have found is the Union of International Associations - Human Values online. They have a database of around 5,000 values. I checked and neither thuggery or the lynch mob are listed.
However, the dictionary definition of thuggery mentions both violence and brutality and they are listed as values. Violence and brutality seem to work as the values behind the lynch mob as well. We do see Failed Conservative Values of violence and brutality continuing to be manifest in domestic violence, school yard bullies, the starting of an unnecessary war in Iraq, the beatings and killings of gays, and the ongoing conservatives support of torture.
Herman also talked about growing up in Texas and fighting against violence backed segregation and working for the progressive value of justice.
Failed Conservative Values: Richard J Wagner on Thuggery
Richard Wagner: Conservative values go back to the Romans, especially thuggery. Those who are strong and can take what they want because they have the strength to do it. This is a struggle going on for thousands of years.
In the old Roman Republic, the elite, strong, wealthy took what they wanted. They had slaves, enslaved whoever they wanted, who they could enslave they would enslave.
If you want freedom you have to fight for it. All the history and struggle against feudalism in the Middle Ages through the Enlightenment and awakening of people’s rights in the founding of this nation on democratic principles is all part of the progressive struggle – progress for everyone, for freedom and prosperity for all.
Thuggery Definition
- A cutthroat or ruffian; a hoodlum.
- The brutal or violent act of thugs.
- One of a band of professional assassins formerly active in northern India who worshiped Kali and offered their victims to her.
http://www.onelook.com/?w=Thuggery
."It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important." Martin Luther King, Jr
Failed Conservative Values: Herman Blackmon on Lynch Mobs
Herman Blackmon: That’s a fairly easy one. If you look at the evolution of the true forms of social attitudes, conservatives are values which emanate from the lynch mobs and hysteria from the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries in this nation, based on a dehumanizing notion about any group other than whites. (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
