[Vision2020] Factual Errors by Drs. Quinlan & Ramsey, Paragraph #1

[Edna Wilmington]

Forum Members,

This is a response to Saundra's request for help.
Beware, this is long but oh, so juicy.  Saundra,
consider your anxious tarry for facts over.

Well, I agree: Doug Wilson's and Steve Wilkins's
"Southern Slavery As It Was" is a sloppy piece of
work, but it's one I've read several times now, and
carefully.  Let me see if I can help all our super
careful and scholarly readers find the four factual
errors Mr. Wilson says appear in paragraph one of the
response by Drs. Quinlan and Ramsey of the UI History
Department.

Factual Error #1:

The booklet is 44 pages long with the end notes (at
least per the printing I hold), not 39. Note: Page
counts in publications normally include every
non-cover, paper page, whether blank or not, whether
numbered or not, and cover to cover. Here's how to try
this at home with SS:AIW: See the last page; note page
43 appears in upper right corner, turn page, add one
for the blank reverse of pg. 43.

Score one insignificant point for the cultic
opposition!  A technically correct bibliographic
reference by Q&R would have sufficed here to block the
shot at goal.  They must have been time-pressed by the
ODHR Webmaster. But I digress...

Factual Error #2:

Wilson/Wilkins do not defend racial slavery, per se. 
They argue that Southern slavery, as they think it was
practiced in the antebellum South, was not necessarily
inherently sinful, per their interpretation of the
Bible.  There are numerous quotes in the tract that
explicitly repudiate racism, which is the definitive
basis for any defense of "racial slavery."  Any fair
reader can see this for themselves.  See this example
from the infamous tract:

"We have no interest in defending racism (in both the
North and the South), which was often seen as the
basic justification for the [slave] system, and we do
in fact condemn it most heartily. [1]" Pg. 8,
paragraph 2. By the way, the footnote refers the
reader to Doug Jones's tract, "The Biblical Offense of
Racism."

Would it have helped if Wilson and Wilkins wrote that
they condemn racism "extremely most very heartily?"

Factual Error #3:

Wilson/Wilkins never claim the abolition of slavery
caused "abortion, feminism, and sodomy," which phrase
appears on page 11, paragraph 3.  In fact, the
statement says explicitly that "abortion, feminism,
and sodomy" are the principal biblical issues facing
Christians today in their mission to advance "godly
principles."

Factual Error #4:

Wilson/Wilkins do not explicitly claim the "remedy
which has been applied" is emancipation. They
explicitly state that "the remedy" for slavery was
what they call "a revolution in 1861."

Based on the immediate context and considered within
the wider context of the tract, they're referring to
the Civil War, which killed 620,000 Americans. 
Furthermore, the authors believe the Civil War
overthrew the Constitution and resulted in more
slavery (presumably of a different type) in its
aftermath (their view).  Wilson/Wilkins repeatedly
state their opposition to the notion that the
existence of Southern slavery provided moral
justification for Union conquest of the Confederacy.

Here's another quote from the same page and paragraph
where "the remedy" shows up:

"None need lament the passing of slavery.  But who
cannot but lament the damage to both white and black
that has occurred as a consequence of the WAY it was
abolished?" (emphasis theirs)

Does the foregoing statement imply opposition to
abolishing slavery, or does it explicitly state
opposition to justifying the Civil War as a means or
WAY to abolish slavery?

Here's some historical context (i.e. important dates)
for the reference to "the revolution in 1861" made by
Wilson/Wilkins.  Assuming Wilson and Wilkins knew the
dates when the Civil War began and when emancipation
occurred (i.e. 1861 and 1863, respectively), the
following facts undermine the claim that they were
referring to emancipation as "the remedy":

Since the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by
President Lincoln on 22 Sept. 1862, effective 1 Jan.
1863; and since Wilson/Wilkins reference the
"revolution in 1861" in the paragraph immediately
following their reference to "the remedy," Q&R's
conclusion is tenuous at best, and factually
inaccurate at worst. Incompetence or slander? The
reader may judge.

This is especially clear given the fact that
Wilson/Wilkins write elsewhere in the same paragraph
where "the remedy" is used:  "None need lament the
passing of slavery." (See again the extended quote
above.)  Also, while abolition is referenced in the
context, the word "emancipation" is nowhere to be
found on the page or in the section where "the remedy"
is seen.  See page 39, paragraphs 4 & 5.

There might be more factual errors in paragraph 1 of
Q&R's counter-rag, but I felt pretty well satiated
after finding four unambiguous ones in 10 minutes.
Writing this out for y'all took a bit longer.  Read
some more on your own if you like; who knows what a
treasure trove of precision scholarship you might find
on both sides?

By the way, shame on those extra scholarly
professional historians!  Where did they get their
pedigrees anyway, and has anyone checked their AKC
paperwork for authenticity? Them dirty Dawgs!

Forever yours in the cause of accuracy, and because of
this kind of crap passed off to us as historical
scholarship from the UI History Department, you won't
see me protesting or singing tolerance songs at the
SUB in February. I'm still reading in an attempt to
figure out what the heck's going on around here.

Edna Wilmington


--- Saundra Lund <sslund@adelphia.net> wrote:
> On 12/19/2003, Doug Wilson wrote to UI President
> Michael & Provost Pitcher:
> "There are at least four factual errors in the first
> paragraph . . . "
>  
> On 1/22/2004, Rose Huskey asks:
> "And by the way, Doug (or fellow travelers), where
> are the four factual
> errors in the first paragraph?"
>  
> I second Ms. Huskey's request for elucidation of
> what the (at least) four
> factual errors in the first paragraph are.
>  
> For those who've not read Quinlan's and Ramsey's
> examination, this is the
> first paragraph:
> ""[W]ith the use of the word nigger, it is important
> for us to remember the
> mutable nature
> of human language. What today constitutes a gross
> insult did not have the
> same
> connotations a century ago."1 So conclude Douglas
> Wilson and Steve Wilkins
> in Southern
> Slavery, As It Was, a short "monograph" of
> thirty-nine pages that defends
> racial
> slavery and claims its abolition is the primary
> cause of "abortion,
> feminism, and sodomy"
> in today's society. According to Wilson and Wilkins,
> "the remedy which has
> been applied" - that is, emancipation - "has been
> far worse than the disease
> ever was."2
>
http://www.webs.uidaho.edu/diversity/pdf%20files/wilson%20and%20wilkins.pdf
>  
> By my count, the paragraph is about 97 words in
> length, with about 53 of
> those words being direct Wilson/Wilkins quotes. 
> That leaves 44 words, in
> which 11 are names (including book title).
>  
> So, I'd really like to know how Quinlan & Ramsey
> managed to come up with 4
> factual errors using just 33 words.
>  
> OK, OK, I understand that may be a simplistic way of
> looking at Wilson's
> claim, but I *do* want to know exactly *what* the
> four supposed factual
> errors are.
>  
> Remember, just because Wilson says something doesn't
> make it Truth.  If he's
> going to allege factual inaccuracies, he needs
> present the facts to back up
> his allegation.
>  
> I'm not gonna hold my breath, though.  The person
> most able to answer the
> question apparently took his toys and went home, and
> his sheep left behind
> either keep announcing that they are leaving, or
> they don't seem to want to
> answer direct questions, or they are too busy
> playing with their pathetic
> little Penguin Web site .  Or else they seem to want
> to twist words and make
> unilateral decisions (perhaps in response to the
> puppet master's string
> pulling) that those asking questions don't really
> want to hear the answers.
>  
> Heck -- Mike Lawyer tells us he can answer my
> questions about the notorious
> racist R. L. Dabney and the Wilson cult et al's
> continuing reliance on the
> words of a renowned racist, but Mr. Lawyer
> apparently thinks he's been
> inside my head (not sure how he could fit, but . . .
> ) and determined for me
> that I don't really want to know the answers.  I
> tried to correct his
> mistake, but I guess he still thinks he knows me
> better than I know myself
> because he's *still* not answered the questions.
>  
> When the going gets tough, the tough get going . . .
> or try (unsuccessfully)
> to play the Evasion Game.
>  
>  
> Anxiously Awaiting the Facts,
> Saundra Lund
> Moscow, ID
> 
> The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is
> for good people to do
> nothing.
> -Edmund Burke 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vision2020-admin@moscow.com
> [mailto:vision2020-admin@moscow.com] On
> Behalf Of DonaldH675@aol.com
> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 11:32 AM
> To: vision2020@moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] A Companion Piece to the
> Governor's Letter
> 
> 
> 
> Visionaries:
> 
>  
> 
> The companion piece to the letter to the governor is
> below.  It came to my
> attention through the kind offer of a friend.  The
> subject line of this
> email could have read "Hell hath no fury like an
> academically humiliated
> Doug."  Yikes!!!  And by the way, Doug (or fellow
> travelers), where are the
> four factual errors in the first paragraph?  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Douglas 
> 
> Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 10:18 AM
> 
> To:  <mailto:bpitcher@uidaho.edu>
> bpitcher@uidaho.edu
> 
> Cc:  <mailto:gdickison@moscow.com>
> gdickison@moscow.com
> 
> Subject: Diversity Office
> 
>  
> 
> Dear President Michael and Provost Pitcher,
> 
>  
> 
> Early this week I sent a letter to Raul Sanchez in
> which I told him that I
> was grateful that he had removed the Quinlan/Ramsey
> piece from his web site.
> At the same time, my letter went on to ask for an
> apology for its appearance
> in the first place. The only response I have noted
> thus far is the
> reappearance of a revised version of that same
> essay. The revised version is
> an improvement in the sense that the most sophomoric
> errors were removed,
> but the basic incendiary problems with the essay
> remain.
> 
>  
> 
> I am sure you are very busy men, and that you have
> better things to do than
> put out fires that have been started by your own
> diversity office. But the
> fact remains that the "fires" that are contained in
> the essay by Quinlan and
> Ramsey fall into two categories as far as the
> University of Idaho is
> concerned -- embarrassing and dangerous. This means
> that they really must be
> dealt with, and I am sorry that I am the one who has
> to ask you to do it.
> 
>  
> 
> The embarrassing part is easy enough to ascertain.
> There are at least four
> factual errors in the first paragraph, and the rest
> of the essay continues
> the tradition. Drs. Quinlan and Ramsey make much of
> the fact that they are
> professional historians, but the demonstrable fact
> remains that they are
> extremely sloppy professional historians. I would
> rather have no adversaries
> at the University of Idaho at all, but if I must, I
> appreciate the fact that
> their scholarship is of this caliber. I want this
> controversy to die. But if
> it does not, I am extremely grateful that it is
> being waged against me like
> this.
> 
>  
> 
> 
=== message truncated ===




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