My Dear Chase,

You seem to me to have just painted most of us who happen to have Southern roots with a very broad brush.

I challenge you to find any of my past posts that include "vitriolic" or "insulting verbage," mention of "damm yankee bastards," or other demeaning or derogatory language as you imply I may subscribe to or condone.

In the future, I suggest you would be well advised to first research an individual through his or her past postings or through private emails to others who may know the person before you imply that person belongs to a group, a few members of which exhibit what you believe to be offensive speech or behavior.

My friend, let me tell you - the imposition of one's stereotypical views on another, in the absence of such knowledge about that person, is a mistake.

As for Mr. Churchill's Eulogy on Chamberlain, being the eloquent orator he was, I see in the second paragraph of Mr. Churchill's eulogy a certain wisdom relating to the interpretation of historical events; an interpretaion I believe Yank and Confederate descendants alike would be well advised to consider in their contemporary interpretation of those past events. It reads,

"The fierce and bitter controversies which hung around him in recent times were hushed by the news of his illness and are silenced by his death. In paying a tribute of respect and of regard to an eminent man who has been taken from us, no one is obliged to alter the opinions which he has formed or expressed upon issues which have become a part of history; but at the Lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgments under a searching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour."

Source:

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=421

Respectfully,

Bre'r Boz