Jamie, your well-meaning post will, I regret to say, fall on deaf ears, because there are no more Confederates. The last Confederate died a few decades ago. Most, if not all, of the people who participate on this board are American citizens -- born, nurtured and educated under the Stars and Stripes. Apparently, most of them have prospered as citizens of the United States. Most of them are interested in the Civil War period as military, political or social historians; some, perhaps, as genealogists.

The people your message is intended for, the ones you called "Confederates", are mostly Americans who are lost and scared, those who are having an extraordinarily difficult time adapting to the massive social upheaval our country has experienced since the 1960's. Some people have sought refuge in religious cults, some have emersed themselves in survivalist fantasies, some have deluded themselves into believing in UFOs and black U.N. helicopters. And then there are those who to maneuver to identify themselves with their ancestors, who they fancy lived in a romantic, Disneyesque Song-of-the-South golden age. In their fevered minds, wrongs -- real, exaggerated, or imagined -- committed against their ancestors robbed them of paradise (sounds a lot like the Shiites, doesn't it?). A healthy dose of brooding, talk radio and role-playing have convinced many of them that they are, indeed, Confederates. They are to be pitied, not encouraged; and your referring to them as "Confederates" serves only to encourage them.

The term "Confederate" had a specific meaning in a specific time and place in our history. That time and place is long gone, and only its memory remains.

I agree that this Lincoln thread went on a bizarre tangent for far too long. No offense, but you and Jim were asleep at the switch on this one. Jim made it quite clear at the end of a prior Lincoln thread that he would not allow the use of terms like war criminal, warmonger, etc., to be applied to an historical figure on either side of the "Great Divide". I had hoped that one of you would step in and enforce the standards of decency Jim established for this board, and I was disappointed that you failed to do so.

When a forum such as this one is allowed to descend from the historical to the hysterical, it runs the risk of becoming irrelevant. I would hate to see that happen. There are so many intelligent, informed and interesting people who participate on this board -- people I continually learn from -- that I would consider it a real loss if it were permitted to be degraded.

This is not a Constitutional free speech issue, Jamie. The Constitution only guarantees that Congress will not enact laws impinging on the freedom of speech. Unless Jim is receiving a government grant to maintain this board, then he is the sole authority as to what speech is to be tolerated here.

Thanks for listening. It's good to have you back.