Comments by "Pyromania101" (@pyromania1018) on "Biographics"
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Andrew L But why just say "oh, he lived out his life as an obscure gardener" without mentioning, say, his date and cause of death, like in his other vids? He wasted the closing minutes of the video with a bittersweet scenario instead of, you know, how a biography would end. He could have said something like this:
"Except not really. Puyi was eventually pardoned by Mao and released. The chairman met with Puyi several times, as they struck up a friendship. Mao even helped Puyi find a new wife. The former emperor would spend the rest of his life in relative obscurity, working as a humble gardener except when Mao would occasionally prop him up as a showpiece. He died in 1967, leaving no children behind. Roughly 3 decades later, his widow managed to convince the Chinese government to have his ashes interred at the imperial gravesite."
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By contrast, Lee was a brutal slave master who altered his dying father-in-law's will, which specified that his slaves were to be freed upon his death, so he could keep them for 5 more years, but really planned to keep them forever. To his astonishment, when the fifth year was close to ending, in 1862, fellow Southerners expected him to honor it. Instead, he took the matter to court and tried to extend it, but the (Confederate, pro-slavery) judge refuted his excuses and ordered him to abide by it. He refused to give an explicit answer, then deliberately stalled after the deadline had passed, to the disgust of his peers. Fed up, one of the slaves ran away, but was recaptured. Brought before Lee, he bluntly said he considered himself a free man, so Lee decided to "teach [him] a lesson" by having him brutally flogged before pouring salt water on the wounds to make it hurt more. Naturally, the Lost Cause tried to pretend this never happened, but a book published earlier this year "Robert E. Lee & Me", written by a disillusioned former Brigadier-General, called attention to it.
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I understand you can't cover everything, especially with a subject this vast, but you skipped (or incorrectly described) a few things:
1) If Louis hated his wife, he didn't show it that much. Despite his affairs, he was both attentive and polite to her, and when Montespan was rude to her, he threatened her to stay silent. Maintenon actually persuaded him to spend more time with his wife, who was deeply grateful.
2) No mention that Maintenon later became Louis's second wife? And that he was actually faithful to her? Or that she was a Protestant?
3) In regards to the above, once Louis started aging, Maintenon had near-total control over him, and Versailles became a lot less extravagant and more rigid.
4) Louis may not have liked Paris, but he still commissioned several hospitals, universities, and libraries there.
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Fun Fact:
He had a younger brother, Heinz, whom--much like Hermann Goering's brother, Albert--did not share his views. Heinz was initially an enthusiastic Nazi, but after his brother's funeral, the Gestapo gave him all of Reinhard's papers. As he read through them, Heinz, according to his wife, grew paler by the minute. He tore off his SS patch, and began helping Jews escape from Nazi-occupied Europe. He committed suicide by gunshot in 1944 when he believed the Gestapo had found out in order to protect his family. In truth, they never suspected a thing.
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Becomes less tragic in this case when most of the problems are self-inflicted. Hitler's woes, real and imagined, were brought about by his own laziness and massive ego. He spent his whole life being a parasite, thus, I don't pity him. He should have tried harder in school and he should have tried to get a job. His mother's pampering didn't help, but he made his choices. Had she been stricter with him, things might have turned out differently. Hell, he only got into the German Army because the file stating he was medically unfit got lost. Were it not for that, he would have eventually starved on the streets of Vienna (or Munich), which would have, again, been entirely his own fault due to his laziness and pride.
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After reading through all this, I might as well get some things off my chest. First, I voted for Trump both times, but I don't think that necessarily makes me a racist. Second, much as I hate to say it, I have some prejudices--everyone does, to a degree: I think Christian scientists are murderers, and I'm not too fond of Islam because of the sexism. That doesn't mean I think they should be butchered or anything like that, though I do think the children of Christian scientists should be put in foster care before their parents get them killed. Third, time to address some things here:
1. Yes, slavery existed in one form or another for millennia, but what people who preach that in an attempt to lessen how evil the CSA was tend to ignore is just how the system worked before then. In early days, one side enslaved the other because they won a war. In Rome, that principle applied, but laws were gradually passed to make it less unbearable, and they did not give a rat's ass about skin color. It was even expected to free a few slaves every now and then, and any children they had afterwards would have full citizenship. I'm not saying any of this excuses slavery as a system, but comparing slavery in the antebellum South to other forms of it misses the point. Honestly, the best comparison would be to the Jews enslaved by the Egyptians in the Book of Exodus, which really demonstrates the thorough hypocrisy that the South reveled in.
2. The North as a whole did not care about abolishing slavery (though some generals and politicians did, and tried to go further*), but the South DID care about maintaining and expanding it. It's a simple case of black-and-grey morality: the Northerners weren't trying to be heroes, but the Southerners were going out of their way to be villains. The right thing being done for less-than altruistic reasons is still the right thing being done. Just like in WWII: many Allied soldiers were anti-Semitic to a degree, but they were shocked by the death camps and didn't hesitate to liberate them.
3. I noticed Jan Brady pointing out that African Americans didn't complain about all those Confederate statues. To that, I say: do you really think they could've stopped those statues from being built? Do you think the cities gave a damn whether or not they felt insulted by the glorification of a "culture" that kept them in bondage? Of course not. They had no say, so if they complained, they'd have been beaten down.
4. The tearing down of those statues isn't erasing history: it's acknowledging that some bits of history should not be lionized.
* Men like Thaddeus Stevens and General Rufus Saxton were fervent abolitionists and civil rights activists; and one Union commander befriended Harriet Tubman and allowed her to accompany him on his campaign, during which he burned a Confederate city down after discovering how its residents treated their slaves.
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@pdenigma9444 I see. Admittedly, I haven't studied this topic as much as you claim to, but the claim of lack of evidence just makes it more suspicious. Regarding them being "a little corrupt", it feels more like you're actively just trying to make excuses for them. A lack of concrete paper evidence doesn't magically negate it, or are you one of those guys who, as an example, tries to downplay Japanese war crimes in WWII because they burned a lot of incriminating evidence before they surrendered? Not exactly the best comparison, but you see what I'm getting at? Regarding the year, keep in mind that they fled the country, taking all their money with them out of spite, and it was only when they started coming back that they could be charged. The aim seems to be to just reclaim all the assets they stole rather than lock them up which, to me, is a more fitting punishment. Regarding the other stuff, did you not watch this whole video, or did Simon make a bunch of assumptions/mistakes that you listed in another comment? I won't pretend Simon is always right, but he seems to know what he's talking about here.
And you also need to keep in mind the dictatorial nature of his regime. The assassination of the nor popular candidate and blatant voter fraud were not made up, nor was the torture and arbitrary arrest. Leaders like that tend to live extravagantly.
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Hitler's own embezzling and kleptomaniacal habits are about as bad as Mobutu's:
* He made himself exempt from taxation.
* He took "donations" from all the social classes, ostensibly to build cars, but really to build up the military.
* He had luxurious villas built for himself and his cronies, funded by taxpayers' money.
* He ordered a tax to be placed on his book, Mein Kampf, while also conveniently demanding that it be presented at weddings, graduations, classrooms, libraries, etc., ensuring his own personal wealth.
Nazi grift was naked and contemptible, and all with Hitler's blessing.
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I can't call her a hero by modern standards, but she didn't do anything that wasn't in-style at the time. And to be honest, Rome started it. And to those who claim that Rome brought civilization, they really didn't: the British tribes, including the Iceni, had already built cities, were experimenting with road-building, had an official currency, and even recognized borders with other tribal territories. They weren't constantly in-fighting, either, and while relations weren't all sunshine and rainbows, they weren't always baying for each other's blood. Roman thuggishness directly provoked the rebellion, and this sort of behavior paved the way for the empire's ultimate collapse.
The only good thing that came out of this was that the idiots who provoked the rebellion and the guy who suppressed it were called back to Rome and replaced by less provocative ministers.
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@losthart5577 I am aware, yes. And it was justified. He didn't go around slaughtering civilians. He destroyed objects of warmaking material, which is considered acceptable even by modern standards. Had he tossed civilians into their homes and set them on fire, then he would have been a villain, but he didn't. Now, if you actually bothered to read my comment, when did I say he was a champion of abolition or the rights of African Americans? I'm well aware that he wasn't--he was every bit as racist as the southerners, that broken bridge incident was unforgivable, and I strongly condemn what he did to the Native Americans. HOWEVER, I have no sympathy for the Confederate soldiers and civilians he carved through in order to end the war faster. They deserved what he gave them. They started a war for a thoroughly disgusting reason, and having their crops burned and their homes ransacked is quite lenient compared to what they had coming to them. In regards to his mental state, he was often accused of being insane even during the war, but his reputation as a destroyer was exaggerated by southern propaganda. I won't pretend he was 100% mentally sound, but he wasn't a psychopath. At best, he was a pragmatist. He didn't condone wanton acts of cruelty, but he tolerated them. This got worse during the Sioux Wars, with him advocating committing atrocities against tribes that didn't submit (which I condemn); conversely, if a tribe did submit, he'd try to ensure their well-being, even firing reservation overseers who were exploiting instead of caring for cooperative tribes.
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@winj3r Again, I'm aware of the planning and such, but you need to keep in mind just how belligerent, unpredictable, and sometimes downright bonkers Wilhelm was. Not as insane as Hitler, but that's much of a distinction, is it? He was, like many of his generals, confident that the Schlieffen Plan would work, and when it didn't, he kept going. Pretty much all the officers (and even politicians) involved in the early months of the war were laughingly overconfident and overly ambitious. Ever heard of Oskar Potiorek?
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Such a vile excuse for a man.
And I'm sorry to say this, but had Lincoln lived, things would have played out largely as they did. While Lincoln was sympathetic to African-Americans,* he wasn't in a hurry to punish the Confederacy--a lot of Southerners were angered by his death specifically because they feared his successors would give them the kicking they deserved. Arguments over how to handle reconstructing would have been common, albeit likely more polite.
Honestly, things would've been better if Zachary Taylor had lived. He bluntly threatened to hang every secessionist in the nation (starting with Jefferson Davis, his son-in-law), and would've carried it out. The war would've kicked off in the early 1850s, but it would've ended faster, as Taylor would have unleashed hell upon the Confederacy, then brought the hammer down on the rebel leaders once the war had ended. Slavery would not have been abolished there and then,** but any hope of expanding it would've been checked, thus the anti-slavery groups in Congress would've been able to, sooner or later, outvote their opposition and end the institution.
* Not long after the passing of the 13th Amendment, Lincoln gave a speech in which he entertained the possibility of going a step further and giving African-Americans full citizenship and civil rights. Booth was in the audience, and was so overcome with racism-fueled indignation that he decided, there and then, that Lincoln had to die.
** Taylor was a slaveowner himself, but he did believe in keeping the boundaries of slave states where they were, and he understood that it was a major issue that needed to be addressed--and he was (slightly) leaning towards the anti-slavery group in his later years.
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Patton was an idealist, and a bit of an idiot; luckily, Germany was being led by another idealistic dumbass who also had the disadvantages of being a coked up hypochondriac. Had he lived, Patton would have stood in the way of progress in developing the understanding of mental illness in the armed forces because he was too fanatical to accept that they exist. We now know that combat fatigue is a real thing, and he was probably suffering from it himself when he slapped that soldier--but was in denial about it. In all likelihood, he probably would have had a mental breakdown once reality smacked him in the face, comparable to Hitler's breakdown on 22 April 1945 (you know the one), and he would have slumped into depression. World War II was the right time to have men like him in high positions, but nowadays, a man like that should never be given power of any kind, as his refusal to separate fantasy from reality would only lead to failure and unnecessary deaths.
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"The south launched a rebellion in direct response to losing an election they had shamelessly attempted to rig under the rather childish delusion that they would unleash the torch and sword upon the northern states and establish a tropical empire in short order, and that they would never be invaded--much less conquered--and their peculiar institution--which they tried to rig the election, and later rebelled, in order to protect--being utterly destroyed. They have sewn the wind, and now they will reap the whirlwind."
~Billy Sherman, probably
In all seriousness, I'm aware that this is paraphrasing Arthur Harris in regards to the bombing of Germany, but you can see the similarities, right? The CSA and the war it started were a slaver's rebellion, nothing more. They tried to rig the 1860 election by threats towards the North and by taking Lincoln's name off southern ballots (the real reason he got no southern votes), and when he won anyway, they threw a tantrum about how slavery was endangered, which is what they explicitly said in their Declarations of Secession and their Constitution. States' rights meant nothing to them.
Sherman's March was also strategically sound and helped shorten the war. I won't defend his actions toward Native Americans, nor will I pretend that he wasn't racist--though in regards to the latter, he did express regret for it in his later years and became a harsh critic of the Jim Crow laws.
They brought this on themselves. And this is coming from a Florida-born, Texas-raised southerner. May those slavers and traitors burn in hell.
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