Modern conservatism really is an intellectual black hole. Accepting the dogmas of the conservative movement causes a singularity to form in the conservative mind that sucks in all neurons of the human brain leaving a vacuum in the skull. The most recent example of the spread of singularities among conservatives is The Economist's review of "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism" by Cornell University professor Ed Baptist. While the magazine has supposedly apologized for the review, I would like to point out the blatant stupidity of their original position on American slavery with a story from a conservative writer, Paul Johnson.
In Johnson's book "A History of the American People" there is a story regarding Confederate President Jefferson Davis. According to Johnson, Davis, although a slave holder, deplored the treatment of slaves by some in the South. Davis believed in slavery, but he condemned the abuse of slaves by their owners. Supposedly, Davis was what one could call a "benevolent" slave owner, if someone who owned slaves could ever be called benevolent.
Anyway, by various accounts, Davis did not treat his slaves any worse than other slave owning Southerner, and there was a belief among Southern whites that slavery was good for Africans because it was a civilizing influence. I am sure that Davis was in this category of white slave owners. Therefore, Davis thought that his slaves would be grateful to him for their treatment.
However, Johnson, no friend of liberalism, tells how Davis got a jolt to his thought processes during the Civil War. Besides watching the Confederacy go up in flames, Davis had to find out that his plantation had been taken over by the Yankees. But what made matters worse for Davis was that his house slaves were more than happy to show the Union troops where the family valuables were kept.
Here was Mr. Benevolent Slave Owner being "betrayed" by his slaves! Imagine that. Human beings who were supposedly treated well as slaves rebelling against their owner. Seems that even a conservative like Paul Johnson figured out that depriving a person of their human dignity and freedom does not make someone grateful to his slave owning master.
What is maddening though about this whole fiasco by The Economist regarding American slavery is that a little bit of common sense would have spared all of us from this review. Apologists for slavery has always tried to say that slavery was not so bad, and it was actually beneficial to the slaves. If slavery was such a great boon, why don't we bring it back for all people? Why not enslave white people? In fact, why don't we enslave the owners, editors, and writers of The Economist?
I suspect we would get a vigorous denial of this proposition from The Economist.