Brooks Simpson on Kevin Levin and the Lost Causers

Brooks Simpson has an especially thought-provoking post on his blog today asking why the Lost Causers are so afraid of Kevin Levin and his blog. Brooks quite correctly points out that Kevin’s blog seems to stir up massive amounts of hatred and personal attacks/insults among the Lost Cause and Neo-Confederate crowd, and asks why. Brooks points out that when Kevin asks for evidence–especially about the existence of black Confederates–and that usually brings out the haters.

As I said there, we lawyers have a cliche we like to use that’s particularly apropros: When the facts are against, argue the law. When the law’s against you, argue the facts. When the facts and the law are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.

It seems to me that most of this visceral response to Kevin’s posts is pounding the table and yelling like hell. They can’t produce evidence because there isn’t any. Rather than admit it, they go on the attack very aggressively and very personally, and they hope that doing so diverts away from the real issue, which is very sad indeed.

Lost Causers: Never let the facts get in the way of a good story and good spin doctoring, okay?