On this day in 1634, Urbain Grandier was burned to death. It must have come as a relief. He had been horribly tortured up to that point. But what do you expect from good Christians? I know, I know: Christians would tell me that the men who tortured and killed him didn’t actually have Jesus inside them and weren’t “true” Christians. But any religion that does such a bad job of instilling its moral tenets has got to be suspect. And let’s face it: modern Christians don’t do a very good job of being advertisements for God’s love.

Grandier was a Catholic priest in France. He didn’t believe that priests should be celibate. In fact, he wrote a book arguing against it. And he practiced what he preached. He was known to be a hunka hunka burning love. He apparently angered Sister Jeanne of the Angels — who seems to have fallen in love with him from afar. This led to the whole convent that she headed accusing Grandier of evil and impure acts. The church tried him and found him not guilty.

Unfortunately, Grandier had managed to really piss off Cardinal Richelieu. If that name sounds familiar, he is the main villain in The Three Musketeers. But in real life, he was much worse. After Grandier was found guilty, Richelieu just ordered another trial. But by this point, the nuns had calmed down and refused to testify against Grandier. What’s a cardinal to do? Well, they tortured Grandier for a confession. But they apparently never got one, so they just forged a confession.

But I feel a certain kinship with Urbain Grandier. I too once thought that the logic of my own personal obsessions were obvious and if only the beauty of my argument were seen, the world would agree. But I was never burned at the stake. Still, I feel certain that this is just the result of good timing. If I had lived a couple hundred years before now, I would have met a violent and painful end. But I would have provided a confession long before the torture started. I’m not a fool.

This day in 1842 marks the end of the Second Seminole War. The Seminole were a native American tribe in modern Florida. When the Europeans first came to the new world, they tried to get along with the Seminole by wiping out large numbers of them with disease. When that wasn’t fully successful, they killed them more actively in the attempt to enslave them. By the first decade of the 18th century, there were roughly ten thousand Seminole slaves.

By the beginning of 19th century, the US became interested in Florida. Since the Seminole were in the north part of what would become the state, they were on the front lines of General Andrew Jackson’s invasion of the state. That was the First Seminole War, and it resulted in the United States getting Florida. The Second Seminole War revolved around the United States trying to move all the Seminole out of Florida to send them to Oklahoma. After that war, a couple hundred Seminole were allowed to stay in Florida on a reservation. But even that was too much, as westerners continued to encroach of their lands — eventually leading to the Third Seminole War.

I assume people think I’m too hard on the United States. Mistakes were made and all that. But I’m not really hard on the United States. France has done a lot of terrible things as a country, but I don’t dwell on it. The reason I do dwell on the United States is that I’ve spent my whole life around Americans who seem to think that we are misunderstood. That’s just not true. The rest of the world has a much better understanding about the United States than people here do.

What’s more, it’s all apologetics in this country. Rather than take responsibility for the past, we try to brush it aside. We are a country that learns really simple lessons the hard way every time. We had to kill off over a half million people to get rid of the institution of slavery, which was actually only benefiting a small number of people. But at least slavery is something that we admit to being wrong about. The genocide of the native peoples is still something that most Americans have never engaged with.

I have no illusions about the Seminole being some perfect people. But there is no doubt that by our conception of property rights, they owned their land. Our attitude has always been “might makes right.” So we killed them and enslaved them and moved them. We treated them like animals. But we were the true animals. We don’t play well with others. And I’m not sure we’ve learned a damned thing after all these years.

On this day in 30 BCE, Cleopatra killed herself. I must admit to having always thought of her as more or less mythical — like Helen. Her life has been so fictionalized that I didn’t imagine that there was much of a core there. But there is. And it is quite amazing. She was a remarkable woman. And I assume very clever. She really did manage her power well. The fact that it all ended rather badly is no fault of hers.

She was probably just too young to successfully navigate her relationship with Julius Caesar. And her bet on Mark Antony was a solid one. What’s a woman to do? None of this is to suggest that she wasn’t also a psychopath. But that is generally what I think of all such rulers. One does not live in a world in which people think that God gave them the right to rule over all others without also being insane by modern standards. Cleopatra had no trouble killing anyone who she thought posed a threat to her.

As to the sanity of modern people, I don’t think much more highly. In particular, emperors of old were deluded about their places in the cosmos. But most people I know are equally deluded about their lesser places. Everyone takes joy in all the things that make them them — as if it were their own doing rather than a gift. I’m certain that if we ever figure out consciousness, what we will learn is that we are just machines and our sense of self nothing but a trick.

And I guess that means that Cleopatra wasn’t really remarkable; she was just what she was programmed to be. But it’s interesting to my pre-programmed mind.

On this day in 1863, General Robert E Lee sent a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. It was in response to criticism about Lee’s judgement in the Battle of Gettysburg. Davis refused to accept the resignation, and it is hard to see Lee’s offer as anything but petulance, “You wanna fire me? Let’s see how you do without me!” As regular readers know, I’m no fan of Lee. He had the option to lead the Union army, but he refused. That doubtless cost a few hundred thousand lives there. And then he went on to run a good campaign the first couple of years of the war, giving the Confederacy the mistaken impression that it had a chance in hell of winning. He is a tragic hero in the strict sense of the term: he had a tragic flaw. Sadly, it did a lot more than just damage him.

But I’ve always thought that Gettysburg was an interesting battle because it destroys the image not just of Lee’s military brilliance, but of all men’s. The best you can say of a brilliant military leader is that he makes good use of random opportunities. That’s what William Wallace did at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. He never had similar success because he never had similar opportunities. And at Gettysburg, Lee did what all military leaders do: funnel their men into the meat grinder and hope something good comes of it. Nothing did.

A good example of of the hero worship of Lee can be found on the History Channel’s website. (I know: they talk about history on their website?!) It says with regard to the resignation letter, “The modest Lee took the failure at Gettysburg very personally.” That’s a contradiction. Either the entire battle was all about him (taking it personally) or he was modest. But there really is no apologia for Lee that doesn’t go too far. His Wikipedia page is filled with lots of stuff about how he was against seceding, and how he mocked the Confederacy. It even mentions the following information about Lee’s managing slaves, without irony, “He found the experience frustrating and difficult; some of the slaves were unhappy and demanded their freedom.” Uppity slaves!

It would be nice to think that if Lee had been allowed to resign, it might have made a difference. But all of Lee’s “magic” was spent in the first part of the war. What happened from then on would have been done by lesser generals. So he’s a tragic figure, sure. But he’s no hero. People need to get over that. But sadly, many Americans still look up to Jefferson Davis. And even I’ll admit Lee was a better man than he.

On this day in 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared a federal emergency in Love Canal. It’s an interesting case. The Hooker Chemical Company had buried a whole bunch of toxic waste. But the area was growing so the Niagara Falls City School District forced a land sell in 1953. The company did warn the school about the danger. But the school went ahead and built. The chemicals were released, polluting the local ground water. Housing developments were built without anyone knowing about previous toxic waste and the chemical company and the school district.

I don’t especially blame anyone in this whole thing. Instead, I see this as a good illustration of why we need environmental regulation. Libertarians usually argue that people should be able to pollute their own property, as long as it doesn’t effect anyone else. But the truth is that we don’t know what the future holds. By the time that the pollution is know, the polluter may be dead — or just broke. Things happen, and we know that we can’t just leave all this up to the free market (and eventually courts) to work out.

Regardless, the end result was that hundreds of houses had to be destroyed — thousands of people displaced — lots of health problems. Of course, libertarians specifically use Love Canal to push their screwed up views of property rights. “If only…” they claim. If only the school board had been held accountable… What? There would have been no release of toxic waste?! What about the externalities of Hooker Chemical disposing of waste in a way that didn’t take into account its actual cost? It’s a typical case of libertarians thinking shallowly, because thinking deeply wouldn’t produce the conclusions they desire.

It is fifty years ago today that President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And it only took conservatives 49 years to destroy it. Scott Lemieux wrote a great article on the subject, John Roberts Has Been Trying to Gut the Voting Rights Act for Decades. Never imagine that conservatives really believe in democracy or freedom or any of the other things that are normally considered obvious ideals of the United States. These guys are authoritarians and anything it takes to get power is fine. This is why they have no trouble believe that Obama is planning to take over Texas with Jade Helm 15. They know the way they think.

Of course, the Voting Rights Act is still in effect. And it still does good. What Roberts managed to do was to make it far less powerful. And the moment he did that, Republican controlled legislatures all over the nation just happened to have new laws to pass. It isn’t a coincidence. Nor is it just that these localities are filled with a bunch of bigots (although they generally are). It is that this is part of a grand scheme. It’s not a conspiracy, exactly. That’s because they all think the same. Rush Limbaugh picked a perfect name for his followers, “Dittoheads.”

Passage of the Voting Rights Act was a great accomplishment. And it remains a great law. And maybe the Democrats can eventually get control of Washington and fix it. But I suspect if they do, the Republicans will use this as an excuse to then vote against it every time it comes up. You know, because, “Well, the Democrats have turned it into a partisan issue.” Well, since about 1968, it has been a partisan issue. All I can say is that all those conservative Christians in the Republican Party had better hope that they are wrong about God. Because they are going to burn.

Happy birthday Voting Rights Act!