| That is true to some extent. But when I say it is not sympathetic, I mean it often fails to take in to account special circumstances of the time- the further you get from decisions. In other words, history isn't very nice about your justifications for a failed policy, or a fiasco, or simply a bad idea, no matter how noble you, or others, might have thought your motives to be at the time. So the emotional material which might "justify" something at one time, tends to drop away as the years go by. I think we've seen that with the internment of the Japanese, which looked like a much better idea at the time, when the country was under the emotional duress of the events of WWII, than it looks today. That is what I mean when I say it is not sympathetic. |
