It doesn't take hindsight

Bigots and oppressors of past ages - those who defended slavery, opposed women having the vote, or resisted equal rights for black people, for example - are often excused on the grounds of "that's just the way people were back then". That we shouldn't judge the actions of people in the past by the standards of modern sensibilities - as if the words "equality" and "fairness" were invented just recently. That if bigotry is widespread, then you can't really blame people for playing along with it - or, indeed, for trying to spread it further.

The first problem with that argument is that it's apologetic garbage. Both of the preceding propositions are flat-out wrong. Oppression by a majority is still oppression, obviously so, even when it's taking place, even to the most marginally functioning adult oppressor. And you'll have no success trying to convince me that people have only recently grasped the benefits of "fairness" and "equality" - those notions are fundamental even in childhood. People may choose to abandon them in favour of self-interest: but let's not pretend that this is anything other than a choice; that is somehow forced upon them and that they never understood what the competing principles were.

The second, and more significant problem is that it excuses such bad behaviour now. People who are engaged in what is undeniably, obviously, irrefutably bigotry and oppression, feel that by surrounding themselves with other bigots they gain some moral protection - both from judgment now, and from judgment by history.

And I'd like to make it plain to them (and any historians who have found themselves so starved for material on the early 2000s that they've unearthed obscure blogspot blogs) - THEY DO KNOW BETTER. It has been regularly, repeatedly, unmissably explained to them that what they are doing is oppressing people for no good reason. That what they are doing is precisely on a par with now-decried earlier generations' cruel denials of particular groups' civil rights - they are just choosing to ignore it. And it is a choice. They are not automatons, forced by upbringing, background, company or ignorance to demand or vote for indefensible discrimination against other people.

They do it because they want to do it.

They are choosing to do this horrible thing to the civil rights of others, knowing full well what they are doing. There's an obvious alternative available - treat them equally. Because it doesn't take hindsight or the enlightened sensibilities of the future to see that oppression of a group because you've convinced yourself they deserve to be treated as second-class citizens, is wrong.

And history shouldn't cut the bigots any slack for it. They are on notice.