Their presence in the film is not an oversight but a calculation. In the story, a black slave signs up with the rebel force because he is promised freedom after 12 months' service. Well, actually, no. In North Carolina in 1774, the punishment for killing a slave was a mere year's imprisonment and the value of the property that had been destroyed. The new revolutionary law made the willfull killing of a slave murder and punishable by death.
Ideas have powerful consequences, none more so than in shaping the future.
But so do negative ideas and negative images of the past. Ever since communism s ignominious collapse, the left has no longer bothered to defend its fantasy of the socialist future. Its spirit is now consumed by nihilism and its message entirely framed in the negativity of an indictment most often against the American past, present and future. Until recently, American public schools functioned as a crucible of citizenship. Immigrants who came to America seeking refuge and opportunity were educated in this social contract by their teachers.