> Providing facts should never require justification

Facts don't require justification. Which and where and when one chooses to provide them might well require justification. Just as you are questioning the above poster's selection of facts to present, I often question when someone chooses to say "but what about X" whenever an issue is brought up, as if X changes the issue actually under discussion.

> Regardless of the above, I'll indulge you

Quite generous of you. Without sarcasm, I will truly try to understand you, though I do not agree that we cannot/should judge events, because our actions are all we can control, and without judging their quality how can we evaluate future ones?

> many people in society are starting to view things as caricaturizations of reality

You believe this is a new and/or increasing trend? I won't deny over-simplistic viewpoints and even that there are areas that are having more of an issue with this than in recent history, but I'm not willing to declare this to be out of historical norms. For all that, say, US politics is more bitter than in recent decades, we can't ignore politicians committing violence upon each other (including in the US) or even such dramatic incidents such as the Great Defenestration, all of which I assume involved a great amount of hero/villain perspectives. Per my previous concern these examples do not make such over-simplifications suddenly complex, but it does stand to show this is not new.

> [ a great deal of material supporting the concept that modern slavery exists and that psychic/statistical numbing and compassion fatigue exist]

> The point of this all is that I think if people were more aware of reality, and understood that the line between good and evil is far closer than any of us would like to admit, that we'd be much more inclined to concern ourselves with actual events and happenings - instead of taking faux offense at somebody using the word 'just' in a way you find offensive.

So your point was solely to argue that we should think that 5 years of slavery is NOT a big deal? Your rationale appears to be in your previous post:

> These individuals were doomed to enslavement for their entire life, one way or the other

I understood the article's use of "just" to be a relative term, but I also understand that 5 years of slavery is a big deal, EVEN IF they would have been slaves anyway. Because while I do indeed practice a great deal of selfishness, doing so does not mean I should deny charity to anyone. A wrong does not justify a wrong, and a wrong certainly does not justify that we stop trying for right at all.

The facts you have chosen to present seem cherry-picked to distract from the actual point of the discussion. You've expended a great deal of effort to only say that the phrase "just 5 years" is apt. If we acknowledge that good/evil (however we define it) is a spectrum and not a fine line as you claim is your desire and that 5 years as a slave is unarguably better than a lifetime as a slave, you've not addressed either the (presumed) actual reason behind the above poster's reaction (that being that a slave for 5 years should not be minimized), nor have you addressed my points about how the timing and choice of facts you present serve to convey the message that US slavery was fine.

Take, for example, how you carefully select statistics to argue that relatively few US citizens owned slaves. But you don't address the large population of citizens that supported it, that elected politicians that made it a large national division from literally the founding of the country through the civil war and it's aftermath, then through Jim Crow, redlining, all the way to All Lives Matter. If slavery was merely a rich man's issue, why did non-slave owning people accept it on it's face as opposed to requiring the distance and plausible deniability we (mostly) do today? Was it Lee that captured and conscripted free black people, or was it his non-rich troops? (Plenty of problems in the North - I'm not trying to deny that, I'm addressing your choice of facts)

Absolutely it is inaccurate to think in black or white, and it's wrong to feel we are morally superior and/or without error. It is likewise wrong to use our own flaws as an excuse to have more flaws, and it is wrong to ignore the results of our actions. In this case, I'm seeing your actions as downplaying and distracting from the problems of slavery, the historical brutality of these particular incidence, and as placing a reaction to a potential downplay as more important than other aspects of the issue, all under a guise of warning of the perils of over-simplifying.

That's my impression, with no opinion on whether you are doing so intentionally or innocently. I can be mistaken - it would be ironic of me to over-simplify either your intentions or the effects of your choices. If I am mistaken, please grant me a little more indulgence and explain how. At the moment, regardless of the accuracy of my conclusions, I am not getting the message you say you are trying to send, for I fully acknowledge our many moral failings and the messy complicated details of human interactions, particularly when it comes to those who are being victimized by multiple nations, and yet agreeing that life is not as simple as good or evil has not modified my opinion of the above poster's reaction to "just 5 years" as reasonable, if likely not reflecting the intention of the author. Considering 5 years of slavery to still be bad is not "faux offense", that is attempting to acknowledge a fact.