If history is to be learned from, it must be applied to the things we are living through today. So, take the Salem Witch Trials, and how a group of people were accused of being that which they weren't, and how the populace then got rid of them. Could we find any parallel in America today?
If those who were executed were, indeed, witches and warlocks, by chance, I only propose they were not so dangerous as everyone imagined.
Yes, think of it: The populace back then got worked into a hysteria about these people, calling them all witches and warlocks, and got rid of them. I believe something like 200 were accused and 19 killed in those Salem Witch Trials.
To make it safer for the rest of society, of course.
That was America, circa 1693. Now, take American, circa 2019: Is there any place where the populace is being whipped into frenzy against a group of people who are made out to be a threat to society? You don't find any news stories fitting that description, do you? Any place where, say, common-to-poor people just wanting to make better lives for themselves are being painted as gangsters and terrorists and murderers?
Of course we should learn from history. But, if we are not willing to see where the lesson applies -- where it is playing out in modern events -- we will not learn from our past. We will end up getting rid of people who are not so scary as they are made out to be.
History is never learned from if you are too blind to see how its shadow crosses into your own day.
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