Amos, there's no need to be unpleasant in your response; yes, I have bothered to read the thread, and have posted to it a number of times. Your response ("This proves definitively that an anonymous carping cybersnipe with too few guts to use a name has more brains than the current incumbent. At least he can form a sentence that answers the question asked.") was phrased in a pretty insulting manner, but you did acknowledge the post, after a fashion.

If you yourself bothered to read the thread, you might have noticed that I provided the antebellum rationale on 8/25 at 1:58 p.m., before our nameless guest provided the current rationale just a few posts back. Doubtless others have provided some of this information in this thread as well, but Azizi was continuing to claim that nobody was giving the answer to his threshold question. Azizi has not acknowledged either my post or our guest's. There has also been a tendency for some to claim that our leaders have not provided their rationale for public scrutiny. In fact, they have; the claim that they have not is a rhetorical device, not supported by the facts.

This does not mean that I agree with all of the rationalizations that have been offered, but at least I have paid enough attention to have heard them, and have enough integrity not to claim otherwise.