What were the Independents Really Fighting For? by Ty

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

What were the Independents Really Fighting For?

POSTED BY: TY
UPDATED: Saturday, August 9, 2003 04:22
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Friday, August 8, 2003 6:23 AM

1) I agree that rights cannot be taken away, only surrendered.

I disagree that in a practical sense the north mobilized under the of ending slavery. Much the same as Johnny Reb went to war to kill Yankees, the initial surge on the other side was following the same motives. The practical RESULT was the abolition of chattel slavery in America, and that was the only good result of the war, on the short term. I also agree that the right to rebel does not confer the right to succeed. But I do believe there was a righteous cause at the heart of the matter. "I was on the losing side. Still not sure it was the wrong side."

2) I think the concept that 'right makes might' has a certain validity. However, it takes a unification of right, a common sense of purpose to get somewhere. I had a debate a while back with some people on the topic, and they brought up the examples of Nazi Germany and Stalin. I pointed out that it was the combined might of the Allies that brought Nazi Germany down, and left to their own devices the Nazis would butchered the Jews/Gypsies/Slavs/homosexuals/whoever for a good long time. In Stalin's case, he essentially died in bed because nobody had the might and the will to oppose him. That's why good people need to keep their guns handy and their knives sharp.

Demographics of the War of Northern Aggression... northern population, 26 million. Southern population, nine million total, three million of whom were slaves. In this case, we have twin examples of majoritarianism, first in the north over the south, and then in the south over the slaves. Neither exercise of power was right.

3) The north was better at it at and also incorporated it as an official policy, sanctioned at the highest levels.

4) There are places the government should be prevented from going. It continually comes back to the argument about "We do this because we're the good guys, and we won't abuse these powers." Even if it's true, the next batch will. You have to draw lines to prevent such ridiculous campaigns as the government-led extortion of the tobacco industry. (Dirty secret of that business is that for some time now the government has made more money off the sale of a carton or pack of cigarettes than the manufacturers have.)

The War on Terror has led to similar excesses, because lurking in the wings of government there are always those looking to expand their powers, their agencies, and their budgets. Take the federalization of airport security. It was doomed to failure from the beginning, because the primary effect of federalization is to insure that the bastard hassling you is now secure in his job despite his proven incompetence. (I love it because every day thousands of people are reminded in a very visual and annoying way about just how ineffectual government bureaucracies really are.)

As for the prisoners in Gitmo, they aren't citizens of the US. Hence, they have no protection under the Constitution. A totally different set of rules apply, and that's where the debate lies. That's also the way I felt about John Walker Lindh. He exercised his right of free association, good for him. Should've left him at the POW camp in Afghanistan in that case.

4) Okay, so it's cool for West Virginia to leave Virginia unconstitutionally, but not Virginia to leave the US? I wouldn't argue with the result of them both leaving, but this is one of those "You can't have it both ways." arguments.

6) The Comanche and the Apache survived, and they were the worst bad boys in this area. As with most things, it was political. Certain tribes were willing to align with the invaders, and they got the opportunity to see some dirt done to their traditional enemies.

7) The dire work conditions and the state of life of these people was a deliberate product of manipulation of the situation by the powers-that-be. A lot of people leaved in corporate housing, bought from corporate stores, and ended up deeply in debt to the company store as a result. There was blatant manipulation of the circumstances. Why do you think the unions were willing to face off with the National Guard over the matter? (Another element of the gross corporate/government entanglement of the era. When people tell me about how bad it is in that regard today, I tell 'em it ain't even close to what it was.)

I'm a business owner myself. (Albeit a small one, and the three employees of this business also happen to be the co-owners.) So I can understand various angles of this argument, and what the powers-that-be of the Gilded Age set out to do was create a form of economic slavery to feed their industries. As useless as the unions have become, they were crucial in correcting the situation.

8) Thomas Jefferson, referring to the proposed secession of northeastern states over some north/south political wrangling of the moment. There's an irony to that one. Jefferson was perfectly in favor of them seceding if they felt like it, under the theory that with a peaceful secession they would eventually realize they were better off with the united whole and return to the union. (Jefferson also thought a citizen militia and an army of gunboats would be good enough to hold off the British. He was a good guy, but not always right.)

9) States rights was and is still a vital issue. Take the current mess in California and imagine if we'd had a similarly inclined Federal government driving the whole nation into the ground. The separation of governmental powers in the system has given us fifty different social laboratories to experiment on governmental policies that allow one state to screw itself without destroying the rest. As commerce continues to spread through this country via the nature of interstate shipping and Reagan's freight shipping deregulation continues to bear fruit, we'll see more effects from this.

10) I'll wager you that fifty years from now the positions will be reversed again. The party in power in the Federal government falls in love with the institution and starts working intensively to further its powers and insure itself continual power. The other party grows by its opposition to such policies. The current situation has roots in the dominance of the Republicans after the war, 'waving the bloody shirt' and so on, until Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party run broke their stranglehold on the presidency. Then FDR comes in and resumes the power-mongering for the feds, shifting the democrats toward a socialist agenda, down the line Goldwater and the conservatives begin to define the Republicans by their opposition to 'big government' and voila, here we are.

10) Harry Turtledove has an excellent series exploring the alternate line of history following a Southern victory. Emancipation does come in the south (though I disagree with the form he presented it in, but he has a certain element of hero worship in his view of Lee, Jackson, et al, that I feel distorts his writing of those characters.)

He's followed it up to and through WW1 and past. Right now he's doing the aftermath of the war, a South devastated by the loss of the war in the fashion of Weimar Germany, and the rise of a Hitler-type figure dominating southern politics.

Turtledove is an excellent writer, though he tends to get somewhat repetitive after a while. But I heartily recommend the series.

Enjoy your rum, amigo.

There ain't nothin' I can't overcome or come to know. So lay your heavy load down on me, strip everything I have away. I am not your prisoner, I am not afraid.

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Saturday, August 9, 2003 2:29 AM

DRAKON

1) That is the problem. Both sides were right to some extent. Preservation of the Union, while possibly a bit more nebulous than "states rights" was also a noble cause. Otherwise, no republic could stand, nor any democratic institution.

We may be talking big glasses here.

2) One of the most telling images from Iraqi Freedom was the day Saddam's satute came down. There was this big buff Iraqi guy with a hammer, whailing away with all his might at the column the statue was sitting on, to no avail. Until the Army came up with a tank tow truck to yank it down.

Stalin, Hitler and Saddam all created systems that were based on fear and misery. And folks simply don't like that and try to work around it all the time. That is why such systems never last.

4) In general I would agree. However we still have to discuss particular details. A government, like a living organism will do whatever is necessary to survive. It is important to remember that all the rules and regulations and such are means to an end, not an end unto itself. When the means no longer, or even actively hamper, the ends, you have to find new means.

Agreed about Gitmo and Lindh. I always thought that taking up arms against America automatically revokes your citizenship.

4) Grin, that is what I am saying. Also as a practical point, do you think anyone would have told a section of a seceeding state they had to be part of the rebellion? "Sorry West Virginia, you can't stay with the union. You have to go be rebels now."

6) Sigh, that is sadly human nature. Common regardless of culture it appears.

7) Well, I want to leave my thoughts on unions off the record for the time being. But I think my point still stands. Things were not perfect back then. But you attribute it more to malice rather than ignorance and that I think is mistaken.

10) I don't think things will work out as you expect. There is a larger political current going on that I think is ignored.

Heinlein once said something to the effect that there are really only two political parties in the world. Those that think humanity should be ruled, and those that think people should be left alone.

In essense, the first group comprise those that want to rule, and those that want no responsiblity for their lives. The desire for power however, is there. And power means (literally) the ability to change your reality.

It used to be, in the distant pasts, the only way to get almost anything done was some form of leader or director to coordinate the actions of everyone else. But technology has increased the productivity of the individual to such a point that outside direction becomes more of an impediment to our lives and happiness than a benefit. So now it takes fewer and fewer people to do bigger and better things.

[The flip side of course is 9-11, where a few hijackers created a lot of death and destruction for a lot of folks]

Even our take on warfare has evolved, due to technology. It used to be the concern for civilian causalties was impossible. During WW2, the only way to destroy a target from the air was massive 1000 plane raids. Now we can do it with a couple of smart bombs and leave the surrounding area untouched. That is an increadable advancement in individual power.

And with the increase of individual power, those that want to be left alone, will get their wish, regardless of what other institutions say or think about it.

Only those that want to be ruled, and to rule, will get left behind. Again, the whole information problem rears its head when dealing with large or complex projects, like national economies.

"my kind of stupid"

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Saturday, August 9, 2003 2:46 AM

DRAKON

"Command economy does horrendous things because it's built on wishes and intentions instead of facts. But the agile hairless ape overcomes conditions in order to make the system function."

Again I have to point to Hayek. Reality is what it is, and people either adapt, or die. There is only so much adapting you can do to reality. Trying to fit the myriad economic decisions a person makes in a day into some simple equations that can be manipulated by any small group, simply don't work. The system is too complex, and you never have enough information to get the right answers when you need it.

But the hairless apes did NOT make the system function, they went underground with what worked, letting the system rot.

"my kind of stupid"

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Saturday, August 9, 2003 3:45 AM

ARCHER

1) Which is why I'm a fan of government minimalism. Less government means less chance that roughly a quarter of the membership of the union would be inspired to take their toys and go.

2) They don't last over the long term, but on the short run (short run in historical terms, upwards of fifty to a hundred years) they can create a lot of misery. The Soviets lasted so long because they were more scrupulous about picking the wars they got involved in than Hitler was. (Though they were planning their own version of Operation Barbarossa, but the Germans taught them that mass wars were a very bad thing.)

4) The reason I fear and distrust governments above other centers of power is because they are the hardest ones to shift. Corporations and religions have to be competitive to an extent. Governments, even in the face of internal loathing, simmering rebellions and global antipathy, can linger for decades. Witness Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, the aforementioned Soviet Union...

Back to the Lindh issue, yeah, essentially if you're going to make a stand, be ready to accept the consequences.

5) Sure, and Virginia needs to mobilize now and retake West Virginia by force. They'll never see it coming...

6) I used to rail against the reservation system and grumble at the fact that a whole lot of my relatives only discovered their 'heritage' when they clued into the free housing and groceries business, but now I'm kind of developing a fondness for the way the res' are getting to operate free of so many state and federal regs. They've managed to create almost a quasi-black market in several of them. This is to be encouraged. Off topic, but in the vein of your 'how things are better off these days.'

7) A variety of historical figures attributed malice to the motives of the industrial giants of the Gilded Age, from Twain to TR to Sinclair (goddamned socialist that Sinclair was.)

I'll happily go on record with my opinion of unions. Whenever I deal with a bad facility, sloppy service and poor performance, I say "Hmm... must be a union outfit." Then when they whine about my shipping their jobs to Mexico, I smile.

8) And these power grubbers, whatever form they take from fundmentalist religious types of any variety to goddamned communists to garden-variety despots and bureaucrats, will always seek to expand their powers. As the Republicans settle into their new-found dominance of congress (and likely re-election over the next two presidential cycles) they will further corrupt. John Campbell once said in an essay that power doesn't corrupt, but rather immunity does. Incumbency protection is what put the Democrats in the weakened position they're in now, by removing from them the obligation to fight for their position over forty years of dominance of the House and regular control of the senate.

In a related vein, the point I've been meandering toward in this discussion is that I regard the era we're covering as a victory for the enemies of freedom. Emancipation took place, and that's no small thing, but overall the WoNA (Much easier than typing War of Northern Aggression) allowed the mercantilists to reign supreme for decades, and set up the launching point for Roosevelt's brand of ridiculous Keynesian socialism. It's the fundamental strength of our culture (regularly infused by the immigrants, as I've discussed previously) that allowed us to recover so well as we have.

It's not ideal and never will be, but we are in a better position to have individual liberty for all, regardless of race, creed or gender, than at any other point in history.

One point I'd like to make in this is that so often the 'history' of a country, as taught in its schools (my loathing of public education is a topic for another day) is actually the history of its government. My view of American history is that so many great things have been done, so many wonderous accomplishments have been made in SPITE of our government. I look forward to a day when history glorifies the individual, the achiever and the accomplisher over the short-sighted and typically counterproductive activities of the government they happen to have endured at that point in time.

(And no, I'm not a Randian, though I agree with her contention that people should glory in being what they are, apex predators who have made a better world in their image, noble reasoning creatures who have lifted themselves up from rooting for grubs and berries to creating glorious works.)

On the note of Heinlein, you'll understand when I say that my personal political leanings tend to follow those of Professor Bernardo De La Paz.

Got postponed on departure until tomorrow, so we can continue this a bit further...

Regards.

There ain't nothin' I can't overcome or come to know. So lay your heavy load down on me, strip everything I have away. I am not your prisoner, I am not afraid.

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Saturday, August 9, 2003 4:22 AM

ARCHER

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
"Command economy does horrendous things because it's built on wishes and intentions instead of facts. But the agile hairless ape overcomes conditions in order to make the system function."

Again I have to point to Hayek. Reality is what it is, and people either adapt, or die. There is only so much adapting you can do to reality. Trying to fit the myriad economic decisions a person makes in a day into some simple equations that can be manipulated by any small group, simply don't work. The system is too complex, and you never have enough information to get the right answers when you need it.

But the hairless apes did NOT make the system function, they went underground with what worked, letting the system rot.

"my kind of stupid"

Point taken, lack of clarity on my part. The hairless apes kept the society going, in spite of the stupidity of them such as think that the world runs according to their desired systems. We're a hardy, adaptable species that can find ways to keep going in amazingly abhorrent conditions, both natural and artificially created.

By the way, your views dangerously veer toward libertarianism in some regards. Be careful or the Republicans will come in the middle of the night and tear up your voter registration card in front of your family. (Horrible scene, happened to a guy I knew...)

One last thing. Being as how you enjoy the study of history from the standpoint of "standing on their shoulders" you might enjoy some reading on the history of the Texas revolutionaries. Austin, Bowie and Houston were especially notable figures, Austin and Houston being idealists, Bowie being one of those real-life action hero types. Travis was a flawed but noble individual, and Crockett was kind of a latecomer... but gave us the priceless line "You all can go to hell, I'm going to Texas!"

"The Alamo Story: From Early History to Current Conflicts" by J.R. Edmondson is somewhat misnamed because it's more like a primer on early Texas history that climaxes around the time of the Alamo. It's a nice, balanced view that doesn't dive into hero worship and highlights figures on both sides of the Texas Revolution. I think you'd like it.

There ain't nothin' I can't overcome or come to know. So lay your heavy load down on me, strip everything I have away. I am not your prisoner, I am not afraid.

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