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Originally posted by Redjack:

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Originally posted by rklenseth:
I'm quite familiar with the Brits brutal treatment of the Irish. I consider it on the same level as that of American slavery. I think Michael Collins was hero and patriot. Gerry Adams too.

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was going to stay out of this argument, then this crops up. Heck, argue away on historical treatment, but on what basis do you support the use of the word "hero" and "Gerry Adams" in the same sentence? Enquiring minds would love to know

"I threw up on your bed"

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Originally posted by Drakon:
To a lot of folks, even to this day, individuals in other countries are still considered "others" or not quite human. It is a perception that while you and most of us fight against, still persists elsewhere. Sometimes even in our own enlightened arenas. One of the reasons why about 1 million Africans die each year of malaria, because DDT is "too harmful" to use to control the spread of the disease.

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Originally posted by Redjack:
I don't know what I've said or what position I've taken which would, as you put it, "bring out the troll" in you...

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You summed up with a statement implying that there was some moral parity between the North and the South in this conflict.

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With the Confederacy, the opposite is true. Horrible, insane, morally bankrupt speechs were used to whip up the appropriate sentiment in the masses, to make them ready for war. Had those masses not agreed, there would have been no war. You can't plant in unfertile ground.

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But simple arithmatic tells us that the number of true beleivers must have far far outweighed the number of reluctant fighters.

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And, even among those reluctant fighters, the number of those who disagreed with their government on issues of Slavery and Union must have been even smaller.

How do we know? Because the South was outgunned and outmanned from the beginning, yet they kept the war going til the wheels fell off.

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Again, if this stings, I'm sorry. I honestly am. It's not me. It's the math.

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Consider: unlike its grand child, Nazi Germany, the Confederacy was not a Totalitarian state. There was no Rebel Gestapo running around killing or torturing the voices of dissent. There were no voices of dissent and no threat towards them had they spoken up. Those who disagreed simply rode North and joined the army of the United States of America.

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You ended your post with the sentiment that there was enough indecent behaviour to go around,

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implying a sort of moral equivalence between the two factions.

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Again, I'm sorry. I get what you're saying but that dog just won't hunt.

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The Northern states were only slightly less attrocious to their black citizens than those in the South. The war could have been avoided had Lincoln simply conceded certain points.

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But, again, according to the men themselves at the time, there was a primary issue at the heart of this thing. All the spinning in the world won't change that.

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It's an awful thing to have to grapple with that and I can see why most who trace their lineage back to the losers are either unwilling or unable to do so, especially when the grappling means accepting that great great grandpa was a right bastard. I do understand. I really do.

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But I'm not sympathetic.

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Because they were, in empirical fact, The Bad Guys, and great great grandpa was, almost certainly, a right bastard.

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