Romanticization of the Civil War
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Monday, September 7, 2026 19:18
VIEWED: 15900
PAGE 1 of 2
What the McDonnell broo-ha-ha brought up for me was, why this adoration of the Confederacy? You can find Confederate flags in states which had no participation in it, on the back of big pickup trucks, etc. What is so romantic about it? It was hard to find much on the internet, this is about all I found:Quote:
The Antebellum Period can be looked back on with sentimental nostalgia in the US South, as an idealized agrarian and chivalric society, with the moral issues of slavery generally being glossed over. This is due in part to widespread destruction caused during the war by both armies and a lingering resentment of the occupation of the region by Union forces after the Confederacy was defeated. As a result the architecture and fashion of the period were better documented in this region of the United States than in other parts of the country and can be heavily romanticized.Quote:
“Old South” is a way of describing the former lifestyle in the Southern United States. The term originally came into use after the American Civil War to describe the antebellum period. Many southern whites used it with nostalgia to represent the memories ofa time of prosperity, social order, and "gracious living". Most blacks saw it as being a reference to the past times of slavery and the plantation economy in which they were chattel property. A desire to return to the order of the "Old South" was a justification for ongoing racial segregation and the continuance of the Jim Crow system.
There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind...
From the opening of the film Gone With the Wind
In this romanticized view, the process of the Industrial Revolution is mythically substituted for by the widespread destruction of Sherman's March to the Sea and by the military occupation of the defeated Confederacy by Union forces during the period termed Reconstruction ( 1865 - 1877). While the South was largely ruined after the Civil War, this had as much or more to do with the failed domestic polices of the Confederacy, notably its impressment of food supplies, and thousands of uprooted civilians, than it did with the scorched earth policy of Sherman. Sherman's March was exclusively limited to Georgia and South Carolina and scorched earth policies were not implemented in Florida, Tennessee, or the Trans-Mississippi states.
More than any other single American artifact, the novel and movie Gone With the Wind have permanently fixed a slanted popularized image of pre-Civil War American history and are good examples of the romanticized view. In the romanticized view, the Antebellum Period is often looked back on with sentimental nostalgia by some whites in the U.S. South, as an idealized pre-industrial highly-structured genteel and stable agrarian society, in contrast to the anxiety and struggle of modern life. The issue of slavery is largely ignored. For example, a romanticized view of the Antebellum South would claim that the Civil War was fought over states' rights rather than slavery, when in actuality the war was fought predominantly over a state's right to allow slavery. Because of slavery and many other human rights abuses, most African Americans find the romanticization of this era to be offensive, and often see a coded approving reference to the racism of the period in the term "Old South".
Once those with personal memories of the antebellum South were largely deceased, the term continued to be used. It was used even as a marketing term, where products were advertised as having "genuine Old South goodness" and the like. However, fraternal and political organizations often used the term to show that they were supporters of white supremacy and segregation, but in a less blantant way.
Certain groups now wish t
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
A partial response, that evidences more reaction than thought:
People are contrary. If you tell them not to do something, then that something becomes irrestibily attractive. If you tell them not to say a word, then that word achieves a tremendous power. And if you tell them not to use a symbol, the symbol seems sort of awesome.
For every person that wags their finger and says that the Confederate flag is a symbol of oppression and evil, there is another person that will pick it up out of spite. The fact that people are hypersensitive about certain issues makes assholes like me just want to needle them over it. Did you know that there are dudes in Scandinavia that sport the Confederate Flag (so called "Raggare") just because it pisses people off? Now imagine you are from the South, and anytime your home comes up, everyone feels obliged to demand you aplogize for slavery.
That said, I have no fondness for the South, or the Confederacy, and when I see the Confederate flag, I wince.
EDIT: My point, if I have one, is that idealization of the Rebs may be in part a response to demonization of the Rebs.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Very astute, Mince!
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Civil War was about a psychic treasonous Rothschild Jew bankster's massacre of 1-million US citizens, and enslavement of all goyim whites and blacks as unratified 14th Amendment "citizens" of the corporate "federal" govt of City of DC Municipal Corporation, in Plantation USA. Forcing Congress to sign under martial law at gunpoint don't count.
Dictator Abe "Lincoln" Rothschild did not free the black slaves when the Civil War started (when the "North" Feds invaded the South States).
The first slaves stripped naked and sold on auction blocks in America were WHITE Europeans.
Some things never change.
Jew dicktater GW Bush's kosher cousin porn pimp Hugh Hefner
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by piratenews:
Jew porn pimp Hugh Hefner
An American arrested-adolescent success story!
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
PN, if you had lips, I would kiss you, you bad-ass goyisha punim.
I just totally love all the shout outs to my people.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ewwwww... 
...just the thought!!
On the other hand, well said, Mincing, makes sense to me.
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Gone with the Wind is an interesting novel, much more complex and layered than the film, naturally of course. I don't think that the Old South was shown in a particularly favorable light in the book, it was depicted as a decadent period and the people who inhabited it often weak and frivolous. Scarlett and Rhett were not examples of Old South, but something new and different, hard headed capitalists, who were willing to do a lot to survive and definitely not romantics, either of them - even Scarlett for all her sighs and pining over the ridiculous Ashley.
The film was more frills and frocks, but it was never the happy ever after love story that it is made out to be. Scarlett is too difficult to love, and Rhett gives up in the end. Hardly a traditional happy ever after romance.
The fact that it depicts (especially the book) the horrors of war and the effect of war and losing a war on a civilian population - particularly the effect on women, makes it a fascinating book with universal themes that can be appreciated outside of the North vs South paradigm.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
For a lot of folks from the South, it's mostly family. Given that pretty much anyone who was living in the Confederacy during the Civil War had at least one family member either in the military or in a city that was beseiged or destroyed by Union forces, it's not hard to figure that a lot of them would remember and pass down some history. Family history has it that my great-grandfather died in 1864 of "Camp fever" after being invalided out of the Confederate army and sent home to Northeast Georgia.
I can also tell you that a lot of folks with deep Southern heritage dislike the racists and neo-nazis who have co-opted the Confederate battle flag as their symbol.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Magons, sounds like the book has a lot the movie didn't touch on; but how many Southerners read the book? The movie DEFINITELY romanticizes the Old South, and mourns its loss. I wish it had touched on the more negative aspects, because one comes away with the feeling the movie-makers WANTED one to feel, that the South got descimated and it was once wonderful. The rest isn't touched on in very visceral terms, at least I thought so when I saw it.
Aside from Mincing's suggestion, nobody has presented an articulate answer to my question. While I agree with him to a point, I think there's far more than that at work. Maybe displaying the flag on one's truck is a symbol of rebellion or something, I dunno, but I abhor all it stand for and the mentality that accompanies it.
And I don't think romanticizing it comes out of being asked to "apologize" for slavery. I don't think a lot of people in the South feel the slightest bit of remorse over losing slavery, and I think racism is still very alive and well there. JMHO
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Well, the thing is, finally the historic glass of public school history class bullshit is being rubbed off and folks are realizing just what a freakin monster Lincoln really was.
It's far less clean cut than most folks were taught, and the causes and factors were radically different than what they were taught, and when folks learn this they tend to get angry.
Neither side was angels, nor were even most of those involved of noble intentions, if anything, nearly ALL of those involved on both sides in the run up to war were lying about their reasons for doing so and this compounded by the bullshit factor of winners writing and propagandizing the history, has muddied the issue to where only the most dedicated scholar can make any sense of it, and so when presented with a whole host of contradictory information to where the facts seem vague and malleable, folks are gonna believe what they *want* to believe, it's human nature, that.
Me, well, I come from Maryland originally, we never liked Lincoln, still hate his guts, and I have issues with the idea of forcing ones citizens to fight other citizens at gunpoint and then shelling the civvies that refuse to do so.
(See Also: New York Draft Riots)
Between Lincolns behavior, and Grant the butcher, who's tactics were mostly "bury them in bodies, we'll just conscript some more!" - and finally, Sherman the war criminal...
I can't say that I consider the Union any damned better, since regardless of anything else, they removed the idea of "mutual consent" and reduced america to rule of the gun.
And for THAT, Lincoln deserves to spin on a spit in the deepest part of his beloved christian hell forever and ever.
That said, I got no issue with someone flyin a dixie flag, so long as they got no issue with my black banner.
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
... but I abhor all it stand for and the mentality that accompanies it.
And I don't think romanticizing it comes out of being asked to "apologize" for slavery. I don't think a lot of people in the South feel the slightest bit of remorse over losing slavery, and I think racism is still very alive and well there. JMHO
Niki, I fear you've fallen into a stereotype trap. Do you actually know people from the South, or do you form your opinions based on movies and TV fiction?
I've lived in states that belonged to the Confederacy for all my life, and I've seen them progress from segregation, to resistance to integration, to acceptance, to folks getting along real well. It has taken some time, but as the older generations who never went to integrated schools or met other races socially die out, there's less and less notice of color. Here in Northern Virginia the kids don't care at all and most of the parents are the same. I've seen the same visiting my relatives in Georgia and South Carolina, and have no reason to think it's much different anywhere in the South.
There are always gonna be racists, but if you check on them now, the virulent ones sure aren't restricted to (or even predominant in) the South.
And I have discussed with my older relatives the use of the Confederate battle flag by racists, skinheads, and neo-nazis, and they all were upset by it. They consider that flag a symbol of their brave ancestors who fought against long odds for their cause, not a symbol of bigotry.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Niki, not being an American I can only speak generally, but I think the tendency to romanticise war is age old. Wars are rarely just or righteous, not matter what the propaganda machine makes out. Mostly they are about preserving or obtaining economic resources and territory and the reality of them is that they are horrible. People kill and die and do shocking things to each other and anyone who happens to be in the way, or a strategic target. It's a bloody, gruesome, nasty business that is usually (these days at least) organised by people who will never take any direct part in it.
And the people who are involved directly, the young, foolish and poor would predominantly make up soldiers throughout history, and some story has to be spun to get them to run into the line of fire, and to their families when they don't return or return maimed and ruined, otherwise imagine the rage that the general population would feel if it knew that it lost its sons for no real good reason. And so history is rewritten to make it palatable.. Even more needed when you've actually lost the war, I'd guess.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
But Geezer, help me out here.. What WAS the Confederate cause?
State's rights? Rights to... what?
No matter how I bang it, the nub of the division seems to come down NOT to the practice of slavery in the Old South, because that was already a settled issue... but expansion of slavery westward
Quote:
At the end of the Mexican War, many new lands west of Texas were yielded to the United States, and the debate over the westward expansion of slavery was rekindled. Southern politicians and slave owners demanded that slavery be allowed in the West because they feared that a closed door would spell doom for their economy and way of life. Whig Northerners, however, believed that slavery should be banned from the new territories. Pennsylvanian congressman David Wilmot proposed such a ban in 1846, even before the conclusion of the war. Southerners were outraged over this Wilmot Proviso and blocked it before it could reach the Senate.
There seems to be a lot of double-think going on in the South about the Confederate Cause. It's as if the Nazi flag would become an item of nostalgia in Germany as people remember the Brave Soldiers Fighting for their Fatherland, but fail to mention what the war was all about!
That's not to say that southerners are terribly racist (in fact, the harshest racism is in the northeast) but there seems to be a great deal of voluntary amnesia in the south about what the Civil War was all about.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
I can also tell you that a lot of folks with deep Southern heritage dislike the racists and neo-nazis who have co-opted the Confederate battle flag as their symbol.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
Thing is, others could make just about that same claim for THEIR family ancestry - "heritage", "honor", and all that rot - only since they're of German ancestry, they'd get to fly a Nazi flag. And yeah, they're all kinda pissed that the racists and neo-nazis have co-opted THAT flag as their symbol, too. After all, to them, it's merely a symbol of their ancestors' highest rise, and really, it wasn't about the Jews or any of the negative stuff, so why keep banging on about just THAT aspect of it, right?
Here's the thing: If any of you don't have a problem with someone flying the flag of the confederacy, a bunch of traitorous, anti-American rebel scum who attacked the U.S. and waged war on American soil and sought to violently overthrow the legitimate government, then don't get upset at people who want to fly OTHER flags here as well - flags like Al Qaeda banners, Nazi flags, Mexican flags, Chinese flags, etc.
Sound like a fair deal?
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But Geezer, help me out here.. What WAS the Confederate cause?
State's rights? Rights to... what?
States Rights to determine their own policy, probably.
Remember that the Revolutionary War was still fresh in memory in 1860. Its end was less than 80 years ago. Folk who were alive then were still alive. The folk in the Confederate states figured that it was their right to secede from the Union if they wanted to, based on the rules the Founding Fathers laid down. When they did, they considered that they were invaded. Many of the major cities in the South were destroyed and an army of occupation was imposed on them. Think of how you suppose Iraq feels.
I understand that slavery was an abomination, but, given the cost in lives and residual hatred caused by the war, I'd wonder if letting the South secede and then propagandizing against slavery and boosting the Underground Railway until the South realized it wasn't economical and gave it up might not have been a better solution.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Yes, a policy of slavery. Your thinking goes only so far and no further. That explains a lot.
States Rights to determine their own policy, probably.
Quote:Yeah, if you were a baby then you'd be an old fart by 1860.
Its end was less than 80 years ago. Folk who were alive then were still alive.
Quote:Actually, no. The Constitution doesn't provide for secession, it never did. They were referring to the Declaration of Independence. But as historians have often noted, once the FF had a nation to create, their rhetoric toned down considerably.
The folk in the Confederate states figured that it was their right to secede from the Union if they wanted to, based on the rules the Founding Fathers laid down.
Quote:Or Germany, or Japan, which have shouldered their responsibility and guilt, and moved on. A lot quicker than southerners, it seems.
When they did, they considered that they were invaded. Many of the major cities in the South were destroyed and an army of occupation was imposed on them. Think of how you suppose Iraq feels.
Sounds to me like the south would do a lot better by saying: YEP, we were slaveholders. The war was all about slavery. It was wrong. We were wrong. Let's move on. But instead, the south has to keep justifying and re-justifying itself.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Here's the thing: If any of you don't have a problem with someone flying the flag of the confederacy, a bunch of traitorous, anti-American rebel scum who attacked the U.S. and waged war on American soil and sought to violently overthrow the legitimate government,
Didn't do too well in history class, did you?
The Confederacy never wanted to overthrow the U.S., just leave it. As of 1860, many states though that it was all right to opt out of the United States if they wanted to, based on what the Founders had proposed 80 years previous. When several states did, the U.S. government responded by reenforcing its military bases in the states which had opted out...for example, Fort Sumter.
Aside from that, the first major battle of the Civil War was when Union troops invaded Virginia at Manassas Junction. Aside from Gettysburg and Antietam (attacks by the Confederacy to convince the Union to quit the war and leave them alone) all the major battles of the Civil War were fought on Confederate soil.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
[B}'States Rights to determine their own policy, probably.' Yes, a policy of slavery. Your thinking goes only so far and no further. That explains a lot.
As I noted, I disagree with slavery, but not the concept of states rights. I also figure that non-violent action could have resolved the slavery question more affirmatively, less bloodily, and with less resentment - if possibly a bit less quickly - than a war that killed more Americans than any other in history.
Edit to update based on your edit:
Quote:
Yeah, if you were a baby then you'd be an old fart by 1860.
Oh, come on. In 1860 the Revolutionary War was the biggest thing that had ever happened in the United States. Folk still believed the Declaration of Independence applied.
Quote:
Actually, no. The Constitution doesn't provide for secession, it never did. They were referring to the Declaration of Independence. But as historians have often noted, once the FF had a nation to create, their rhetoric toned down considerably.
Historians pre-1860? Cites?
Quote:
Or Germany, or Japan, which have shouldered their responsibility and guilt, and moved on. A lot quicker than southerners, it seems.
Were Germany or Japan trying to secede from a government? Seems to me they were invading and conquering other countries. Slightly different. Would you expect the Founding Fathers to apologize for the Revolution?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
In the best of all possible worlds, slavery could have been defeated without war. But the conflict was being propelled forward by westward expansion, and required urgent resolution.
So you reach a conundrum- Which set of rights takes precedence: The right of all men to be free, or States' rights? Assuming that you HAVE to choose, which would you pick?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
In the best of all possible worlds, slavery could have been defeated without war. But the conflict was being propelled forward by westward expansion, and required urgent resolution.
So you reach a conundrum- Which set of rights takes precedence: The right of all men to be free, or States' rights? Assuming that you HAVE to choose, which would you pick?
Good question. Is it worth sacrificing 600-700 thousand people to free 4 million? I'd probably choose the one that kills the least; trusting that if given the chance, folk will eventually figure the right thing to do.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Mmm hmmm. Conveniently.
Yeah, if you were a baby then you'd be an old fart by 1860.-Signy
Oh, come on. In 1860 the Revolutionary War was the biggest thing that had ever happened in the United States. Folk still believed the Declaration of Independence applied.- Geezer
Quote:Modern historians. I can find a lot of cites... here are just two.
Actually, no. The Constitution doesn't provide for secession, it never did. They were referring to the Declaration of Independence. But as historians have often noted, once the FF had a nation to create, their rhetoric toned down considerably.-Signy
Historians pre-1860? Cites?-Geezer
http://stubbornfacts.us/random/secession_and_the_constitution
http://thegooddemocrat.wordpress.com/2007/05/22/there-is-no-right-of-s
ecession-guaranteed-by-the-constitution/
But the historian I was thinking about specifically was Howard Zinn.
Quote:Southerners WERE trying to export slavery to new territories. They were expansionist in service to an ideology (a "way of life") which most people now find anathema. (slavery, the master race, and the emperor overlaid with racism). What's the difference?
Or Germany, or Japan, which have shouldered their responsibility and guilt, and moved on. A lot quicker than southerners, it seems.-Signy
Were Germany or Japan trying to secede from a government? Seems to me they were invading and conquering other countries. Slightly different. Would you expect the Founding Fathers to apologize for the Revolution?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Good question, revealing answer.
Good question. Is it worth sacrificing 600-700 thousand people to free 4 million? I'd probably choose the one that kills the least; trusting that if given the chance, folk will eventually figure the right thing to do.
Were slaves not "people"? Then contemplate how many SLAVES died, then ask yourself if it was worth sacrificing 700,000 people to save two or three million people from death. Because while "folk" were figuring out the right thing to do, slaves would continue to die. But quite honestly, slave deaths don't seem to enter into your equation.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I see *someone* hasn't gotten past their public school "history" and actually fact checked their data...
But oh noes "slavery, slavery, SLAVERY!!!!!11!!"
Yeah, right.
Tarriff of Abominations, anyone ?
Lincoln being pro slavery (and proposing a constitutional amendment that would have protected it ?) and not really giving a shit either way save as an excuse ?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo104.html
http://confederateheritage.org/Northern-Permanent-Slavery-Amendment.ht
ml
It was about economics, and whether or not our government was by "mutual consent of the governed" (which would, logically, have the right to STOP consenting and leave) or whether it was "rule of the gun".
This last was the primary core issue, remember these states VOTED to secede, and there was much debate over it, Lincoln arrested most of Marylands legislature to prevent that vote, locked up newspaper folk who dared speak against him, forced his own people to fight their brethren at gunpoint, and what the hell is conscription but a far *worse* variation on slavery ?
Besides which, the practice was dying out already, all a westward expansion would have done was propped it up a while, industrialisation made the whole concept no longer cost-effective, and the moral implications were indeed a great factor in the rest of the planet abandoning the idea.
But no, buzzword bullshit "history" written to demonize any who would dare question the FedGovs right to ram a gun down your throat and tell you what to do seems to be trumping any actual evidence here, as far as I see it.
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Were slaves not "people"?
Come on, Siggy. In common usage, the word "people" is assumed to apply to both groups in such a sentence.
Since you obviously misunderstood my point, no response from me is necessary, I guess.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Here's the thing: If any of you don't have a problem with someone flying the flag of the confederacy, a bunch of traitorous, anti-American rebel scum who attacked the U.S. and waged war on American soil and sought to violently overthrow the legitimate government,
Didn't do too well in history class, did you?
The Confederacy never wanted to overthrow the U.S., just leave it. As of 1860, many states though that it was all right to opt out of the United States if they wanted to, based on what the Founders had proposed 80 years previous. When several states did, the U.S. government responded by reenforcing its military bases in the states which had opted out...for example, Fort Sumter.
Aside from that, the first major battle of the Civil War was when Union troops invaded Virginia at Manassas Junction. Aside from Gettysburg and Antietam (attacks by the Confederacy to convince the Union to quit the war and leave them alone) all the major battles of the Civil War were fought on Confederate soil.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
I actually did pretty well in history class, thanks.
Quote:
On April 10, 1861, Brig. Gen. Beauregard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson refused. On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to reply effectively. At 2:30 p.m., April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/ftsumter.htm
You can try sophistry and equivocation all you want, but the fact still stands that the Confederacy attacked the Union and kicked off hostilities. And secession is not a patriotic action. Traitorous rebel scum seems an apt descriptor for such people taking such actions.
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Besides which, the practice was dying out already, all a westward expansion would have done was propped it up a while, industrialisation made the whole concept no longer cost-effective, and the moral implications were indeed a great factor in the rest of the planet abandoning the idea.
-F
I was wondering if, given the cost of the Civil War, it wouldn't have been cheaper and cost a lot less lives for the Union to just buy out all the slaves in the Confederacy. While looking for figures on the costs of the war and the cost of slaves, I came across this:
Quote:
What If the Union Had Bought Out the Confederacy Instead of Fighting the Civil War?
Brian Gongol
Was There a Better Way to End Slavery Than Civil War?
Slavery was one of the most vile institutions ever to mar the soul of the American republic. This exercise assumes three things:
It was right to end slavery
The resources used to fight the Civil War could have been used in other ways
It is desirable to use resources as efficiently as possible
Evaluating the Costs of the Civil War
Total cost (North and South) of the Civil War (in current dollars from the era): $5,200,000,000
Total number of slaves living in the South at the start of the Civil War: 3,500,000
Average cost of war per slave: $5,200,000,000 / 3,500,000 $1,485.71
Average market price per slave in 1860 (current dollars from the era): $1,658.00
Total estimated cost to have bought out all living slaves at market price: $1,658.00 * 3,500,000 $5,803,000,000
Approximate premium cost of buyout in excess of direct costs of war: $603,000,000
Total combatant deaths due to war: 558,052
Value of combatant lives lost if priced at the market value of a slave: 558,052 * $1,658.00 $925,250,000
The Premium Paid for War
If slaves were selling for more than $1,600 each, then it would be consistent with the principle that "all men are created equal" to value the life of a free soldier at the same amount. A very conservative estimate of the value of lives lost in combat, then, would be the market value of a slave times the number of soldiers' lives lost, or more than $900,000,000. The difference between the actual cost of the war ($5,200,000,000) and the hypothetical buyout option ($5,803,000,000) would have been only $603,000,000, or three hundred million dollars less than the very conservative estimate of the value of lives lost in combat.
http://www.gongol.com/research/economics/slavebuyout/
I found other sources that put the dollar cost to the Union at over $6 billion, so the buyout might have been even less than the cost of the war.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
While not a historian, would you give any credence to the words of Revolutionary agitator Samuel Adams?
Quote:
"Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death."
Seems he wasn't keen on domestic insurrection or rebellion, and thought the leaders of Shays' Rebellion should be hanged.
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Besides which, the practice was dying out already, all a westward expansion would have done was propped it up a while, industrialisation made the whole concept no longer cost-effective, and the moral implications were indeed a great factor in the rest of the planet abandoning the idea.
-F
I was wondering if, given the cost of the Civil War, it wouldn't have been cheaper and cost a lot less lives for the Union to just buy out all the slaves in the Confederacy. While looking for figures on the costs of the war and the cost of slaves, I came across this:Quote:
What If the Union Had Bought Out the Confederacy Instead of Fighting the Civil War?
Brian Gongol
Was There a Better Way to End Slavery Than Civil War?
Slavery was one of the most vile institutions ever to mar the soul of the American republic. This exercise assumes three things:
It was right to end slavery
The resources used to fight the Civil War could have been used in other ways
It is desirable to use resources as efficiently as possible
Evaluating the Costs of the Civil War
Total cost (North and South) of the Civil War (in current dollars from the era): $5,200,000,000
Total number of slaves living in the South at the start of the Civil War: 3,500,000
Average cost of war per slave: $5,200,000,000 / 3,500,000 $1,485.71
Average market price per slave in 1860 (current dollars from the era): $1,658.00
Total estimated cost to have bought out all living slaves at market price: $1,658.00 * 3,500,000 $5,803,000,000
Approximate premium cost of buyout in excess of direct costs of war: $603,000,000
Total combatant deaths due to war: 558,052
Value of combatant lives lost if priced at the market value of a slave: 558,052 * $1,658.00 $925,250,000
The Premium Paid for War
If slaves were selling for more than $1,600 each, then it would be consistent with the principle that "all men are created equal" to value the life of a free soldier at the same amount. A very conservative estimate of the value of lives lost in combat, then, would be the market value of a slave times the number of soldiers' lives lost, or more than $900,000,000. The difference between the actual cost of the war ($5,200,000,000) and the hypothetical buyout option ($5,803,000,000) would have been only $603,000,000, or three hundred million dollars less than the very conservative estimate of the value of lives lost in combat.
http://www.gongol.com/research/economics/slavebuyout/
I found other sources that put the dollar cost to the Union at over $6 billion, so the buyout might have been even less than the cost of the war.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
But without the outright abolition of slavery, what's to stop speculators from just stepping in and using that buyout money to go and buy MORE slaves to bring over and sell?
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
You can try sophistry and equivocation all you want, but the fact still stands that the Confederacy attacked the Union and kicked off hostilities. And secession is not a patriotic action. Traitorous rebel scum seems an apt descriptor for such people taking such actions.
Okay.
Quote:
The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga occurred on May 10, 1775 when a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold overcame a small British garrison at the fort and looted the personal belongings of the garrison. Cannons and other armaments from the fort were transported to Boston and used to fortify Dorchester Heights and break the stalemate at the Siege of Boston.
After seizing Ticonderoga, a small detachment captured the nearby Fort Crown Point on May 11. On May 18, Arnold and 50 men boldly raided Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River in southern Quebec, seizing military supplies, cannons, and the largest military vessel on Lake Champlain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Fort_Ticonderoga
Hmmm. Almost two months prior to the Declaration of Independence, when the Colonies seceded by declaring "...that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;..."
Traitorous rebel scum indeed, King George.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
One, a fight for freedom.
The other, a fight for slavery.
Same thing!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
You can try sophistry and equivocation all you want, but the fact still stands that the Confederacy attacked the Union and kicked off hostilities. And secession is not a patriotic action. Traitorous rebel scum seems an apt descriptor for such people taking such actions.
Okay.Quote:
The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga occurred on May 10, 1775 when a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold overcame a small British garrison at the fort and looted the personal belongings of the garrison. Cannons and other armaments from the fort were transported to Boston and used to fortify Dorchester Heights and break the stalemate at the Siege of Boston.
After seizing Ticonderoga, a small detachment captured the nearby Fort Crown Point on May 11. On May 18, Arnold and 50 men boldly raided Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River in southern Quebec, seizing military supplies, cannons, and the largest military vessel on Lake Champlain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Fort_Ticonderoga
Hmmm. Almost two months prior to the Declaration of Independence, when the Colonies seceded by declaring "...that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;..."
Traitorous rebel scum indeed, King George.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
Absolutely. That's exactly how the revolutionaries were viewed by the British. And had the British defeated the colonists, the leaders and traitorous rebel scum would have been rounded up and hanged. Guess maybe the Union shouldn't have been so merciful with the Confederate scum, eh? ;)
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
While not a historian, would you give any credence to the words of Revolutionary agitator Samuel Adams?Quote:
"Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death."
Seems he wasn't keen on domestic insurrection or rebellion, and thought the leaders of Shays' Rebellion should be hanged.
Jefferson, on the other hand, said:
Quote:
“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
One, a fight for freedom.
The other, a fight for slavery.
Same thing!
I don't recall the Revolutionary war freeing the slaves.
As Fremd noted, making the Civil War all about slavery is pretty much revisionist propaganda. It was about trying to preserve the Federal government.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Then why did you respond?
Come on, Siggy. In common usage, the word "people" is assumed to apply to both groups in such a sentence.
Since you obviously misunderstood my point, no response from me is necessary, I guess.
Geezer, you don't get to skate past so easily.
You counted up the death of free citizens, but the death of slaves due to slavery never even crossed your mind. It's like the rich Filipino said: In my country, people don't do laundry. Your bias runs so deep, you gloss over the brutal deadliness of slavery so quickly that it never rises to the surface. Your application of the category "people" is sketchy. THAT is exactly the problem I'm talking about: Selective amnesia.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Nope, the job was completed in 1865. And not by the south.
I don't recall the Revolutionary war freeying the slaves.
Keep defending your peculiar institution, buddy. It owns you.
AFA what the Civil War was all about: It started with the question of slavery and it ended with freeing the slaves. I find the whole argument about "State's rights" and "preserving the Union" to be sophistry at best.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
You counted up the death of free citizens, but the death of slaves due to slavery never even crossed your mind.
Okay. when you start doing your mind-reading act again, it's time to ignore you, since you'll just skip right past whatever I say and fall back on your erroneous preconceptions.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
S'wenyway, there was a war fought to decide if a state can secede from the Union. In doing so, we found out a couple things:
1) A state CANNOT secede from the Union peacably, simply by voting itself out.
2) A state or group of states that wishes to leave the Union must do so violently, and must WIN, overthrowing that Union and demolishing it. Otherwise, it's still part of the Union.
Confederates claimed that they COULD leave the Union by choice and vote, and they rather seem to have been proved conclusively wrong.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:No, Geezer, I'm reading what you wrote. You looked at free citizens' deaths due to the civil war and balanced on the scale against freeing 4 million slaves. But if death due to slavery (including the slave trade) ever crossed your mind, you didn't mention it.
Okay. when you start doing your mind-reading act again, it's time to ignore you, since you'll just skip right past whatever I say and fall back on your erroneous preconceptions.
If it didn't, then you completely overlooked it due to bias. And if it did and you didn't mention it, then you consciously misrepresented the costs of action/ inaction.
There were 600,000-700,000 deaths on one side of the scale. That was the "cost of action". On the other side, several million deaths due to slavery IN ADDITION TO the violent subjugation of an entire people. That was the "cost of inaction".
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Shoot, I'm going to have to do this in pieces--when you guys get going, you REALLY get going. Anyway, only got part way through so I may duplicate.
PLEASE TRY TO READ THIS, as it clears up the whole question of slavery as the cause of the Civil War, and I think is important for us to know:
Frem, I’m not naïve, I know about the REAL reasons for the Civil War, and that slavery was mostly a convenient one which has gone down in the history books. And yes, both sides deserved to be smacked upside the haid almost equally. But I refuse to believe the reason people get angry and fly the flag, or omit slavery from a celebration, etc., is because of that. Sure, they have reason to be pissed at being portrayed wrong, but I don’t think that’s why.
You’re entitled to your opinion of Lincoln, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. While I’m not uneducated on that aspect either, I don’t see him as the devil you do, I think it’s less clear cut.
Yes, Geezer, I know Southerners...some who’ve moved here. I like them all, and I know we have our share of racists, etc. Everyone does. But those in the rural South, who never move from where they were born; the “good old boy” mentality, I maintain is as I believe is valid.
I don’t question at all that racism has changed and is improved, and that education and integration have helped change it in the South. I can’t find any information on racism by state, tho’ I tried every word combination I could come up with, but OVERT racism is still most evident in the South, from the incidents we have seen in the news, like the Black-White prom controversy, the nooses, etc. I can only go by that. There’s also the different KINDS of racism across the country, from anti-Native American racism in places like Idaho to anti-Hispanic racism here in California, etc. But the general topic is “romanticization” of the Civil War, so since I can’t show statistics on racism, I’ll stick with that.
Magons, you’re absolutely right; romanticizing wars is an age-old tradition among humans. Again I point to “The Americanization of Emily” for some of the best (IMO) portrayal of romanticizing wars by the British, which can easily be generalized to people all over.
Sig, again since I can’t find statistics, I can’t argue where racism is the worst in the states; I wish I could, because I have trouble believing it’s worst in the Northeast. Since I can’t refute it, I’ll let that lie.
Mike,Quote:
I’ll bet Frem jumped all over that further down the line, because that’s an inaccurate portrayal of what led to the Civil War, trust me. We’ll see as I get further down.
If any of you don't have a problem with someone flying the flag of the confederacy, a bunch of traitorous, anti-American rebel scum who attacked the U.S. and waged war on American soil and sought to violently overthrow the legitimate government
But since Geezer replied to your question, I’ll do what I can to clear it up a bit. Some of the real reasons, via a quick search, were as follows. This first one gives secession as the primary reason (but in my opinion that’s not accurate in that it doesn’t answer the reasons BEHIND the desire for secession), but it goes on to state:Quote:
http://www.iberianet.com/articles/2009/11/22/forum/doc4af86784a1afa653
The second reason behind it was to weaken the south. Thanks to its thriving slave-oriented economy, the south was considerably wealthier than the north at the time. The north wouldn't stand a chance against its richer southern enemy if it didn't. The final reason for Lincoln's action was a strategic maneuver. He knew the south wouldn't comply and therefore he'd have a due cause for war- as well as attracting a greater following in sweeping down on the south.
390058.txt
This one’s written by a Southerner and is quite slanted; he calls it the War of Northern Aggression. Nonetheless he makes some good points:Quote:
In his book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 author Frank Conner noted that Northern manufacturers wanted to o
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
I don't recall the Revolutionary war freeing the slaves.
Excellent example of deliberately misrepresenting your opponent's point.
You are good at being slimy.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Onward. Sig, your dig at Geezer, as you can see from the above, is inaccurate. It wasn’t States Rights to continue slavery, it WAS States Rights to begin with. You’re right that the Constitution doesn’t apply to secession. I don’t think the South should apologize and shoulder their “guilt”, as they weren’t the initial aggressors, but I do agree they should move on.
Geezer IS right in that the South didn’t “invade” the North, nor did they want to overthrow the government. I disagree, however, that nonviolent means would have solved the problem; when you realize the problem was differences in economics and government control, that wouldn’t have changed...plus the war wasn’t BEGUN about slavery, that was an excuse used later.
Sig, although your reference to Western expansion is right on the money, I say again, it wasn’t about slavery; the States Rights issue was another issue all together. Yes, they wanted to expand their way of life Westward, but I don’t see that as the primary reason for the War, at all. On the other hand, good cites on secession. I think it’s something that can be argued about forever, but if you look at the REASONS they wanted to secede, it becomes irrelevant whether the Constitution left room for it or not, doesn’t it?
Oops, there comes Frem; as I predicted, he’s clearing it up. I won’t go back and delete the references I made, since they’re still valid, give more comprehensive information, and don’t carry Frem’s (with respect) biased viewpoint.
Again, Geezer, “buying off” the Confederacy wouldn’t have worked, as the initial problem was ECONOMIC, the Confederate states’ strength because of the cheap price of cotton v. the Northern states desire to lessen that discrepancy (or overcome it) via tariffs, etc., AND the question of States Rights. The divide went much deeper than the issue of slavery which, again, only came into it TWO YEARS after the war began.
But Sumter is a valid point, Mike, and yes, Ticonderoga was about the War for Independence, which I see as a whole different issue. And again I make the argument, Mike, that the two are not comparable in that the Colonies were just that—not a legitimate part of British Government—whereas the Confederate states were part of a union. I see a big difference, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.
Whew! The rest was mostly snarking, so I won’t respond to it. Geezer is more right than wrong, Sig, and I don’t buy your put-downs that he was ignoring the slaves as “people”. He was talking about direct cost of the War itself; if you want to expand that, you can, but I don’t think it’s valid because, again, THE WAR WASN’T ABOUT SLAVERY. End of story.
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Here's a judgment for you, and not a self-righteous one because I'm guilty of the same thing:
Sig and Story, your snarking and accusations are a prime example of why reasonable discussion is difficult (not impossible, as with some others, just difficult) here. Geezer has attempted to make his points reasonably, and his poins in large are GOOD ONES; you're stuck on slavery, slavery, slavery and not only not addressing the facts, but having digs at him to boot.
There, that's my pronunciation for the day, and I say it because, knowing the truth of the history, as I read down I see it that way. I think if you re-read what you've written from the vantage point that the war WASN'T about slavery, you might get some insight. No (serious) offense intended. 
JMHO.
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Niki, I disagree.
The South and the North did develop differently. And the major difference was that the basis of the southern economy was SLAVERY. Before mechanization, that was the only way to make an agrarian (cotton) economy profitable. The south was protecting its source of wealth, which was the extraction of agrarian value and the subjugation of a people via slavery. Then as now, the wealthy southerners (ie plantation owners, cotton merchants etc.) had a disproportionate say in the politics of the day, and they managed to winkle poorer southerners to go along with their plan.
All of the crap that people hang on to the civil war after the fact is so much gafla.
ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Posted by Niki:
Geezer IS right in that the South didn’t “invade” the North, nor did they want to overthrow the government.
Wrong. The South marched armies into the North and fought battles there. I don't know where you're from, but where I'm from that's called an invasion. And the simple historic fact that the South tried to secede from the Union, then attacked Union positions, and then went to war with the Union, *IS* by its very definition an attempt to violently overthrow the legitimately-elected government of the United States. Sorry you can't see that, but it's plain as can be to me.
You can argue semantics all day long, but the semantics of it is, it always and in all ways came down to slavery. Economics? The economics of WHAT? The economics of an agrarian-based economy in the South, based on slave labor. States' rights? States' rights to do WHAT? Continue to own and exploit slaves, that's what.
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ganted the South's supremacy economically was based on cheap cotton. Given that abolition wasn't declared until two years into the war, however, who's right and who's wrong? Economically, the North wanted the South weakened. Equally so, the South wanted to maintain their economic supremacy. So in THAT way, the war WAS about slavery. But it wasn't begun as about "slavery" specifically, some Northerners owned slaves and were quite happy to go on doing so.
Ergo, the war, to me, wasn't about slavery, it was, as you said, about finances. AND about states rights.Quote:
(just a taste from http://www.civilwarhome.com/statesrights.htm, which delves into the details of the disagreements about states rights)
The Constitution could be interpreted in opposite ways. In its clause giving Congress all powers "necessary and proper" for carrying the specified powers into effect, Alexander Hamilton as secretary of the treasury found ample authorization for his financial program, including a national bank. In the Tenth Amendment, however, Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state discovered a bar to congressional legislation of that kind: no power to establish a bank having been delegated to Congress, that power must have been reserved to the states. As president, George Washington sided with Hamilton and signed the bills that Congress passed to enact Hamilton's plan. Eventually Jefferson withdrew from the Washington administration and, with Madison, organized an opposition to it. Thus, in the 1790s, originated the two parties, Federalist and Republican, the one willing to exploit the "implied powers" of the Constitution, the other demanding a "strict construction" of the document.
The Republicans, already convinced that much of the Federalist legislation was unconstitutional, were further outraged when, in 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Sedition Act--providing for the fining and imprisoning of those who uttered anything "false, scandalous, and malicious" against the government, the Congress, or the president--seemed flagrantly to violate the First Amendment, which stated that Congress should pass no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press.
Now, given the North's first salvo in weakening the South was the tarriffs (and there were more things enacted to further that weakening), who "fired" the first "salvo"? Admittedly the South was resisting them to MAINTAIN their own financial power via cheap cotton. But in my opinion, the North started it by misues of their legislative power. IF they managed to secede, they'd be the stronger economic power. I see that to be as much reason for the North going after them as anything else; if they allowed secession, they'd be the weaker power. Given their superiority in manufacture and industrialization, weapons of war gave them the surpremacy in a war. Ergo...
On the other hand, South had political power, and used it to continue their agenda.Quote:
Politically, Henry Clay was a Jeffersonian Democrat. An advocate of a protective tariff to aid the nation's young industries, he also supported making internal improvements at national expense and establishing a national bank. He was a border-state politician who owned slaves but favored gradual emancipation and stipulated in his will that his slaves be freed.
The sectionalism that divided the United States before the Civil War concerned more than just slavery, states' rights, and protective tariffs. Opinions differed on either side of the geographical split between the North and the South over the disposition of land owned by the federal government. In the decade before the war, three land-grant measures that had strong Northern support were defeated by Southern politicians.
A homestead act would have made free western land available to unemployed working men and given them a chance to be independent landowners and farmers. Laborers who did not move west to take advantage of the free land would also benefit because with less competition for jobs, they
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Thanks Niki, for alla that.
I had to cut that shorter than I woulda liked last night cause I hadda run off and go relieve one of my guys, who's gonna be out for a while cause I told him not to show his face to me for six weeks, in a pretty harsh fashion.
LOL, no, it's not what you might think - his wife dropped the bomblet last night and he's now a daddy, and I was like "Dude, that's half your fault, YOU go do half the work!" - he's a devoted gaurd, but shit man, you don't lay the whole rap on your wife, not when your boss offers you a month and a half of maternity leave, so I hadda give him a lecture on responsibility to his marriage, etc etc...
He cares, it's just that he's mortally terrified of being outta work or even away from work cause the last company he was with, he took his weeks vacation and they called him demanding he cut it short (and lose the other four days) and when he refused, fired him on the spot - so his fear is not getting bills paid and food on the table, and he got insistent, and I snarled at him - he'll get over it, I'm sure, especially when I take all the junk we rounded up over there tonight to present him with, crib, stroller, baby bag, diaper pail, alla that kinda thing.
Annnyhowsss, to the point at hand.
=============================
Lincoln was, as is any politician, basically fulla shit, he didn't give a shit about slavery any more than a modern republican really gives a shit about gay marriage or abortion, it was just a wedge issue to start some shit in an effort to further the Federalist agenda of a strong central super-government which trumped both state governments and the will of the people, and to do that he had to get rid of that pesky mutual consent thing.
Mutual consent means also, the right to STOP consenting, to NOT consent, and it was this that the southern states wished to do, they wanted to LEAVE the union, peaceably go their own way, and Lincoln wasn't havin none of it.
As pointed out, it was far more politics and economics than anything else, and consider well that most southern folk didn't own slaves, so what were THEY fighting for ?
And don't even shine me, they were not the poor deluded ignorants you can try to make them out to be, any more than the farmers of the whiskey rebellion were, they knew, mostly, WHY they were picking up arms, and they *did* for the most part see it as self-defense, especially once Sherman got rolling with his reign of terror - deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure was one of the things that, while not "officially" a war crime, was prettymuch considered the like, as was shooting troops trying to surrender (See also: Tarletons Quarter) looting, and prettymuch everything Sherman DID while down there - and yes, armies and soldiers do such things, but it's one thing for your troops to get a bit out of hand, which in that era was both more common and a hell of a lot more difficult to settle without modern communication technologues... and fully another to ORDER them to do it!
Sherman was a bastard for sure, but as he himself stated, he was a bastard following his issued orders, rather than explicitly bloodthirsty himself.
Grant on the other hand - ok, how do you reconcile the Union being "anti slavery" when they forced their own citizens to fight their brethren at gunpoint via conscription, shelled civilian populations for noncompliance, and then waged a war of attrition seeking to "bury them in bodies" uncaring of how many died, since they could just conscript more ?
Is not gunpoint military service a form of slavery, and a worse one at that ?
1776
1863
I ain't seein a lotta difference there, save for what color the folks gunnin down the citizenry wore.
And my opinion on Lincoln is founded primarily on his behavior, much of which is patently inexcusable, and the strong evidence that much of his and Grants behavior was
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I can’t find any information on racism by state, tho’ I tried every word combination I could come up with...
Try checking hate crimes by state.
Here's one. showing hate crimes in general.
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/hatecrimes/appendix-d.html
And here's one showing hate crimes based on race.
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_hat_cri_rac_rel-crime-hate-crimes
-race-related
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
'Fraid I can't accept that, Geezer. Hate crimes don't necessarily reflect racism, and the racism can go many ways--here the biggest race problem is hispanices. I don't see that it breaks down per capita, either, and we're a very populous state. The idea of California being #1 I just don't accept, given how little racism I see in the state. Can't speak for So. Cal., but up here, it's just not that evident.
But we can agree to disagree, I'm happy with that. I don't think it can be done, actually, as there's a problem with people admitting their racist OR even knowing consciously they are. So...
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
'Fraid I can't accept that, Geezer.
Then I don't know what to tell you. I have no idea why you think folks in the South are more racist. maybe you could tell me where you got the information that makes you think this.
It seems to me that if there are very few racial hate crimes (mostly in single digits) in the Deep South states (The Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi) that that reflects pretty well on racial attitudes.
Organized hate groups, like the Klan, seem to be pretty well distributed coast-to-coast, per the ADL.
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/kkk/active_group_2006.asp?learn_cat=ex
tremism&learn_subcat=extremism_in_america&xpicked=4&item=kkk
Madame Geezer and I just completed a three week road trip through the South from Galveston to Apalachicola along the Gulf Coast, and we saw black people and white people working together and socializing and dining with each other - from a Sunday Brunch at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis to a seafood shack in Lake Charles, to the Varsity in Atlanta. We saw plenty of bi-racial couples who were treated just like anyone else.
I grew up in the South and was there when segregation was in full swing, I also spend a good bit of time there now, and the change is remarkable. If you won't take the word of someone who lived through it, then I guess we do have to "agree to disagree".
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Niki, the statistic that I saw about racism was at a presentation about the health effects of air pollution, if you can believe it, but she's at UCLA.
Anyway, she studied racism and its effects on air pollution and health. I think the main indicator for racism was the sharpness of geographic boundaries based on race and income and the size of the difference across the boundaries. (I believe she used GIS software to help with the analysis.) The highest contrast and sharpest boundaries were in the NE and classified as "extremely" racist. CA and the South were classified "moderately" racist.
Anyway, one of her observations was that the sharper the boundary and the greater the difference across the boundaries, the worse EVERYONE did (health, education,income)... even the wealthy.
Doubtful you could find a copy of the paper, although I'm sure it's available.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Try runnin it through demographics.
Apparently the more mixed a community is, the less racism - cause we got Detroit, which is primarily one, surrounded by a buncha communities/suburbs, which are another, and a lot of em are some *seriously* racist little gits - the worst of that is when you have police from a bitterly racist, primarily white, suburb, patrolling a city which is almost exclusively populated by afro-americans...
That's a recipe for amplification of existing problems within that dynamic, believe it.
So generally the more integrated a community is, the less of that crap goes on, and when you have two communities side by side with very segregated populations, it's usually pretty nasty, especially on the border area - ESPECIALLY when the racism gets cloaked in the behavior of real estate folk, homeowners orgs, and the like, and buried beneath red tape and bullshit - most folk are not gonna admit it, for a fact, no on paper anyways, but anyone with eyes can see it.
Anyhows, I don't think it's a geographical north/south thing so much as the population distribution, integration and related dynamics.
Even the hardest of cases can learn tolerance, living side by side with other people, the (excellent) movie Gran Torino is actually a pretty good representation of how that happens.
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
You may want to check this book,"The New Jim Crow".
I have just heard of this book and have not had opportunity to read it. So I can't offer an opinion on it.
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
To carry my last point forward... the reason why the south doesn't acknowledge the brutality of slavery is not because southerners are so prejudiced against blacks. IMHO denial is due to guilt, not to current practices. that's why I think it would be better for southerners to "man up" to their past. Then they could fully move on.
But IMHO, while the proximate cause of the Civil War was "maintaining the Union", the REAL cause was still slavery. At heart, the southern economic model needed slavery to survive. Buying off the slaves wouldn't have worked, because the profiteers who were running the southern political show would have seen that tactic... and all others... as the death blow that it was. The south simply did not have an economic alternative to slave-based profit!
The north was already industrializing and becoming a wage-based, capitalist economy.
These two economic forms were politically yoked together.
If the south had seceded, then the north and the south could have interacted as separate nations. I think the south would have revived the slave trade, and the two nations would STILL have fought a war over the territories to the west.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I'm thinking maybe I should start celebrating my heritage, too; I have family members from my mom's side and my dad's side who fought for the Union. Maybe we should start celebrating 150 years of kicking the ass off traitorous rebel scum! :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Mike, with everything in this thread, are you truly serious about "traitorous scum"? Just wondering...by now I would have noped you'd get a view of both North and South as human beings caught in a difficult situation, and that seceding wasn't a traitorous act, given the Constitution, all that came before on both sides, etc.
Okay, guys, I give in. Maybe my misconceptions are carried forward from the past (I lived through that stuff, too, and memories are pretty deep), I'll grant you that. My only remaining complaint is that "racist" needs to be defined as Black-White, because there are tons of all kinds of people here in California, and I know there is deep resentment of Hispanics, whereas all the Black people I have ever seen are mixed in with us, interracial couples, etc.
The Hispanics, however, live in their own areas, which pop up with Hispanic-titled stores, etc., and become known as Hispanic sections. NOT that it's true of all, but it's distinctly obvious. And of course we have tons of illegals all over the place. And hate crimes against Hispanics.
Now, we also have Richmond and one section of SF which are by far mostly Black; and drive-by shootings happen all the time. We also have areas almost completely Asian, Indian, Italian, etc. Neighborhoods, which I assume all urban areas have. Asians have taken over almost all of the mom-and-pop stores, and Hispanics women are by and large what man Sears and such places, and nannies for the damned yuppies. So that's what I see around me.
Why the Northeast? I don't get how that happened, anyone know? It doesn't seem logical, unless influx of ex-slaves into the area created racism that survives to this day?
I freely admit that when people live together, it changes things. I'm thrilled to learn the South has changed, and yes, I take back what I said; maybe their feelings about the war when it comes to slavery are somewhat guilt--also possibly that it's not "PC"? Guilt or no, if many people have the same misconceptions I do, it could easily be frustrating for the South to be seen in that light, and to want to avoid dealing with slavery because it's seen as something "ugly". I dunno.
Nonetheless, thank you for educating me, I guarantee I will pass on what you have told me in hopes of changing the perception of people I know and meet. It's really great to hear; but that everyone should be so!
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
To carry my last point forward... the reason why the south doesn't acknowledge the brutality of slavery is not because southerners are so prejudiced against blacks. IMHO denial is due to guilt, not to current practices. that's why I think it would be better for southerners to "man up" to their past. Then they could fully move on.
Thought I expect you won't believe me, I will tell you that folks in the South do recognize the brutality of slavery. They don't deny it. The folks whose ancestors held slaves often try to reconnect with their descendents and apologize for their forebearers actions. Many historical museums in the South have sections documenting the inhumanity of slavery. Folks - white folks - recognize it was an evil and are glad it's gone.
That being said, most young Southerners, while recognizing slavery as a great wrong, don't feel personally guilty about it. It happened 150 years ago. It would be like a young German feeling guilty for the Franco-Prussian war. It's history to them - a bad part of history, granted - but something from the distant past to be aware of, not obsess over.
If you have any evidence that most Southerners don not now recognize the brutality of slavery, or deny it was bad, please let me know.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Bah, Mikey is just tryin to wind folks up, not so much to get their back up, although maybe a little, but to encourage further discussion and maybe cut through the bullshit by annoyin folk into revealing how they really feel.
S'why I haven't torn his head off, he knows what he's doin, and he knows damn well *I* know it too.
I've said as much as there's any point to sayin, but I will give you this to work with if you're interested - I never bought into the whitewash of our historical figures, in fact they're FAR more interesting when you actually investigate their flaws and personal issues with one another cause you start to understand them as people, and thus I knew quite a bit about Lincoln that rubbed me wrong to begin with...
But if you wanna muckrake the dirt on ole "honest" Abe, Thomas Dilorenzo is your go-to guy.
Admittedly he's biased, but 95% of the things he brings up are fully sourced and fact-checked beyond any reasonable doubt whatever, they kinda hafta be, given that any attempt to cut through the whitewash provokes some serious flameage from those tasked with putting it on in the first place.
And when viewed on the evidence alone, I state firmly without reservation that the man was a monstrous tyrant who's sanity was at best questionable, and in retrospect his abuses and usurpations make Nixon and Shrub look like pikers in comparison - the fact that we built monuments to this creep makes me feel physically nauseous.
But there's little point to discussin the matter with folk who can't get past the propaganda the were taught in public school, who keep banging the one drum while ignoring all of the real causes and factors...
And in respect to that, THIS.
What is gunpoint conscription but an even more brutal, more abhorrent, form of slavery ?
Did not many of the corporations Lincoln fronted for practice a form of economic slavery known as the Company Store or truck system - a practice which continued well into the modern era, and despite all efforts to the contrary, is still practiced in a lighter form by coal providers ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_system
What *IS* Slavery but forced labor under threat, anyways - the idea that persons are property instead of people, a concept I am all too damned familiar with from another angle.
Up till the Civil War, the United States ran on the mutual consent of the governed, and the implied right to revoke that consent if the relationship soured.
And Lincoln, and the Union, ran that principle over to the point where american citizens are essentially serfs to a corporate oligarchy, which was the fully admitted intention of the Federalists from day one of the Constitutional Convention, and if you have an ounce of doubt..
Quote:
“I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favour of a national bank, the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff.”
Mind you, this came *after* Jacksons wholesale assault on centralized banking as a grevious affront given that it was based on the Hamiltonian idea of making the people and "elite" dependent on the Government by putting them deep in an entanglement of mutual debt - a protofascist idea later put into practice in all it's unholy glory by Mussolini.
Now, I don't exactly *mind* payin a share of the costs to maintain infrastructure, but that ain't what taxes are about anymore, if they ever even were, and I for damned sure have serious issues with so much of my income taken from me by threat of force that I could not even put food on the table driving a cab for sixty hours a week - and not having any choice as to WHAT that money goes to, watching it being handed off to corporations as our infrastructure crumbles...
You tell me THAT is not a form of slavery, however you wanna whitewash it, cause a refusal to shell out that money *will* eventually result in men with guns coming to do something about it, won't it ?
Lincoln didn't free the slaves, he made us ALL slaves, his debt rid
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Oh, dear. Geezer, do you really need me to spell this out for you???
Thought I expect you won't believe me, I will tell you that folks in the South do recognize the brutality of slavery. They don't deny it. The folks whose ancestors held slaves often try to reconnect with their descendents and apologize for their forebearers actions. Many historical museums in the South have sections documenting the inhumanity of slavery. Folks - white folks - recognize it was an evil and are glad it's gone. That being said, most young Southerners, while recognizing slavery as a great wrong, don't feel personally guilty about it. It happened 150 years ago. It would be like a young German feeling guilty for the Franco-Prussian war. It's history to them - a bad part of history, granted - but something from the distant past to be aware of, not obsess over. If you have any evidence that most Southerners don not now recognize the brutality of slavery, or deny it was bad, please let me know.
First of all... one of the latest examples is (ahem!) you. I think I pointed out your unconscious bias pretty clearly about 10 posts ago, when you forgot to account for slavery deaths. At the time, I said it could only be an unconscious or deliberate... er... whitewashing of southern history. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by saying it was unconscious.
Another recent example... According to Bob McDonnell, Governor of Virginia
Quote:
“there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.” [...]
The seven-paragraph declaration calls for Virginians to “understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War.”
And even more recently
Quote:I think they're reflecting the same bias ... since slaves didn't amount to diddly as far as whites were concerned, neither did the issue of slavery.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on Sunday defended fellow Gov. Bob McDonnell for his decision to declare April "Confederate History Month" in Virginia without initially acknowledging the legacy of slavery, saying the controversy "doesn't amount to diddly."
But if you're going to reach back 150 years for your heritage, maybe you should accept the baggage that comes with it?
And I'm going to add the same thing about the FF. They were biased against natives and assumed that land was for the taking. That part of our heritage shouldn't be forgotten either.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
The seven-paragraph declaration calls for Virginians to “understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War.”
And really, if McDonnell and others WEREN'T whitewashing the issue, why no mention of the sacrifices of SLAVES during the period? He specifically mentions leaders, soldiers, and CITIZENS, which slaves were most definitely NOT.
Is it because even now, same as then, they just don't think of slaves as actual, real, living and breathing PEOPLE? Or do they just not think that slaves actually suffered or sacrificed?
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:As I hear it and witnessed a bit, there's a bit of historic turf war between the various factions in Boston. Certainly, the Irish, the Italians, and the African-Americans (and others?) have been bottom rung at various times. Sets up a bit of a rivalry.
Originally posted by Niki2:
Why the Northeast? I don't get how that happened, anyone know? It doesn't seem logical, unless influx of ex-slaves into the area created racism that survives to this day?
Interestingly, I heard this theory once but never again - Bostonians don't want to talk about this - but one possible factor in the Red Sox not winning for so long was racism. The old management did not want the "coloreds" on their team. I'm talking 60s and 70s here, maybe later but I don't really know the history.
This is truly hearsay and I won't swear any of it to be true, but after 9 years in Boston I will tell you that there is a big ole color divide in the city.
It didn't bother me as much as the Midwest though. Out there, everyone was lilly white and ignorance was through the roof. That's where the really scary ideas take hold and sink deep.
-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I think I pointed out your unconscious bias pretty clearly about 10 posts ago, when you forgot to account for slavery deaths. At the time, I said it could only be an unconscious or deliberate... er... whitewashing of southern history. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by saying it was unconscious.
And as noted I believe that your perception owes more to your preconceptions than to my statements. I know what I meant, and your conclusion is incorrect.
Bob McDonnell's insensitive declaration is considered stupid by most folk I know, black and white. I'd suspect most folks around here consider Gov. Barbour's statements about the same. Unfortunately, politicians tend to be be well behind the curve in stuff like this.
Quote:
But if you're going to reach back 150 years for your heritage, maybe you should accept the baggage that comes with it?
I can only reiterate what I said before. "I will tell you that folks in the South do recognize the brutality of slavery. They don't deny it. The folks whose ancestors held slaves often try to reconnect with their descendents and apologize for their forebearers actions. Many historical museums in the South have sections documenting the inhumanity of slavery. Folks - white folks - recognize it was an evil and are glad it's gone."
I feel bad about slavery, but I'm not gonna feel guilty about something that occurred almost a hundred years before I was born, and over which I had no control.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Geezer, you asked for examples and I gave you examples... three from the last two weeks alone! And not examples of individuals with no accountability, but well-known elected officials who are presumably accountable to the people who elected them... the majority of voters. You may want to shrug them off as being aberrant, peculiar individuals but that argument really doesn't work.
Quote:Well, you think you know what you meant, but I think it was unintentionally revealing. I'm giving you friendly insight.
I know what I meant, and your conclusion is incorrect.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it."
-President Abraham Lincoln Rothschild
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races [the crowd applauds] – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people, and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the black and white races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
-Abraham Lincoln Rothschild, Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858 (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)
http://magicnegrowatch.blogspot.com/2009/01/abe-lincoln-didnt-care-abo
ut-black.html
"Nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger... nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger... nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger... nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger... nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger..."
-Abraham Lincoln Rothschild
Abraham "Lincoln" Springstein was a jew Rothschild assassinated by his jealous opium-addicted First Lady
http://usa-the-republic.com/items%20of%20interest/abraham%20lincoln.ht
ml
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/slavery.htm
“The Non-Jews have been created to serve the Jews as slaves.”
-Jewish Babylonian Talmud, Midrasch Talpioth 225
“Everywhere they (the Jews) come, they will be the princes of the lords.”
-Jewish Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 104a
“Just the Jews are humans, the Non-Jews are no humans, but cattle.”
-Jewish Babylonian Talmud, Kerithuth 6b page 78, Jebhammoth 61a (goyim = human cattle)
Johnny Rebel Loves Black People
http://undercoverblackman.vox.com/library/audio/6a00cd970f81104cd50109
81191576000c.html
MORE ABOUT OLE ABE!
Abraham Lincoln "was a racist who opposed equal rights for black people, who loved minstrel shows, who used the N-word, who wanted to deport all blacks," a veteran journalist and historian says.
Where did this come from you say…… Well the other day at work a co-worker showed me an old picture of a black family during the civil war era and they were gathered around the fireplace and a picture of Ole Abe with two candles flanking it as they gazed lovingly at it.
I thought is this a fucken joke?
Even as a little kid I never understood why American history looked so favorable at Lincoln. In school I was hardly a good student. I got D’s in history constantly (except when dealing with current event or political stuff). But even as the only black in many of my classes and hearing the history teachers speak so eloquently about ole Abe I was thinking myself that fucker Abe did not give a rats ass about Slaves or Blacks. But nobody even today seems to want to acknowledge that.
Below is some stuff you won’t see in history books nor come out of the mouth of historical scholars.
*Lincoln publicly referred to blacks by the most offensive racial slur. In one speech, Lincoln said he opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories because he didn
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Well, you think you know what you meant, but I think it was unintentionally revealing.
Siggy, if you have to believe that, then you will. I know it's not true so I won't argue about it any longer.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Lincoln didn't free the slaves, he made us ALL slaves, his debt ridden bitches, to fill the coffers of his corporate masters.
Hahahahahahaaaa. Once again, THANK YOU Fremmeister. You just have that knack for getting to the core of the matter.
As someone who lived in Alabama for 15 years, I have come to appreciate a different view of the story. You know, they don't call it the "Civil War" down there. They call it "War Between the States" or "War of Northern Aggression."
If you've ever seen the movie Gettysburg, you might notice a line in which someone said, "We should have freed the slaves first, THEN seceded from the Union." That would have made clarified why the South was fighting.
The Confederate flag flies partly as a memorial to the soldiers who died for that flag. It represents the collective suffering and pain the South experienced at the hands of the Damn Yankees, fighting for the right to self-determination.
See, both sides were fighting for freedom--just different kinds of freedom. Both sides were fighting for slavery, different kinds of slavery. One side is not nobler than the other.
-----
"I was aiming for his head." -- Richard Castle, Season 2, Episode 18, "Boom"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But Geezer, help me out here.. What WAS the Confederate cause?
State's rights? Rights to... what?
No matter how I bang it, the nub of the division seems to come down NOT to the practice of slavery in the Old South, because that was already a settled issue... but expansion of slavery westward
There were many causes. Most Southerners who fought did not own slaves, they fought because they didn't want the Yankees telling them what to do. Many fought because they didn't want to free the slaves. Many others, like Lee, fought out of a sense of duty to their native states.
Lee owned no slaves, Jackson was an abolitionist.
On a more fundamental level the causes of the Civil War are many and complex. The institution of slavery, international relations and trade(the European anti-slave movement and the competition for northern factories from Britain for textiles manufactured with Southern cotton), the domestic slave trade including the expansion of slavery into the west, etc.
In the end it all came down to economics.
I note for the record that the first American President to call for an end to slavery was Thomas Jefferson. He warned the South that if it did not find its own means to end slavery, then at some point it would be forced upon them.
A why do many of us love the South and the Confederacy? Because of romantic figures like Lee and Jackson. Because of the amazing acts of courage and sacrifice by American soldiers on the battlefield. Because we sympathize with our fellow Americans and the loss they suffered even if we disagree with their Cause. Because the only reason they lost is because their enemy had more money, more supplies, and more men. Because man for man they outfought the North time and again. Because the history of the South belongs to all of us. And because...I love BBQ and biscuits.
The South shall rise again (and in many ways, it already has).
H
"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Geezer, at one point my hubby was at a week-long manufacturer's class on computers. It pulled in people from around the world. Being very long, and having packed light, my hubby started gathering up his laundry mid-week to head to the nearest laundromat. His roommate, a guy from the Philippines, was startled by that, and blurted out Why are you doing laundry? People in my country don't do laundry!
HE knew what he meant, too. But what he implied is those who do laundry aren't people. What you said was:
Quote:Somewhere, the idea that slavery ALSO killed people slipped your mind. Because slave deaths are in a different category- a category not pulled up in the context of "the cost of/ benefit to human lives due to the Civil War".
Good question. Is it worth sacrificing 600-700 thousand people to free 4 million? I'd probably choose the one that kills the least; trusting that if given the chance, folk will eventually figure the right thing to do.
It's not that you don't understand the brutality of slavery, it's just that death due to slavery didn't come up in this context.
Basically, human thinking is highly contextual. Groups of thoughts tend to occur together, other thoughts tend not to cross that boundary. That is what keeps humans from being fully "rational". Ratio, to compare relative amounts.
Now, in MY thinking, when someone points out an obvious illogic on my part... a glaring factor that I've overlooked for whatever reason... I tend to get a little irritated with myself, but I'm extremely grateful to the person who pointed it out. So if I remove the word "bias" and say that your thinking was "overly contextual", does that change anything for you?
In any case, I'm glad that you are no longer challenging that fact that this kind of irrationality occurs in the romanticization of the south.... or the War of Independence, the "winning" of the west, the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Bush II, the war in Iraq, or any other topic we care to think critically about.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Just like people today defend capitalism although they're not capitalists and never will be, and get screwed over by the system at every turn? Or soldiers who got winkled into the Vietnam/ Iraq wars out of a sense of duty?
There were many causes. Most Southerners who fought did not own slaves, they fought because they didn't want the Yankees telling them what to do. Many fought because they didn't want to free the slaves. Many others, like Lee, fought out of a sense of duty to their native states.
There were a lot of reasons for the Civil War, and apparently neither the immorality of slavery nor the lack of benefit to most free white men weren't sufficient counterweights to those reasons.
I understand that people are illogical. They don't accurately weigh the costs and benefits to themselves, but tend to get pulled along by others. Humans are neither rational nor individualistic- we are social creatures who tag along with "our" group, however we define that to be, even if our position on that group is "peon". So people make errors in judgment. That is to be forgiven, not celebrated.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Yes, they should have. But they NEVER WOULD, because slavery was the foundation of Southern wealth, and the wealthy... plantation owners, cotton merchants, steamboat operators, politicians and generals who depended on that wealth... would not have allowed that to happen. Freeing the slaves wouldn't become a natural possibility until mechanized cotton-planting and cotton-picking. But the mechanical cotton-picker wouldn't come into use until 1935!
If you've ever seen the movie Gettysburg, you might notice a line in which someone said, "We should have freed the slaves first, THEN seceded from the Union." That would have made clarified why the South was fighting.
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/holley.cottonpicker
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
The South shall rise again...
And of course, we Yanks will be right there as always to deliver yet another epic ass-kicking. After all these years, we've gotten really, really good at it. :)
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
aye kwicko! i am all for conquering and colonizing the south.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
If you've ever seen the movie Gettysburg, you might notice a line in which someone said, "We should have freed the slaves first, THEN seceded from the Union." That would have made clarified why the South was fighting.
The Confederate flag flies partly as a memorial to the soldiers who died for that flag. It represents the collective suffering and pain the South experienced at the hands of the Damn Yankees, fighting for the right to self-determination.
Free the slaves, then force them to work for pay as tenant farmers (indentured servants = slaves), just like po white folk.
The Confederate Flag is an American flag.
Lincoln made all white males slaves to the Fed govt, with USA's first military draft and massive riots.
www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&q=civil%20war%20draft%20riots&ie=UTF-
8&sa=N&tab=iw
Quote:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it."
-Jewish President Abraham Lincoln Springstein Rothschild
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races [the crowd applauds] – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people, and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the black and white races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
-Jew Abraham Lincoln Springstein Rothschild, Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858 (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)
http://magicnegrowatch.blogspot.com/2009/01/abe-lincoln-didnt-care-abo
ut-black.html
"Nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger... nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger... nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger... nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger... nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger...nigger..."
-Jew Abraham Lincoln Springstein Rothschild
http://liveforfilms.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/abe-lincoln-vampire-hunte
r-to-be-adapted-by-tim-burton-and-timur-bekmambetov/
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Geezer, at one point my hubby was at a week-long manufacturer's class on computers. It pulled in people from around the world. Being very long, and having packed light, my hubby started gathering up his laundry mid-week to head to the nearest laundromat. His roommate, a guy from the Philippines, was startled by that, and blurted out Why are you doing laundry? People in my country don't do laundry!
HE knew what he meant, too. But what he implied is those who do laundry aren't people. What you said was:Quote:
Good question. Is it worth sacrificing 600-700 thousand people to free 4 million? I'd probably choose the one that kills the least; trusting that if given the chance, folk will eventually figure the right thing to do.
You know he's actually saying that 600-700 thousand people were killed to free 4 million people. That's how the statement reads to me. I think it's a lousy argument, but it's not what you've read into it.
--------------------------------------------------
If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I have to concur...the way it reads, he was talking about those killed in the WAR, not the entire total including slaves who were killed over time.
I think it's kind of a moot point...I don't see what he's been saying as racist, you do. It's all in how we take things, IMHO.
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Guys.... let me use a medical analogy. Let's say that your daughter is suffering from progressive epileptical dementia. All of the standard, well-known treatments haven't worked. So now you're looking at experimental surgery or experimental drugs ... pretty radical stuff. There are risks and benefits to treatment. The hoped-for benefit is a reduction of symptoms, possibly even reversal. The risks... or side effects, are things like bone marrow suppression or post-surgical brain infection. But there is another side to the scale, and that is the risks and benefits of doing nothing. INACTION itself has a consequence. The risk is complete dementia and possibly permanent brain damage.
That's like the Civil War. The cost was 600,000-700,000 deaths, both north and south. The benefit was freeing the slaves. But the cost of doing nothing was not only the continuation of slavery, but the fact that slavery itself killed people. So when Geezer said that he would go with the course of action that would lead to the "fewest deaths", he forgot to include slave deaths that would have occurred without the Civil War. He forgot an entire category when balancing the scales.
Now, I'm not saying that slave deaths over the foreseeable lifetime of slavery (assuming no Civil war) would have exceeded citizen deaths during the Civil War. But if you're balancing deaths from the Civil War on one side side of the ledger, you have to include deaths that would have occurred WITHOUT the Civil war.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
And of course, we Yanks will be right there as always to deliver yet another epic ass-kicking. After all these years, we've gotten really, really good at it. :)
Well, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and New York are not the economic and industrial giants they once were. Technology, wealth, industry, population, and resources now favor the South. And we've already established that man for man, a Southerner can whip any ten Yankees and be home in time for chicken fried steak, fresh biscuits and gravy. So unless your plan is to wait for us all to die of heart attacks, we Southerners will win the next conflict (which comes in 2012).
H
"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
That's like the Civil War. The cost was 600,000-700,000 deaths, both north and south. The benefit was freeing the slaves. But the cost of doing nothing was not only the continuation of slavery, but the fact that slavery itself killed people.
Actually the benefit was preserving the Union. Freeing the slaves at the conclusion of the conflict was a side effect. The cost of doing nothing was dismembering the Union, but again, those slaves left within the Union (such as the border states) would have been freed.
Had the South won or had the North chosen not to fight, the only guarranteed outcome surrounded the disposition of the succession issue. It was clear that even if free the South would have freed its slaves sooner or later. Absent the economic and political pressure from the North, slavery would have died a natural death within a generation (again, economics would have dictated the outcome). It would have been similar to Brazil.
H
"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
And of course, we Yanks will be right there as always to deliver yet another epic ass-kicking. After all these years, we've gotten really, really good at it. :)
And we've already established that man for man, a Southerner can whip any ten Yankees and be home in time for chicken fried steak, fresh biscuits and gravy. So unless your plan is to wait for us all to die of heart attacks, we Southerners will win the next conflict (which comes in 2012).
B]
What in the devil's name are you talking about, man? There are no men in the south, just man-shaped globs of butter and fail. Just you wait for the Golden Horde (of California) to cross your borders, and enforce homosexuality and socialism on the vanquished.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Traitorous rebel scum seems an apt descriptor for such people taking such actions.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Of course, whenever I hear someone say rebel scum, I hear it with the dripping disdain of an imperial officer and to the quick boot steps of stormtroopers.
I've never been to the south. I don't particularly care if it's been romanticized, I guess people have that right to do that.
I don't fully buy the "slavery was the only factor" explanation, but I am glad it's gone. And I am glad for the people who got their freedom, reunited with families, and etc. Too bad the reclamation period was just the North ripping off the South as much as they could, and the South taking it out on black people with a slew of disgusting laws like the grandfather clause and jim crow.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ehm, Geezer, just how likely are blacks in the deep south to REPORT a hate crime? And how likely are they to get a ruling in their favour? Sorry, man, I get you want to defend the ground you're standing on, but the statistics, they're kinda flawed.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
You say that like it's a bad thing. Of course, whenever I hear someone say rebel scum, I hear it with the dripping disdain of an imperial officer and to the quick boot steps of stormtroopers.
You too eh ?
Who, much like the DHS, TSA and related alphabet goons, can't shoot worth a damn.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImperialStormtrooperMarksma
nshipAcademy
That was kind of a factor during the war too, mind you - s'what you get for using conscripts as cannon fodder.
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. This was 6 months before the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln had actually issued an earlier draft in late 1862, but officially the slaves were freed by law on January 1. It took real balls for Lincoln to do that, considering that up until that moment, the war had not gone well for the North. Lincoln's Generals, dozens of them, were incompetant, and many refused to engage the enemy in battle. McClellan, Meade, et al were constantly being berated by Lincoln for their lack of ability and will to fight, and things did look rather dismal for the Union in 1862, right up until Gettysburg in July, 1863. The Confederate Generals were too talented for their Northern counterparts, and Lee and Jackson and many others whipped the Northerners in battle after battle. On the way to Gettysburg, a battle fought at Antietam Creek, Maryland, in September, 1862, proved to be the costliest single day of casualties in the entire war. Both sides reeled from that engagement. But Lincoln pressed on with Emancipation despite the growing dislike of the war in the North. He exhibited great courage and leadership in doing that. That moment defined the Civil War in the opinion of many historians. The romanticism of the Old South is a myth. A myth carried on today by folks who don't want to, or cannot face the truth of that era. Slavery was a brutal, horrific practice that had to be destroyed at any price. Lincoln knew this. He issued orders that sent 200,000 men to their deaths following Gettysburg, as the war moved into a different, even more bloody phase over the last two years.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
And we've already established that man for man, a Southerner can whip any ten Yankees and be home in time for chicken fried steak, fresh biscuits and gravy. So unless your plan is to wait for us all to die of heart attacks, we Southerners will win the next conflict (which comes in 2012). 
Ooohhh, dear, thank you for that...I needed a good laugh!
If it were even SLIGHTLY true, you'd nonetheless get your asses kicked by any Ozzie around... 
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Ehm, Geezer, just how likely are blacks in the deep south to REPORT a hate crime? And how likely are they to get a ruling in their favour? Sorry, man, I get you want to defend the ground you're standing on, but the statistics, they're kinda flawed.
There is a DOJ report that indicates that hate crimes are probably underreported http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=209911 but it doesn't note any regional differences. The Southern Poverty Law Center cites this report, but again mentions no regional trends in underreporting. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-i
ssues/2005/winter/hate-crime
If you google "underreporting of hate crimes" you'll find that it seems to be endemic worldwide.
That being said, in the cursory search I ran to find the cites above, I didn't find sources stating there is more underreporting of hate crimes in the South than in other places. If you have such a source, please let me know.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hmm, that does defy expectations. Interesting.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
And we've already established that man for man, a Southerner can whip any ten Yankees and be home in time for chicken fried steak, fresh biscuits and gravy.
Actually, we've "established" quite the opposite. Look at the scoreboard. Yankees-1, Traitorous Rebel Scum-0. :) Like I said, we'd be more than happy to go on kicking your asses; we've gotten quite good at it, and had plenty of practice!
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by mincingbeast:Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
And of course, we Yanks will be right there as always to deliver yet another epic ass-kicking. After all these years, we've gotten really, really good at it. :)
And we've already established that man for man, a Southerner can whip any ten Yankees and be home in time for chicken fried steak, fresh biscuits and gravy. So unless your plan is to wait for us all to die of heart attacks, we Southerners will win the next conflict (which comes in 2012).
B]
What in the devil's name are you talking about, man? There are no men in the south, just man-shaped globs of butter and fail. Just you wait for the Golden Horde (of California) to cross your borders, and enforce homosexuality and socialism on the vanquished.
Mincing, can we make them our slaves? They seem to have no issue with the concept. :)
BTW, thanks for the best laugh I've had all day. "Man-shaped globs of butter and fail", indeed.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Mikey, I don't doubt your ability to conquer Redneckistan if you really wanted to, but, um... WHY?
If you do though, make sure not to bomb all the Corn Dog 7 franchises - it kinda pisses me off that there aren't any up here and I have to make do with the puny common corn dog, meh...
That's like, the only thing I miss about TX, the ability to get a two-handed "corn dog" made from a whole polish sausage, typical texan overkill, but DAMN them things were good!
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
"Redneckistan"...I love it 
Can we just declare them a separate country and bomb them? It worked once...
"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Can we just declare them a separate country and bomb them? It worked once...
Sure , soon as you finish with your bake-sale and fund the bombers...
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Kwicko, yes, let's enslave them! good call.
But I don't really have any use for a slave. I could, however, always use money, so I propose that we 1) enslave them and 2) sell them to the gypsies.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by out2theblack:Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Can we just declare them a separate country and bomb them? It worked once...
Sure , soon as you finish with your bake-sale and fund the bombers...
What century are you living in? Americans don't need to "fund" wars anymore. Just dive in, start bombing, and freedom will ensue!
If we really need to "fund" a war, maybe we can sell the South into slavery to the Chinese. Hey, it's the South that claims that slavery wasn't that bad! :)
As to that whole notion "Hero" has of the South rising again, like I said, we'll be happy to on kicking their backwoods, backwards redneck asses all day long. Oh, and we happen to have the nuclear launch codes. :)
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by mincingbeast:
Kwicko, yes, let's enslave them! good call.
But I don't really have any use for a slave. I could, however, always use money, so I propose that we 1) enslave them and 2) sell them to the gypsies.
Sell 'em to the Chinese. They need cheap labor, and we know they have the cash in hand to pay up! :)
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Er- Kwicko? I imagine you're just joking and also trying to nudge the southern pride people into some entertaining tirades, but you know Frem's thing? About government being forced down on people with guns (and here, nuclear threats)?
I don't condone that kind of crap from Israel towards the Palestinians, let alone my own government towards, well, ANY of us... >_>
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
kwicko, you joking? i'm not joking. i don't joke.
Men, through a necessary law of their nature, rule wherever they can. See generally Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. We, and by we I mean California, can rule the South and everything in it.
This is not a question of right or wrong. Right and wrong only matter between equals in power. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Id. Only the weak would beg to differ.
for the aforementioned reasons, kwicko's suggestion is both rad, and inevitable.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
That's awfully convenient. Why those two examples, and not every single war in the history of mankind? Or the other 50% of the time when 51% of the population gets along relatively peacefully?
It's the old axiom, just because you CAN do something doesn't mean it's smart. Even complete apathy statistically is more self-serving and self-benefiting than fighting or war, being that there's a chance of death or disfigurement with the later. Assuming, of course, you don't consider death to be a more preferable state for yourself than life.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
In consideration of your point, I amend my earlier claim to the following:
Men, through a necessary law of their nature, PWN whoever they can. See generally All of Human History .
This is not a question of right or wrong. Right and wrong only matter between equals in power. The strong PWN who they can and the weak suffer what they must. See generally human nature . Only the weak would beg to differ.
A man who can do something, will, sooner or later, do it. A mans morals are essentially his options.
Therefore, I would enlist in Kwicko's army.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Also known as the general human dumbassedness clause.
Well, at least you're closer to reality now. I note, however, that human nature is a weak argument. If some humans are strong, in general, as you claim, then some humans must have the strength to act in violation of the theoretical basic inclinations you've proposed here, otherwise all humans would be weak willed, and therefore all humans would be weak. Correct?
I mean, you like Nietzsche, right? This is the basis of his Ubermensch argument we've just derived.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Nietzsche is nearly neato as a literay critic; as a philosopher, i'm not so sure. granted, i despise all philsophy but that of Popeye.
also, maybe all humans are weak, in the face of human nature. strength is a matter of one human pwning another, in accordance with their revolting animal natures. whenever i do something ghastly, i simply point out that it is the way god/nature made me. ;)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME