2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

[5mn_Major]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

In both cases it was a rebellion against the current government because of the belief that the current government was violating basic rights and principles. In both cases the goal was to carve out an independent state from the larger whole that was free of an unwanted external influence. The parallels between the Revolution and the Civil war are great and the major difference is that in the Civil war, the rebels didn't get European recognition and direct support and thus didn't win the war. To claim that one is substantially different than the other is more a case of having history written by the victor than any significant different. It's a Revolution if the rebels win, it's a Civil War if the established government wins (or if no established government exists).

The Civil War was a war fought over the balance between the power of the federal government vs state's and individual rights. Slavery was the direct cause of the disagreement, but it was not the fundamental underlying question. The Federal side won the war and it established the superiority of the federal government over the states (effectively nullifying the 10th amendment) that has shaped how this nation has evolved over the past 150 years.


At the time of the American revolution, the colonist were British citizens and were far from united in opposition of British rule. An estimate 25% of the colonial population were British loyalist and many fought and died fighting against the Patriots. In fact many of the early acts of insurrection against the British would have been considered terrorism by today's standards: Threats against government officials, mobs destroying government and private property, intimidation and retribution against those suspected of supporting or assisting the British Army and Navy.

Terrorist today are not trying to form free and independent states, but to destabilize and overthrow current governments. To me that is different than a large group trying to form an independent state and free itself from a distant and external government.

Ya...I know where your coming from. Although I don't give any more credit to a group trying to replace our govt over one that's simply trying to destroy it. One of the group is just offering a solution.

I think we're somewhat talking past each other. If we weren't, you would have convinced me that traitors towards the concept of the US truly love the US. I remain unconvinced. The case one could make is that some who fought the US love the concept of America, but fought it because they didn't like our government. However, that was not the case for the Confederacy...who had no love for the concept of the United States.

You could also make the argument that things might be different if the US was totally destroyed. Well it wasn't...so in today's world, the confederate flag simply shows admiration for arguably the greatest enemy the United States ever had.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Frankly the modern day version of rebellion vs the United States are the terrorist threats in the country today.

This makes no sense at all - there is nothing remotely comparable between a few extremists acting alone or in very small organizations totally lacking in infrastructure and with no plans for establishing new forms of government to replace the old ones. Today's terrorists are just pathetic, bitter individuals who are angry that the rest of the world does not share their political or religious views and resort to violence simply as a form of speech to express their opinions. The Confederacy, on the other hand, was an actual, potentially viable (who knows in the long run) alternative form of government which MILLIONS of people were attempting to establish. What alternative government is Al Quaeda or ELF trying to establish as an alternative? They aren't. They are not rebellions - they're just criminals who can't figure out productive ways to express their views.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

This makes no sense at all - there is nothing remotely comparable between a few extremists acting alone or in very small organizations totally lacking in infrastructure and with no plans for establishing new forms of government to replace the old ones. Today's terrorists are just pathetic, bitter individuals who are angry that the rest of the world does not share their political or religious views and resort to violence simply as a form of speech to express their opinions. The Confederacy, on the other hand, was an actual, potentially viable (who knows in the long run) alternative form of government which MILLIONS of people were attempting to establish. What alternative government is Al Quaeda or ELF trying to establish as an alternative? They aren't. They are not rebellions - they're just criminals who can't figure out productive ways to express their views.

I gave the context about three times, terrorists and the confederacy are comparable as rebellious enemies of the US who have no love for the American concept.

And I didn't say AQ was as much of an enemy as the confederacy...actually I said the opposite was true also about ummm three times.

Sorry, but I lose patience with folks who say I don't make sense but didn't appear to have read my posts.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

I gave the context about three times, terrorists and the confederacy are comparable as rebellious enemies of the US who have no love for the American concept.

Gee, maybe when you compare two things, they ought to be somewhat similar. You may as well have said they were similar because they both breathe oxygen. I see no interesting or meaningful similarities whatsoever.

 

[Foxton]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

The Civil War was a war fought over the balance between the power of the federal government vs state's and individual rights. Slavery was the direct cause of the disagreement, but it was not the fundamental underlying question.

You have this reversed. Slavery was the underlying issue, states rights was the argument and framework to support it. Everything else was right.

Some quotes from Alexander Stephans, Confederate vice president in this speech.

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.

...

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

He's simplistically comparing the two in terms of their opposition to the US government and their violence committed in the name of that opposition. The comparison is clearly a weak one, given the gigantic differences in their organization, goals, and methods.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Plus, Major's engaged in his customary moral equivalence argument: the Confederates were as bad as the Jihadists, so how hypocritical are we to condemn one and fly the flag of the other? I don't think the Confederates wanted to destroy the federal government. And I don't think any Confederate fathers murdered their six daughters because two of them may have been "fooling around" with a Yankee. Yet a Muslim POS did exactly that just last week. Beheading Filippino school girls. Using children as suicide bombers. Murdering co-religionists who are of a different sect. And this isn't the 18th century we're talking about. It's right now, today.

Major's Prime Directive seems to be to compare the United States, unfavorably, with any situation anywhere in the world. "We're just as bad as (fill in the blank) where do we get the nerve to preach to anybody about anything?" This sort of shallow thinking leads to suggestions that our treatment of Indians and the Holocaust are identical. Ward Churchill syndrome. Note: to my knowledge he hasn't made that comparison, but others who post here have.

My bottom line? Any suggestion that Robert E. Lee and Anwar Al Awlaki are comparable in any meaningful sense is, uh, flawed.

 

[Almington]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

You have this reversed. Slavery was the underlying issue, states rights was the argument and framework to support it. Everything else was right.

Some quotes from Alexander Stephans, Confederate vice president in this speech.

I think that we both agree that without slavery, the Civil War would not have happened.

The question of the balance of power between the federal government and the individual states was an issue back when the ratification of the constitution was being debated. It is why the 10th amendment was included in the bill of rights:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in writing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 had proposed that states could nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Add to that the Nullification Crisis of 1832 where South Carolina passed an ordinance that nullified federal tariffs. Congress passed the Force Bill which allowed the President to use military power to force states to obey all federal laws. A compromise was reached which prevented the use of federal military power to enforce the tariffs.
The southern states succeed because of fear that the federal government would impose changes to slavery in defiance to the wishes of the states and the general will of the people of those states. Thus the fundamental underlying question of the civil war had to do with the balance of power between the individual states and the federal government.

Once Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation he both converted the war into more of a moral crusade to end slavery than an effort to preserve the union and he prevented the south from gaining the support of the major European powers who would have a difficult time supporting a nation built on slavery.

I recognize the alternate view of why the Civil War happened is that those who held power under the current system of slavery wanted to keep it in spite of the growing national belief that slavery was contrary to the ideals on which the US was founded. That once those who held power under the system of slavery felt threatened with losing it they reacted aggressively and with military means to try and keep power, thus instigating the Civil War. I don't doubt that this theory doesn't hold some truth to by the southern elites supported the war and they may have used the state's rights argument to secure popular support from the southern people. Given the nature of human behavior, I can believe that their is some nugget of truth in this theory.

 

[Handyman]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

It is more than a nugget, both issues were equally underlying the war wasnt fought for either exclusively or even mostly. The Confederate States thought Lincoln would free the slaves and with their hatred of a federal system used that as the reason to secede. They can pretend it was one or the other all they want (and so can we) but history does not back up the theory. It is one of many great fallacies of the Civil War. It is put forth because it makes the South look less racist (we are fighting for rights, not to keep black people as our free help) and it makes the North look like civil rights heros! (we are fighting to save black people, not to teach the Rebs not to screw with us!)

If it wasnt at least in part about slavery, why choose that election to secede? The issue of states rights had been hot button since the First Continental Congress...if it was just about that why join the United States at all? States Rights was part of it, but it was the "right to have slaves" which was the state right they cared about plain and simple.

BTW the states rights crowd should take notice that the Confederate Government failed miserably. Hell by 1863 Jeff Davis was basically organizing it more like a federal system than a states system because it wasnt working.

 

[Foxton]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

I think that we both agree that without slavery, the Civil War would not have happened.

Yup

Thus the fundamental underlying question of the civil war had to do with the balance of power between the individual states and the federal government.

I fail to see how this holds water when the southern states were perfectly willing to use the federal gov't in favor of slavery. Along with the other actions where they would try to fix elections and make sure new states would be slave ones.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

The issue of states rights had been hot button since the First Continental Congress...if it was just about that why join the United States at all?

The 3/5ths Compromise.

 

[Handyman]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

The 3/5ths Compromise.

Math is for elitists

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Math is for elitists

That's why the GOP banned math and science in the debt ceiling deal. Real 'Murcans don't need those.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

That's why the GOP banned math and science in the debt ceiling deal. Real 'Murcans don't need those.

Don't forget the corporate jets. And that people making 250K are "millionaires and billionaires." Seems like the Fresh Prince from Back of the Yards has a little math problem of his own.

 

[Almington]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

It is more than a nugget, both issues were equally underlying the war wasnt fought for either exclusively or even mostly. The Confederate States thought Lincoln would free the slaves and with their hatred of a federal system used that as the reason to secede. They can pretend it was one or the other all they want (and so can we) but history does not back up the theory. It is one of many great fallacies of the Civil War. It is put forth because it makes the South look less racist (we are fighting for rights, not to keep black people as our free help) and it makes the North look like civil rights heros! (we are fighting to save black people, not to teach the Rebs not to screw with us!)

If it wasnt at least in part about slavery, why choose that election to secede? The issue of states rights had been hot button since the First Continental Congress...if it was just about that why join the United States at all? States Rights was part of it, but it was the "right to have slaves" which was the state right they cared about plain and simple.

BTW the states rights crowd should take notice that the Confederate Government failed miserably. Hell by 1863 Jeff Davis was basically organizing it more like a federal system than a states system because it wasnt working.

It was about slavery, I'm not questioning that. The point in question (as I see it) is: 1.) We are worried that the North dominated federal government is going to stomp on states rights and ban slavery unilaterallyOR 2.) We are worried that the tide is turning against slavery everywhere in general and to keep our hold on power we have to succeed from the Union under guise of state's rights.

I think that the answer is more 2.) than 1.) if "we" refers to the rich, white slaveholders in power, but more 1.) than 2.) if we are talking why the people of the south supported the war.

But yes, a loose confederation of independent states has generally never worked because without highly coordinated and centralized organized efforts the whole system is inefficient.

 

[Handyman]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

But yes, a loose confederation of independent states has generally never worked because without highly coordinated and centralized organized efforts the whole system is inefficient.

Communist!!

 

[Almington]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Communist!!

You have found me out. I must flee now!

In any organization, without a strong central management the efforts will not be optimized for the best use of resources.

 

[Handyman]

You have found me out. I must flee now!

In any organization, without a strong central management the efforts will not be optimized for the best use of resources.

All I hear is "blah blah blah...proliteriate...derp derp derp...Marx rules...yada yada yada...STALIN!!!!"

 

[Almington]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

All I hear is "blah blah blah...proliteriate...derp derp derp...Marx rules...yada yada yada...STALIN!!!!"

blah blah blah...propaganda...derp derp derp...Hegel rules...yada yada yada...Lumpenproletariat!!!!

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Thoroughly entertaining.