South celebrates Civil War, largely without slaves

independent_thinker2002 said:

Health care is too dangerous.

Funny.

He should have started a war instead. That's much safer.

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Obamacare wasn't really about providing healthcare. It was about the redistribution of income to achieve social justice.

There is a philosophical and practical tension between the ideals of liberty and equality. They had long been in a state of equilibrium. That is until Obama.

Obamacare is the incremental beginning of change in the balance between component elements of the ideal of personal liberty and the notion of equality of result.

The USA exists to advance and maintain the individual liberty of its citizens. To the extent it ceases to do so, it's legitimacy is called into question. The reason that is true is because the Constitution enshrines individual liberty, but not equality of result.

The component of individual liberty that I call personal autonomy would be sacrificed to achieve the redistribution of income necessary to achieve equality of result. That's the point.

Albert Di Salvo said:

Obamacare wasn't really about providing healthcare. It was about the redistribution of income to achieve social justice.

There is a philosophical and practical tension between the ideals of liberty and equality. They had long been in a state of equilibrium. That is until Obama.

Obamacare is the incremental beginning of change in the balance between component elements of the ideal of personal liberty and the notion of equality of result.

The USA exists to advance and maintain the individual liberty of its citizens. To the extent it ceases to do so, it's legitimacy is called into question. The reason that is true is because the Constitution enshrines individual liberty, but not equality of result.

The component of individual liberty that I call personal autonomy would be sacrificed to achieve the redistribution of income necessary to achieve equality of result. That's the point.

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Good grief.

independent_thinker2002 said:

Good grief.

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Oh My!

ten characters

danarhea said:

Again, you attempt to cover up the reason for the Civil War and secession, by fabricating a history that never was, and by providing red herrings and straw men in your vain attempt to prove that this was not about slavery. Who gives a rat's ass about what Lincoln thought? Lincoln did not secede from the Union. THE SOUTH DID, and here is why:


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It is not the North that seceeded from the Union. Neither was it Lincoln who split up the Union. Whatever Lincoln's motives were, for keeping the Union together, came AFTER the South seceeded, and is completely immaterial to the reason that the South left the Union. The reasons are in black and white, preserved for all forever, written in the very hands of those who seceeded.

Do I need to keep posting the writings of those who seceeded, or will you stop attempting to fabricate history? The ball is in your court. If you have a problem with what I posted here, don't take it up with me. Take it up, instead, with those who created the historical documents. Your beef is with them, but I have to tell you that you don't stand much of a chance winning the argument with them. After all, THEY are the ones who, in spite of your efforts to change history, created those documents.

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You're looking at this with a 21st Century mindset, which makes it impossible for you to understand the sources you've quoted.

apdst said:

You're looking at this with a 21st Century mindset, which makes it impossible for you to understand the sources you've quoted.

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Did "slavery" have a different definition back then?

Was it slang for pornography or something?

independent_thinker2002 said:

Did "slavery" have a different definition back then?

Was it slang for pornography or something?

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Nope, not even gonna touch that one...

independent_thinker2002 said:

I think you want your cake and to eat it too.

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A few other notes. If the CSA had maintained its independence, they would have taken Cuba, sparked the Spanish war early, in the 1870's. The CSA would have been closely allied with England and France and would have entered WW I much earlier.

Not only is the federal government powerful out of proportion to the power of the States, but the representative government (Congress) is too strong relative to the executive office. (This leaves only foreign affairs for Obama to screw up). The representative government has a no-limit credit card to go along with the out-of-proportion federal power.

I couldn't begin to list all the federal excesses at the expense of the states and making the 10th Amendment effectively invalid. Let's try.

- Federal Reserve
- EPA
- FCC
- FTC
- SSA
- SEC
- FDA
- FBI
- DEA
- Dept of Agriculture
- Dept of Commerce
- Dept of Justice
- Dept of Treasury
- Dept of Transportation
- Dept of Education
- Dept of Housing and Urban Dev
- Dept of Health and Human Services
- Dept of Labor
- Dept of Defense

**** the whole ****ing federal government. I ain't saying get rid of these agencies and departments, but their power should be limited and there should be State counterparts with power over each state.

Albert Di Salvo said:

The proof of the effectiveness of the public school system is in the quality of the education of American children when compared to foreign children who aren't subject to the American public school system.

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That depends on the nation in question. Most nations are mono-cultural. Some nations/cultures put a premium on education as a means of success. Some don't. In america we have numerous cultures/sub-cultures. To be fair if you want to compare us to say, germany or japan you would only include those cultures that value education. Think in terms of any of our middle and or upper class americans irrespective of their color. We would compare quite favoribly.

American children don't do well in comparison because their educations are generally inferior to the educations children receive in most of the rest of the world.

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Here's what happens in a typical american classroom. I'm teaching and I have a kid who isn't doing thier homework. I talk to their parents. I get one of two results. If the parents possess middle class/upper class aspirations they will make certain their children gets their homework done, and pronto! If their parents are lower socio-economic or belong to one of several different sub-cultures they will make excuses for their children, or blame me and I won't get the homework. I've taught in two small, rural schools with primarily low income children. What's more, I come from a poor working class family that didn't value education. I'm a high schoo dropout. I used to be one of those kids whose parents didn't really care if I did well in school or not.

What American teachers have produced is a pig's ear, and they are pretending it is a silk purse.

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There are bad teachers out there. Make no mistake. However, what I see, on a daily basis is teachers working long hard hours under a great deal of pressure. I see no lazy teachers or even administrators where I'm at. We're all working our asses off.

Teaching is an occupation not a profession. Professionals are fiduciaries who owe a duty to their clients. A duty of competence, loyalty, and the willingness to place their client's interests above their own. That's what lawyers, doctors, CPAs, and other professionals do.

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That's what teachers do too. We qualify as a profession.

If a professional screws up, she or he is liable for malpractice. If a teacher screws up nothing happens.

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Teachers are fired every year. Most of the time the principles make things so difficult they choose to leave. Test scores are now being used to punish those teachers and school districts that don't produce scores high enough for the state. Teachers in my school district are now being required to produce iep's for students. It's starting to suck out here.

Teacher's Unions are the main problem. Not parents.

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Teacher's unions serve as a source of monies for the democratic party. If you want your child to succeed in school he/she will. My son went to the same schools I taught in. He's now in graduate school.

"Teacher's unions serve as a source of monies for the democratic party."

What is the relationship between the decline in the standards of American public instruction and the rise of the Teacher' unions?

"That's what teachers do too. We qualify as a profession."

Do you carry Errors and Omissions insurance? Can you be sued for malpractice?

"That depends on the nation in question. Most nations are mono-cultural. Some nations/cultures put a premium on education as a means of success. Some don't. In america we have numerous cultures/sub-cultures. To be fair if you want to compare us to say, germany or japan you would only include those cultures that value education. Think in terms of any of our middle and or upper class americans irrespective of their color. We would compare quite favoribly."

In other words wealthy white and Asian American kids do really well. Black and Latino kids don't as a general rule.

My kids went to charter schools along with the kids of university faculty. All white and Asian. Charter schools are fine, but teacher's unions hate them.

Albert Di Salvo said:

"Teacher's unions serve as a source of monies for the democratic party."

What is the relationship between the decline in the standards of American public instruction and the rise of the Teacher' unions?

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None. What do you mean by the decline in american public instruction? We have more children than ever graduating high school and going to college. Some sub-populations do better than others. That has more to do with the socio-economic status/culture/sub-culture than anything else.

What many don't understand is learning isn't a static exercise. It requires an intense amount of effort on the part of the learner. That is why some sub-populations do better than others..........they have their parents behind them encouraging them to succeed in school.

Albert Di Salvo said:

"That depends on the nation in question. Most nations are mono-cultural. Some nations/cultures put a premium on education as a means of success. Some don't. In america we have numerous cultures/sub-cultures. To be fair if you want to compare us to say, germany or japan you would only include those cultures that value education. Think in terms of any of our middle and or upper class americans irrespective of their color. We would compare quite favoribly."

In other words wealthy white and Asian American kids do really well. Black and Latino kids don't as a general rule.My kids went to charter schools along with the kids of university faculty. All white and Asian. Charter schools are fine, but teacher's unions hate them.

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Race is a factor but not as much as you would imagine. If the parents are black and middle class the odds are their children will succeed in school. Latinos tend to have iq's between whites and blacks but have a lower graduation rate. The reason is their culture tends not to emphasize education as a means to get ahead in the world. The reality is poor whites, blacks, and hispanics have more cultural similarities than not.

In regards to asians it's also a mixed bag. The japanese and chinese tend to do better than others, because of culture.

This is the reason I cringe whenever somebody talks about the virtues of multi-culturalism. Many of america's newest immigrants represent a semi-permanent underclass. This isn't because of race, it's because of the culture they happen to be born into.

However, I've decided to go with the flow. I find I'm not very fond of my liberal brothers and sisters on the west coast, northeast, and parts in between. I was born into a traditional culture. I"ll keep it. I'll also continue to strive to help my own in my own way, by teaching just as hard and long as I can. If change is to come it needs to come from the bottom up. In my own little part of the world I intend to try to affect my fellows in a positive way. The liberal bastions of this nation can go to hell. I'm simply not interested in them.

Albert Di Salvo said:

"That's what teachers do too. We qualify as a profession."

Do you carry Errors and Omissions insurance? Can you be sued for malpractice?

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I'm a lousy speller. I was reading at a college level in high school but my writing has always been problematic. However, when necessary I do fine. I've managed two degrees. Perhaps the profession could get better individuals than myself. However, they'd have to pay for them.

Dutch said:

I'm a lousy speller. I was reading at a college level in high school but my writing has always been problematic. However, when necessary I do fine. I've managed two degrees. Perhaps the profession could get better individuals than myself. However, they'd have to pay for them.

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In this plane of existence one tends to get what they pay for. Parents can save their children with money or heroic effort to attain a first rate education.

In my town we have a charter school that is in the top ten public high schools in the country. That charter school actively recruits Latinos and Mexicans. They don't attend. Why? Bad parents. Yes, not everything is the fault of teachers. I stand corrected.

Bad Latino and Mexican parents have condemned their children to a life time of inferiority, and they have condemned all other Americans to try to deal with the problems created by their gangbanging children.

Not all cultures are equal. Chinese culture is superior to White, Black and Latino American cultures. The whites are weak and aimless, the blacks won't stay with the women they impregnate, and Latinos don't value education.

independent_thinker2002 said:

Did "slavery" have a different definition back then?

Was it slang for pornography or something?

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You continue to prove my point, since you haven't dealt with the fact that your garden variety Confederate soldier wasn't fighting to preserve slavery. They were fighitng to protect their rights and to defend their homes from what they percieved as a usurping and invading government.

Your average southerner believed that if the government could take slaves from the ultra-rich, then the property rights of the working class meant alot less.

The reasons that men fought for the Confederacy are so complex and dynamic, that to say it was, "all about preserving slavery", is a simple minded and uninformed prespective of that entire period of American history.

1st Manassas started on the farm of a man named James Robinson; a freed slave. A freed slave, living in Confederate Virginia. Think about that one for a second.

Longstreet lamented in 1863, that they should have freed the slaves and then fired on Sumter.

Lee and Jackson petitioned the Confederate Congress to free slaves, in return for two years service in the Confederate Army.

Anyone with even a little knowledge of the Civil War, knows that it wasn't, "all about preserving slavery". Had that been the case, Confederate generals, who had been born and raised in the north, would have never served in the Confederate Army. Sherman would have never written a letter to a southern politician, claiming that, "we both know that this war has nothing to do with freeing, nor keeping in bondage, the nigger".

apdst said:

You continue to prove my point, since you haven't dealt with the fact that your garden variety Confederate soldier wasn't fighting to preserve slavery. They were fighitng to protect their rights and to defend their homes from what they percieved as a usurping and invading government.

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It doesn't matter what the average soldier was fighting for. The average soldier didn't make the policies that led to the war.

apdst said:

Your average southerner believed that if the government could take slaves from the ultra-rich, then the property rights of the working class meant alot less.

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The government wasn't confiscating black folk.

It would behoove you to not mention slaves when arguing that slaves were not one of the reasons for secession. :lol:

apdst said:

The reasons that men fought for the Confederacy are so complex and dynamic, that to say it was, "all about preserving slavery", is a simple minded and uninformed prespective of that entire period of American history.

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I never said it was all about slavery. I know this won't stop you from repeating that I did. :roll:

Civic duty and ethnocentric rational was probably the most common reasons.

apdst said:

1st Manassas started on the farm of a man named James Robinson; a freed slave. A freed slave, living in Confederate Virginia. Think about that one for a second.

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Okay, I thought about it. "An injustice against one is an injustice to all." came to mind.

apdst said:

Longstreet lamented in 1863, that they should have freed the slaves and then fired on Sumter.

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They should have left the word "slave" out of their letters of secession too.

apdst said:

Lee and Jackson petitioned the Confederate Congress to free slaves, in return for two years service in the Confederate Army.

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apdst said:

Anyone with even a little knowledge of the Civil War, knows that it wasn't, "all about preserving slavery". Had that been the case, Confederate generals, who had been born and raised in the north, would have never served in the Confederate Army. Sherman would have never written a letter to a southern politician, claiming that, "we both know that this war has nothing to do with freeing, nor keeping in bondage, the nigger".

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Did you miss the post where I told you that you should have mentioned the tariffs? I never said that it was "all about preserving slavery".

independent_thinker2002 said:

Did "slavery" have a different definition back then?

Was it slang for pornography or something?

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I'll touch it.

Slavery back then was about property. They truely believed that slaves were at worse animals, at best sub-human. Animals of today are considered property. Even to the people who love them so much that they let their animals have the whole house while they sleep in a room no bigger than a jail cell.

Today slavery is about people. Not property. So if you're going to look at the reasons that the Civil War started then you have to understand that it was about property and taxes. Not about people and taxes. It is all about thier point of view. Your point of view is about people. Thiers was about property.

hmm...I've repeated myself here yes. Mainly to try and get a point across so I tried repeating myself in different ways. Hope it will help.

Kal'Stang said:

I'll touch it.

Slavery back then was about property. They truely believed that slaves were at worse animals, at best sub-human. Animals of today are considered property. Even to the people who love them so much that they let their animals have the whole house while they sleep in a room no bigger than a jail cell.

Today slavery is about people. Not property. So if you're going to look at the reasons that the Civil War started then you have to understand that it was about property and taxes. Not about people and taxes. It is all about thier point of view. Your point of view is about people. Thiers was about property.

hmm...I've repeated myself here yes. Mainly to try and get a point across so I tried repeating myself in different ways. Hope it will help.

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Just because they suspend logic to rationalized and justify their exploitation and imprisonment of people. Sorry, I'm can't suspend reality. They were people back then too. Just because it was acceptable back then doesn't make it any less illogical and abhorrent. I know that they thought dark people could be property. It's absurd on it's face. Something that absurd is likely not going to end well. It didn't end well for them.

Dutch said:

Race is a factor but not as much as you would imagine. If the parents are black and middle class the odds are their children will succeed in school

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Thomas Sowell has done some very interesting work with this. for example, black children raised in a house with a library card do just as well as white children raised in houses with library cards.

independent_thinker2002 said:

Just because they suspend logic to rationalized and justify their exploitation and imprisonment of people. Sorry, I'm can't suspend reality. They were people back then too. Just because it was acceptable back then doesn't make it any less illogical and abhorrent. I know that they thought dark people could be property. It's absurd on it's face. Something that absurd is likely not going to end well. It didn't end well for them.

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Of course it is absurd, illogical, and abhorrent. To our 21st century way of thinking. Put yourself in their shoes and it is not quite absurd, illogical, and abhorrent. Back then anything that wasn't just like them was not human. Anything not human could be and should be exploited to further their goals. We are no different today in those respects. Only difference is that we have more accepted knowledge than they did.

Kal'Stang said:

Of course it is absurd, illogical, and abhorrent. To our 21st century way of thinking. Put yourself in their shoes and it is not quite absurd, illogical, and abhorrent. Back then anything that wasn't just like them was not human. Anything not human could be and should be exploited to further their goals. We are no different today in those respects. Only difference is that we have more accepted knowledge than they did.

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Knowledge?

They weren't livestock. If one was injured or ill they didn't call a veterinarian.

They also had sex with them.

independent_thinker2002 said:

Knowledge?

They weren't livestock. If one was injured or ill they didn't call a veterinarian.

They also had sex with them.

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They often didn't call anyone if one was sick. As for the sex...people now a days have sex with animals. It would be the same equivilant of grossness back then I would imagine.

Ikari said:

Not sure it's "sending the wrong message". The celebration isn't so much over the Civil War itself; but the actual secession from the union itself. In general, it's not a bad thing. There is plenty of history which cannot be ignored, but at the same time we can't really apply the conditions of the Civil War to the current celebration which attempts to exalt State "rights". Slavery was a large reason as to why we fought the Civil War, but it's a dead institituion now and these people are not celebrating slavery or making some movement to reinstall it. Rather, they are celebrating the fact that 11 States broke off from the Union and essentially making the claim that secession is still valid.

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I don't understand why secession should be celebrated.. I believe in state's rights, but I don't think secession is needed in order to practice state's rights.

Ikari said:

Yes it does, because it is in fact the same act. Here you have some people celebrating secession and you're jumping up and down screaming racism. They're honoring the history of the Civil War meaning they are celebrating the use of slavery in the South prior to. They are exalting the practice! This is in essence your argument. It's the same for those military history nerds who like to dress up and reenact wars. You can say the same damned things. But it seems that you won't. They're celebrating the war, they're upholding whatever values were expressed by the nation whose military uniform the reenactor is currently wearing. Oh this and that, blah blah blah.

You see in the end, it's a very stupid argument. You won't apply it to one side even though it fits pretty much with the case in which you are willing to apply it in. And a man thinks this is because you look favorably perhaps on one hobby such as historical war reenactment, but poorly on a group of people who wanted to throw a secession party. So given the personal bias, you apply your flawed logic in one case, but not the other.



And a very poor case it is.



Not jumping to conclusions? Yeah, I suppose that is a typical libertarian view. You want to pretend there's an undertone; that's fine. People who look to make the slightest thing into political fodder will often pretend things exist which don't.

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I haven't read the entire thread but I am struggling to understand why you are so incapable of seeing this from somebody else's POV... Whenever somebody celebrates anything related to the south's role in the Civil War, the issue of slavery is going to come up.

The argument thus far is..
You: They're not celebrating slavery, they are celebrating secession
Them: Slavery was the motive behind secession.

You: They are not celebrating slavery... They have a right to secede, the north had a right to defend the republic and the south lost. It isn't about slavery.

It's really just a circular debate..

People are going to keep brining up slavery, because they don't understand it from your POV either.. but you're the one saying people are stupid for gripping about slavery and not seeing it from your POV.

I don't have a problem with people celebrating states rights, but anything like this is going to cause people to think about slavery... Can't they celebrate states rights another way? with another issue? something less controversial than this issue?

And I hate to say it, but I think it should be brought up and mentioned.. I could really see some racist groups being attracted to a celebration like this. I can't envision blacks and whites celebrating this together like everything is hunky dory either.. just ignoring the aspect of slavery, I kind of doubt it given the family histories of both races in the south.

Martin Luther King JR could very well be alive today if he wasn't assassinated (although it's more likely he would have died in our lifetime).. My gran's friend remembers segregation, so that history is still alive today. It's going to be naturally hard for people to just ignore all that, and quietly respect the south celebrating starting the civil war.