Posted on 03/26/2010 3:33:06 PM PDT by Ptarmigan
Since we are in very polarized and charged times right now. I have noticed many parallels between right now and the Civil War of the 19th century. Wars are usually stemming from so many factors. For example World War I stemmed from most of Europe was ruled by empires, alliances, and arms race.
Somethings I notice similarities with today and before the Civil War.
Civil War State's Rights Commerce Regulation Highly polarized Talks of secession from the Union
Today State's Rights Commerce Regulation Highly polarized Talks of secession from the Union
Notice any similarities? Of course this is not the 18th to 19th century America. The Civil War more due to slavery, economy, commerce, and loyalty to state. The Civil War pitted people against friends and families, who were either loyal to the Confederacy or Union. I have a feeling that the social ramifications of Health Care Reform will run deep for years to come. We could be pitted against each other since Health Care Reform passed.
The Civil War claimed 620,000 to 700,000 lives or about 2% of America (35,000,000 at the time), which today would translate into 6,000,000 killed. If a Civil War happened in the future, the death toll would be in the millions, somewhere in the neighbor of 6 to 20 million killed, which would be one of the deadliest wars in history. Also, many people would be displaced.
Are they exact carbon copies of each other. No, but similarities are there.
Keep paying your cable and sat TV bill to ensure that enslave all of us. TV is what is taking away our freedoms. It gives the Dems incredible power. Forget Fox too. They are only marginally better.
I don’t have satellite and cable TV period.
Ditto. Be ready, because it’s coming.
I don’t have tv by choice but i have internet.
I take internet over tv anyday and if you have cut off your service by choice over the ensuing months you will see what fools people are to watch it.
I have to agree. Obama reminds me a lot of Lincoln. Lincoln was so divisive and ideological that we got in a Civil War almsot immediately. Lincoln refused to visit the South, let alone talk with their leaders.
Civil War State's Rights Commerce Regulation Highly polarized Talks of secession from the UnionThis is true. Southern slave states were enraged when free Northern states refused to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act on states' rights grounds. The "central government" instincts of the South boiled over when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. Southern states thought that Lincoln would be sympathetic to Northern states' rights claims. It is likely that Lincoln would have relaxed enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, but I'm not sure that states' rights would have been his reason. The Southern opponents of the Northern states' right to not enforce laws untenable to them led the South to start the deadliest war in American history.
Then and now, the federal government abused states' rights.
0bama fancies himself the new Lincoln. I fear he will take us down the same path.
Notice how the talking heads on tv are trying to “tone down the rhetoric” last night and today? Doesn’t pay to give kooks any reason to go off. The media served their dumocrat masters and stirred up a hornets nest among the kooks. The race card was played and not only has it expired, the conservatives finally put them in their place. And in the meantime....average America’s conversation is still about fiscal/financial issues. You can bet the dumocrats are dumbfounded over this development:)
Many of the "foot soldiers" demographic are apt to divide largely along racial and ethnic lines. The druggies will be the "Bushwhackers" who will murder and pillage targets of opportunity in their quest for drugs and money.
If it comes to violence, it will be unbelievably nasty. Think: Bosnia, Chechnya...
So who is our modern John Brown? Where is the bloody border war between slave state and free?
I suppose the tea-partiers could be compared to the Abolitionists, except that it muddies the comparison of Lincoln to Obama since the new republican party was the party of abolition.
When the first Catholics voted to legalize abortion, in 1967 in California, and New York in 1970, Catholics begged the bishops to excommunicate these apostates.
No, no, no, the bishops said. That would be harsh. It’s better to dialogue with them.
That’s how bishops always prepare LATER GENERATIONS for martyrdom. Do nothing when the price of doing the right thing would be NOTHING. Do nothing until the price of doing the right thing is DEATH.
Our current bishops—like Chaput in Denver—are now lashing out at NETWORK, the CHA, and the LCWR—the pro-abortion nuns—when the bishops themselves have done much more to promote the pro-aborts in public office, and much more to promote this pro-abortion DeathCare law than anyone other than SEIU.
The Southern opponents of the Northern states’ right to not enforce laws untenable to them led the South to start the deadliest war in American history.
____________________________________________________________
Flip side to this view. The Southern states entered into the Union of their own volition and wished to withdraw from the Union of their own volition. Lincoln refused to give up a total Union. So, did the Southern states start the war or were they invaded by the Union?
Certainly there are parallels between the War of Northern Agression and our current situation. Boiling away all the peripheral issues, it came down to a matter of who was in control of business, commerce, politics and MONEY — the several States and We The People, OR the Federal Government?
The conclusion of the last “civil war” actually set us on the course and lead us to the place we are today. We are just 150 years further along the road to Central/Statist control over our affairs. Washington DC has repeatedly tried to push that control to it’s logical extremes...
After the Civil War, there was Reconstruction, then the Progressive Movement which gave us Teddy Roosevelt (Republican) and Woodrow Wilson (which gave us the income tax, direct election of Senators, the Fed, and the beginning of internationalism). Next came FDR and the “New Deal” which gave us massive government beauracracies, Social Security, Interstate Commerce Clause corruption and the imperial presidency. This was followed by LBJ’s “Great Society,” which Nixon did almost nothing to reverse, and in fact solidified, producing the Welfare State and HUGE entitlement programs, and unpegged us from the Gold Standard. And then there was the failed attempt of Carter and Clinton to nationalize portions of the economy, and the apparent ascendence (for now) of the Obamunist evolution into a true Marxist/Socialist state that had finally all but discarded the Constitution and mocked the will of the people.
We have to see these things as a long continuum, not isolated events in our history. Our present circumstances are the END result of efforts that have been going on for a century and a half. Now, we have to ask — can anything be done to stop it? What MUST we do to stop it?
Here is one thing I will NOT do — that is, INITIATE any kind of violence as a means of fighting it. Like the Minutemen at Lexington and Concord, MA, standing on the greens PREPARED and determined is one thing. Firing the first shot is another (The “shot heard round the world” remains a mystery — but it was NOT likely an intentional shot fired by a patriot). The mistake made by the Confederacy (though I fully understand WHY they made it) was firing ON Fort Sumter, instead of trying to starve out the Feds in the intermediate/long term. They could have worn out Washington, but their fervor for secession didn’t allow for that. One campaign, against all odds was successful, the other was not. There are lessons to be learned there. If we REALLY are contemplating something as serious as civil unrest, perhaps even “civil war,” we would do WELL to learn them.
Amen. I totally agree. There are a few things I would like to see but very few. I do not miss TV.
The NFL has even become a propaganda tool for Obama. I had to watch a game at relatives during a holiday.
The $55 a month savings will go towards helping JD Hayworth and other conservatives. I will never go back to TV. Fox has Saudi ownership and they are only marginally better.
You can join Netflix and I think the owners are not libs. Did you ever see the movie the Matrix? When I killed TV - I felt like I left the Matrix (make believe world of lies & propagnda).
I can listen to Rush and maybe Savage. Rush really is the best.
I’m starting to think we would be better off if we just got rid of the heavily abused federal interstate Commerce powers all together.
Maybe even their international Commerce Regulation powers as well.
This is just not an issue that has worked out well for us primarily because of the tendency of the Federal government to find ways abuses this power.
Even the basic theory behind it as explained in Federalist 42, has not been implementable in truth, nor could it be implementable and still respect the rights of the people to govern themselves.
The utilization of the Califorina and other west coast ports are clear evidence to that effect.
I like to prohibition on the states directly getting revenue from the taxing of something simply because it leaves or enters their domain.
But if the interstate commerce clause is able to be mutated as to apply to anything more then the ability of the federal government to shut down such borders, it is an easily abusively miss-construed power.
I think it should be clearly eliminated or simply stated as only to consist of the power to close borders to trade and immigration across State lines but NOT within the States themselves.
this is basically the way it is suppose to be with the additional power of the federal government being able to close down state level restrictions to the same.(dealing with the State NOT individuals!)
But that power should be removed, if a state wants to shut down its borders both ways to any kind of trade, let it.
“It won’t be North against South this time. It will be the cities against the suburbs and rural areas.
You know..I was thinking of that today. We fight and they react by burning down the cities...SO WHAT? Let em burn.
We can live without them, but they cant live without us.
Flip side to this view. The Southern states entered into the Union of their own volition and wished to withdraw from the Union of their own volition. Lincoln refused to give up a total Union. So, did the Southern states start the war or were they invaded by the Union?
We can agree that the Southern states entered the Union voluntarily. But the Union is "perpetual". Secession is unconstitutional. Like little kids who didn't get their way, the South threw a temper tantrum. This time, though, the stakes were exceedingly high.
Confederates fired the first shots (Ft. Sumter). Confederates shed the first blood (Baltimore Riot). Yes indeed. The South started the war. The reason is that they would no longer tolerate the states' rights position of the North.
Yes, TV (specially sports) empowers libs. Please people, kill the TV. Comcast will allow you to continue high-speed internet and discontinue CATV.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.