Confederate States Of America (2005)

Yahoo Movies ^ | 12/31/04 | Me

[Caipirabob]

What's wrong about this photo? Or if you're a true-born Southerner, what's right?

While scanning through some of the up and coming movies in 2005, I ran across this intriguing title; "CSA: Confederate States of America (2005)". It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.

Stars with bars:

Suffice to say anything from Hollywood on this topic is sure to to bring about all sorts of controversial ideas and discussions. I was surprised that they are approaching such subject matter, and I'm more than a little interested.

Some things are better left dead in the past:

For myself, I was more than pleased with the homage paid to General "Stonewall" Jackson in Turner's "Gods and Generals". Like him, I should have like to believe that the South would have been compelled to end slavery out of Christian dignity rather than continue to enslave their brothers of the freedom that belong equally to all men. Obviously it didn't happen that way.

Would I fight for a South that believed in Slavery today? I have to ask first, would I know any better back then? I don't know. I honestly don't know. My pride for my South and my heritage would have most likely doomed me as it did so many others. I won't skirt the issue, in all likelyhood, slavery may have been an afterthought. Had they been the staple of what I considered property, I possibly would have already been past the point of moral struggle on the point and preparing to kill Northern invaders.

Compelling story or KKK wet dream?:

So what do I feel about this? The photo above nearly brings me to tears, as I highly respect Abraham Lincoln. I don't care if they kick me out of the South. Imagine if GW was in prayer over what to do about a seperatist leftist California. That's how I imagine Lincoln. A great man. I wonder sometimes what my family would have been like today. How many more of us would there be? Would we have held onto the property and prosperity that sustained them before the war? Would I have double the amount of family in the area? How many would I have had to cook for last week for Christmas? Would I have needed to make more "Pate De Fois Gras"?

Well, dunno about that either. Depending on what the previous for this movie are like, I may or may not see it. If they portray it as the United Confederacy of the KKK I won't be attending.

This generation of our clan speaks some 5 languages in addition to English, those being of recent immigrants to this nation. All of them are good Americans. I believe the south would have succombed to the same forces that affected the North. Immigration, war, economics and other huma forces that have changed the map of the world since history began.

Whatever. At least in this alternate universe, it's safe for me to believe that we would have grown to be the benevolent and humane South that I know it is in my heart. I can believe that slavery would have died shortly before or after that lost victory. I can believe that Southern gentlemen would have served the world as the model for behavior. In my alternate universe, it's ok that Spock has a beard. It's my alternate universe after all, it can be what I want.

At any rate, I lived up North for many years. Wonderful people and difficult people. I will always sing their praises as a land full of beautiful Italian girls, maple syrup and Birch beer. My uncle ribbed us once before we left on how we were going up North to live "with all the Yankees". Afterwards I always refered to him as royalty. He is, really. He's "King of the Rednecks". I suppose I'm his court jester.

So what do you think of this movie?

[lentulusgracchus]

They do not find a law above the Constitution, they place themselves above the law.

It's true that the People are themselves above constitutions and laws, but it wasn't in that capacity that Lincoln and the Union States claimed to act, but under color of the authority of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. It was in the name of that clause that Lincoln declared insurrection (unconstitutionally) and summoned the State Militias (unconstitutionally). But if you're lying your ass off, you'd better lay a string of whoppers as fast as you can to keep the parade moving. Kinda like the Clintons.

[nolu chan]

No.

Is the reason you argue everything but the law, the simple fact that you cannot defend your positions based on the law?

[lentulusgracchus]

Seems that William Lloyd Garrison forgot to check with the Boss in New York. Business is business, after all.

Although I'm sure Garrison would have gone along, had Lincoln or Stanton whispered in his ear how many Southern cities, plantations, and farms they intended to burn to the ground or confiscate for "taxes due".

[lentulusgracchus]

The quote from this Hammond 'revolutionist' continues: ....

That's why they called him a "fire eater", dummy!

But then, you are selectively quoting from the most extreme opinion in the South to justify an enormous war crime. So I guess you need to "go for it" polemically.

[nolu chan]

[M. Espinola] If the American Constitution stated, on each Thursday of every 3rd week, all townships of over 2000 inhabitants, in all 13 new states, must only drink coffee to support the coffee interests, would you adhere to the 'law of the land'?

If the Supreme Court ruled that abortion, even late-term or partial-birth abortion were Constitutionally protected, and you felt it was infanticide, would you do something to close down the abortion mills beside talk and talk and talk about the moral outrage.

What would your sense of "higher law" authorize you to do to the abortionists?

[lentulusgracchus]

Pithy observation bump.

He doesn't have the law, so he can't pound the law. He doesn't have the facts, so he can't pound the facts. What he is doing is pounding the table and insisting that the man he shot was a dues-paying member of the Ku Klux Klan, so that makes it okay.

We've got the knife, we've got the facts, we've got the dead body, and we've got a few million eyewitnesses. So our friends have to pound the table to pieces.

[nolu chan]

[ftD] The fact that slavery was a knotty issue, one that many felt difficult to resolve, doesn't negate the fact that they did want it eradicated in principle and the South did not.

The fact that those who said they wanted slavery eradicated in principle were slave-owners all their adult lives and died slave-owners, and never freed their own slaves, demonstrates that their position is the same b-s as yours.

[lentulusgracchus]

There goes the stock market!

[nolu chan]

Just for added context, Garrison burned a copy of the Constitution in public.

[nolu chan]

In his special message to Congress of July 4, 1861, Lincoln appears to have asserted only one part of one clause of the Constitution, "The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the provision, that 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.' But, if a State may lawfully go out of the Union, having done so, it may also discard the republican form of government; so that to prevent its going out, is an indispensable means, to the end, of maintaining the guaranty mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means to it, are also lawful, and obligatory."

U.S. Const., Art 4, Sec 4: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

Lincoln carefully stopped quoting from that section before he reached the part that required, as a condition precedent for applicability or action, an "Invasion" or an "Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

There was clearly no "Invasion" of the North.

There was clearly no "Application" by the Legislature or Executive of any State.

The Army of the Potomac was not headed South to assist the marshals of the courts in putting down "domestic Violence."

[fortheDeclaration]

I did not say it was all about slavery, I said that despite what you want to believe, the Confederacy was fighting to defend slavery as a moral right.

No one is saying that those who are defending the confederacy are defending slavery, what we are saying is that the confederacy is not the model for American ideals and should not be put forth as such.

[fortheDeclaration]

ftD] The fact that slavery was a knotty issue, one that many felt difficult to resolve, doesn't negate the fact that they did want it eradicated in principle and the South did not. The fact that those who said they wanted slavery eradicated in principle were slave-owners all their adult lives and died slave-owners, and never freed their own slaves, demonstrates that their position is the same b-s as yours.

So no slaves were freed, and no states passed laws banning slavery since the Constitution was ratified?

Slavery, as Stephens noted, was considered immoral by the Founders, even if they were not consistent in how they dealt with it.

That view changed with the CSA constitution.

Much of the problem with slavery came from those who did intend to keep their 'property' and resisted efforts by the Founders to remove it.

So, those who were resistent ending up leading the nation into war so they could keep their 'property'

[Non-Sequitur]

I'll bet you personally could not frame, mount, and sustain an intellectual defense against the proposition that eugenics and euthanasia ought to be tools of social policy.

I think I probably could but I might disagree with you somewhere along the line and we both know how that just pisses you off no end.

[Non-Sequitur]

The U.S. Constitution recognized and protected the trade of slaves between states where slavery was lawful. You must have forgotten.

As did the confederate constitution. But the confederate constitution went a step further and specifically protected slave imports from one specific country. The U.S. Constitution did not.

[Non-Sequitur]

It was impossible to pass in the United States under the Constitution except by force of arms, wasn't it?

No, blissful one, I was referring to the hoops that the south had to jump through to amend their constitution. It could only be done on the demand of at least three states and then needed the approval of 2/3rds of the other states. Since every southern state constitution of the time that I've seen had a clause in it somewhere that prevented the legislature from passing any legislation that might negatively impact slavery then it's interesting to speculate what might have happened to such a proposed amendment. Wouldn't voting for a convention to consider such an amendment be considered legislation that might negatively impact slavery and, as a result, be unconstitutional? It would have made an interesting supreme court case, had such an institution existed in the confederacy.

[Non-Sequitur]

The Army of the Potomac was not headed South to assist the marshals of the courts in putting down "domestic Violence."

Well, no. They headed south to put down the war that the rebellious states started by firing on Sumter. Happy, happy nolu chan, you should know that.

[4CJ]

Stop doing a tap dance.

Take off the blackface.

[rustbucket]

They have confused the conservativism of the present South based on Christian values with that of the 1860 South, which had rejected those same values for 'science'(evolution)

Please provide documentation for your science and evolution claim.

[M. Espinola]

I am peeking in here, still tied up, but saw that comment on the stock market and had to ask .....any hot tips?? :)

I shall return ...(the last guy to make that statement took a few years to fulfill it.)

[M. Espinola]

I really wonder if you would have lifted a finger to end slavery or perpetuate it further. At least men such a Garrison had a conscience.