What Should a First-Time Visitor to America Read?

National Review ^ | April 7 2018 | Daniel Gerelnter

[iowamark]

A friend recently posed this question: “If you had to recommend one book for a first-time visitor to the U.S. to read, to understand our country, what would it be and why?”...

If the goal is an education, we could recommend Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager’s Growth of the American Republic, a two-volume history that used to be required reading...

Huckleberry Finn may be the greatest American novel... But there is no single novel, no matter how great, that can do the job alone.

Consider instead the great American essayists who invented a new style of writing in the 1920s and founded The New Yorker. E. B. White’s One Man’s Meat is the finest such essay collection... Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel is nearly as great...

Teddy Roosevelt’s short book The Strenuous Life, which opens with his 1899 speech by that name, is an explanation of America’s view of itself — a view that greatly shaped the 20th century. It was the peculiar marriage of power and prosperity together with a sense of moral urgency. Roosevelt demands an active life, a life of struggling for personal and national virtue. He commends a triad of strength in body, intellect, and character — of which character is the most important. America must meet its moral obligations vigorously, he tells us: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”...

The origin of that moral urgency was America’s most important spiritual crisis. It is best expressed in a single speech, rich in Biblical imagery and contemporary prophecy: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which is the greatest of all American writing. It is a tone-poem or photograph of the American soul. A complete understanding, in just 697 words.

[x]

But I have learned that Nazi style "crony capitalism" is also a threat to liberty.

So now it's about Nazis? A sure sign you're losing it.

For better or for worse, we have big businesses in America, but those aren't all concentrated in one city or one part of the country.

Nor were they really in 1860. One city was bigger than the others, but it wasn't government edicts that made it large or profitable.

Government action -- splitting up the country -- wouldn't suddenly achieve your goal of "social justice."

When influence becomes so large that it can set government policy, it has become a threat to the rest of the nation.

Slavery wasn't an interest so large that it could set government policy?

Land hunger wasn't an interest so large that it set government policy in Jackson's day?

It's not just "special interests" in faraway New York that can be dangerous.

P.S. Your ideas really aren't that interesting. People just respond to you because you're always posting some nonsense or other.

[DiogenesLamp]

So now it's about Nazis? A sure sign you're losing it.

Have you ever studied the Nazi government structure? I was enlightened to it many years back by another Freeper who told me a lot more about it than I knew.

Wealthy and powerful people were allowed to retain control of their companies, but they were put into close intimate contact with German government officials to oversee and manage what they were doing. Smaller companies were forced to disband by law, and all the rest took direction from the state.

The point here is that there was massive collusion between the German Government and the Elite businessmen who ran their various corporations.

I mentioned the Nazis because it is the closest thing to the direction we have been going. The Freeper I mentioned (who's name I have forgotten) had a *LOT* of information about the Nazi industry/government power structure and the Nazi economic system. Everyone should familiarize themselves with this system, because as I said, this is what things are starting to look like here.

For better or for worse, we have big businesses in America, but those aren't all concentrated in one city or one part of the country.

Nor were they really in 1860. One city was bigger than the others, but it wasn't government edicts that made it large or profitable.

Did we come to a conclusion about whether or not "trade" was the life-blood of New York?

Government action -- splitting up the country -- wouldn't suddenly achieve your goal of "social justice."

Keeping the Country together would obviously do nothing for the cause of "social justice" either. I think this is pretty good evidence that no one was motivated by "social justice" in that conflict.

Slavery wasn't an interest so large that it could set government policy?

Obviously not. And even if it were in control of the Government, what would it have done? How would you advance the interests of slave holders if they controlled the government?

It's not just "special interests" in faraway New York that can be dangerous.

You haven't noticed how their puppet News Services are trying to take down Trump? You didn't notice how they tried to put that corrupt Nazi psycho hate witch in power?

I think those who control the news are a lot more dangerous than those who do not. There is a reason all the dictators first gain control of the propaganda apparatus. There is a reason they allow no other messages to compete with their own.

[x]

Did we come to a conclusion about whether or not "trade" was the life-blood of New York?

I think we decided that was a trick question.

Did we ever come to a conclusion about the other question, the one Pubbie has been trying to get you to answer?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "What was it they did to "assault" Fort Barrancas?
My recollection is that they noticed activity, and simply went there to see what was going on, and then they got shot at by the Union soldiers there."

History says: "guards repelled a group of local civilians who intended to occupy the fort."

I'd call that an "assault", but think carefully before you deny everything.
If there was no "assault", if there was no intent to take over Fort Barrancas by force, then we are really just talking about some innocent civilians out for a midnight walk who happened to stroll past the fort while the guard shift was doing routine target practice.

In short, that makes the incident totally innocent and therefore nothing -- repeat nothing -- to do with Civil War.
For this January 1861 incident to be "first shots of the Civil War" that "group of local civilians" must have had nefarious intentions to assault & occupy Fort Barrancas.

If their intentions were innocent, it was not Civil War.
So which was it, Civil War or not Civil War?

[DiogenesLamp]

I think we decided that was a trick question.

I figured we might, because answering it accurately will support my position, but will go against yours. :)

Harbor cities don't get rich by growing corn. They get rich by facilitating trade. Other industries follow, but it is the trade activity that gains them their initial capital. New York is wealthy precisely because it has an excellent natural harbor. The same is true of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and various other major port cities. Geography decreed that they would become locations of cities, and those cities would become wealthy.

Did we ever come to a conclusion about the other question, the one Pubbie has been trying to get you to answer?

I think we have all came to our own conclusions about that. So far as i'm concerned, it is a pointless effort to dramatize the entire focus so that someone can once more beat the drum of virtue signaling; So that someone can once more regurgitate the propagandized position that has been taught to all of us as we were growing up;

So that they can once more focus the spotlight on something they regard as emotionally satisfying, but which does not actually fit the facts, though people are intent on ignoring that bit of inconvenience.

[DiogenesLamp]

"guards repelled a group of local civilians who intended to occupy the fort."

And where did you get that? I would guess it came from the people doing the shooting, and it may not accurately reflect what occurred.

On the night of Jan. 8, the men had raised a drawbridge around the fort, which dated to when Spain controlled Florida, because of growing tensions in the surrounding Naval yard, said historian David Ogden, a ranger at Gulf Islands National Seashore.

According to Slemmer's report, just after midnight, guards heard footsteps outside and challenged the intruders and heard no response, Ogden said. Slemmer made no mention of shots being fired.

...

Ogden and others said it's a stretch to say what happened at Fort Barrancas started the Civil War — the would-be attackers, a small group of drunken and rowdy locals, left as soon as the warning shot sounded — if there ever was one. The National Park Service has marked some anniversaries of the incident with candlelight tours of the fort.

http://www.salemnews.com/news/world_and_national_news/who-fired-first-civil-war-shot-a-dispute-in-fla/article_2eb7b067-1ba8-5245-9aca-3e179a86098b.html

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird post #244 regarding the January 8 incident at Fort Barrancas: "The fort sat on sovereign Florida territory and was being illegally held by federal troops....and they are the ones who fired first."

DiogenesLamp #286, quoting: "...the would-be attackers, a small group of drunken and rowdy locals, left as soon as the warning shot sounded — if there ever was one. "

So, "drunken and rowdy locals" was it?
That's fine, I have no problem with it, but then have we established that FLT-bird's ludicrous post is simply blind hatred speaking, unconnected to anything factual?

Thank you.

[DiogenesLamp]

It's sometimes difficult to get accurate information because so many people have got their fingers into it in an effort to manipulate events to their advantage.

I try to cut through all the bullsh*t.

I see one side was going to lose a huge amount of future revenue, and the other side was going to gain a huge amount of revenue. Therefore I regard this as a more plausible cause than after "four score and seven years", people suddenly started caring so much about slaves that they decided to start a war on their behalf.

No, it's about the money. It's always about the money.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I don’t want to come to my own conclusion, I want you to specify exactly what YOU were signaling when you posted that the North was trying to force social changes on the South. It’s not like we all smell something bad and I’m demanding to know who farted. Just explain what you meant. How simple is that?

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "Sending a fleet of warships into another country’s territorial waters with hostile intent - that’s war."

But regardless of whose country it was, there was no "hostile intent", it was a resupply mission with specific orders: no first use of force.
Equivalent then to resupplying or reinforcing our base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba today.
It was not an act of war and was actually irrelevant to Jefferson Davis' demand for Fort Sumter's surrender, under threat of military assault, which certainly was an act of war.

FLT-bird: "The fort sat on sovereign Florida territory and was being illegally held by federal troops....and they are the ones who fired first."

The January 8 incident happened two days before Florida declared secession and it involved, as DiogenesLamp pointed out: "the would-be attackers, a small group of drunken and rowdy locals, left as soon as the warning shot sounded — if there ever was one."

In other words, it had nothing -- repeat nothing -- to do with Civil War.

FLT-bird: "Again false.
Federal troops illegally occupied installations on territory that belonged to the sovereign states."

There is no law on any book anywhere in the world which says that a government's property becomes not its property just because some local citizens declare secession.
The US Constitution gives Congress -- and nobody else -- authority to dispose of Federal property.

FLT-bird: "Nope. Unvarnished truth. You just can’t handle it."

No, your posts are total fantasy, not a word of truth in them, so nothing for me to "handle".
Nice try though.

FLT-bird: "No, its not that they believed they could not.
It is that they chose not to.
They could any time they wanted to."

Clearly, on April 4, 1861, when Virginians voted against secession, they believed the reasons for secession as expressed by South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas and Rhett's address were not adequate to justify Virginia's secession.
But after Jefferson Davis started war at Fort Sumter, most Virginians changed their minds... well, West Virginians did not.
Clearly civil war was the clincher for Virginians, where issues of slavery or tariffs, etc., had not been.

And one reason is that Virginia's Constitution signing statement requires "injury or oppression" before "withdrawing".

FLT-bird: "Lincoln deliberately provoked war and did so without the consent of Congress."

The only provocations for war came from Confederates' seizure of many Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. -- threatening of Union officials, firing at Union ships and forcing the surrender of Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.

FLT-bird: "as Shelby Foote wrote in The Civil War, 'Lincoln had maneuvered [the Confederates] into the position of having either to back down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war.' "

But there was no "maneuvering" by Lincoln.
From Day One Confederates threatened & provoked war.
Lincoln merely gave them an opportunity to, as some would say: put their money where their mouth is.
And there was no "maneuvering" in that, since Lincoln only did what he must do to support Union troops in Fort Sumter.

FLT-bird: "I didn’t say it had 'nothing to do with' slavery.
You said it was “all about” slavery.
That is false."

So here's the truth "you just can't handle": by the words of secessionists themselves, even Robert Rhett's address, it was more about slavery than about all other issues combined.
And that's a fact, but you will never confess it, right?

FLT-bird: "Rhett went on at length explaining how the Northern states saw fit to use their larger population and thus more representation in Washington DC to levy tariffs on the South that were very harmful to the Southern economy in order to serve their own interests AND that the Southern states did not have enough votes to prevent this exploitation."

But what people like Rhett refused to confess was: until Fire Eaters like himself broke apart the national Democrat party in 1860 over slavery, "the South" had many friends & allies in the North, East and West, allies they could count on to support the South in any matters of importance.
That's precisely why & how Democrats ruled over Washington, DC, from about 1800 until secession in 1861.

So the number one blame for what Rhett complained about was: Rhett himself.
Think about it.

FLT-bird: "He [Rhett] explained how this was exactly the same as the situation the 13 colonies found themselves in when they seceded from the British Empire in 1776."

Ah, but in fact there was no similarity whatsoever -- none, zero, nada similarities -- because in 1776 Americans had zero representation in Parliament, none, while in 1860 Southern Democrats still controlled the majority in the Senate, the President and Supreme Court (i.e., Dred Scott).
And they would have continued in substantial control if people like Rhett himself had not broken up the national Democrat party over slavery (yes, that was "all about slavery") in 1860, thus throwing the election to "Ape" Lincoln and his Black Republicans.

FLT-bird: "But of course you knew that and were trying to obfuscate."

Nothing to obfuscate, but a good many of your posts lead me to suspect that you truly don't know the real history and have been big-time victimized by pro-Confederate propaganda.

FLT-bird: "South Carolina laid out the legal case for saying the Northern states violated the compact.
That alone was sufficient."

So first of all, just so we're clear on this: that "legal case" was indeed "all about slavery", nothing else.
Second, that "legal case" was itself ludicrous since every condition it described had been tolerated by South Carolina for decades without secession.
There was nothing new in November of 1860 -- no new laws, no new "oppression", not even a new Congress yet.
And that's what makes those declarations of secession at pleasure.
Literally, in November 1860 there was no new material cause, and no old cause which had been previously considered necessary for secession.

FLT-bird: "Even though it was not unconstitutional they attached Rhett’s Address in which he accurately laid out the economic exploitation of the Southern states by the Northern states via the tariff and via grossly unequal federal expenditures."

But there was nothing "accurate" about such analysis.
Federal spending in 1860 was roughly equal, North & South, and tariffs were then about as low as they had ever been.
So Rhett's rhetoric was all just stuff & nonsense.

FLT-bird: "Georgia laid out the legal case for accurately saying the Northern states violated the compact - namely, their refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution."

A false case after the Compromise of 1850 made enforcement of Fugitive Slave laws a Federal not state responsibility.
And Federal government was ruled by Southern Democrats who could enforce Fugitive Slave provisions to their hearts desire.
Further, Georgia even more than South Carolina, had no legal standing to complain about Fugitive slaves since few if any could make it across at least four slave-catching states before reaching any kind of sanctuary in the North.

So it was all bogus!!

FLT-bird: "This is an outright lie.
Rhett didn’t make slavery a wedge issue.
Northern politicians and business interests did in order to unite Northern votes for a sectional party which would favor ruinously high protective tariffs to be levied on goods owned by Southern importers."

But in 1860 Democrats were still a majority in many Northern states, enough to have prevented alleged "ruinously high protective tariffs" had they remained united with Southern Democrats.
It was Fire Eaters like Rhett, Yancey, Avery, Wigfall, etc., who insisted the Democrat party must split rather than compromise on slavery.

1856 Presidential election, note that Democrats still enjoyed majorities in several important Northern states:

FLT-bird: "and you conveniently left out the next part where it explains how Northern protectionists then started using the slavery issue as a wedge issue to try to build enough political support to jack the tariffs back up again."

And yet, from the time of the Tariff of Abominations in 1828 until secession in 1861 Tariffs went steadily downwards.

Tariffs did not seriously increase until after Democrats walked out of Congress and declared war on the United States.

As for Republicans wedging slavery to raise tariffs -- Whigs & Republicans always favored protective tariffs, but slavery only became their "wedge issue" when Southern Democrats gave it to them, by splitting their national Democrat party.

FLT-bird: "They voted as a block for a high protective tariff.
That was the central plank of the Republican party platform in 1860."

Hardly, the 1860 Republican platform had 17 planks.
Most complained about Democrat malfeasance, four talked about slavery directly, one, #12, mentions import duties.

As for "block voting" -- in 1852 virtually all Northerners were Democrats, whose party was ruled by Southern Democrats:

So if you claim Northerners were "block voters" then they were block Democrats.
They only reluctantly, gradually, became Republicans when Southern Democrats drove them away with such new legal theories as the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision.

FLT-bird: "The northern states had been enriching themselves at the Southern states’ expense since the beginning.
The only debate was would they do so in a more modest way which had been the case after the Tariff of Abominations was repealed following the Nullification Crisis, or would they go for super high tariffs again and really dig their paws deeply into Southern wallets again.
They opted for the latter.
The Southern states had seen this before and had had enough."

So you keep saying, but Confederates in early 1860 all said otherwise.
They said protecting slavery was their chief, if not only, reason for secession.
Tariffs were not even mentioned by most.
And those who did mention it still spent far more time on slavery.

FLT-bird: "Nope! It was pushed by Northern Protectionists like Abe Lincoln."

Northerners cared far less about percentages of tariffs than they did about the threat of expanding slavery where they didn't want it.
And expanding slavery was what Democrats were pushing (i.e., Dred Scott) in 1860.
Sure, Republicans were the anti-slavery party, but not because they wanted higher tariffs (that's insane), but rather because they didn't want slavery in their states & territories.

FLT-bird: "It had passed the House in the Spring of the previous year.
All that was needed was a little log rolling to pick off a vote or two in the Senate. "

Morrill was blocked by Senate Democrats in 1860 and could not pass in 1861 until after secessionists walked out.
Had Southerners remained united with their Northern Democrat allies, they could have forced a compromise much more to their own liking.
Compromise... you remember that, right, "the art of the deal" etc., etc.??

FLT-bird: "Yawn.
A weak attempt to blame Lee due to your personal bitterness.
The Federal government simply did not provide enough troops or resources as they had agreed to do when Texas joined the US.
Texans understood the Northern states acting through the federal government were to blame and furthermore that they had failed to provide the promised border security out of spite,"

I have no "personal bitterness" towards RE Lee, none, zero.
"Personal bitterness" is you Lost Causers' stock in trade, we don't need it.

But... speaking of weak arguments, could any be weaker than yours?
Remember, in 1860 Federal government was ruled by Southerners, the army was commanded by Southerners, Federal revenues to be spent on the military were set by Southerners and had been for nearly all of the past 60 years.
So, if Southerners weren't happy with Federal government, they simply weren't happy with themselves.
It's not the fault of Northerners if RE Lee could not adequately protect Texans from Indians or "banditti".

That's plenty enough for one post.
Will work on the remainder when time permits.

[SoCal Pubbie]

You continue to do a fine job putting the lie to the absurd justifications for Southern secession. I too plan a lengthy and detailed response addressing all the meandering posts made to me, but I’ve got to get some real work done before I can finish writing my opus! I plan to ping you when it’s posted. In the meantime, if I may, let me add something to your points on The Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott Decision.

Contrary to Southern claims of supporting States Rights, the Fugitive Slave Law overrode State law and demanded that free states yield to the Feds in regards to tracking down runaway slaves. It greatly expanded the Federal government by creating runaway slave commissions in every section of the country. The commissioners got paid $5 for every black exonerated and $10 for every black sent off in chains. Nice system, huh?

The law trampled over individual rights too. It denied blacks any rights in the matter whatsoever, including denying them the right to testify in their own defense. Northern freemen were in grave danger of being hauled south into slavery. There was no real system of identification and slave catchers could merely state that a person was who they were seeking. Whites too had their rights taken from them. They could be deputized against their will and forced to join posses to track down runaway slaves.

So it shows that Democrats haven’t changed much in 150 years. Not only are they still rejecting the results of elections like in 1860, but they were really the ones doing what they accused others of doing back then, just like today!

[x]

In other words “buying votes.” Why? To get into power. Why do they want power? To Enrich themselves. See where this is going?

Where this is going is to say that everybody in politics is only in it for the money. That's dubious to begin with, but how one gets back from such cynicism to any kind of morality is hard to say. I suspect your answer is that you are moral about everything - the world's moral yardstick, the one exception to all the world's materialism and opportunism. Like here:

I think you might very well be surprised. I don't like to talk about anything in my own personal life because information can provide your enemies with an advantage, but I grew up being taught that all this "stuff" is transitory, and in the larger scheme of things, meaningless.

I don't value "rich" things. I can afford "nice" stuff, I just don't care about it. If I had their wealth, I would probably try to wreck the existing media system, because I see it as the most dangerous force facing us.

Yeah. Everybody else is mercenary and materialistic, and you are the only exception. Yet another contradiction in your posts and world view. If it's all about money or power or position with other people, it's likely that the same is true with you.

Harbor cities don't get rich by growing corn. They get rich by facilitating trade. Other industries follow, but it is the trade activity that gains them their initial capital.

First, is that wrong? Is taking advantage of a good harbor immoral? Is New Orleans benefiting from being on the continent's biggest river system an unfair advantage? And really, what would early America's tobacco and cotton production have been with climate and the advantages of the Chesapeake Bay and the Mississippi River?

Second, contrary to what people now think, New York was long a major industrial center -- right up until the time the country as a whole started deindustrialization. Plenty of people in 19th and early 20th century Brooklyn worked in factories, workshops, machine shops, and shipyards. And New York City financed factories upstate and in the neighboring states.

So by the mid-19th century it wasn't all about trade and finance or all about cotton. A large population meant that New York was incredibly productive economically. New York's experience with shipping and commerce attracted industries and dealing with factories, workshops, and retailers improved the financial acumen of the city's bankers and merchants.

So far as i'm concerned, it is a pointless effort to dramatize the entire focus so that someone can once more beat the drum of virtue signaling; So that someone can once more regurgitate the propagandized position that has been taught to all of us as we were growing up;

So that they can once more focus the spotlight on something they regard as emotionally satisfying, but which does not actually fit the facts, though people are intent on ignoring that bit of inconvenience.

"Virtue signalling" is this year's buzz word, I guess. You can throw it about so liberally, that you don't notice the "virtue signalling," the pompous and phony moralizing, in your own posts and in every rant about the evil Republicans and big city people. What is a lot of the neo-confederate stuff but virtue signalling writ large?

[x]

No, it's about the money. It's always about the money.

Diogenes regards himself as an exception, so no, it must be that it's not all about the money.

[DiogenesLamp]

First, is that wrong? Is taking advantage of a good harbor immoral?

Morality has got nothing to do with it. It is an objective fact that the prime purpose of a harbor is to trade. New York is wealthy because it had a harbor that facilitated trade with Europe. It has now diversified, but the source of it's original wealth is that harbor.

Second, contrary to what people now think, New York was long a major industrial center -- right up until the time the country as a whole started deindustrialization.

So which came first? The Industry, or the Harbor? My understanding is that the one was the inevitable consequence of the other.

A large population meant that New York was incredibly productive economically.

I have a concept I would like to convey to you, but i'm not sure I can. I guess the closest approximation is this word "synergy", but that doesn't quite get the point across. Let me try a different way.

Suppose you have an engine. The engine has friction and it has load. The energy put into the engine must exceed the amount necessary to overcome the Friction and whatever load you wish to place on it.

What happens to an engine that is running under a load if you cut the fuel supply to it by some amount? It stalls and loses speed, if it does not falter and stop.

That is what was going to happen to New York in 1861 without a war. Think of it as a money engine that derives a significant portion of it's fuel from trade.

You can throw it about so liberally, that you don't notice the "virtue signalling," the pompous and phony moralizing, in your own posts and in every rant about the evil Republicans and big city people.

You are right. I don't notice any "virtue signaling" in my posts. I can't actually see an angle to how someone could be "virtue signalling" by defending the rights of slave owning states to leave the union. You will have to explain your angle on this to me.

Mostly I get opprobrium instead of admiration, so there isn't much "reward" to be had for this sort of virtue signalling, which defeats the entire purpose of virtue signaling (to be thought better of by everyone else) as I understand the term. :)

I think the South was violating the rights of man by forcing people to work against their will, and I think the North violated the rights of man by subjugating an unwilling populace. The South's motives were plainly greed, but the North's motives have been deliberately disguised as some false moral crusade. The North's crusade spilled a very great amount of blood. The South's practice created human misery, and no doubt spilled some blood, but not on the same scale as did the North.

Slavery was eventually going to die of natural causes, but the remnants of the North's war on the South, and the precedents it established, have lingered much longer than slavery ever would have.

[DiogenesLamp]

It doesn't bother me if you think i'm all about the money. If anything, you help me to reinforce my central thesis. It's always about the money. (Though how you see a money angle for me to argue about the Civil War, I don't know.)

[DiogenesLamp]

Contrary to Southern claims of supporting States Rights, the Fugitive Slave Law overrode State law and demanded that free states yield to the Feds in regards to tracking down runaway slaves.

US CONSTITUTION. Article IV, Section 2.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall,in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

So the Constitution overrode State law? And your objection is what? That states weren't able to ignore the constitution or something?

How many constitutional clauses are you aware of that explicitly prohibits states form making a law on some particular point?

Don't like obeying the constitution? You shouldn't have agreed to it.

[x]

I think the South was violating the rights of man by forcing people to work against their will, and I think the North violated the rights of man by subjugating an unwilling populace.

We "subjugated unwilling populaces" when we defeated Germany and Japan. That didn't make it wrong.

The South's motives were plainly greed, but the North's motives have been deliberately disguised as some false moral crusade.

The secessionists motives have been deliberately disguised as some false libertarian crusade. And that goes on until today.

There certainly was a moral element in the US's going to war. That can't be minimized or ignored -- however much crackpot Marxism you apply.

The North's crusade spilled a very great amount of blood. The South's practice created human misery, and no doubt spilled some blood, but not on the same scale as did the North.

Who started the war, anyway? Who fired first? Who is to say that the war was all the fault of the US? And who is to say that it was worse than slavery?

Secessionists went to war -- they said, among other reasons -- because they didn't want to become slaves of Northerners. They were wrong about what was in the cards, but doesn't that prove that slavery was worse than war?

Slavery was eventually going to die of natural causes, but the remnants of the North's war on the South, and the precedents it established, have lingered much longer than slavery ever would have.

Slavery could have gone on for another 50 or 75 years. Segregation went on for another century. Northern economic domination lasted about 110 or 120 years.

That economic domination wasn't all the doing of the Yankees, but it looks like in terms of duration, though perhaps not of severity or injustice, the two were about equal.

[x]

If you think you're not all about the money, then it stands to reason that everything isn't all about the money, and your whole argument is a sham.

I don't notice any "virtue signaling" in my posts. I can't actually see an angle to how someone could be "virtue signalling" by defending the rights of slave owning states to leave the union. You will have to explain your angle on this to me.

If you don't see it, no body can explain it to you. Read enough DiLorenzo and lewrockwell.com and eventually you might realize the smarminess of people who turn the supposed rights of slaveowners into a moral cause.

Mostly I get opprobrium instead of admiration, so there isn't much "reward" to be had for this sort of virtue signalling, which defeats the entire purpose of virtue signaling (to be thought better of by everyone else) as I understand the term. :)

Virtue signalling isn't about making people think better of oneself. It's about making a public display that makes one think better of one's self.

That display is directed at a particular audience. If one isn't a part of that audience, one doesn't think better of the person doing the signalling.

Most of the people who respond to your posts don't think better of you, but what you post clearly makes you think better of yourself.

[SoCal Pubbie]

It’s always about the money. Like the $4 billion in slave holdings?

[DiogenesLamp]

If you think you're not all about the money, then it stands to reason that everything isn't all about the money, and your whole argument is a sham.

Because I'm not all about the money, no one is? Well that doesn't fit with my observations. Evidence indicates the vast majority of people are very heavily motivated by money. It's a virtual constant in the Human equation, and so obvious to the point where it even has it's very own bible admonition.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil:"

If you don't see it, no body can explain it to you.

Perhaps I don't see it because it doesn't make any sense? I'm not sure how inviting vituperation is supposed to make me feel morally superior or something.

Read enough DiLorenzo and lewrockwell.com and eventually you might realize the smarminess of people who turn the supposed rights of slaveowners into a moral cause.

I've heard of them, but I certainly don't knowingly visit any such websites. I look through places like this to find my information. You should try it. You can learn a lot by reading what those people wrote.

Virtue signalling isn't about making people think better of oneself. It's about making a public display that makes one think better of one's self.

Hmmm... that's a complex point. I like to think I am educating people, and if I succeed in better informing them, I think better of myself for having done so, so it sort of fits your formula, except for the fact it isn't the "public display" that motivates me, but the idea that I might have enlightened someone to see the world more clearly. I'm content to discuss these topics in private if someone would prefer to do so.

Also I don't care if I get credit for it. I am perfectly happy to let others get the credit.