As usual, tricky Joey took the original statement out of context. This was the original post by OIF:
OIFVeteran wrote: “Wanted to add a follow up comment on what you mention here about Kalamata claim about knowing Marines that think Lincoln was a tyrant. I served almost 21 years in the US Military. Started in the Marines and retired from the Army. Served both active duty and reserves, enlisted and officer. Over that time I met exactly two people that believed Lincoln was a tyrant and the south was justified in seceding. They were my roommates for awhile when I was lower enlisted in the Marines. One from Virginia and one from Tennessee, both white. They were also the two most racist people I’ve have ever had the misfortune to meet in real life. (Sadly I’ve met even more racist people on line.)”
That certainly appears to be a case of playing the moral superiority card. I personally consider military and ex-military to have a certain amount of moral superiority to those who didn't serve, and were able to serve. Perhaps Joey doesn't.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Perhaps you fit in with the racists better than I did, Joey?"
>>Joey wrote: "Context, context: the question on the table here is, why does Kalamata claim he met so many more racists while serving in the military than either OIFVeteran or yours truly remember. Here he suggests that's because he didn't "fit in" so well with racists."
I was merely offering a suggestion that perhaps you didn't notice racists, as much as I did, because you are more like them -- like fish in a fish bowl.
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>>Joey wrote: "I'd certainly agree, it's most likely Olive-boy didn't "fit in" so well with the military, period."
I enjoyed my time in the military, Joey, and I am honored to have had the privilege of serving my country.
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>>Joey wrote: "I can find no sense of being a good soldier in his posts here."
Joey's will slander you if you don't kiss rings of his heroes: the racist Charlie Darwin and the racist Abraham Lincoln.
Almost forgot: Joey's modern-day hero is author Michael Shermer, an anti-conservative atheist-bigot. The difference between an atheist and an "atheist-bigot," is the latter proselytizes.
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>>Joey wrote: "I also suspect the reason he met so many racists was because they were not afraid to express such opinions to him."
Perhaps. I was the quiet one.
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>>Joey wrote: "In my time I served beside, under and over soldiers of every color & background. When I walked into a room they stood, saluted and were on their best behavior."
Once a braggart, always a braggart.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Lincoln was a crony-socialist, Joey, as was Buchanan."
>>Joey wrote: "And yet again, Olive-boy, your insane obsession with "crony" anything is noted and dismissed as nothing more than the rantings of feeble mind unaccustomed to dealing with reality."
How would you prefer to re-characterize it, Joey? Predatory politics? Influence peddling? Pay-for-play? Just curious . . .
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>>Kalamata wrote: "I didn’t say “Pennsylvanians” were racist, Joey. I singled some out as racist."
>>Joey wrote: "Pennsylvania is sometimes mocked as "Pennsyl-tucky", it being said we are really three states -- Philadelphia in the East, Pittsburg in the West and Alabama in-between. Pennsylvania was among the first states to begin abolition and as of 1850 no other free-state had more freed-blacks. I live "back in the woods" in the "Alabama" part, not so far from President Buchanan's home town. In some villages nearby you can see Confederate flags flying from porches, sometimes beside US flags. I doubt seriously if those Confederate flag-flyers consider themselves racists, not at all, but Pennsylvanians have an independent streak which expressed itself not just in 1776, but also in the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion and 1798 Fries Rebellion. In 1863 there were Pennsylvanians serving on both sides at Gettysburg, though many more for the Union. So Pennsylvanians admire people with the courage to stand up for their own independence. And Pennsylvanians, certainly my "Alabama" neighbors, love, love Donald Trump.
Mattress stuffing.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Where are your sources, Joey?"
>>Joey wrote: "Thanks for asking. The total number of slaveholders in 1860, circa 400,000 comes from the 1860 census, a summary found here. Cotton exports after 1860 can be found here, and also here."
Joey has a knack of painting the rosiest picture of death and destruction. The truth is, after Sherman and Sheridan burned, pillaged, and thoroughly trashed the South, the "republican" "reconstructionists" and Carpetbaggers swarmed in, continuing the plunder. Dunning put it mildly:
"The most conspicuous feature of maladministration was that of the finances. To the ambitious northern whites, inexperienced southern whites, and unintelligent blacks who controlled the first reconstructed governments, the grand end of their induction into power was to put their states promptly abreast of those which led in the prosperity and progress at the North. Things must be done, they believed, on a larger, freer, nobler scale than under the debased regime of slavery. Accordingly, both by the new constitutions and by legislation, the expenses of the governments, were largely increased: offices were multiplied in all departments; salaries were made more worthy of the now regenerated and progressive commonwealths; costly enterprises were undertaken for the promotion of the general welfare, especially where that welfare was primarily connected with the uplifting of the freedmen. The result of all this was promptly seen in an expansion of state debts and an increase of taxation that to the property-owning class were appalling and ruinous. And the fact which was of the first importance in the situation was that this class, which paid the taxes, was sharply divided politically from that which levied them, and was by the whole radical theory of the reconstruction to be indefinitely excluded from a determining voice in the government."
[William Archibald Dunning, "Reconstruction, political and economic, 1865-1877." 1907, pp.205-206]
The looting of the South is what the Lincolnites call "healing the wounds," when, in reality, it was seeding the hatred and delaying the recovery. The Marxist revisionists, such as Eric "Phony" Foner, hate Dunning for helping to expose the treachery of "reconstruction." Therefore, I highly recommend Dunning's books, as I do all books the Marxists hate. This is the book I quoted above:
Free download: Dunning - Reconstruction, political and economic, 1865-1877
BTW, Joey, it doesn't appear your third "source" tells us anything about production and exports in 1861, just before Lincoln's invasion. It also doesn't seem to tell us who benefitted from the production in 1870 and later. Help us out.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Joey finally said something I am in complete agreement with. Our property taxes are now roughly 25% of what they were in PA, on approximately the same size home and lot."
>>Joey wrote: "And, typical of our Olive-boy, what he agrees with he takes credit for himself having said! Post #485, final response, he quotes my words as his own. {sigh}"
LOL! Joey always runs out of material before finishing his act, and is forced to improvise. This was Joey in #444:
"Sure, even today Southerners on average earn less than Northerners, but it also costs less to live in the South and anyone accustomed to high taxes for Northern roads is always amazed to see Southern roads maintained at much lower costs. And if your definition of "the good life" includes enjoying the relaxed outdoors with your family & friends, then it would be easy to construct a chart showing that the further North you travel, the less of that you find."
I am still in complete agreement with you on that point, Child, no matter how much you protest or obfuscate.
Mr. Kalamata
I would be hesitant about giving superiority, moral or otherwise, just because someone served in the military. Look at LTC Vindeman for example. I meant my post as merely an observation and cited my years and experiences to show how wide ranging and long it had been.
Kalamata, have you had any chance to look at those quotes from the founding fathers and figure out what they mean?
Governor Banks final address to the Massachusetts legislature, given January 3, 1861:
While I would not withhold from the South what belongs to that section, I cannot consent that we should yield what belongs to us. The right to the Territory must be a common right, as to the people of the country, and their status must be determined upon the rights of the people, and not as to the rights of property. To base the fundamental ideas of the Government upon property is to change the purposes of government, and to establish the basis of that property upon the right to hold slaves, is to exclude the people of non-slaveholding States altogether. It has never been conceded as a right, and it ought not now to be established. There is no species of property entitled to such protection as will exclude men from Territories, aside from all considerations of property. Neither do I believe that a geographical line will give peace to the country. It must either by express agreement be restricted to territory now in our possession, and not to be applied to that hereafter obtained, or the establishment of such line in itself would be a signal for the acquisition of foreign territory in the South at the cost of foreign war, and the renewal of contests for its possession and control, when acquired at the expense of domestic peace. That the lapse of time alone will heal all dissensions upon this subject is shown by the efforts made to precipitate a revolution in order to secure advantage that otherwise must fail.
The closing section of the Annual Message of Governor Randall of Wisconsin, January 10, 1861:
The right of a State to secede from the Union can never be admitted. The national government cannot treat with a State while it is in the Union, and particularly while it stands in an attitude hostile to the Union. So long as any State assumes a position, foreign, independent, and hostile to the government, there can be no conciliation. The government of the United States cannot treat with one of its own States as a foreign power. The constitutional laws of the United States extend over every State alike. They are to be enforced in every State alike.
A state cannot come into the Union as it pleases, and go out when it pleases. Once in, it must stay until the Union is destroyed. There is no coercion of a State. But where a faction of a people arrays itself, not against one act, but against alllaws, and against all government, there is but one answer to be made: “The Government must be sustained, and the laws shall be enforced!”
Secession is revolution; revolution is war; war against the government of the United States is treason.
It is time, now, to know whether we have any government, and if so, whether it has any strength. Is our written Constitution more than a sheet of parchment? The nation must be lost or preserved by its own strength. Its strength is in the patriotism of the people. It is time now that politicians become patriots, that men show their love of country by every sacrifice but that of principle, and by unwavering devotion to its interests and integrity.
The hopes of civilization and Christianity are suspended now upon the answer to this question of dissolution. The capacity for, as well as the right of self-government is to pass its ordeal, and speculation to become certainty. Other systems have been tried and have failed, and all along the skeletons of nations have been strewn, as warnings and landmarks upon the great highway of historic government. Wisconsin is true, and her people steadfast. She will not destroy the Union, nor consent that it shall be done. Devised by great, and wise, and good men, in days of sore trial, it must stand. Like some bold mountain, at whose base the great seas break their angry floods, and around whose summit the thunders of a thousand hurricanes have rattled, strong, unmoved, immovable—so may our Union be, while treason surges at its base, and passions rage around it, unmoved, immovable—here let it stand forever.
JOINT RESOLUTIONS on the state of the Union.
Whereas, Certain citizens of the United States are at this time in open rebellion against the government, and by overt acts threaten its peace and harmony, and to compass its final overthrow; therefore
Resolved; That the government of the United States is supreme, with full inherent powers of self-protection and defense.
Resolved, That Michigan adheres to the government, as ordained by the constitution, and for sustaining it intact hereby pledges and tenders to the general government all its military power and material resources.
Resolved, That concession and compromise are not to be entertained or offered to traitors, while the rights and interests of Union-loving citizens should be regarded and respected in every place and under all circumstances. Resolved, That His Excellency, the Governor, be requested to forward a copy of these resolutions to our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to the Governors of our sister States.
Whereas, Treason, as defined by the Constitution of the United States, exists in one or more of the States of this Confederacy, and
Whereas, the insurgent State of South Carolina after seizing the Post Office, Custom House, Moneys and Fortifications of the Federal Government, has, by firing into a vessel ordered by the Government to convey troops and provisions to Fort Sumter, virtually declared war; and whereas, the forts and property of the United States Government in Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana, have been unlawfully seized with hostile intentions; and whereas, further, Senators in Congress avow and maintain their treasonable acts; therefore
Resolved, That the Legislature of New York, profoundly impressed with the value of the Union, and determined to preserve it unimpaired, hail with joy the recent firm, dignified and patriotic Special Message of the President of the United States, and that we tender to him, through the Chief Magistrate of our own State, whatever aid in men and money he may require to enable him to enforce the laws and upheld the authority of the Federal Government. And that in defence of "the more perfect Union," which has conferred prosperity and happiness upon the American people, renewing the pledge given and redeemed by our Fathers, we are ready to devote "our fortunes, our lives, and our sacred honor" in upholding, the Union and the Constitution.
Excerpts from Joint Resolutions of the Legislature of the State of Minnesota, January 22, 1861.