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?

[capitan_refugio]

"Lincoln had to be certain the MD did not turn to the Confederacy, lest he would be surrounded."

That's right.

"[Gov. Hicks was] met with martial law and invasion.

There was no "invasion," at least until Lee came knocking in September 1862.

[lentulusgracchus]

That's why the Framers of the Constitution were keen on union and not so wild about secession.

They were keen on union because they were concerned lest the British come back and hang them all. They were afraid of foreign-power intervention and of their own lack of numbers and lack of strength.

If they'd been confronted with the situation in 1859 and 1860, can you be so confident they'd have said the same things you would like them to? Remember, Washington was a Virginian just like Robert E. Lee.

You take what's happened since 1860 as a proof that the founders believed in secession.

Where did I do that? Quote me, and let's discuss.

Others dispute your premise, and it doesn't look like you're in any position to brand others consequentialists or "might makes right" realists.

To you, maybe -- but then, you have a huge ego that imagines it overspreads the board with masterful insight and perspicuous Uebermensch cleverness. Yeah, well, don't let your hatband give you brain damage.

And I don't call the "might makes right" crowd "realists" -- I call them a lot of other things, but not that. Sadists, bullyboys, triumphalist thugs, whatever. The boot fits.

What you're trying to do is to claim for your arguments an immunity from the attacks you make on others --

Oh, is that what it is, when someone not named x defends himself?

......to argue that you alone stand on principle, ....

Ahhhh, you got me at last. I've always wanted secretly to confess, I've been standing instead on personal dishonesty, interpersonal nastiness, sadomasochism, B&D, -- oh, wait. That's our late straight-bottom horsie-fantasist. Sorry, wrong guy.

......and the others are simply arguing from convenience.

No, they're arguing from a mixture of motives, but mostly from wanting to preserve the national illusion about Lincoln and the Civil War, and to inculpate the South for the Civil War.

But that doesn't fit the actual discussion we're having. People disagree about what the founders intended and what the states could do and you can't simply assume that you have the key and damn opposing arguments as "teleology."

No, I don't do that, either, which you would know if you'd been paying attention instead of ego-tripping. I'm accusing Hamilton, Jay, Marshall, and Lincoln of historical revisionism w/ respect to the nature of the Union. Marshall was IIRC Lincoln's main source, at one remove (via a con-law author whose name I forget, who digested Marshall), for his totally wrongo theory of the Union with its preexistent self-ordination and so on. I've occasionally argued convenience in Northern and Unionist posters: the Lincolnian theory of the Union led to the Civil War, which worked for them, so long live the Lincolnian theory of the Union, and suckers walk the field.

You seem to think that I agree with your Kimberly Smith's ideas about emotionalism in argument.

And that's quite a switch, considering you brought her up in support of your views. I don't agree with her valuation. A colder, more rational style of argument is preferable. It's a mistake when countries get carried away by their emotions, and it leads to real trouble.

I agree, and I guess I really did misunderstand something you posted -- I thought you placed a positive value on Abolitionist brio. I disagreed with her positive valuation of political violence, which seemed to assume that outcomes would always be congenial to the national purposes as she construes them -- teleology again -- which she wouldn't do if she were a European, I think, or a Southerner.

Her value to me was in documenting the style and, frankly, the irresponsibility of what passed for Abolitionist discourse, which was so vitriolic, and deliberately so, that it eclipsed the Southern abolition societies. Who the hell did they think they were talking to? Their dog?

I don't think that publishing slave narratives, or pointing out a wrong, or calling for a change of heart is an "incitement to violence."

Depends how you do it. Publishing the slave narratives per se didn't contribute to the rupture, but praising John Brown and sending him money definitely did. With the slave narratives, one could argue representative sampling (which would probably show a vast majority of slaves preferring to be free, all else being equal or anywhere near it), and certainly Frederick Douglass colored his advocacy (which he later amended, after the war), but the argument wasn't the same thing as the propaganda, the latter being what led to war, IMHO.

[capitan_refugio]

"Is William Davis's "Look away! : a history of the Confederate States of America" part of the plot, too>"

Let's not forget William Davis's A Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government. The title refers to CSA Secretary of War John Breckinridge's desire that the Confedracy not humiliatge itself in its last moments. Jefferson Davis, however, had other plans.

"The secret here is that there's probably more of the Marxist in you than in many of the people you are arguing with. From what I can see, you're far more influenced by Marxism than Lincoln was."

Ouch! 'grac', that's got to hurt.

[capitan_refugio]

capture: to gain control of, or exert influence over; to take possession of

Y'all need to hit them books and git you'selves a little larnin'.

Ignoramuses.

[lentulusgracchus]

.......claiming those who disagree with you want to kill you.....

Refresh my memory. Cite, please.

..... to hear you proclaim that you "argue for rational discourse."

Yup, even when we don't get it. You don't think I'm stupid enough to treat a weaselling post respectfully, or its perpetrator as an absent-minded but well-meaning interlocutor?

You want to believe that your own excesses.....

Show me one, don't just characterize.

...... are a matter of "style," rather than of "substance," but the two can be hard to separate.

I prefer a conversational style, but if someone is trying to be a pimp, I'll handle that, too.

How could I, after watching your performance now and in the past, be entirely condemnatory of abolitionists who may have used similar emotional arguments? How could anyone else looking on? How can you?

Look at the original posts, and see who is having us on. Ain't me.

Your idea seems to be that a permanent "gag rule" should have been imposed preventing discussion of whatever went against Southern interests

That is so silly, that now I know you're just backing up the truck.

.....but if someone really cared about slavery, how can one deny them the right to speak about it? You pile on the emotionalism freely and without constraint and expect your audience to condemn others for trying to raise a moral question that unavoidably touches the emotions.

When they're justifying a hecatomb of dead people, of course I'm going to pull the plugs out. That "ha-ha your Johnny Rebs died like flies" stuff deserves no quarter.

But it's not at all clear that you are right, and other observers will note that rational and emotional, materialistic and idealistic, principled and results-based arguments are used by both "sides" in the debate.

So? As long as we keep arguing original intent and people's rights, I've no worries about where we come out.

Your side persists in whitewashing Lincoln's rewriting the Constitution, in blood, according to his own lights. Or will you deny that he did just that? What will it take for your side to realize they're all still up to their eyes in an institutionalized Stockholm syndrome?

You want people to say that the secessionists, Confederates, and indeed, the proslavery faction, were right and justified in their actions,

Yes, they were.

..... even when judged by modern standards.

No! Man, will you guys keep the past in the past and the present in the present? There you go again, accusing us of being slavers-manque' and planter wannabe's. Get this: I don't know anyone who wants to own a slave. Okay? Those are the modern standards. People who are intent on projecting modern standards into the past in order to play "Blemish" are doing mischief.

That's what the modern left is doing -- bracketing modern Southerners who wouldn't own a slave if they had the chance with Southerners who did, for polemical (lying) effect. It's about politics today, not history, and yet the Straussians go on and on about defending Lincoln, when it was the Marxists who started the fight. I wish you Straussians would buy a clue!

-- and not even that if you don't extend similar empathy in the opposite direction.

I don't see a lot of "empathy" coming from your side.....lots of appeals to force, lots of appeals to other things. No matter.

[lentulusgracchus]

Most people would probably agree that there is a right to revolution against tyranny and that peoples ought to be able to decide their futures by voting, .....conservatives have opposed "plebiscitarian" politics and theories of direct, unfiltered democracy.

Paleocons have indeed argued that point. But the Framers did not disagree with Rousseau about the locus of sovereignty and ultimate power, which was with the People. So to say is not to condemn representative government at all.

In such theories, the state acts unilaterally and is not required to consider the opinions of other parts of the union or bound by constraints of law.

Better to say, the People act unilaterally. And yes, they are not bound to consider the opinions of other members of the Union. If they were, they wouldn't be sovereign, someone else would.

And you have never answered my earlier question: If the People are not sovereign, just who is? Who modulates? Who moderates the People's will? Who really decides whether the People may speak, and whether what the People say is ...... "permissible"?

Don't be bashful, tell us.

Immediate and unilateral action by states or other groups which would be justified in extreme circumstances by the right of revolution, becomes standard procedure, overriding elections and constitutional procedures.

When does that happen? Who's arguing "unacceptable consequences" now?

There's an impatience with checks and balances and compromise measures. In the end, the self-assertion of this or that group comes to override other moral and legal concerns. Relativism and subjectivism come to be more important than older natural law concepts.

You're describing the Republican abolitionists.

Northerners saw a lot of what we deplore about modern politics in the secessionists of 1860/1. They may have overreacted when they responded, but it won't do to whitewash the things that appalled them about the rebellion: the repudiation of debts, the burning of property, the seizure of weapons, the formation of a league, the call for an army.

One, there was no rebellion. Two, the repudiation of debts was unjust IMHO, and foolish -- like declaring bankruptcy just because you can. Three, what burning? If you're talking about Norfolk and Harper's Ferry, that wasn't Confederate arson that did that! Four, having left the Union in an orderly manner, the South was perfectly justified in creating a new government and a standing army if they wanted one. They were correct in anticipating invasion, weren't they? And there was the blockade.

It seemed like the coming of anarchy or a new tyranny, and much of what came afterwards has to be seen at least partially in light of Southern actions and Northern reactions in the early months of 1860.

Who reacted and who acted? The Wide Awakes were trying to burn down Texas (fat chance), and they did succeed in taking down the Missouri Militia.

There's a lot in your outbursts to turn off the average conservative voter, just as there is much in them that a conservative statesman like Washington or Madison or Taft, or conservative thinker like Santayana or Babbitt or Eliot would find ill-conceived and wrong-headed.

Differences in opinion. Fine.

They would not share your extreme view elevating the people above constitutional and traditional restraints on power, which include restraints on the power of the populace.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGGGGG!!! We have a winner!!!

So you really are a friend of Leviathan and a Sovereign above the People, aren't you? How can you make and defend a case for independence, in the light of that view? For liberty? After all, the Sovereign must always have his raison......just how far do you want to go with this horseback wonder you are raising up?

Describe your conception of the Sovereign of the United States. I'm guessing you mean an oligarchic group of uber-citizens, smart guys like yourself, the deserving of deference -- a natural aristocracy, the people who by right guide, dominate, and countermand the hoi polloi, always guiding wisely the whole society in just the right direction.......am I warm?

Sounds like the thrilling vision of inequality that Theodore White turned into a little vignette, in the first few pages of his The Making of the President 1964, in which he laid his liberal arrogance on the line. Aldous Huxley wrote a book about a society founded on principles like that, called it the Brave New World.

So signify to us -- who gets to superordinate whom, in this "moderate", wise, "conservative" society you envision?

[lentulusgracchus]

And Neely's a very shoddy scholar at that.

Well, he'll just have to start lurking at FR to get sharpened up a bit. So he really missed that one? Interesting. I suppose if he'd known more or been curious, he would have run it down and dealt with it.

[lentulusgracchus]

Ouch! 'grac', that's got to hurt.

I see you liked the cheesy little tautology as the "best" part.

Have some whine.

Then see my reply.

[lentulusgracchus]

Any person, or community of persons, can always execute their natural right of revolution if things become oppressive. They don't have to invent phony political theories.

Abe Lincoln had to, in order to justify knocking them down.

[lentulusgracchus]

Regarding southern opposition to FDR, you might mention the Texas Regulars in 1944.

I'm afraid I don't know as much recent Texas history as I ought.....most of what I know about 20th-century Texas politics, I got from reading Robert Caro, and some retrospective articles about the Sharpstown Scandal. I haven't got to the later chapters in Fehrenbach yet.

[lentulusgracchus]

Another Johnny Horton favorite was "Sink the Bismark" -- only place I ever found it was on a jukebox in a place owned by my dad's best friend. Dad had to cut off my supply of nickels. I was justified in playing it all I could, though -- never got another chance.

[lentulusgracchus]

Yeah, I still haven't quite figured that one out. Consider my reply provisional -- I think I know what he's talking about!

[Restorer]

The United States of America is founded on the Constitution, and on no other document.

Beg to differ.

The nation is founded on the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed the determination of the colonies to become an independent nation.

The form of government of that nation is indeed founded on the Constitution.

[stand watie]

well, since i've found NO damnyankee apologist on FR who is the slightest bit ASHAMED by the tens of thousands of ATROCITIES committed by the bluebelly army against helpless POWs & innocent, UNarmed civilians, i'd say you and the coven of unionists have NO moral compass at all.

one of your group said:

"i'm truly pleased that your family was killed, as they got exactly what they deserved."

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

actually, lincoln & his coven of WAR CRIMINALS started harassing,attacking & imprisoning civilians in MD before the first shot was fired.

over 200 newspapermen & local "suspected insurrectionists" were rounded up & locked away (WITHOUT TRIAL OR CHARGES of even the kangaroo sort) within 10 days of lincoln's inauguration.

the Baltimore Civil War Museum has a list of these unfortunate persons. NONE were ever charged with ANY crime;they were just locked-up.

AND let's not forget the so-called "Baltimore Riots", where MA & PA troops wounded unarmed civilians by promiscuously firing into crowds on the streets of the city. (fyi, the Baltimore Sun reporters said MANY UNarmed civilians were wounded by the UNwarranted shootings. as far as it can be determined, there was NO REASON, except hatefulness & COWARDICE, for shooting into the crowd.)

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

says you.

when the government becomes the OPPRESSOR, revolution or SECESSION is the HONORABLE choice of the states.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

i've always said that the 10th was the CORRECT reason.

i let others make up their OWN minds.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

and you point is?

do you HAVE a point?

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

see page 116 of YACHTS AGAINST SUBS.

i've NOT been to the park.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

a coalition of SOVEREIGN STATES was PRECISELY what the 13 states had in mind. NONE of the states would have freely joined a government in the 18/19th century (after fighting GB for their FREEDOM), which they could not leave just as freely.

free dixie,sw