Yes, war involves killing. But a war for our own independence is not what you have proposed. You have proposed a war to change other people's social systems. The officious arrogance of that is something to behold.
As others have pointed out to you, no one at this venue is seeking to reestablish slavery, or saying that slavery is a good thing. But you go beyond that to heap venom on the heritage of many of your fellow Americans. When challenged as to your moral authority for your rant, you simply repeat it in other words. That is not an argument.
As I have stated before, neither the Bible nor the doctrine of any of the other traditional Faiths makes the sort of statements that you offer. Just what is your moral authority? The Declaration of Independence does not offer one. As I pointed out earlier, stirring up domestic insurrections was one of the Founders' grievances. And, incidentally, it was the recital of grievances that justified the revolution, not the iteration of what they considered self-evident. You have simply mistated the purpose for the language that you paraphrase. All they were doing there was reciting the right to revolution, not justifying their particular revolution. It is you who need to read the document more closely.
But enough. Again the question is not so much what you or I think of slavery, either in general, or as employed in America. The question, really, is why you feel such a need to keep besmirching the heritage of the most Conservative region of the American Republic? Just why?
And you also missed my point about the Communists and Nazis. They justified their conquests with rhetoric not unlike yours. Yes they were enslaving other peoples, but that is not how they described it. Thad Stevens basically enslaved the whole South in Reconstruction, but that is not how he described it either. Fanatics never describe their work as more objective people see it.
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No, what I am proposing is a willingness to wage war in order to secure someone else's independence, based on fact that the enslaved have the same right to life, liberty, etc., as I do.
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You have proposed a war to change other people's social systems. The officious arrogance of that is something to behold.
I am proposing a war to end slavery. Nothing more. Feel free to call it what you want. I don't care. If it involves changing their "social system" as we did in Germany and Japan in WWII, that's okay by me. Or are you saying that our involvement in WWII was officious and arrogant to you?
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As others have pointed out to you, no one at this venue is seeking to reestablish slavery, or saying that slavery is a good thing.
No, but the fact that they and you seem unwilling to make the simple statement that chattel slavery in the antebellum South was evil is an evil in itself.
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But you go beyond that to heap venom on the heritage of many of your fellow Americans.
What about the heritage of my fellow Americans whose ancestors suffered under the whip? Do they not count? Should I insult their heritage of triumph in the face of evil to assuage the feeling of apologists for slavery?
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When challenged as to your moral authority for your rant, you simply repeat it in other words. That is not an argument.
Yes, I have provided it, you just chose not to pay attention. Moreover, your moral vacuousness is shown by the fact that you even require a moral justification for fighting a slave system.
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As I have stated before, neither the Bible nor the doctrine of any of the other traditional Faiths makes the sort of statements that you offer.
You have stated it, you've just been wrong. The abolitionists were explicitly religious, and that religion wasn't Buddhism.
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Just what is your moral authority? The Declaration of Independence does not offer one.
Yes, it does. It says that God granted to every human being the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If God granted everyone that right, then anyone holding another as a slave is committing an offense against God.
To fight or even to wage war against that offense is clearly a moral act because such a war would be {hint, hint} a just war. Put down your copy of "The South Was Right" or "The Real Lincoln" and look up Aquinas, Thomas.
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As I pointed out earlier, stirring up domestic insurrections was one of the Founders' grievances.
Yes, it was one of their grievances. Which goes to show that even the most well-meaning people do the right thing for evil reasons.
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And, incidentally, it was the recital of grievances that justified the revolution, not the iteration of what they considered self-evident. You have simply mistated the purpose for the language that you paraphrase. All they were doing there was reciting the right to revolution, not justifying their particular revolution. It is you who need to read the document more closely.
Wrong. The list of grievances are merely evidence that the colonists were justified in their conclusion that the then-present situation between the colonies and Great Britain had become destructive to the proper ends of government: viz., securing the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The document clearly states that it is only when the government fails to secure these inalienable rights that revolution is justified. The list of grievances is proof, evidence. ("To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.") Surely you understand the difference between a right or proposition and the evidence to support the right or proposition.
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But enough. Again the question is not so much what you or I think of slavery, either in general, or as employed in America.
Actually, that is the question. Why is it that you excuse those who held others in bondage? Why do you refuse to label it a moral evil?
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The question, really, is why you feel such a need to keep besmirching the heritage of the most Conservative region of the American Republic? Just why?
Why not? If part of their heritage consists of something evil, it should be called evil, regardless of whether the area is conservative, liberal, libertarian, moderate, whatever. The coward is the man who refuses to call an evil thing evil because he believes it will offend someone else.
If someone wants to delude themselves into thinking that slavery was anything less than evil, why should I be complicit in that delusion simply because the region where the deluded person lives trends conservative? Would that not be placing partisanship about morality?
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And you also missed my point about the Communists and Nazis. They justified their conquests with rhetoric not unlike yours.
No, they didn't. The Nazis justified their conquests on avenging the diktat of Versailles and on the inherent right of the superior Aryan race to dominate the inferior Slavic untermenshen. The latter, you will notice, is analogous to, if not identical to, the Southern justification for chattel slavery: the inherent inferiority of the black race.
Communist conquests were justified, if at all, on the idea that the workers were entitled to the control the means of production, and later on defeating Fascism. In Europe, the thesis there were spheres of influence within which the USSR had the right to maneuver in order to protect its system was advanced, and in Asia conquest was justified on the notion that whatever was historically part of China should be incorporated in the PRC.
None of these are rhetorically similar to the idea that it is okay to go to war to free slaves. However, even if there was any rhetorical analogy that could be forced, in practice, the Nazis and Communists were enslavers, not liberators of the enslaved. So and comparison is ultimately meaningless.
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Yes they were enslaving other peoples, but that is not how they described it.
I don't give a rat's ass how they described it. What is important is the morality of what they did, not how they chose to describe it.
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Thad Stevens basically enslaved the whole South in Reconstruction, but that is not how he described it either.
No, he didn't. I dare you to find a record of Ashley Wilkes or Scarlett O'Hara being forced to work the fields under the whip and being sold at an auction block. That's how the former whip-crackers like to described Reconstruction, so as to justify their 80-year reign of terror against the black population of the South after the end of Reconstruction.
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Fanatics never describe their work as more objective people see it.
The fact that you can't stand to call slavery "evil" means that you are so far from objective that you can't even see it.