Vladimir Lincoln invades Ukraine. I think he wants to "preserve the Union."

Today | Me

[DiogenesLamp]

Seceded state about to be reacquired by the Union. Which side should we root for?

[DiogenesLamp]

All one has to do is look at your posts to see that the losers in this case have raised myth-making to a high art.

I'm sure that is what *YOU* see in my posts, but I think some of the people actually take the time to read and understand them.

[Vaden]

Blah blah blah...

There are “similarities” only in your mind.

Ukraine’s history stretches back centuries. It was an independent society for most of it. Like most of Europe, they’ve had invasions and gained and lost territory over those centuries. It didn’t stop the core culture/nation from surviving it all. They weren’t part of Russia.

None of your verbal diarrhea changes that.

[DiogenesLamp]

The other posters are pointing out that Ukraine has been independent for 30 years. We aren't concerned with breakaway provinces of Russian, but with breakaway provinces of Ukraine.

I don't see the distinctions as having any great significance. It's still a case of a powerful figure trying to take back a state that was once part of the same government.

What Putin is doing has much akin to what the Jefferson Davis and Confederacy was trying to do: he's trying to break off territory that he claims has an affinity with Russia.

Sudetenland.

That is what Braxton Bragg was trying to do when he invaded Kentucky ...

I don't much get into what happened after the war started, but I do recall Lincoln specifically commenting about Kentucky being an absolute necessity. Did they rush in troops too?

I know the Union used Troops to control Missouri, so is this a case of "both sides are doing it"?

...belief that the state belonged in the Confederacy because it had slavery.

I'm thinking that is actually the argument of all you people who defend what the Union did. Didn't you say the war was over slavery, and that all the bad guys were slavers?

Well if your claim is true, then it certainly seems reasonable that all the slave states should have been in the Confederacy. Oddly enough, five of them remained in the Union, but the Union had no problems with slavery just so long as you were loyal to the Union.

That alone tells me it wasn't about slavery. It was about accepting economic control from Washington DC.

[BDParrish]

(i)Lincoln was effectively the God Father of our current mafioso like government.(/i)(p)After Lincoln’s death, Johnson tried to carry out the “malice toward none” doctrine but was impeached by the deep state. I suggest that it was that swamp unhindered by a hobbled Pres. Johnson that was the “kernel” from which the death and destruction of the 20th century grew.

[dangus]

>> Why? Did you see how very little cotton can be produced in Kansas? <<

Why do you presume only cotton could be produced using slavery? There was very little cotton production in Missouri, Kentucky or Maryland, yet Kentucky had more slaves than Texas, Florida or Arkansas. (Even Tennessee had only recently passed it.) Even Missouri and tiny Maryland had more slaves than Arkansas or Florida.

>> Again, not economically viable, and so there would have been few (if any) actual slaves in Kansas. <<

Are you saying, then, that Bleeding Kansas was a military offensive by the slave states to impose slavery on a state for which it had no utility? Even if that were true, that hardly precludes bringing in more slaves to industries like ranching, once slavery is firmly established. Hay is very portable, and beef is self-portable.

And again, you seem like you are utterly disregarding black people.

[DiogenesLamp]

No controversy that this thing has been debated endlessly. I assume that the debate is a proxy for something else in the minds of men like DL...

Very perceptive. After watching the country continuing down the road of decadence and decline, it long ago occurred to me that perhaps a separation from the liberal parts of the country will allow us to be successful, while they continue down the road to their own destruction.

This idea requires the rehabilitation of the notion of secession. It has to be justified as a right, and it has to be separated from slavery as an issue.

This purpose is always uppermost in my mind when I engage in discussions like this. Secession may be the only way to save ourselves from the economic and social destruction of a government controlled by liberal socialists.

Lost-Causers are making a mistake in justifying the cause as if there was no deep state in the CSA.

I have made the point on Free Republic, perhaps a half dozen or so times, that had things turned out differently, I would probably be bitching about the "elite" in Richmond or Charleston screwing over the rest of us out here in "flyover territory."

I think it is inherent in wealth that they will meddle with government, wherever and however it is so constituted. I think it is an aspect of human nature from which we cannot separate because it is in us.

Please DL or K51 or anyone, tell me where and why I am wrong, with my sincere thanks. Remember my FRiends, we win in the end with God’s help! Kind Freegards and thanks to JimRob and all the others for this place.

I see no flaw in anything you've said. I think we all want the same things; peace prosperity and friendship.

To those who debate with me from the other side, I still consider you good people and friends.

[kosciusko51]

Me: No, I am saying that the situation is different. Ukraine and breakaway republics are more comparable to Northern and Southern states than Russia and Ukraine. You didn’t even address that point.

DL: I'm not sure I grasp the point you are wanting me to address.

Do the break-away republics have the right to self-determination, or must they remain part of Ukraine?

[kosciusko51]

Me: Given that Russia wants to prevent Ukraine from entering NATO, the situation is more analogous to the US invading Cuba under the Monroe Doctrine.

DL: Well that is their stated reason, and it may very well be their actual reason, but I have long since learned to not simply accept at face value what people tell me.

So, by this logic, the stated reason for the Southern states may have been self-determination, but it really could have been to keep slavery.

[DiogenesLamp]

(i)Lincoln was effectively the God Father of our current mafioso like government.(/i)(p)After Lincoln’s death, Johnson tried to carry out the “malice toward none” doctrine but was impeached by the deep state. I suggest that it was that swamp unhindered by a hobbled Pres. Johnson that was the “kernel” from which the death and destruction of the 20th century grew.

Very reasonable interpretation but it was Lincoln that hired men like Simon Cameron.

Lincoln: "Do you think Mr Cameron is honest?"

Thaddeus Stevens: "Well, I don't think he'd steal a red hot stove."

I think, like the Biden, Obama or Clinton administration, the thieves were put into positions of power by the leadership.

My recollection is that missing money or goods was a constant problem for the Union during and after the war. Other forms of government shenanigans occurred during the reconstruction era.

It's always the same. The Government concentrates money into fewer hands, and those hands move it to other pockets.

Mr Pepys bewailed this problem in 1600s England. Everyone was out to cheat the King.

I think there was a corrupt "deep state" in the Federal Bureaucracy prior to Lincoln, but his tenure did a great deal in empowering and expanding it.

[kosciusko51]

Me: The 14th amendment, like the 2nd amendment, has been perverted to mean something different than what the authors intended. You can argue if it is poorly written, but it doesn’t change the original intent.

DL: But it is the very fact that it is written so badly that has allowed it to be perverted in the manner it has been.

In the hands of a perverse lawyer, the meaning of "is" is up for debate...

[DiogenesLamp]

I get the impression from reading your comments in this thread that you may have a personal interest in Ukraine.

I just wanted to let you know that I am very much against Putin invading Ukraine, and I had more respect for the man before he did this.

Now I am worried that he will become an actual threat to the US.

[outofsalt]

Natgeo wanted my email to continue reading. I got as far as, something about how getting rid of the statues will lead to love and diversity.

[kosciusko51]

No controversy that this thing has been debated endlessly. I assume that the debate is a proxy for something else in the minds of men like DL whom I respect greatly as a historian if I cannot always agree with him. I could say the same about certain of the anti-lost-causers, the Lincoln Lovers, here on FR who are on the other side of that historical debate.

I don’t agree with you that what is going on in Ukraine is immaterial to that argument, I can see DL’s point, but I do agree that the argument is immaterial to our future (or it should be).

I'm not on either side of the debate, but the use of the Civil War as a proxy for modern times is as bad as calling everyone "racist", and it only serves to divide.

...or to use your phrase, to consider the morality or practicality of secession as a future solution to the problems in our country which fall under the umbrella term, “Civil War II”.

Not my phrase, but I agree with the sentiment.

Please DL or K51 or anyone, tell me where and why I am wrong, with my sincere thanks.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything wrong with your 6 points short of people deciding to "water the tree of Liberty."

[DiogenesLamp]

Why do you presume only cotton could be produced using slavery?

Other things could be produced too, but as slaves cost around $100,000.00 in today's money, the intelligent thing to do with them would be to put them into the production of a good that could provide the most value for the investment.

That was cotton, followed by Tobacco (at that time) Indigo, Hemp, Sugar and so forth.

Are you saying, then, that Bleeding Kansas was a military offensive by the slave states to impose slavery on a state for which it had no utility?

I'm saying that it looks like it was a fight between members of both sides in an effort to get Kansas into their coalition so that they might gain control over the power of Washington DC.

Even if that were true, that hardly precludes bringing in more slaves to industries like ranching, once slavery is firmly established. Hay is very portable, and beef is self-portable.

I don't know how popular that would have been for slavers, because it sounds like it gives slaves a much easier ability to escape. Ranchers use horses don't they?

And again, you seem like you are utterly disregarding black people.

I see them as pawns in a larger chess game. There were people who saw them as persons and wanted them to have equal rights, but in 1860s America, these people were a very tiny minority.

Most northerners hated blacks and passed special laws to forbid them from settling in their states, or to oppress and intimidate them if they did.

[DiogenesLamp]

Do the break-away republics have the right to self-determination, or must they remain part of Ukraine?

If a fair vote can be had, I think they should do whatever the majority want to do.

Problem is, with larger powers fighting over them, how can a fair vote be had?

I believe in self determination for all peoples who want it.

[kosciusko51]

If a fair vote can be had, I think they should do whatever the majority want to do.

Problem is, with larger powers fighting over them, how can a fair vote be had?

How would you know it was or wasn't a fair vote?

[DiogenesLamp]

So, by this logic, the stated reason for the Southern states may have been self-determination, but it really could have been to keep slavery.

My position is that a right is not contingent upon your reasons for wanting to exercise it.

Our right to freedom of speech is not constrained such that we only have it for approved speech. We have the right to say things to which other people disapprove.

In the same manner, the right to independence is not contingent upon approval from others. If you have a right to independence, you still have a right to independence even if you have bad reasons for wanting independence.

[DiogenesLamp]

I'm not on either side of the debate, but the use of the Civil War as a proxy for modern times is as bad as calling everyone "racist", and it only serves to divide.

Wait, what? How is comparing one immoral invasion to another immoral invasion the same as calling everyone a "racist"?

[DiogenesLamp]

How would you know it was or wasn't a fair vote?

Exactly the problem.

[kosciusko51]

So you are saying that the South had the right of self-determination to prevent others from exercising their right of self-determination? Isn’t that what you are arguing the North did?