Posted on 02/24/2022 6:58:05 AM PST by DiogenesLamp
Seceded state about to be reacquired by the Union. Which side should we root for?
The Late Unpleasantness II: Russkii Boogaloo.
See, you are so steeped in your position that you can’t possibly understand why calling either side of the participants of the Civil War “immoral” might offend people, especially people who, for the most part, agree with you.
Unlike the American south, Ukraine developed as an independent society with a seperate language (Ukranian) and culture. Totally different situations. IT WAS NEVER PART OF RUSSIA UNLESS RUSSIA FORCED IT TO BE.
You’ll never sell Pooty to me so lets just drop it.
Goodbye.
I think black people had a right to self determination and the slave states denied them that right.
I think the Slave states had a right to self determination and the Northern states denied them that right.
I think the Southern states denying black people the right to self determination does not justify the Northern states denying the Southern states the right to self determination, especially since the Northern states had legal slavery and would continue to accept legal slavery indefinitely.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Both are wrong, and neither should be doing the wrong thing they were doing.
Both sides of the American civil war were "immoral".
But I think the one that invaded and killed people were the more immoral. I also don't believe they did so for moral reasons. I think they did so for reasons of power and money.
And in that regard, I think it greatly resembles what Russia is doing to Ukraine.
Agreed. No one’s hands were clean in the US Civil War.
I am not trying sell Pooty to you, and I don't know where you got the idea that I was.
I'm against Putin invading Ukraine. I think I already told you that.
+1.
Ha—I wasn’t actually expecting specific answers!
But I generally agree with your take. The only areas that I see as impossibly sticky are going with a bare majority that could fluxuate back and forth so readily and not having some sort of practical minimum size of such breakaway, since however fun it might be to declare one’s household, for example, as sovereign country...
Oh, and one more, I’m thinking that some list of grievances with a natural law threshold may be a good idea somehow.
Tell the truth, Lincoln lives in your head rent free, 24/7. It is very sad.
Admittedly, I don't read all of your posts, so this is the first time I've seen you espouse that position. As I said before, neither side had clean hands.
But I think the one that invaded and killed people were the more immoral.
Nope, not buying the argument. You already conceded that the South, before the war, was actively suppressing the rights of the slaves. Does attacking a person who is violating the right of another make the attacker a worse person than the violator?
>> I see them as pawns in a larger chess game. <<
What is absolutely appalling, disgusting, downright inhuman of you is that you don’t factor their humanity into your value judgments at all.
>> 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. <<
Nonsense. Blacks were afforded equal rights in many U.S. states, although not all Northern ones (New Jersey, for instance, denied the right to vote to blacks in 1807, and Pennsylvania in 1838*.) By the 1820s, few states had property requirements (North Carolina became the last to abolish them in 1857) or poll taxes. Literacy tests did not exist before reconstruction.
(* Pennsylvania “compromised” when expanding voting rights to poor, unlanded or recently immigrated people between those who wanted universal male suffrage and those who feared too radical social change by broadening suffrage too quickly. Blacks lost out, as the “compromise” meant that suffrage would be extended universally... but only to whites. This was a unique situation, born out of political expediency and no-one’s sense of justice.)
Yeah, that 50% thing is really a weak spot in my opinion. I have long felt we should require super majorities to pass any legislation. If only a bare minimum favors it, it doesn't sound like a very good idea in my opinion.
Absolutely agree with your take on that weak spot.
Oh, and one more, I’m thinking that some list of grievances with a natural law threshold may be a good idea somehow.
I agree, though the Declaration of Independence says that it is "prudent" to list grievances, but not say it is a requirement.
Well hello handy. Glad you could make it. Hope you have been amused. :)
Putin's Russia probably reminds him of the Jeff Davis Confederacy.
According to natural law, but not according to the law of the Union. The Union recognized the legality of doing this, and it had for "four score and seven years."
You can't hold a person accountable for something you accept as legal.
Does attacking a person who is violating the right of another make the attacker a worse person than the violator?
I would think killing people is worse than making them work. In all of human history, when given the choice of slavery over death, most people picked slavery. Africa is full of such outcomes after tribal wars.
Most of the people killed in the South didn't own any slaves. They were just defending their homeland.
Slavery was recognized in the US not because of morality, but due to political expediency. That the North developed a conscience about it doesn’t make them worse than those whose conscience was seared to their inhumanity.
And we are still beating the same dead horse...
Clinical.
Millions were killed in WWI, WW2, the Holocaust, the Holodomor, China's famine and so forth. You can't embrace all the suffering. It's beyond human comprehension.
You can note that this happened to these people, and that it was wrong. If you tried to feel every hurt, it would drive you mad.
Also, everyone else that discusses this topic invariably expresses the suffering they went through, so I think the topic is adequately covered in the minds of all participants. It does not bear on the larger issue. The Union did not invade to alleviate their suffering. The Union had planned to keep them in slavery when they started the war.
Nonsense. Blacks were afforded equal rights in many U.S. states, although not all Northern ones (New Jersey, for instance, denied the right to vote to blacks in 1807, and Pennsylvania in 1838*.) By the 1820s, few states had property requirements (North Carolina became the last to abolish them in 1857) or poll taxes. Literacy tests did not exist before reconstruction.
You are sorta making my point here. Look up the "Black Codes" of Illinois. They could literally sell free black people back into slavery.
Since you are the self appointed president of the Lost Cause mythology, started by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, let me ask you this:
How many of the States that Seceded, to join the Confederacy, were slave-free States?
I think Putin favors an autocratic Union. That puts him in the Lincoln camp. He also has the bigger army, which also puts him into the Lincoln camp. He is invading which is once again, Lincoln.
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