Picking sides...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I actually started writing a post on the Ron Paul's recent racist newsletter scandal and the conservative reaction to the same but jonathankorman beat me to the punch. As such I'm shifting the topic slightly to something that came up in the comments.

Now I like Ron Paul, As jonathankorman said;

He vigorously opposes American military adventurism and the military-industrial complex. He has pointed out how the financial industry has perversely benefitted from the financial crisis they created. He speaks in defense of civil liberties and has fought against attacks on them like the PATRIOT Act. He calls the War On Some Drugs the madness that it is. And often he says this stuff well.

But his response to the scandal namely, "I didn't know what was in the letters but I put my name on them anyway" has dramatically lowered my respect for him. You see, if he's telling the truth, such a decision demonstrates a high level political incompetance. What kind of fool would out-source his reputation in such a way? and what kind of fool would run for president without taking care of the skeletons in his closet first? If he did write those letters (even if he were simply playing to the crowd) he's simply dishonest and unwilling or unable to take the heat.

Niether of these qualities speak well of him, and to be frank I expect higher quality bullshit from my elected officials.

That said, I flinch internally anytime I hear someone frame an argument about politicians or policy in terms of good and evil. In my opinion you can either pick a team, or pursue the truth. When you frame an argument in such a way you've basically declared your preference for the former.

Comments

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Better in certain ways, slavery not being one of them. And that's only one of the many reasons the Confederacy fought, so again, your analysis is incorrect.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It was the reason they fought. If they didn't give a damn about it, they would have simply abolished it in 1862 and undercut the Union's big moral advantage from the get-go and removed their biggest obstacle to foreign recognition. Instead the CSA approved a Commissar Order aimed at USCT and sentenced thousands of POWs on both sides to death so they wouldn't have to treat black soldiers as equals and quashed Cleburne's memorial that they should abolish slavery to find a large amount of new, willing manpower. Then refusing to consider changes in slavery until the day before the Union Army took Richmond. To claim slavery was one of many reasons is a great big lie, it was the reason of all reasons. Of course because the CSA fought for slavery did not mean the USA was fighting for freedom and abolition....

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I didn't say they didn't give a damn about it. I said it wasn't the only reason for the fighting.

To claim slavery was one of many reasons is a great big lie

Because you say so. History and historians say otherwise.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, all historians since the 1960s agree with me. All historians of the 19th Century in the age when white supremacy and racial lawlessness are king agree with you. Your concepts of the Civil War have been obsolete for quite some time now. I'd encourage you to read such histories but it would be a fruitless exercise, so long as the history describes anything in detail beyond the level of a single sentence and say-so it's probably too long and boring to soldier through. Nichevo, Tovarisch.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

http://www.historynet.com/true-causes-of-the-civil-war.htm

The proximate cause of the war, however, was Lincoln's determination not to allow the South to go peacefully out of the Union, which would have severely weakened, if not destroyed, the United States.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Nice try, buddy boy, you're not going to get away with such selective quoting. Using the paragraphs above and below what you cite here:

The immediate cause of Southern secession, therefore, was a fear that Lincoln and the Republican Congress would have abolished the institution of slavery—which would have ruined fortunes, wrecked the Southern economy and left the South to contend with millions of freed blacks. The long-term cause was a feeling by most Southerners that the interests of the two sections of the country had drifted apart, and were no longer mutual or worthwhile.

^Above

Below:

There is the possibility that war might have been avoided, and a solution worked out, had there not been so much mistrust on the part of the South. Unfortunately, some of the mistrust was well earned in a bombastic fog of hatred, recrimination and outrageous statements and accusations on both sides. Put another way, it was well known that Lincoln was anti-slavery, but both during his campaign for office and after his election, he insisted it was never his intention to disturb slavery where it already existed. The South simply did not believe him.

The Lincoln administration was able to quell secession movements in several Border States—Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and what would become West Virginia—by a combination of politics and force, including suspension of the Bill of Rights. But when Lincoln ordered all states to contribute men for an army to suppress the rebellion South Carolina started by firing on Fort Sumter, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina also joined the Confederacy rather than make war on their fellow Southerners.

You fail history forever, which is nothing atypical and is at least not as egregious as Badlydrawnjeff and WWII, which he seems to have confused with the world of Warhammer 40,000.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Since I wasn't claiming that slavery had nothing to do with it, those paragraphs don't prove my statement wrong. The paragraph I quoted was all that's needed to prove my statement right.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Perhaps in your world. What your snippet does not note is *why* those states seceded, and the Confederacy seceded over slavery and dragged in those four northern border states by firing on Fort Sumter. That they dragged them in is how West Virginia came to be and why those states all had mini-civil wars in the bigger war. But what's a matter of detail or simple fact for a good one-liner? A fact would require more than one sentence, after all.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Apparently this sequence of events:

1) South secedes over slavery.
2) Lincoln declares war on South

Means that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I've never denied that slavery was involved in the issue, so you're arguing against something that isn't at issue.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

You fail history forever, which is nothing atypical and is at least not as egregious as Badlydrawnjeff and WWII, which he seems to have confused with the world of Warhammer 40,000.

Oh man don't get me started. If I have to hear one more time about how The New Deal never happened...

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Not true. (http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html)

Mississippi Declaration of Causes of Secession:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery

South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession:

an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.
....
all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

Texas Declaration of the Causes of Secession:

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it wasn't a reason at all. But if you read that honestly you'll see that the problem was with the federal government trying to exert a power over the states that it didn't have a right to, on the topic of slavery. Besides, that is just the reason for seceding. The reasons for fighting was to preserve their right to be independent from tyranny (as they saw it).

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Nonsense. People don't fight wars over disputes over what a government is legally empowered to do; they fight wars over what a government is doing or might do. And Abraham Lincoln tells us (http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm) it was that last which led to the war.

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

http://www.historynet.com/true-causes-of-the-civil-war.htm

The proximate cause of the war, however, was Lincoln's determination not to allow the South to go peacefully out of the Union, which would have severely weakened, if not destroyed, the United States.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

The proximate cause of the First World War was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

If you're going to insist on me taking arguments this absurd seriously, I have no more stomach for it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually historically that's the immediate cause. The proximate cause was the combination of the unilateral annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the two Balkan Wars. The immediate cause is the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand. I might note that you're arguing with someone whose idea of logic is "You're illiterate" and "It's not my problem you're stupid." Why waste your time except for personal amusement?

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

That's a nice distinction between immediate and proximate causes.

And: I got a bit carried away. It's not good to leave assertions that The Civil War Was Not About Slavery just lying around.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That wasn't the assertion.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I might note that you insist on personal attacks that aren't germane to the issue and I challenge you to find one such statement from me here, as opposed to the many you have given. So who is the person arguing that way again?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That power being to limit abuses of slaveholders who were conspicuous advocates of disregarding Northern liberty laws with the full coercive power of the government. Of course it's fruitless to argue actual details or facts with someone whose idea of facts is to claim someone else is illiterate or wrong on nothing but his say-so, that's the kind of argument seen in schoolyards among elementary school students who have nothing better to do like playing kickball or picking their noses and playing Pokemon card games.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

No, that's not the power I'm referring to.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It is the power that they (meaning the leaders and generals of the Confederacy) referred to and whatever you think you refer to in those one liners that say nothing at all has nothing to do with what they did.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Citation needed.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Cornerstone Speech, the policy to slaughter USCT that produced massacres at Olustee, Fort Pillow, the Crater, in Arkansas, at Miliken's Bend, the quashing of the Cleburne Memorial, the, in contemporary speech "20 Nigger Law" that exempted slaveowners from fighting for the state they so badly wanted to make sure others did the bleeding and dying for it......need I go on, or will you simply reject these without ever specifying why as per the usual pattern?