I compromise right up until the unhappy Southerners sabotage an election and decide to try to build an army with a state behind it. At that point I start burning down states until the Confederacy shuts up and gets over itself. If people want to bring into the equation civil war, I'd give them enough civil war that they'd not want it for 300 more years. And if it's slavery I would have the manpower on the battlefield even if my armies were led by a bunch of Leeroy Jenkinses so......
It's not idealistic. Otto von Bismarck couldn't control that his successors were going to be donkeys leading lions. Henry Kissinger couldn't lose a war gracefully if he went into it assuming it was lost and that more of the same failed practices which never answered the real issues would work by bubblegum and wishful thinking. Realpolitik works, but like everything else it ultimately withers on the vine because history's a vindictive bitch. Today's great Statesmen are tomorrow's Ozymandias, leaving forgotten fallen statues and nobody knows or cares who they are. Acknowledging this is *also* part of Realpolitik. Its opponents, OTOH, want to be either Jesus Christ or Khorne.
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Date: 9/11/12 14:39 (UTC)It's not idealistic. Otto von Bismarck couldn't control that his successors were going to be donkeys leading lions. Henry Kissinger couldn't lose a war gracefully if he went into it assuming it was lost and that more of the same failed practices which never answered the real issues would work by bubblegum and wishful thinking. Realpolitik works, but like everything else it ultimately withers on the vine because history's a vindictive bitch. Today's great Statesmen are tomorrow's Ozymandias, leaving forgotten fallen statues and nobody knows or cares who they are. Acknowledging this is *also* part of Realpolitik. Its opponents, OTOH, want to be either Jesus Christ or Khorne.