At this moment, 150 years ago...

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Sad fact is, we don't work as one country and will never work again, this country is a failure.We are too diverse, no uniting bonds.Sorry but I feel not bond or connection to someone from New York, New Jersey, etc I feel a bond with my southern brothers, that is it.Truth is, many in other parts feel the same.We want different things, different cultures etc, we would be better off to split and just stay friendly but the greed and thirst for power would never allow it.Best we can do right now is just not accept the tyranny and try to win elections but I fully understand how the southerners of that time felt and as said, they were not wrong.

Keep talkin'. We're starting to understand.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

No, the founders were justified and sorry but the British tied their hands with their tyranny, much as Lincoln and the North did with the South.Rather arrogant to think people should just accept the status quo when it is unacceptable. Colonists had a right to self determination and not to be ruled, same for the south.

Some would argue that Lincoln was justified too, if not for freeing slaves but for keeping the Union together and thus ensuring Americas relevance in the next century. I think a divided states of America would very likely have not become the global superpower that the United States has.

South has suffered and generations later still suffers due to Lincoln's War of Aggression.Many one affluent southerns lost everything and thus had nothing to pass on.
Suddenly, generations of wealthy and even just normal people who had something in this world, were left destitute and it set in motion several genertions of poverty and all the ills that come along with it.Many were already poor and were made even more so.That along with the physical and emotional scars and the nearly one million dead on both sides, it really is one of the greatest crimes in history and he was punished for it.However, his legacy at the minumum should be questioned and not celebrated as it is.Very sad so many Presidents talk of their admiration of him, but then again most presidents we have had last 50 or so years have traits and tendencies of a tyrant, especially Bush and Obama.

I see what you mean about the poverty and chaos of the aftermath of war. The end of our civil war resulted in famine and disaster and lead directly to the massacres in Ireland. You say Lincoln was a tyrant, try choosing between King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. In comparison you got off lucky.

I would not expect you to understand as you are not a southerner,

Try telling that to Jimbuna.

you are from a people who still have a monarch(ceremonial) and have a much more subjugated mentality than we do.Thus why your nation is more of a police state and just accept things, which is sad because it is a lovely place overall.

A what now? You've been watching Fox News again, haven't you?

Forgiving a foreign enemy is a bit easier than forgiving your supposed countryman.Especially when THE man responsible for so much misery and death is celebrated the way he is.An grandiose memorial, an aircraft carrier, countless fanbois and a populace who is ignorant of the terror and cruelty of this man.

http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/12636.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell_tank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BR_stan...liver_Cromwell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_...l,_Westminster

Also, sure don't know anyone who was alive there, but stories run deep of how the events of that time caused much pain in the family.

War does cause pain, but hatred leads to war which causes more pain.

Also, we are now in a moment not unlike time prior to the civil war.We have a bloated, abusive centralized government who overtaxes us and condones the denigration and eradication of many cultural and social institutions.I understand how they felt and they were not wrong.Opinion aside, government does not have the right to treat us they way they do.

Sad fact is, we don't work as one country and will never work again, this country is a failure.

For a failure it's been doing pretty well for a hundred and fifty years.

We are too diverse, no uniting bonds.

You're American.

Sorry but I feel not bond or connection to someone from New York, New Jersey, etc I feel a bond with my southern brothers, that is it.Truth is, many in other parts feel the same.We want different things, different cultures etc, we would be better off to split and just stay friendly but the greed and thirst for power would never allow it.Best we can do right now is just not accept the tyranny and try to win elections but I fully understand how the southerners of that time felt and as said, they were not wrong.

There's a reason the south lost, and it wasn't just due to poor leadership. The south cannot work without the North and the North cannot work without the south. All these divides of over a hundred years ago are just silly, you fought, you lost, get over it. Stop whining and suck it up. Nations went through far far worse than the CSA, take a look at Germany if you want to know what defeat is like. You don't see Germans coming on here and complaining that they lost the war, do you?
What about Betonov? His region had a civil war in your lifetime, and yes, there are people who are still bitter about it...because it happened only twenty-five years ago...not a hundred and fifty years.

Or should I start hating people because their great-great-great-great-great-great-(insert relevant number of greats here)-grandfather supported the Cavaliers or Roundheads?

Originally Posted by razark

As someone born and raised in the south, let me say "Shut up and stop making us look bad."

I think that's what a lot of the GOP is saying at the moment.

In short:




Oh, and of course, the required picture:

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Steve, it's not an opinion, ever hear of ex parte merryman?

Yes.

Exactly.Lincoln acted unconstitutionally and thus as a tyrant.

Historians and Judges are still debating today whether the President has the power to suspend Habeas Corpus. When Lincoln did so, was it to further his own personal power or, as he saw it, to "get the job done"? Everything Lincoln did was bound within the same goal - to keep the Union together.

Lincoln jailed many of his critics.

Yes he did. What you consistently miss is the mindset. I'll address that in a minute.

Facts are stubborn things.

Quoting John Adams is a cute trick, but nothing more.

Call it an opinion, but documented facts of his actions show who he was .While the mindless sheep see him as some hero.Lincoln was a terrible tyrant, the end.

No, not the end. You saying it doesn't make it so, nor does it make you right. It's still just your opinion.

Lincoln was not alive during the revolution nor was he an adult, he was child in rural podunk IL that had no clue.

I didn't say he was. I said he was a product of the previous generation, the generation who fought the Revolution and wrote the Constitution. The thing that terrified them most was any split between the States. Lincoln, like them, was convinced the Country could not survive if it were not whole. Everything he did must be considered in that context to be understood. At the time of his inauguration Washington D.C. was under attack. The first chapter of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War is a personal recounting of the danger the President and the city were in from attack, and the efforts to contain those plots. As I said earlier, you can't consider someone's actions without first considering their mindset.

Sure, he made something of himself but he was not the benevolent man.I swear the way some people are about Lincoln is same way many Germans would be about Hitler if war had ended differently for them.The blind would think he was still some great figure, SMH.

Insulting people who disagree with you doesn't make them look bad, only you.

I will clarify my argument about the cause of the war.Sure, south fired first but Lincoln CHOSE to launch a massive, bloody war after tying the souths hands of the south.

How so? Lincoln did everything he could to prevent that. He closed his first inaugural with these words: " In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it.""

Increased tariffs on cotton etc.

Please elaborate.

Why were these tariffs passed(albeit morrill tariff came about under previous admin, it was increased under Lincoln)

Yes and no. The tariffs of 1846 and 1857 were of greatest benefit to the South. The North wanted to increase the tariffs. the South did not. Lincoln's part was that without support for Morrill he and his party had no chance of winning the election. In 1859 Morrill was first presented. It passed the House but failed in the Senate. In 1860 the Republicans' support for Morrill helped get backing from industrialists, and with their vote Lincoln won the White House. Of course the fact that the Democrats were split into several factions didn't hurt.

Once the election was decided the Southern States immediately started seceding. I will repeat that while the Morrill Tariff is cited by Southern Apologists to this day, the Documents of Secession almost unilaterally cite slavery as their main cause for leaving the Union.

Once the Southern States had seceded there was no way to prevent Morrill from passing. If they had stayed in place they likely would have won that fight.

Contrary to opinion you seem to hold, Morrill was not about keeping the South down, but about Trade Protection. After Secession was fact and the War started, Morrill authored two more Tariff Acts, both in an effort to raise money for the war. Since the South had already seceded, these raises affected only the North.

was because his industrial masters in the north wanted this Basically, Lincoln forced the hand of the south, and reacted as a tyrant once they answered his provocation.

Yes he did force their hand. That doesn't change the fact that they started the war, not him. If they had refused to fire on Fort Sumter, what could he have done? Any direct action would have made him the monster you claim him to be.

The war was not directly about slavery, it was about not having a centralized power in a whole other part of the country tell them how to live.

It was about the survival of the country. Lincoln believed the country could not survive as two separate entities. It was about secession, and the Southern States seceded over slavery. As you said, end of story.

Yes, at the time slavery was part of southern society and held dear as it was imperative to the economy.

Only because they made it so. The roots of the Civil War begin with the Constitutional Debates, specifically Slave State representation and the 3/5ths Rule.

Slavery was on the way out, it's a fact.Sure, it would have been around a bit longer but it would have died out.

Easy to say in hindsight. Not so easy from the things they wrote at the time. That "stubborn fact" makes it once again your opinion.

The was of northern aggression was unnecessary and nothing more than Lincoln's lust for power and dominance of a part of the country that refused to suddenly give up their way of life.No man has the right to do that, something mos tof us agree on.

Given what he said in his Inaugural Address and the timing of the Secession, this is again only your opinion. That you state it as fact shows nothing more than extreme bias.

I love our country and what it was meant to be but it's garbage now because of some things that have happened in last century, but fully understand why the south wanted out, I wish we could get out now, it just is not worth it anymore for most of us.

I understand why the South wanted out too, though I don't think we see the same reason and cause.

The south was no different than the founders, they wanted to be free from abusive, centralized power who was threatening their way of life.

Actually the Founders didn't want to be free. They wanted to be good Englishmen. Despite everything that happened they were still struggling to be just that right up until the day that British troops were sent to confiscate their cannons. Only after the shooting started did they actually begin discussing Independence.

The South, on the other hand, acted preemptively. They didn't even give Lincoln a chance. As soon as he was elected they assumed the worst. There is not real basis for comparison between the two.

The northern industrialists pushed the war

Please elaborate.

Lincoln used the moral cause of abolishing slavery as his cause to get many to join the fighter.

Not really. Abolishing slavery really didn't come into play until the Emancipation Proclamation, and that didn't come until the North finally managed to win a major battle, and then the main purpose was to show a moral high ground that would keep England and France from recognizing the Confederacy. It was politics, sure, but it was good politics.

The tactic of getting humans to not think with logic or rationality but emotion is not a new one, sadly it still works.

I'm sorry, but I take you as a prime example of that syndrome.

I will close by saying one good thing about Lincoln was he did not favor the abuse and revenge of reconstruction, he wanted a post civil war america to reunite and move on.Even Hitler had some admirable qualities I suppose.

Comparing the two is understandable, but only from the point of an already established hatred. What you do with your last sentence is not to compare the two, but to try to bolster your argument with more hatred. You might as well say "Even the Devil has his good points." I could just as easily counter with "Even Bubblehead1980 has his good points."

That kind of statement is not debate, it's not argument and it's not logic. It's hatred, mingled with the misplaced confidence of one's own rightness, and it has no part in so-called "reasonable" debate.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Betonov

WWI, wouldn't Germany influence one side against the other to keep them out of Europe and one side would join Central powers out of sheer spite for the other and we'd have another trench system along the Mason-Dixon line.

Since the South could only have won with Britain and France's recognition, I think the South would have joined the war on the Allied side and the North would have stayed out altogether.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Betonov

I really got to get my hands on a copy.
I love alternate history.

Of course my own opinion about a successful Southern secession is influenced by one of my own favorite alternate history books:
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Blue-Gray.../dp/1587156482

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by razark

As someone born and raised in the south, let me say "Shut up and stop making us look bad."

No, cowards like yourself make us look bad.The apologists and those who stay quiet and refuse to call out the worship of a tyrant.That was the point of the post, a tyrant fell 150 years ago last night.Never forgive and never forget.

[razark]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

...cowards like yourself...

You mean people who disagree with you? Last time, you said that made me an idiot.

Make up your mind.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Sorry but I feel not bond or connection to someone from New York, New Jersey, etc I feel a bond with my southern brothers, that is it.

You have no idea what you're missing. I feel a bond with the people of Utah, where I've lived for the past forty-four years. I feel a bond with the people of southern California, where I was raised from the age of two. I feel a special bond with the people of Texas, where I was born, especially with my dozens of cousins with whom I still communicate, and with Neal, who always makes me feel like a Texan, whether I think like one or not. If have a bond with my friend Jim from England, despite the differences of two hundred years ago. I feel a bond with several other Subsim members I've talked with personally over the years.

Truth is, many in other parts feel the same.We want different things, different cultures etc, we would be better off to split and just stay friendly but the greed and thirst for power would never allow it.Best we can do right now is just not accept the tyranny and try to win elections but I fully understand how the southerners of that time felt and as said, they were not wrong.

In a lot of ways I agree. I often wonder whether America might be better off as separate regions, and I certainly complain about certain acts of the Federal Government. I agree with you about a lot of things. The main difference is that I want to discuss it, debate it, dissect it and have fun with it. You, on the other hand, seem to want only to preach your gospel of hatred.

Sorry to be so harsh, but your language this time shows no serious thought at all, just venom. In fact your first post seemed to me to be very close to doing nothing more than celebrating a murder.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Since the South could only have won with Britain and France's recognition, I think the South would have joined the war on the Allied side and the North would have stayed out altogether.

A lot can happen in 50 years.

Example is the turmoil that happened around the German unification.
Sardinia Piedmont attacked Austria with the backing of France (1859) and took Lombardy. In 1866 Prussia attacked Austria and Italy was there to help Prussia. Fearing the rise of Prussia, France started talks of an alliance between them, Italy AND Austria. The Austrians were ready to ally themselves with a side that took away from them north Italy only 10 years prior.

[Camaero]

History is a scary thing when people can view the past with entirely conflicting eyes. Everyone has their own truth.

I could fill a book showing Lincoln to be a terrible person, and fill another showing him a saint, and they could both be entirely half true. Of course, the same could be said about almost anyone.

If you stare too far off into only one direction, you may fail to see all of the truths that lie opposite.

Not that this adds anything to the discussion, but I am personally a fan of Mr. Lincoln when all is said and done.

Cheers all!

[GoldenRivet]

I'm a southerner from the Republic of Texas

I had family fight on both sides of that war

I agree that we should all be entitled to our opinions - and regarding Lincoln - i do have my own.

I choose to keep them to myself because what i have to say about the man a century and a half after the fact wont to amount to a mound of mouse turds

the only constructive thing i have to say about Lincoln at this point is that i did have fun playing with his logs when i was a kid


but can someone remind me why we are entertaining this thread by continuing to discuss this?

with respect to Bubblehead1980 - this thread was clearly started as a measure of trolling, instigating and generally perpetuating a game of grab-ass-shenanigans

so whats the point really?

why do we tolerate this?

if this was his first post he would have already been sent to latrine duty as a spammer

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

In a lot of ways I agree. I often wonder whether America might be better off as separate regions, and I certainly complain about certain acts of the Federal Government.

I think it wouldn't have just been that one civil war I'm affraid.
I may not like the EU at all times or agree with them but I'm grateful that countries that are under it's flag haven't gone to war with one another since WWII. Now the USA and EU are quite different but they both united countries/states with differences under one banner and that I think does help to prevent going at ones throat now and then.

I agree with you about a lot of things. The main difference is that I want to discuss it, debate it, dissect it and have fun with it. You, on the other hand, seem to want only to preach your gospel of hatred.

Sorry to be so harsh, but your language this time shows no serious thought at all, just venom. In fact your first post seemed to me to be very close to doing nothing more than celebrating a murder.

I have to hand it to you that no matter how hopeless and foul the venom is you're giving it your best in reply to show how it is done.

Originally Posted by Betonov

In 1866 Prussia attacked Austria and Italy was there to help Prussia. Fearing the rise of Prussia, France started talks of an alliance between them, Italy AND Austria. The Austrians were ready to ally themselves with a side that took away from them north Italy only 10 years prior.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

No, cowards like yourself make us look bad.The apologists and those who stay quiet and refuse to call out the worship of a tyrant.That was the point of the post, a tyrant fell 150 years ago last night.Never forgive and never forget.

I've had an in depth read of this thread and the questions that spring to my mind are:

Are you trolling?

Are you using hate speech?

Are you insulting other forum members?

Are you resorting to name calling?

The answers to the first two are on the borderline in my opinion but the answers to the third and fourth are a definite YES.

Keep within the acceptable norms if you'd be so kind and can we ALL try to ensure that is the case for everyone.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Never forgive and never forget.

There's your problem.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Betonov

A lot can happen in 50 years.

True. It's also true that anything said in hindsight (referring to my own comments here) can never be anything but speculation.

Originally Posted by Camaero

History is a scary thing when people can view the past with entirely conflicting eyes. Everyone has their own truth.

If you stare too far off into only one direction, you may fail to see all of the truths that lie opposite.

Very good observations and advice. It adds a lot to the discussion, and not because of your admitted sentiment at the end.

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

I choose to keep them to myself because what i have to say about the man a century and a half after the fact wont to amount to a mound of mouse turds

Maybe not, but anybody's opinion is worth discussing if kept within the bounds of discussion rather than tirade. I'm always interested in finding out why others think what they do, and I'm always willing to try to understand why those ideas exist. I had some wonderful discussion with UnderSeaLCPL on this very subject back in the day.

but can someone remind me why we are entertaining this thread by continuing to discuss this?

For my part it's because of the reasons I give immediately above. Discussion is the only means we have to understand each other. Communication is the one advantage humankind has over all the other animals.

so whats the point really?

That is a question that only he can answer.

why do we tolerate this?

Because it's General Topics, and because as long as they stay within the rules everyone is allowed to state their opinions. The problem arises when the poster is so convinced of his own rightness that discussion ceases. I try to keep discussion alive as long as I can, in the hope that sometimes something real will be accomplished. In some cases it's not possible, but I keep trying. That's my sickness.

Originally Posted by HunterICX

I think it wouldn't have just been that one civil war I'm affraid.

You may be right. I find it sad that we'll never know.