The Gettysburg Address

[rambone]

Can you really separate the civil war from slavery? Really? What facts must you ignore to do that? What mindset must you have to do that? Ideological absurdity indeed.

People have a right to secede for any reason: To form a communist state, to form a theocracy, to form a monarchy. Yes, even to be slavers, which is just another (more honest) form of the governments I just mentioned.

They can form any kind of ugly, repulsive tyranny they want. Chances are that it will filled with oppression, just like 1000s of civilizations throughout human history. But that's neither here nor there. It is self-governance in action; not the U.S. government's place to intervene anymore.

I posted about this wa-aay earlier in this thread so you can't just say I'm "ignoring slavery."

 

[jamil]

People have a right to secede for any reason: To form a communist state, to form a theocracy, to form a monarchy. Yes, even to be slavers, which is just another (more honest) form of the governments I just mentioned.

They can form any kind of ugly, repulsive tyranny they want. Chances are that it will filled with oppression, just like 1000s of civilizations throughout human history. But that's neither here nor there. It is self-governance in action; not the U.S. government's place to intervene anymore.

I posted about this wa-aay earlier in this thread so you can't just say I'm "ignoring slavery."

My memory often fails me so I may have forgotten your post, or just didn't see it. As you can see from reality, your ideal of what ought to be isn't always followed or agreeable with everyone, and arguably, isn't always best for everyone.

But you guys are trying to conflate the issues of Southern succession from the US with Scotland's succession from the UK, presumably as a "gotcha" or some kind of accusation of hypocrisy. But to get there you must shed all the details that make the two circumstances different so that you can make it a simple Boolean, yes/no black/white issue. So you simply say the details don't matter, that no matter the circumstances, they should be able to succeed for any reason.

I'm sorry, but I don't see that as very practical. It is ideological absurdity. When one geopolitical group joins a state, there are necessarily strings attached. There needs to be a legal process followed for sorting out all the strings.

 

[rambone]

I'm sorry, but I don't see that as very practical. It is ideological absurdity. When one geopolitical group joins a state, there are necessarily strings attached. There needs to be a legal process followed for sorting out all the strings.

You keep saying its "impractical and absurd," but what you really mean is that secession is inconvenient. And that's probably true in the majority of cases, especially for the state that shrinks.


"Legal process... sorting out the strings" is the functional equivalent of saying that secession is impermissible without the blessing of the larger state. It seems "impractical" to ask for permission to secede, from a government that is bad enough secede from.

 

[poptab]

I don't think so. Lincoln had no obligation to recognize the "seceded" states because there was no process to do so. If Rick Perry went on TV and said "Texas has seceded from the union" (as a present day instance) it would not hold water because there is no legal process to do so. Scotland, as far as I am aware, is holding a legitimate and lawful election about the matter. If there was no legal way to do it, and Scotland claimed they seceded anyway and initiated combat on the UK, then that would be the modern equivalent of what happened in 1860-61 here in America.

If it were a truely free country as we have been told, no process need exist. People, groups of people, states are free to leave by virtue of being.

Where in the constitution is the federal government granted the power to subjugate states who excuse themselves from the union?

 

[jamil]

You keep saying its "impractical and absurd," but what you really mean is that secession is inconvenient. And that's probably true in the majority of cases, especially for the state that shrinks.


"Legal process... sorting out the strings" is the functional equivalent of saying that secession is impermissible without the blessing of the larger state. It seems "impractical" to ask for permission to secede, from a government that is bad enough secede from.

No, I'm quite certain I meant "impractical and absurd".

 

[sloughfoot]

In July 1776 a decision was made to secede from the "mother country". There was a document published that codified the reasons why. England objected but did not prevail in the war that followed. England tried again to impose their will in the war of 1812. They were not successful then either.

Secession is not inherently evil. It is the right of a free citizen. When you move from a restrictive or oppressive state to another one, have you as a person not seceded?

It is entrenched government and its lackey's that try to suppress that free peoples desire for freedom, or at least the illusion of freedom.

 

[rambone]

My ideas are practical and yours are absurd. No further discussion necessary. Alrighty then.

 

[jamil]

The only choices in the argument is that Lincoln is either a tyrant or he isn't a tyrant. No further discussion is necessary. Right.

 

[Henry]

Articles: That Dirty, Rotten Racist...Abraham Lincoln


Yep...good ol Abe...the great emancipator and savior of the union.

 

[jamil]

Are you okay? I'm starting to wonder if your obsession with this topic is healthy.

 

[HoughMade]

Where are Mr. Peabody and Sherman when you need them?

BTW- anyone else find it humorous for the neo-secessionists to be preaching "freedom"? You know, the FREEDOM of a government, not Lincoln's government, but the government, a STATE to have the right to suppress the individual? With no southern abolitionist movement at any level of the CSA government- that's exactly what is being advocated.

Statists.

 

[jamil]

Where are Mr. Peabody and Sherman when you need them?

BTW- anyone else find it humorous for the neo-secessionists to be preaching "freedom"?

Mr. Peabody invented a new wayback machine which removes ideologically inconventient history from your experience.

 

[HoughMade]

....but....only Lincoln's a statist....not all those states in the south....who were so committed to freedom that they fought tooth and nail to enshrine....the lack of freedom in STATIST laws.

 

[Henry]

Lincoln..the savior who was willing to kill 600,000+ in order to establish a union by coercion and destroy a union of consent.

 

[HoughMade]

Yeah...Lincoln's the bad guy. There was another way to avoid the war....not start one.

 

[Henry]

It was Lincoln that instigated the conflict... and not to end slavery (per his own words) but to centralize and concentrate power in the central state.

Perhaps you could do some of your own research into the matter.

 

[Henry]

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union"
Lincoln


Of course, in doing so he destroyed a union of consent and substituted a union by force.

 

[HoughMade]

We've been through this. I have researched the matter and posted much of that in this and other threads....but it does not meet with your preconceived notions, so you discount it.....the very thing you accuse others of.

Why is the suppression of freedom by individual states so much preferable to the claimed suppression of freedom by a federal government?

 

[Henry]

Why is the suppression of freedom by individual states so much preferable to the claimed suppression of freedom by a federal government?

Because government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. I would rather that necessary evil be as small as possible. Lincoln, on the other hand, only expanded it.

He is anything but the champion of Liberty his worshippers praise him to be.

 

[Henry]

It is worth noting that the assassination of Lincoln by Booth was one of the worst things that could happen for Liberty. At that point, the tyrant became a martyr and his death was used as cove for ushering in significant encroachments upon Liberty.

To this day, progressives and statists of all stripes and parties invoke his martyrdom on behalf of their efforts to continue the expansion of the central state.