Quote from: kopema on November 21, 2013, 04:42:43 PM
NINTY percent slavery today is far worse than TEN percent slavery a century-and-a-half ago.... 

What disgusting bullshit; this is like an American who got laid off from his job bitching about it to a 7 year old dying from breast cancer.  The difference factor of 9 does nothing to close the utter gap in magnitude between actual slavery and what spoiled brats such as yourself think the word means.  Slavery was awful enough that mothers would jump off ships and drown themselves and their children to avoid it; that you actually think your problems are worse would be hilarious if it weren't just pitiful.

Quote
Only in the mind of the most rabid propagandist could that incredibly trite observation magically transform into an accidental confession that anyone who criticizes Fascism or Communism is "defending" Africa's slave trade.

You haven't been reading along well.  I never said he defended the african slave trade (you do realize the slave trade had been outlawed long before the civil war, right?); I'm saying he was defending the Confederacy and failing to understand that their perpetuation of slavery outweighs any good ideas they might have come up with.

Never thought I would agree with Sci fi Fan, slavery was/is a democratic party controlled and supported institution, though as Sci Fi Fan says the difference between 18-19th century slavery and slavery today are vast, the definition of the word as i.e "One who is abjectly subservient to a specified person or influence" is correctly attributed to the situation in which wellfare recipients being depended on the government are hold to serve their benefactors less they be punished for it as it is to the 18th century institution.

Of course one would be ludicrous to argue that 18th century slavery was less worse, but that still doesn't change the fact that the term is rightly appropriated to the democratic party of today, as it was to the democratic party of the past.

Talking about Democracy vs Republic, how exactly is it Republican to Secede from the Union because you feel an insult to your honor that someone wanted to gradually abolish slavery? And if the South was going to abolish slavery anyway, why secede?

The objection to Lincoln, because they believed he was going to trample their right as states to oppress people slaves they issued the causes for secession, no moral highground here, I have as little respect for a southern democrat as I have for a northern democrat, they both believe in their right to have people as slaves.

Nullification is a better argument for secession, but when the debate in question was objection to gradual abolishment of slavery or to formulate it differently, objection to the federal government guaranteing all individuals in all united states their freedom, it looses all moral high ground.

Quote from: Mountainshield on November 30, 2013, 04:41:49 AM
Never thought I would agree with Sci fi Fan, slavery was/is a democratic party controlled and supported institution, though as Sci Fi Fan says the difference between 18-19th century slavery and slavery today are vast, the definition of the word as i.e "One who is abjectly subservient to a specified person or influence" is correctly attributed to the situation in which wellfare recipients being depended on the government are hold to serve their benefactors less they be punished for it as it is to the 18th century institution.

Sure:  genocide, shmenocide...  Of course no one is arguing the "moral highground" of modern totalitarianism - because it can't possibly be argued.

On the other hand history IS being argued; albeit, of course, only by our favorite moron.  The rest of us simply accept it.  Rational people always tend to do that with what we call "facts" - and then we move on with our lives.

The fact is that for the first several thousand years of recorded civilization (not counting the... well... countless millennia before that) the vast majority of humans lived in one form of slavery or another -- until the practice was (as some argue) retroactively "invented" by what later became one of the first societies on earth to ever abolish it.  It's worth noting that even super-snooty England didn't "abolish" slavery before America.  They outsourced it to their colonies.  The East India Company did things that would make an antebellum plantation owner puke his guts out - all conducted at a genteel distance from Merry Old, of course.

The only thing that made the African slave trade more horrific than any other form of good old-fashioned feudalism (Muscovitism, Fengiism, etc., etc...) was the fact that, instead of sticking with a plot of land, family members were sometimes sold separately.  And, yeah, it is more than a little ironic that the American Welfare State has done many times more to destroy families than four hundred years of slavery did.

But even that doesn't compare to the universal system of family destruction practiced by Fully Transformed countries today.

QuoteTalking about Democracy vs Republic, how exactly is it Republican to Secede from the Union because you feel an insult to your honor that someone wanted to gradually abolish slavery? And if the South was going to abolish slavery anyway, why secede?

Um, I don't think I see your point here.  It seems that what you're describing was the position of the Democrat Party.  The Republicans (including Abraham Lincoln) are the ones who very adamantly didn't want to allow the Southern States to secede.

(Incidentally, I believe you're capitalizing the words inappropriately.  Names such as "Republican Party" and "Democrats" are proper nouns, so they should be capitalized.  But things like "republican" concepts, and "democratic" principles are common nouns and should be lowercase.)

I think you misunderstood my post, or I was too general when stating that I agreed with the "fan" on this, the only point in which I agree with him on this topic was that slavery is a evil form of institution, the system you describe of indentured servitude is fundamentally different from slavery in which the indentured servant has rights, will be freed after a agreed upon amount of time and could not be murdered by his master.

I'm also not arguing that we should judge the 18th century by 20th or 21st century standards just as it would be flawed to judge the system of Lords and Serfs from the same perspective, but by the 19th century there has been thorough enlightement which was argued for from the Bible and Christian Theology (though militant atheists today claim otherwise lol) to show that slavery, not indentured servitude but slavery as practiced by the South and other Empires at this time was morally wrong and against the will of God. So we can hold these people that still was against abolishment of slavery in this paradigm accountable for their immoral and evil acts just as we can hold the statist and totalitarians of communist today accountable for the sins and evil they have done.

Quote from: kopema on November 30, 2013, 06:20:44 AM
Um, I don't think I see your point here.  It seems that what you're describing was the position of the Democrat Party.  The Republicans (including Abraham Lincoln) are the ones who very adamantly didn't want to allow the Southern States to secede.

And on this I would agree with Abraham Lincoln, nullification in support of oppression and witholding individuals their God given rights is morally evil. That the democrats today continue to hold both white, black and latinos as slaves is not the fault of Lincoln or Republican party, though one could argue that the Republicans didn't punish/banish the Democrat party after the civil war.

Quote from: Mountainshield on November 30, 2013, 06:38:11 AM
I think you misunderstood my post, or I was too general when stating that I agreed with the "fan" on this, the only point in which I agree with him on this topic was that slavery is a evil form of institution, the system you describe of indentured servitude is fundamentally different from slavery in which the indentured servant has rights, will be freed after a agreed upon amount of time and could not be murdered by his master.

I wasn't talking about indentured servitude.  I was talking about feudalism; i.e., the way pretty much everyone, in every civilized nation on earth used to live.  (Note that I didn't put the word "civilized" in quotation marks; that's because the alternative was a LOT more barbaric than mere slavery.) 

There were no contracts or time limits on feudalism; people lived their whole lives that way; as did their children, and their children's children, etc....   And there were no "rights" as we think of that term today associated with traditional generational servitude.  There were, depending on the time and locale, some historical traditions - primary among them, as I said above, the convention that serfs were usually not sold separately from their families and the land they lived on.  But that had more to do with the static nature of Europe and Asia (i.e., no new large territories to develop) than to any kind of moral code.  Lords had literally the power of life and death over their human chattle.  Masters could - and sometimes did - mutilate or murder their serfs just for the fun of it.  I'm sure the serfs weren't very happy about it, but their opinion wasn't really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

I think a lot of the stereotypes Americans have today regarding "the good old days" of serfdom were crystallized in the latter years of English Monarchy.  No "serfs' rights" movement was the cause of any of that, but rather the effect of technology, industrialization and a primitive form of outsourcing, similar to what occurred in the Northern United States.

Certainly the African slave trade was horrifically destructive to the lives and families of the stone age tribesmen who were dislocated (but then again, not all that much worse than being stone age tribesmen was to begin with.)  After that point, slavery was pretty much slavery.  Your life was as good or as bad as your master - period.  The effort to paint early American slave owners as somehow more ogreish in that regard than the thousands of generations who came before them has nothing to do with morality, and everything to do with historical revisionism.

Quote from: Mountainshield on November 30, 2013, 04:41:49 AM
Never thought I would agree with Sci fi Fan, slavery was/is a democratic party controlled and supported institution, though as Sci Fi Fan says the difference between 18-19th century slavery and slavery today are vast, the definition of the word as i.e "One who is abjectly subservient to a specified person or influence" is correctly attributed to the situation in which wellfare recipients being depended on the government are hold to serve their benefactors less they be punished for it as it is to the 18th century institution.

Of course one would be ludicrous to argue that 18th century slavery was less worse, but that still doesn't change the fact that the term is rightly appropriated to the democratic party of today, as it was to the democratic party of the past.

Talking about Democracy vs Republic, how exactly is it Republican to Secede from the Union because you feel an insult to your honor that someone wanted to gradually abolish slavery? And if the South was going to abolish slavery anyway, why secede?

The objection to Lincoln, because they believed he was going to trample their right as states to oppress people slaves they issued the causes for secession, no moral highground here, I have as little respect for a southern democrat as I have for a northern democrat, they both believe in their right to have people as slaves.

Nullification is a better argument for secession, but when the debate in question was objection to gradual abolishment of slavery or to formulate it differently, objection to the federal government guaranteing all individuals in all united states their freedom, it looses all moral high ground.

You have absolutely no historical basis to link the 19th century democratic party to the modern party of the same name.  Absolutely every piece of evidence, be it the demographic and ethnic groups, the obsession with "states' rights", tradition and anti-"forcing acceptance" (sound familiar?) ideologies, the geographic location and, most damning of all, the modern confederates who self identify as conservatives makes the notion that the 19th century democrats were liberals taken about as seriously in legitimate historiography as the idea that Julius Caesar never lived.   

Maybe another damning indication that the confederacy was driven by a conservative ideology (and I really don't see how you could possibly dispute this) was the prevalence of its sympathizers and their received sympathy on these boards, whereas the very few touring, say, "democratic underground" would quickly be flamed and shut down.

Quote from: kopema on November 30, 2013, 07:48:26 AM
I wasn't talking about indentured servitude.  I was talking about feudalism; i.e., the way pretty much everyone, in every civilized nation on earth used to live.  (Note that I didn't put the word "civilized" in quotation marks; that's because the alternative was a LOT more barbaric than mere slavery.) 

There were no contracts or time limits on feudalism; people lived their whole lives that way; as did their children, and their children's children, etc....   And there were no "rights" as we think of that term today associated with traditional generational servitude.  There were, depending on the time and locale, some historical traditions - primary among them, as I said above, the convention that serfs were usually not sold separately from their families and the land they lived on.  But that had more to do with the static nature of Europe and Asia (i.e., no new large territories to develop) than to any kind of moral code.  Lords had literally the power of life and death over their human chattle.  Masters could - and sometimes did - mutilate or murder their serfs just for the fun of it.  I'm sure the serfs weren't very happy about it, but their opinion wasn't really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

I think a lot of the stereotypes Americans have today regarding "the good old days" of serfdom were crystallized in the latter years of English Monarchy.  No "serfs' rights" movement was the cause of any of that, but rather the effect of technology, industrialization and a primitive form of outsourcing, similar to what occurred in the Northern United States.

Certainly the African slave trade was horrifically destructive to the lives and families of the stone age tribesmen who were dislocated (but then again, not all that much worse than being stone age tribesmen was to begin with.)  After that point, slavery was pretty much slavery.  Your life was as good or as bad as your master - period.  The effort to paint early American slave owners as somehow more ogreish in that regard than the thousands of generations who came before them has nothing to do with morality, and everything to do with historical revisionism.

This has nothing to do with painting the American slave owners as more evil than the thousand of generations before them, it has to do with these American slave owners being more evil than their contemporary citizens in the regard that they continued a institution that was in their time deemed evil and morally wrong. The North Korean tyrants today are not necessarily more evil than many of the genocidal kingdoms in mankinds history but that does not excuse them from this evil.

Ancient slavery isn't less evil than modern day slavery, but after the Christian Enlightenment we have individual liberty which is something that has never existed before in mankinds history and the american slave owners contemporaries were able to judge this institution from a new perspective especially manifested in the christian fundamentalist abolishionist groups.

Quote from: Mountainshield on December 01, 2013, 10:48:22 AM
but after the Christian Enlightenment

Christianity existed for nearly 2 thousand years prior and its power and influence in Europe, while still massive in absolute terms, was at its lowest to that point since Constantine, how the hell could you attribute the Enlightenment to Christianity?

Consensus non-revisionist history places the credit on science and secular humanism.  You know, because those were actually changing and growing variables. 

Later you would have the Pope writing an official document specifically repudiating democracy and human rights.   

I can anticipate some counterarguments that are bound to butcher statistics in a rather painful manner (ie. "most enlightenment thinkers were Christian").

There is a right to secede, a right that supersedes the US Constitution, and even the UN has said that people have a right to self determine their own government.

That said, there is a profound difference between states seceding as a new country and counties seceding as new states. Should there be a reorganization of states? You bet. The urban rural divide is getting worse, with the rural parts of the country utterly left out of government. It wouldn't help our nation to breakup like the Balkan Peninsula. The two parts would be weaker than the whole and it would hurt business. Don't mistake temporarily being left out of the White House as a need to break away.

Quote from: Sci Fi Fan on November 21, 2013, 05:15:28 PM
What disgusting bullshit; this is like an American who got laid off from his job bitching about it to a 7 year old dying from breast cancer.  The difference factor of 9 does nothing to close the utter gap in magnitude between actual slavery and what spoiled brats such as yourself think the word means.  Slavery was awful enough that mothers would jump off ships and drown themselves and their children to avoid it; that you actually think your problems are worse would be hilarious if it weren't just pitiful.

You haven't been reading along well.  I never said he defended the african slave trade (you do realize the slave trade had been outlawed long before the civil war, right?); I'm saying he was defending the Confederacy and failing to understand that their perpetuation of slavery outweighs any good ideas they might have come up with.

Slavery sir, is slavery.

And it is an evil abomination, Americans threw off quite some time ago.

Americans used to believe that once, they also used to believe that slavery was something we as a nation could not tolerate, no matter the form the enslavement takes.

So much so, that we fought a very brutal and bloody civil war over it, as well as altering our highest law, our Constitution to see that slavery never again darkened American soil.

And here today come the apologists, to tell us all, that "well your slavery isn't as bad, as the slavery back then, so it's all good". :roll eyes:

Quote from: kramarat on August 02, 2013, 04:33:31 AM
Very interesting read.

Based on that, I would agree that every state has the right to secede.

One major thing that Obama has accomplished, is shining a spotlight on the illegal and unconstitutional behavior of the federal government. Like most Americans, I spent most of my life believing that the supreme court always had our backs, in regard to the constitution. Boy, was I ever wrong!

While the depth of my knowledge is still limited, I actually took an interest and started reading, with the passing of the patriot act, and the formation of the DHS and TSA. I knew in my gut that the patriot act was really bad.

The more I learn, the scarier and more depressing it gets.

Constitutionally, this should be an open and shut case, but it is being ignored, and once again demonstrates how far away from the constitution the federal government has strayed...largely unchallenged.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/032912-606068-new-sagebrush-rebellion-brews-in-western-states.htm

We are living in some interesting and historically significant times. With a fully treasonous administration in place, one can only guess at what will come.

Thanks for another great thread.

GO FOR IT!  Good luck.  Just let me know if it is SOUTH CAROLINA! (It and TX scream 'SECEDE' the most often).  I'll have to 'google map' an alternative AROUND I-95.  Other than that I don't give a shit!

Secession probably is not going too happen.

Well not unless one considers the states exercising their article V right to call for, and form, a new Constitutional Convention to be secession.

Which is close to happening and is a right enumerated to the States in article V of the current Constitution.

Should that happen, should the states form and ratify a new Constitution.

Reorganizing for example how the Congress works, placing term limitations on say SCOTUS judges, restoring the States own rights to recall and even enact term limits on it's own Senators and Representatives in the Congerss, rolling back the power of the executive to issue executive orders, granting the States themselves the final say over those bills that will be enacted as law within their borders.....(just some examples of things we could see in a new Constitution) well, you can bet it will be bye bye fed as we know it today.....if it does happen.

It should be very interesting to watch Harry Reid, Obama, and Pelosi out there telling us all how their right to oppose the States and the newly ratified Constitution is correct, and how they by force of law, have the right to refuse to acknowledge that newly ratified Constitution which strips them of political power, as the law of the land.... and how Obama has the right to use the military to detain and arrest and attack the states and anyone supporting the states.

Which I am sure both Obama and Reid as well as Pelosi, would do given they refuse to acknowledge the Constitution we already have now as such.

http://www.aikenstandard.com/article/20131204/AIK0101/131209788/1004/south-carolina-virginia-call-for-convention-of-states

http://www.secretsofthefed.com/judge-napolitano-abraham-lincoln-was-a-tyrant-video/

One of the worst presidents ever. Total disregard for the Constitution. It would have been far cheaper to buy all the slaves and far less bloody.

Of course there is a right to secede. The 10th amendment says anything not specifically granted to the federal Gov. Belongs to the people and the states. Since session is not mentioned it must be a state right. Who would join such government where the only way out was fight your way out or die. What is this the mafia?

hat they held slaves gave them no right to invade and besides  Lincoln  only freed the slaves in the south. He didnt free those in the north

Whats next you cant leave your state?

Quote from: penrod on March 08, 2014, 02:23:07 PM
http://www.secretsofthefed.com/judge-napolitano-abraham-lincoln-was-a-tyrant-video/

One of the worst presidents ever. Total disregard for the Constitution. It would have been far cheaper to buy all the slaves and far less bloody.

Of course there is a right to secede. The 10th amendment says anything not specifically granted to the federal Gov. Belongs to the people and the states. Since session is not mentioned it must be a state right. Who would join such government where the only way out was fight your way out or die. What is this the mafia?

hat they held slaves gave them no right to invade and besides  Lincoln  only freed the slaves in the south. He didnt free those in the north

Whats next you cant leave your state?

I had never heard that point raised before, but it's a damn good one.
Welcome to the forum Penrod.

I also find it ironic that he is so loved by the Republican party when he destroyed the Republic in order to save the Union(federal government rule).