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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoPQqPJ7f...
Well, that can be cited conveniently by EITHER side in a tortured debate, of course. But I look at the U.S. Civil War and nothing seems more telling than Margaret Mitchell's title, "Gone with the wind." If you are an Objectivist, you view the United States as the purest, brightest expression of the philosophy of the Enlightenment--in effect, the high tide mark reached by the philosophy of thinkers like John Locke (who DIED three quarters of a century before the Declaration of Independence). And that Declaration, and the U.S. Constitution that followed, were both hard-fought and daring, for theie time. Awful compromises were made with principle, but they were compromises that recognized reality. The Colonial states had no chance in the revolt against England without the states of the South. And the wealthiest, most influential leaders of those states had their wealth in slaves and the land worked by slaves.
But the winds of history... They swept away the French aristocracy and put France through the long agony that may follow when truly radical ideas flail in search of their meaning. And they enabled 13 colonies in the wilderness somehow, in the name of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," to defeat the greatest industrial and naval power on the face of the Earth. And the Declaration and the Constitution set forth ideas then madly theoretical, supported by the belief in reason wherever it may lead.
With that wind blowing so strongly through the Western world, was chattel slavery--the form of slavery that considers another person property, with complete rights of use and disposal, and that person's children and grandchildren property--going to survive those gales?
For geographic reasons, and reasons of economic development, chattel slavery existed longer in the United States than anywhere in the Western world. HOW slavery ended, as the thread makes clear, was to some extent a matter of circumstances. There were proposals to buy the slaves and compensate slave owners. The South could have been permitted to secede and drag along its "peculiar institution" for some decades more. Always the possible "better ways" are on the part of the Union. But the educated, hard-headed, and politically astute leaders of the South could have led their states into a firm pledge to phase out slavery--first in the newly formed states of the West. That they did not puts on their hands much of the blood their incredibly brave, indomitable, and patriot countrymen--mostly not slave owners--shed for the South.
But these are details. Slavery was not going to stand before the powerful, purifying, and exhilarating winds of the philosophy of the rights of man. Its end, which took the most painful possible form, was a matter partly of chance.
What is magnificent in American history is that the fighting spirit of Robert E. Lee and his generals and his troops--after the impossible bitterness of defeat--endured and served America through all its terrible wars. If we look at the roster of great generals with "fighting heart" who led their country to victory after impossible victory, we see Douglas MacArthur, Texas, Dwight Eisenhower, Texas, Omar Bradley, MIssouri--the list is long and heroic.
Their own cause gone with the winds of history, they readily offered up their lives and their honor to the United States--the union preserved and committed to principles that never can die.
If, today, the battle we wage is for the dearest cause of all--not the liberation of foreign lands, but defense of our own rights, the defense against the serfdom seeking its grip in our own land--then surely we cannot win without the great fighting heart of the South that has seen us through so many perils.
But I ask you.. do two wrongs make a right?
What is slavery but the coercion to do a thing not merely against a person's will, but against his own interests? To coerce him to sacrifice for a noble idea?
Some things you didn't address; at the time of the Confederate War, there still was some question as to whether black people were human. We have no doubts today, and the question seems silly... until you watch the vitriolic debate over abortion. We have at our disposal the fruits of advanced scientific research which they could not have imagined, and still we argue and debate as to when life begins, when humanity begins, when rights are established, and whether a fetus is a human or not.
I have a minor nit to pick with regard to the French Revolution.
"They swept away the French aristocracy and put France through the long agony that may follow when truly radical ideas flail in search of their meaning."
There was nothing, I repeat nothing in common between the evil spasm of the French Revolution and the American War of Independence. The French Revolution was a revolution of looters and moochers; the War of Independence was a war of producers. The French Revolution was all about the politics of envy.
The French Revolution was collectivist; the American War of Independence was individualist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pol......
This also reaffirms my believe the bulk of the explosion of the religious right occurred after Reagan’s administration. That’s not what they are teaching in college. The academia world teaches Reagan rose to power through the strength of the religious right’s strong arm. That faction barely existed politically from what I remember. Revisited history nonsense, I guess.
They really are the worst. No firm footing, wishy washy no convictions don't know if I wanna be's.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http...
There was definitely a Duesenberg in the movie "The Stuntman" with Peter O'Toole (no relation to Plenty)
It is a good name, though...
Sorry, Charlie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLt5rBfNu...
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X3iFhLdWjqc...
LBJ was bad, but his evils weren't as bad as Wilson's, whose abuses reverberate to this day. LBJ is on my list, just not in the top 5.
Some additional perspectives on Wilson:
Woodrow Wilson:
Wilson was a progressive who thought himself a Prime Minister, ran against involvement in the war then brought us into WWI, Supported Jim Crow, re-segregated the armed forces and the post office, supported eugenics, created the Federal Reserve, supported and instituted the 16th amendment (Federal income tax), spied on Americans and stifled free speech, was critical of the founding principles and showed complete disdain for the Constitution as a limiting document and worked to circumvent it and enlarge the powers of Big Brother according to his progressive agenda..
http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/11/whats-...
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewS...
http://progressingamerica.blogspot.com/2...
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports...
Respectfully,
O.A.
It is an unfortunate fact that they have NOT been taught that way for quite some time. I graduated from HS before PC-ism took hold, and find myself astounded by the ignorance of those even just 10 years my junior. I find that I teach this at home because my kids are not learning it in school.
NMA
Yes, enslaving productive individuals can't be done w/o government grandstanding. A young generation cannot be decimated horribly and pointlessly without government grandstanding.
Wilson put the progressive ball in motion. His bullying of SCOTUS, with Holmes' atrocious decision regarding the 1st Amendment set the stage for every governmental abuse of power since.
Who says we would never have gone to the moon without Wilson? He laid down the foundation for NASA... who laid down the foundation for the Wright Flyer, hm? Who laid down the foundation for the Spirit of St Louis?
And what happened? We rushed to the moon, masturbated over achieving the liberal demigod JFK's "dream", and let our conquest of space fall to pieces.
NASA... the Moslem outreach organization that gave us the space shuttle.
1.crippling debt to Germany under Treaty of Versailles
2. the idea of self-determination-inherently tribalistic- that every ethnic group gets their own government/country-completely antagonistic to the idea of the American Revolution-anti-Man's rights, anti-reason and Wilson pushed this heavily.
3. No one actually "won" WWI. wars are never settled unless there is a clear victor. The victor should be a philosophical basis. the issues regarding the Russia break-up are still unresolved.
Was that a pumpkin chiffon pie, perchance?
The Articles of Confederation failed because there was no practical means of amending them.
"And this was so in Texas, when, like
bulls
Whose cows have been attacked, we
killed the way
The blue-dressed soldiers had, then took their scalps.
White women cried, our women laughed
that day."
"Ten Bears Speaks At Medicine Lodge Creek,"
How Glad I Am for Man Tonight, Walter Donway
http://www.amazon.com/How-Glad-Man-Tonig...
You justify the enslavement of the southern States by saying they were needed as part of the U.S. to fight Hitler a century later? How is that any different than the Head of State or Wesley Mouch enslaving Rearden and Galt because they *need* them?
We must have lost WWII because Canada and Australia and the U.S. were separate countries from England, then. Faulty logic.
The brutality didn't just "occur". Sheridan threw out the Laws of War that limited the horror of war since the days of the condottieri.
And you're assuming we would have remained two countries. As slavery was already dying in the Southern States, long before a century passed the two countries would have most likely reunited, and the Constitution would have remained intact, and the States would not have been reduced to mere provinces.
The President doesn't have a choice, if he is obedient to his oath. If a State wishes to leave the union, it is free to do so, just as we are free to quit the U.N. if we choose.
Lincoln made an unConstitutional choice.
Perhaps the U.S. wouldn't have been as powerful. Perhaps it would have been even more powerful. That's all irrelevant. He made the morally wrong decision.
What choice would this be?
Remember...the South fired the first shot.
How could you not let them secede without violating the principles of the Founding Fathers?
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...
...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." - from the Declaration of Independence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcZK2CF3m...
We eventually got that submission to despotism.
I'm here to buy the rights to Rearden Metal.
Rearden Metal is not for sale.
Oh, well in that case we're going to invade your factory, destroy your furnaces, confiscate your metal, destroy what we can't haul away, and kill your workers.
More simply, the Southern plantation owners would not have sold their slaves to the North any more than Rearden would have sold his metal to the SSI.
The nation evolved from an agrarian economy (South), to a manufacturing economy (North).
The South held the political power up to the Industrial Revolution, and refused to 'go quietly into the night'. Pride, and heritage, doomed the hope for peace....
It's the post-war South that was so terribly impoverished, not the Antebellum South, btw.
I said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."
"Oh! Right!" he said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz_GLcumo...
All men are NOT equal. All men are *unique*.
What the Declaration was saying was that men are all equal with regards to social class. Not that we are literally identical clones.
For example, let's suppose hypothetically that in the next presidential election, a Libertarian candidate was considered on equal standing with the Democrat and Republican candidates. And then after the votes were tallied, let's suppose the results were like this:
Democrat - 33%
Libertarian - 34%
Republican - 33%
In this situation, the Libertarian candidate would win, but 66% of voters didn't want him. He had the most votes, but not a majority of the votes. This creates a problem because then the president would be a candidate who wasn't wanted by the majority of the voting public.
Now a three-party (or more) system would certainly provide a political playing field that was a more accurate representation of all the various and multifaceted viewpoints of the general public, but it also creates huge problems when it comes time to elect representatives...