America Lost the Civil War With The Lincoln War State

[American Dream]

Jack, yours is an excellent treatment of publius’s assertions, presented with economy and coherency. With your help I may even understand a bit better what it is that publius is trying to get at.

Sounder, your repeated intimations that you are utterly clueless as to the racial subtext of publius' comments are simply not credible.

You are clearly much smarter than that.

[JackRiddler]

I think you guys should stop and make peace now.

[American Dream]

I think you guys should stop and make peace now.

For the sake of moving things forward, I am willing to do so.

[Sounder]

I think you guys should stop and make peace now.

Soon Jack, soon.

AD, it may be true that I'm naive about some folks underlying motives, but it's also true that living a life where engagement is refused because the applicant does not meet your standards for useful engagement, could well be construed as being a bit puritan or elitist. I.e. You change the world by changing minds. Those minds quite naturally hold to some odious ideas. That is in fact why those minds need to be changed.

So you may remain to think that I am smarter than whatever it is you say I am smarter than, and I quite likely will remain thinking, much to my chagrin, that considering that you have not shown even a basic acknowledgement of the fairly simple point I am trying to make, I am forced into the consideration that you may really be dumber than a box of rocks.

[American Dream]

I think you guys should stop and make peace now.

Soon Jack, soon.

AD, it may be true that I'm naive about some folks underlying motives, but it's also true that living a life where engagement is refused because the applicant does not meet your standards for useful engagement, could well be construed as being a bit puritan or elitist. I.e. You change the world by changing minds. Those minds quite naturally hold to some odious ideas. That is in fact why those minds need to be changed.

And yet you yourself stepped away and deferred to Jack when he entered the thread, so I consider you to be blowing a lot of hot air.

As to changing minds, that is a fundamental of any organizing technique but it should be strategic- that is one determines who is the key "swing vote" constituency most likely to change and strategically important, and hence most worth the time and effort of continued engagement.

And with that, I'm done with you here.

[eyeno]

slomo wrote:
I am reading the thread now from its inception, where it was very clearly hijacked by AD's conflation of anti-federalism (whether or not that idea has merit on its own terms) with support for slavery. It seems to be a consistent feature of this thread, the insistence that the rejection of the authority of the federal government must necessarily coincide with support for slavery and the most egregious (or at least visible) forms of racism

Ditto.

slomo wrote:
But I do think that it is possible to discuss the extent to which "state's rights" can be justified on its own terms, independent of questions of the all-too-well-known racism of the South. Walls of emotional text telling us how truly awful slavery was are not helpful to the conversation about the abuses of the Fed, today. Especially when insidious forms of racism exist at other, higher levels of society, and take very destructive forms in the antithesis of southern separatism, globalism.

Ditto.

slomo wrote:
And so you have the basic problem. For better or for worse, the only group in the US that begins to understand the dimensions of the problem is the so-called militia movement, and even then, their understanding is very poor - as if rifles could somehow overcome tanks and bunker-busters!

Ditto.

AD wrote:
I'm wondering Sounder, because I've gotten the impression that you are far more positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement than am I. Do you see any racist/militia-type subtext to publius' discourse?
I wonder what you really do see and think about all this...

Sounder never expressed support for those movements. I take it that sounder would like to enjoy a discussion of history, ask questions, and perhaps make points without being painted with a mud brush that turns him into something he has not indicated that he is. I think sounder sees the subtext, he's just sick and tired of reading it over and over and over and over.

AD wrote:
That's his business to a certain extent but not when he tries to shut down critical inquiry about characters like publius.

I don't see sounder as attempting to shut down critical inquiry. I have also not decided to paint publius or sounder as a closet neo-confederate attempting to justify slavery and racism. It seems to be that publius main beef is with encroachment on personal freedom by the federal government, and the events that may have led up to it. As slomo alluded to, its unfortunate that the militia movement is one of the only groups around that begins to understand the dimension of the problem. In my mind I can explore the issues without gluing both publius and sounder to the neo-confederate and militia movement in an effort to make them look one and the same. From my perspective this is the meaning you are conveying and in my opinion it is a thought stopper and shuts down critical inquiry, even if it be accidental on your part.

AD wrote:
Sounder, your repeated intimations that you are utterly clueless as to the racial subtext of publius' comments are simply not credible.

That pins the racial subtext to sounder and publius in a manner that suggests they support the subtext. Neither of them has done so. And by now it is a dead horse. No way we could miss the point because it has made so many times. This insinuates that they are sympathetic to these movements and perhaps even a member of them and I don't see the evidence for it. Using this logic, the same unequal comparison could be made of you, and that you are covertly promoting federal encroachment on personal freedoms, but I don't see anybody painting 'you' in such a fashion.

Regardless if it be accidental the net effect is a derailment of an attempt to explore the history of the constitution and how it relates to encroachment on personal freedoms. It has steered the conversation away from its intended subject matter, and effectively stunted the conversation and turned it into a situation that causes people to defend themselves, instead of discussing the intended subject matter.

[Searcher08]

I think you guys should stop and make peace now.

Soon Jack, soon.

AD, it may be true that I'm naive about some folks underlying motives, but it's also true that living a life where engagement is refused because the applicant does not meet your standards for useful engagement, could well be construed as being a bit puritan or elitist. I.e. You change the world by changing minds. Those minds quite naturally hold to some odious ideas. That is in fact why those minds need to be changed.

And yet you yourself stepped away and deferred to Jack when he entered the thread, so I consider you to be blowing a lot of hot air.

As to changing minds, that is a fundamental of any organizing technique but it should be strategic- that is one determines who is the key "swing vote" constituency most likely to change and strategically important, and hence most worth the time and effort of continued engagement.

And with that, I'm done with you here.

I'm not sure it was your intention A_D, but that landed like a really dismissive F.U. to Sounder - please chill?

[Sounder]

And yet you yourself stepped away and deferred to Jack when he entered the thread, so I consider you to be blowing a lot of hot air.

Point of clarification; I did not 'defer' to anyone and your inference is no doubt another either conscious or unconscious feeble effort at maintaining dominance through the last word. Good luck on that. Second, I let the hijack rest and indeed rationality stepped to the plate, as per my plan. Evil huh.

So yeah by your reasoning I am the one 'blowing a lot hot air'. Sure, you bet AD. Do you really want to continue with this?

Surely a different form of gluttony would be preferable.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

You peoples should take up chess, it''s more fun and when you checkmate your opponent he has no comeback

[Sounder]

Ah, but there is such finality with chess, whereas in this game of life one may continue to play the knave long after the king is dead.

Gingrich for King!

[Harvey]

Ah, but there is such finality with chess

Only till the next game, meanwhile every pawn may be a queen.

[Sounder]

Oh, Harvey, I have always wanted to be a queen, maybe I do need to play more chess.

I played when young, thought I was pretty good, till the Detroit junior champ moved into the dorm room adjacent to mine.

I became demoralized long before I learned how to play chess. We switched to racquetball.

[slomo]

Whut? Did someone say "queen"?

[slomo]

...

This critique has infinitely more merit than crying "racism!".

[ninakat]

Whut? Did someone say "queen"?

LOL -- I was just going to post those exact words.