To ignore all the ad hominem you have heaped on this discussion, I will ask this simply and directly.

I made what I believe to be a factual assessment of Lincoln's intentions. You have presented nothing in disagreement other than your opinion. Do you have one single shred of evidence to present?

Sure, it's a completely legitimate libertarian idea that the South had no right to secede because it's argument to do so hinged on the absolute subjugation of another. It's also a paleo libertarian idea that the South had a right to secede regardless of whether or not it was oppressing people and the oppression of people was eventually going to go out of style anyways. Or a third way would be to say that regardless of the situation the outcome of the Civil War was a good one and one should save a libertarian analysis for when it's more apt, like the present day.

I mean I've already explained to you in more detail than you ever bothered to read yourself about the political situation during the lead up to the Civil War if those facts don't convince you that you're particular line of reasoning is silly, I shouldn't bother with anything else.

Your explanations are hearsay. Provide evidence.

Also, I seriously DGAF about libertarians.

Alex, I just explained to you in more detail then you ever bothered to read yourself. My assessment is that the dichotomy of "Lincoln fought to free the slaves vs. The South was bad but the North was really bad too because hargle bargle" is a particularly mangled reading of the Civil War and a particularly mangled reading that's very much in line with what was invented after the Civil War by Southern intellectuals and the grafted into the libertarian movement. None of those is a ad homenim. I don't deligitimize the Lost Cause arguments just because they trace back to a series of Southern former slave owners who wanted to redeem the South, I discount it because it's a particularly bad reading of history as the Civil War thread showed.

This is only true if secession is not prohibited by the Constitution. Which it is.

If construed this way it would give the states the power to take away all the powers the constitution gives the federal government. Secession= not going to follow the constitution any longer.

To add to the appeal to the obvious, a web forum is a social environment, rather than a game show or sitcom.

Has it occurred to you the universal shame and shun method to provoke racists to have personal inner-change is very similar to how some social conservatives deal with their gay teen children?

More broadly, have you considered the similarity with methods related to social darwinism?

What happens when it is not a racist who is shamed and shunned?

What happens when one person with the correct knowledge, understanding, and practice can totally disrupt it?

What happens when it is taken to racist echo- chamber environments and used as proof to discredit humanitarian political labels?

This is may be a web forum, but it is not a fantasy. This is all happening on earth; in the real world where the internet exists and nobody knows who the lurkers really are.

How many significant discussions regarding today's US (or the English speaking world for that matter) don't have a racial component? While I'm sure we can agree on a few... I would hope you would agree that they are almost as rare as hen's teeth.

As I mentioned above, those who enjoy White Privilege have an intellectual 'blind-spot' when it comes to this topic. Our MSM and for-profit culture has a vested interest in generating that 'blind spot'. Just like safe driving necessitates doing a head check on actual blind spots... so too those involved in genuine conversation need to do an intellectual 'head check' on this intellectual 'blind spot'.

Explicitly examining if there is a racial (or sexist) component should be SOP. There is literally no reasonable conversation where it is improper to do so. People of good faith, regardless of what #team they are on, should be happy to examine this cultural 'blind spot'... and if there's nothing there, then it's been agreed there isn't any racial component.

Contrast this to team #whine-about-the-PC-police. They wanna preemptively and unilaterally decide what conversations have a racial component, and claim that in all other conversations discussions of race "don't belong". And if everyone else doesn't bow down to their arbitrary and pernicious unilateral declarations, they'll whine like stuck pigs about the 'PC Police', and do everything in their power to derail and stifle the entire conversation.

This is so predictable I can flow-chart it.

There's way more Lost Cause **** from Alex than just from the Civil War megathread, of course, because Alex is a pretty typical paleoconservative white supremacist type. He's doing this weird thing where he denies it now but won't admit he was wrong or misguided, which is just lol. He consistently rewrites what happens in these debates so that he is the victim of just vicious slurs by me(and me alone). Dude, if you admitted you were wrong about that **** this would all go away.

Alex, everyone thinks you're a racist, because you constantly post like one. Like we talked about in your big meltdown thread like a year ago, you could try to stop posting like a racist if getting called racist bothers you so much. Instead we get **** like what you're doing in this thread, furiously denouncing anyone getting called racist for anything. Which is absolutely in character for you. It's really your defining characteristic, you're the guy who throws incoherent tantrums when people talk about racism in a way that reflects poorly on white people(especially Southern white people).

Like why does the National Review get all the fun?

Are you going to cite that?

Alex- I agree to disagree about state secession. At the least I give credit to the principle of forming a more perfect union. I take that as an implication of responsibility to seek unity rather than division to manage social problems and disagreements, however practical and possible.

Note that the Civil War was so totally NOT about slavery and oppression of blacks that when reconstruction ended the insurgent remainders of the Confederacy(the Klan, lynch mobs, etc.) promptly set about...

murdering black people, overthrowing democratic governments that were considered too black-friendly, preventing blacks from voting, etc.

We already went over this **** repeatedly. There's no argument or debate on any of this ****. There's the side that's right, and then there's the side that got too far gone into Ron Paul's cult of personality to discuss this **** with any sort of reason or objectivity. Alex's side is the latter there. Dude fell hard for ole' Grandpa Goldbug. Because he's an unlettered racist piece of ****, and those people really like learning about how the CRA was unjustifiable centralized tyranny.

You haven't provided any evidence. You explaining things isn't evidence. The evidence I have supports my conclusion. I need evidence that at least puts some reasonable doubt in the evidence I have from things that Lincoln has actually said. If you can't provide that sort of evidence, everything you're saying is pure conjecture. Please provide evidence if you want me to take you seriously. Evidence is all I have EVER asked for on this subject. I have absolutely no vested interest in believing anything about Lincoln one way or the other. I merely state the conclusions that I am forced to come to based on the evidence I have at my disposal. If you have other evidence, I really, really want to hear it. Until then, you have nothing.

No, the process for giving and taking away powers to the federal government is outlined in the Constitution.

Absolutely no one thinks I'm a racist except possibly you might have convinced yourself after repeating the lie for so long. I've had these same discussions on other forums and never once been called a racist on any of them. Do not think for a second that anyone is buying your lies.

And you should really be more respectful to your betters.

This is an interesting conversation to have, but it's not one I want to get into at the moment. My sole purpose at this time is to defend myself from Fly's personal attacks and lies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison


And BTW, what difference does it make what Lincoln's personal motives were. The US didn't start that war, they just ended it. The CRA started The War of Southern Agression to continue slavery... that's all that matters.

Other than that... why don't you start another thread instead of polluting this one rehashing the Lost Cause derp ??

You're contradicting yourself here. Either I'm a racist or I was duped by Ron Paul. It doesn't make sense to try to claim both.

Also, I have never once claimed that the Confederacy wasn't about slavery, so why are you so intent on perpetuating this lie? What is it that you're so desperate to hide that you have to keep lying about my positions on this subject?

Alex, here's something from Wiki:

So you are pretty obviously wrong.

So, when the Supreme Court has overturned itself in the past, your position is that the Constitution actually changed?

Regardless, this whole secession thing is completely irrelevant anyway. The fact that I believe it is all that is relevant. Which side is "correct" is not. As I'm sure you're aware, both sides are likely correct based on different points of view.

Really? I've explained to you the political climate wasn't set up in your imagined libertarian context. Lincoln fought to preserve the union and for an ideology that would free the slaves by the war's end. Too bad Lincoln didn't live to see it done. Your imagined libertarian reasons for the justification for Southern sucession were invented after the Civil War by racists. That you're so steeped into the Lost Cause to see it isn't anyone's fault but your own. For the record I don't think your racist, just falling for racist shtick.

I can agree with much of what you're saying here. I'm not sure if you mean for your flow chart to be read this way, but can you not see how avoiding the personal attack "you're a racist," and instead going with "voter ID is racist," or even better, "voter ID contributes to systematic racism" is a much better way to keep a constructive conversation going with an unconvinced party?

Yeah, that wasn't about secession though, it was about ratifying Amendments. New York wanted to make it so they could take back ratification after they'd done it.

Nice try, but no banana.

You explaining things isn't evidence! Give me evidence! If what you say is true, it should be really, really easy to give me some actual evidence. Please do so.