You also don't need to secede in order to freely associate, which actually is a constitutional right.

I think they've considered the possibility and haven't seen any evidence that convinces them they might be wrong.

Only to a very small degree, since it was written by one man rather than by all of the states. It says more about Jefferson than anything really.

Also, the Declaration was a Declaration of Secession...

Should we start a "Maybe Children Enjoy Being Molested" thread so you ****ers can hash that one out?

A little bit, yes, but without the insults, it's not that much. Once you start adding in calling them a name, it escalates quickly.

Perhaps I'm misusing the term. What I mean is self government, which is the entire point of having democracy in the first place. I consider stopping secession to be an attack on democracy itself.

You are the poster who was uninformed enough to actually ask once what the problem with bullying is and now here you are with a flawed analogy about it. Are you a bullying justifier or a bullying minimizer? Are you simply still uninformed?

Go think about how inconsistently the appeals to emotion concerning racism are applied in the forum and how many of those appeals are rooted in the tombs of history --get back to me when you have a better position.

Guilty until proven innocent? Can't prove a negative!

The only evidence they have to be right is a fallacious appeal to emotion and history. Ignoring Alex's word on the matter in favor of bully mockery proves nothing about Alex and everything about his opponents.

This is actually a creative alternate history/fiction storyline and a perspective I had never considered.

As usual, you bring a lot to the conversation. Btw, I've made it clear ITT I accept the common Western views on the Holocaust, and so far have seen no evidence to change my mind, so your rant is just silly. Let me ask you or anyone else (read: preferably not you) as I educate myself further. Considering how I was taught that Americans invented everything, have saved the world multiple times, communism is evil, etc. But the opposite was taught in the former USSR, and who knows what is taught in China and other powerful nations. Considering if I ask a typical Egyptian, Syrian, Palestinian about the Holocaust, I'll probably get a much different story than I get in the West. Why is it I should simply accept our historians' views as established fact without taking into account underlying political biases? Is it because we're just gooder and they're just worser? I should just duck down and fall in line, yes?

Hint: The alternative fiction you had never considered is called Reconstruction

It something like the model I would generally prefer by a mile. (assuming we're excluding slavery resuming).

Having that option is a rare luxury though and I doubt it was available at the time even if we assume the best intentions.

It doesn't much matter though. The defeated States passes legislation approving the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments. They wanted to stay in the Union.

I assure you that you are mostly clueless about what I have or haven't considered. Thanks for proving how uninformative mockery is, once again.

It is clear you have not considered the imaginative nature of alternate history speculation. If you did you would have contributed something more to flesh out the story rather than name-drop reconstruction.

From the vantage point of a fictional speculator, reconstruction only occurred in timelines where it did. The "facts" of other timelines might lead to different outcomes.

Yes, I do suspect that I'm erring in analyzing things from a modern and more enlightened point of view. Warring for humanitarian reasons instead of for conquest is a fairly new development AFAIK, and it's actually entirely possible that Lincoln's real motivations were indeed humanitarian, but that he had to rationalize it to himself in a fashion that made it more about the needs of the country, because he also knew he could never sell a war to free the slaves.

Of course, that's the kind of understanding of Lincoln's possible motivations that I can only come to when we're having an honest and open discussion about them rather than defending myself from being attacked by crazy people.

Non sequitur

Spank, when you are amazed at a 'alternative history' where the North helps the South learn governance without relying on slavery, it's pretty easy to mock.

Allowing them to maintain their autonomy was a key part of that alternative history, so no, your mocking doesn't really make sense.

The did retain autonomy.

I guess honest conversation time is over and trolling time has commenced?

Disagreeing with you <> trolling time.

For the unimaginative or those with veiled motives perhaps.

First thing I thought about was how much different The South may have turned out if, through a course of time, they had a chance vote whether to stay or go without slavery. How many of those who voted to leave would later seek to rejoin? Would that have led to future civil wars. Would there have been a civil rights movement?

Hey it is mostly pointless speculation, food for the imagination and practicing using perspective thinking- but still more informative and entertaining than misapplied racism mockery.

As has been explained multiple times the war was predicated on slavery. To deny them self governance based on slavery is to deny them self governance. Which is why I said to believe in secession and war about the Civil War is incoherent. Also f*ck letting the slaves stay or come with the North or otherwise. The South was built on slavery. The Southern slave owners had as much as a claim to the South as some carpetbagger did.

Who gives a f*ck about Lincoln in this context? There's this weird jump that happens to align perfectly with neo Confederates where people jump from the Southern Sucession was valid + random psychological reasoning about the morality of Lincoln. It's completely irrelevant to the philosophical discussion of secession but totally relevant to the butt hurt Lost Cause Neo Confederate cause.

And DVaut pretty clearly explained why this is nonsense in your decentralization thread.