The Real problem with cancel culture

[viper37]

How many Southern judges stayed in the court after the secession of their own State?  I can not find anything on it, I only a remember of a few judges who left for the State, but I can't remember where they were assigned.

Based on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_justices_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

John Catron (Democrat from Tennessee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Catron

Despite Catron's opinion in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case and his pro-slavery stance, Catron resented the secession of his home state of Tennessee because he felt the American Union should be preserved at all costs, a reflection of his Jacksonian views. Following President Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Catron left to "ride circuit" in the states of Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky. However, when Catron attempted to return to Nashville to perform his circuit duties, he was told that his very life could be in danger due to his views. Catron was forced to flee the state of Tennessee and reside permanently in Louisville, Kentucky, away from his wife and friends, who sympathized with the Confederacy. Catron's stance on the southern rebels was to "punish treason and will."

James Moore Wayne (Democrat from Georgia). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Moore_Wayne

Justice Wayne served on the Supreme Court for 32 years, one of the longest terms for any justice. His leanings stayed consistent and many of his decisions believed power resides in the federal offices such as the U.S. Congress. He held to this in the Dred Scott case, supporting Chief Justice Taney's opinion in the face of harsh criticism by many. With the beginning of the Civil War, Wayne was thrust into personal and professional crisis. He chose to remain with the Court while his own son left the U.S. Army to fight as a general in the Confederate Army. Another one of his colleagues, John Campbell, also left the Court to serve in the Confederacy. However, Wayne held to his nationalistic views, although it made him unpopular in his home state of Georgia, believing there was no legal support for a state to secede. He also felt that by remaining on the Court he could continue to support Southern causes. After the war ended, he never forgot his Southern roots and labored hard to protect the South from undue penalties.

A third resigned at the start of the war (John Archibald Campbell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Campbell )

thanks!

[Admiral Yi]

So you're just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing? Or you can't actually see there is a line between "Stuff that I strongly disagree with" and "Lunacy"?
I'm pretty sure there's a host of stuff on both the right and left where we'd agree the person is crazy.

No I'm not disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.  I'm disagreeing because I think you're wrong.

You're positing a world in which those nutty right wingers make up all kinds of nonsense, and the rest of us, "the reasonable people" agree on what is crazy woke and what is not crazy woke.  I'm saying you and I don't agree on what is crazy woke and what is not crazy woke.

[viper37]

I never said they were not a democracy, I said secession cannot be validated on the claim that it was a democratic process, not morally or ethically. You cannot have a vote about slavery, and then say the vote was democratic if you didn't let the slaves vote.

That is the same.

If they can not vote on secession because it affects the status of a category of person that can not vote, then such state can not be considered a democracy in any kind of action.

States pass laws on children, yet they can't vote.  States, and the Federal US government voted multiple times on the status of black people and american indian, on their rights, on where they coud live, on where they could work or not.  States regulated the status of women, their rights as individuals (or rather lack of rights for the most part).  All of this without any of these groups able to vote on such matters.  An exemption could be made for children, assuming their parents could vote.

But the US government who captured escaped slaves in 1783 after the British left returned them to their masters as property, ignoring their emancipation by the British (one of the intolerable acts leading to the creation of your country, btw...).  the black folks weren't able to vote on this matter.  Those who fought for the US could not vote after the war, even if free.  Those who were promised freedom in exchange of their service in the Continental army were returned to their masters if they so wished it.

And yet, the US was a democracy back then.

Whether that makes the greater polity "democratic" or not is a matter of semantics.

It not semantics, it is you changing the rules of what constitutes democracy because you have, like a majority of modern americans, a profound dislike of secession.

I've explained this SEVERAL times now, and you just go right back to pretending like you don't understand what I am saying, and argue against something else entirely - whether or not the Confederacy itself was a "democracy" or not. Which is entirely uninteresting in any way shape, or form.

It is absolutely interesting, because it is the core of your argument: the Southern States had no right to secede because they were not a democracy, since the black folks could not vote on the issue in 1860.

But the US of 1860 was a democracy, even in States that had slavery, even in States that restricted of did not allow black men to vote at all.

It is a double standard that you will refuse to admit to your grave and try to use any contorted argument to pretend your point is valid, while it is not.

The Confederate States declared their independance the same way they did all their governance.  There were no specific rules enacted to deprive a group of their vote prior to the secession, it was the exact same rules they had used before to elect their assemblies and enact their votes.  Some had conventions, some simply had a law.  It is irrelevent in either case.  The will of the State was to secede from the Union, and while we can certainly condemn the will to secede and fight to defend slavery, invading the country to crush their will of independence was just as morally wrong.

The North did not fought to end slavery or to restore voting rights to black men. The North cared only about the perpetual Union.

That's the only reason the Republicans went to war with the South, to protect the Union up to their dying breath.  they didn't even think to allow Blacks to serve in the Union until after they saw free blacks fighting for the Confederacy and the slaves digging trenches and carrying ammunitions.

The will of the people was to secede.  That it was not all people is irrelevant, they played by the same rules they had before. If any laws of the future Confederate States were valid in 1859, it certainly makes secession valid in 1860.

Just as the 13 colonies were justified in leaving Britain to protect their economic freedoms, just as the Texans were justified in taking up arms against Santa Anna's centralizing policies (including the abolition of slavery).

You can't claim the votes on secession were invalid because black folks weren't consulted and by the same token consider all other votes that did not include blacks to be valid.  I'm pretty sure certiain most black folks were against the Jim Crow law in post Civil War southern US states.  They were certainly in favour of universal voting rights in the North, yet that didn't happen for a long while.  But they didn't have a say in what the States and Federal government decided for tem.  No more than in the South.  Yet, you consider this to be democratic.  But not secession, because... of the same conditions.

You're against secession, fine.  I got it the first dozen time.  No need to invent frivolous arguments to defend your point.  Democracy spoke, the US rejected it, just like the British a century earlier. 

Some people decided to fight for their country, other moved North to fight against it. Just like some folks joined the Continental army and others fought for the British a century earlier.

There were no good guys and bad guys like a Hollywood movie.  Just two sides figthing for what they believed was right.  And both sides happened to be just morally wrong and corrupt as the other, for different reasons.

[Razgovory]

Right, the motives of the aggressor are more important in "the war of Northern Aggression".

[Eddie Teach]

Right, the motives of the aggressor are more important in "the war of Northern Aggression".

Think about it though. If Cuba told us to gtfo of Gitmo and we told them to pound sand, would they be justified in taking the base by force?

[Razgovory]

Right, the motives of the aggressor are more important in "the war of Northern Aggression".

Think about it though. If Cuba told us to gtfo of Gitmo and we told them to pound sand, would they be justified in taking the base by force?

No.  What is the point?




EDIT:  "What is the point of this question?"  Sorry, my original statement wasn't clear.

[Berkut]

Sure, and there are Moonies and Scientologists as well. They have about as much relevance. Not at all comparable to the number of people who are fighting against fixing racial inequality.

I don't think their influence is anywhere near as comparable but I think the hard left is as alive as it's been in decades and is having a lot of inluence on debates in the left. It's through alternate media like, say, Jacobin, Tribune, Novara etc. But it's definitely there and stronger than any time I can remember (and as I say generally good because there are lots of interesting ideas from it).

The "hard left" != Communists

[Berkut]

I never said they were not a democracy, I said secession cannot be validated on the claim that it was a democratic process, not morally or ethically. You cannot have a vote about slavery, and then say the vote was democratic if you didn't let the slaves vote.

That is the same.

If they can not vote on secession because it affects the status of a category of person that can not vote, then such state can not be considered a democracy in any kind of action.

OK, but that isn't the question, as you know. The question is whether you can or should make the MORAL and ETHICAL argument that such a vote is "democratic".  Which you have when you claimed that secession was valid and ought to be respected because it was arrived at democratically. That is not true, it was not.

States pass laws on children, yet they can't vote.  States, and the Federal US government voted multiple times on the status of black people and american indian, on their rights, on where they coud live, on where they could work or not.  States regulated the status of women, their rights as individuals (or rather lack of rights for the most part).  All of this without any of these groups able to vote on such matters.  An exemption could be made for children, assuming their parents could vote.

But the US government who captured escaped slaves in 1783 after the British left returned them to their masters as property, ignoring their emancipation by the British (one of the intolerable acts leading to the creation of your country, btw...).  the black folks weren't able to vote on this matter.  Those who fought for the US could not vote after the war, even if free.  Those who were promised freedom in exchange of their service in the Continental army were returned to their masters if they so wished it.

And yet, the US was a democracy back then.

ANd yet, one could not morally claim that the US laws on slavery were arrived at democratically, even if you want to call the US a democracy. THis is not hard, and yet you keep repeating the same mistake.

Whether that makes the greater polity "democratic" or not is a matter of semantics.

It not semantics, it is you changing the rules of what constitutes democracy because you have, like a majority of modern americans, a profound dislike of secession.

No, I have a profound dislike for people who justify the protection of human chattel slavery by blithely stating that such choices were "democratic".

My position has absolutely nothing to do with any views I have on secession.

[Sheilbh]

Fair but some of them would say they are literal communists - Ash Sarkar famously (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD7Ol0gz11k) or the whole (inane) fully automated luxury communism thing.

But many of them I think would identify with the Marxist democratic socialist tradition which is looking beyond capitalism so not communist, but certainly not gradual change/amelioration social democrats either.

[viper37]

OK, but that isn't the question, as you know. The question is whether you can or should make the MORAL and ETHICAL argument that such a vote is "democratic".  Which you have when you claimed that secession was valid and ought to be respected because it was arrived at democratically. That is not true, it was not.

I am discussing about facts.  What is MORAL and ETHICAL will vary according to time and place.

I would certainly view slavery as IMMORAL, today.  I certainly view any breach of equality in front of the law as UNETHICAL.  In 1857, Dredd vs Scott, the SCOTUS made the argument that Black people weren't US citizens and therefore had no rights.  It certainly created problems back them, and I'm pretty sure we could dig journal articles and editorials denouncing this.  But it was a view widely accepted in the US at the time.  It was certainly MORAL by this time and place, South or North, East or West.  I could quote Union generals, certainly opposed to slavery, who were appalled at the idea that Blacks and White would be considered equal.  Even worst, I'd be hard pressed to find a majority of white folks willing to live in mixed neighborhood. 

It was certainly ETHICAL back then to discriminate about people of color.  No politician would have lost its job for saying black and whites shouldn't live together.  Lincoln wanted to deport them to Africa because he didn't believe they could live together.  Back in the 19th century, it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow of anyone to denigrate Jews.  With good reasons, today, we find these things unethical and immoral.

You and I would find it immoral to see a woman forced to walk behind her husband.  But in some countries, today, it would be considered immoral not to.

There are certainly people in our country who would find sex outside of marriage to be unethical and immoral.  Not so long ago, adultery was a crime.  So was homosexuality.  Both were considered immoral.  Times changes, it's no longer the case.

Should we view people opposed to homosexuality or women's equality throughout history as immoral and unethical?  They would certainly be today's standards.  An openly antisemitic politician in the US or Canada would get zero chances of being elected to office today.  Yet, some of our greatest politicians were antisemitic throughout history.

I would certainly view waging war against the American Indians nations to steal their lands, regularly break the signed treaties, confine them to small reservations where they would starve to be unethical and immoral.

Past US Presidents, British governors & Canadian Prime Ministers did not have any problem doing that.  British and Canadians had no problems expelling French & Indians from their lands so it could be used by good Anglo-Saxon Protestant White folks.  Some of these people are venerated by our history, they have statues, streets, monuments, buildings, schools, counties named after them.  The guy who said French Canadians should be assimilated for their own good is viewed as a hero, the founder of Canadian democracy.  Schools and counties are named for him.  As of not so long ago, Montreal had a statue of a Prime Minister whose greatest achievement was to be one of Canada's founding fathers.  And starving Indians so Canada could then claim their lands.

It was totally ethical by then.  He was certainly regarded as very moral individual in his time and long after.

ANd yet, one could not morally claim that the US laws on slavery were arrived at democratically, even if you want to call the US a democracy. THis is not hard, and yet you keep repeating the same mistake.

You would have to make the argument that the United States was not a democracy until it abolished slavery then. Because the people of the US could have abolished slavery at any time they so chose.  Some States did it, after all, once slavery became an insignificant portion of their economy.  They still didn't gave the right to vote to most of these former slaves though.  they certainly did not preach for equality of both 'races'.

The people of the United States did not vote on a number of things that predated their becoming a country.  Again, would you make the argument that everything the US did before 1865 was immoral and unethical?  Would you extend it up until universal voting rights became a thing in all States?

Slavery existed since before the first British colony in America.  American Indians practiced slavery among them, capturing other nations warriors, women and children during war expeditions.  Some of them later switched to owning African Americans like the other Americans.

Spanish had slaves, French had slaves, British had slaves.  Obviously, by its very definition, a slave has no freedom of choice.  The institution itself depends on the will of the governing body of the territory.  The British colonies had their own parliaments and could have legally legislated against slavery within the limits of their colonies without the British sending its army to beat them down.  But they didn't do it when they had the opportunity to do so.

When removed entirely from the overseeing for the British government, again, all of the 13 colonies could have abolished slavery right then.  They have full autonomy on the subject.  France would not have invaded the US if they abolished slavery in their country.  England couldn't care less anymore.  Portugal certainly didn't care.  Neither did Spain.

But the people of the United States chose not to abolish slavery.

Ergo, by your argument, the US was not a democracy after winning its war of independence because it chose to NOT abolish slavery when it could very well have done so without any external repercussions.

Slavery had been mostly legal in Europe since Roman times, mostly abandoned in favor of serfdom, and revived once Europeans started exploring Africa and developing sugar crops, and later tobacco and cotton, labor-intensive form of agriculture.

I am unsure when&if the Republic of Rome's Senate voted to legalize slavery.  I don't think they ever did, mostly, they regulated its practice, but I doubt there was any law voted like, "today, we will treat conquered people as our slaves and they will be property to be sold" with a complex set of rule.

Therefore, the point that no democracy ever voted to specifically legalize slavery is kinda moot.  Slavery was the "natural" state of many individuals, imposed against their will, for various reasons, and States regulated it away under certain circumstances, but afaik, never specifically voted to make it so in the first place.  It existed since dawn of history, various cultures and their successor states integrated it in their practice, when they expanded outside of their home territory, they brought their practice with them and so it did not have to be legislated, like so many other things.  You would be hard pressed to find a law in the old British colonies that explicitly states that a settler has the right to own a house on a piece of land he owns.  First, there was the house.  Then there were the laws surrounding it.

Same for slavery.  It existed, it got legislated about in various ways until the governments decided they no longer needed it.  They could have done so at any time since they brought the first slave to America.  They chose not to, until very late in their history.

Therefore it is as democratic as indentured servitude (despite being very different in nature, since it's time limited), as democratic as any act passed by colonial assemblies before 1776, as democratic as the 13 colonies seceding from their motherland because they wanted to expand and protect the institution of slavery, among other things.  I mean, I ain't teaching you anything here.  But you are obsessed over the presumed illegality of secession and are trying to find any kind of rationale to make it immoral per see, while it is not in itself.

I would certainly view, today, in 2021, half the US States seceding to reinstate slavery, as immoral.  Just as I would if they seceded to impose a Christian theocracy as form of governance.  Now, there are issues about voter suppression arising everywhere in those States, but assuming that was not the case, if they seceded after the election of Kamala Harris, I would respect their vote, as misguided and immoral as I think it is.  Because that is the essence of democracy, to respect the will of the majority.

No, I have a profound dislike for people who justify the protection of human chattel slavery by blithely stating that such choices were "democratic".

Since the Union did not wage war to end human chattel slavery and since I do not support it, nor did I ever claim chattel slavery was an expression of democracy, I'll assume you are just trying to provoke me into some kind of childish flame war.

My position has absolutely nothing to do with any views I have on secession.

Of course it does.  Secession is evil therefore undemocratic therefore you find arguments to make it fit, reinventing what a democracy means specifically for the States that chose to secede and applying 21st century moral and ethics to the mid 19th century.  Not having the right to vote in the South means the State is not a democracy, but not having the right to vote in the North is meaningless.  It is ok to believe the "black race is inferior to the white race" if you are against slavery, but it's evil if you are against slavery but believe it's doing more harm on the white men than on the black men.  It's ok to believe the black people should be deported from the US if you are personally anti-slavery.  It's ok to wage war on a newly formed country that wants to protect its economic institution, but its totally unjust to wage war on a newly formed country that wants to expand across lands set aside for non WASP settlers.  You would certainly have fought against the British Crown, since it was an unjust government promising freedom to black slaves, protected lands from natives and Catholics, but you would have fought against you own family for defending the institution of slavery.  You would have had no problem fighting in the Indian wars since they were in the way of US expansion, but you totally hate the white supremacist who wanted to expand through their territory and have contempt for anyone who believe it is antidemocratic to secede but you also believe it is totally democratic to invade another country and dispossess its people.

I find it weird, very disturbing, in fact, given all our previous discussions here and on Paradox OT.  But I think it's pointless to discuss this any further.  We have said all that is to be said on the subject.  Let's agree to disagree and we'll refrain from discussion such contentious issues in the future.

Have a good night.

[Berkut]

Thanks! I will continue to call you out when you defend human chattel slavery on the basis that "Gee, the decision was arrived at democratically though!"

And no, you don't get to tell me what I think about secession. Your little rant there is so far off the mark from what I think about secession in general it is downright amusing. You just string together one strawman after another and insist that is my view, even after I rather clearly state that I don't think that - whatever.

Indian Wars? WTF are you babbling about?

[The Minsky Moment]

A citizen can not "secede" from its country.  A region can.  A citizen can not organize elections.  A citizen is not sovereign, even if you had a micro-nation on an abandoned oil platform, Minsky the country would be sovereign, not Minsky the citizen of the Minsky country.

I used the example of an individual because you used the analogy of a divorce proceeding to secession.  I agree that an individual can't secede but for the same reasons the analogy of a marriage and a property settlement in divorce is not applicable to secession of a breakaway region. 

It seems to me that your argument overall lacks coherence. Your claim is that "a region" can secede, but what defines a region?  The American South?  The State of Delaware?  Dixville Notch, NH? My local school district?  Any of these entities are capable of "organizing elections" - in fact all of them do (except of course "The South").  The implicit claim is that a region can secede because it is "sovereign" but that is circular.  In the specific US example, individual US states have recognized sovereign attributes, but only in the particular context of a constitutional system that denies the right of states to secede without permission from the others - thus a US state that attempted to secede would be repudiating the basis of the very sovereignty that supposedly undergirds its right to secede.  As for "regions" - that is a concept that has no status in America, much less a sovereign one,

Had Scotland seceded from Great Britain and the UK sent is army to occupy all offshore platforms and military bases, do you believe Scotland should just had accepted that they lost on this, and life goes on and all?  Thankfully, they negotiated like grown ups before the referendum.

My understanding is that North Sea oil rights are owned by private operators.  Presumably underlying ownership of the sites would be governed by application of usual international law, including the LOS convention and thus I would guess an independent Scotland would obtain royalty and taxation rights with respect to sites within their economic zone.

UK military bases and other UK government property OTOH would and should remain under UK control until or unless an agreement was reached over their disposition.

[The Minsky Moment]

I would also point out the the justice and right of Quebec's case for independence - which I suspect may be a factor driving the intellectual juggling act here - rises and falls on its own merits. The justice of the cause of the Southern Confederacy has nothing to do with it, and from a practical point of view of presenting a persuasive and politically attractive case, it seems to be very much NOT in the interest of partisans of an independent Quebec to draw close analogies to such a notoriously racist historical regime.  Just as if I were an American neocon making the case for a preventative war against an increasingly dangerous adversary, I would hesitate to use the 1939 invasion of Poland as my illustrative example.

[Sheilbh]

My understanding is that North Sea oil rights are owned by private operators.  Presumably underlying ownership of the sites would be governed by application of usual international law, including the LOS convention and thus I would guess an independent Scotland would obtain royalty and taxation rights with respect to sites within their economic zone.

UK military bases and other UK government property OTOH would and should remain under UK control until or unless an agreement was reached over their disposition.

Although both are really important to the story of Scottish nationalism.

Before oil Scottish nationalism was a little bit cultural nationalist - one of the founders of the SNP flirted pretty heavily with fascism. Historically they were strongest in rural, very conservative areas. This is when they were nicknamed tartan Tories. Oil transformed that. There was a movement of more left-wing civic nationalism in the 70s but it got a huge shot in the arm from oil because they just made the argument about "Scotland's oil" and that Scottish people not Westminster should decide what to do with that windfall. All throught he 80s Thatcher used it to cut taxes and the deficit, while the left of the SNP took over arguing that it could finance a new, better more social democratic Scotland that was - allegedly, in their argument, the authentic Scotland not Thatcher's ideology. And central in that effort is Alex Salmond who, before he was in politics, was an oil economist for RBS and even in 2014 the SNP's economic case for independence was heavily based on a high oil price and new discoveries. I think they're now trying to pivot from that because of climate change and Salmond moved on to speaking of Scotland's goal to become the "Saudi Arabia of wind"

Similarly on military bases a large galvanising feature of Scottish nationalism is based around opposition to Faslane base where the UK nuclear submarines are based. The SNP have joined with the anti-nuclear movement so want to get rid of Faslane. Again a huge part of energising the SNP in the 80s when you have the wider European peace movement. Apparently there's no other base that's suitable at this point so among other options in the event of independence the UK is apparently looking at whether they can do a Guantanamo and get a 99 year lease on Faslane (very unlikely), or they're looking at asking to base the subs in the US until a new base is built.

[Berkut]

I would also point out the the justice and right of Quebec's case for independence - which I suspect may be a factor driving the intellectual juggling act here - rises and falls on its own merits. The justice of the cause of the Southern Confederacy has nothing to do with it, and from a practical point of view of presenting a persuasive and politically attractive case, it seems to be very much NOT in the interest of partisans of an independent Quebec to draw close analogies to such a notoriously racist historical regime.  Just as if I were an American neocon making the case for a preventative war against an increasingly dangerous adversary, I would hesitate to use the 1939 invasion of Poland as my illustrative example.

I considered making this point, but viper doesn't seem like one for nuance.

He keeps going on about how everyone is opposed to secession as some kind of matter of principle. Which of course is not true.

I think there are certainly cases where it makes sense and is defensible morally and ethically.

I don't know too much about Quebec, but just going by what I've seen from him, I have to assume the nuanced argument for its secession must be incredibly weak if you have to fall back on some kind of "all secession is valid as long as there was some kind of vote, just like the Confederacy!" as your best possible argument.