The Real problem with cancel culture

[viper37]

And that's what Viper is defending so ferociously.

I am defending the right to democratically secede, within the confine of what democray exists at the moment of such declaration.

They could have decided to secede because they didn't like Lincoln's beard, it would have been just as irrelevant.

Like I said in another thread, had the Southern States imposed unionization of the Northern workers in 1860, the North would have seceded, for the same reasons you highlighted. 

And again, they were dumb for rebelling to support slavery, they should have done like planters elsewhere and instead negotiated for compensation.  With that money, they could have themselves shifted their fortune to other investments and kept a certain social status, just as the other planters elsewhere did.

But it's totally irrelevant.  Their legislative assembly, as duly composed before Secession voted on Secession and a majority voted in favor.  Once that is passed, the duty of a citizen is to defend its states, even if he believes the underlying causes to be wrong.  Just like many Americans supported their country through the Vietnam and 2nd Iraq wars.  The wars might have been unjust, hyped by propaganda, but it was democratically decided and citizens even had more than once chance of electing a government against the continuation of the wars.

Right of wrong, when your nation goes to war, you defend it.  You don't betray it, you don't flee elsewhere to avoid the draft either; nor do you pay a doctor to write a false report making you ineligible for such draft.

[viper37]

Whether or not it was "democratic" among white men varies from state to state in the secession crisis. I don't see how you can look at it objectively as some kind of clean democratic mandate across the board.

When was the first referendum held in the US?  How was the US Constitution adopted by individual colonies?  How did a territory became a State?  How did you have South and North Dakota, did the people in the then territories voted on forming two seperate States?  How were any territory partitionned to become States?  How were the inhabitants (all of them) consulted on forming a State? What did the Shawnee and Potawatomi had to say about becoming part of the US? When did they vote into become citizens of the States of Ohio, Illinois and Michigan?  Was it all a democratic process according to you and Berkut's views?  Should we consider the US of 1783-89 a military dictatorship?  A failed democracy?  Any other kind of non democracy?  Or would you apply the non democracy part only to US territories, former or present?  If a democratic country has parts of its citizens who are not allowed to vote at all elections, by design, is it still a democracy or something else?

I'll repeat what I said to Berkut: Examing it with the standards of the time.  There were no referendums in the US until the early 20th century, afaik.  It's not how things were done in 1775-1776, it's not how things were done in Texas when it declared it's independence, it's not how things worked to decide if a State should be admitted to the Union.  Even if Texans had voted against the Union, the US could have annexed the territory just as well, it's a power reserved for the Federal Congress, not the individual in the States.

I can not imagine today's USA annexing a territory, making a new State out of it without a modern democratic referendum in favor of it passing in that territory first.  But that's not how it worked in the past.  Doesn't mean the US never was a democracy because it didn't conformed to today's standards.

[Berkut]

The legality of slavery and denial of equal rights for blacks has nothing to do with the moral judgement of slavery, and using "Well, it was legal" to defend slavery as "democratic" is making me question my previous insistence that your idiocy has nothing to do with racism.

"We don't like Lincolns beard and we voted and decided to leave the Union". That would be a nominally democratic vote. Not liking someones beard, so far as I am aware, is not really influenced by whether or not you are a slave, and you can reasonably argue that a vote on Lincolns beard that denied slaves a voice is still "democratic". It would be as democratic as anything can be in that time of restricted suffrage.

You cannot have a vote on slavery while denying the slaves the right to have a say, and then proclaim proudly your support for the outcome that enshrines slavery as "democratic". I mean....you can. But you look like a fucking racist asshole when you do. Because the only possible justification you can have for denying them a say in that vote is that they are not worthy of that say. Like the justification for not letting children vote.

This is not about what was legal, or typical of the time. It is not about monarchy, or any of the other tortured justifications for slave states. It is not about what the Union wanted, or how most people of the time were racist by our standards.

You made a specific claim that the Confederacy was a legitimate, moral political entity on the basis of its establishment through democratic means. It was not established by any kind of actual democracy that means anything other then some pedantic legal definition.

[Berkut]

Right of wrong, when your nation goes to war, you defend it.  You don't betray it, you don't flee elsewhere to avoid the draft either; nor do you pay a doctor to write a false report making you ineligible for such draft.

So you would have joined the Einsatzgruppen and done your duty?

[Berkut]

You know it is entirely rational, reasonable, and defensible to support one group seceding without having to support all rebellion....right?

I mean, it might be a little harder, you might have to think a bit more and understand more nuance and particulars of the situation....

But you don't have to defend fucking slave states in order to be falsely consistent....

[The Brain]

In Sweden you get to vote in prison (duh).

That's the obvious answer, but an American politician that sought to restore that would get crucified by the judgmental majority.

Tbf I'm not sure exactly how official place of residence of prisoners in Sweden works. I'm thinking of possible impact on local elections, if you have a small town and a big prison. I have never heard about any perceived problem there, but then we don't have a big prison population in Sweden (and my guess is that prisoners typically aren't heavy voters).

[grumbler]

Tbf I'm not sure exactly how official place of residence of prisoners in Sweden works. I'm thinking of possible impact on local elections, if you have a small town and a big prison. I have never heard about any perceived problem there, but then we don't have a big prison population in Sweden (and my guess is that prisoners typically aren't heavy voters).

I'd think the solution would be like that of the military:  they submit an absentee ballot for the jurisdiction of their home when they went to the military/to prison.

[garbon]

Tbf I'm not sure exactly how official place of residence of prisoners in Sweden works. I'm thinking of possible impact on local elections, if you have a small town and a big prison. I have never heard about any perceived problem there, but then we don't have a big prison population in Sweden (and my guess is that prisoners typically aren't heavy voters).

I'd think the solution would be like that of the military:  they submit an absentee ballot for the jurisdiction of their home when they went to the military/to prison.

It is what we do as citizens abroad. Most recent place you lived for at least 6 months.

[The Minsky Moment]

By this reasoning, the US was not a democracy in 1776.  ....  Yet I know of no serious scholar argueing the US was never a democracy.

When Texas declared and fought for its independance . . . By your reasoning, that would be undemocratic.

I don't think there is any reputable historian today who would say that the "US" was a democracy in 1776; the best that could be said was that some of colonies turned states were pretty democratic by the standards of the time.

I don't think there is any reputable historian today who would extol the democratic credentials of the Texas insurgents; the war with Mexico is generally reviewed in a negative moral light by most historians.  It was even highly controversial in its time; for example, US Grant, who fought as an officer in the war, called it in his memoirs one of the most unjust wars ever waged.

When the United States waged war against the Confederacy, its President hadn't been elected by Indigenous communities of the then US, women did not vote for him or any other candidates and most of the US states did not allow universal voting rights for free black men, let alone slaves.

The US did not declare abolition first before calling for volunteers.  The only goal was to preserve the Union at any cost.

This is a bizarre take on the history - you write as if the United States suddenly sprang into being in 1861.  The United States existed as a nation in 1861 - it had forts and property owned and paid for by the entire people of the nation.  The shooting started when the so-called Confederacy waged war against the US.

When native peoples or women were voting in US federal elections is an interesting and important historical question but hardly relevant to consideration of the ACW.  There weren't large numbers of frustrated Sioux desparate to vote for Breckinridge.

[Valmy]

The Confederacy had been attacking and seizing United States property by force for months before Sumter. The idea that the United States waged war on the Confederacy unprovoked is insane and bizarre. The Secessionists were pretty intent on seizing all federal property without compensation.

The US did not declare abolition first before calling for volunteers.  The only goal was to preserve the Union at any cost.

If that was the only goal there would not have been a Civil War because the Republicans would have immediately just adopted the Southern Democrats platform. But instead they refused to permit the expansion of slavery into the territories.

So tell me Viper, if the only goal was to preserve the Union and nothing else why not just support slavery and its expansion and denounce the abolitionists? That would have absolutely held it all together no problem.

[Grey Fox]

Viper a succombé aux charmes de la cause perdu.

[viper37]

Right of wrong, when your nation goes to war, you defend it.  You don't betray it, you don't flee elsewhere to avoid the draft either; nor do you pay a doctor to write a false report making you ineligible for such draft.

So you would have joined the Einsatzgruppen and done your duty?

I would have been born and raised in Germany, joined the Hitler's Youth at 12 as was mandatory of any kid and most likely would have been convinced that there were enemies seeking to destroy my country from within and without.

I would have likely been ignorant of what exactly where the Einsatzgruppen doing.  In most likelyhood, I would have joined the Waffen SS or another SS corps and been sent to the Eastern Front by the time I reached 19 years old.

Had I been a 20-something adult in 1939 Germany, I would have been conscripted and sent to the Whermacht.

I don't think I would have fled the country in 1935, had I been an ethnic German from an old family, former nobility, no.  Had I been a soldier in the mid 30s, I would have participated in all of German's conflicts, it is doubtful I would have deserted, unless forced to commit some atrocities.  The French, Belgians, British&others who fought for Germany against their country because of their firm beliefs in Hitler's work weren't hailed as heroes when they came back after the war.  They were branded as traitors.  Just like the Loyalists the Americans expelled from their country after winning their independence war.

And I don't think that's different from anyone here in the same circumstances.  Conscripted at 11-12 years old, you don't get much of a say into what you do.

Obviously, the analogy is a false one and you know it perfectly well.

In the time frame of 1860, a majority of Americans believed Whites to be superior to Blacks.  Even in the North, a majority of the army officers didn't believe in racial equality.  They didn't fight for racial equality either.  Most of them believed slavery was immoral, but considering the black folks as their equals was a step to far. That's why most White officers declined to lead black-only regiments.  That's why there were no mixed regiments in the US Army during the war: the vast majority of the citizens were White Supremacists.  Even among the abolitionists, many white folks didn't believe the blacks were their equal.

But as we well know, the Southerners weren't in the death camps business.  And Germany wasn't a democracy between 1933 and 1945.  So the point is moot, and the comparison inapt.

Otherwise, we might as well bring the recent Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  US soldiers (other countries too) noticed atrocities being committed by their side and often an unwillingness to prosecute to the full extent of the law.  Not until some media pressure, at least.  Should they have deserted and joined the Vietcong?  Saddam's army?  Al-Queida maybe?

[The Minsky Moment]

Virtually no white person in the North believed in racial equality in 1860 (Lincoln included) and yet a majority opposed slavery.  Matters stood quite differently in the South.

The argument seems to be that because the North was not perfect, and was a morally flawed society, therefore one can not make any moral judgments at all between the two causes...

[viper37]

The Confederacy had been attacking and seizing United States property by force for months before Sumter. The idea that the United States waged war on the Confederacy unprovoked is insane and bizarre. The Secessionists were pretty intent on seizing all federal property without compensation.

The Federal government was unwilling to vacate properties and stalled the negotiations that were happening.  Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter after it became clear the promises of evacuation were empty.

So tell me Viper, if the only goal was to preserve the Union and nothing else why not just support slavery and its expansion and denounce the abolitionists? That would have absolutely held it all together no problem.

Because they underestimated the willingness of the South to fight for the status quo.  Lincoln was surprised by the strength of the rebellion.  Most volunteer soldiers were enlisted for just a few months.

Had the Republicans been certain there would be a massive uprising, that other States would join the Secessionist movements, that citizens in border States would rebel forcing them to suspend habeas corpus in those States (thus transforming themselves into some kind of non democracy, I guess, by your arguments?), that there would be a bloody war for 4 years, would they have done it?

If the goal was to abolish slavery, immediatly, from the beginning, why try to negotiate with the Southern States to get them back in the Union?

[Valmy]

The Confederacy had been attacking and seizing United States property by force for months before Sumter. The idea that the United States waged war on the Confederacy unprovoked is insane and bizarre. The Secessionists were pretty intent on seizing all federal property without compensation.

The Federal government was unwilling to vacate properties and stalled the negotiations that were happening.  Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter after it became clear the promises of evacuation were empty.

There was no promise of evacuation. But we are talking about just a few short weeks and months after secession, before the new administration had even been sworn in. How is that fair? Surely negotiations should at least have given Lincoln a few minutes or hours on the job before just declaring it all in bad faith and attacking with guns.

Because they underestimated the willingness of the South to fight for the status quo.  Lincoln was surprised by the strength of the rebellion.  Most volunteer soldiers were enlisted for just a few months.

Really? After decades of political crisis over this issue they failed to notice it was contentious? Once the secession crisis kicked off? Both sides thought it would be a short thing.

Had the Republicans been certain there would be a massive uprising, that other States would join the Secessionist movements, that citizens in border States would rebel forcing them to suspend habeas corpus in those States (thus transforming themselves into some kind of non democracy, I guess, by your arguments?), that there would be a bloody war for 4 years, would they have done it?

Yes because the slavery issue was extremely contentious, it wasn't like the Republicans could have just given up on all points because opposition to slavery was the entire reason they existed. Anyway both sides suspended habeas corpus. Especially once the war got going people were regularly hung by both sides without trial because it was a freaking war and crazy shit happened.

If the goal was to abolish slavery, immediatly, from the beginning, why try to negotiate with the Southern States to get them back in the Union?

The goal of the abolitionists was to do that. But the Republican coalition had all kinds of shades of opposition to slavery and the one everybody agreed on was no expansion to slavery into the territories. That was the hill the Republicans chose to die on and the hill the Southern Democrats refused to accept.