Zing!
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
Simpleton, that is the point of secession.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]John S. wrote:
I would side with my state. I believe the ability to Secede is a very good thing, keeps the union in check.[/quote]
Your answer is a bit simplistic, you need to elaborate further.
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation, and that’s one of the reasons I’m glad it’s not legal and hugely frowned upon.[/quote]
Y U no understand that nobody cares whether a nation is “crippled” u no longer want to be a part of?
Also, I have yet to see a nation on a stretcher.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
What pain can you cause a nation?
Why is the endurance of a union so important?
[quote]florelius wrote:
I am not american, but it cant hurt to see this from an europeen perspective.
If my country where to join EU( god forbid ), I would like for my country to be able to go out of that
union without the threat of being invaded by EU. I know that EU and USA is not completly the same thing, but they are similar enough. The problem with a “super” state above all the states in a union/federation is
that its takes power further away from the people. If a state have more autonomy from Brussel or DC, its
citizens have more influence over theire own lifes, becuase its easyer to influence a government thats closer to you than it is to influence the bureacrats and politicians in Brussel or the federalgovernment in DC thats far away and bigger. So summa sumarum I would probably side with my state( norway ).
[/quote]
The EU is very different. European nations have been established for hundreds and hundreds of years, and for most of those years, have been at war with each other over… whatever you guys fight about.
The United States kind of settled, grew up, and grew together to the point where we have an identity as one country, and really haven’t ever had anything else outside of the Civil War, which, in the course of 250 years, was still a relatively brief conflict considering.
I’m actually surprised the EU has lasted as long as it has, and I sometimes wonder how long it will really last. But for you to say that you’d follow Sweden would be totally obvious- it’s your country, versus staying with other countries that don’t share your language, heritage, etc.
Now, if the province you have in Sweden was to try and separate from the rest of the country - that’s a more valid comparison.
The thing is really about having to choose between going to war with your countrymen, or your neighbors, and what would give you enough fire to have the passion to be willing to lay down your life for either of those.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
Simpleton, that is the point of secession.[/quote]
Whatever amigo. I can’t be bothered with a dimwit like you.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
This is purely hypothetical, but it came up in a discussion with my brother, a high schooler who’s learning about the Civil War for the first time.
He said that Robert E. Lee was a genius, he just fought “for the wrong side.” I had to agree with him, but I threw in there that he should judge him lightly for fighting for the South, because fighting against one’s home could be exceedingly hard (as history shows.)
[/quote]
Ok, I’ll bite being a Southerner. First of all, you have just repeated one of the most standard excuses “fought for one’s home” that is repeated to excuse Lee & many other’s behavior. What did they themselves say?
Major Mosbey (one of the most famous Confederate spies and a family friend at the time) summed it up the best: They fought for the South because the military was under the command of the duly elected civilian government. The American system (of which the South was a derivative) had the civilians firmly in control. A modern analog of civilian mis-direction was the mess in Vietnam…
As a Southerner I must confess that Mr. Lincoln was right: There is a very clear cut way for any State to leave. A bill is introduced into Congress, 2/3 majority passes it and out they go. The South violated due process of law.
[quote]
In reality, is fighting for something so abstract as “preserving the union” really something you’d lay down your life for? It was for Union soldiers- their letters are rife with references to that being the reason they were doing what they were doing.
I’m genuinely curious.[/quote]
Let me see, would you lay down your life for money? How about oppressing the masses? Nope? Are you special? My point is that people will do things like this for abstract, great causes – this is the only real way, unless there is a palpable immediate threat to life and limb. Folks down South are no different. They saw their society being undermined by the rise of Commerce in the North. The cotton market was collapsing and just like any other developing country, they were increasingly desperate. We think it grand when India or Tibet resists modernization but our own, homegrown example is despised as backwards (FWIW the progressives in those countries hold much the same opinion of their own rural areas, but I digress – Hell, a lot of folks find something appealing in al Qaeda’s attempts too for this reason.)
And what did happen after the war? Better set the record straight while I have your ear. Aside from Jefferson Davis and other high ranking Democrats (no Southerner would have been caught dead voting for a Republican and when I think of good old boy, insular & parochial politics I think Democrat – how they got a PR campaign to paint themselves as enlightened Progressives is flabbergasting, to say the least), most of the people who ran the South during the War Between The States (nothing civil about it) were back in power shortly after the war. They enacted laws which mostly did carry out their agenda, after the remnants of the Confederate Army donned white sheets as the KKK and drove the occupying Union army out. Then the KKK disbanded (by 1875 at the latest). I know, my great-great grandfather rode with them. He was disgusted that they put the Democrats back in charge who then legislated the South into the Third World, and ended his days trying to organize unions down South, which he thought would/should be the future. So yes, ultimately the South won. It stayed that way until the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s, which was a Good Thing. (The modern KKK was re-created by Progressives in the early 1900’s since Racism had become a chic social theory, mostly as a side effect of the movie “Birth of A Nation” which was supposedly Woodrow Wilson’s favorite film. They have no relationship to the original one and are a bunch of racist buffoons.)
– jj
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
You are a tool.
Why should people have to die to be free?[/quote]
Because son, once and awhile some jackass pushes people too far, and instead of being a pacifist. Men, brave men, have to stand up, take their guns off their mantles and stand in their front lawn and blow the brains out of any comer of injustice. [/quote]
Cool.
Now we just need a bunch of brave men.
Anyone?
Bueller?
Bueller?
[/quote]
I would, but I don’t have a mantle. Other than that I would though.[/quote]
Damn it always comes down to the bloody logistics, doesnt it.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
Simpleton, that is the point of secession.[/quote]
Whatever amigo. I can’t be bothered with a dimwit like you.[/quote]
You cannot be bothered by obvious facts because then you might actually have to admit you are wrong.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]florelius wrote:
I am not american, but it cant hurt to see this from an europeen perspective.
If my country where to join EU( god forbid ), I would like for my country to be able to go out of that
union without the threat of being invaded by EU. I know that EU and USA is not completly the same thing, but they are similar enough. The problem with a “super” state above all the states in a union/federation is
that its takes power further away from the people. If a state have more autonomy from Brussel or DC, its
citizens have more influence over theire own lifes, becuase its easyer to influence a government thats closer to you than it is to influence the bureacrats and politicians in Brussel or the federalgovernment in DC thats far away and bigger. So summa sumarum I would probably side with my state( norway ).
[/quote]
The EU is very different. European nations have been established for hundreds and hundreds of years, and for most of those years, have been at war with each other over… whatever you guys fight about.
The United States kind of settled, grew up, and grew together to the point where we have an identity as one country, and really haven’t ever had anything else outside of the Civil War, which, in the course of 250 years, was still a relatively brief conflict considering.
I’m actually surprised the EU has lasted as long as it has, and I sometimes wonder how long it will really last. But for you to say that you’d follow Sweden would be totally obvious- it’s your country, versus staying with other countries that don’t share your language, heritage, etc.
Now, if the province you have in Sweden was to try and separate from the rest of the country - that’s a more valid comparison.
The thing is really about having to choose between going to war with your countrymen, or your neighbors, and what would give you enough fire to have the passion to be willing to lay down your life for either of those. [/quote]
Eh, before modern transportation and communication, we weren’t as together as you are making out. We did also exist for a long time as entirely separate states, under different charters and different governments. Even in the revolutionary war, men fought for state first, America second.
I would also say that the original government under the constitution was a much looser affiliation than what we have today.
The big uniting thread was saying FU to England, not so much culture and such. Today the country is smaller and less divide thanks to modern conveniences. But even then, Alaska, Hawai, puerto rico, texas, the southeast, west coast, east coast, midwest, est. are all very different places with very different pasts.
Part of his country seceding isn’t a good comparison if for nothing else than the shear geographical size of the US.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
What pain can you cause a nation?
Why is the endurance of a union so important?[/quote]
14.New Jersey is a leading industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation.
Gotta count for something, I suppose.
[quote]jj-dude wrote:
As a Southerner I must confess that Mr. Lincoln was right: There is a very clear cut way for any State to leave. A bill is introduced into Congress, 2/3 majority passes it and out they go. The South violated due process of law.
[/quote]
Why does a state need to ask for permission to leave a union it no longer wants to be a part of?
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
What pain can you cause a nation?
Why is the endurance of a union so important?[/quote]
14.New Jersey is a leading industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation.
Gotta count for something, I suppose.[/quote]
Remember who has many of the largest pharmaceutical companies friends…
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
What pain can you cause a nation?
Why is the endurance of a union so important?[/quote]
14.New Jersey is a leading industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation.
Gotta count for something, I suppose.[/quote]
How does that hurt a nation if the seceding state still trades with consumers of the nation.
Or are you referring to the extortion that the nation would no longer be able to engage in with the seceded state?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
What pain can you cause a nation?
Why is the endurance of a union so important?[/quote]
14.New Jersey is a leading industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation.
Gotta count for something, I suppose.[/quote]
How does that hurt a nation if the seceding state still trades with consumers of the nation.
Or are you referring to the extortion that the nation would no longer be able to engage in with the seceded state?[/quote]
Whatver state secedes could withhold whatever it provides the rest of the nation - thus harming it.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
What pain can you cause a nation?
Why is the endurance of a union so important?[/quote]
14.New Jersey is a leading industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation.
Gotta count for something, I suppose.[/quote]
How does that hurt a nation if the seceding state still trades with consumers of the nation.
Or are you referring to the extortion that the nation would no longer be able to engage in with the seceded state?[/quote]
Whatver state secedes could withhold whatever it provides the rest of the nation - thus harming it.[/quote]
They can do that now. Like with California cutting ties to Arizona.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Whatver state secedes could withhold whatever it provides the rest of the nation - thus harming it.[/quote]
A state does not produce goods so whether goods are traded or not has nothing to do with secession.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Eh, before modern transportation and communication, we weren’t as together as you are making out. We did also exist for a long time as entirely separate states, under different charters and different governments. Even in the revolutionary war, men fought for state first, America second.
[/quote]
I think you’re wrong here. There was no conception of “state”- only the colony you came from. And that didn’t particularly influence whether men fought or not- it’s well known that 1/3 of the people were for independence, 1/3 against it, and another third didn’t give a shit.
It was more the uniting ideal of getting away from Britain (which you mention below). Saying they were loyal to their home is one thing, but to say that they were supporting their states that early may be jumping the gun. I don’t think there was any question among those fighting against Britain that the war either had to be fought by all the colonies or none- such as Ben Franklin’s divided snake illustration shows us.
Maybe. But the nation was incredibly young and facing the divisive issue of slavery already. So why wouldn’t it be? I think consolidation of power is something that happened gradually.
I don’t disagree - but they’re all still America. If some country invaded Texas, all of America would respond. Millions signed up for the army after Pearl Harbor because America had been attacked, and Americans had died- it wasn’t just Hawaiians getting in there.
Regionally there are differences of course, but I don’t think we’re sectioned off like you think, and the heavy influx of immigrants has only helped that. If anything, political party divides now far more heavily than what piece of dirt you built your home on.
[quote]
Part of his country seceding isn’t a good comparison if for nothing else than the shear geographical size of the US.[/quote]
I don’t know about that. Many countries far smaller than ours have had civil wars, and all the men in those had to make the same choice.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Why is the endurance of a union so important?[/quote]
Why is the endurance of a State so important? Why is the endurance of a human being so important? Things that exist strive to continue existing.
Also, because we as Americans enjoy hegemonic status, unparalleled prosperity and security, and singular international influence as a direct result of our federal organization. I’d love to see all of the people with their heads up their asses in rural bumfuck states that talk about secession as if it is a viable political maneuver after a few years of trying to fare in geopolitics of and for themselves. Good luck to the 40 states without a primate city.
Although if the South had been allowed to secede in the 19th century, the United states of America today would be far less obese and far more educated as a country. Statistically, that is.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The ability to secede is actually crippling to a nation…[/quote]
What pain can you cause a nation?
Why is the endurance of a union so important?[/quote]
I think you misinterpreted my post.
The point was that the Confederacy, which was founded on “state’s rights” got bit in the ass by that philosophy, because trying to rally troops by drafting and trying to organize militias to fight under one flag became very difficult when the whole philosophy of the country was “no central government.”
It becomes a contradiction in terms- in order for the fledgling collection of states to survive against a united North, they had to band together and try to work things out through due process- which was exactly the reason that they’d seceded in the first place.
For some reason I recall the governor of Georgia giving Jefferson Davis an exceedingly hard time about this matter as well but I could be wrong.