As their very own secession statements and their very own Constitution point out, the Confederate States of America was founded in order to defend slavery. This is not controversial amongst anybody who has actually read these founding documents, all of which are available on the Internet for your perusal. Fuck, the CSA Constitution even forbade Confederate states from outlawing slavery. State’s rights my fine-feathered ass! It was all about the right to own human beings as farm animals, as livestock, to be treated the same way as any other livestock on a farm.
So here’s a question for anybody who thinks the Confederacy was “honorable”:
How honorable would someone be if they ripped your daughter away from you and sold her as livestock to some stranger to be used as a brood mare by a big strapping male buck? And how honorable would someone be if they sold your daughter’s children resulting from this breeding to other strangers as livestock to either work in the field as a farm animal or be used as breeding stock?
Would that be an honorable person?
Well, look: That’s every goddamn motherfucker who founded the Confederate States of America. It’s not just that they kept humans as livestock. They fucking fought a goddamned war for the right to keep humans as livestock. I don’t have a particularly high opinion of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because they kept humans as livestock, but at least they didn’t fucking fight a goddamned war for the right to keep humans as livestock. That, at least, is a stain upon their character that they do not possess.
But Robert E. Lee? Jefferson Davis? Alexander Stevens? Those evil-ass motherfuckers can burn in hell, as far as I’m concerned. They’re no more honorable than a pimp or a gang-banger. Hell, they’re fucking *less* honorable than a pimp or a gang-banger — at least the pimp or gang-banger only wants to own women as property, not women and men both.
– Badtux the Honor Penguin
I once met a fellow who was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Ken Burns’ series “The Civil War” was on TV at the time, and I mentioned it. Hoo boy, big mistake. I got a half-hour lecture on “the War of Northern Aggression,” “it wasn’t about slavery,” yadda yadda. De Nile is a looong river.
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The need to avoid feeling guilt is such a powerful motivator for conservatives, that it requires them redefine reality. Even the things right in front of their eyes.
Ironically, their steadfast refusal to acknowledge guilt in anything earns them more and more guilt as time goes on. Which they then must ignore, too.
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The war was fought, for, the same reason as the whiskey rebellion, starting the same way, two sides of an rebellion, idea, that are pig headed on definition’s. The what is, is argument. You, acknowledge that thru the causes, ” States, writing laws” the other states did not like. And the feds having to step in on laws thru the courts. Like the man said, both sides didn’t want to argue, their point of view was war was better. And they did it. And people are pushing that same argument, today. I agree, part of the issue was slavery, but within the larger context, it was States rights, the ability for a state to do as it wants. But, I do like your argument.
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Uhm no. The secession statements are clear, as is the Confederate Constitution, which *denied* states’ rights, if said state decided to ban slavery. The war was about slavery, period. End of statement. Most of the secession statements didn’t even *mention* any other reason.
And I don’t see how you compromise on owning human beings as livestock. Either humans are owned as livestock, or they aren’t. There’s no “half-owned” compromise here, other than, well, normal employment contracts, anyhow. What if it was *your* daughter being owned by some stranger and bred with random men and her children being ripped away from her breasts and sold to *other* strangers? What would you think about the morality of owning humans as livestock *then*?
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Jim, at the time, State’s rights was the ability of the Northern states to decide not to return free slaves to the south. The south was very much against state’s rights. It was about slavery, and everything else is a deflection.
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As a veteran and a poor southron, the Confederacy seems odious to me. They started a hopeless war fought on delusions to support an evil, much prolonged by the efficiency and drive of rich slavemaster Lee and other traitors to the United States of America.
But the South got off easy compared to Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire, with only Atlanta and Charleston showing the traitors what could happen PDQ if no white flag.
The South never accepted they lost; like Deutschland was ‘stabbed in the back’ and didn’t lose WWI at all. Seems the only way rogue slaver nations seem to get the message is bombardment, blockade, destruction and prolonged military occupation. But Reconstruction was curtailed because northerners were racists too-it was a casually racist era.
This is 2017. For an African American to see a Confederate battle flag is the same as a Jew having to see a swastika. It ain’t the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’, more like, “it’s a damn shame our boys lost, be right nice to have slaves doing all the work.”
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[…] Badtux has the answer. […]
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