The Civil War Was About Slavery

[Phased Out]

I read in an archived thread on this board about how “the Civil war was not started over slavery.”

Why are people propagating this nonsense? Strangely, there is an alliance of interests from both the extreme left and the extreme right who like this idea. On the extreme left, if the Civil War was started over slavery, this means that a good portion of white people made a great sacrifice in order to end slavery.

This makes white people look good, and the extreme left likes to make white people look bad, so they would prefer to believe that the Civil War was started over economic issues like tariffs or distracting the working class from economic plight which would then cause an insurrection against the capitalist class.

In fact, the primary economic issue was that Southern slave owners would lose their investments in slaves and feared their plantations would no longer be profitable without slave labor.

On the extreme right, the people who like to glorify Ye Olde South would prefer to believe the lie that the Civil War was about stuff like states’ rights, but in reality the primary right that the Confederacy cared about was the “right” to keep slaves.

The true history of the time is that the Republican Party was founded as an anti-slavery party, Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election because of anti-slavery voters, the South seceded because they saw that in the future, all new states to be admitted to the Union would be free states, and there would eventually be enough support in the Senate to abolish slavery.


I don't know why people on the extreme left and right find it so hard to believe that, in 1860, the majority of non-slave-owning Americans thought slavery was immoral.

[syndicat]

the civil war was about slavery, yes. but when it began the north wasn't trying to abolish slavery. the abolitionist vote for Lincoln wasn't a significant factor, especially since Lincoln didn't advocate abolition of slavery. He also was a believer in the inferiority of blacks, and only issued the proclamation of emancipation at a point where the north was having difficulty but there was beginning to be evidence that the slaves themselves could be a signfiicant force in winning the war.


Why are people propagating this nonsense? Strangely, there is an alliance of interests from both the extreme left and the extreme right who like this idea. On the extreme left, if the Civil War was started over slavery, this means that a good portion of white people made a great sacrifice in order to end slavery.

This makes white people look good, and the extreme left likes to make white people look bad, so they would prefer to believe that the Civil War was started over economic issues like tariffs or distracting the working class from economic plight which would then cause an insurrection against the capitalist class.


This is silly. Zinn's "People's History of the United States", a radical left work, doesn't "try to make white people look bad." Not in general.

Acknowledging the widespread racism of whites in the 19th century isn't "trying to make white people look bad" when you consider that many of the heroes of the left in that era were white...people like the Haymarket Martyrs (one of whom was a Confederate war veteran who had gotten into radical politics in Texas by fighting to defend the rights of the freed slaves and who married a non-white woman). Or John Brown.

What happened during the civil war is that white attitudes towards the blacks shifted. This happened due to the activities of black people to fight for their own liberation. There was massive flight of slaves to the north to fight in the union army after Lincoln was persuaded to allow a black regiment -- the regiment whose story was told in the movie "Glory." As WEB Dubois points out, there was a massive "go slow" -- basically a general strike -- of the slaves on the plantations. Large parts of the Confederate army had to be tied down guarding the plantations.

These activities changed opinions of white soldiers and white northerners who were not generally in favor of abolition of slavery at the outset of the war. By the end of the war they'd been convinced that slavery had to be rooted out.

[Dean]

I don't know why people on the extreme left and right find it so hard to believe that, in 1860, the majority of non-slave-owning Americans thought slavery was immoral.

It was nothing more than a fight over economic control. That's why Robert E Lee freed his slaves before Grant - it had nothing to do with silly morals.

[which doctor]

The Civil War may not have began over the question of slavery or any sort of moral obligation for the white northerners to free the poor black people in the south, but as the war dragged on, the problem of freedom continued to be pushed to the forefront of the american popular imagination. To continue to insist that it was nothing but a war over economic control is ludicrous. Civil War radical reconstruction was not about asserting economic control, but about restructuring social relations in the south, in a manner that was very progressive, but unfortunately the forces of reaction won out and the progressive steps made were rolled back until Jim Crow laws were repealed nearly a century later. This historical period isn't one of my strong points, but it is not a coincidence that the first call for an 8 hour work day came out of Chicago immediately after the Civil War.

[Os Cangaceiros]

To continue to insist that it was nothing but a war over economic control is ludicrous.

That doesn't sound very Marxist of you!

[syndicat]

It was nothing more than a fight over economic control. That's why Robert E Lee freed his slaves before Grant - it had nothing to do with silly morals.

you're posing a false dichotomy. a struggle can be over economic control but also be a moral struggle. the struggle for the liberation of the slaves was a fight over economic control -- over the control of the labor of the workers on the plantations. this is shown by their continued servitude through other means, including rank violence, after the civil war.

the struggle of the immediate producers against their overseers and exploiters is a "struggle over economic control" but it is also a social justice struggle.

the struggle of the slaves for their liberation wasn't just about economic control but for control over their lives in general, and their equality in society.

the civil war went hand in hand with a revolutionary attempt to change social structure in the south.

it was in fact the slaveowning planter class who set up and controlled the Confederacy. that's why the Confederate army could not retain control in areas where the white farming population didn't own slaves, for example, they never could hold on to eastern Tennessee.

at the end of the civil war there were some limited attempts of the slaves to seize plantations but the regime of President Johnson, a former southern Senator and rank racist, undermined all efforts to transfer the land to the freed slave population. By rights the slaves should have been able to gain ownership of all the assets of the planter class, who had ruthlessly exploited the slave population for generations. all their wealth should have passed to the slaves. now that would be more of a real liberation. there were attempts in this direction like the Freedmen's bureau and attempts to ensure that blacks would have equal political rights, and be able to elect city council members and state legislators and so on, during Radical Reconstruction, which took on a revolutionary dimension, but this was destroyed with the reactionary backlash and the growth of Klan violence.

Robert E Lee may have freed his slaves once it came to seem inevitable, but did he pass to them his lands?

[which doctor]

That doesn't sound very Marxist of you!
That's because my Marxism isn't vulgar and I understand there's a lot more to the moving of history than mere economic motive.

[MMIKEYJ]

The civil war might have come to include the issue of slavery.. but it was far from being the cause celebre...

[Os Cangaceiros]

That's because my Marxism isn't vulgar and I understand there's a lot more to the moving of history than mere economic motive.

I would tend to agree that some Marxists have a bit of a..."mechanistic" view of the progression of human history. I think that some of their critics have been right when they say that many Marxists don't pay enough attention to motives linked to the "superstructure".

[MMIKEYJ]

hmm

[syndicat]

The civil war might have come to include the issue of slavery.. but it was far from being the cause celebre...


not for white northerners at the outset. but it was always about slavery for the southern planter class and the Confederate regime. that's why they seceded. they couldn't be sure their system would be secure.

it sure as hell wasn't about "states rights." the southern elite didn't believe in states rights when it came to allowing freedom for escaped slaves in the north.

[MMIKEYJ]

Heres an interesting take from the Southern Avenger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCDPhLoA5U&feature=player_embedded#!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCDPhLoA5U&feature=player_embedded#%21)

[Dean]

you're posing a false dichotomy. a struggle can be over economic control but also be a moral struggle. the struggle for the liberation of the slaves was a fight over economic control -- over the control of the labor of the workers on the plantations. this is shown by their continued servitude through other means, including rank violence, after the civil war.

the struggle of the immediate producers against their overseers and exploiters is a "struggle over economic control" but it is also a social justice struggle.

the struggle of the slaves for their liberation wasn't just about economic control but for control over their lives in general, and their equality in society.

the civil war went hand in hand with a revolutionary attempt to change social structure in the south.
What was revolutionary about northerners - many slave owners at that - trying to maintain hegemony over a south that was attempting to secede?

You relate this to class struggle, but you forget that class struggle is hardly a moralist one. People demand control over their lives, and this is an explicitly economic issue.

You don't see people rising up because of the "moral value" of the act. If we are to look at it morally, then there are flaws - notably in violence - but more importantly, morality does not get at the underlying mechanisms which create these conflicts. Rather, morality has served time and time again to mystify these conflicts, and the standard moralist approach is typically supportive of whatever propaganda paradigm you live in:

The American Revolution - was this about equality (of White slave-and-land-owners) or economic self-determinism for a fledgling economic class?
The War in Afghanistan - A womens' rights campaign or anti-Sino/Arab war of aggression?
2010 Health Care Bill - A righteous bid for equality or an attempt to gain political capital in both the liberal and corporate constituencies?



it was in fact the slaveowning planter class who set up and controlled the Confederacy. that's why the Confederate army could not retain control in areas where the white farming population didn't own slaves, for example, they never could hold on to eastern Tennessee.


Robert E Lee may have freed his slaves once it came to seem inevitable, but did he pass to them his lands?
This is exactly where the problem lies. If we are judging it this way, what value is there in the Emancipation Proclamation anyways? The black population to this day has experienced minimal economic progress, and at the time there was no economic redistribution, anyways.

You want to consider the moral character of the civil war? The civil war was the first industrial war. The degree of death and economic terror unleashed on the South was incredible, especially for the time. this is why you hear about a "reconstruction:" the south was more or less burned to the ground, much like the Roman rape of Carthage. The only thing they didn't do was to salt the fields, because the civil war was a war for economic hegemony. Furthermore, the black population was largely fighting the North as well - not because they didn't want freedom, but history told them that the North didn't care about their freedom and this terror was unleashed on them just as well.

But this doesn't really make either side better than the other. It's arguable that the Civil War was necessary in the development of Capital. The point is, of course, to look at these issues objectively and without the ludicrous imagery of the Noble White Man riding down on a horse to slave Old Black Joe.

"Everybody knows the deal is rotten - old black Joe's still pickin' cotton for your ribbons and bows..." - L. Cohen

You want to talk about heroes in the slavery paradigm - look to Nat Turner. Now, he killed women and children, too. But at least he was honestly fighting against the slaver class. And this just goes to show you how morality and historical materialism are two completely separate ventures.

[syndicat]

What was revolutionary about northerners - many slave owners at that - trying to maintain hegemony over a south that was attempting to secede?

The civil war was complicated. There were a variety of forces at work, including a conflict between the northern and southern ruling classes. But that occurred at the same time as a revolutionary struggle of the slaves for their freedom and to achieve equal rights.



You relate this to class struggle, but you forget that class struggle is hardly a moralist one. People demand control over their lives, and this is an explicitly economic issue.


I totally disagree. The class structure of society is a form of oppression. The struggle against oppression and exploitation is an economic and political struggle and also a struggle for justice.

You have a rather peculiar notion of what "morality" is.

The American Revolution - was this about equality (of White slave-and-land-owners) or economic self-determinism for a fledgling economic class?

Not about equality. It was for the most part a struggle of a major faction of the local ruling elite for control of the country.



The War in Afghanistan - A womens' rights campaign or anti-Sino/Arab war of aggression?

Women's rights have been used as a ridiculous figleaf. RAWA doesn't support the U.S. occupation. It's about the defense of corporate access freely to all pools of labor and resources, and thus opposition to forms of nationalism, whether statist or nationalist or clericalist.



2010 Health Care Bill - A righteous bid for equality or an attempt to gain political capital in both the liberal and corporate constituencies?

It was an attempt by the Dems to appear to be responding to the mass of the population, who have good reasons to loathe the insurance companies, but in a way that works to the advantage of the capitalist health insurers and other capitalist interests.


This is exactly where the problem lies. If we are judging it this way, what value is there in the Emancipation Proclamation anyways? The black population to this day has experienced minimal economic progress, and at the time there was no economic redistribution, anyways.


yes, the revolution was defeated. but i wasn't talking about the "morality of the civil war" but of the struggle for freedom.

[Nolan]

the extreme left likes to make white people look bad,

Shit, not this stupid Nazi rhetoric.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What was revolutionary about northerners - many slave owners at that - trying to maintain hegemony over a south that was attempting to secede?What was evolutionary about some french bourgeois who wanted to get rid of aristocratic rights and put in a rule of law just so that they could become wealthy and not be second-class to nobility?

The economic:
the civil war was an example of a more historically progressive stage of capitalism coming into conflict with a more regressive and anachronistic semi-capitalist system. Essentially there was not a real proletariet in the US south until about WWII, the antebellum south changed little economically from the Revolution to the Civil War whereas the north went from a society of small merchants and apprentices, servants, and yeomen farmers to an industrial system that was much more dynamic.

The revolution:
Probably the first people to realize that the war was about slavery was the slave population - followed quickly by the slave-owners. Slaves and newly freemen wanted to fight against the south and those still in the south essentially walked-off the plantations in large numbers. A liberation "terrorist" like John Brown went from being (the first person?) executed by the state in the 1850s to be the subject of heroic songs sung by northern troops by the end of the war. I think that the emancipation of slaves (the largest transfer of wealth from rich to poor in US history), and the plan to create public education for the first time, black elected officials, the promise of land, are all signs of the social effect of this war.

So a social upheaval impacting and drawing-in almost all classes in society, and an economic conflict where an anachronistic system is replaced by a rising and dynamic system... this was more than just one group of elites battling another.


You relate this to class struggle, but you forget that class struggle is hardly a moralist one. People demand control over their lives, and this is an explicitly economic issue.I'd recommend reading some of Eric Foner's stuff on Reconstruction and the Civil war - it's a lot to read but there are amazing anecdotes about slave resistance during the war as well as radical freemen trying to make a new life for themselves.


This is exactly where the problem lies. If we are judging it this way, what value is there in the Emancipation Proclamation anyways? The black population to this day has experienced minimal economic progress, and at the time there was no economic redistribution, anyways.THis was the result, but not the only possible outcome. Again Eric Foner's book on Radical Reconstruction goes into (too much) detail about the incredible social changes during reconstruction. There were freemen communities set up by former slaves, there black elected officials that held posts not held by black people in the US again until 100 years later! Popular images of blacks went from the standard sub-human beast propaganda to showing images of actual people with dignity (although sometimes overly-romanticized by abolitionists)!

In fact things were so radical that the US saw a pre-cursor of fascism rise up: the KKK! If the civil war and emancipation had not raised the sector of liberation (though in a limited bourgeois sense), why would the old rulers have felt the need to create a terrorist organization to intimidate blacks and abolitionists, use terror to disenfranchise people, and ultimately put in place a whole repressive structure in order to keep black people without the rights they had won? Jim Crow and the KKK are essentially a semi-counter-revolution to Reconstruction's semi-revolution.

Black oppression in the US is not a straight line, it's a battle-line that goes back and forth depending on class forces and movements and so on. Reconstruction brought more liberation more quickly than existed until the Civil Rights movement. There were periods of reaction such as the KKK terror with the defeat of Reconstruction, and then the KKK didn't really exist again until the 1920s when it marched in DC and Democrat Woodrow Wilson segregated the federal government.


But this doesn't really make either side better than the other. It's arguable that the Civil War was necessary in the development of Capital. The point is, of course, to look at these issues objectively and without the ludicrous imagery of the Noble White Man riding down on a horse to slave Old Black Joe.Don't be silly, no one here is arguing that. The northern elite were totally resistant to free the slaves - essentially they were left with little choice because slaves were taking the initiative themselves (even if you read "Gone With the Wind" the characters complain that "because all the men are fighting" the slaves have run away). Slave-owning men around or not, the slaves knew that the war was the death of the slave-system and the slave-owners power. It took years of war and a rise in the abolition movement for Lincoln to realize this same thing and that emancipation of slaves mean that production in the south would be further hurt.

[Dermezel]

And so was the Second Amendment: http://potowmack.org/higg.html

http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/hidhist.htm


The Hidden History of the Second Amendment By Professor Carl T. Bogus
Roger Williams University School of Law
as published in the U.C. Davis Law Review
Synopsis
In his recent U.C. Davis Law Review article "The Hidden History of the Second Amendment," Roger Williams University School of Law Professor Carl T. Bogus offers a thesis that could forever change the way Americans view the Second Amendment: James Madison wrote the Second Amendment to assure the southern states that Congress would not undermine the slave system by disarming the militia, which were then the principal instruments of slave control throughout the South.
The story begins in Richmond, Virginia in the summer of 1788. Since it had been proposed by the convention in Philadelphia two years earlier, the Constitution of the United States had been the focus of an intense struggle. By its own terms, the Constitution required ratification by at least nine states; if that were not achieved the United States would not come into being. The Federalists were working hard for ratification, but anti-Federalists were opposing them with equal vigor. Although eight states had ratified the Constitution, most of the remaining states seemed to be leaning the other way, and it was uncertain whether a ninth state would be found. The last and best hope was Virginia, where the Federalists and anti-Federalists were about equally divided.
It was with high drama, therefore, that the Virginia ratifying convention convened in Richmond in June 1788. Madison led the forces for ratification, and as its principal author, no one understood the Constitution better. Yet the opposition was equally formidable. The anti-Federalists were led by George Mason, the most intellectual of the anti-Federalists, and Patrick Henry, who was considered the greatest orator of the day.
Mason and Henry made many arguments against ratification, but one of the strategies they devised was particularly shrewd. Virginia was nearly half black, and the white population lived in constant fear of slave insurrection. The main instrument of control was the militia. So critical was the militia for slave control that, in the main, the southern states refused to commit their militia to the war against the British. The Constitution, however, would transfer the lion's share of the power over the militia to Congress. Slavery was becoming increasingly obnoxious to the North, and southern delegates to the Philadelphia convention demanded and got an agreement, somewhat cryptically written into the Constitution, that deprived the federal government of authority to abolish slavery. Mason and Henry raised the specter of Congress using its authority over the militia to do indirectly what it could not do directly. They suggested that Congress might refuse to call forth the militia to suppress an insurrection, send southern militia to New Hampshire, or�and on this they harped repeatedly�disarm the militia. For Virginia and the South, these were chilling prospects.
The Federalists prevailed, but just barely. Although Virginia ratified the Constitution, Madison limped out of the Richmond Convention. Half of Virginia was still anti-Federalist, and the anti-Federalists were determined to end Madison's political career. Losing a bid to the United States Senate, Madison was reduced to running for a House seat. Patrick Henry had Madison's congressional district gerrymandered to include as many anti-Federalist areas as possible, then recruited a rising young star�James Monroe�to run for the seat.
Monroe campaigned as a champion for a bill of rights. Madison had previously been opposed to a bill of rights, but it was not a popular view. Cognitive dissonance set in, and Madison persuaded himself that he had only been opposed to a bill of rights prior to ratification. He promised the electorate he would support adding a bill of rights to the Constitution.
Madison won the election, and he went to Congress politically committed to supporting a bill of rights. When he drafted that document, he included a provision that with minor modifications became what is now the Second Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
In his 99-page article, Professor Bogus argues that the evidence�including an analysis of Madison's original language, and an understanding of how he and other founders drew on England's Declaration of Rights�strongly suggests that Madison wrote this provision for the specific purpose of assuring his constituency that Congress could not use its newly acquired power to deprive the states of an armed militia. Madison's concern, Professor Bogus argues, was not hunting, self-defense, national defense, or resistance to governmental tyranny�but slave control.
The "hidden history" of the Second Amendment is important for two reasons. First, it supports the view that the amendment does not grant individuals a right to keep and bear arms for their own purposes; rather it only protects the right to bear arms within the militia, as defined within the main body of the Constitution, under the joint control of the federal and state governments. At the time, the southern states extensively regulated their militias and prescribed their slave control responsibilities. Second, the hidden history is important because it fundamentally changes how we think about the right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment takes on an entirely different complexion when instead of being symbolized by a musket in the hands of the minutemen, it is associated with a musket in the hands of the slave holder.


Trust me when I say African-Americans were not granted the right to keep and bear arms.

[syndicat]

That was the importance of Williams' group "Negroes with Guns" in the '60s.

What you say about the south is true. In fact the first professional police force in the world was in Charleston SC, to control slaves in an industrial setting where they were able to move about more freely than on plantations.

But the militia in the USA has a complicated history. There were the various cases of sectors of the militia in the 1870s and '80s siding with the workers. Corruption eventually led to nationalization of the militia in 1900, with the formation of the National Guard.

That said, we shouldn't support misguided liberals and police chiefs in their campaigns to ban guns. Siding with gun control is dumb because a large section of the working class has guns, and often live in more dangerous areas. We shouldn't want there to be a monopoly of arms in the hands of the state.

[Conquer or Die]

It was nothing more than a fight over economic control.

In the sense that everything is about economic control, yes. This makes the Civil War no different than any rebellion or war in the history of the world.


That's why Robert E Lee freed his slaves before Grant - it had nothing to do with silly morals.

This is false. Quite ignorant for a leftist moderator. Sam Grant maybe owned one slave that he freed before the war. Lee inherited several he was supposed to free but kept on until 1862. He would howl in unison with the slaves when he whipped them.

The Civil War was in political unison with John Brown's Raid and Nat Turner's revolt. It has been argued that the Legal League (Ex Slave Spies) were the impetus behind both revolts in order to achieve an internal political struggle within the state.

Leftists and rightists who claim foul on the American Civil War are admitting ignorance. The historical revisionism that has accompanied this war has been virulently racist and warped from the start. Not a single learned scholar who doesn't subscribe to white supremacist beliefs views this war as a battle over tariffs.

Oh, and the south did everything to itself. Robert E Lee, for being undeniably the most brilliant American general in its entire history, caused more pain for the south by sticking out a war that they had no chance of winning from the beginning.

[Conquer or Die]

What was revolutionary about northerners - many slave owners at that - trying to maintain hegemony over a south that was attempting to secede?

You relate this to class struggle, but you forget that class struggle is hardly a moralist one. People demand control over their lives, and this is an explicitly economic issue.

You don't see people rising up because of the "moral value" of the act. If we are to look at it morally, then there are flaws - notably in violence - but more importantly, morality does not get at the underlying mechanisms which create these conflicts. Rather, morality has served time and time again to mystify these conflicts, and the standard moralist approach is typically supportive of whatever propaganda paradigm you live in:

The American Revolution - was this about equality (of White slave-and-land-owners) or economic self-determinism for a fledgling economic class?
The War in Afghanistan - A womens' rights campaign or anti-Sino/Arab war of aggression?
2010 Health Care Bill - A righteous bid for equality or an attempt to gain political capital in both the liberal and corporate constituencies?



This is exactly where the problem lies. If we are judging it this way, what value is there in the Emancipation Proclamation anyways? The black population to this day has experienced minimal economic progress, and at the time there was no economic redistribution, anyways.

You want to consider the moral character of the civil war? The civil war was the first industrial war. The degree of death and economic terror unleashed on the South was incredible, especially for the time. this is why you hear about a "reconstruction:" the south was more or less burned to the ground, much like the Roman rape of Carthage. The only thing they didn't do was to salt the fields, because the civil war was a war for economic hegemony. Furthermore, the black population was largely fighting the North as well - not because they didn't want freedom, but history told them that the North didn't care about their freedom and this terror was unleashed on them just as well.

But this doesn't really make either side better than the other. It's arguable that the Civil War was necessary in the development of Capital. The point is, of course, to look at these issues objectively and without the ludicrous imagery of the Noble White Man riding down on a horse to slave Old Black Joe.

"Everybody knows the deal is rotten - old black Joe's still pickin' cotton for your ribbons and bows..." - L. Cohen

You want to talk about heroes in the slavery paradigm - look to Nat Turner. Now, he killed women and children, too. But at least he was honestly fighting against the slaver class. And this just goes to show you how morality and historical materialism are two completely separate ventures.

Is there someway to nominate you for losing moderator status? You have produced at least two sensational lies in this thread that have no historical scrutiny.

"the black population was largely fighting the north as well" is a huge fabrication. Slaves left plantations in droves to the safety of the north. Ex slaves swelled the union army's ranks. There was a proportionally larger amount of blacks in the union army than whites! Outside of some creole militias in louisiana, a black regiment formed in the last days of Richmond that was never armed and never saw action, and occassional use of blacks as pickets there was no confederate fighting force composed of blacks. There was no integrated fighting force of blacks anywhere. There was no third party of blacks fighting anywhere. They all joined the north to fight for the Union.

As far as reconstruction is concerned: there were significant attempts made politically and socially for blacks in the south. Redistribution of land never took place but was attempted numerous times. The gains made by the war were significant and progressive; the only significant detriment to the blacks post war were economic and this largely affected the whole of the south. It wasn't until political corruption in 1877 under Sam Grant that the Republican party backed out of its stopping democratic partisans from forcibly taking control of the south.

[Dermezel]

That said, we shouldn't support misguided liberals and police chiefs in their campaigns to ban guns. Siding with gun control is dumb because a large section of the working class has guns, and often live in more dangerous areas. We shouldn't want there to be a monopoly of arms in the hands of the state.

Actually I want gun ownership largely in the hands of the state. Sorry, but in terms of crime, the statistics are pretty clear on how gun control decreases rates of violent crime. Most of the gun owners are right wingers.

PROBLEM: Our weak gun laws make it too easy for dangerous people to gain access to guns. When guns are used in crime, domestic assaults, and robberies, people are more likely to die than if another weapon is used. DID YOU KNOW? In United States in one year, there are:


12,791 gun homicides (NCIPC (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
56,626 gun injuries from assaults treated in emergency rooms (NCIPC (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
343,550 firearm victimizations reported in crime surveys (Bureau of Justice Statistics, p. 6 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source1))
153,476 gun assaults reported to police (Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
161,283 gun robberies reported to police (FBI, Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
204 legal self-defense killings by private citizens with a firearm (FBI, Expanded Homicide Data, Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
A gun in the home is 7 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault or homicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense (Kellermann, p. 263 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
Guns are used to intimidate and threaten 4 to 6 times more often than they are used to thwart crime (Hemenway, p. 269 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source6)).

DID YOU KNOW? When a gun is used in an attack or a robbery, death is a more likely outcome than if another weapon is used.


Where the rates of assault with knives and with guns are similar, there are five times as many deaths from gun assaults as from knife assaults (Zimring, p. 199 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source13)).
Based on research on the robbery murder rates for forty-three cities, the use of a gun has a direct causal effect on the likelihood of the victim's death (Cook, p. 374 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source3)).
When firearms are used in a family or intimate assault, death is 12 times more likely than if another weapon is used (Saltzman, p. 3043 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source9)).

DID YOU KNOW? The U. S. has a higher homicide rate than comparable developed countries with strong gun laws.


In 2008, the U. S. homicide rate was 5.4 per 100,000 population (FBI, Table 1 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)). Sixty-seven percent of homicides were committed with guns (FBI, Table 8 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
By comparison, in 2007, the homicide rate in Canada was 1.8 (Statistics Canada, Homicide Offences (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source11)). Canada has stronger gun laws than the U. S. In Canada, 32 percent of homicides were committed with guns (Statistics Canada, Homicides by Method (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source12)).
A study of Seattle, WA and Vancouver, Canada found similar overall rates of criminal activity and assault, but the relative risk of death from homicide was 63 percent higher in Seattle. All of the excess risk was explained by a 5-fold higher risk of being murdered with a handgun in Seattle (Sloan, p. 1256 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source10)).

SOLUTION: Without stronger, sensible gun laws, thousands upon thousands of people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year. The Brady Campaign fights for sensible gun laws (http://www.bradycampaign.org/legislation) to protect you, your family, and your community.


http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime

[MMIKEYJ]

Actually I want gun ownership largely in the hands of the state. Sorry, but in terms of crime, the statistics are pretty clear on how gun control decreases rates of violent crime. Most of the gun owners are right wingers.

PROBLEM: Our weak gun laws make it too easy for dangerous people to gain access to guns. When guns are used in crime, domestic assaults, and robberies, people are more likely to die than if another weapon is used. DID YOU KNOW? In United States in one year, there are:


12,791 gun homicides (NCIPC (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
56,626 gun injuries from assaults treated in emergency rooms (NCIPC (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
343,550 firearm victimizations reported in crime surveys (Bureau of Justice Statistics, p. 6 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source1))
153,476 gun assaults reported to police (Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
161,283 gun robberies reported to police (FBI, Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
204 legal self-defense killings by private citizens with a firearm (FBI, Expanded Homicide Data, Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
A gun in the home is 7 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault or homicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense (Kellermann, p. 263 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
Guns are used to intimidate and threaten 4 to 6 times more often than they are used to thwart crime (Hemenway, p. 269 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source6)).

DID YOU KNOW? When a gun is used in an attack or a robbery, death is a more likely outcome than if another weapon is used.


Where the rates of assault with knives and with guns are similar, there are five times as many deaths from gun assaults as from knife assaults (Zimring, p. 199 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source13)).
Based on research on the robbery murder rates for forty-three cities, the use of a gun has a direct causal effect on the likelihood of the victim's death (Cook, p. 374 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source3)).
When firearms are used in a family or intimate assault, death is 12 times more likely than if another weapon is used (Saltzman, p. 3043 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source9)).

DID YOU KNOW? The U. S. has a higher homicide rate than comparable developed countries with strong gun laws.


In 2008, the U. S. homicide rate was 5.4 per 100,000 population (FBI, Table 1 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)). Sixty-seven percent of homicides were committed with guns (FBI, Table 8 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
By comparison, in 2007, the homicide rate in Canada was 1.8 (Statistics Canada, Homicide Offences (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source11)). Canada has stronger gun laws than the U. S. In Canada, 32 percent of homicides were committed with guns (Statistics Canada, Homicides by Method (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source12)).
A study of Seattle, WA and Vancouver, Canada found similar overall rates of criminal activity and assault, but the relative risk of death from homicide was 63 percent higher in Seattle. All of the excess risk was explained by a 5-fold higher risk of being murdered with a handgun in Seattle (Sloan, p. 1256 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source10)).

SOLUTION: Without stronger, sensible gun laws, thousands upon thousands of people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year. The Brady Campaign fights for sensible gun laws (http://www.bradycampaign.org/legislation) to protect you, your family, and your community.


http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime

Me, Im not a gun person. But the whole point of having guns in the hands of the people is as a last resort to resist tyranny.

Heres a t-shirt that says it best:

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/images/mass_murderers.gif

[Nolan]

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/images/mass_murderers.gif

...For the J00z! That's why we're gonna repeal some of the gun laws of the Weimar Republic!

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm

[Dermezel]

I'm just gonna make two points:

1- In a modern war you would need more then guns to fight effectively anyways because modern wars are more capital intense now then in the past, And even back at the times of Bourgeoisie Revolutions militias were pretty ineffective:

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/01/guns45.html



During the keynote lecture at a two-day conference on the Second Amendment, the Emory University history professor argued that America did not have a well-armed and capable militia before the Civil War.
Today, many people in the United States share a common belief that when the country was threatened the militia came to the rescue, Bellesiles said: "The militiaman rises from the table, grabs his trusty musket or rifle from above the mantle, which is ready to go -- it's clean, it's polished, it's loaded -- runs out and defends American liberty."
But this image is a myth, Bellesiles argued.
"The militia had failed in the Revolution, in the view of most national leaders," he said. "Now, if you suggest to any military historian who is alive today whom I know of, that in the War of 1812 the militia rose up, grabbed their muskets and rushed forth to defend the country and liberty, they would probably choke with laughter."
"The Second Amendment: History, Evidence and the Constitution" was held at Stanford Friday and Saturday. The conference, sponsored by the Law School and the Humanities Center, brought together historians and legal scholars who have helped to shape the ongoing debate about the meaning of that slippery clause with the tortured syntax:
"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Two main schools of interpretation were represented at the conference: those who argue that the amendment protects an individual's right to own firearms, and those who believe the amendment allows states to regulate the use * and even the ownership * of firearms.
The author of the controversial book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, Bellesiles argued that the militia was, for the most part, poorly armed, poorly trained and ineffective.
For example, when the English attacked Washington, D.C., in the War of 1812, most of the militiamen who were called upon failed to show up. Many of those who did show up didn't even have guns.
"Entire companies of militia stood around waiting for guns before the battle," Bellesiles said.
Guns at the time were heavy, bulky, difficult to maintain and inaccurate. Becoming proficient in their use required a great deal of training, Bellesiles said.
"It seems that the U.S. public was not terribly interested ... in either the militia or gun training between 1789 and 1860," he said.
Militia shooting matches in the early 19th century were often a joke. For example, the New Haven Grays, considered one of the elite companies, had their first shooting match in the early 1820s. A 6-by-4-foot target was placed 60 feet away from the shooters. Eleven percent hit the target, Bellesiles said.
When it was 20 feet away, half the company hit the target. "This was so embarrassing that they stopped [the matches] in 1826," Bellesiles said.
Seven states had to pass laws making it a felony to make fun of the militia during its exercises, he said.


In all probability you would need the military to split for there to be an effective Revolution. That or overwhelming political force.



2- If there was a Crisis Period now we would probably get fascism, not socialism: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm






In order that the social crisis may bring about the proletarian revolution, it is necessary that, besides other conditions, a decisive shift of the petty bourgeois classes occurs in the direction of the proletariat. This gives the proletariat a chance to put itself at the head of the nation as its leader.
The last election revealed -- and this is where its principle symptomatic significance lies -- a shift in the opposite direction. Under the blow of the crisis, the petty bourgeoisie swung, not in the direction of the proletarian revolution, but in the direction of the most extreme imperialist reaction, pulling behind it considerable sections of the proletariat.
The gigantic growth of National Socialism is an expression of two factors: a deep social crisis, throwing the petty bourgeois masses off balance, and the lack of a revolutionary party that would be regarded by the masses of the people as an acknowledged revolutionary leader. If the communist Party is the party of revolutionary hope, then fascism, as a mass movement, is the party of counter-revolutionary despair. When revolutionary hope embraces the whole proletarian mass, it inevitably pulls behind it on the road of revolution considerable and growing sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Precisely in this sphere the election revealed the opposite picture: counter-revolutionary despair embraced the petty bourgeois mass with such a force that it drew behind it many sections of the proletariat....
Fascism in Germany has become a real danger, as an acute expression of the helpless position of the bourgeois regime, the conservative role of the social democracy in this regime, and the accumulated powerlessness of the Communist Party to abolish it. Whoever denies this is either blind or a braggart....


Class consciousness is at an all time low and we have no Leftist/Proletariat political Party that is recognized by the masses.


The US does however have a sizable, right-leaning middle class. From a strategic viewpoint we are at a decisive disadvantage and will continue to be so until we raise Class Consciousness significantly.

[syndicat]

the high homicide rate in the USA isn't caused by gun ownership. that's a silly explanation. Canada has a much smaller homicide rate but also has a gun owning culture. you also have to consider the many potential crimes that are avoided because people brandish weapons. one of the factors in the high homicide rate in the USA is poverty and racism combined with liquor industry dumping liquor stores and bars in poor areas. alcohol contributes to murder by raising blood pressure, lowering inhibitions, leading to fights and someone goes and gets a gun or a knife.

in rural and small town areas a large part of the working class have guns. proposing to ban guns simply puts them off, gives the right a way to organize them.

[Dermezel]

the high homicide rate in the USA isn't caused by gun ownership. that's a silly explanation. Canada has a much smaller homicide rate but also has a gun owning culture. you also have to consider the many potential crimes that are avoided because people brandish weapons. one of the factors in the high homicide rate in the USA is poverty and racism combined with liquor industry dumping liquor stores and bars in poor areas. alcohol contributes to murder by raising blood pressure, lowering inhibitions, leading to fights and someone goes and gets a gun or a knife.

in rural and small town areas a large part of the working class have guns. proposing to ban guns simply puts them off, gives the right a way to organize them.


Whatever. I mean you just say the cause isn't guns and then go to blame alcohol. By your own reasoning that case is refuted by the fact that Germany and Japan and France allow for plenty of drinking but have very low homicide rates.

The main cause is poverty and inequality. Anything else just adds to that.

And with guns the worst problem isn't just homicides but accidental shootings. Likewise most murders are crimes of passion, meaning that if the person had an extra hour or day to think about it they may not do it. That's the problem with widespread guns.

In any case, I am not sure about full banning, but at the very least there needs to be regulations so mentally unstable people don't get guns.

[MMIKEYJ]

Whatever. I mean you just say the cause isn't guns and then go to blame alcohol. By your own reasoning that case is refuted by the fact that Germany and Japan and France allow for plenty of drinking but have very low homicide rates.

The main cause is poverty and inequality. Anything else just adds to that.

And with guns the worst problem isn't just homicides but accidental shootings. Likewise most murders are crimes of passion, meaning that if the person had an extra hour or day to think about it they may not do it. That's the problem with widespread guns.

In any case, I am not sure about full banning, but at the very least there needs to be regulations so mentally unstable people don't get guns.
The Side B of Liberty that people seem to forget sometimes is responsibility. When somebody wields a right, they have to have the responsibility that goes along with that right. You wouldnt give a 5 year old a real gun to play with anymore than an incompetent or mentally unstable person..

But the inherent right to defend oneself has got to be natural law. So whatever the weapon du jour is, should be allowed.

[Dermezel]

The Side B of Liberty that people seem to forget sometimes is responsibility. When somebody wields a right, they have to have the responsibility that goes along with that right. You wouldnt give a 5 year old a real gun to play with anymore than an incompetent or mentally unstable person..

But the inherent right to defend oneself has got to be natural law. So whatever the weapon du jour is, should be allowed.

Well that depends on historical circumstance. We wouldn't consider a musket a very effective tool of war anymore and as time progresses guns will become more outdated as well. I mean, to really stand up to an army now you'd need tanks and jet planes. You really want random people with tanks or bazookas?

[heiss93]

Capitalistlawyer used to keep reposting Halfsigma articles here. HS is A Jewish white supremacists who keeps begging the stormfronters to see Jews as fellow whites. How serious can we take the arguments of a Jewish Nazi?

[MMIKEYJ]

Well that depends on historical circumstance. We wouldn't consider a musket a very effective tool of war anymore and as time progresses guns will become more outdated as well. I mean, to really stand up to an army now you'd need tanks and jet planes. You really want random people with tanks or bazookas?
Yeah, why not. Im not a big gun guy.. I dont have any guns, and dont really want any.. However I might want to collect rare or antique guns like muskets, flintlocks, etc.. Also wouldnt mind owning a machine gun. If I had enough money Id like to buy a tank or tank destroyer from WWII.. Why not?

[MMIKEYJ]

...For the J00z! That's why we're gonna repeal some of the gun laws of the Weimar Republic!

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm

I dont get it.. You hate Jews?

[Nolan]

I dont get it.. You hate Jews?

http://www.nerve.com/files/archive/61fps/2009/01/facepalm.jpg

[MMIKEYJ]

Well mean what you say and say what you mean.

[Drace]

Lincoln
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters of jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people...
And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there much be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

Lincoln in response to Horace Greeley
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do i by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do for Slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps to save the Union..."

Resolution passed in Congress in 1861 stating that "...this war is not waged...for any purpose of...overthrowing or interfering with the rights of established institutions of those states, but ...to preserve the Union."

[Dermezel]

Lincoln
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters of jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people...
And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there much be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

Lincoln in response to Horace Greeley
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do i by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do for Slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps to save the Union..."

Resolution passed in Congress in 1861 stating that "...this war is not waged...for any purpose of...overthrowing or interfering with the rights of established institutions of those states, but ...to preserve the Union."

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X58RPS665V0

[Jimmie Higgins]

Lincoln...

Oh no, my great man theory of the Civil War and my hero worship of Lincoln are all shot to hell now.

I think Marx said something about Lincoln to the effect that he was a twit that stumbled into waging a war of liberation. Wars often take on dynamics and lead to results not intended by the ruling classes that begin them (it can even shift the nature and base of the existing ruling class). War between Prussia and France created the situation that allowed the Paris commune, WWI led to a wave of revolutions including the Russian Revolution. And the civil war brought to the surface a whole lot of social conflicts in early American society including the long burning tension between two different ways of organizing labor: creating wealth through slavery and land which, and a much more dynamic rising phase of capitalism based on wage-labor.

Lincoln really was conservative and hoped to accommodate the slavocracy, even after the war began. Arguably, his unwillingness to put slavery at the forefront of the war was part of the reason the north lost at the beginning of the war. Emancipation made the union army reinvigorated because they were now fighting for a cause and it further helped undermine the economic base in the south (although I think the "proclamation" was a bit after the fact because slaves had already been abandoning the plantations).

[Dimentio]

Actually I want gun ownership largely in the hands of the state. Sorry, but in terms of crime, the statistics are pretty clear on how gun control decreases rates of violent crime. Most of the gun owners are right wingers.

PROBLEM: Our weak gun laws make it too easy for dangerous people to gain access to guns. When guns are used in crime, domestic assaults, and robberies, people are more likely to die than if another weapon is used. DID YOU KNOW? In United States in one year, there are:


12,791 gun homicides (NCIPC (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
56,626 gun injuries from assaults treated in emergency rooms (NCIPC (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
343,550 firearm victimizations reported in crime surveys (Bureau of Justice Statistics, p. 6 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source1))
153,476 gun assaults reported to police (Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
161,283 gun robberies reported to police (FBI, Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
204 legal self-defense killings by private citizens with a firearm (FBI, Expanded Homicide Data, Table 15 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
A gun in the home is 7 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault or homicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense (Kellermann, p. 263 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source7)).
Guns are used to intimidate and threaten 4 to 6 times more often than they are used to thwart crime (Hemenway, p. 269 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source6)).

DID YOU KNOW? When a gun is used in an attack or a robbery, death is a more likely outcome than if another weapon is used.


Where the rates of assault with knives and with guns are similar, there are five times as many deaths from gun assaults as from knife assaults (Zimring, p. 199 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source13)).
Based on research on the robbery murder rates for forty-three cities, the use of a gun has a direct causal effect on the likelihood of the victim's death (Cook, p. 374 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source3)).
When firearms are used in a family or intimate assault, death is 12 times more likely than if another weapon is used (Saltzman, p. 3043 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source9)).

DID YOU KNOW? The U. S. has a higher homicide rate than comparable developed countries with strong gun laws.


In 2008, the U. S. homicide rate was 5.4 per 100,000 population (FBI, Table 1 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)). Sixty-seven percent of homicides were committed with guns (FBI, Table 8 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source4)).
By comparison, in 2007, the homicide rate in Canada was 1.8 (Statistics Canada, Homicide Offences (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source11)). Canada has stronger gun laws than the U. S. In Canada, 32 percent of homicides were committed with guns (Statistics Canada, Homicides by Method (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source12)).
A study of Seattle, WA and Vancouver, Canada found similar overall rates of criminal activity and assault, but the relative risk of death from homicide was 63 percent higher in Seattle. All of the excess risk was explained by a 5-fold higher risk of being murdered with a handgun in Seattle (Sloan, p. 1256 (http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime#source10)).

SOLUTION: Without stronger, sensible gun laws, thousands upon thousands of people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year. The Brady Campaign fights for sensible gun laws (http://www.bradycampaign.org/legislation) to protect you, your family, and your community.


http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/crime

It is idiotic to give the state the power over gun ownership. If there is a conflict between the people and the state, the state would have more of an edge then.

[Cal Engime]

Crime rates from different nations are generally incommensurable because of differences in how they are counted.
You really want random people with tanks or bazookas?I don't think "random people" would own tanks and bazookas. A tank costs over six million dollars. How many millionaires do you know who are going to go around committing crimes with tanks?

[Westward-Individualism]

I agree with you on the poverty issue -- in relation to crime-rates that result in violence.

If the gov't would end all forms of taxation (save a 10% flat tax - based on consumption), foreign militarism (wars, border security, U.S soldiers on foreign soil), foreign welfarism (of all kinds), currency monopolization, and foreign arms deals -- then world-wide and American Poverty would end.

Why? Because they uphold taxation, foreign militarism, foreign welfarism, currency monopolization, and foreign arms deals by way of force (GUNS).

It's not the guns held in civilian hands that cause poverty -- it's the ones held by gov't; otherwise people would refuse participation.

There are 16,000 murders in America and 300M people -- I like my odds (and I grew up in South Central Los Angeles).

If criminals arm themselves then I want to be able to arm myself.

In Richmond California -- we hear gunshots every night and NONE of them are by "lawful" civilians, hahahaha; and NONE of them are "registered."

I mean there are videos on Youtube showing you HOW to make a gun and I don't mean a cheap POS either; I'm talking about a high quality high calbre gun. There are classes on becoming a gunsmith.

There's no realistic way to end American's love affair with guns.

But we can end poverty and take the ignorance out of their use.

[syndicat]

Poverty isn't caused by the state. Poverty is caused by capitalism, by exploitation, by rampant unemployment. People who are poor are working class people who don't have money. They don't have money because of lack of available jobs, part-time when they need full time or low wages. Things like allowing the minimum's value to decline by 35 percent since 1968. Now there's a cause of poverty.

Also, it's not just poverty but racism. When young youths of color can't find jobs due to (1) not enough jobs in existence, and (2) race discrimination in hiring, then they may be tempted to go to work for a drug gang or engage in shoplifting or other petty theft. Drug gangs then use their profits to buy arms to use in their competitive war.

[Comrade Anarchist]

Slavery was a reason but not the only one. Probably the largest reason other than slavery was that the republican party was a party of protectionism. They wanted to protect northern industry so they would use tariffs to prevent competition. The republican tariff would have bankrupted the south, b/c it would cost too much to sell internationally. Which in case you didn't know the south mainly sold to england so with the win of the republicans the south would have surely face economic destruction.

[Publius]

Lincoln
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters of jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people...
And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there much be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

And you can find a dozen quotes of Lincoln saying the opposite, at various places.

Did you ever stop and think that perhaps Lincoln was a politician who would say whatever he thought necessary to get what he wanted out of that particular audience?



Lincoln in response to Horace Greeley
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do i by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do for Slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps to save the Union..."

This was clearly Lincoln's primary motivation.

But he DID free the slaves, for it was obvious, at the time, that slavery was a institution that could not be allowed to exist any longer, for various reasons some of them purely selfish on the part of Northern politicians.

But they still ended slavery. It's like saying we fought World War II because it was in our interests to do so, not because we were angels on the side of good. But that fighting World War II was in our interests doesn't mean that stopping Japan and Germany were not good things. They were.

This idea that for someone to do something morally praiseoworthy they have do it without any selfish interest in mind is just false. The only person who really thinks that is Immanuel Kant.



Resolution passed in Congress in 1861 stating that "...this war is not waged...for any purpose of...overthrowing or interfering with the rights of established institutions of those states, but ...to preserve the Union."

Which explains why, during the war and when it was over, the Federal government didn't overthrow or interfere with slavery.

Oh, wait, they did do that.

Of course Congress passed a law saying that -- they wanted the support of southerners against the Confederacy. And maybe they meant it at the time.

But as the war went on, circumstances changed and ending slavery became a political and social necessity for the north.

So they ended it.

[Publius]

Slavery was a reason but not the only one. Probably the largest reason other than slavery was that the republican party was a party of protectionism. They wanted to protect northern industry so they would use tariffs to prevent competition. The republican tariff would have bankrupted the south, b/c it would cost too much to sell internationally. Which in case you didn't know the south mainly sold to england so with the win of the republicans the south would have surely face economic destruction.

True. But you miss the important connection which is that the south was primarily trading cotton to England, which was primary produced by slave labor.

So the economic interests of the south and slavery are inextricably linked -- they're one and the same.

[Comrade Anarchist]

True. But you miss the important connection which is that the south was primarily trading cotton to England, which was primary produced by slave labor.

So the economic interests of the south and slavery are inextricably linked -- they're one and the same.

Yes that is true so both were economic issues which im pretty sure i said both were major issues. The Civil war was a destructive war that destroyed the south for years. A loose quote from rothbard, the union ended the horrible act of slavery with an even more horrific war.

[Conquer or Die]

I always admired the libertarians who could objectively state how horrible and one sided the Civil War was in terms of oppressing liberty. The irony and hypocrisy is lost on the idiots.

Although I am restricted I think there should be a significant tightening of the noose around individuals whining about the Civil War. It seems to me to be very anti-progressive even in a bourg sense. One is restricted for suggesting that world war one is a just war. Why can't we restrict clear cut counter-revolutionaries who deny the progressive nature of the Civil War?

[Publius]

Yes that is true so both were economic issues which im pretty sure i said both were major issues.

But they were really the same issue.


The Civil war was a destructive war that destroyed the south for years. A loose quote from rothbard, the union ended the horrible act of slavery with an even more horrific war.

Then it was awfully stupid of the south to start it, wasn't it?

[S.Artesian]

But they were really the same issue.



Then it was awfully stupid of the south to start it, wasn't it?


The war was about slavery from its getgo, even before the shots were fired. It was about slavery in "bloody Kansas," it was about slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, it was about slavery in the Platt Amendment, it was about slavery, it was about slavery even in 1832 when South Carolina first tried the secession maneuver, it was about slavery in the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The Civil War was not more horrific than slavery-- ask the freed slaves. The destruction of the South was not more horrific than the destruction of the millions in and by the Atlantic Slave Trade. Whoever said it was, is 1)white 2)truly ignorant of the toll slavery took on the slaves 3) ignorant of how the South's economy and plantation class was reconstituted 4) ignorant of the fact that the real horror, the real destructiveness was the abandonment of Radical Reconstruction, and the sacrifice of the newly freed slaves to the reconstituted confederacy by the interests of Northern capital.

[Publius]

The war was about slavery from its getgo, even before the shots were fired. It was about slavery in "bloody Kansas," it was about slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, it was about slavery in the Platt Amendment, it was about slavery, it was about slavery even in 1832 when South Carolina first tried the secession maneuver, it was about slavery in the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The Civil War was not more horrific than slavery-- ask the freed slaves. The destruction of the South was not more horrific than the destruction of the millions in and by the Atlantic Slave Trade. Whoever said it was, is 1)white 2)truly ignorant of the toll slavery took on the slaves 3) ignorant of how the South's economy and plantation class was reconstituted 4) ignorant of the fact that the real horror, the real destructiveness was the abandonment of Radical Reconstruction, and the sacrifice of the newly freed slaves to the reconstituted confederacy by the interests of Northern capital.

Yep.

Anyone who hasn't read Toni Morrison's Beloved really should.

[cska]

I read in an archived thread on this board about how “the Civil war was not started over slavery.”

Why are people propagating this nonsense? Strangely, there is an alliance of interests from both the extreme left and the extreme right who like this idea. On the extreme left, if the Civil War was started over slavery, this means that a good portion of white people made a great sacrifice in order to end slavery.

This makes white people look good, and the extreme left likes to make white people look bad, so they would prefer to believe that the Civil War was started over economic issues like tariffs or distracting the working class from economic plight which would then cause an insurrection against the capitalist class.

In fact, the primary economic issue was that Southern slave owners would lose their investments in slaves and feared their plantations would no longer be profitable without slave labor.

On the extreme right, the people who like to glorify Ye Olde South would prefer to believe the lie that the Civil War was about stuff like states’ rights, but in reality the primary right that the Confederacy cared about was the “right” to keep slaves.

The true history of the time is that the Republican Party was founded as an anti-slavery party, Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election because of anti-slavery voters, the South seceded because they saw that in the future, all new states to be admitted to the Union would be free states, and there would eventually be enough support in the Senate to abolish slavery.


I don't know why people on the extreme left and right find it so hard to believe that, in 1860, the majority of non-slave-owning Americans thought slavery was immoral.

You are correct. The Republicans did not want the Western states to be slave states, because otherwise they would be taken over by plantations and white commoners wouldn't be able to work the land. The Southern plantation owners, who wanted slavery to be expanded, decided to secede. The rich Northern industrialists didn't want to lose the South, so they had it invaded. So, slavery was a major reason for the civil war, because the Republicans stood for the common white man, and allowing slavery would get the white man out of a job.

Big fucking deal. Please don't imply that the Union fought the civil war to free slaves in the South out of great concern for the blacks. That is bullshit. It is as silly as saying that the Iraq war was fought to liberate the Iraqi people from Hussein's dictatorship.

The only people who opposed slavery because it is wrong were some commoners in the North, many of them in Boston.

[S.Artesian]

Excuse me, the Ripon Society started in Wisconsin. Anti-slavery sentiment was so strong in Kansas that armed resistance to the raids of slaveholders from slaveholding Missouri was organized.

The opposition was so great to fugitive slave laws and to the Dred Scott decision that local governments throughout the North and the west refused to cooperate or allow searches for fugitive slaves.

The opposition to slavery was widespread and intense. Was this determined, pre-figured by the fact that developing industrial capitalism in the US had to break the barriers slavery imposed upon its expansion. Absolutely. Human beings don't make their history out of their own head. It's based on the material conditions of their existence. But that doesn't discount, or diminish, the anti-slavery commitment of the North and the West.

[Comrade Anarchist]

I always admired the libertarians who could objectively state how horrible and one sided the Civil War was in terms of oppressing liberty. The irony and hypocrisy is lost on the idiots.

Although I am restricted I think there should be a significant tightening of the noose around individuals whining about the Civil War. It seems to me to be very anti-progressive even in a bourg sense. One is restricted for suggesting that world war one is a just war. Why can't we restrict clear cut counter-revolutionaries who deny the progressive nature of the Civil War?

First off the i have already admitted that slavery was horrific but that a war was much much more destructive and deadly. You are no different from the neocons who supported bush in iraqi freedom. After no wmds were found we changed into liberators. If you call the civil war a progressive war then so is iraqi freedom.

[mykittyhasaboner]

First off the i have already admitted that slavery was horrific but that a war was much much more destructive and deadly. You are no different from the neocons who supported bush in iraqi freedom. After no wmds were found we changed into liberators. If you call the civil war a progressive war then so is iraqi freedom.

Great analogy. :rolleyes:

How in the world is the civil war not a 'progressive' war because "Iraqi freedom" is not?

The US Civil War was 'progressive' in the sense that it severed economic dependency on Britain and completed bourgeois revolution in the US. It was after the war that slavery was no longer legally tolerated, and gave former slaves some kind of better conditions (though this may not have been the case all the time). Also, the "reconstruction" era following the war was very 'progressive' in that it set out to industrialize and modernize the entire country. The war was indeed narrowly progressive but it can hardly be compared to the imperialist domination of Iraq. That's just crude.

[syndicat]

Don't be ridiculous. the iraqi war was a war for plunder & the defense of the empire. the Iraqi fascist/state capitalist economy was 70 percent state owned. so the Bush regime wanted to privatize, it pass it off to various corporate entities, especially control of Iraq's massive oil reserves. at the same time, the U.S. occupation regime retained the fascist laws that banned unions, which are still on the books. when we consider that the Iraq oil workers union is one of the strongest and is fighting privatization and foreign expropriation of the oil industry, we can see why the U.S. state might want to suppress them.

American foreign policy has been driven by opposition to any form of economic nationalism that would limit access of U.S. based corporations to exploitation of the labor and natural resources and markets of other countries.

these two facts are sufficient to explain the U.S. invasion. the U.S. federal state had no particular opposition to the existence of a repressive government in Iraq, as seen by previous U.S. support for Saddam, not to mention U.S. support for numerous nasty dictators. and the support for continued fascist anti-union laws shows that the U.S. did not have in mind the freedom of the working class majority in Iraq.

[syndicat]

the civil war and radical reconstruction had a revolutionary character, but the revolution was defeated. blacks ended up in debt peonage and had their rights taken away in late 19th century...so they were still in servitude. legal structure of apartheid wasn't broken til the southern civil rights actions of the '60s and northern ghetto rebellions, which forced through civil rights laws, destroyed jim crow.

[synthesis]

Sorry if this has already been posted.


Sir:


We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery.



From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?



When an oligarchy of 300,000 slaveholders dared to inscribe, for the first time in the annals of the world, "slavery" on the banner of Armed Revolt, when on the very spots where hardly a century ago the idea of one great Democratic Republic had first sprung up, whence the first Declaration of the Rights of Man was issued, and the first impulse given to the European revolution of the eighteenth century; when on those very spots counterrevolution, with systematic thoroughness, gloried in rescinding "the ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old constitution", and maintained slavery to be "a beneficent institution", indeed, the old solution of the great problem of "the relation of capital to labor", and cynically proclaimed property in man "the cornerstone of the new edifice" — then the working classes of Europe understood at once, even before the fanatic partisanship of the upper classes for the Confederate gentry had given its dismal warning, that the slaveholders' rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy crusade of property against labor, and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic. Everywhere they bore therefore patiently the hardships imposed upon them by the cotton crisis, opposed enthusiastically the proslavery intervention of their betters — and, from most parts of Europe, contributed their quota of blood to the good cause.



While the workingmen, the true political powers of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic, while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white-skinned laborer to sell himself and choose his own master, they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor, or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation; but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war.



The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.Letter from Karl Marx to Abraham Lincoln, 1865.

[which doctor]

I'd also like to bring up Karl Korsch's short article on the founding of the first Internationale, which he directly links to the enormous growth in class consciousness, not just in the US, but in Europe as well, as a result of the Civil War.


But it was the great world-historical event of a four-year Civil War between, the Northern American states and the slave-owning states of the South which was able to produce the great upsurge in proletarian class consciousness out of which there emerged the European proletariat’s first international class organization. It was the Civil War which combined the enormous political importance of ‘a noble struggle for the liberation of an enslaved race’ with a deep economic effect on the working and living conditions of the English and French working classes.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1924/first-international.htm

[S.Artesian]

First off the i have already admitted that slavery was horrific but that a war was much much more destructive and deadly. You are no different from the neocons who supported bush in iraqi freedom. After no wmds were found we changed into liberators. If you call the civil war a progressive war then so is iraqi freedom.

If you're stating that the US Civil War was more horrific than slavery, then you're talking bullshit; you're talking Southern apologetics and ideology-- the "poor" South suffering at the hands of Yankee aggression. You might want to apply for a job as a press secretary for the governor of the state of Virginia.

The war was not more horrific than slavery. The only thing more horrific than slavery would have been not waging the war, as that it would have enabled slavery to persist and expand.

Your argument makes about as much sense as stating-- sure the Nazi's extermination of Jews, Gypsy's, Russian communists etc. was horrific, but actually Russia's resistance and defeat of the Wehrmacht was more horrific because more people died from combat than died in the concentration camps.

WTF, there was no alternative to the military destruction of the South and the economic basis for power, just as the Soviets had no alternative to destroying the Wehrmacht no matter how steep the price, because no matter how steep the price, the price to be paid by not accomplishing that destruction would have been infinitely greater.

As it was the horrific part of the war was magnified by the sympathy of McClellan and other US generals for the Confederacy and their reluctance to bring the full weight of the Union's logistic superiority to bear on the fight. By not seeking out, closing with, and destroying the enemy, those generals allowed the South to prolong slavery, to prolong the war.

The Union's triumph in the Civil War, the great turn starts with the utilization of the North's logistical capacity, moving the Army of the Potomac by rail from Virginia to Tennessee to relieve Rosencrans in just 7 days [Lincoln thought it couldn't be done in less than 30] and... in emancipating the slaves. These are the twin attributes of capital's victory-- "lift and deliver" capacity, logistics, and destroying the Southern property system.

The horrific process comes after the war and was the abandonment of the emancipated slaves to the reconstitution of the plantation class; the destruction of the program for radical Reconstruction and the tolerance for the "redemptionist" governments that were actually brought to power on the back of terrorism practiced against the freed men and women.

[Comrade Anarchist]

If you're stating that the US Civil War was more horrific than slavery, then you're talking bullshit; you're talking Southern apologetics and ideology-- the "poor" South suffering at the hands of Yankee aggression. You might want to apply for a job as a press secretary for the governor of the state of Virginia.

The war was not more horrific than slavery. The only thing more horrific than slavery would have been not waging the war, as that it would have enabled slavery to persist and expand.

First off war is always more horrific than slavery. As i have said already slavery was a disgusting institution, it is wrong and should have never existed. But War is always much worse. I'm not apologizing for the slave owners, what they were doing was horrible and in direct violation of people's natural rights. But the war didn't just free slaves it destroyed the south literally. But at any time in our modern world you would ramp and rave about how drafts are wrong yet you believe them to be okay in this case. Whenever anyone has to against their will serve in a war that will maim or even kill them is just as much slavery as what the blacks faced in the south. War is only justified when the oppressed rise up against the oppressor not to bring together the union or free people.

[synthesis]

First off the i have already admitted that slavery was horrific but that a war was much much more destructive and deadly. You are no different from the neocons who supported bush in iraqi freedom. After no wmds were found we changed into liberators. If you call the civil war a progressive war then so is iraqi freedom.

So you would have preferred the alternative? The South should have been allowed to secede and maintain the institution of slavery?

[Comrade Anarchist]

So you would have preferred the alternative? The South should have been allowed to secede and maintain the institution of slavery?

The constitution binds no one and is false document that can protect no one. The south had every right to break away and create their own fake constitution. They however don't have the right to maintain slavery but the union had no right to destroy the south in order to free them.

[Drace]

The constitution binds no one and is false document that can protect no one. The south had every right to break away and create their own fake constitution. They however don't have the right to maintain slavery but the union had no right to destroy the south in order to free them.

Why the f not? How can you attack the legitimacy of the constitution and yet uphold the the sovereignty of the nation?

Or are you just supporting the individual's "right" to own slaves?

[Comrade Anarchist]

Why the f not? How can you attack the legitimacy of the constitution and yet uphold the the sovereignty of the nation?

Or are you just supporting the individual's "right" to own slaves?

Umm i said they didn't have the right to have slaves but i guess you didn't read. And i said they could create their own FAKE constitution. I don't think they would be a nation b/c i believe nations are just creations of lines on map where certain organizations run everything. The constitution does not protect us at all and does bind anyone except the original signers. When the south seceded it was a bunch of individuals seceding who thought they were states, which are also just fake lines on a map either. The nation created was fake just like the rest. What im arguing is that the the people in the north didn't have the right to kill people in the south especially if the people fighting for the northern army are fighting against their will.

[Conquer or Die]

First off war is always more horrific than slavery. As i have said already slavery was a disgusting institution, it is wrong and should have never existed. But War is always much worse.

This subjective nonsense is not assumed by a majority of people. Marxist or not, the idea of dying instead of submitting to slavery is a recurrent theme in history and it is vaunted as the ideal sacrifice for a simple human to make.

It's absolutely okay to engage in war. It's absolutely a morally justified position to kill people who try to oppress you. This is something understood by the oldest liberal government in the world and embedded within its constitution.


I'm not apologizing for the slave owners, what they were doing was horrible and in direct violation of people's natural rights. But the war didn't just free slaves it destroyed the south literally. But at any time in our modern world you would ramp and rave about how drafts are wrong yet you believe them to be okay in this case. Whenever anyone has to against their will serve in a war that will maim or even kill them is just as much slavery as what the blacks faced in the south. War is only justified when the oppressed rise up against the oppressor not to bring together the union or free people.

The stretch of ideological rigor to natural rights conveyed by the communist Spooner is fine and well. His problem as is yours is your inability to conceive of conditions outside of the theoretical and in the practical. On a theoretical level you may say, "it is okay for slaves to revolt, but you can't make me revolt with them," but on a practical level this denies the interlinking dependence that both the north and the south had on each other. On a practical level this denounces the implied contracts and constitution that the states had binding each other together which was the approved document throughout both lands. Any move that the North made would be in competition of the south, it would inherently violate the South's "free institutions" and it would inherently be the demise of the United States to international forces. It would wreck a more legitimate freedom for a less legitimate freedom.

The reason for the confusion amongst libertards, paleo-cons, and allegedly left anarchists is the assumption that somehow this contradiction would produce more freedom. The South without the north would not be able to control slaves or Britain would take back the south and free the slaves. Such hypothetical questions are just that, and they require sacrificing a greater evil for a "lesser evil" because of fundamentalism to ideology or irrational, emotional hatred of a country (the former to libertards and paleo-cons, the latter to left anarchists).

And what of the unionists, poor whites, and ex slaves who fought for the north and existed in the millions in the south? Where do you place them on your list of Natural Rights supporters? Their opinions, often in the majority in some states and regions were squelched by Confederate dominion which included a draft. This contradiction is just one that would produce the Lysander Spooner position on the war.

And, I should note, for Lysander Spooner's position on the war there was always the Legal League's position on the war. Which was that not only was it unconstitutional for slavery to be in existence in any territory claimed by the United States, but that each slave revolt's main impetus was in fact propelled by the idea that the United States would enforce its constitutional apparatus to abolish slavery. To them, secession was unconstitutional, and that a union meant the abolishment of slavery. It looks like they were right, and the communist Spooner was wrong.

[synthesis]

The constitution binds no one and is false document that can protect no one. The south had every right to break away and create their own fake constitution. They however don't have the right to maintain slavery but the union had no right to destroy the south in order to free them.

Rights only exist in our heads. If there was no Civil War, the South would have seceded and the institution of chattel slavery would have been upheld. Four years of civil war might have been worse than four years of slavery, but certainly not worse than hundreds of years of slavery.

[Drace]

Umm i said they didn't have the right to have slaves but i guess you didn't read. And i said they could create their own FAKE constitution.First of all, wtf is a "fake" constitution?


I don't think they would be a nation b/c i believe nations are just creations of lines on map where certain organizations run everything. The constitution does not protect us at all and does bind anyone except the original signers.The concept of a nation is not just "lines on a map". You have a really simple mentality where you make opinions in 0.5 seconds on every subject.


When the south seceded it was a bunch of individuals seceding who thought they were states, which are also just fake lines on a map either.??? Individuals don't make up states.


The nation created was fake just like the rest
Fake how? :rolleyes:
I think what you mean is that nations do not have legitimate authority?


What im arguing is that the the people in the north didn't have the right to kill people in the south especially if the people fighting for the northern army are fighting against their will.Then make an ethical argument about how the use of force and the destruction of the Civil War was not worth the freedom of the slaves. Not...

"omg the state is fake and the consitution is fake and people and capitalisma nd bla blalbal"

[Publius]

The south started the war by firing on Ft. Sumter.

What are you even talking about? The north should have just gave up its sovereign territory when the south demanded it?

The South opened fire on the North. All this "war is bad" bullshit is totally meaningless when the side you're defending is the one that started the war.

[Publius]

Umm i said they didn't have the right to have slaves but i guess you didn't read. And i said they could create their own FAKE constitution. I don't think they would be a nation b/c i believe nations are just creations of lines on map where certain organizations run everything. The constitution does not protect us at all and does bind anyone except the original signers. When the south seceded it was a bunch of individuals seceding who thought they were states, which are also just fake lines on a map either. The nation created was fake just like the rest.

Even if you're an anarchist that's a stupid principle.

Say for example that someone creates a new "fake" state where murder, rape, slavery, etc. are all legal and no I go around murdering and raping people.

Is that ok? Or should that be stopped?

The only difference between this one person and the confederacy is a few hundred thousand people. So what?


What im arguing is that the the people in the north didn't have the right to kill people in the south especially if the people fighting for the northern army are fighting against their will.

People from anyone always have the right to stop other people from committing gross human rights violations. We don't need an excuse to stop the Holocaust, to stop child molestors, or to stop slavery.

[Manifesto]

Wasn't slavery just a side issue for the Civil War and it was really about how much power the government should have? For example Federal law having more power than State law?

[Publius]

The constitution binds no one and is false document that can protect no one.

It binds everyone who agrees to it.

You agree to it by living in the US passed the age of legal citizenship.

You can't walk into an all you can eat restaraunt (or someone's house) and just start eating their food saying "I didn't agree to pay you, I"m eating for free".



The south had every right to break away and create their own fake constitution. They however don't have the right to maintain slavery but the union had no right to destroy the south in order to free them.

What?

What if the south had been killing blacks instead of enslaving them (actually, it was killing them too, which everyone ignores)?

Would that have been OK?

Why do the police have a "right" to stop murderers and rapists and kidnappers? How's kidnapping different from slavery? Can't the kidnapper just say "Oh yeah, by the way, I"m a sovereign nation. And you might think slavery is wrong, but in my country it's OK and you can't do anything about it!"

Is that good enough for you?

[S.Artesian]

First off war is always more horrific than slavery. As i have said already slavery was a disgusting institution, it is wrong and should have never existed. But War is always much worse. I'm not apologizing for the slave owners, what they were doing was horrible and in direct violation of people's natural rights. But the war didn't just free slaves it destroyed the south literally. But at any time in our modern world you would ramp and rave about how drafts are wrong yet you believe them to be okay in this case. Whenever anyone has to against their will serve in a war that will maim or even kill them is just as much slavery as what the blacks faced in the south. War is only justified when the oppressed rise up against the oppressor not to bring together the union or free people.


You don't know what you're talking about. How many people died in the Atlantic slave trade? Estimates range from 15-30 million. How many died in the US Civil War?

What was the average life-expectancy of a slave once captured and taken aboard a slave ship?

The economy of the South was destroyed by the war, and then reconstituted particularly by Northern capitalists like Tom Scott of the Pennsylvania RR who wanted to create a nationwide rail complex under PRR's control.

The plantation economy was restored by 1871, and what followed after 1871 was a war of terror against the Reconstruction governments.

What kept the South "backwards" was not the destruction, but rather the reconstitution of the plantation economy and the defeat of Reconstruction.

As for conscription-- you really, really, really don't know what you're talking about.

Compulsory universal military service is far more democratic than utilizing, training professional mercenaries, or relying on economic deprivation to force the poor to seek employment in the military.

Do you make up your answers or does somebody do that for you? Either way, what is painfully clear is that you don't know jack shit about the real history of slavery in the New World, the real history of the US Civil War, and the real history of the South's "redemptionist" movement.

[S.Artesian]

The constitution binds no one and is false document that can protect no one. The south had every right to break away and create their own fake constitution. They however don't have the right to maintain slavery but the union had no right to destroy the south in order to free them.

That's brilliant.

As if history gives a flying fuck about what you consider "false" or "legit."

Right, the south had no "right" to slavery, but every right to secede in order to maintain slavery. Are you kidding me? "Rights" have nothing to do with it. Economics does.


And the union had no right to destroy slavery? Did you ever hear of "bloody Kansas"? It was the South, the southern slaveholders from Missouri who attacked the free soil farmers, and the anti-slave forces of that territory in order to terrorize them and impose slavery.

Do you know anything about the actual history of this conflict, or is actual history immaterial to your impotent moralism?

[cska]

That's brilliant.

As if history gives a flying fuck about what you consider "false" or "legit."

Right, the south had no "right" to slavery, but every right to secede in order to maintain slavery. Are you kidding me? "Rights" have nothing to do with it. Economics does.


And the union had no right to destroy slavery? Did you ever hear of "bloody Kansas"? It was the South, the southern slaveholders from Missouri who attacked the free soil farmers, and the anti-slave forces of that territory in order to terrorize them and impose slavery.

Do you know anything about the actual history of this conflict, or is actual history immaterial to your impotent moralism?

It isn't even moralism that he is using. It is bloody legalism.

[RED DAVE]

Wasn't slavery just a side issue for the Civil War and it was really about how much power the government should have? For example Federal law having more power than State law?No. It was about slavery. The only "power" that the South was interested in was the "power" to have slaves.

RED DAVE

[Dean]

No. It was about slavery. The only "power" that the South was interested in was the "power" to have slaves.

RED DAVE
...and that power that concurs to the southern elite.

Do you not think that conflicts stem from economic issues? If not that, then what?

[S.Artesian]

...and that power that concurs to the southern elite.

Do you not think that conflicts stem from economic issues? If not that, then what?


Of course it was about slavery, of course it stems from economic issues. A slave economy is just that, a slave economy.

But if anyone thinks it was a simply a contest of 2 elites, looking to, and only to, "getting what's theirs, and what's yours," that's a reductionist argument that ignores the real anti-slavery sentiment that was part and parcel of the expansion of free soil, free labor capitalism; that's a reductionist argument that ignores the need of the South to protect its "peculiar institution" by offsetting Northern expansion in the old territories by population growth and in the new territories by settlement of free-soil farmers.

[Comrade Anarchist]

So forcing people to fight against their will is okay as long as it serves your purposes right. War is worst than slavery not just b/c of the loss of life but also damage to property. The south was obliterated. The north and south forced people to fight with drafts which was wrong and disgusting yet you say it is okay that the north did it b/c it freed the slaves. The north enslaved its own citizens to free people enslaved in the south. You and me both criticize the drafts of other wars yet your criticism stops at the civil war, quite frankly your all fucking hypocrites.

[Drace]

So forcing people to fight against their will is okay as long as it serves your purposes right. War is worst than slavery not just b/c of the loss of life but also damage to property. The south was obliterated. The north and south forced people to fight with drafts which was wrong and disgusting yet you say it is okay that the north did it b/c it freed the slaves. The north enslaved its own citizens to free people enslaved in the south. You and me both criticize the drafts of other wars yet your criticism stops at the civil war, quite frankly your all fucking hypocrites.Ok first of all, drafting soldiers to a war is no where near comparable to the calamity of slavery.
Compare the number that enlisted and those dead in the Civil War with the number of slaves kept in captivity as well as those who died.
Also consider the additional numbers that would result from the continuation of slavery.

Also...the South seceded and it was also the one who was the aggressor of the war. Look up Fort Sumter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter).

Not that we advocate war or drafting, but to dismiss the emancipation of slaves purely on the basis that "Omg soldiers had to fight against their will!" is god dam ridiculous. That statement isn't even completely factual.

[S.Artesian]

So forcing people to fight against their will is okay as long as it serves your purposes right. War is worst than slavery not just b/c of the loss of life but also damage to property. The south was obliterated. The north and south forced people to fight with drafts which was wrong and disgusting yet you say it is okay that the north did it b/c it freed the slaves. The north enslaved its own citizens to free people enslaved in the south. You and me both criticize the drafts of other wars yet your criticism stops at the civil war, quite frankly your all fucking hypocrites.



Yeah, I said it's OK that the North conscripted people to fight against a slaveholder's rebellion. Absolutely, positively. More than OK, it was a goddam historical necessity and a real moral obligation for anyone who actually gives a fuck about human emancipation, which lets you out from the getgo.

No I don't think it was OK for the South to defend slavery. Conscription is the last of my worries.

You know what was more fucked up than the Union drafting soldiers? The Union's reluctance to declare slavery null and void in rebel states, and in the territory it conquered-- having removed Fremont from his command for doing so "prematurely."

You know what else is more fucked up than conscription? The Union's reluctance to train, organize, arm, freed slaves, free African-Americans to fight the slaveholders.

You know what's even more fucked up than that? The Union's refusal to train African-Americans as officers; the Congress to commission African-Americans as officers.

You know what's even more fucked up than that? Abandoning Radical Reconstruction and allowing the KKK backed Redemptionist governments to take power in the South.

You know what's about as fucked up as that? Your moralizing, equivocating, sterile bullshit about conscription being worse than slavery.

You're either 11 years old, an idiot or both.

And I'm not against conscription, as long as its universal, without exception.

[Publius]

So forcing people to fight against their will is okay as long as it serves your purposes right.

I don't like conscription one bit, but it's sometimes necessary.


War is worst than slavery not just b/c of the loss of life but also damage to property.

Would you rather: a) fight in a war or b) be a slave?

Fill in the blank: Throughout history millions of people have volunteered themselves to a) fight in wars b) be slaves

Of course put that way, war doesn't seem so bad, does it?



The south was obliterated.

And so was Nazi Germany.

Boo-fucking-hoo.



The north and south forced people to fight with drafts which was wrong and disgusting yet you say it is okay that the north did it b/c it freed the slaves.

It was sure better than the south doing it to defend slavery.



The north enslaved its own citizens to free people enslaved in the south.

Conscription is not chattel slavery.



You and me both criticize the drafts of other wars yet your criticism stops at the civil war, quite frankly your all fucking hypocrites.

It's a trade off between two evils, but sometimes conscription is the lesser evil.

[ComradeOm]

Wasn't slavery just a side issue for the Civil War and it was really about how much power the government should have? For example Federal law having more power than State law?No. That's the apologist history that's currently in favour in many parts of the US. Slavery - whether as an underlying economic conflict or the political hot topic of the day - was very much the background of the ACW. Or rather, the collapse of the slave-state political lobby, and the rise of the Republicans, was responsible. Read the speeches and articles from the period - slavery was what everyone was talking about and it was how secession was framed