Trump: 'Why was there the Civil War?'

[catfish1957]

They also sang "The Bonnie Blue Flag".  Not sure what either one proves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-3WAhbulFs

[DiogenesLamp]

It's not over dear.  Not by a long shot.

The war still rages on against Northeastern Liberalism/Big Statist/Federal Government-In-Everyone's-Pie.

The concepts of individual liberty, private property rights, religious heritage and free exercise are being invaded by the same kind of ideological mindsets that drove troops into the South to take it over and force them back under Federal control.

This is exactly what I meant when I said much of our problems of today stem from that conflict and the quantum shift in the relationship between the Super State and the Individual. 

Only now, the moral crusades to be written in future history will say that the next 'uncivil war' was fought to stop racism/misogyny/homophobia/Gay Marriage/Abortion Rights.  You name it - the cause is being stamped as mantras by using the federal beast to force capitulation from the 'Blue Union States' upon the rest of the country.

Only the causes have changed,  but the methodology  and the raison d'être of Liberalism (change)  is still the driving force behind modern events.   

They know not what their future "cause" will be,  but they certainly know it will involve large amounts of looking down their noses at others whom they consider to be morally inferior and unworthy of life. 

Do we take up arms and lay waste to liberal Leftists who have demonstrated they have no intention whatsoever to leave any of us alone while using the government to do their will, or do we secede from them because we can no longer co-exist because our core view of liberty and the country are in diametric opposites?

We are being fleeced by the feds in ever-increasing and unsustainable debt.  Less than 25% of the country funds the other 75% of the country's mostly Democrat welfare entitlement constituencies.  How long before the remaining producers in states that cannot sustain the mandates tell the Northern Blue States and California to pound sand - we quit?  Will they empower the feds to invade and use military force to "collect the revenue" as Lincoln said was the cause in his war declaration?

You betcha they will.  And those states that fight back will be declared to be evil racists protecting the industries of 'white privilege' and 'racism' and 'homophobia' and 'Islamophobia' and every other crusade the Left uses as moral imperatives to wage asymmetric cultural warfare they want to go hot upon the South and midwestern red states.

The war against an oppressive Central Behemoth being used as a sledgehammer against liberty never ended.  It just morphed and changed the rules to make itself invincible and a perpetual power over every aspect of our lives.

Very savvy analysis.   This is much of what I see too.

[DiogenesLamp]

@the_doc, I can agree with much of that and wouldn't even think of arguing with your superior knowledge (well, maybe a bit), but here's what I want to know - why is this still so important?  Why do we still fight it after all these years and all the melding of cultures, and many wars fought together since, and victories won, and hard times and good times gone together - why does it still have a visceral hold on us?

The "Team"  effect.   Those who have relatives that fought on one side of the conflict or the other will natural believe their's was the side of right.   People who grew up in regions will also develop affinity for "their"  land and it's history and sacrifice.   


Few will look at the whole conflict objectively and without modern anachronistic bias.   People will chose up teams mostly for emotional reasons,  and then they will defend those they regard as their team.   


For me it was a slow transition from the Union "Team" to the Confederate "Team"  but time, philosophy and evidence convinced me that what I had previously learned was either wrong or misleading.   


I was also faced with the fact that one of the options I considered for dealing with a modern super State which is out of control, was gaining independence from it,   but it always came back to "Well the Civil War pretty much ended that possibility,  didn't it?"   


So i'm thinking "must I be chained to those insane fools in Massachusetts and California,  and must I fall into the Abyss with them because of their madness?" 


"Hmmm.... let me rethink this Civil War business and see if this secession idea can be rehabilitated with a suitable  philosophical argument.  "


"We just need to strip of that slavery component of it and see what we have. "

[Smokin Joe]

Except I'm from the North, and I'm a small government Conservative........... and there are LOTS of us up here in the states you continue to hate.

I have friends who have relatives in the south and they've been attacked by their family members as Yankees, and treated badly at family reunions.

All I can say is.......get over it. There is no more war.  I'm not your enemy.  We're on the same side.

Or at least we OUGHT to be. 

Our battle lines today are not drawn along geographical lines, but philosophical ones.
People of like principle may be more common in some areas than others,  may prevail (or not) in specific areas, but we are diffused through America.

Generalities are made on the basis of the prevailing attitudes and mindsets for regions, not the exceptional individuals who disagree with those corruptions of principle and compact.
I do not count you as anything but a like-minded Conservative.
However to those whose ancestors had government imposed on them by military force, often at the loss of land, wealth, and title, resentments will ever exist. Have faith that they are not against you, personally.

(Stinking Tudors, anyway--there is always someone, somewhere to resent.)

[Hondo69]

Every now and then I'll pick up a diary written in the 1800's on Amazon that's been transcribed into a book.  I find them interesting not only for their unusual tidbits reflecting their way of life but learning about their general attitudes as well.  And when it comes to the Civil War a guy learns there were lots of reasons so many tensions were bubbling up to the boiling point.

Unlike my daughter's high school history book which blames it all on slavery, these diaries spell out another story completely different.  In their eyes it was about personal freedom vs those who would encroach upon it, whether it be a federal or state government.  Enough so they would sell their family farm, pack up their belongings and head toward untamed territory that held a very uncertain future.  The risk was great but they were willing to leave the relative safety of a small community to carve out a new life somewhere in the west where they would be left the hell alone.

It's more complicated without a doubt, but that's it in a nutshell.  And if Civil War breaks out again anytime soon there will not be one single issue that could be pinpointed as the cause.  Would it be over immigration, or racism, or big government?  Would it be because Sandra Fluke demands $300 a month for her birth control pills?

There is no easy answer except maybe to say, "all of the above".

[LateForLunch]

Every now and then I'll pick up a diary written in the 1800's on Amazon that's been transcribed into a book.  I find them interesting not only for their unusual tidbits reflecting their way of life but learning about their general attitudes as well.  And when it comes to the Civil War a guy learns there were lots of reasons so many tensions were bubbling up to the boiling point.

Unlike my daughter's high school history book which blames it all on slavery, these diaries spell out another story completely different.  In their eyes it was about personal freedom vs those who would encroach upon it, whether it be a federal or state government.  Enough so they would sell their family farm, pack up their belongings and head toward untamed territory that held a very uncertain future.  The risk was great but they were willing to leave the relative safety of a small community to carve out a new life somewhere in the west where they would be left the hell alone.

It's more complicated without a doubt, but that's it in a nutshell.  And if Civil War breaks out again anytime soon there will not be one single issue that could be pinpointed as the cause.  Would it be over immigration, or racism, or big government?  Would it be because Sandra Fluke demands $300 a month for her birth control pills?

There is no easy answer except maybe to say, "all of the above".

That's a great post.

What it may come down to as the essential dividing line is that smart, moral people are not willing to go along with the (Utopian Statist) Plan. That is likely the defining feature of modern day revolutionary radical socialism. Apart from abstruse arguments about economics or culture, socialists have a Plan and they are so detached from reality that they believe it is good and necessary to use the power of government to force absolutely everybody to go along with the Plan. And the Plan is (in a nutshell) totalitarian Statism.

Cue: singer Jonathan Edwards: "('Crats) can't even run (their) own life, I'll be damned if (they'll) run mine".

A real man would generally rather die on their feet than live on their knees. That doesn't seem to change much over the long ages of Humanity. Nor do the efforts of cacogens to seize control of other's lives away from them. The cacogenic urge to do this resembles more than anything the compulsion to defecate.