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Confederate History Month
- Thread starter poncho
- Start date
The presumption embodied in this statement is that it was the Southern States who were totally responsible for slavery. That's not true! Slavery was a national problem from its beginning. We missed our first opportunity to totally eliminate it during our founding. The business of slavery lingered on for another 100 years with support and opposition from all corners of our nation. What the South didn't like was having the States from the North tell them what they could and could not do through a federal government. They understood and believed more solidly in the original concept of States rights aside from but not to the exclusion of the issue of slavery. They were right about States rights and our entire nation has suffered much loss in the ability to govern locally verses nationally. We've not slowed the rate of flow down that channel one bit since the end of the war between the States. It's a full flow now with hardly an issue on the horizon that isn't made into a federal issue. Slavery needed to be ended - it was and it would have been regardless. States rights should never have been ended - it just about has been.
Robert Snow
New Member
In today's world, the national government should be much more powerful than state governmnets. In fact, I support an end of states rights completely.
I take it you'd prefer a system of regions, provinces, districts, etc. all reporting up one absolute chain of command to a central power in Washington, DC or perhaps in New York City, NY?
So you want to do away with state and local police and only have a federal police force - for example?
Which stands in direct opposition to the intention of the founders of this country. On this point I respectfully disagree. A strong, centralized Federal (big F) government does more harm than good in a nation like ours.
If we could (by some amazing stroke) reduce the Federal government by 50% we could realistically expand most state governments by only 25% and not miss a beat. It would be a win for us all. Less taxes, and not just regular income tax but the hidden, built in taxes on so many products, and more accessibility. I'd love for Washington DC to become a side note to the effective running of the nation. Let them handle their stuff and the states can take care of the rest imho.
Robert Snow
New Member
The founders are dead. Things change with the times, and I think in today's world, a centralized government is best.
As far as a national police force is concerned, I don't see how it could be any worse that what we have today.
Oh, I see you believe in the one-world goverment, yes! That would be much better!
Robert Snow
New Member
What an ignorant assumption on your part! I am talking about the U.S. government, not the world government.
If you would stop reading into one's post what you would like them to say, you would perhaps learn something!
windcatcher
New Member
If you are having a problem locally..... then that is where you need to identify and correct it. You don't indicate where you live.... but do you think that I living in Timbucktwo am more capable of changing the police force for you? To think that you might want a national police force is indeed scary to me: The problems of unrest and crime are not the same throughout the country: but a 'national police force' would be individuals best acquainted and conditioned by those exposures of their prior experience.... and strengths and weaknesses and alterations in perceptions and judgements based upon that plus their training..... A protest or assembly which would have no consequence nor create a problem in one part of the country.... might be viewed as 'incitement' in another part of the country.... but the national police would not necessarily have the tools necessary to decide when monitoring a situation is needed (which can in itself be intimidating, resented, and inciting) or accepting a situation as free speech. When local police know the shops and owners and business people, the politics and rivalries of personalities and competitions.... attitudes and social pressures within their communities, they are better able to represent the amount and presence of law enforcement necessary to do their job and handle situations which arise.
Communities which see a lot of crime and poor enforcement.... do so because of destabilizing factors..... clicks, gangs, transients, movements in and out of residential areas, political or social divisions and aggressive activism, unstable employment and competition for jobs, partitioning off of populations ..... destabilized families, etc.. Efforts fail at bringing them into stability and their peace into control mainly because they are too big: Often it is the big cities which loose their power to control crime: The wealth and influence consolidates in the areas of greatest revenue and gets the greatest support; less interest is devoted to recognizing those areas which are weak and giving real support to underlying factors to help unify and stabilize those areas... and often LEO and governing officials are seen as marginally connected to these communities or alien entities which act upon them rather than participate as part of them. The smaller the governing community is.... the better the people have control and responsibility over accepting their own foibles and determining how their wealth is best used to correct their problems. If this control and unity and general respect for others isn't well controlled in large metro areas.... what makes you think that federalizing the nation with a national police force would improve your personal situation?
Answer is not expected as this has gone FAR OFF TOPIC: But I do present these questions as food for thought.
Robert Snow
New Member
I'm not concerned with what other countries do, I'm more concerned with the United States.
I'm not concerned with what Texas or any other STATES do, I'm more concerned with NEW YORK STATE!
I will continue on with the facts, since you are unwilling to answer a simple question.
Last edited by a moderator:
The principles of the founders need to be kept alive and well! I urge you to study those principles in depth and understand the significance of the work that was done.
It can be much worse! All we have to do is look around the world even if just relatively modern history wherein we'll found countless examples of the true failures of other political and economic systems. All we have to do is spend some time living in some of those locations and getting a first hand taste of they don't have that we do.
This points right back to an extensive discussion on another thread in the last month about our need to be thankful to God for the blessings He did bestow on America and our need to protect and defend those blessings.
We we can't even see the value of what we hold how can we expect to keep it?
poncho
Well-Known Member
Our source for the present discussion is War Crimes Against Southern Civilians, by Walter Brian Cisco (Pelican, Gretna, Louisiana, 2007). It is important to establish that the spiritual and political inheritors of the war criminals who committed those crimes do not deny them. They ignore them, hoping that if they say nothing those crimes will fade away; and so far they have been successful. Remember, the winner of a war writes the history of the war. They will respond only if their crimes become sufficiently known.
It is important to correct the record. The crimes and the criminals need to be named. More, they must be explained, because the motives that inspired them continue to motivate the men who run our country, regardless of political party. As we shall see, little has changed. Only if we drag this continuing horror into the light do we have a chance of exorcising it.
Let’s begin with a revealing contrast. In 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded the North. The South by then had suffered two years of Yankee crimes and some Southerners thought the invasion was their chance to retaliate. Not so, said Lee. In a proclamation he reminded his men that “the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own.”
“The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenseless and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. . . .”
Remember that at the beginning of the war Lincoln offered Lee command of the Union army. Imagine the humane result had he been able to accept. We make war “only upon armed men,” said Lee. Taking vengeance for the “atrocities of our enemies” would lower ourselves and offend “against Him to whom vengeance belongeth.” What atrocities is he talking about? Our source is divided into the states of the Confederacy. Let’s begin with Missouri.
Union Brigadier General James H. Lane: “We believe in a war of extermination. I want to see every foot of ground . . . burned over – everything laid waste. . . .” Whoa! A war of extermination? Why? Wasn’t the restoration of the Union the goal of all this? Wouldn’t that have been accomplished simply by occupying the offending states? As we shall see, some other motive was at work.
But so it was. Civilians, male and female – yes, female – died by the hundreds in diseased Yankee jails. The Yankees stole everything they could lift. Lane himself stole a carriage, a piano and women’s dresses. My favorite was his chaplain, Rev. Hugh D. Fisher, who stole the altar furnishings from an Osceola church. He needed them for his own church in Kansas. “Brethren, let us worship.”
A long caravan of stolen property wound its way to Kansas. Arson, theft and murder became commonplace. No citizen was allowed to own guns or ammunition. At war’s end, vast sections of Missouri were uninhabited.
Lane’s policy of extermination had been imposed.
FULL ARTICLE
RELATED ARTICLE
It is important to correct the record. The crimes and the criminals need to be named. More, they must be explained, because the motives that inspired them continue to motivate the men who run our country, regardless of political party. As we shall see, little has changed. Only if we drag this continuing horror into the light do we have a chance of exorcising it.
Let’s begin with a revealing contrast. In 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded the North. The South by then had suffered two years of Yankee crimes and some Southerners thought the invasion was their chance to retaliate. Not so, said Lee. In a proclamation he reminded his men that “the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own.”
“The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenseless and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. . . .”
Remember that at the beginning of the war Lincoln offered Lee command of the Union army. Imagine the humane result had he been able to accept. We make war “only upon armed men,” said Lee. Taking vengeance for the “atrocities of our enemies” would lower ourselves and offend “against Him to whom vengeance belongeth.” What atrocities is he talking about? Our source is divided into the states of the Confederacy. Let’s begin with Missouri.
Union Brigadier General James H. Lane: “We believe in a war of extermination. I want to see every foot of ground . . . burned over – everything laid waste. . . .” Whoa! A war of extermination? Why? Wasn’t the restoration of the Union the goal of all this? Wouldn’t that have been accomplished simply by occupying the offending states? As we shall see, some other motive was at work.
But so it was. Civilians, male and female – yes, female – died by the hundreds in diseased Yankee jails. The Yankees stole everything they could lift. Lane himself stole a carriage, a piano and women’s dresses. My favorite was his chaplain, Rev. Hugh D. Fisher, who stole the altar furnishings from an Osceola church. He needed them for his own church in Kansas. “Brethren, let us worship.”
A long caravan of stolen property wound its way to Kansas. Arson, theft and murder became commonplace. No citizen was allowed to own guns or ammunition. At war’s end, vast sections of Missouri were uninhabited.
Lane’s policy of extermination had been imposed.
FULL ARTICLE
RELATED ARTICLE
General Lee was a fine man and soldier.
So with all that said it still comes down to this... do we or don't we want to have a month to celebrate fighting for the right to own another person? However the states rights arguments are framed, it is still a state fighting for the right to decided if owning another person is a good or not.
I say no, not because we should ignore our history but because the Confederate States were on the wrong side of the argument. I just don't see how we can celebrate the bravery and courage of soldiers fighting for the wrong thing.
Do I admire their willingness to take a stand, sure, but choosing to fight for the wrong thing doesn't make you brave it just makes you wrong.
This still holds true if the Confederate States would have won the Civil War. Winning the Civil War wouldn't make their argument suddenly "right".
I say no, not because we should ignore our history but because the Confederate States were on the wrong side of the argument. I just don't see how we can celebrate the bravery and courage of soldiers fighting for the wrong thing.
Do I admire their willingness to take a stand, sure, but choosing to fight for the wrong thing doesn't make you brave it just makes you wrong.
This still holds true if the Confederate States would have won the Civil War. Winning the Civil War wouldn't make their argument suddenly "right".
Since you don't have the facts correct, there no since repeating them.
But let me ask you this - should we celebrate Constitution Day, since (the original) made provisions legally for slavery?