War.... (Historical: 9/11 discussion thread)

[Baron Munchausen]

I've picked up some interesting infomation, second hand. An acquaintance received an email from a friend in the military. He lives in New England, but the information seems to be relevant all over the country.

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I'd like you to advise friends and co-workers that if they have nothing critical to do in Boston, they should NOT go. We were just briefed, unclassified, but the message was clear. We are still "under attack" and we need to be incredibly careful. You should also keep all travel, especially commercial air travel to a minimum, as we are getting strong indications that this is no where close to being finished

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Just because this specifies Boston doesn't seem to me to exclude that similar warnings are appropriate for other cities in the US. Maybe Bush isn't exaggerating. Maybe we are at war. My best guess is that this email is part of an intentional strategy to warn people by word of mouth without making big public announcements and tipping off the terrorists. Let's all be careful, and let's all spread the word.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 14 September 2001).]

[Lisif Deoral]

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Originally posted by dmm:
At the risk of sounding like an "ugly American" again, I wonder how many years worth of wages it would take to pay most Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territory to emigrate and never come back?

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I suppose it won't work, and anyway it wouldn't be considered a "civilized" way to deal with the problem. I also suppose it'll lead to more problems sooner or later.

The Romans did something similar to Israel in 70 b.C. - with a much ruder attitude.
Well, you know what have been the consequences in the Last 1900 years, and what's happening now...

[geoschmo]

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Originally posted by Exculcator:
Really?

Not the opposing views of being a federation of independant states and that of preserving the Union ?

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Nope. It was slavery.

The southern states might have said they were leaving the Union because of the "States Rights" and all that crap. But the only "right" they cared about was the right to own slaves. If they weren't afraid, correctly or not, that Lincoln and the other northern states were planning on abolishing slavery, they wouldn't have cared if you called it a "Union" or a "Federation of States" or a "Grand Kegger".

We stopped being a federation of States when the constitution was signed. If that was the issue, they would have seceded then. The fact is they didn't, until it became apparent that slavery was going to end.

And whether or not the federal government would have fought to preserve the Union regardless of slavery is irrelevant really. Becasue if it weren't for slavery, there would have not been a reason for fighting to preserve the Union, because the Union wouldn't have split.

Geoschmo

[LazarusLong42]

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Originally posted by geoschmo:
I do.

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Actually, Geo, I have to (generally) agree with Exculcator on this one. There were several struggles involved in the Civil War, only one of which was slavery vs. liberation of Blacks.

Exculcator has another: the age-old problem of Union vs. Liberty, as expressed in a set of quotes from a gathering involving several prominent political figures of the late 1820's:

"The Federal Union, it must be preserved." -- Andrew Jackson

"The Union, next to our Liberty, the most dear." -- John C. Calhoun

"Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." -- Daniel Webster

Jackson and Calhoun were both from the South (and Webster from Vermont or something like that), but while Webster's idea may be felt by a majority of us now, Jackson and Calhoun's ideologies previaled, Jackson's taking hold more in the North, Calhoun's in the South.

But that's not all of it. There was also the matter of commerce. Let's face it, the North may have condemned slavery, but they sure didn't mind the money that flowed their way. They had all the manufacturing, and therefore the money from raw goods--cotton, tobacco, and other plantation materials--that flowed into the South (partially from the North, partially from Europe) eventually made it to the North, where finished goods were made.

The South kept Blacks as slaves; the North kept the South, commercially, as slaves. The South knew that without slaves to do the work, they would be destitute, but the North could get their raw materials elsewhere. When Lincoln, who did run with an anti-slavery plank in his platform, was elected, the South was horrified and knew that if they remained in the Union they would certainly become completely dependent on the North.

So they seceded. Which could have been an amicable situation, actually: the South would have abolished slavery, at a guess, near 1890-1900, finding the Last strains of the Industrial Revolution more useful for production of raw materials. But, they weren't initially friendly to the North, and the North's partial dependence on the South for raw materials made the North angry when they simply couldn't get them.

So the North blockaded Charleston and other major ports to stop trade between the new Confederacy and Britain/Europe, in an attempt to force them to trade with the Union. Frankly, even now that'd be considered an act of war. Follow Harper's Ferry, Fort Sumter, Civil War.

OK. I paid too much attention in history class... and probably still have stuff wrong. Feel free to discuss.

Eric

[LazarusLong42]

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Originally posted by geoschmo:
We stopped being a federation of States when the constitution was signed.

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I have to disagree with that one, strongly. We stopped being a federation of States in a slow, leak process, as the Federal government slowly took over more and more powers from the States and the people--powers that are supposedly reserved to the States and the People in the 9th and 10th Amendments to said Constitution.

These are the two Amendments that most courts seem to ignore.

While I'll agree the leak process began at the signing of the Constitution, it's taken quite a while, and there have been major bursts of activity driving us toward a single Union: the Depression and the New Deal which was implemented for the express purpose of getting us out of said Depression (and subsequently didn't work); before that certain policies instituted under Wilson, and before that Reconstruction. By the time we got to the Lyndon Johnson administration, the leak process was mostly finished and even Republicans pretty much accepted that there were no longer such things as "States" except in a few areas such as education.

The LBJ administration eliminated "States" as far as education goes. And so forth.

(OK, why is rambling about silly political ideologies of the past soothing to me? )

Eric

[geoschmo]

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Originally posted by LazarusLong42:
...But that's not all of it. There was also the matter of commerce. Let's face it, the North may have condemned slavery, but they sure didn't mind the money that flowed their way. They had all the manufacturing, and therefore the money from raw goods--cotton, tobacco, and other plantation materials--that flowed into the South (partially from the North, partially from Europe) eventually made it to the North, where finished goods were made.

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All very true. For the first hundred years of our country there was a dirty little aggrement where everybody got paid and everybody stayed happy. I am not by any means saying the North was innocent. But by the 1860's attitudes in the North had shifted away from this and towards abbolishing slavery. This fact is what caused the rift between the two. All the pretty words about liberty and unity were just a way for "educated" men of the time to discuss the issue of the day without having to face the glaring truth.

The argument boiled down to it's core was simply, "Do I have the right to own another human being as property." The majority in South felt YES strongly enough to quit the country. The majority of the North felt strongly NO storngly enough to go to war to stop them.

Of course there are many other reasons why one individual or group or another picked one side or the other. Not everybody in the North cared a whit about the slaves. And not everybody in the South depended on slavery. Many would have been perfectly happy to allow it to be abolished at the time. And I don't doubt you are correct it would have been within a few more decades at any rate.

But my point is if you are looking for a single, defining cause for the American Civil War, it has to be the abolishion of slavery. It is the only one of the numerous issues of the day that if removed from the table, could have prevented the conflict from ever starting. It is the point about which all the other disagreements revolved.

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

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Originally posted by LazarusLong42:
I have to disagree with that one, strongly. We stopped being a federation of States in a slow, leak process, as the Federal government slowly took over more and more powers from the States and the people--powers that are supposedly reserved to the States and the People in the 9th and 10th Amendments to said Constitution.

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Of course a lot of this is a purely acedemic argument about semantics and definitions. But the "Articles of Confederation" Gave almost no power to the congress. Really the only thing the congress could do was mediate desputes between the various states, and make treaties and wars with other nations.

"Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

Article III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever."

Once we gave up on that and signed the Constitution we went from being a close federation of independant, sovereign, nation states, and became a single nation, or union.

To be sure over time there has been a "leak" of the balance of power from the decentralized states towards a more massive federal burocracy. And that's not alway's been a good thing by any stretch.

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(OK, why is rambling about silly political ideologies of the past soothing to me? )

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I don't know. But I feel it too. This has been very theraputic. Almost like making my mind "think" for a while has allowed my emotions to take a break.

Geoschmo