The Civil War: A Conspiracy of Amnesia

[TheEconomist]

you've consistently called be oversensitive

It's almost like . . . I wanted to tell you I thought your (recanted) opinion was ridiculous

Regardless, I don't care if its 99.99999999% of people that are offended by something. If it's not actually offensive then forget them. A flag used in the context of "Southern Pride" is not actually offensive no matter how you blow it up.

[Lupino]

Cutting through the strawman arguments and silly assumptions took longer than I thought.

Couldn't be further from the truth. Those who feel this way are a minority. And, I doubt many of them have turned a blind eye. They just don't see it as wrong, which is COMPLETELY different. Most Southerners are proud to be Southern for different reasons.

Of course, that's why none of the Southern examples in the original article made no mention of slavery whatsoever and try to paint the war about state's rights and defending your home from invaders. They were just so ashamed about that aspect of their culture they simply didn't want to speak about it at all.

Do you know anything about what a liberal or a conservative is?

Do you? Libertarianism is, especially the kind most practiced and well-known in the US, primarily a conservative philosophy. It ties in very well with the current Teabagger philosophy of limited government whatever cost, and is a pretty good match for the philosophy you've been ranting about this whole time.

*sigh* Please, please, please read. I never said white people were the only ones offended by the confederate flag, however, in the overall scheme, they are ones that take political correctness to an outrageous level and want something banned. Most white people feel unnecessarily guilty, as if they were the ones that did these things, so they compensate in the wrong areas.

*sigh**sigh**sigh**sigh**sigh*

Who's going to be offended by it? Black people? Apparently not. Just oversensitive white people who feel unnecessarily guilty.

But please, keep spewing out stupid generalizations like "most white people feel unnecessarily guilty", it's not like you have an actual argument or anything.

Exactly!

Because "mostly" means all.

. . .

See what I mean about your reading comprehension failure? It makes things soooo much damn harder than they need to be. There's also that small little detail of my last few walls of text being about HOW THE SYSTEM IS NOT PERFECT. I completely understand why you would think I believed it was perfect, however. It's easier to assume the person you're arguing with is an idiot instead of someone quite knowledeable, especially when you hide behinds statitics and head-in-sand tacitcs.

That's right folks, presenting actual evidence to back up your argument is now known as hiding, lol. Curious though how the majority of your ranting is about how you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps while the rest of these minorities are simply to blame for not doing it themselves. Please then, regale us with how the system shares only some of the blame while most of it rests upon the students themselves, it'd be most interesting.

Not necessarily lazy (although that is very often the case), just lacked the discipline to deny themselves certain things for the sake of academics.

If I did it, they can do it. Simple truth. You can't deny this. I received less than them and did more with it. Que life story.

Indeed, you know for a fact that you received less than what half the the black students in the entire country got, and the fact they didn't graduate was their fault, amitrite?

What exactly was it that I said that was racist?

All one need to do to have access to success is to get a diploma. All you really need to get a diploma is self-discipline. None of them have it. Minorities in Miami are practically guaranteed a spot and financial aid for colleges thanks to lolzy affirmative action programs. Yet, they still find a way not to. Too busy killing each other.
Wow. These "repressed minorities" spend more than that on weed, Hennessey, and rims in a month.

So all of the minorities have no self-discipline and are just too busy killing each other, getting high and drunk. Yeah, nothing racist about that.
Time for some education, since yours is obviously lacking:

Take notice of the fact that 9x the white prison population is black (even with Hispanics counting as whites in many systems), you're a racist. Doesn't matter if you know there are many good black people or give everyone a chance before you judge, the truth hurts so you're a racist.

See, there's a difference between presenting statistics and being an idiot about it. Saying that half the black students don't graduate in the US, as I pointed out a few pages ago, is not itself racist, it's a statement of fact. Saying why that is a fact is what gets you into trouble. When you say it's because they're lazy and too busy smoking and killing each other, not only is that a stupid generalization based on no facts whatsoever, it also taps into racist ideas of black people which helped to put them in the situation they faced.

Meanwhile, it's a well-known fact that poor school districts not only receive less, but actually require more resources to better educate students. Poor school districts can't afford as many teachers, which leads to larger class sizes which have an adverse affect on learning. These and other statistics presented so far point to one of the real actual causes of why poor people (minorities included) remain poor, and suggest actual an course to take on how to improve their situation, rather than just sitting back and telling them to be more motivated.

Why am I not surprised you can't see the connection? Although, to correct you, you said something along the lines of "all ignorance is because of the difficulty of getting into education." To which I responded, nothing more. You don't want to be commented on? Don't post here.

By the way, after the third sentence I was actually talking to Sarov. You're a fool for not knowing.

...

Sound familiar?

That you're still butthurt about that is almost as funny as this conversation. And no, your life story still has no connection to the original subject of this thread, which was the legacy of the Civil War and attempts to cover up its less-than-noble aspects by Southerners. Unless you're offering yourself as proof that Southern people don't like looking at facts and prefer to think of the past and present through rose-colored glasses.

[Lupino]

It isn't feasible to have a discussion on this topic unless you willing to ask yourself "how was slavery NOT* a part of the civil war"? You can call my point "apologist", but it really is realism. The north didn't fight the war for freeing slaves or bringing about inequality. The talk of emancipation wasn't brought up until near the end of the war, and by the president; people as a whole didn't care much about equality.
So how can slavery (which is a horrid thing) be the cause of the war if the subject of freeing slaves didn't become an agenda until much later? (Slavery did instigate the talk of secession though)

No one is saying the North went to war over the issue of slavery, however the reason the South seceded was very much tied to the issue of slavery. The declarations of secession and other documents lay out that the chief objection the South had was that their right to chattel slavery was being threatened, whether in fact or in imagination, by the North.

[Sarov]

I have the same problems as you and it annoys me to no end. For what its worth, I'm not as trivial as those people. If there was something you wanted to share, I would listen.

When I discuss things with people, I want them to understand that it is simply my opinion and that it is not intended to be "the right way". I do not argue with the goal of "converting" others. I do it because discussing subjects is entertaining. Still, there are those people who will go up in arms for something as simple as different opinions.

This leads me to not want to start discussions because I simply can't trust people to have a civil discussion. Especially with the internet. I'm not saying that it isn't possible but that, more often than not, it isn't. Still, there are a myriad of other problems and even though I am a moderator, I don't like resorting to the "I will lock this if it goes down the toilet". It feels like I'm abusing my power.

[Jconant]

I thought to contribute in order to play as the devil's advocate, portray the point of view of the south as I understand it, and dispel mythic notions such as the north, as righteous as they were, fought to free the slaves.

I hoped we could discuss a more interesting subject though: Is it ok for 1 or more states to secede if they as a whole decide to?

[Lupino]

I thought to contribute in order to play as the devil's advocate, portray the point of view of the south as I understand it, and dispel mythic notions such as the north, as righteous as they were, fought to free the slaves.

I hoped we could discuss a more interesting subject though: Is it ok for 1 or more states to secede if they as a whole decide to?

Sure, but understand that there are people in the South whose bias regarding this matter would naturally lead to a skewed point of view. It's easier to defend a "noble lost cause" if it doesn't involve such morally reprehensible ideas like slavery and racism.

As far as secession is concerned, it would have to be something that everyone involved agrees to, and I mean everyone. The seceding territory is not only literally tearing its original country in two, leading to a smaller voting and tax base, it's also taking with it national infrastructure and other potentially important strategic facilities vital to the national interest.

Secession also severely degrades democracy as an institution; what's the point in majority rule if you just leave when the decisions made are ones you don't like? Obviously there's a difference if that majority rule is being used to, say, kill the minority population, but over something like the health care law?