New Orleans to remove 4 Confederate statues

Treason implies that they were obliged to render obedience to the US government unconditionally and perpetually. If that really is the case, then the "union" they seceded from is an illegitimate farce totally at odds with reason and morality.

 

He was actually a tyrant who needlessly invaded the south and caused hundreds of thousands of people to die as a result. He was also a white supremacist who wanted to send blacks back to Africa because he did not believe they could coexist on equal terms with whites. He said so himself.

 

The "union" is nothing more than an abstraction. Treason cannot be committed against it. Nor does secession in any way translate to "raising arms against" anyone. The act of withdrawing from an association with other individuals is entirely peaceful and non-aggressive. The raising of arms would be committed by the tyrants and warmongers who initiate force against the people trying to secede.

 

Virtually every act of tyranny and despotism in history was perfectly legal. The Egyptian Pharaohs were "legally" Gods on earth, which tells you something about legality as a concept.

 

Political independence is a natural right, ergo it is not contingent upon "recognition" by others anymore than my right to life is contingent upon the "recognition" of a would-be murderer. That others can prevent me from effectively exercising this natural right by using intimidation and force is neither here nor there.

No, it is not complicated. But you are trying to make it complicated.

You see, every individual has a natural right to freedom of association. That necessarily implies that all legitimate political compacts are voluntary associations between consenting individuals. This further implies that each individual has a right to peacefully withdraw from this compact, which is exactly what secession entails. The idea that abstract collectives like the "union" or "the people" can supersede the natural rights of actual individuals is preposterous and tyrannical and completely at odds with the founding principles of American democracy and republicanism.

 

And in ancient Egypt, people were not "allowed" to question the Pharaoh's status as a living, breathing God. Tyrants have always disallowed things that threaten their illegitimate stranglehold on power. What of it?

 

There is no difference.

 

The way they treated black folks I don't really see the difference.

 

They lost, so what is your argument.

 

So do you want to see all the statues of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington removed from public view as well?

 

There absolutely is a difference, a huge one at that.

The Nazis killed millions of people in an attempt to exterminate an entire ethnic group. The Confederates did not.

The distinction and difference between depriving someone of their life as opposed to their liberty is firmly established in virtually every society in history.

That is why, for example, the death penalty is vanishing in western countries, because a life sentence is seen as less severe and more civilized.

If what you say is true, that there is no difference between killing someone and taking away their freedom, then it would make absolutely no difference if every inmate in America was executed. We can take that even further and say that it would have made no difference if the slave owners had simply killed all their slaves. To you, that would have been exactly the same in terms of its moral significance.

 

Blacks in America have no real connection with those people or America's founding, so they would gladly take down those monuments as well. They write off the overwhelming majority of the country's history as "racist".

Just another great example of how this multicultural, multiracial experiment doesn't work. People tend to identify with and idolize their own people, not others.

"When you're out numbered, you lose elections. When you lose elections, you lose power. When you lose power, you lose control. When you lose control, the nation is no longer yours. When the nation is no longer yours, it belongs to another. When the nation belongs to another, it starts idolizing its own people as its national heroes, not yours. It starts building monuments to them, not you. It starts putting their own faces on their currency. It starts forging its own allies, and making its own enemies." - Teutorian

 

Really don't care one way or the other.

 

At least you're honest about it. Most people on your side of the debate don't want to admit that they have no particular love for America's founding fathers.

 

I disagree. Chaining, beating, torturing, maiming, raping and killing another human being are all the same. They were robbed of a helluva lot more than just their Liberty.

Or is it the Death Penalty is less of a deterrent because of the way it is meted out.

That's just it many slaves were murdered, raped, beaten, tortured and maimed. It wasn't like slaves were working at JCPenneys.

 

Well black folks weren't really considered as human beings during the time of the founding fathers, were they.

 

They generally believed blacks were inferior to whites, but they did not deny that blacks were human beings. And many of the founding fathers were opposed to slavery. Of course, if you judge people who lived in 1776 by the standards of people living in 2017, the people from the 1700's will come out looking pretty bad. But if you judge them according to the standards of their own time or past societies, they come out looking pretty dang impressive.

 

Sure they did or how could a so-called men of God treat another human being in that manner.

Yet did nothing about it.

.............and yet the people in 1776 followed the same Bible folks follow today. Wow.

What is the maximum effective range of an excuse?

 

The population of blacks in the American south, both slave and free, INCREASED by a factor of roughly 600% between 1790 and 1860. In comparison, the population of European Jews DECREASED 60% in just six years between 1939 and 1945, a decline from which it has never recovered.



The simple fact of the matter is that most slaves were kept ALIVE and HEALTHY, whereas most European Jews ended up being gassed or starved in concentration camps.

The difference is HUGE and OBVIOUS.

No, "many" slaves were not murdered, raped, tortured, or maimed. That is pure Hollywood fiction. Killing your slave would be the financial equivalent of burning your house down. Maiming a slave would be the financial equivalent of tearing your roof down and ripping all your doors off. Were slaves killed? Yes. Were they raped? Yes. Were they tortured or maimed? Yes. But such occurrences were not commonplace. I have read dozens of firsthand accounts from ACTUAL SLAVES and many of them describe a life that is pretty unremarkable. It is not the Hollywood version of slavery where every slave owner is a sadist who wantonly mistreats their slaves.

 

Just the fact that you are trying to make is seem as though slaves were living a life of tranquility is sick in itself. What the Jewish people suffered was horrible and what black slaves suffered was just as equally horrible.

 

First of all, only SOME of the founding fathers owned slaves, and many of the ones who did own slaves ended up emancipating their slaves and/or joining the abolitionist movement. It's not as simple as "they owned slaves so they were automatically evil."

That is completely false. Thomas Jefferson tried many times to reform the institution of slavery in Virginia while he was a representative in that state's legislature. Granted, he did not succeed, but he definitely tried. Later on in his life, as president of the US, Jefferson signed a law that outlawed the transatlantic slave trade. George Washington emancipated all his slaves after his death. Ben Franklin emancipated all his slaves during his life and become president of America's first abolitionist society.

The Bible can be interpreted as sanctioning slavery, which makes sense because it is an ancient text that emerged in a context where slavery was commonplace.

You are confusing an explanation with an excuse.

 

Now you are just lying.

No, it was not equally horrible. Not even close. Millions of Jews were gassed and starved in concentration camps. African slaves in the American south were not.

 

funny !!!

 

Why is it funny?

 

The Southern "founding fathers" did it as an economic survival move, since as white men they could not do the labor necessary, in the Southern heat, to make their plantations profitable.

The Confederates did it as a an economic preservation move, since as slave owning whites much of their estates were wrapped up in the economic value of their slaves. Or so the story goes.

If nothing else, it's a good example of how different economic considerations and moral ones are...and something to be remembered when it is argued that the costs associated with Headstart are too high.