The Twin Pillars that Trump's presidency relies on

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Lucifer, May 19, 2020.

?

Are these two issues the reason you support Trump?

  1. YES

  2. NO

  3. OTHER (please explain)

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  1. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

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    https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm
    2,672,341 Union soldiers
    750,000 - 1,227,890 Confederate giving us a range of 2.17 - 3.56. I'm comfortable with my outnumbered nearly 3:1 assertion.

    It most certainly is in line because the VAST majority of the "non-combat deaths" refer to gangrene and other causes derived from injuries in battle. Except a lot of the non-combat confederate deaths were civilians because the cowards in the northern army targeted civilian population centers like the terrorists they were.
     
  2. Esperance

    Esperance Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not sure how you can separate the location of an army while claiming that a populated area was targeted.
    Atlanta was fortified, and the railroads going South, East and West were operating so any civilian was free to leave.

    If you want to talk about injustice, Lincoln should have been a sitting Senator representing Illinois in 1860 based on the actual vote counts in 1858.
     
  3. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

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    They shouldn’t have to abdicate their homes, they were civilians. The union wasn’t dropping daisycutters and napalm. They were using mortar shells and small arms fire. The civilians should have been fine except the union soldiers marched into their homes, stole their valuables, raped their women and burned their towns, churches, barns, homes and land to the ground in targeted attacks on the civilian populations.

    Actions which if committed today would get them brought up for war crimes and hung like the terrorists they were.

    And no sir. Injustice is murdering hundreds of thousands of your own countrymen in an effort to consolidate power to the federal government in order to sustain economic control over the states while subjugating its citizens and then having the AUDACITY to obfuscate that heinous crime by pretending to do it in the name of freedom and unity.

    THAT is injustice. But he got what he deserved. Just a little late.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2020
  4. Esperance

    Esperance Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    By and large, the Democrats back then were just as corrupt as the Democrats of today.

    My point was that Lincoln should have never been on the Republican ballot in the first place. He should have been a sitting Senator.

    And then, Seward would have lost to Douglas. But guess what...
    57 ballots in Charleston and they couldn't compromise. So they split their votes.
    And then, not being happy with the consequences of their own screw-up, they became irrate.

    So then, you had many, like Senator Yulee, send letters off to Northern businessmen telling them that the money that they had just invested in the South was not going to be paid back.

    Lee once divulged the fact that he thought that the South could have easily made a clean break if they had negotiated with honor.
    Instead, the opposite took place.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2020
  5. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    Interesting source, however I do not have a subscription to the Economist and therefore cannot accept or reject the content/assertions it presents in the article.

    Nice primary source link, thanks. So you took the overall census population, subtracted the slave population and arrived at 7,579,504. Then you took the count of slave holders, which by definition is what - correct me if I'm wrong but 383,637 represents one person as owner, yes? And this gets you your 5%. Heck, I'll even help you out and take my Wiki source numbers and your 1860 Ag section numbers and give it to you that it was only 4% given every state reported on the Wiki page to have greater than zero slaves and its respective population.

    The Wiki page numbers match the original source numbers for the most part. As an example, The Virginia counties that became West Virgina for example having been recalculated to fit the format of the Wiki table. And noting that there are slight internal inconsistencies in the original source.


    Lets move on to your brilliant anticipation of my next challenge.

    I asserted nothing of the sort. I simply inquired where you got your 6% ownership metric from. However, now that I know where you got your number from then your are absolutely correct in your anticipation of my next logical argument. But I will not waste my overall contention that your advocacy of the greatness of the Confederate rebellion comes down to how so dearly precious very few folks actually owned the 30% of the population, and your assertion that, correct me if I'm wrong, the vast majority of white folk in the South detested slavery because they had to compete against it whilst the slave owners sat back drinking sweet tea and occasionally getting off the porch to go whip their boy. Your pretzel logic here is astounding.
     
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  6. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    I am pleased to give you another opportunity to cite your source that this amendment had been ratified by multiple union states. This source says that there were five that ratified it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corwin_Amendment, with Kentucky being the only one to ratify it before the Ft. Sumter incident bench-marked the beginning of the actual War. By the time the Senate passed the amendment on March 4th, 7 states had already seceded: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In the subsequent two months after the Senate voted in favor of it, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina seceded.

    The Senate voted in favor of this amendment after we were already in a Civil War, in which the slave states had already seceded. Brilliant argument.

    Which, if any, of these cases that you assert were so unjust to the slave states, were on an issue other than slavery? Slavery was a huge issue in drafting the Constitution and was likely a significant reason why only 39 men signed the damned thing. And it was, or should have been, well known to the slave states that the free states intended it to end.

    Again, without resort to SCOTUS, quote for me the passages from the US Constitution that you believe the secessionist states choosing to form their own Confederacy were defending.
     
  7. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    4:1 kill ratio - what does that mean? To me, that means that 4 are killed for 1. The KIA/DOW numbers are barley a bit above 1:1 and the overall dead are 1.3:1.

    Again, Cite your source.....
     
  8. Lucifer

    Lucifer Well-Known Member

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    Then surely you should be able to define it.
     
  9. Lucifer

    Lucifer Well-Known Member

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    How could it be a binary choice if I offered a 3rd option?:roll:

    I have absolutely no clue to what you are referring to. Did you forget to include a link or something?
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2020
  10. One Mind

    One Mind Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sure. Words like ethical.

    Which is subjective only to sociopaths
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2020
  11. Lucifer

    Lucifer Well-Known Member

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    I can agree with that.

    For example, Trump is indeed unethical and a sociopath based on his history, but I would not necessarily lump all Trumpsters as sociopathic.
     
  12. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

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    Well here is another. How many would you like? It’s easily sourced.

    https://www.nber.org/papers/w23096

    No see the problem here is a common misconception of the 1800’s and essentially every period in history prior to the 1900’s. It was THE common belief that the races were inherently different. The VAST majority of the world believed caucasoids and mongoloids were superior to negroids. That was simply the prevailing truth at the time. That truth held true in BOTH the north and the south.

    The idea that northerners liked or didn’t think they were superior to blacks is simply contrary to historical fact. BOTH groups thought blacks were inferior. The difference between the two is that the southerners believes you could live alongside blacks as long as certain controls were placed upon them to force them to be more “civilized”, whereas the north didn’t believe you could live beside them.

    This is evidenced by the fact that at least two union states had banned black people from even entering their state upon pain of lashing and sometimes death such as Oregon. This is further reflected in Lincoln’s own words:

    “There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas…”

    “Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.”

    Lincoln’s goal was actually the removal of the black populace and ship them to other countries. But he couldn’t do that because they were “property” and he couldn’t just appropriate peoples property and then send them back.
     
  13. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

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    Yes but they were outnumbered three to one. How do you get a superior kill count when you’re outnumbered? Your men have to kill More men per person than the other side kills.

    To do the math. 258,000 confederate soldiers died killed by 2,672,000 = ~.1 confederate soldier killed for every soldier in the union army.

    360,222 union soldiers killed by 750,000-1.2M gives us a range of .48 - .3 union soldiers killed for every confederate soldier in the army.
     
  14. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

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    No the senate had passed it before the civil war hence why Kentucky ratified before the war started. Several other union states followed. But you miss the point. The point was if the south wanted to save slavery they had no need to go to war to do so. All they needed to do was ratify the Corwin amendment. Why didn’t they?


    They were defending the whole of the constitution. That’s the ENTIRE point. As I originally said, slavery was the catalyst but it was not the cause. Slavery was easily addressed with the Corwin amendment. What was NOT easily addressed was the northern states willful violation of the constitution even after being ordered to cease by the SCOTUS on two separate occasions.

    If the government can just refuse to uphold one part of the constitution in regards to ANY issue, such as slavery, then they can do it to any other portion of the constitution, including the first or second amendment, because the precedent had been set. And that was untenable.

    Look we can all agree that slavery was egregious and the fugitive slave clause should have been removed from the constitution.

    However the precedent CANNOT be allowed to stand unchallenged that the federal government can simply declare a portion of the constitution to be immoral, they can refuse to uphold that portion of the constitution, they can ignore TWO direct orders of unconstitutionality from the SCOTUS, they can attempt to change the constitution without going through the constitutional process and without the consent of the governed and then violently oppress anyone who opposes them.

    That is UNACCEPTABLE and must be met with the utmost and fiercest opposition up to and including warfare. That’s what my ancestors did. They stood up in defense of the constitution, in the face of certain death, against a tyrannical government who was violating that constitution at will and with immunity. They did so against ALL odds; outgunned, outsupplied, with little to no infrastructure and outnumbered nearly three to one. And they did it with much honor, sacrifice and blood spilled.

    Those confederate men and women are the only reason we still have a constitution today as they made violating the constitution far too costly. They should be honored for that sacrifice. Not vilified.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2020
  15. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    Hamermesh thanks the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung for general financial support, sounds a bit Nazi to me, but hey, I'll readily admit my prejudice against the culture that was stupid enough to start and lose two world wars - we'll definitely need another thread if you want to debate whether or not Germany started and lost WWI & II.

    The marginal numbers presented in this analysis do not impress me much. The categories alone are inane. Allow me to simplify the whole damn report: white men **** off at work for 31 minutes a day and black men **** off at work for 38 minutes a day, given an 8 hour workday. Sure. Solid stuff. Sorry, your social-economic "science" has a long long way to go to catch up to the real work done in the so called natural sciences, which I regard as the only real sciences. The ATUS data, based on the CPS data, seems to be skewed toward surveying folks that have filed for unemployment. This is your bliss is it? The kinda thing that makes you happy to hate black Americans, that were brought here to support your southern economy?



    Lincoln said a lot of things to appease his audience in pursuit of the office. The opinion you've offered here is related to this sub-topic in this sub-thread of this discussion between the two of us, exactly how? How, for example does a single statement you've offered here support your assertion that 94% of the southern white folk had to compete against the slave labor of the 6%? I do not see that you have addressed the implication I pointed out that if your assertion were true then it would by definition mean that 94% of the south opposed slavery on a simply economic basis, which in those days meant food on the table as opposed to how much bandwidth you are able to afford from the entertainment communication industrial complex.
     
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  16. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    You might as well ratio the general population of the Union against the Confederacy in support of your assertion that Confederate troops killed Union troops at a ratio of 4:1. You developed this ratio on your own did you? Curious, I'd like to see you post your Excel analysis of the combatants and casualties in the major campaigns of the US Civil War. Gettysburg was no 4:1 victory, as but one example.
     
  17. Esperance

    Esperance Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It wasn't a simple and direct form of competition...

    The Elites ran the local economies and social landscape. Those with large holdings did not live on their working plantations.
    As a yeoman, you could either fall into place or run the risk of being economically and socially alienated from that power structure.

    There were plenty of Confederate soldiers who went along to get along and sustain their status within their church and economic community. Those who didn't found themselves excluded from their former level of acceptance.

    It didn't take long before resentment surfaced. The sons of wealthy slave owners were exempt from military service, and the market goods coming into the Confederacy were siphoned off by those who retained hard currency reserves.

    Blockade runners who brought in fabrics and consumer goods did not sell their offerings at fixed prices. Auctions quickly eliminated those who had paper currency and elevated those who had hard currency to bid with.

    I would suggest reading the book, "Secret Yankees," by Thomas G. Dyer.

    There were plenty of Southerners who were very ticked off that the Elites drove them right smack into the middle of a brutal conflict that could have been avoided.
     
  18. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    As I stated, 7 states had already seceded by the time the Senate passed the amendment and 4 others followed within two months. If you really believe that this line of argument supports your theory that the Civil War wasn't about slavery then you are, in my opinion, overweighting one hail mary piece of legislation that was too much and too late and underweights dozens if not hundreds of other events that clearly support that the war was all because of slavery.



    A link to your landmark SCOTUS cases, please. Then we can get back to my request that you cite the specific portion of the US Constitution that you believe allowed the secessionist states to violate Article 1, Section 10, "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation".

    Not sure about we all, but it is an interesting thing that apparently you and I can agree upon and yet still be completely at odds over. Can we toss in the 3/5s compromise as well?



    I disagree with your assessment of the supposed value added to the US as a Nation that the Civil War provocated by South Carolina and her fellow secessionist states is of any positive value, far less that it is "the only reason we still have a constitution today."

    Not having had a particular interest in the alternative rebel loyalist history of the civil war and so forth, I must admit I am just about done with debating this issue with you and I care not much if you choose to take this as a validation of your position. It really is not something that intellectually I find all that stimulating: slavery and racism. I find it odd that you do. You seem to have a bit of intelligence, and yet you choose to let this sort of stuff take up space in your head. You mentioned UNC Chapel Hill in this thread. So why do you weight this race crap so highly in your political priorities? ****ing UNC Chapel Hill = Michael Jordan. Are you telling me you are not a hoops fan? Here talking **** about blacks and you don't watch basketball? Sure thing, maybe you don't.

    You don't like Stevie Ray Vaughn? Where would Stevie be without Jimi? Hmmm, Rock, Blues, Rock and Roll, disco, funk and jazz have no appeal for you? Just Wagner on your earbuds? Or maybe even worse, no music at all?

    You think worrying about blacks and whites is more important that sound federal policy on the military, on the budget, the deficit and the debt, on bridge and dam infrastructure, on healthcare? Ugh, there are easily 10,000 things that come before considering race, ethnicity, religion, or even sexual orientation as political priorities for a straight white male, but of course that is just my opinion.
     
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  19. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    There was never a time from the Constitutional Convention until the Civil War that the writing wasn't clearly on the wall that one way or the other slavery was going to end according to the non-slave states. This 94:6 assertion is fiction. If the south had opposed slavery 94:6 then there would not have been a war over it. 94 men signed up because 6 men controlled the status quo? yeah, sure....
     
  20. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

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    So your basic position is it was too late to sign a piece of paper, but it wasn’t too late to engage in a war killing hundreds of thousands of people in order to accomplish the exact same thing. You can do better than that.

    The first was Priggs V PA in which the SCOTUS declared that “personal freedom” or “personal liberty laws” were unconstitutional and that the north must desist. Which the north blatantly and willfully ignored while continuing to pass and enforce them.

    The second was Dred Scott in which the SCOTUS ruled that it was unconstitutional for the federal government demand as a prerequisite of entry that a territory be nonslaveholding.

    As for the constitution, the north and federal government had ALREADY violated the constitution and refused to cease even after being ordered to do so by the highest judicial authority in the land TWICE. On what planet do you come to the conclusion that the north can violate the constitution at will and with immunity but the south must follow it faithfully in spite of the north violating it?

    I’m glad you asked. Whites are the ONLY group today whom it is legal and government sanctioned to explicitly discriminate against based on nothing more than their race or ethnicity.

    So yes racial discussions are important because the other side has been using them for DECADES in order to screw the white population over in the name of equality. It’s become so explicit that they’re calling for segregation in order to benefit minorities and demanding a whitewashing of history of white topics and cultures which they don’t want our children taught. They’ve vilified our heroes, our founders and the patriots who built this country. If it’s not stopped it will only get worse.
     
  21. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

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    That’s the whole point. The ENTIRE point. They WOULDNT do that. They wouldn’t choose to go to war and defend the 6%’s right to keep their slaves.

    What they would go to war over is the constitution and a tyrannical government attempting to subjugate them by force.
     
  22. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    My basic position is that slavery, throughout human history, is just about the number one scourge of humanity. Slavery was an anathema to the very principles this nation was supposedly founded upon.

    Your proposition that the Corwin Amendment somehow supports your assertion that the Civil War was about defending the Constitution rather than defending the institution of slavery is, as I said, overweighting one exceedingly weak data point. The seven states that had already seceded didn't come running to join back in the Union on February 28th because they were now standing firm to defend against the violation of the Constitution, as well as I suppose to defend against the violation of the principles propounded in the Declaration of Independence? Principles that were made little more than proofs of hypocrisy since compromises were hastily made 1787 to kick the issue of slavery on down the road. Texas had just 5 days prior to the Senate approval of the Corwin Amendment approved secession in a popular vote referendum. By 1860 this was a pressurized steam kettle and the relief valve turned out to be a Civil War. You propose here that a needle valve was all that was required to have relieved this pressure. A valve that was unsuccessfully installed as the main relief valve was stuttering on the verge of popping full off. Sorry, the Corwin Amendment didn't put the genie that the South had brought on board in the first place back in its bottle.

    As you have demonstrated a bit of a tendency to address several of my assertions in our little discussion here with a bit less than statements of relevance, I fully lack any expectation that you'll answer this question: How exactly would a ratified the Corwin Amendment "accomplish the exact same thing" as the war did? That amendment would have made the institution of slavery more constitutional than it had ever been. How would that have been the same as the Civil War amendments?



    Meh. Again, Article 1, Section 10. Two SCOTUS decisions do not give the states recourse to secede and form a Confederacy.


    This answers nothing in the portion of my post you cited. You never cheered Jordan playing for UNC? Seriously? Never watched a game?
     
  23. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    Have had a change of mind


    I reckon I will go ahead and debunk your 94:6 assertion. The following numbers are all from your www2.census.gov link.

    The Confederacy consisted of 11 states. In the June 1860 census for these states there were a total of 3,521,110 slaves. The general population of these states was 9,103,332. The slave population was therefore 38.68% of the Confederacy, but the Civil War wasn't about slavery? The number of slaveholders was 316,632 among the 11 Confederate States. This represented 3.48% of the total census population, including slaves, counted by the census for but one reason to establish how many 3/5s a person to give the slave states more representatives in the House than they had any right to under such circumstances. Let's not consider grandma, or the abolitionist son or little Suzie. Lets return to the census data and see what we can find, eh? Let's look at the percentage of White men of military age shown in table 1860a-02. For the Confederate states there were 1,064,193. Slave holders represent 29.75% of them. Lets look at White men aged 20 to 89, there were 1,276,442 of them. Slaveholders represented 24.81% of them. Let's assume they all had a wife. That doubles the percentage right there. 94:6. Pfffffttt!
     
  24. Marine1

    Marine1 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We need government up to a point. We need them to protect us from attack. For making and enforcing our laws. Building our roads. Etc. We don't need them controlling our lives or taking over our factories. Government wasn't set up to supply our every need, like home and jobs. It was set up to give us the opportunity to be able to get those things for ourselves and to help those not able to help themselves.


    I don't understand the Liberal push on different cultures. Already Hispanics are the second largest group in America and we have this push to bring in millions more. Why is that so important? Why is it important to bring in millions of Middle Eastern Muslims? We know they don't believe in our form of government or our laws. They don't believe in assimilating into our society. They are determined to make their religion the only religion in America.

    I see America caught up in a technology war with the world. Who ever wins, will win the jobs. We need more people that are tech wise. People who have valuable skills that we need to keep us in the running We need more mechanics, plumbers, electricians. We even have to import math teachers, with all the kids we have going to college. Yet what the Democrats want to bring in is more people with little to no education or skills. that will be a drain on our economy instead of building on it. It doesn't make sense to me.
     
  25. SkullKrusher

    SkullKrusher Banned

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    I voted “USA! USA! USA!” , so I guess that means “other”
     

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