RIght. Plus, my mind automatically went to trump, so I didn’t even answer their question correctly.
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Look like you brought an AK-47 to a drone fight!
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I don’t know if Lincoln was happy about it, but he ran on the assumption there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. Particularly, the platform of the Republican party at the time assumed the Federal govt had no authority to unilaterally end slavery. The plan was to allow only free states to join the union (instead of the 1:1 ratio that had been maintained), thereby weakening the slave states’s political power. That was the plan that scared the slave states into seceding. After the war, of course, the Constitution was changed to ban slavery explicitly at the Federal level.
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You’re right, just after I posted that I reconsidered and wrote “content to let it continue.” He didn’t like slavery, but he would have tolerated it to avoid a war.
Meaning that eventually a majority of free states would be able to pass a Constitutional Amendment ending slavery nationwide. That was the long game the Republicans were playing and the South saw the writing on the wall, which is why they felt like secession was their only hope of preserving slavery.
Their reasoning wasn’t entirely unsound, just their values.
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Right. It is sedition.
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I’ve always liked the name “Slavers’ Rebellion”.
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That’s new to me!
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The most amazing thing about the republican chickenhawks is that nowhere in King’s little brain is the idea that in a war he might personally have to fight or suffer. Its a unique point in human history that you have so many people who have lived their entire lives with such unwavering privilege that they truly cannot imagine a world where they don’t enjoy it
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I am reminded of this passage from John Brunner’s prescient 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider:
"Figure it this way. You equip the population of a whole continent with unprecedented techniques: access to information, transportation, so much credit nobody need ever be poor again — assuming, that is, that it’s properly shared. Just about at the same time, you admit there’s no point in fighting any more major wars because there’s too much to lose and not enough to win. In Porter’s famous phrase, it’s time for the brain race.
"But you’re in government. Your continuance in power has always depended on the ultimate sanction: ‘if you don’t obey we’ll kill you.’ Maybe you weren’t consciously aware of that basic truth. Maybe it only became clear to you, against your will, when you were obliged to try and work out why things were no longer ticking along as smoothly as they used to. As a result, naturally, of the shift in emphasis from weaponry to individual brilliance as the key national resource.
"But brilliant individuals are cantankerous, unpredictable, fond of having their own way. It seems out of the question to use them as mere tools, mere objects. Almost, you find yourself driven to the conclusion that you’re obsolete. Power of your kind isn’t going to be viable in the modern world.
“And then it dawns on you. There’s another organization exercising immense power which has always been dependent on individuals far more troublesome than those you’re being defeated by. In some cases they’re outright psychopathic.”“And this organization is equally determined to maintain its place in the sun,” Brad supplemented. “It’s equally willing to apply the final sanction to those who disobey.”
…
“There was exactly one power base available to sustain the old style of government,” Nick grunted. “Organized crime.”
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To be fair, folks do keep talking about a civil war. I mean, ring-wing media talk about it all the time, about how the left “want a civil war.” Since no one on the left is saying anything that indicates that, I wonder, beyond projection, what’s making them say that. There’s obviously a whole lot of projection, because there are elaborate reactionary fantasies about it, but I do wonder if they see the left simply existing as a “call to arms.”
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What if, instead of fighting to stay trapped with these fuckers, we just agree to part ways and divvy up the geography?
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There are a great many people in my blue state who will not be cowering in fear, caught unprepared if an angry mob shows up in their town, or at their home. Many of them conservatives themselves.
We need to put the kibosh on civil war talk ASAP. If push comes to shove, it is not going to be a bunch of conservative cowboys showing up and a bunch of liberals surrendering. It is going to be a bloodbath.
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To say nothing of the fact that it is almost inconceivable to imagine how you’d go about blockading a sprawling urban area like, say, Chicago with anything less than a fully mechanized army of hundreds of thousands at a minimum, dedicated to nothing but blockade. It’s just such a stupid wank-fest that ignores even the most basic understanding of what modern warfare looks like and what the demographics of the country actually are.
There’s no scenario in which that wouldn’t result in widespread violence and chaos. For example, what do you do with the city of Atlanta? What about Wisconsin? Miami? Austin? Ohio?
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Try looking up the Soviet blockade of Berlin, also see: Operation Vittles
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When the right wing nutjobs say that the left doesn’t know what bathroom to use, my reply is that they apparently need the government to tell them what bathroom to use.
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Exactly. If the goddamn Red Army couldn’t effectively blockade a city like Berlin, I’m not entirely sure that a militia of doughy dicks with AR-15s are going to be able to do it, even if a part of the military joins them.
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I normally find myself saying “Thanks <Florida, Alabama, New Jersey>” but in this case…THANKS IOWA. Fucking clueless assholes.
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Maybe it is bad that we’ve been giving surplus military equipment to local police forces who have been widely infiltrated by white supremacists.
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We need to deregulate bathrooms!
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The problem with this idea is the same fundamental problem with the “ship ‘em all off to an island somewhere”, with “‘em” being any group that one opposes (homosexuals, Muslims, draft dodgers, etc; and BTW, I am not accusing you of implying this in any way). Within any given grouping of humans, a nation, a city, a family, a church, there are myriad beliefs, perspectives and proclivities. Dividing up the geography would result in millions of people not only being trapped on the wrong side, but generations born into it.
In reality, I see this happening already. The states in which republicans have wrested control are making life more and more hellish for their citizens which leads to a resentment of more liberal states in which people enjoy higher quality of life which, in turn causes them to dig in their heels further.
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