And yet they fought a war with the express stated purpose of preserving the practice. So I guess that makes the cause both monstrous AND idiotic?
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As I said, I think the war wasn’t to keep slavery, but rather, to define what system was going to come after slavery. The south wanted Jim Crow, share cropping and so on to be their Slavery 2.0, and the North had a contradictory set of ideas, one of which was freedom for blacks, and the other “colonization”, which meant repatriation. The South couldn’t tolerate blacks being free and equal, and also didn’t want their cheap ag labor to leave, so both the north’s post-slavery ideas were non-starters for the south. Neither side had our modern liberal goal, which is freedom, equality for everyone, and (hopefully) fair outcomes for everyone
That is seventeen kinds of bullshit, because the Confederate Constitution doesn’t even allow for the possibility of a South without slavery. Any state or territory that joined the Confederacy had to pinky swear to uphold slavery forever and ever.
You’re inventing motivations for the Confederacy based on what you think rational people would do instead of looking to their own words and actions. They weren’t shy about explaining why they wanted to leave the Union or what kind of society they wanted to have afterward. When someone says “we’re fighting a war to preserve slavery!” there’s really no need to assume that’s just a cover for a secret, noble motive.
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I never said there was anything noble about the south’s motives. There absolutely was not. Slavery 2.0 was just a variation, or a cover, on the same old evil system which should never have been allowed in the first place. In fact when I look at Wiki’s page on the date at which slavery ended around the world, I see a clear correlation that the longer a country had it, the more poor and unhappy it is today. The happiest places in the world are in north-western Europe which never had slavery after Roman times, and the worst places in the world are like Niger and Yemen which kept slavery until recently (perhaps still have it). The South was wrong to have slavery, was wrong to defend it, and was wrong to replace it with Slavery 2.0.
And wrong to continue pushing the revisionist myth that the Confederacy didn’t fight a war to preserve it.
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They still benefited directly from slavery. While there were slaves, they were fully insulated from being the lowest rung on the socioeconomic ladder.
(jump to 3:20 if 5:50 is too much of your precious time)
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He’s not dumbfounded by the question. He’s dumbfounded because the implications of his own answer to the previous question have been made plain to him, possibly for the first time.
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That is what I meant by “dumbbfounded by the question”, because the question would be the proximate cause of his becoming aware of (aka being dumbfounded by) the implications to his answer for “what is tyranny?”—but again, it’s ambiguous as to whether he has suddenly become aware (if he is actually dumbfounded by the implications), or if he is opening his mouth to continue arguing, because the video cuts off too quickly for it to be obvious (to me, at least, but I tend to be skeptical).
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It’s awesome to hear stories about good teachers. I’m kind of torn though really. I feel like what needs to be taught isn’t that slavery was the reason for the war, but rather the idea that black people were equal to white people. Most of the people who fought for the south had no slaves and weren’t fighting to keep them. They were fighting to defend the idea that the white man is naturally superior to the black man. Slavery was just the most visible expression of that ideology.
I think if we taught that as the true and clearly stated reason for the south and its army of traitors going to war against the United States, we might produce a generation or two of children who are aware of the real cause of the war and why its end changed little in the hearts and minds of most southerners and why the abolition of slavery did little to end the underlying problem which caused so many deaths and why the idea of racial supremacy is so very dangerous.
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Well Lincoln and Karl Marx were penpals. If not for Fort Sumpter being attacked, it could have well gone that way
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Name one country which celebrates the losing side of an armed insurrection?
The whole Gone with the Wind bullshit of our culture glamorizing the Confederacy (and implicitly slavery and all its depredations) is done gone. Scarlet O’Hara took a bullet between the eyes from Django. There is no way our culture is going to glorify that white supremacist garbage anymore.
The last film to depict Southern forces in a mildly sympathetic way was Ride with the Devil from 1999 and even then that film depicted the guerrilla warfare in the west, a side conflict which is rarely discussed.
One thing that is distinctly noticeable about depictions of the Antibellum South and Confederacy these days is the implicit fact that slavers raped their slaves as a matter of course. Something which would have given Margret Mitchell “the vapors” (she was vehement that no sequel to her work feature miscegenation forced or consensual). It even got referenced in superhero fantasy Legends of Tomorrow when the story took place in the Civil war.
Say what you want about Quentin Tarantino, but Django Unchained definitely destroyed any chance of unironic “lost cause” depictions of the Slaveholding South going forward.
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The problem we’re seeing is that apologists for the Confederacy are using other factors, all of which are tied to slavery and racism, to distract from the fact that slavery and racism were the core source of the conflict.
It’s a common denialist tactic also used by so-called “revisionist” historians of the WWII period, and is always deployed in the interest of not moving the discussion forward (see the work of Deborah Lipstadt for analysis and details).
tldr; anyone going out of his way to deny or distract from an established and well-documented and well-supported truth on a matter is not interested in a good-faith discussion.
Similar in some respects to “why do working-class whites keep voting for the GOP and against their own economic self-interest?” Since 1968 a lot of that boils down to racism as well.
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Well, shit. I tried to make a case that it’s more effective to confront people while being aware of their background (and associated prejudices), and I get slammed for not respecting the dogma.
Fine. Enjoy your tic-tac-toe games with these people.
I’m not slamming you. I’m pointing out that, background and associated prejudices aside, these people are (by the very nature of their denialist argument) arguing in bad faith.
Oh, I’m not bothering engaging with them directly. I save my discussions about history for educated people who want to discuss real controversies in good faith.
I do appreciate those who are responding to them with facts and logic; it won’t convince the denialists but it shows others how flimsy and intellectually dishonest their arguments are.
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If a confederate supporter stilk continues to support the confederacy after being educamated to, then they’re a morally repugnant person.
If a confederate cannot accept the fact that the CSA started a war to prserve chattel slavery and uphold white sumpremacy, I verra much doubt the existence of said confederate’s moral justice.
I used to be a right wing cultist. But I got better.
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I’ve typed it before: I’m not the one you need to convince. My post was about dealing with otherwise intelligent but misinformed southerners on a subject where they have a serious chip on their shoulder.
Clearly, Hallinan isn’t one of these people. My experience is that the people I’m talking about immediately assume you’re equating them with nose-pickers like Hallinan when you confront them about what they “know to be true”. They just stop listening and you end up talking to yourself. It’s a waste of time. So why bother?
Why bother. Hmm. Kind of like trying to persuade people on boingboing.
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Then their problem is with Hallinan and only secondarily with those of us in “the reality-based community.” They need to get their own intellectually dishonest house in order before they complain about others pointing out the flaws made obvious by the morons on their side.
Also, intelligent people can and do argue in bad faith, and to call people who repeatedly insist that the Civil War was not primarily and pervasively about slavery “misinformed” is to soft-pedal the problem.
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They’re not misinformed, but rather, still actively complicit with and participating in actively abusing peopleof colour. From redlining to “tough on [black] crime” to “[removing help for non-white] welfare reform” to “voting reform [make it hard for non-whites]”, at every turn the “poor misinformed confederate descendants” have openly displayed their contempt for the life and health of those of us who do not look like them.
It is no coincidence Nazis marched in confederate regalia.
The Misinformed Whites are more dangerous than the KKK. The KKK will tell you why they lynched you. The misinformed white moderate will deny that they’re harming you,evwn as they actively work to rob of home, food, and rainment.
mlk_letters_from_birmjngham.png
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I’ve added emphasis to your statement here to point out where the cynical incorrect part of the narrative is. As has been pointed out, the south started the actual war by attacking Fort Sumter.
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To quote from earlier in this thread:
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