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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I don't disagree with the conclusion but I'm not sure that argument about the Fugitive Slave Act holds up from a legal standpoint. The Constitution explicit gives Congress the power to regulate "commerce" between states. States rights doesn't apply when it comes to powers explicitly granted to the federal government.
Today we wouldn't dare call the slave trade a matter of commerce but if you asked a lawyer of the 1850s...
edited 25th Nov '16 7:08:22 AM by Elle
"The South had re-established aristocracy within the ranks of their society."
I'd like to point out that the reason this happened was because the large slave driven plantation owners held a monopoly on wealth in the South. There was no need to diversify with industry or financial institutional growth that didn't rely on slave power and thus threaten the class system. So again, we're brought back to slavery as the root cause.
People get too bogged down in the symptoms of these things. You can argue forever about how southerns are factually wrong to be proud of the confederate flag for non-racist reasons, and you wouldn't be wrong, but you wouldn't make any progress, either. And even as a southerner, I'm going to go ahead and say, yeah, it's mostly our own darn fault. I'm from South Carolina, and every time there's a news headline about my state, I cringe, because I know it's going to be a bad one. If people can't feel proud about being good, they'll feel proud about being bad and tell you it's good, using any justification they need to make up. Attacking the justifications individually is usually senseless, it's the 'onion' phenomenon Krugman speaks of on his blog. Because you're not arguing against facts, you're arguing against a feeling. People don't want to FEEL bad about who they are and where they live.
But the left often does unintentionally feed into that 'circle the cultural wagons' tendency by mocking the perceived Republican demographic over petty differences instead of treating them as equals. That's a tribal divide that doesn't have to be there. IMO, if not for decades of constant reinforcement by garbage peddlers like Fox News, it probably would have naturally atrophied to an almost non-entity by now.
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.Wait, why would Romney have to apologize publicly, but not Nikki Haley, who is now going to be the US's Ambassador to the UN? She was just as critical of Trump as Romney, and she had even more power when she was criticizing Trump...
If it's true, then I'm reminded of The Crucible. I just hope that Mitt Romney is John Proctor and refuses to defile his Values. even at the cost of his Political Future.
Probably because Romney actually holds enough potential influence to help lead an internal rebellion or otherwise act as a counter to the faction of Republicans willing to lick Trump's... let's say boots... in exchange for a few years of ultimate power. People like him and Mc Cain are going to get nailed down visibly and hard, lest they make common ground with the more pragmatic Democrats and stymie the Great Work of MAGA.
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.Thomas Jefferson, welcome home!
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.@NC in all likelihood I think Mc Crory is gonna steal it. He's down by a few thousand votes but it's probably gonna get sent to the assembly for a vote, which from what I hear from my local politicians is heavily skewed towards favoring him regardless of the actual outcome of the election. In anticipation of this his ilk are spreading lies of "Georgia blacks and illegal mexicans" being bused in to supposedly cast the deciding votes for his opponent.
edited 25th Nov '16 8:30:15 AM by carbon-mantis
I've often heard that nobody is easier to con than a mark who thinks himself too smart to be fooled.
That's why Trump had American eating out of the palm of their hand. That exact arrogance is at the center of every claim that it can't happen here.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Guys, I'm to impersonate JFK soon. What advice do you have? What documentation should I look into? Is the film JFK any good?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Also, the South was plenty happy to trample all over the "states' rights" of the North when they tried to invoke "states' rights" to outlaw slavery in their borders, to which the South said "no, Fugitive Slave Act". Part of why they seceded was because they were afraid of demographic changes taking away their ability to quash other states' rights... and seen as inevitably leading to the abolition of slavery.
Pretty much every cause of the Civil War ties into slavery at some point or another.
edited 25th Nov '16 6:54:53 AM by Balmung