The Official WTF Thread

[Indu WangZi]

does piece of art actually mean piece of [expletive]?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Nah, I've never been down that way. It never fails to amaze me just how desperately some people in the South cling to certain ideas.

Sorry for the thread derail...

If you go to Franklin TN, just south of Nashville, there is a memorial park on the south side of town on a hillside where the CSA Army of Tennessee grouped before advancing during the Battle of Franklin in November 1864. That battle ended up destroying the AofT as an effective force. It was their last gasp if you will. 14 CSA Generals and 55 regimental commanders were casualties with their troops in repeated, desperate assaults on the well-entrenched Union positions in the town. You can stand on that hillside and imagine the slaughter as you look down on the town from there.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans have turned that hillside park into a shrine with memorials to the fallen commanders and various other plaques, posters, and Confederate flags honoring their courage and sacrifice.

My thought coming away was "My God, what a waste. All of that sacrifice to perpetuate the enslavement of other human beings." It was very depressing.

We moved to north Alabama a year and a half ago and while we were looking at houses it was not uncommon in some homes to have a room dedicated to CSA memorabilia honoring, I am sure, lost relatives if not the cause they fought for. Unlike families like mine from the north, these folks inherit the knowledge of what it is like to have a war fought in their towns and villages and the great sacrifices their ancestors made in lives and homes destroyed.

On one hand, I can't begrudge them their memories of men cut down fighting with courage to defend their homes. But the system they fought to perpetuate? That I will never understand. What a waste. It depresses and angers me if I think about it too much.

[thrill]

To be fair, the Civil War was less about slavery and more about the roles of Federal and State government.

[lukethedrifter]

To be fair, the Civil War was less about slavery and more about the roles of Federal and State government.

I don't think you can say that with any sort of confidence.

[Hungary Jack]

Here we go again...

[Joe Shlabotnik]

To be fair, the Civil War was less about slavery and more about the roles of Federal and State government.

Vice President of the new Confederacy Alexander Stevens talking about the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence just before the outbreak of hostilities in 1861:

Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the ’storm came and the wind blew.’ Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth...

The new [Confederate] constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.

[Hungary Jack]

This is the WTF Thread.

Is is not the thread for revisionist historians and intellectual dick-measuring. Start a new thread if you must.

[thrill]

To be fair, the Civil War was less about slavery and more about the roles of Federal and State government.

I don't think you can say that with any sort of confidence.

Of course I can based on popular historic notions.

The conflict between the North and South didn't begin in the lead up to the Civil War, it began in the early days of the country, specifically due to Hamiltonian economic policy. Hamilton used his position as the first Secretary of the Treasury to set in motion a series of bills designed to increase the power of the federal government and diminish State power. His initiatives with the national banking system rewarded commerce, trade and manufacturing while agriculture and small scale family based businesses suffered. The South, being fiercely State oriented, fearful of big government having just freed themselves of English rule and primarily agricultural, was vehemently opposed to Hamilton’s agenda. The North, being more industrial and conservative politically, was for his agenda. This diversion of culture between the North and the South continued up to the Civil War and to a certain extent, still exists today. Even now, the North is still much more industrial than the South which is still much more agricultural. The divergent views on slavery were evident culturally, but most importantly it was evident commercially. Large farms relied on scores of slaves to produce huge amounts of crops with very little overhead. Small farms relied on fewer slaves to be able to scratch out a living for their families, but they were still essential. Since the North wasn’t reliant on agriculture for commerce, they were able to view slavery through the eye of morality and human rights. They weren’t reliant on slavery so they had the luxury of not needing it so the abolition of slavery in the North in the early 1800's and on had little if nothing to do with racial equality.

To be fair, the Civil War was less about slavery and more about the roles of Federal and State government.

Vice President of the new Confederacy Alexander Stevens talking about the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence just before the outbreak of hostilities in 1861:

Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the ’storm came and the wind blew.’ Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth...

The new [Confederate] constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.

The Union, specifically Abraham Lincoln, didn't believe in the equality of races either, but he did believe slaves were human and entitled to basic human rights. To the South the issue of slavery was one of state power, not human rights. The south no problem with Northern states banning slavery, they didn't want the federal government banning it in their states. Besides, war was declared by the South over two years before the Emancipation Proclamation. If the war was started over slavery, why would they do it long before their rights were taken from them? Because slavery was just one example of their grievances with Federal power.

[sighyoung]

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 3,,0,-2.98


It's a real piece of art.

It's nice that they could recycle a merry-go-round horse and a pirate sculpture.

[lukethedrifter]

This is the WTF Thread.

Is is not the thread for revisionist historians and intellectual dick-measuring. Start a new thread if you must.

Well, since your comment is totally WTF, props for the rerail.

Of course you're correct that this discussion belongs in a different thread.