Re: OT: Re: MOST (was Re: Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
From: John Schilling (schillin_at_spock.usc.edu)
Date: 07/29/04
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Date: 29 Jul 2004 16:33:04 -0700
geoffrey.landis@sff.net (Geoffrey A. Landis) writes:
>Henry Spencer said
>> >> Just which side stood for tyranny and which stood for freedom can
>> >> depend quite a bit on who writes the history books.
>Geoffrey A. Landis <geoffrey_dot_landis@nasa.gov> retorted
>> >No, it doesn't.
>> >Slavery stands for tyranny
>> >Freedom stands for freedom.
>> >I'm not sure how that is difficult to understand. I'm sure that if the
>> >slave states wrote the history books that they would indeed define
>> >"slavery" as meaning freedom, but nevertheless, it doesn't/
>schillin@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling) disagreed:.
>> And if the Civil War had involved one side fighting for Slavery and one
>> side fighting for Freedom, it would be easy to figure out who the tyrants
>> were. But it didn't.
>> The South was indeed mostly fighting to preserve Slavery, more or less, for
>> some of its population. That's undeniable, and it's not good.
>>
>> If you claim that the North went to war as part of a great moral crusade to
>> abolish slavery, well, the only words I can find to express my disdain for
>> such amazing cluelessness are unsuited for this forum.
>My ancestors went to war singing
>"As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, His Truth
>goes marching on."
Not as they went marching into Virginia in 1861, they didn't. That song
hadn't been written yet.
And if they were a bit further west, in Missouri, they would have been
fighting under General John C. Fremont. Who did indeed free all the
slaves in Missouri, right at the start. And who was countermanded by
Abraham Linconl. The "Great Emancipator", with one stroke of his
executive pen, sent eighty five thousand free Negros back *into*
chattel slavery, in the name of political expediency.
*Later*, when the Union was having trouble drumming up support for
their war, they came up with the Emancipation Proclamation and the
Battle Hymn of the Republic and all that.
>I don't know what lyrics your ancestors might have been singing.
In that era, probably "Heil Dir im Siegerkranz. Herrscher das
Vaterlands. Heil Kaisir, dir". The Schillings of the 1860s were
big on German Unification.
Sorry about that; it seemed a good idea at the time.
>If you would like to talk about amazing cluelessness, I have a great
>deal of disdain for the cluelessness of people who seem to believe
>that the southern states separated as an expression of state's rights,
>and somehow this indicated they were on the side of freedom. Any
>words I could find to express my disdain for this opinion are unsuited
>for this forum. The freedom they were interested in was the freedom
>to own slaves.
Which would probably be why I said, "The South was indeed mostly fighting
to preserve Slavery". Try to keep up.
Though if we're going to use marching songs as evidence, maybe I *will*
take up the "slavery had nothing to do with it" argument. After all,
the lyrics to "Dixie" are big on regional pride and mention slavery not
at all. Likewise the plain and simple statements of so many Confederate
leaders and soldiers.
But marching songs *are* propaganda, and my argument was *not* that the
Confederates were the Good Guys.
>The Confederate states were built on an essential core values of evil.
>Every now and then, the good guys win, and in these cases, I cheer
>them on.
My argument was that the Union was the Other Set of Bad Guys. That war,
which your ancestors may have enthusiastically participated in while mine
had nothing to do with, came about because *both* sides were itching for
a fight, and *neither* of them gave a damn, except insofar as they could
get some good propaganda out of it, for the rights or well-being of the
Negro population of the southern states.
Some incidental good came out of the Union victory, at far too great a
cost. Some incidental good would have come from a Confederate victory,
also at far too great a cost, and some good would have come from the
secession being accomplished and accepted without bloodshed. Which
of these possible outcomes of the war between the Bad Guys and the
Other Bad Guys would have involved the most incidental good, the least
damage to the cause of freedom, is debatable. I've said I cast my vote
for Union victory in battle, but I'm not happy about it.
-- *John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, * *Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" * *Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition * *White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute * *schillin@spock.usc.edu * for success" * *661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
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