I'm really enjoying this debate, if I'm insulting you at any time just let me know because I wouldnt want to do that...: : Flags and embloms the same the world over.
: True. I talked with a friend of mine who is from Texas and a southerner at heart and I asked him about the confederate flag issue. His sentiments were that it was not a symbol of racism but a symbol of southern freedom.
I kinda know that, I try to understand it too, I friend of mine who's been to America on Church exchange trips has a large Confederate Flag in his room and he said the same when I bounced him about the Flag issue.
:You see, the civil war was not started over slavery issues, it was started because the south felt that they had no say in congress or in the political process of the country.
I'm not so sure about that, it would be difficult to generalise about the reasons for a confederate soldier fighting in the confederate army, personally I understand the conflict of identity and loyalty for someone in a federal arrangement, I mean would be first loyal to Ireland or the European Union, and then if your an intellectual you may wish to consider the whether Confederal government is preferable to federal government. However that said from the history books I've read the popular sentiment of the grass roots and footsoldiers in the creation of the confederacy and secession from the union movement was a meld of religious sentiment, racialism and libertarian Capitalism (the interference of the Federal Government in slavery was for a lot of people an interference in the right to property).
I think the end if I had no choice I'd have fought on the Yankee side, I think Theoreou's defense of John Brown's attempted insurrection in Civil Disobediance would sway me to the Yankee side but that said I am not really considering it in the historucal context if I'd known slavery all my life and naturally believed black people where property I might feel differently, socialisation is a poor defense but it is one.
:For instance, the Northern congressman were able to outvote the southern ones and establish what was known as the Tariff of Abominations, as well as Northern states were willfully going against federal laws and the South had no recourse. The straw that broke the cammals back was when Abraham Lincoln was voted president, despite that fact that his name was not even on any of the ballots in the south. He had even stated in his inaugural speech that he had absolutely no intention of abolishing slavery in any of the states.
Democracy was a little useless back then right enough and I am aware of Lincoln's positions I dont know why everyone is that happy for him, sure he saved the union but he wasnt a great liberator of slaves or anything.
:The south seceded because they felt their states rights had been ignored. It was only later on in the war when the North was considering letting the South go that Lincoln decided to issue the emancipation proclamation and free all blacks in the southern states that had seceded (note: slaves were not freed in the border states that had remained loyal)to add a sense of moral purpose to the war and make it something more grand that just a politically motivated civil war.
Well, I might disagree to the extent that I've already described but I understand that neither side let black folk fight and only permitted it in the end as a means to bolster moral or create a ready supply of cannon fodder.
: I think marriage is about more than procreation. Marriage is about dedicating yourself to someone else you love and swearing to remain faithful to them. Procreation is just one part of marriage. Besides, a gay couple could always adopt. Or, in the case of lesbians, they could use artificial insemination.
Perhaps that is right but then there is nothing really to differentiate a family from an association or a friendship, the benefit fraud would be off the scale too.
