Taking Sides: Union v. Confederates

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a spin off from the flag thread... let us re-fight history! which side are you on? Is it going to be the racist slave owning South, or the the States rights trampling North?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 17:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Gee, let me think...

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 17:24 (twenty-three years ago)

West Virginia.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 17:26 (twenty-three years ago)

DV why on earth do you prefer to have email notification on?

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 17:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Because I like to get the e-mails so I can read the replies in my inbox offline rather than/as well as online. It also means I can directly reply to people whose comments are particularly fascinating/irritating.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 17:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Anyway, the South has pluck, a great national anthem, and better beards. But they are a bunch of slave owning fuckers. ah well.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 17:36 (twenty-three years ago)

so much for that, then ... how about TS: Union Facial Hair vs. Confederate Facial Hair? we should probably leave Burnside out of it, to make it a fair fight.

― rener (rener), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 17:42 (twenty-three years ago)

a friend once came up with the interesting idea that both sides in the war were fighting primarily for EVIL ends. The South seceded because they wanted to protect slavery, an indefensibly evil institution. The North took up arms against the South not to free the slaves but in defence of the somewhat fascistic principle that once you are in the Union you have no right to secede. The slavery thing only became important to the North as the war went on, partly to curry favour with foreign opinion, partly as a rod to beat the Souterners with, partly to destroy the Southern war machine by encouraging the slaves to run away, and partly to mobilise the most progressive elements in the North to rally behind the flag.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:15 (twenty-three years ago)

The North took up arms against the South not to free the slaves but in defence of the somewhat fascistic principle that once you are in the Union you have no right to secede.

Countries have no right to defend their integrity? It is not as though the majority of southerners were necessarily supportive of secession anyhow.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:19 (twenty-three years ago)

no right to secede from the union "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth": it's a defence of democracy, not an attack on it (or at least, always phrased as one)

(hence the paradox referred to above: what if democracies DO have to launch "fascistic" pre-emptive attacks on non-democracies in order to ensure their own survival?)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:23 (twenty-three years ago)

countries which are a self-declared union of states made by men within living memory maybe don't have the same primeval right to defend their integrity (bearing in mind that america's revolutionary war was an attack on the "integrity" of great britain's claim to its colony)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:25 (twenty-three years ago)

States rights? What a funny idea for us. I'll take the north.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:30 (twenty-three years ago)

motives vs. results FITE!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:33 (twenty-three years ago)

(btw the "paradox referred to above" is actually referred to in the "confederate flag" thread...)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:36 (twenty-three years ago)

i can imagine this nautilus shell of increasingly small secessions. in the smallest, innermost chamber, slavery is permitted, but the country is so small there's only room for one slave to stand, and he owns himself. but he's not allowed to trade with anyone

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:38 (twenty-three years ago)

"Southern rope vs Northern dope"?

― dave q, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:39 (twenty-three years ago)

if he owns himself then he is the freest of men < / daft paradox >

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I vote for the Union -- a well-chosen gray is so much more flattering on me than navy blue.
;^}

― j.lu (j.lu), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:16 (twenty-three years ago)

well certain northern abolitionists were content with secession b/c it meant that the union was purged of the curse of slavery.

my ancestors were busy being chased around by cossacks when the civil war was happening, but i should note that the confederacy has all the best movies.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:18 (twenty-three years ago)

West Virginia.

w.va. was in the union eventually, you know. i do see what you're driving at but w.va. was the site of some extremely bloody conflict, neighbor against neighbor, town against town. me i'd take california, just sit out the whole thing.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:20 (twenty-three years ago)

ha, amateurist you gringo imperialist, this ocean belongs to SPAIN and the GLORY OF THE MOTHER OF GOD!!

― mark of zorro (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:24 (twenty-three years ago)

(wait, which side was zorro on again?)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:24 (twenty-three years ago)

oh, stop carping. that was ten years ago. we stole it fair and square.

(zorro was buster keaton's sidekick in the general)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:26 (twenty-three years ago)

(his invisible sidekick)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Not a tough choice. Whatever is said about the greater complexity of motives than the one-note explanation, the South wanted to keep slavery, the North to abolish it. Whatever else was going on, that's utterly decisive.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:43 (twenty-three years ago)

(Yeah, Amateurist, the idea was W. Virginia as a miniaturized version of the whole thing, secession from the secession.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 20:01 (twenty-three years ago)

J.Lu has thoroughly confused me. She chooses the North because she looks worse in their uniform?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 20:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I was about to say! You switched colors there -- but maybe you've come across the only thing good about the CSA. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 20:06 (twenty-three years ago)

anyone else ever been to the reenactments ? my parents dragged me and my brother to see one of the battle of Gettysburg, though it was hard to get a good view of Pickett's Charge.. most of the day was pretty boring so I skipped out on the trip to Antietam.
I'm really curious about how that got started, is there any other country that would reenact its own civil war ? Is it an indication of something still unresolved, or just a bunch of history buffs getting way too much into the act ?

― daria g, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 20:37 (twenty-three years ago)

B-b-but surely Battle Hymn of the Republic is better than Dixieland?

― Curtis Stephens, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 20:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I watched a reenactment one lovely fall day of my childhood and I still have fond memories, whatever the social-cultural meanings of such things.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 20:56 (twenty-three years ago)

The English Civil War gets reenacted here.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 21:10 (twenty-three years ago)

That would be even more fun.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 21:12 (twenty-three years ago)

the Irish civil war gets re-enacted at every election. Oddly, the other side keep winning.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 21:27 (twenty-three years ago)

So would the problem with Irish civil war re-enactments be the uniforms consisted for the most part of dirty raincoats or that it really IS unresolved and would end up with major batterings?

― tigerclawskank, Wednesday, 8 January 2003 12:47 (twenty-three years ago)

it's nearly all skirmish warfare, therefore hard & boring to re-enact.

it might be a laugh to re-enact the bombardment of the Four Courts.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 13:48 (twenty-three years ago)

i said it once and i'll say it again.

don't get me started, i have to work with them both.

― g-kit (g-kit), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 14:12 (twenty-three years ago)

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