Re: Article by Article comparison of the USA and CSA constitutions
But getting to the wrong place can always be an advantage! :laugh4:
Loyalty and Duty are still virtues, and to follow them to the end is a very honorable thing to do. Even more so when you know what you are fighting for is morally wrong. Lee hoped to change the Confederacy after the war, and make slavery a non-existent entity. He valued his homeland above the Federals from the north, those who didn't understand the southern view. They fought for a homeland, the Union fought for unification. Every man in history has fought for his home, despite any misgivings he had about their policy.
Did the Indians fight in the Sepoy Mutiny because they enjoyed killing whites? No, they fought because they were protecting their homeland from the oppresive British. Did they ever stop because they were holding hundreds of British in oppresive jails across India?
In North America, when Iroqouis killed colonist, and colonist killed Iroqouis, they fought for their home, and didn't stop fighting because they were commiting human attrocities. Scalping, rapes, pillaging, yet these frontiersmen are revered as the trail-blazer's of America!
Do you think that the Israeli's are going to halt attacks into Lebanon because of the civilian casualties that are caused by their air-strikes? Unlikely if it were left to them.
The defense of a homeland is a code that is blind to all faults within, for it has only two needs, Loyalty and Duty.
Re: Article by Article comparison of the USA and CSA constitutions
As a citizen of the world I think blind adherence to duty and loyalty above humanity is the refugee of the craven. It is a shallow excuse and was exposed as such at the Nuremburg trials, a war crime is never exonerated because it was an order.
The ends do not justify the means either. In the end of the day duty and loyalty are just a set of bongos those in charge will beat to rally others to fight for their cause. Just because a person chooses to march to that beat does not make his destination anymore virtous. It is both the method and the destination that are important.
Re: Article by Article comparison of the USA and CSA constitutions
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Originally Posted by Papewaio
Maybe Lee & Co should have read the declaration of Independence if they were really fighting for what the country was founded on:
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When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
Slavery is certainly not equality. When the rich search to upsurp the rule of law and justice and then manipulate others to do their bidding it is not a matter of State vs Federal rights its a matter of right vs wrong. A man who puts state rights above human rights should have been stripped of all honours, hanged like a dog and buried in lime for all time.
I'm afraid you are not interpreting the Constitution in its proper historical context here. The framers and founding fathers (a majority of them) saw no contradiction between this passage (which would have been naturally limited to white men) and allowing slavery. Compare this to the fact that the framers and founding fathers saw no contradiction between freedom of speech and blasphemy laws.
Interpreting the Constitution in it's proper historical context becomes very important. For example, I agree with a historical interpretation of the Constitution when it comes to freedom of speech, I simply cannot accept complete free speech. Also, I agree with the historical interpretation of the Second Amendment. People do not have a right to bear arms except to revolt in the case of an oppressive government (as you can see, the historical context of the Second Amendment renders it void in today's context)...
However, I agree with you on the point that slavery is not equality and furthermore, the slavery practiced was (mostly because Strike for the South will call me out) unequal in regards with race... I do not agree with a historical interpretation in this case.
Re: Article by Article comparison of the USA and CSA constitutions
I agree that in its historical context it wasn't seen as a conflict that equality and slavery existed. Nor do I now, as long as all can own slaves and all could be slaves if indentured as an adult. That would be equal. However equally stupid is not something to aspire to, so wisdom should be applied. That and economies tend to be more powerful per capita the more equal access the citizens have.
Important part of my post:
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Lee & Co stepped away from the line of thinking that created the Declaration and did not have the strength of courage and foresight to follow it through.
My point is that the Declaration is a starting point, of why to do things, a Vision statement, and that it is for following generations to follow through on it and flesh it out. The Consitution, being the guidelines of how to do it or Mission statement. But to make it flesh and to live up to its promises it has to be lived and adapt to our modern understanding.
Lee & Co. choose a path that did not take it higher, they choose a path that was not in alignment with the seed nor what the declaration could ultimately grow into. Thankfully the Confederacy failed.
Thankfully other nations also gave women the vote and the US followed.
The good thing about a good starting compass is the path that it can set us upon. The writers may have not known were ulitmately it would lead, but if the premise is good so should be the outcome.
Re: Article by Article comparison of the USA and CSA constitutions
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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Loyalty and Duty are still virtues, and to follow them to the end is a very honorable thing to do. Even more so when you know what you are fighting for is morally wrong. Lee hoped to change the Confederacy after the war, and make slavery a non-existent entity. He valued his homeland above the Federals from the north, those who didn't understand the southern view. They fought for a homeland, the Union fought for unification.
I beg to differ. Loyalty and Duty, without Moral Judgement are hollow and lead to hell. It is the kind of nonsense that created the very worst of war crimes. The moreso when combined with a misplaced patriotism based on an arbritary line on a map.
If General Lee truly hoped to change the Confederacy after the war, then he was naive as well as a traitor. History is littered with such fools, and their names are invariably on the same roll as the butchers and evil-doers - but usually, if their party has won, as a mere footnote in history having failed to accomplish any change and having been gently sidelined or not-so-gently done away with.
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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Every man in history has fought for his home, despite any misgivings he had about their policy.
:inquisitive:
I begin to see where your quixotic views come from if you think that is the case. History is full of men fighting for much, much baser reasons, and they outnumber the noble patriots by several orders of magnitude.
How, for example, do you explain the Gurkhas, Nepalese mercenaries who have fought for the British Crown for many years, are regularised into regiments, and are some of the finest and most honourable warriors of my acquaintance? They certainly don't fight for their home.
Re: Article by Article comparison of the USA and CSA constitutions
The key word is 'mercenaries'. To be paid to fight is different from the fight for home and hearth.
Lee could have changed the Confederacy because he was the saviour of the Confederacy. He had a strong voter block (war-veterans and the populace), and the slave-holding aristocracy was small. If he wanted to, he could have killed all the plantation owners, and freed the slaves.
Are the Spartans ever critizied for their Loyalty to Sparta, and devotion to Duty? They had helots, and not like the south, but nearly twice their population. Yet they are still admired for their last ditch defenses of thier forces!
Re: Article by Article comparison of the USA and CSA constitutions
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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
The key word is 'mercenaries'. To be paid to fight is different from the fight for home and hearth.
But that's not what you wrote initially (my emphasis):
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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Every man in history has fought for his home, despite any misgivings he had about their policy.
And I think you would have found very, very few armies larger than three men and a leprous goat if the soldiers therein didn't get paid to fight. Especially those lovely imperial armies that fought to deprive someone else of their home in the name of greater patriotism - or whatever.
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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Lee could have changed the Confederacy because he was the saviour of the Confederacy. He had a strong voter block (war-veterans and the populace), and the slave-holding aristocracy was small. If he wanted to, he could have killed all the plantation owners, and freed the slaves.
You're kidding me, right? General Lee could have gone around butchering the land-owners? :inquisitive:
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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Are the Spartans ever critizied for their Loyalty to Sparta, and devotion to Duty? They had helots, and not like the south, but nearly twice their population. Yet they are still admired for their last ditch defenses of thier forces!
Actually, yes, they are often criticised. The Athenians started with the criticism and it has hardly let up since. The Spartans were amongst the nastiest military autocracies in history, right up there with other war criminals. Admiring them for their occasional bravery (as brainwashed into them as dying stupidly for 'The Emperor' was to the soldiery of Japan in the last century) does not endorse their evil - considered so even in their own time.
I note again that loyalty and duty without moral judgment creates an inhuman soldier. The defence that 'I was only following orders' has long been disallowed, and rightly so.
Re: Article by Article comparison of the USA and CSA constitutions
When speaking of the Sepoy Mutiny, it wasn't just Gurkhas, but a larger portion of the populance.
Militia's of the early 18th century usually were tens of men, sometimes hundreds, paid usually nothing, yet they killed Iroqouis, Mohican, Mohawk, and any other Native American they found, in defense of their homeland.
If he wanted to, Lee could have, but he probably wouldn't have done so.
I wasn't asking if the Spartans were critizied for their slave holdings, but if their last-stands were ever criticized.
