Americans killed in a single day: Al-Qaeda vs Confederacy

kevin said:
So your point of view basically boils down to who has the bigger guns? If you can kill more of their people than they kill of yours then you have the right to secede?


Might makes right, my friend. It's why the Right Wingers love their guns so much- it keeps them from needing actual points or having to argue intelligently.

WTF r u talking about?
 
The founders knew they were committing treason. They were loyal subjects of the Crown trying to determine the limits of self government. They tried this all within the confines of staying as far away from treason as they could. They often met in secrecy. Of course we say they fought for their freedom. But the fight was a treasonous act from the British perspective. . American Revolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The basic premise only holds if one wins. To the victor goes the spoils. The British signed a deal and gave property to the new USA. A legal recognition that is was somehow theirs.



The American Civil War was lost by the rebel traitors. They were granted and they accepted, pardons and amnesty, a recognition of political crimes.

The idea that states could secede without the approval of all or the majority of the states that formed the Union was never supported in signed documents as far as I know. [note]: I have been shown otherwise: "The United States Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional while commenting that revolution or consent of the states could lead to a successful secession."

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now we do have this stuff: U.S. Constitution and this: Secession in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So your point of view basically boils down to who has the bigger guns? If you can kill more of their people than they kill of yours then you have the right to secede?
"So your point of view basically boils down to who has the bigger guns?"

In winning a war, yes, but that is not what the thread is about.


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If you can kill more of their people than they kill of yours then you have the right to secede?

I never said that.

I linked to what the Supreme Court has ruled, and I linked to other things. You are entitled to opinions and interpretations, but you are not entitled to putting words into my mouth or being able to easily taking things off topic with side arguments that avoid the basic premise of the OP.

The President granted a general amnesty. Why? For what? The South accepted the amnesty. Ideals and intellectual arguments are a poor substitute for the facts of living in the real world, where arguments are often treated as what they are -- words, just words.

The Confederacy was made up of internal enemies of the United States. They took up arms against the United States. That is treason. The colonists took up arms against the Crown. That was also at the time a treasonous act.


context is everything

An American flying a colonial rebel flag in Britain, is not the same as an American flying the Confederate flag in America. The British acknowledged the independence of the Americans. Americans are not British citizens. The American flag is not hostile to Britain. The British recognized the right of American independence. We ceased being enemies. But the act of independence transcended being traitorous because Britain agreed with the independence.

What if an American wants to fly the NAZI flag? To me it is similar to an American flying a rebel flag. The Nazis and the Confederacy were enemies of the USA. Onje within, the other outside. Their symbols represent hostility towards the permanent union that created the USA. America never recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate independent government and the flag of the Confederacy remains a hostile symbol.

So then is it your position that one can only be a traitor if one loses one's war for independence? Would the Confederates be traitors had they somehow won the Civil War?

And that's not putting words in your mouth. That's asking a question.
 
So your point of view basically boils down to who has the bigger guns? If you can kill more of their people than they kill of yours then you have the right to secede?
"So your point of view basically boils down to who has the bigger guns?"

In winning a war, yes, but that is not what the thread is about.


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If you can kill more of their people than they kill of yours then you have the right to secede?

I never said that.

I linked to what the Supreme Court has ruled, and I linked to other things. You are entitled to opinions and interpretations, but you are not entitled to putting words into my mouth or being able to easily taking things off topic with side arguments that avoid the basic premise of the OP.

The President granted a general amnesty. Why? For what? The South accepted the amnesty. Ideals and intellectual arguments are a poor substitute for the facts of living in the real world, where arguments are often treated as what they are -- words, just words.

The Confederacy was made up of internal enemies of the United States. They took up arms against the United States. That is treason. The colonists took up arms against the Crown. That was also at the time a treasonous act.


context is everything

An American flying a colonial rebel flag in Britain, is not the same as an American flying the Confederate flag in America. The British acknowledged the independence of the Americans. Americans are not British citizens. The American flag is not hostile to Britain. The British recognized the right of American independence. We ceased being enemies. But the act of independence transcended being traitorous because Britain agreed with the independence.

What if an American wants to fly the NAZI flag? To me it is similar to an American flying a rebel flag. The Nazis and the Confederacy were enemies of the USA. Onje within, the other outside. Their symbols represent hostility towards the permanent union that created the USA. America never recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate independent government and the flag of the Confederacy remains a hostile symbol.

So then is it your position that one can only be a traitor if one loses one's war for independence? Would the Confederates be traitors had they somehow won the Civil War?

And that's not putting words in your mouth. That's asking a question.
If the Confederates won they would be independent. Then we would not have had to grant them amnesty. We would have most likely acknowledged their independence and they would have ceased being an enemy. Amnesty was granted for the political crime of treason, no?

But I said before, treason is treason. How treason is dealt with is determined by who wins the fight. Benedict Arnold committed treason just as the Confederate Soldiers did. The Confederate soldiers took up arms against the government of the United States and they lost.

I see those statues and forts and I see the enemy within. Brothers who betrayed a cause.

note: SCOTUS and a successful secession.
 
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I linked to what the Supreme Court has ruled
An unconstitutional ruling. SCOTUS can't overrule the letter of the Constitution.


Of course the Fed says the Fed alone can determine the limits of the Fed's power and that the Fed is all-powerful.

The United States Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional while commenting that revolution or consent of the states could lead to a successful secession.
-the wikipedia link
 

The United States Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional


The Constitution says otherwise.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.


That includes the power to sever ties with other member States and the Union.


They have that power until an amendment is passed saying otherwise.


SCOTUS doesn't get to discard the Constitution, as much as they try.
 
"So your point of view basically boils down to who has the bigger guns?"

In winning a war, yes, but that is not what the thread is about.


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If you can kill more of their people than they kill of yours then you have the right to secede?

I never said that.

I linked to what the Supreme Court has ruled, and I linked to other things. You are entitled to opinions and interpretations, but you are not entitled to putting words into my mouth or being able to easily taking things off topic with side arguments that avoid the basic premise of the OP.

The President granted a general amnesty. Why? For what? The South accepted the amnesty. Ideals and intellectual arguments are a poor substitute for the facts of living in the real world, where arguments are often treated as what they are -- words, just words.

The Confederacy was made up of internal enemies of the United States. They took up arms against the United States. That is treason. The colonists took up arms against the Crown. That was also at the time a treasonous act.


context is everything

An American flying a colonial rebel flag in Britain, is not the same as an American flying the Confederate flag in America. The British acknowledged the independence of the Americans. Americans are not British citizens. The American flag is not hostile to Britain. The British recognized the right of American independence. We ceased being enemies. But the act of independence transcended being traitorous because Britain agreed with the independence.

What if an American wants to fly the NAZI flag? To me it is similar to an American flying a rebel flag. The Nazis and the Confederacy were enemies of the USA. Onje within, the other outside. Their symbols represent hostility towards the permanent union that created the USA. America never recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate independent government and the flag of the Confederacy remains a hostile symbol.

So then is it your position that one can only be a traitor if one loses one's war for independence? Would the Confederates be traitors had they somehow won the Civil War?

And that's not putting words in your mouth. That's asking a question.
If the Confederates won they would be independent. Then we would not have had to grant them amnesty. We would have most likely acknowledged their independence and they would have ceased being an enemy. Amnesty was granted for the political crime of treason, no?

But I said before, treason is treason. How treason is dealt with is determined by who wins the fight. Benedict Arnold committed treason just as the Confederate Soldiers did. The Confederate soldiers took up arms against the government of the United States and they lost.

I see those statues and forts and I see the enemy within. Brothers who betrayed a cause.

note: SCOTUS and a successful secession.

I see.
 

The United States Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional


The Constitution says otherwise.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.


That includes the power to sever ties with other member States and the Union.


They have that power until an amendment is passed saying otherwise.


SCOTUS doesn't get to discard the Constitution, as much as they try.

The law of the land says you are stupid. We fought a civil war over this and the courts have ruled on what is constitutional.
 

The United States Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional


The Constitution says otherwise.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
That includes the power to sever ties with other member States and the Union.


They have that power until an amendment is passed saying otherwise.


SCOTUS doesn't get to discard the Constitution, as much as they try.

The law of the land says you are stupid. We fought a civil war over this and the courts have ruled on what is constitutional.

The words of the Constitution overrule the political rulings of the presidents' lackeys.

Read Woods' 33 Questions
 
The Constitution says otherwise.


That includes the power to sever ties with other member States and the Union.


They have that power until an amendment is passed saying otherwise.


SCOTUS doesn't get to discard the Constitution, as much as they try.

The law of the land says you are stupid. We fought a civil war over this and the courts have ruled on what is constitutional.

The words of the Constitution overrule the political rulings of the presidents' lackeys.

Read Woods' 33 Questions

I'm sorry, I thought the Constitution granted the power to rule constitutionality with the court. The Supreme Court in the American System of Government

"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States..."
 

Principles and aspirations often clash with the real world.

You never addressed the point of amnesty. Why did the President grant amnesty?

It doesn't matter why the President granted amnesty. What matters is the principle itself. If we accept, as the founders did, that the right to self-government is a natural right, or a god-given right if you're a religious person, then it doesn't matter what a king, president, prime minister, chief of police, or anyone else says. Our nation was founded on the belief in the natural, or god-given, right to self-government.

My point, all along, has been that it's hypocritical that our government, which was formed under the idea of a natural right to self-government, denied that natural right when a group of states wanted to break away from us. Now, you can say that treason is in the eye of the beholder, and you'd be right because we can all have our own idea about what constitutes treason, but you can hardly deny that the principle of self-government was denied to the Confederacy by the U.S. government under Abraham Lincoln.

If you accept the natural right to self-government, then you have no reason to brand the Confederates traitors. If you don't accept the natural right to self-government then I'd say you have to brand the Colonists as traitors. To say that the Colonists weren't traitors, but that the Confederates were, is gross hypocrisy in my opinion.
 
Kevin, Kevin, you idiots lost the bloody war. This is one nation, and shall remain so. It cost the blood of 600,000 to establish that, and the fact that all men are equal. The whole basis of the Confederacy's rebellion was immoral. Justice prevailed, and a much better nation was hammered out on the forge of the Civil War.
 
The law of the land says you are stupid. We fought a civil war over this and the courts have ruled on what is constitutional.

The words of the Constitution overrule the political rulings of the presidents' lackeys.

Read Woods' 33 Questions

I'm sorry, I thought the Constitution granted the power to rule constitutionality with the court. The Supreme Court in the American System of Government

"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States..."


Woods addresses that in 33 Questions.
 
Kevin, Kevin, you idiots lost the bloody war. This is one nation, and shall remain so. It cost the blood of 600,000 to establish that, and the fact that all men are equal. The whole basis of the Confederacy's rebellion was immoral. Justice prevailed, and a much better nation was hammered out on the forge of the Civil War.


bull-fucking-shit.

The North didn't free its own slaves, didn't start the war over slavery, and did nothing to makes blacks equal 'til what, the 1960s?

The Union fought no war over slavery and human rights. If they had, you might have an argument. But they didn't.
 

Principles and aspirations often clash with the real world.

You never addressed the point of amnesty. Why did the President grant amnesty?

It doesn't matter why the President granted amnesty. What matters is the principle itself. If we accept, as the founders did, that the right to self-government is a natural right, or a god-given right if you're a religious person, then it doesn't matter what a king, president, prime minister, chief of police, or anyone else says. Our nation was founded on the belief in the natural, or god-given, right to self-government.

My point, all along, has been that it's hypocritical that our government, which was formed under the idea of a natural right to self-government, denied that natural right when a group of states wanted to break away from us. Now, you can say that treason is in the eye of the beholder, and you'd be right because we can all have our own idea about what constitutes treason, but you can hardly deny that the principle of self-government was denied to the Confederacy by the U.S. government under Abraham Lincoln.

If you accept the natural right to self-government, then you have no reason to brand the Confederates traitors. If you don't accept the natural right to self-government then I'd say you have to brand the Colonists as traitors. To say that the Colonists weren't traitors, but that the Confederates were, is gross hypocrisy in my opinion.
I hear this very clear ["It doesn't matter why the President granted amnesty. What matters is...if you're a religious person...Our nation was founded on the belief in the natural, or god-given, right to self-government."] and I weep for you.


Things can often seem to be hypocritical in the absence of nuance and context. (I think you are misusing the term 'hypocritical' here)
I like this definition:
Hypocrisy 1 : a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion


There was nothing feigned when an amnesty was granted to the Confederate traitors. The principles on what the United States was founded were not betrayed -- by the Union.


We do NOT get to have our own ideas over what treason means. Treason has a specific meaning. Some treasonous acts can be heroic, while others are cowardly. Some treasonous acts can be principled and yet others can transcend the meanings. We cannot in your words 'all have our own idea about what constitutes treason' as what legally constitutes treason is laid out in the US Constitution...

Treason: This word imports a betraying, treachery, or breach of allegiance.

The Constitution of the United States, Art. III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort. This offence[sic] is punished with death. By the same article of the Constitution, no person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
-http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/t103.htm

......what constitutes treason here is not open to interpretation.


I never said treason is in the eye of the beholder. Benedict Arnold or his defenders could claim his acts were not treason, and that would be your 'eye of the beholder'

The treasonous acts I speak of can later be overlooked by all sides involved depending on how things work out. Both sides agree the act of treason will be overlooked for a greater good. In the examples I gave, Britain ceded territory, and in the other the United States granted an amnesty to the Confederates - for treasonous acts.

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