Two Plus Two Older Archives  

Go Back   Two Plus Two Older Archives > Other Topics > Politics

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #41  
Old 12-22-2005, 12:52 AM
tylerdurden tylerdurden is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: actually pvn
Posts: 0
Default Re: Civil War arguments

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Sounds good to me. What if Thomas Jefferson had signed a piece of paper that said "In the year 2006, slickpoppa will pay pvn $3,000,000 per day" - do you think you should be held to that? Why is the constitution any different?

[/ QUOTE ]

Thankfully a piece of paper declaring that I need to pay you $3,000,000 is a bill of attainder, which would be prohibited by the Constutition.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't subjecting you to the constitution similarly imposing punishment on you? The constitution is unconstitutional! Beautiful, I'll have to add this to my bag.

[ QUOTE ]
But more to the point, it would be nice for each individual if he had the right to decide that a particular form of government coercion were unjust and declare immunity from it. But obviously such a system would never work.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, the system would work fine. It just wouldn't work in the way it does now, or the way you want it to.

[ QUOTE ]
If everyone could just opt out of whatever laws they wanted to, then laws would be essentially useless.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some things you can't opt out of. You can't opt-out in any way that lets you violate others' rights. Any law that violates rights instead of protects them *should* be nullified anyway, so this is a win-win situation.

[ QUOTE ]
From reading your earlier posts, it sounds like that is what you want--no laws.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nearly, but not quite. Thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, those are pretty good laws - and self-evident ones, when you observe and respect human rights.

Things like "thou shall pay your taxes" and "thou shall surrender thine property to the authorities upon demand" just don't have the same ring to them. Get rid of them.

[ QUOTE ]
If you really want to have that argument, then that is the topic of another thread. This thread is about the South seceding from the Union. Even the people in the South who seceded from the Union were not envisioning no government at all after they were successful in seceding.

[/ QUOTE ]

True, the confederacy was statist, and therefore flawed.
Reply With Quote
  #42  
Old 12-22-2005, 12:54 AM
tylerdurden tylerdurden is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: actually pvn
Posts: 0
Default Re: Civil War arguments

[ QUOTE ]
I never consensted to any law that prohibits me from killing, stealing, and raping random women. Perhaps I am not bound by those laws since I never signed a piece of paper where I agreed to such restrictions.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't have a right to violate others' rights. That's the whole point - nobody has a right to *impose* upon *you*. Similarly, you have no right to impose murder or rape upon another. Your argument is exactly my argument, though you get it backwards.
Reply With Quote
  #43  
Old 12-22-2005, 01:27 AM
The Don The Don is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Baltimore
Posts: 399
Default Re: Civil War arguments

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If 3 people are on an island and one wants to escape, do the other two have the right to prevent him because they won a majority vote? Do they have the right to kill him when he makes his attempt? All because their grandparents signed an agreement stating that no man is allowed to escape from the island without the consent of the majority?

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats a bad analogy. The North did not prevent the South from leaving the island. If everyone in the South wanted to pick up and move to Mexico, they certainly could have.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why? The southerners, not the US government, owned the land. It seems like you are implying that the government had rights to the land because they ruled over it.
Reply With Quote
  #44  
Old 12-22-2005, 01:37 AM
The Don The Don is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Baltimore
Posts: 399
Default Re: Civil War arguments

[ QUOTE ]
I never consensted to any law that prohibits me from killing, stealing, and raping random women. Perhaps I am not bound by those laws since I never signed a piece of paper where I agreed to such restrictions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, you seem to be conflating law and government (namely the necessity of the State to deem something "illegal"). Some laws are natural; there is a basic principle of property rights, which is logically consistent with human nature.

Read about it here.

Oh yeah, I am still waiting for a decent justification for the "two wrongs make a right" argument (slavery and death in order to end slavery). Additionally, I would like to know why popular opinion seems to believe that it was worth 600,000 lives in order to "preserve the union."
Reply With Quote
  #45  
Old 12-22-2005, 04:51 AM
Cyrus Cyrus is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Tundra
Posts: 1,720
Default Athenian Democracy circa Pericles\' time

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Do you think everyone born in the United States should have to sign onto the Constitution before it applies to them?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds good to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

And to me too.

In fact, it has been my personal conviction that being the free citizen of a polity should be a matter of choice and not of privilege or mandate. People who reach a certain pre-determined age should be allowed to choose, on an all-or-nothing basis, whether or not to accept the polity's laws and rules. It goes without saying that this would also mean accepting a number of obligations, such as taking up arms to defend the polity.

Of course, as soon as the people become citizens, they will have, like every other citizen, the right not just to change the government and the people's representation in it, but to question or try to change the very rules and laws of the polity!
Reply With Quote
  #46  
Old 12-22-2005, 05:09 AM
bobman0330 bobman0330 is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 52
Default Re: Athenian Democracy circa Pericles\' time

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Do you think everyone born in the United States should have to sign onto the Constitution before it applies to them?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds good to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

And to me too.

In fact, it has been my personal conviction that being the free citizen of a polity should be a matter of choice and not of privilege or mandate. People who reach a certain pre-determined age should be allowed to choose, on an all-or-nothing basis, whether or not to accept the polity's laws and rules. It goes without saying that this would also mean accepting a number of obligations, such as taking up arms to defend the polity.

Of course, as soon as the people become citizens, they will have, like every other citizen, the right not just to change the government and the people's representation in it, but to question or try to change the very rules and laws of the polity!

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you just like saying "polity."
Reply With Quote
  #47  
Old 12-22-2005, 11:23 AM
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Civil War arguments

[ QUOTE ]
So they lie so that they can accomplish good? If their secret agenda is so great, why do they have to lie about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not always lies. Many times it is. Sometimes it's standard political equivocation. And, obviously, it wouldn't be wise to come out and say he'd free the slaves. I don't know whether or not you're insinuating that freeing the slaves might not be a good cause, but it's something the south definitely didn't want. I don't really want to argue about the honesty and ethics in politics as that's just a red herring. In this specific instance, I'm willing to give Lincoln the benefit of the doubt, because of all I've read about him, that he genuinely wanted slavery ended, and it would've been a [censored] move to come out and say it. Mincing words with the south was a more politic way of handling the situation.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If Lincoln had determined for himself that one day slavery would be outlawed, he wouldn't come out guns blazing and free every slave, especially right after states began to secede. Doing so would basically make it impossible to end the war without a bloody, drawn out battle and military surrender.

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? Isn't that exactly what happened? Or is 600,000 dead not "bloody" in your opinion?

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh come on now. If you really need me to spell it out I will, but I know you're smart enough to figure out what I'm implying. He didn't want a long battle, so he didn't free the slaves right away. Once he saw that the battle couldn't be ended diplomatically he pulled out all the stops.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The Emancipation Proclamation was a political as well as military decision, which of course furthered his own goal (in my opinion) of freeing slaves.

[/ QUOTE ]

You got the first part right. The political goal was to gain foreign support for the union (which succeeded), and therefore to end any possibility of foreign assistance to the confederacy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that was one reason. I'm not going to argue that Lincoln handled the slave situation the best way he could, and in the end it looked a little self-serving for the Union. But you can't really deny the guy had a place in his heart for freeing slaves.
Reply With Quote
  #48  
Old 12-22-2005, 02:52 PM
XxGodJrxX XxGodJrxX is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Miami
Posts: 64
Default Re: Civil War arguments

[ QUOTE ]

You don't have a right to violate others' rights. That's the whole point - nobody has a right to *impose* upon *you*. Similarly, you have no right to impose murder or rape upon another. Your argument is exactly my argument, though you get it backwards.

[/ QUOTE ]



Okay, then, where do rights come from? The Lockian argument is that there are natural rights to life, liberty, and property, but I do not believe that. It seems to me that we would first have to agree that there are such rights to begin with, and I do not agree that there is. If I do not agree that the rights to life, liberty, and property are actually natural, then how can your concept of "rights" stop me from taking your life, liberty, or property?

I did not read the Liberterian Creed, but by the sound of the don's post, it sounds like it is a Lockian argument.

I am, of course, speaking hypothetically. I am not a Lockian, but I will still use his principles againt you when it serves my interests [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
Reply With Quote
  #49  
Old 12-22-2005, 02:52 PM
Peter666 Peter666 is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 346
Default Re: Civil War arguments

It is not morally justifiable to have a civil war over slavery unless slaves were being slaughtered themselves, which they were not.
Reply With Quote
  #50  
Old 12-22-2005, 02:59 PM
XxGodJrxX XxGodJrxX is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Miami
Posts: 64
Default Re: Civil War arguments

I don't think the Civil War was about ending slavery, it was about saving the union. You're framing the question in such a way so that no answer can satisfy you. If instead of 600,000 deaths, there were only a hundred, you will still be against it. You will always be against it because you feel that it was wrong, and that is fine. Lincoln, and most people, do not feel that it is wrong. Since we do not feel that it is wrong, then the cost was worth it, especially in hindsight.

I think that when one talks about wars, preconceived notions of right and wrong grounded in morality are moot. A more utilitarian approach is more useful in my opinion. From a utilitarian point of view, it was in the Union's best interest to keep the south in the United States. I highly doubt that the United States would be as powerful as it is now if it had not preserved the union.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:23 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.