Civil War arguments

[Peter666]

- How many slaves were simply murdered at the whim of their owners?

- If you use Catholic morality as a basis for argument, which you always do, then surely you should be aware of the Catholic land movement and moral inferiority of an industrial state, the same type of industrial state whose injustices lead to communism

- the historical KKK is merely an inordinate response to the injustices legitimately felt by southerners, it would not exist today of those grievances were handled correctly

- there is no response to the total war concept initiated by the North on the South, a modern American military precedent making its way felt all the way to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

- And just the whole notion of being able to declare war on nations whom you feel morally superior over, despite the fact that you are breaking moral law itself in doing so: a modern example being the invasion of Iraq.

Here's a hypothetical question: if Russia were to outlaw abortion, and then nuke parts of the US and invade others because abortion here is legal, whose side would you fight on?

[peritonlogon]

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- there is no response to the total war concept initiated by the North on the South, a modern American military precedent making its way felt all the way to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki


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Total War is really nothing new...read the Herodotus... and to blame Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the civil war is quite a stretch.

[Peter666]

Total war in modern times was unprecedented. To use ancient examples to justify barbarism is silly. The Civil war and its deployment of new technologies was keenly observed by European powers and adopted. WWI and WW2 are well known to have deployed this military strategy. It is the Civil War which made them "acceptable" or inevitable in society.

[BluffTHIS!]

Peter, you are historically and militarily misinformed if you believe that other than Sherman's march through a limited area of the South, anything like total war took place in the Civil War, i.e. involving targeting the civilian population and centers of economic production (ok add in the naval blocade). There were 3 things that contributed to the bloodiness of the Civil War:

1) The Minet Ball
2) Field Fortifications
3) Stupid Generalship.

And regarding #3, this includes Lee and Grant IMO. If either or both Stonewall Jackson or Sherman had been in charge of their respective sides' military operations, then the war would have ended sooner.

[Peter666]

Certainly the bloodiness of the Civil war can be attributed to the:

"1) The Minet Ball
2) Field Fortifications
3) Stupid Generalship."

But it is specifically Sherman's March which was the first real implementation of the total war concept. And this concept is absolutely immoral. It is more immoral than slavery, and has since contributed to more death and destruction than American slavery ever did or possibly could have.

The total war concept was also implemented against the Plains Indians by destruction of the Buffalo.

It is an example of using a greater evil to stamp out a smaller evil.

[BluffTHIS!]

The catholic land movement, despite being enthusiastically written about by Belloc, did not have its core principles endorsed as doctrine by the church. Despite their good inentions, there was an element of Ludditeism in their beliefs. This is not pertinent to the civil war discussion.

There was no excuse for the KKK and it is disgusting to justify under the guise of the wrongs southerners felt at being made to free the slaves and pay the price for not doing so voluntarily.

The specific tactics used by the Nothern military have nothing to do with their justification for going to war. And Sherman's march burned a path through the Carolinas and Georgia, but he did not slaughter all the southern civilians he encountered.

I'm not going to respond to that hypothetical question because it the same logic used by those misguided people who bomb abortion clinics and is not applicable to this discussion.

[Peter666]

One does not have to move to the land to figure the moral inferiority experienced in an industrial city.

The war and abortion example is very pertinent to the discussion, because you try to justify war on the South because of a moral stance on slavery.

I specifically used the example of a foreign nation which has legitimate authority in itself to declare wars, and not the doings of a lone perpetrator blowing up abortion clinics so we may fall under the principles of a just war.

Now the Catholic Church clearly teaches that abortion is murder, pure and simple. And the degree that it is occuring today is a slaughter beyond compare in history. Does a foreign nation have a right to start nuking and invading the United States to stop this evil, and which side would you be on?