There's a theory out there that mainstream news in the United States is pro-left wing, as in the "left-wing media". However, I subscribe to theory that the media is pro-government; as shown by the Iraq war in 2003.
This recent artice from The Onion is hilarious in its satire of the media's adoration of Obama.
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Lol, poor Josh trying to hit "the government" when the government is an effect, not a cause.
Can't it be both?
In the sense that it affects people once it is formed by election, yes, but as an overarching entity that we must combat, no.
I think you're wrong. I think it is an entity that people should combat.
I think people should always be in constant combat with government. People should always be vigilant in keeping the powers of government in check. Its the apathy of American voters over the past 20 years that has allowed their government to become so corrupt.
I think, while the socialistic policies adopted in a country like Canada are not always correct or the best for the people, because we have a more politically active populace, the powers and performance of the government is better kept in check. I would accept that I could be very wrong on my assumptions here.
People in the US are just waking up to the fact that their government is now growing at an unstoppable pace as special interests are continually Fed with regulations that favor big business and special projects that are contracted out to the politically well connected. Some are even waking up to the serious fleecing the Fed is committing of the American people as a whole. It may not be the fault of the government, but the fault of the people for allowing this to occur. But regardless of where the blame lay, it is the government alone that has the power to do what it is doing, and the government is the entity that causing the most harm to middle class in the United States.
How the people decide on their own the fight this is their own decision. The recent Tea Parties brought out a wide range of activists and provoked the governor of Texas to publicly talk about secession. I'm sure he's wondering what he was thinking.
The Campaign For Liberty consistently calls for people to elect public servants who represent their ideals, at every level of government. They're fighting government by electing individuals that they feel would better serve the interests of liberty. Certainly you can not argue against using democracy to fight the government.
Ron Paul did recently post a video where he openly talked about secession and why it is a fair idea to consider. Secession only occurs, after all, once the majority decide to overthrow and seperate themselves from the current government and to govern themselves. In fact, there is nothing more democratic than secession, and Paul correctly points out that when the original 13 colonies joined the union, there was an understanding that each colony had a right to secede. This was squashed rather quickly by Lincoln when he murdered, pillaged and raped the south.
So yes, government is necessary, and yes, we must always combat it.
"I think you're wrong. I think it is an entity that people should combat."
That's because you are a moron. Obviously the government is the result of causes that cause the government, like corporations, but YOU seem to think it is a self-fulling entity, which it is not. So...
"I think people should always be in constant combat with government."
In constant combat with that which causes government.
"People should always be vigilant in keeping the powers of government in check."
Yes, I agree. Those who believe in "the market" should be kept in check when they gain power, because the "market" will lead to the impoverishment of the majority.
"Its the apathy of American voters over the past 20 years that has allowed their government to become so corrupt."
This, we agree on. However, I think their apathy is a result of the success of social democracy.
"I think, while the socialistic policies adopted in a country like Canada are not always correct or the best for the people,"
Examples.
"because we have a more politically active populace, the powers and performance of the government is better kept in check."
Obviously, because the people then become a check to the corporations, petty capitalists, power-hungry individuals.
"I would accept that I could be very wrong on my assumptions here."
No, but your rhetorical statement is laughable.
"The recent Tea Parties brought out a wide range of activists and provoked the governor of Texas to publicly talk about secession. I'm sure he's wondering what he was thinking."
Don't understand this quote.
"The Campaign For Liberty consistently calls for people to elect public servants who represent their ideals, at every level of government. They're fighting government by electing individuals that they feel would better serve the interests of liberty. Certainly you can not argue against using democracy to fight the government."
There is no such thing as "the government". The success of social democracy is why movements like yours are desperate enough to charge the current powers with "fascism". If we were to really look at the government, closely, we would find that while the right has had its little successes, most of the government is supported by the people who tacitly support the social democratic parts of the government. Those are the Obama supporters.
"Ron Paul did recently post a video where he openly talked about secession and why it is a fair idea to consider. Secession only occurs, after all, once the majority decide to overthrow and seperate themselves from the current government and to govern themselves."
SURPRISE! YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO SUCCEED FROM THE UNION IF THAT MEANS CONTRADICTING THE VALUES OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS! FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF THE CONSTITUTION. THE SUPPORT OF RIGHTS>>>>
"In fact, there is nothing more democratic than secession, and Paul correctly points out that when the original 13 colonies joined the union, there was an understanding that each colony had a right to secede."
Secede, but not secede because they want to avoid the universalism of the bill of rights.
"This was squashed rather quickly by Lincoln when he murdered, pillaged and raped the south."
Wow. You are seriously going to compare the South's bid to secede to that of modern Texas? I mean, fuck. The South wanted to secede because of slavery. They got what was coming to them, as far as I am concerned.
"Obviously, because the people then become a check to the corporations, petty capitalists, power-hungry individuals."
I love the rhetoric. Capitalists are petty because they strive to make money which provides jobs for others?
"Don't understand this quote."
So don't quote it :)
"If we were to really look at the government, closely, we would find that while the right has had its little successes, most of the government is supported by the people who tacitly support the social democratic parts of the government."
I don't understand this quote.
"YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO SUCCEED FROM THE UNION IF THAT MEANS CONTRADICTING THE VALUES OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS!"
You're not allowed to succeed from the Union?
"The South wanted to secede because of slavery. They got what was coming to them, as far as I am concerned."
No, I wasn't making a comparison, just pointing out the pivotal point in which the general perspective on secession and self-government was squashed. Previous to the civil war, New England had openly spoke of secession and it was not considered a crazy and offensive idea.
The south wanted to secede because of a sharp increase in taxes that were put in place right before Lincoln was inaugurated, and which were supported by Lincoln during his inaugural speech. Lincoln even said he would never split the country over slavery. Saying that the civil war is about slavery is like saying the Iraq war is about bring democracy to the people of Iraq.
"I love the rhetoric. Capitalists are petty because they strive to make money which provides jobs for others?"
No, no, you don't understand the Marxist language I am using. Corporations are capitalist, lead by capitalists. So are small businesses. In Marxist terminology small businesses are the "petty bourgeoisie" because their economic interests are small and hence "petty".
"So don't quote it :)"
I quoted it so that you could explain it. :(
"You're not allowed to succeed from the Union?"
LOL, secede.
"No, I wasn't making a comparison, just pointing out the pivotal point in which the general perspective on secession and self-government was squashed. Previous to the civil war, New England had openly spoke of secession and it was not considered a crazy and offensive idea."
Yes, and that should give you pause for thought. The reason why the South wanting to secede was so controversial was not that it wanted to secede, but because it wanted to secede because its society contradicted the Bill of Rights. Therefore, secession is still a principle that could be invoked, but is not considered serious because of the obvious fundamental integration that has taken place since the early days of the Republic.
"The south wanted to secede because of a sharp increase in taxes that were put in place right before Lincoln was inaugurated, and which were supported by Lincoln during his inaugural speech. Lincoln even said he would never split the country over slavery. Saying that the civil war is about slavery is like saying the Iraq war is about bring democracy to the people of Iraq."
From Wiki:
Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens said[12][13] that slavery was the chief cause of secession[14] in his Cornerstone Speech shortly before the war. After Confederate defeat, Stephens became one of the most ardent defenders of the Lost Cause.[15] There was a striking contrast[14][16] between Stephens' post-war states' rights assertion that slavery did not cause secession[15] and his pre-war Cornerstone Speech. Confederate President Jefferson Davis also switched from saying the war was caused by slavery to saying that states' rights was the cause. While Southerners often used states' rights arguments to defend slavery, sometimes roles were reversed, as when Southerners demanded national laws to defend their interests with the Gag Rule and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. On these issues, it was Northerners who wanted to defend the rights of their states.[17]
Almost all of the inter-regional crises involved slavery, starting with debates on the three-fifths clause and a twenty year extension of the African slave trade in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. There was controversy over adding the slave state of Missouri to the Union that led to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Nullification Crisis over the Tariff of 1828 (although the tariff was low after 1846,[18] and even the tariff issue was related to slavery),[19][20][21] the gag rule that prevented discussion in Congress of petitions for ending slavery from 1835–1844, the acquisition of Texas as a slave state in 1845 and Manifest Destiny as an argument for gaining new territories where slavery would become an issue after the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), which resulted in the Compromise of 1850.[22] The Wilmot Proviso was an attempt by Northern politicians to exclude slavery from the territories conquered from Mexico. The extremely popular antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe greatly increased Northern opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.[23][24]
The 1854 Ostend Manifesto was an unsuccessful Southern attempt to annex Cuba as a slave state. The Second Party System broke down after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which replaced the Missouri Compromise ban on slavery with popular sovereignty, allowing the people of a territory to vote for or against slavery. The Bleeding Kansas controversy over the status of slavery in the Kansas Territory included massive vote fraud perpetrated by Missouri pro-slavery Border Ruffians. Vote fraud led pro-South Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan to make attempts (including support for the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution) to admit Kansas as a slave state.[25] Violence over the status of slavery in Kansas erupted with the Wakarusa War,[26] the Sacking of Lawrence,[27] the caning of Republican Charles Sumner by the Southerner Preston Brooks,[28] [29] the Pottawatomie Massacre,[30] the Battle of Black Jack, the Battle of Osawatomie and the Marais des Cygnes massacre. The 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision allowed slavery in the territories even where the majority opposed slavery, including Kansas. The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 included Northern Democratic leader Stephen A. Douglas' Freeport Doctrine. This doctrine was an argument for thwarting the Dred Scott decision which, along with Douglas' defeat of the Lecompton Constitution, divided the Democratic Party between North and South. Northern abolitionist John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry Armory was an attempt to incite slave insurrections in 1859.[31] The North-South split in the Democratic Party in 1860 due to the Southern demand for a slave code for the territories completed polarization of the nation between North and South."
The confederate vice president changed his political strategy after the war? Why? Because he was fighting a fucking defensive ideological battle as a defeated political leader. Moreover, why was there a rush to make the new states pro-slavery or anti-slavery many years up to the Civil War? Oh, yeah, I know the answer: BECAUSE THE GOD DAMN WAR WAS CAUSED BY THE NORTH REJECTING THE MORALITY OF SLAVERY AND THE SOUTH WANTING TO CONTINUE SLAVERY AS THE CENTRAL CREATOR OF ITS WEALTH.
Man you are stupid. You believe the rhetoric of the Southern racists at face value without reading just a little bit.
"No, no, you don't understand the Marxist language I am using."
My language is derived from Austrian economists, while your language is from a communist who inspired a political philosophy which has lead to the deaths of millions. I guess we'll stick with your language.
"it wanted to secede because its society contradicted the Bill of Rights."
The bill of rights and the constitution was a contract between the people and the government. Are the people not allowed to withdraw from the contract? Besides, you continually falsely blame slavery for their reason secede. They went to war because of a provocation from Lincoln because Lincoln was pissed the south was not going to pay the taxes the Federal government was demanding.
There was certainly an argument over slavery, as there was in any other western nation that abolished it peacefully. However, the question isn't what drove the South to go to war with the North, but what drove the North to go to war with the South. Was resorting to violence and the murder of hundreds of thousands of people and the destruction of cities really the only way to do this? As repulsive slavery is, murder is the not the solution. Wrongs do not fix wrongs.
Now, you're gonna say "the south went to war with the north".
"Now, let’s continue to turn the tables around and look more at the quality of the critics’ scholarship. Tom Krannawitter writes:
"Calhoun divorced the idea of states' rights from natural rights, and invented the doctrine of legal or constitutional "secession" to replace the natural right of revolution as the ground for independence. The South understood that to appeal to the right of revolution, as Jefferson had in the Declaration, was necessarily to appeal to the idea of individual natural rights. Southern leaders balked at such an appeal, because they understood that natural rights flew in the face of their fantastic justifications for slavery. All this is lost on DiLorenzo."
Apparently, Krannawitter has not read Jefferson Davis’ first inaugural address, wherein he cites the natural right to alter or abolish government, "a right which the Declaration of Independence of 1776 had defined to be inalienable." Davis continues:
"Our present condition, achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established ."
I suppose Krannawitter will respond by saying he meant "Southern leaders" other than Davis. Strictly speaking, Davis does not mention "revolution"; in fact he denies the South revolted. However, Jefferson does not refer to "revolution" either. The events of 1776 can best be described as a secession, which, being resisted by a foreign power, led to a revolutionary war. Similarly, the South did not seek control over union states and wanted to leave in peace. They fought when they were invaded by an enormous union army. Nevertheless, Davis did refer to the passage that Krannawitter cited. Perhaps he believes that Calhoun, who died in 1850, is a better spokesman for the Confederacy than Jefferson Davis.
Why do they distort the situation in this way? Apparently, they wish to characterize the secession as an illegal attempt at revolution. Though revolution can be a moral or political right, it is not a legal right, they believe. Further, since they claim the Confederates’ prime motive was to preserve and protect slavery, this wrongful motive destroys the Confederates’ moral claim to revolution.
Alas, there are problems with this reasoning. First, there is confusion between the contexts of 1776 and 1861. In 1776, there was no established legal right to secede. There was merely a moral or political right as announced in the Declaration. The secession was resisted and because it was resisted, war broke out which we call a revolution. After the revolution was concluded, a Constitution was enacted which, many believed, incorporated the core philosophy of the Declaration, particularly in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Thus, while England could be expected to fight in opposition to this new principle of secession, the situation in 1861 was entirely different. The South’s secession occurred in a nation that recognized secession as a moral or political right, and a large body of opinion going back many years also concluded it was a legal right as well. This explains why the Confederates did not feel the need to talk about "revolution." Also, the term revolution usually conjures up war. Yet, the acts of secession did not necessarily produce war.
Fort Sumter did not mean war; it merely served to supply Lincoln with political support for a war he had already desired. Before becoming president, Lincoln had been more honest. He had simply said "we won’t let you" secede. (July 23, 1856, Galena). Granted that Fort Sumter was a sideshow, let us be clear on who started the war and how, because such has been almost hopelessly obscured. The war started when Lincoln ordered a large army into Virginia. Had he not done so, that would have been the end of it. Only because history is written by the victors do most people believe the South started the war. Those who control the present control the past.
Thus, Confederate leaders did justify their actions by resort to natural rights principles, principles which they believed had become of the law of the land. The use of the term "revolution" would have been pointless, provocative and premature. There was no "revolution" until Lincoln made it so."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ostrowski/ostrowski39.html
"My language is derived from Austrian economists, while your language is from a communist who inspired a political philosophy which has lead to the deaths of millions. I guess we'll stick with your language."
Your language has been proven to be wrong over and over again by my language, and, yes, the communist philosophy and movement existed before Karl Marx.
"The bill of rights and the constitution was a contract between the people and the government. Are the people not allowed to withdraw from the contract?"
Not to trample on the rights of their slaves, no.
"Besides, you continually falsely blame slavery for their reason secede. They went to war because of a provocation from Lincoln because Lincoln was pissed the south was not going to pay the taxes the Federal government was demanding."
You need to read history, Josh. The slavery issue was huge. That you would argue that the entire secessionist movement that gained steam over many decades, that you ignore the rush by both North and South to make new state pro-slavery or anti-slavery, that you ignore the political editorials and speeches before the war just reinforces the fact that cause-and-effect are foreign concepts to you.
Feel free to not respond to this, because I know you have nothing to say. Lincoln was being conciliatory, because he new slavery was already dying because it was limited to the South. Anyone with even a little knowledge of Lincoln knows he believed in abolition.
"There was certainly an argument over slavery, as there was in any other western nation that abolished it peacefully. However, the question isn't what drove the South to go to war with the North, but what drove the North to go to war with the South. Was resorting to violence and the murder of hundreds of thousands of people and the destruction of cities really the only way to do this? As repulsive slavery is, murder is the not the solution. Wrongs do not fix wrongs.'
Yes, this wrong did fix a wrong. If the Southerns were really not serious about defending their right to enslave others, then they should have simply surrendered. They didn't, because they really did believe that slave ownership was Southern society.
You can ignore everything leading up to the war, if you want, but you belittle the rights you champion by doing so.
"Now, you're gonna say "the south went to war with the north"."
Yup. They seceded based on the idea that not all people are created equal, which is a clear violation of the Bill of Rights.
Er, don't know who those authors are, nor do I care. My point still stands. Be it natural revolution or legal revolution, the Southern states wanted to secede based upon an economic ideology that denied the rights of those that they enslaved. And as such, they started the war.
The north marched on the south.
No one is arguing that slavery was an important issue and there were certainly forces in the south pushing hard to keep it legalized.
But the south didn't march on the north. The north marched on the south.
Every other civilized western nation removed slavery without war.
Why did Lincoln feel the need to do so with war?
He didn't.
He went to war to enforce increased tariffs.
"The north marched on the south.
No one is arguing that slavery was an important issue and there were certainly forces in the south pushing hard to keep it legalized.
But the south didn't march on the north. The north marched on the south."
The issue of slavery led to seccession. The seccession caused the North to march. CAUSE>
"Every other civilized western nation removed slavery without war.
Why did Lincoln feel the need to do so with war?"
Because they were secceding to protect their right to own slaves.
"He went to war to enforce increased tariffs."
LOLOOLOLOLOLOL. Yeah, whatever, Josh.
"The issue of slavery led to seccession. The seccession caused the North to march."
The secession never took place until the North marched on the South you fool. Are you going to try to bend time now? You really will do anything to reconcile history with your opinions.
South Carolina declared secession in 1860, Seven states had declared secession before the war was declared April 12th, 1861.
They are lying to you, Josh.
They are not lieing to me; I have not read the books.
Whatever declaration was made, it was within the rights of the people to do it, regardless the intent.
Your position that Lincoln had a right to march to a war resulting in the death of 600,000 people simply because many in the south supported slavery is immoral; and is also based on the premise that slavery wouldn't have ended if those 600,000 lives were not lost.
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