was going to put this in the 2nd Amendment thread..

[callmeslick]

...but decided to give it a thread of its own. I just read this piece examining the true outcomes of the Civil War, and while it touches on gun rights, there are a host of very interesting observations and conclusions. As a son of the South(Virginia) by birth and legacy, much of this rings quite true. Read, if you wish, and comment away. I leave for the mountains early Wednesday,but look forward to the discourse:
http://weeklysift.com/2014/08/11/not-a- ... ate-party/

[Sergeant Thorne]

Interesting, but I'm afraid it is wholly convoluted. The author clearly has some loyalties and preconceive notions being pressed into the form of reality. I see evidence throughout of things being conveniently distorted in order to fit the historical mold, and vice-versa...

The larger pattern. But the enduring Confederate influence on American politics goes far beyond a few rhetorical tropes. The essence of the Confederate worldview is that the democratic process cannot legitimately change the established social order, and so all forms of legal and illegal resistance are justified when it tries.

This is the liberal trying to justify majority rule instead of rule of law by aligning the alternative to majority rule with slave ownership. That's despicable in my opinion, and very dishonest.

This is a different picture of history, and perhaps it may shed a little light on some less than popular aspects of history, but it is far from a clear picture in my estimation--a work of fiction. The author should be ashamed...

[Will Robinson]

I'm not surprised you are attracted to a partisan spun interpretation. Especially one that is so elaborate in playing the race card!

The author writes this about the confederates and then draws the comparison to modern day conservatives but inspite of his proclamation it doesn't apply equally to liberals it certainly does.

When in the majority, Confederates protect the established order through democracy. If they are not in the majority, but have power, they protect it through the authority of law. If the law is against them, but they have social standing, they create shams of law, which are kept in place through the power of social disapproval. If disapproval is not enough, they keep the wrong people from claiming their legal rights by the threat of ostracism and economic retribution. If that is not intimidating enough, there are physical threats, then beatings and fires, and, if that fails, murder.

Then he goes off the deep end with his hyperbolic anti-tea party type spew by raising straw man motives so he can flail away at them.

That is a very biased composition. And if I'd been sitting in a waiting room, sifting through magazines and read it by chance I would have immediately thought of you slick.

So tell me, are you going to completely dodge the other thread where I've asked you to explain your comments? They are full of flawed cause and effect rendering your conclusions as ridiculous.
It seems like everytime you get backed into a corner you start off a tangent thread and inform us you will be on vacation. Seems to be an expensive tactic that doesn't deliver very well.

Here:

now, Will, YOU confuse me. How is it different that I state that the 2nd was put in place because of a fear/reluctance to have a national standing army, and what you are claiming the founders discussed?

Because you said this:

.... My whole point is that this need and idea was in the ABSOLUTE absence of a Federal Standing Army. ?..

It appears you are suggesting the right of the people to keep and bear arms is to fill a void that an absence of a standing army creates.
And since you have in the past, numerous times, suggested the right of the people to keep and bear arms is no longer valid...BECAUSE OF the might of the standing army....

Tell me how I have your previous comments wrong or recognize you are in conflict with yourself.

The authorization for the federal government to control a militia(standing army) AND the 2nd Amendment were ratified (became law) at the SAME TIME.
The Federalist Papers were being published in newspapers all around the state's at the time the debate was on about the new Constitution and Bill of Rights. The alternate view of the anti-Federalists were published in hand bills and fliers littering the towns and squares.
All this supporting debate documentation is out there for you to read. You claim to know their contents but your interpretation of their intent tells me plainly that you have NOT read it.

[Spidey]

Wow, what a bunch of ramblings. (not you guys)

[vision]

Spot on article.

[Tunnelcat]

He doesn't say anything about Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican and his Progressive Movement attempts, although TR never followed through on race equality in part due to severe public and political opposition. He also doesn't factor in Ayn Rand and her modern anti-government anarcho capitalist influence on the tea party either.

[callmeslick]

to the Conservative choir:
I didn't even view his take on the post Civil War continuation as all that 'liberal'. And yes, he is postulating in spots, but in interesting ways, that make one think(if one is willing and able), and see other angles one hadn't previously.

to TC--how and why would Teddy Roosevelt be in that discourse? His was the worldview of the American Northeast, by and large.
The article was about the ultimate triumph of the Confederacy, how it came about, what views of Federal government it embraced, and how those come into play to this day. TR would have been a complete sidetrack in an article(duly noted by another) that already ranged pretty far.

[Tunnelcat]

to TC--how and why would Teddy Roosevelt be in that discourse? His was the worldview of the American Northeast, by and large.
The article was about the ultimate triumph of the Confederacy, how it came about, what views of Federal government it embraced, and how those come into play to this day. TR would have been a complete sidetrack in an article(duly noted by another) that already ranged pretty far.

You know? You're right. Not part of this discussion. TR didn't even try to further any of Lincoln's previous calls for race equality nor did they enforce the 13th, 14th or 15th Amendments. The only relevant thing to the 2nd Amendment is that he was shot by a man with a gun and soldiered on while wounded to finish his speech. No attempts or calls to take away people's guns after that assassination attempt either.

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/12/ra ... d-glasses/

However, I still think Ayn Rand is very relevant to any discussion about the tea party. It amounts to the rise of an Ayn Rand influenced New Confederacy. What a strange country we live in.

[callmeslick]

indeed, to the latter. Teddy was something(and also FDR, under similar conditions down in Florida) regarding the assasination attampt. As to not calling for gun controls or repeal of the 2nd, assasinations happen and had from time immemorial. That an isolated assassination attempt occurred here wouldn't have been so glaringly a 'gun' issue, compared to a public mass shooting occurring every couple, three days, week after week, year after year.

[Sergeant Thorne]

compared to a public mass shooting occurring every couple, three days, week after week, year after year.

Is there any fiction you will not indulge in?

[Tunnelcat]

WOW!

The trend in America has drifted from the familial and felony crime type killings before 1960 to the random bystander type killings in public places after. I wonder why?

[Sergeant Thorne]

Those numbers are wrong, TC. According to slick there were at least 312 mass killings from 2010-2013. 14 is a ridiculously low number... please stop linking to inaccurate websites...

[callmeslick]

I should have written mass/public lumping the two types together. My point was underscored by TC's article, but I meant that we have some incident of gun violence in a public space every day or two. Do you dispute that, Thorne?
Also, why not put the specific gun stuff into the thread it was already in? I created a separate one here for the whole concept of the Confederacy ultimately winning the Civil War.

[Tunnelcat]

Those numbers are wrong, TC. According to slick there were at least 312 mass killings from 2010-2013. 14 is a ridiculously low number... please stop linking to inaccurate websites...

Yep, it's a little incomplete. It's a lot higher in 2014 alone. I count somewhere north of 200 as of this September since they don't have it totaled. By the way, the FBI defines a single mass shooting when 4 or more people are killed in a single event. Maybe that's the reason for the discrepancy on that other website. You'd think if they had an agenda, they'd make up a higher number. Sorry slick for the derail.

http://www.shootingtracker.com/wiki/Mas ... gs_in_2014

Back on topic, why aren't many of the tea partiers here commenting on the author's Confederate comparison? They've constantly denied the race reason for the founding of their little party, but it remains a constant undercurrent that won't go away. Kind of like that smell you can't quite place. Even the man who claims to have started the movement, Rick Santelli, has distanced himself from the whole thing because of the undercurrent of racism and the crazies that took over. If it isn't race, why wait until we've elected a black president to gripe about Big Government when a Republican president was the one who really started the Big Government ball rolling? The timing just plain stinks. Sure, Obama's has power issues, he's flubbed it now, but it was given to him by those previous presidents, all white guys. So now people don't like a black guy with that power, power that was just A OK with white guys in control? White guys who screwed up just as bad?

I'd be willing to bet that once Obama leaves office, the tea party movement dissolves if a White Republican Male gets elected, even a non-tea party Republican. Or, it morphs into the misogynist he-man party if a Democratic woman gets elected. There's always some reason to foment discontent when people are unhappy with the choices of others.

[Sergeant Thorne]

First off I was being sarcastic, TC. That was an interesting link.

As for slick, I'm not going to answer here because it would turn into a discussion and derail the thread. I don't think the instances in TC's latest link could be counted with the likes of school shootings. These are not extreme events, but IMO fall under the category of general violence. I think we would have to have a big discussion on the proper definition of "mass shooting" wherein I would expect you to favor a more liberal interpretation in order to bolster your numbers and further your agenda.

Back on topic, why aren't many of the tea partiers here commenting on the author's Confederate comparison? They've constantly denied the race reason for the founding of their little party, but it remains a constant undercurrent that won't go away. Kind of like that smell you can't quite place. Even the man who claims to have started the movement, Rick Santelli, has distanced himself from the whole thing because of the undercurrent of racism and the crazies that took over. If it isn't race, why wait until we've elected a black president to gripe about Big Government when a Republican president was the one who really started the Big Government ball rolling? The timing just plain stinks. Sure, Obama's has power issues, he's flubbed it now, but it was given to him by those previous presidents, all white guys. So now people don't like a black guy with that power, power that was just A OK with white guys in control? White guys who screwed up just as bad?

I'd be willing to bet that once Obama leaves office, the tea party movement dissolves if a White Republican Male gets elected, even a non-tea party Republican. Or, it morphs into the misogynist he-man party if a Democratic woman gets elected. There's always some reason to foment discontent when people are unhappy with the choices of others.

Gee, tunnelcat. I guess you found the article inspiring... I would say your suggestion here is incredible. It's important to give people a little bit of credit, and not to pretend that the only thing that has changed since Bush is the skin color of the man sitting in the white house. Maybe some folks needed some time to wake up to what was really going on. I know it was a growing process for me. I had some personal reservations about the war in Iraq, but I was pro Bush. It wasn't until I saw the outcome, and had more time to consider everything that I realized essentially that this wasn't the movies where a slightly less than transparent plot (bringing freedom to the area by doing their fighting for them... because of the terrorists) is good enough to get us from A to B. I had to mature in my political views. Now I think that Bush was a fool--that is if I were to believe that his intentions were good. I actually have a hard time believing that anyone in high office can even be purely naive.

Do you really believe that starting a 3rd party, and fighting both the R's and the D's was a plot to get the Democrat black man out of office?

[Tunnelcat]

Gee, tunnelcat. I guess you found the article inspiring... I would say your suggestion here is incredible. It's important to give people a little bit of credit, and not to pretend that the only thing that has changed since Bush is the skin color of the man sitting in the white house. Maybe some folks needed some time to wake up to what was really going on. I know it was a growing process for me. I had some personal reservations about the war in Iraq, but I was pro Bush. It wasn't until I saw the outcome, and had more time to consider everything that I realized essentially that this wasn't the movies where a slightly less than transparent plot (bringing freedom to the area by doing their fighting for them... because of the terrorists) is good enough to get us from A to B. I had to mature in my political views. Now I think that Bush was a fool--that is if I were to believe that his intentions were good. I actually have a hard time believing that anyone in high office can even be purely naive.

Do you really believe that starting a 3rd party, and fighting both the R's and the D's was a plot to get the Democrat black man out of office?

Hell Thorne, I knew he was out for something when he did his little PE going into Afghanistan and instead farmed out getting Bin Laden to those idiot warlords, who of course effed it up. It affirmed it for me when he THEN went after Saddam, then declared "mission accomplished" after only a few days of easy fighting, when it was apparent it was NOT accomplished. Another PE. It really cemented it for me when people in this country began to be vilified or called unpatriotic if they weren't "for" want he was doing in the world, didn't praise God for what he was doing to free the world from those evil dictators and who didn't wear that flag pin to prove their patriotism on TV. I began to fear what he was doing when the Patriot Act became law and he was "renditioning" captured combatants to black sites to be tortured in violation of international law. President Bush himself, in an address to a joint session of Congress on 9/20/2001 said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Nice. Anyone against him was at best a traitor, at worst a terrorist. Then I began to loathe his very face whenever he opened his pie hole until he was gone. To this day, I can't stand to hear his voice or see his face. The man destroyed far more than he ever accomplished.

So why didn't people wake up BEFORE we elected our first black president? Plenty of people started worrying about the ramifications of the Patriot Act and the debt the war was ringing up, but few dared speak against Bush until he was out of office and out of power, too late to stop the damage. So when Obama takes office in the next election, people had an historically easy-to-justify target, a black man. All of a sudden, our country's latent and not so recently buried racism came back to life. People felt the freedom to rag on him AND the government in a BIG way, a government with more debt than ever and a president with more presidential power than ever, courtesy of the previous president and his war and fear-mongering legacy. How convenient. Obama may have royally bought the farm, but I blame his predecessor for laying the foundation.

[Sergeant Thorne]

You have to remember you have the benefit of a few decades' head start on me, TC. I just can't relate with a racial motive, and I can't see it as being a primary driving force,although I believe it's out there. If I were to guess, I would say that a lot more of it lies in the fact that a lot of people just see Obama as a leader who is totally unlike them (in person, in behavior, in beliefs, in ambition/objective). What part of that ethnicity plays, who can weigh? Maybe someone who looks like us white folks could pull the ruse off? Do you really believe conservatives would be out for blood if he were singing their song, so to speak? "Racist!" just doesn't do the subject justice, IMO. Then again, I grew up in a home which, while not liberal, had absolutely no grudge against people of other ethnicity. Sometimes I'm tempted to have no use for black people, after being less than impressed with the way so many of them conduct themselves around here, combined with the fact that we may not have much in common, but I look to the bigger picture, and whatever their cultural and social hangups or differences we are in essence the same, and we are of one blood--created by God in His image.