Re: Help design the ideal Presidential candidate

On May 6, 12:23 am, archm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Nate Edel) wrote:
> AlfredMontestruc<montest...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > This from a nation that had as an ideal the idea of consent of the
> > governed.  If that is indeed a requirement for just government, then
> > that consent can be withdrawn.
>
> And sometimes that withdrawal requires the force of arms: witness the
> American Revolution.
>
> On the other hand, it will almost inevitably opposed by force of arms

No, a significant number of cases of secession exist with out
bloodshed, Norway from Sweden, or the secession of the Czech republic
from Czechoslovakia (or as it the Slovak republic that wanted out, the
point is that the secession was peaceful) for example.  While it may
indeed be more common in history for secession to be opposed by force
of arms, we are mostly speaking of hereditary monarchies, not liberal
democracies - AKA tyranny.  So, you expect a tyrant to not oppose by
force of arms you trying to get out from under his boot?   Silly you.

Morally, by the principles of the enlightenment,  it is wrong for any
moral-just government to oppose secession when it is the clear and
explicit will of the people in the regions that wish to secede.

That makes Mr. Lincoln's war wrong, mitigated only by his much
belated, and not for any moral reason, making one of the aims of the
war the end of slavery.  He did  so not because of the moral outrage
that it was, but rather as a war measure as slaves were being used by
the CS Army and the civilian economy, and so long as they were given
no explicit reason to run- as in victory for the Union meant an end to
slavery - being sensible people they did as told by their masters.

FYI  that was a very effective war measure.  It was started by Union
officers in the west noticing that confederate civilians with slaves
would leave for confederate held territory as soon as the Yankees took
over, and take their slaves with them, whom the Confederate army
promptly put to work digging entrenchments and other work they needed
doing.  This freed many troops for combat and made the Confederate
army far more effective for their numbers than the Union army.  The
officers at first started declaring that slaves were "contraband of
war" as a result (much like arms and gunpowder) and sizing them.

Point being that Mr. Lincoln did not fight that war to end slavery, he
fought it to "preserve the union" over the explicit wishes of the
voters of the states that seceded.  That is tyranny, even if slavery
was tyranny as well.



> as
> well.  Sensible folks exhaust their options under the rule of law first;

That (when legal options are exhausted) is a matter of opinion, many
people in what became the USA felt that patriots like Washington,
Jefferson and Adams were traitors to the King and Parliament and had
not  at all exhausted options under rule of law.  They were  commonly
called  Tories at the time, many of them joined the king's forces and
fought against patriots.  Some of the worst atrocities of the American
Revolution were massacres of civilians of the other side by militia of
both sides.


> the
> Southern states didn't come remotely close to that.

Matter of opinion.  In fact I think that for them to have had a good
chance they should have seceded long before that, say right after the
annexation of Texas which stirred up a firestorm of North-South
hatred.  The tide of demographics and economics was against them and
for them to win, they needed to do so when they had larger military
forces and capability in proportion to those of the north.



>  If the founding fathers
> had been so rash, the Revolution would have started in 1765 and been
swiftly
> squashed.


I will agree that timing is critical, but not that waiting longer is
always wise, and exhausting legal recourse is a matter of opinion,
until you are dead.  If you expect people to keep using legal recourse
till they are dead, that is expecting a lot.