It appears that one reason for the success after the American Revolution is the joining of forces amongst the economic classes. Rich and poor served and fought, on both sides. It was not a poor versus rich fight, nor slave state versus free.

The left keeps harping on about class warfare, of soaking the rich, yet forget that the rich have their utility. And with the rise in 401ks, IRAs, mutual funds and such, the boundary between economic classes become blurry, diffused. A lot of folks are watching the markets respond to Washington’s actions and are getting nervous.

But I also don’t think it will get bloody, at least from the right. We are a democracy, and if the majority of the population feel a party is taking the nation the wrong way, they vote that party out of power. It is what happened in 94 when the Dems went too far, and happened again in 06 when the Republican did the same.

I’m not going to start anything, but I’m also not interested in sitting idly by while Communism is rammed down my throat.

Looking at the history of collectivist states in the 20th century, inaction could turn out to be far bloodier in the long run.

I’m still in a nervously “wait and see” mode at the moment.

I think you still are making an assumption about me personally, but I can see that we are both at least awake and thinking.

Our history is full of bad compromises and political expediency, and the slavery issue is just one of many. And despite what you see as dressing up that particular pig by the South as a state’s rights issue, the fact (the actual fact, sir) is that our founders HAD to agree to state sovereignty and the acknowledgment of individual rights in order to get us past the Articles of Confederation. Then the Federal government tried to change the rules less than a hundred years later. Even within the Confederacy, individual states had named rights in regards to self governance that the Union states did not. I have not, do not, and will not say that the South was some cleansed ideal of free thought, or enlightened attitudes, or was even mildly hip but misunderstood, because any thinking person would realize that was not the case. But to ignore history based on how it has come to be thought of depending upon which end of the spectrum of geography, education, or ideology you come from rather than on the realities of the moment within the context of the scope of history, the interrelations of world, local, or personal politics, and the economic trends represented, is not just to be doomed to repeat it, but is an indicator that the same problems will continue to BE problems until all the facts are actually known and dealt with out in the open, not simply talked about in hushed tones hoping no one else hears you speaking and gets offended by your words.

If I can’t say that the Civil War was a revolution, just because it will offend someone who takes it as an attack on “the black president” or because it is too politically incorrect that even friends on our side misconstrue the meaning because they get bogged down in the semantic weight of the words as well as the emotional quotient of the argument, then we still do not live in a country that has free speech. Freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, to assemble, to bear arms are all protected rights. Freedom to not ever be offended by how someone else chooses to exercise those rights is not.

Please, sir, you seem to have a well ordered mind; do not let your own prejudices about what you THINK I am saying detract from the things I am ACTUALLY saying. I didn’t mention the Civil War or the Confederacy with anything resembling nostalgia or apology. Just because I live in Florida, that doesn’t mean I’m driving around with a rebel flag in the back of my pick-em-truck. All I am seeing from you is a somewhat skewed reflection. You read my post, assumed you knew what I was saying based on your own life experiences, and then proceeded to attempt to dress me down for it. The funny thing is, I also got ripped by the other side saying that I was too hard on the Confederacy by saying they had the moral low ground.

Feel free to come back and read, to contribute your comments, or even to vent your spleen. But remember this; I never say anything I don’t mean and I always mean EXACTLY what I say. Nothing more, nothing less.

Based on the way you presented the ACW material, I made assumptions and I shouldn’t do that. I apologize.

I don’t think you – or 99% of those nostaligic for the South – have any desire to reinstate slavery or any doubt about it being a bad thing. I do believe there exists however a nostalgia for other elements of Southern culture that aren’t stained by the issue of slavery. That’s fine – any nostalgia is usually predicated on a bit of selective memory anyway. But it bothers me when I see that nostalgia encourage people to plead the Confederacy’s case.

Why does it matter, and how does it connect to your larger, more important, point? Here’s how I see it. There were many tensions leading up to the Civil War, but Slavery was the one that couldn’t be resolved. Everything else could be negotiated by reasonable people, but not slavery, and it spun off other contentious issues. All the arguments about admitting new states were fueled by the need to preserve a Free-Slave balance in the Senate, for instance. If not for the issue of slavery, the war could have been avoided.

And so who is to blame for that? Clearly not the abolitionists. Their desire was to right a very clear wrong. I blame the southern aristocracy. Even though by the 1850′s slavery had become a financial drag, it was too ingrained in the self-image of their culture. They dreamed up conspiracy theories about Northern Aggression to avoid confronting the simple fact that their countrymen were asking them to stop keeping humans in bondage. Worse, they conscripted noble ideas such as States Rights into defense of their indefensible way of life.

Because southern leaders spent the twenty years leading up to the Civil War doggedly refusing to let go of something they didn’t need, they plunged the country into the worst bloodshed it’s yet seen.

Bringing it to today. 52 percent of our countrymen severely dissapointed you and I last November, and it’s led me to do a lot of questioning along the lines you describe. There is a lot to fear, but recent events have given me a little bit of hope. Here’s why, and here’s why I reacted so strongly to the Confederacy business.

A good sized chunk of that 52 percent seem to be having some buyers remorse. They’re begining to realize Obama conned them. I shake my head and want to spit when I see these fools complaining he’s not who they thought he was, but I hold my tongue. They’re fools, but they’re also important votes we need to salvage things. They can help atone for their stupidity if we show them the way. Get them on our side long enough to undo the damage. In the long run, we have to sort out some bigger issues, but in the long run you first gotta survive the short run.

Making them think the other side is a bunch of slavery apologists won’t help pry them away from Obama’s grip. Giving up nostalgia for some mythically cleansed antebellum South might be the price for gaining back something resembling what the Founders created. Other people are going to need to consider making other sacrifices too.

We all have to think long and hard about what it is that’s causing a majority of voters to give power to corrupt hacks.

Because if shooting does start, I don’t know which of the three scenarios plays out. No one does, no one can. It’s the biggest crap shoot in the world, and nobody’s playing with house money.

Listen, I get that you are worried about noise on the signal diluting the message, really I do.

However, you are affording me a teachable moment, so if you will allow, I will expound upon it.

Firstly, you are correct in part of you commentary: the Civil War was indeed more bloody due to advances in the ability of one human to rend another apart. But you fail to make the next step…how much worse will it be NOW? Back then, the ability to own a rifle that was the exact same quality as the armed forces carried was perfectly acceptable. Is it now, or will any government troops or even police units have the population in general at a mechanical disadvantage from the offset? The entire point of the post was an attempt to make people think about exactly how bad things could get if events take a bad turn.

Your next mistake was to say that I was advocating something I was not: not once in this entire comment thread or in the original post have I stated, not one little bitty bit, anything resembling an apology for the Confederacy. In fact, I have plainly stated the exact opposite. I have related history, sir, not opinion or editorial. For you to somehow take any of the above as ‘nostalgia for the antebellum South’ is tantamount to you thinking I sure wish I could own people as property. At the very least, you are making an attack towards ME, rather than the words and ideas, which causes you to lose credibility. And here’s a FWIW for you, sir: My ancestors not only OWNED slaves, they imported both slaves from Africa and indentured servants from Europe. It has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on this discussion however, because I wasn’t responsible for it. The fact that your Tory ancestors were made unwelcome and moved to Canada is not relevant either. They were the exception, not the rule.

You bring up the fact that “reconstruction” officially only lasted a few years, however you fail to point out that after the Confederate states were re-admitted to the Union, “reconstruction” still limited political and business opportunities for Southerners for at least a generation. Or that often times, those who helped rebuild the South only were allowed to do so because those individuals came from the North, i.e. ‘carpetbaggers,’ and held political power or owned successful businesses ONLY because they treated with Union interests.

Facts matter, sir.

My entire point, ill made as it must seem to you, is not the causes of revolution, but the consequences thereof.

Do you, personally, believe that our country is heading towards something resembling any of those three scenarios? Do you, personally, think that it is possible our government is making such bad choices that some rock with lips is likely to go off half cocked and mess things up for the rest of us? Unfortunately, I do. I am just trying to say that people out there need to realize a few things: 1) what do you believe? Do the rich deserve to be destroyed because they aren’t doing their part when the top five percent already pay 29 percent of all the taxes? Does our government need to be overthrown? Or are the resolutions professing the right to ignore Washington D.C., already in the works in statehouses across the country, merely the preamble to secession and all that it entails? 2) Do the citizens of this country really know the entirety of what any of the three scenarios really entail? And 3) What are YOU, or they, or I, going to be willing to do, and to whom, if push comes to shove?

I offer no answers here. I am simply asking people to think about it for themselves, realize what their own personal boundaries are, and decide if they believe the principles this country was founded on are even worth trying to restore when faced with a government and at least fifty two percent of the voting public who don’t seem to give a damn anymore.

The post also exaggerates the travails of Reconstruction and the horrors of Sherman’s March to the Sea, probably because the whole Son-of-the-South nostalgia bit.

The Founding Fathers all would have been hanged if the revolution failed. How many members of Jefferson Davis’ cabinet joined him going to the gallows? None. Davis himself wasn’t even hanged. His VP served in Congress after the War. Every Confederate state was readmitted within 5 years (okay, 5 years and 4 months for Georgia) of the end of the fighting. Neither reconstruction nor Sherman’s march were picnics for the South, but most failed insurrections get far worse treatment.

FWIW, I had ancestors who fought on the Tory side in the Revolution. They were most decidedly not welcome to stay after the war was over, and moved to Canada. There was a great deal of very nasty fighting in the Carolinas during the Revolution.

But I remain firmly in agreement with MLGs observations about the differences of the American and French revolutions. Class warfare is far bloodier than a broad-based rebellion based on lack of representation in the government. The efforts of some politicians today to drive us further towards class warfare are dangerous and evil.

A little advice then, which I hope you and other readers here will heed. Drop the “War of Northern Aggression” schtick and quit taking about the Civil War as anything other than a war over slavery.

Seriously, don’t mention States Rights in the same breath as the Civil War – it doesn’t matter if slavery was or wasn’t the only reason for the war, linking States Rights to the ACW gives States Rights a bad name and we can’t afford that right now.

Totalitarians argue against liberty by saying some people will abuse liberty so we need to take it away from everyone. It’s a lousy argument, but some people buy it and you don’t help when you remind everyone that the Confederacy invoked the notion of liberty to defend the practice of slavery.

Your first two points about the US and French revolutions were perfect. Why the need to sully them with an apology for Jeff Davis and his cronies? It undermines everything else you’re for. Give it up. The Confederacy was a bad thing created by a decent poeple corrupted by an evil idea. You don’t need to defend it. You shouldn’t want to.

And you shouldn’t let nostalgia for the antebellum South get in the way of protecting our Libery today. Put away the Stars and Bars. Every time you wave it, you give Obama and his allies ammunition. Stop it. Please just stop it.