Another frivolous thread

[Ninot]

Originally posted by nbarclay


Actually, my mother is from Pennsylvania, and I grew up mostly viewing the North as the "good guys" in the Civil War because the war ended slavery. It wasn't until I was an adult that it occurred to me that in a lot of wars, there is no right side but merely two wrong sides that are fighting because neither had sufficient interest in pursuing a reasonable compromise. Now I simply view the Civil War as a terrible tragedy - which, in turn, makes it hard for me to view the political leaders on either side of the mess as great. Truly great leaders would have tried a lot harder to find a peaceful, reasonably amicable solution.

I really don't understand why you would paint Lincoln with the brush of a warmonger tho. At the outset, he was simply a proponent of barring slavery from future territories and states. It was the South that was attempting to impose its will, and when it was losing its equal status in the senate, resorted to what it did.

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by nbarclay


Actually, my mother is from Pennsylvania, and I grew up mostly viewing the North as the "good guys" in the Civil War because the war ended slavery. It wasn't until I was an adult that it occurred to me that in a lot of wars, there is no right side but merely two wrong sides that are fighting because neither had sufficient interest in pursuing a reasonable compromise. Now I simply view the Civil War as a terrible tragedy - which, in turn, makes it hard for me to view the political leaders on either side of the mess as great. Truly great leaders would have tried a lot harder to find a peaceful, reasonably amicable solution.

I stand corrected. Linclon did however try several times during the war to bring it to an end. BUT he wasn't going to do so with the Union being split. I believe even the issue of slavery was on the table, slavery was not outlawed until 1863 after the battle of gettysburg. A good two years after the war started. A war that was started by the south. Jefferson Davis in his own way wouldn't budge either but at least IMHO he had a much less comprimising position.

So they couldn't reach a comprimise, but Lincoln did hold the union together under some very trying times. In his own way he was great. And you would be hard pressed to find a better presidential writer or orator.

:THREADJACK OVER:

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by Dis


I just have to laugh at german censorship.

I believe Germany is still the only Western European state to have outlawed Communism. (It was deemed unConstitutional because their manifest calls for a "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the German Basic Law allows no political party which expresses intent to dismantle or destroy the democratic institutions by which it would win power. Thus, the NSDAP is out, but the current NPD is still in.)

German censorship is, I believe, one part occupational relic, one part "anti-fascism". I mean that in the same sense as "anti-matter": Germans still seem to express many of the same tendencies they did 100 years ago - desirous of order, centralization, national identity (though not necessarily nationalism) - but they've been set to "good" political purposes. Don't buy it? Ever challenge a German's belief in environmental conservation? Catch yourself before you call them an "eco-Nazi".

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by Imminence



BTW, I know about a game, which was developped in 1996. It was a good strategy game in a medieval fantasy environment. Compared to nowadays, the grafics were of course poor.
But there was a tribe, called the "ice witches". With a lot of imagination one could see the sprites riding topless on their icebears. Just because of some pixels, which *might* be bare breasts, the developpers had to create an extra version for the USA, in which the ice witches had fur-bras.

So, tell us about weird censorship

[CarnalCanaan]

BTW, there's an 'other' or 'Banana' option for those hundreds of other leaders not mentioned. If they're deserving of being Civ'd, tell us why.

For what it's worth, I always thought Poland deserved to be present and led by Lech Walesa. But for whatever reason, Poland always gets the shafted by Civ. Why is that?

[ElTigre]

Originally posted by CarnalCanaan
I believe Germany is still the only Western European state to have outlawed Communism. (It was deemed unConstitutional because their manifest calls for a "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the German Basic Law allows no political party which expresses intent to dismantle or destroy the democratic institutions by which it would win power. Thus, the NSDAP is out, but the current NPD is still in.)

Communism isn't outlawed in Germany. In 1956, Germany's Supreme Court outlawed the "Kommunistische Partei", but not Communism itself. In fact, the German constitution does NOT specifiy if Germany's economy has to be a free market system. The German government could implement a centrally planned economy tomorrow without even changing a single paragraph of our constitution. However, the constitution guarantees certain rights, e.g. the right to own property (not necessarily the means of production), and states that the political system has to be a multi-party parliamentarian democracy. So no to a "dictatorship of the proletariat", but a planned economy would be in theory possible.

BTW, several new socialist and communist parties have formed after 1956, but they are all utterly unimportant.

[nbarclay]

Sorry about straying a bit off topic, but the following discussion is germane to whether or not Lincoln deserves to be included as a leader of the American civilization.

Originally posted by conmcb25

I stand corrected. Linclon did however try several times during the war to bring it to an end. BUT he wasn't going to do so with the Union being split. I believe even the issue of slavery was on the table, slavery was not outlawed until 1863 after the battle of gettysburg. A good two years after the war started. A war that was started by the south. Jefferson Davis in his own way wouldn't budge either but at least IMHO he had a much less comprimising position.

The idea that the South started the war is grossly misleading. Had Lincoln not insisted on maintaining Union military bases within the Confederacy, the South would have had no reason to fire even a single shot. Further, when the Confederacy used force to evict Union troops from its own soil after they refused to leave peacefully, there was no compelling need to escalate into full-scale war. It was very clearly the North that wanted to fight a war, not the South. All the South wanted was to be left alone.

In regard to Lincoln's efforts to make peace during the war, what guarantees did he offer the South that its interests would be permanently protected if it rejoined the Union? Not just its interests in slavery, but also its interests in not having the federal government adopt economic policies that would deliberately benefit Northern manufacturers at the expense of the far more agricultural South? (Note that protectionist tariffs were, in practical terms, almost a direct transfer of wealth from the South to the North.) If Lincoln offered to incorporate protections for the South's legitimate interests into the Constitution, with provisions that either made it impossible to reverse the protections or guaranteed the right to secede if the protections would ever be reversed, and the South refused to accept the deal, then I'm inclined to view the South as having been unreasonable. But otherwise, what did Lincoln offer that couldn't be taken away in a few years by a future Congress and President - after taking precautions to make sure secession would be impossible?

So they couldn't reach a comprimise, but Lincoln did hold the union together under some very trying times. In his own way he was great. And you would be hard pressed to find a better presidential writer or orator.

The idea that Lincoln held the union together is a gross exaggeration. The Reconstruction makes that fact especially clear, since after the war, the North treated the South far more like conquered territory than like states that retained their Constitutional rights and powers as states. In practical terms, the former Confederate states had to be re-admitted into the Union, something clearly unnecessary if the union had truly been held together all along.

Granted, had Lincoln not been shot, the Reconstruction would almost certainly have been far less harsh because Lincoln would have pushed for a more conciliatory tone. But the only way it can rationally be claimed that Lincoln held the nation together is if we allow the winners to write the history books without bothering to critique their claims.

What really happened in the Civil War was that Lincoln used an economically and militarily more powerful nation to conquer an economically and militarily less powerful one. What's so great about that? Tyrants have been doing it for thousands of years. And that's not even getting into things like Lincoln's unconstitutionally suspending habeus corpus in the North so he could order the arrest of people who opposed his war effort.

[conmcb25]

Your entire arguement is based on the premise that two nations did indeed exist at that time. Lets just agree to disagree because I dont believe that premise.

In the meantime Ill stop my threadjack as well since we are straying off topic. And I got a bird to cook.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by conmcb25
Your entire arguement is based on the premise that two nations did indeed exist at that time. Lets just agree to disagree because I dont believe that premise.

Even if you don't buy the premise from a purely legal perspective, the Confederacy was definitely functioning as a separate nation in practical terms. You're trying to justify Lincoln's actions based on a legal technicality that is itself open to debate, and to completely ignore the practical reality as it stood when the Civil War started. Also note that the South's secession from the United States cannot possibly have been more illegal than the United States' rebellion against England was, which makes purely legalistic arguments for the North's actions a bit hypocritical.

The practical reality is that Lincoln caused massive amounts of death, suffering, and economic hardship in order to force the Southern states to remain in (or rejoin, depending on one's perspective) a union that they felt was no longer serving their interests. Even if those actions can be justified on a purely legal basis, I do not view them as a basis for calling Lincoln a great leader.

[proviisori]

Originally posted by polarnomad


While that might be a good idea, it presupposes that Finland be added as a civilization... Don't get me wrong, I think Finland is a great place, but I don't really feel like it qualifies as a candidate for this game.

Unless of course some liberties were taken... Add the vikings back in and have Kekkonen as their leader!

I can imagine. Kekkonen with a horn helmet and huge axe! but he would also have those big eyeglasses.

He would greet you in diplomacyscreen: Let's go cross-country skiing and then we go to sauna.

[Mujadaddy]

Originally posted by bigvic
chiquita bannana...yum

Carmen Miranda?

[CarnalCanaan]

All the South wanted was to be left alone[...]

... to keep human beings as physical property.

Which leads me to this: I'm wrapping up my humanities requirements for college this year and so taking an American Humanities from a professor of American History. It's been muy interesting. And he explained his understanding of the Civil War thus: "The Civil War was fought over slavery. Period. Though few soldiers, on either side, at the beginning, were personally fighting to maintain or abolish slavery. They were just patriots. But there was one group that was fighting to abolish slavery from the very beginning: the Blacks. Black Union soldiers impressed their white couterparts so much that by the end of the war, the North was indeed fighting to end the evil of slavery."

My view is that the lesson of the American Civil War is that one group of Americans - second-class Americans, at that - were willing to sacrafice their lives in the faith that they could make their country, our country, a better one. And they did. Few of their names have been preserved in history, as is usually the case for true heroes, but we nonetheless owe them a heavy debt and deep respect. Their blood given voluntarily redeemed those who spilt it with violence and hatered. (Sound familiar?) They were not the first Americans to achieve such an awesome feat, nor will they be the last, I am certain.

America is not a perfect nation and never will be. Someday it will cease to exist. It's claim to greatness is not it's countless freedoms, the debate we're engaging in right now, but that it's people will sacrifice themselves for one another - even if no one appreciates it.

For this Lincoln should be the American leader; He might be the only President who personally underwent this phenomenon we communally experience. The war he prosecuted and won was completely unConstitutional. But it was under his legacy that Americans stopped saying "The United States are..." and started saying "The United States is...". If he is not the founder of our nation - born of tyranny, baptized in blood, condemned to a flawed essence - then no one can be.

[CarnalCanaan]

P.s.: My threads seem to fly of topic quickly. Why does that make me smile?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The idea that the South started the war is grossly misleading. Had Lincoln not insisted on maintaining Union military bases within the Confederacy, the South would have had no reason to fire even a single shot.

That is, if he hadn't had the intention of keeping what was Federal property...

Your honor, if he hadn't refused to give me his wallet I wouldn't've stabbed him!

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Adagio
I want Cleopatra back, even though she wasn't born in Egypt IIRC

Cleopatra was born in Egypt. However, she was of more-or-less purely Greek-Macedonian descent.

She, supposedly, was the only Ptolemaean ruler to learn Egyptian, but her native language was Greek.