The Pioneering Spirit (Barrow, Metlakatla: authority, suite, swimming)

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

The book has been trashed in various scholarly journal articles over the years by serious scholars. It's not accepted as a legitimate source for research, etc. That should tell you something.

It tells me something about you!

Regardless, I cited one fact from it... that Vermont did not have an Adjutant General from 1825 to 1837. Are you denying that is true?

Of course I cited that fact because it was your state of Vermont. But it is also true that Maine had 63,000 men enrolled in militias, and yet could field only about 1200. Michgan had 109,000 and was able to field only 1,241. New Hampshire had just 1 soldier, their Adjutant General. New York had weapons for fewer than half of their men.

Massachusetts (a state which actually did have an active militia during the period in question) in 1855 disbanded all companies made up of Irishmen.

And of course there are statements like this one:

"The Southern states and the Western states and territories had
extremely severe shortages of weapons in the early
Republic. They were hard to get, and expensive when they could
be gotten. Southerners and Westerners tried to get Congress to
buy weapons for the militia, or loan weapons to the militia, or
to do something about the situation."
New Militia FAQ Part Three

Squirm around with weasel words all you like... the militia was not a source of widespread training with weapons prior to the Civil War.

[arctichomesteader]

You're joking, right? Quoting the ADL on militia history now??

[Metlakatla]

I love it when you guys fight; it makes my toes curl.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Get yourself a really good dictionary, and look up two things: "mill" and "sawmill".

The getup for sawing lumber is a "sawmill", even if the saw us human powered. Yes, it is true that one variation on the term distinguishes between how the saw is powered; but that is only one variation.

Has the darkness been getting to you already? There should be a bunch of light for at least a few more weeks.

No, the getup for "Sawing" lumber is a "Saw", a "Sawmill" is what you use when you are puting out a quanity of lumber with power other than manual labor.... Even the Amish use "Sawmills" to do commercial work for building pallets and such like in Ohio where my wife is from. But they do use Whipsaws for building their own barns and such, which they don't call sawmills, and they clearly know the differance.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

I love it when you guys fight; it makes my toes curl.

Got to admit, it's cheap entertainment

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by starlite9

Has the darkness been getting to you already? There should be a bunch of light for at least a few more weeks.

There's enough light here to at least read a dictionary. You should try it...

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

There's enough light here to at least read a dictionary. You should try it...

Why, did you need to know some real facts.... fire away!

[Woof]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Are you that unaware?

.......Your research method is flawed. You have an agenda that you want to find evidence in support of. You need to look instead for information, and then ask yourself what it is evidence for.

As I've mentioned previously, and you cannot fail to miss if you will only do some actual research on this topic, virtually every credible historian makes note of the fact that gunshot wounds was one of (and apparently at times the most common) cause of death on each of the overland trails from East to West in the mid-1800's. (The single exception appears to be that it may not have been a significant cause of death among the Mormon groups.)

I have an agenda and you have an agenda. The difference is that you are asserting something that is contrary to common knowledge (the notion that the Oregon Trail pioneers, and the Alaskan pioneers, were so inept at handling guns that they were often killing each other by pure accident, and that was because they hadn't previously owned guns for the most part).

When you make a remarkable claim, the burden of proof is on you to back it up with overwhelming evidence. So far, you've presented a brief editorial comment on the Oregon Trail migrations that isn't backed by data from the text, and you've referred to a historian who was so thoroughly discredited that awards to him were withdrawn, and he was forced to resign in disgrace from a tenured professorship.

I'm not impressed by your thesis. You've failed to prove your point.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Woof

I have an agenda and you have an agenda. The difference is that you are asserting something that is contrary to common knowledge (the notion that the Oregon Trail pioneers, and the Alaskan pioneers, were so inept at handling guns that they were often killing each other by pure accident, and that was because they hadn't previously owned guns for the most part).

When you make a remarkable claim, the burden of proof is on you to back it up with overwhelming evidence. So far, you've presented a brief editorial comment on the Oregon Trail migrations that isn't backed by data from the text, and you've referred to a historian who was so thoroughly discredited that awards to him were withdrawn, and he was forced to resign in disgrace from a tenured professorship.

I'm not impressed by your thesis. You've failed to prove your point.

That seems to be a common practice he has a flair for...

[Metlakatla]

I love you guys. Keep up the scrappin'