Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Great Debates
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 11-27-2013, 03:37 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,948,035 times
Reputation: 15038

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
Mark my words, there will be no violence when the secession happens. People aren't going to war if it means taking on more debt.
An interesting argument, of course it was the likes of Robert Toombs, John Breckinridge and Jefferson Davis who first advanced such an argument when they proffered that the Union would never fight a war, much less a protracted one because the north would be deprived of southern cotton to keep their textile mills running. Of course we all know how that played out.

Anyway, I ran across this comment while researching a point for another thread but seems apropos to the topic being discussed here.
We have now reviewed, in detail, all the articles composing the sum or quantity of power delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, and are brought to this undeniable conclusion, that no part of the power is unnecessary or improper for accomplishing the necessary objects of the Union. The question, therefore, whether this amount of power shall be granted or not, resolves itself into another question, whether or not a government commensurate to the exigencies of the Union shall be established; or, in other words, whether the Union itself shall be preserved.
James Madison writing in Federalist #44

 
Old 11-27-2013, 04:51 PM
 
Location: Waiting for a streetcar
1,137 posts, read 1,385,368 times
Reputation: 1124
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
I do not advocate anarchy, and have never said that I do.
You hardly had to. You have proclaimed yourself and as many other airheads as you can round up exempt from every law and stricture that has existed since prior to your birth. Broad-based individual rights to disrespect law and the rule of law is called what?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
I oppose total anarchy, but you wouldn't understand that, as you conflate freedom with anarchy.
Your idiotic and ahistorical view of freedom is nothing else but anarchy. You fancy yourself natural born as some unbridled wild stallion running free in the golden sun across the unfenced prairie. Snort-snort, yippee-ti-yi-yo and all that, except that the whole nine yards of your childish little delusion is a useless crock of crap.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
By the way, you are misusing the term anarchy, it does not refer to a land without law, it refers to a land without government. (Those are different things, just like freedom and anarchy.)
You have a lot to learn! Like rights, law comes from government.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
Ugh, again you completely misunderstand the idea of freedom. You are speaking on a subject you do not know and it shows. The whole idea of freedom is taking authority away from a central power and investing it in the individual. My suggestion stands, read a single book on rights theory... you have demonstrated multiple times now that you have no idea what you are talking about.
You are a child wandering in the wilderness, my son. If you wish to invoke this body of rights theory that you previously called upon, then you must accept that the entire thing is an effort to discover balance between legitimate rights and legitimate authority. In your posts, there IS no legitimate authority. The mere notion of ordered liberty is too constraining for you. There is nothing whatsoever that is of value in your approach.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
Your Timothy McViegh statement is a straw-man at best.
It was a literaray device. Thurood Marshalll as opposed to Timothy McVeigh. Did you notice that their initials are the same or did that fly right over your head as well?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
All that babble means nothing. I know I am not Thomas Jefferson, he is dead...
So are you and you have been since about the third page of this thread. That said, you are in no place to be invoking Jefferson.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
No, I have never made that claim.
Diaper change on Aisle-5. You have over and over again made a claim of exemption and exclsuion from law and contract enacted prior to your birth.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
You just can not comprehend what you read and think I have made that claim. It is not my responsibility to make sure that the people who read my posts understand English enough to know what they mean.
Like most other things, my English is a quite a bit better than yours, and it very much IS your responsibility to communicate the actuality of your ideas to others when either speaking or writing. Communication is the entire point. See" child" and "wilderness" yet again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
So you do not believe humans have a right to rule themselves as they see fit, is that so damn hard to say?
Of course they don't, and they never have. What sort of idiotic world do you take this to be anyway?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
I don't have a problem with you being anti-freedom, but admit it.
I long ago and quite unmistakably rejected your nonsensical notions of what constitutes freedom. The number of your problems remains quite elevated however.
 
Old 11-27-2013, 06:52 PM
 
6,639 posts, read 5,863,384 times
Reputation: 16918
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d View Post
Dude, you are 152 years and about 10 months too late to make this "guarantee"!!! ROTFLMAO.
You're 150 years out of date if you think the average, clinically obese, sofa-dwelling TV-watching American is going to get off his duff and march to war because some people in some distant state are fed up with the federal government! There's no way. You'll be lucky if they take their hand out of the Doritos bag long enough to form a middle finger salute.

Look at Quebec. Until they finally reached a grand compromise regarding language, federal benefits, etc., the Quebecois were talking seriously of secession, and the rest of Canada was so fed up they finally set, let the b*****ds just leave. Quebec was a net consumer of federal aid, and Ontario was a net producer. (Not sure if these numbers have shifted because of massive oil production in the Manitoba tar sands). To non-Quebecois, it made financial sense if not geographical sense for Quebec to secede.

But then they reached a compromise, and Q stayed in the dominion. So, what's the lesson for the U.S.? Listen to the disgruntled populations and try to meet their concerns halfway, at least.

The U.S. is still a vast and wealthy country and it should not be such a challenge to allow a little regional diversity in exchange for maintaining the Union.

We could have avoided the Civil War, if the North were willing to accept slavery in the South for a couple more decades before mechanization made it economically obsolete. Of course the reason for the war wasn't strictly slavery, but the issue was used to whip up the populace of the North to impose its will on the South, which southerners greatly resented.
 
Old 11-27-2013, 07:50 PM
 
3,147 posts, read 3,488,330 times
Reputation: 1873
Quote:
Originally Posted by fairlaker View Post
You hardly had to. You have proclaimed yourself and as many other airheads as you can round up exempt from every law and stricture that has existed since prior to your birth. Broad-based individual rights to disrespect law and the rule of law is called what?


Your idiotic and ahistorical view of freedom is nothing else but anarchy. You fancy yourself natural born as some unbridled wild stallion running free in the golden sun across the unfenced prairie. Snort-snort, yippee-ti-yi-yo and all that, except that the whole nine yards of your childish little delusion is a useless crock of crap.


You have a lot to learn! Like rights, law comes from government.


You are a child wandering in the wilderness, my son. If you wish to invoke this body of rights theory that you previously called upon, then you must accept that the entire thing is an effort to discover balance between legitimate rights and legitimate authority. In your posts, there IS no legitimate authority. The mere notion of ordered liberty is too constraining for you. There is nothing whatsoever that is of value in your approach.


It was a literaray device. Thurood Marshalll as opposed to Timothy McVeigh. Did you notice that their initials are the same or did that fly right over your head as well?


So are you and you have been since about the third page of this thread. That said, you are in no place to be invoking Jefferson.


Diaper change on Aisle-5. You have over and over again made a claim of exemption and exclsuion from law and contract enacted prior to your birth.


Like most other things, my English is a quite a bit better than yours, and it very much IS your responsibility to communicate the actuality of your ideas to others when either speaking or writing. Communication is the entire point. See" child" and "wilderness" yet again.


Of course they don't, and they never have. What sort of idiotic world do you take this to be anyway?


I long ago and quite unmistakably rejected your nonsensical notions of what constitutes freedom. The number of your problems remains quite elevated however.
All the crap that you are complaining about are positions, that I have not taken. That means that you made them up... if you can't act like an adult, you will be ignored.

Look at you go, ignoring every point that I have made, and arguing with every point I have not made.
 
Old 11-27-2013, 07:56 PM
 
3,147 posts, read 3,488,330 times
Reputation: 1873
Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto View Post
Parsing? Avoiding the question?!?!

You ask these ridiculously worded open ended vacuous questions and then you whine that the response was judiciously thought out!

So let's try to answer the question so that even a 4 year old can understand the answer:
Would it be moral to kill people for wanting to rule themselves because you want to maintain the power to dictate your terms to the world?
It is immoral to kill anyone for WANTING to seceded.

It is immoral to kill anyone for WANTING to overthrow the government.

It is immoral to even kill someone for WANTING to kill another.

WANTING is THINKING and thinking whatever you wish to think IS your inalienable right.

You can even advocate secession,

You can even advocate the overthrow of the government,

But when someone acts with force or violence to secede, overthrow the government or killing another it is very much so moral, for any sovereign nation to use such force and violence necessary to prevent such acts.
You are still parsing terms and avoiding the actual question. It is clear that "want" in that context implies a popular vote or legislative action to secede. If you were really smart, you would bring up the fact that a region can not want, because a region is inanimate. Go ahead parsing terms, it is cute.

Secession is not a violent act. You just want to pretend it is to justify violence towards secessionists.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto View Post
On edit: A poster who is against secession, and willing to provide a response that I wanted to hear.


Nope, a poster that is consistent and willing to own their argument, unlike you parsing terms and relying on pedantry to avoid admitting that you don't believe in rights at all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d View Post
No.
Ok, so you refuse to have a discussion, and only wish to throw out vitriolic posts every now and then, from here on out, you will be ignored.
 
Old 11-27-2013, 10:44 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,948,035 times
Reputation: 15038
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xander_Crews View Post
You are still parsing terms and avoiding the actual question. It is clear that "want" in that context implies a popular vote or legislative action to secede.
Then I suggest that you take a class in expository writing so that someday you will be able to write a clear and cogent sentence stating exactly what you mean so that others do not have to guess.

Quote:
Secession is not a violent act. You just want to pretend it is to justify violence towards secessionists.
While you are taking that writing class, you might want to look into taking a course in reading for comprehension. Better yet, how about enlisting that freshmen debating team you eluded to earlier, you could use the help.

From the text that you yourself quoted:
"But when someone acts with force or violence to secede, overthrow the government or killing another it is very much so moral, for any sovereign nation to use such force and violence necessary to prevent such acts."
Now with regard to your attempted clarification:
"want" in that context implies a popular vote or legislative action to secede
A popular vote or "legislative action to secede" is utterly meaningless in fact or in law. The inhabitants of a town, city, county, state, region, area, spit of land can vote for secession to their hearts content, voting don't make it so. They will still be subject to the same federal laws and regulations, laws and regulations that federal authorities will be required by law and the Constitution to enforce. Now if deadly force is used to resist the enforcement of those laws, then indeed those charged with enforcing the law will have the lawful power and authority to respond in kind.

Quote:
Ok, so you refuse to have a discussion, and only wish to throw out vitriolic posts every now and then, from here on out, you will be ignored.
That is your best course of action because I have discussed the issue, I have substantiated my arguments by posting the views and opinions of the Framers of the Constitution, leading political figures from Daniel Webster to Abraham Lincoln. I have posted and discussed the writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, I have discussed natural law and the theories of social contracts and the compact theory of government. None of which you have chosen to discuss, instead you have treated myself and others who have entered into this debate with clear and reasoned responses to a steady diet of obfuscation, projection, deflection and rhetorical mendacity. So ignore away, you've been doing that throughout the thread.
 
Old 11-27-2013, 11:17 PM
 
2,687 posts, read 2,177,829 times
Reputation: 1478
Since you're complaining that nobody is paying attention and answering properly, I'm going to start over entirely with you.


I am at a loss as to why people freak out when somebody mentions secession.

In America, it's because it reminds them of the Civil War. In other countries, their responses may not always be in the form of freaking out. Every country's situation, history and view of secession (in the popular mind and in the law) are different.

What is the big issue with free people deciding who to associate with politically?

That's too open-ended to respond to properly. On the face of it, nothing. But what if a state wanted to secede and join a country that's openly hostile to the United States? Then I would have a problem with who they decide to associate with politically.

If we are truly free, why do people support the use of violent force to keep the United States in it's present form?

Because the implication of violence or the use of force of some kind by the legal authority essentially undergirds the rule of law. The rule of law is pointless if it's not backed up against those that would willfully flaunt it.

Throughout history both ancient and modern the trend is consistent of countries and empires breaking into smaller more numerous political designations, this tends to lead to governments that are more responsive to the local populations.

That's debatable, I think for example that several former British possessions (like Zimbabwe for example) were actually better off when ruled from London.

Most of the time, when secession is brought up, the nay-sayers link it to the confederacy and racism, and why not, it is an easy cop-out.

I pointed out previously that this isn't a cop out, it's history. In spite of your insistence that the American revolution was secession, the American people and the American history books don't see it that way, it's them you'd have to convince.

Truth is there are many regions in the United States which could benefit by not being ruled by D.C., often a city a thousand miles away. The Cascadia region could benefit by controlling itself, so could Texas or New England. This is not a southern racist conservative issue, like many like to paint it to be.

That's debatable and doesn't address any of the advantages of being a part of the world's premier super power and getting to use its fiat reserve currency.

So what are your problems with secession? And if you have a problem with secession, do you support violence to suppress a state or states efforts to secede?

My problem with it is that I think it's illegal in the United States and I don't recognized any inherent right to secede that transcends national boundaries, as I pointed out elsewhere, every nation is unique and I would judge each situation based upon its merits.

I don't think violence would be necessary to stop it, but the threat of violence might, and that's fine with me. But if a state insists upon seceding and resists, force may then be necessary, and that's fine with me.
 
Old 11-28-2013, 06:28 AM
 
6,639 posts, read 5,863,384 times
Reputation: 16918
Quote:
Originally Posted by Votre_Chef View Post
I don't think violence would be necessary to stop it, but the threat of violence might, and that's fine with me. But if a state insists upon seceding and resists, force may then be necessary, and that's fine with me.
So you'd be ok with the U.S. Army marching into, say, Texas, and using heavy artillery on secessionists? Or the Air Force bombing people? Suppose they fight back and refuse to surrender--then what? Are you prepared for the bloodbath that will follow? How many of those soldiers are going to obey orders? How will it play out in the international arena? China will say, America has no right to criticize their occupation of Tibet, or Israel's occupation of the west bank, or the situation in Chechnya or Georgia or a dozen other spots where they're fighting over land and legitimacy.

I think it much more likely that they'd just be allowed to secede. This isn't General Sherman's Army anymore, when they could just march through the South, laying waste as they went, killing wantonly. Were a president to attempt such a barbaric move, he'd quickly find himself barricaded in the White House as outraged Americans rose up against him.
 
Old 11-28-2013, 06:56 AM
 
14,612 posts, read 17,373,704 times
Reputation: 7781
Quote:
Originally Posted by ohio_peasant View Post
If a state or collection of states secedes, what new currency would they adopt? Would the financial markets take that currency seriously?
I doubt that any succession states would try and adopt a new currency.

Outright succession is much less likely than US regions demanding more political autonomy. Autonomous states are common in much of the world, particularly in Europe. Italy has seven autonomous regions, and UK has four.
 
Old 11-28-2013, 07:42 AM
 
Location: Jamestown, NY
7,840 posts, read 9,157,947 times
Reputation: 13779
Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
You're 150 years out of date if you think the average, clinically obese, sofa-dwelling TV-watching American is going to get off his duff and march to war because some people in some distant state are fed up with the federal government! There's no way. You'll be lucky if they take their hand out of the Doritos bag long enough to form a middle finger salute.
The problem with your scenario is that secessionist nutjobs don't make up even a small minority of the voting population all through the country, and they're scattered all through the US. How are they going to take over any single state? How are they going to get control the governorship of that state? How are they going to get the state legislature to vote for secession? How are they going to convince the voters to vote for secession?

Finally, why in God's name would any sane American give up his/her rights, protections, and benefits as an American citizen in favor of being a citizen of Secessionville?

Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
Look at Quebec. Until they finally reached a grand compromise regarding language, federal benefits, etc., the Quebecois were talking seriously of secession, and the rest of Canada was so fed up they finally set, let the b*****ds just leave. Quebec was a net consumer of federal aid, and Ontario was a net producer. (Not sure if these numbers have shifted because of massive oil production in the Manitoba tar sands). To non-Quebecois, it made financial sense if not geographical sense for Quebec to secede.

But then they reached a compromise, and Q stayed in the dominion. So, what's the lesson for the U.S.? Listen to the disgruntled populations and try to meet their concerns halfway, at least.
Define what makes up the "secessionist population". Bigots being po'd because a black Democrat is sitting in the White House may constitute a "disgruntled population" but their "concerns" don't merit any consideration whatsoever.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
The U.S. is still a vast and wealthy country and it should not be such a challenge to allow a little regional diversity in exchange for maintaining the Union.
"A little regional diversity"? Like what? Slavery? Jim Crow? Segregation? That was what the South demanded for about 200 years.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
We could have avoided the Civil War, if the North were willing to accept slavery in the South for a couple more decades before mechanization made it economically obsolete. Of course the reason for the war wasn't strictly slavery, but the issue was used to whip up the populace of the North to impose its will on the South, which southerners greatly resented.
ROTFLMAO. You might try reading about the beginning of the Civil War ... and NOT from a neo-Confederate screed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Closed Thread


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Great Debates

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top