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Old 05-04-2014, 10:58 AM
 
Location: Myrtle Creek, Oregon
15,293 posts, read 17,594,549 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TexasReb View Post
LOL. I was? You evidently don't have much beyond your own biases to define what a true theocracy is.

But whatever...here is the wording from the original Declaration of Independence:

*********************************************

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;

********************************************

Now then? Would you call this a theocracy as well...? LOL A problem with it? Just curious...
No, it's not a theocracy because the Declaration of Independence did not establish any kind of government. It was a rousing political tract, nothing else. When the USA got around to actually forming a government, they omitted any mention of a deity. This was intentional. The Divine Right of Kings had left a bad taste in their mouths, and they were careful to eject the divine interventionists from the government. It's interesting that the South was so eager to give up that freedom that they put it in their constitution.

Any government that is established by, or answers to, a religion is a theocracy.
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Old 05-04-2014, 11:11 AM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,186,349 times
Reputation: 16936
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell View Post
No, it's not a theocracy because the Declaration of Independence did not establish any kind of government. It was a rousing political tract, nothing else. When the USA got around to actually forming a government, they omitted any mention of a deity. This was intentional. The Divine Right of Kings had left a bad taste in their mouths, and they were careful to eject the divine interventionists from the government. It's interesting that the South was so eager to give up that freedom that they put it in their constitution.

Any government that is established by, or answers to, a religion is a theocracy.
Also remember by and large these men were Deists. Yes, they believed in a supreime being. He was wise and a guide. But he was not a god. Deism has aspects of religion, but is also a philosophy more than a religion, and deals more with the natural options of man. The supreme being was an adviser representing wisdom. It was a human choice to embrase that wisdom or not.
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Old 05-04-2014, 11:45 AM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 24,006,151 times
Reputation: 21237
Quote:
Originally Posted by nightbird47 View Post
Also remember by and large these men were Deists. Yes, they believed in a supreime being. He was wise and a guide. But he was not a god. .
I do not believe this is correct. Deism held that there was a creator, but that the creator has been indifferent regarding developments since creation. It held that the only way to know anything of the nature of a god was via scientific observation of nature and life, but it was otherwise unknowable, a rejection of revealed and dogmatic religions. There were no assumptions about it being wise or being a guide.
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Old 05-04-2014, 01:12 PM
 
Location: Ohio
24,623 posts, read 19,068,157 times
Reputation: 21733
Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
Don't they like being part of the USA?
The US is a murdering bullying thug. I would applaud any State that rejects that in favor of conservative values to help people reach their fullest potential.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
Do they really think (with the exception of Texas) that they can financially survive on their own ?
Texas is not the only State that can survive on its own.

You are severely lacking in knowledge to even think about debating this matter.

There are cities in the US that have a GDP larger than European States, or for that matter, any other foreign State on Earth.

Many States will do better in every regard without the US, than with the US.

When the time nears, I'll show that. Can't do it here in the US, but when I go home, I can.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
Or how weird it would be to partition America into separate countries?
Wonderful, not weird.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
I have studied a bit about the civil war though by no means an expert.
You are wasting your time studying the Civil War.

That was the 19th Century, this is the 21st Century. Just thought I'd mention that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
The south made a big mistake threatening to secede and starting the war. They never had a chance against the north because all the weapons were manufactured up there.
That is anachronistic.

You are employing a fallacy....several actually....

Faulty Comparison

If you try to make a point about something by comparison, and if you do so by comparing it with the wrong thing, then your reasoning uses the fallacy of faulty comparison or the fallacy of questionable analogy.

Gambler’s

This fallacy occurs when the gambler falsely assumes that the history of outcomes will affect future outcomes.

Selective Attention

Improperly focusing attention on certain things and ignoring others.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to look only for evidence in favor of one’s controversial hypothesis and not to look for disconfirming evidence, or to pay insufficient attention to it.

There is absolutely nothing....nothing...from the Civil War that is economically or militarily relevant today.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
Cotten and tobacco are profitable crops but they won't win a war.
The CSA was negotiating with Britain to enter the war on the South's side.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
You have a point they don't represent the majority of Americans but still there seem to be enough people signing these petitions that you have to worry about the feelings of some Americans toward our country and how it affects us ?
Did you ever stop to think that due to Liberal policies, those people feel disenfranchised?

The Framers of the Constitution were brilliant men who established a federal republic for a reason.

The US is heterogeneous and always will be (for all intents and practical purposes).

Federations thrive on diversity.....heterogeneity.

Liberal policies and ideology has shifted the US away from federalism to nationalism, and ultimately to a totalitarian State.

That is why people feel disenfranchised.

If you want future generations of Americans to be well-off, then restore both the Constitution and the federation.

That, is the key to your salvation.

Continue down the Liberal path of nationalism, and you will have a civil war....and it will be more frightening than you could ever possibly imagine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
This is very confusing . A black man owning black slaves ? I didn't know that existed. I see that he lived a long time ago. I wonder if he treated his slaves well?
In the US there were Free Blacks and Slave Blacks.

In the South --- before the Civil War ---- there were Free Blacks who lived in their own towns and elected their own mayors and city councils and conducted their own affairs.

In the South --- before the Civil War ---- there were Black Plantation owners who owned both Black Slaves and White Slaves.

Native American groups had either other Native Americans as slaves, or Blacks as slaves, or both.

In the South --- before the Civil War ---- I could take you to cities and towns where you would see Black people and you would never have a freaking clue they were slaves. They'd probably dress better than you wearing suits and ties and big flowing gowns for the ladies --- their work clothes. They were accountants and shop managers and other skilled or semi-skilled professionals. And of course the trades...black-smiths, cobblers, tailors, etc etc etc.

The only strange thing would be that on the boardwalk, they would always step aside to let you pass, and they would never look you directly in the eye....they would always look down while speaking with you. Aside from that, they dressed nicely, lived in apartments atop their stores or in houses or hotels, and they even had a little spending money, but they were still slaves nonetheless.


Anyway, it is not just the South that desires secession. Many people in many States......even in the New England States are pondering secession, if only for a fleeting meeting.

The only lessons to be learned from the Past are political and ideological --- nationalism in a diverse republic always fails....as it did then, it will in the Future....returning to federalism and restoring the Constitution is the only thing that will save Americans.

The economic and military aspects have no bearing on the Present or the Future.

If, and when, the time comes, those States that wish to leave the "Union" will leave, and it will be all over in less than 6 months....probably less than 4 months.....and then new maps will have to be made because Canada, Mexico, and the united States won't be the only countries on the North American continent.

Seceedingly good....

Mircea
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Old 05-04-2014, 01:50 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,939,123 times
Reputation: 15038
[quote=Mircea;34656417]

Quote:
In the South --- before the Civil War ---- I could take you to cities and towns where you would see Black people and you would never have a freaking clue they were slaves. They'd probably dress better than you wearing suits and ties and big flowing gowns for the ladies --- their work clothes. They were accountants and shop managers and other skilled or semi-skilled professionals. And of course the trades...black-smiths, cobblers, tailors, etc etc etc.
It is amazing how these revisionist conservatives can proclaim outside of one side of their mouths the awe shucks wonderfulness of slave life was while at the same time constantly exalting those who rose up and through off the shackles of the intolerable oppression and tyranny of a tax on tea out the other.
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Old 05-04-2014, 03:27 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,939,123 times
Reputation: 15038
Yes, through should have been spelled threw.
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Old 05-04-2014, 06:11 PM
 
10,238 posts, read 19,534,378 times
Reputation: 5943
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonsereed View Post
It was all about states's rights....not least of which was the right to own slaves

The confederacy will always be regarded as having been on the wrong side of history by the vast majority, and no amount of semantic or verbal gymnastic is ever going to change that

Oh! and I am no yankee btw
The expression "wrong side of history" is temporal and totally dependent upon the outlook of the immediate time presuming to judge it. The flaw in that argument is that the said expression becomes totally valid only when comes the end of time; which may be a month from now or ten-thousand years from now. See the point?

I have said it before and will say it again. The advantage those who take a northern side of it all have the advantage of that most of the mainstream history was written from the winners side. The advantage the "Southern side" has is that many things are coming to light -- thanks to the internet in many ways -- that many have never heard before, and are not really prepared to deal with for that very reason.

LOL though...hey, jonsereed? What was the "right" of the northern states to engage in the slave trade?

Slavery in the North

And read this sub-link in particular; how did the slaves get to the Southern states to begin with? Truth hurts, doesn't it?

Northern Profits from Slavery

Even after slavery was outlawed in the North, ships out of New England continued to carry thousands of Africans to the American South. Some 156,000 slaves were brought to the United States in the period 1801-08, almost all of them on ships that sailed from New England ports that had recently outlawed slavery. Rhode Island slavers alone imported an average of 6,400 Africans annually into the U.S. in the years 1805 and 1806. The financial base of New England's antebellum manufacturing boom was money it had made in shipping. And that shipping money was largely acquired directly or indirectly from slavery, whether by importing Africans to the Americas, transporting slave-grown cotton to England, or hauling Pennsylvania wheat and Rhode Island rum to the slave-labor colonies of the Caribbean.

Northerners profited from slavery in many ways, right up to the eve of the Civil War. The decline of slavery in the upper South is well documented, as is the sale of slaves from Virginia and Maryland to the cotton plantations of the Deep South. But someone had to get them there, and the U.S. coastal trade was firmly in Northern hands. William Lloyd Garrison made his first mark as an anti-slavery man by printing attacks on New England merchants who shipped slaves from Baltimore to New Orleans.
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Old 05-04-2014, 07:12 PM
 
10,238 posts, read 19,534,378 times
Reputation: 5943
Quote:
But it is true to say that those Union soldiers were, indeed, fighting to abolish slavery as a sin. You can see that in the letters still preserved that they wrote back home to their loved ones.
Present those letters, will you? It will matter quite a bit if the said "letters" in terms of numbers make up a notable percentage relative to other letters by northern soldiers explaining their reasons for fighting...
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Old 05-04-2014, 07:26 PM
 
10,238 posts, read 19,534,378 times
Reputation: 5943
Quote:
=Larry Caldwell;34654854]No, it's not a theocracy because the Declaration of Independence did not establish any kind of government. It was a rousing political tract, nothing else. When the USA got around to actually forming a government, they omitted any mention of a deity. This was intentional. The Divine Right of Kings had left a bad taste in their mouths, and they were careful to eject the divine interventionists from the government. It's interesting that the South was so eager to give up that freedom that they put it in their constitution.

Any government that is established by, or answers to, a religion is a theocracy.
All true, but the point is totally inapplicable. That is, I realize that the DOI is not the constitution, which is law of the land. However, the preamble of the constitution sought to incorporate a general overall guidance which embraced it.

In any event, the "theocracy" thing is just "over-kill" on your part. Freedom of worship/religion was made clear from the start to be just that, with nothing "theocratic" at all. It was the same as that of the old Union...no established church and no restrictions on the freedom to worship or not.

Nothing in the least theocratic....
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Old 05-05-2014, 01:22 PM
 
34,248 posts, read 19,254,567 times
Reputation: 17237
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea View Post
The US is a murdering bullying thug. I would applaud any State that rejects that in favor of conservative values to help people reach their fullest potential.
Yes cause those states, they have nothing at all to do with how we as a nation act. Nope...nothing....

Quote:
Texas is not the only State that can survive on its own.

You are severely lacking in knowledge to even think about debating this matter.

There are cities in the US that have a GDP larger than European States, or for that matter, any other foreign State on Earth.

Many States will do better in every regard without the US, than with the US.

When the time nears, I'll show that. Can't do it here in the US, but when I go home, I can.



Wonderful, not weird.
The idea that any single state would be better off is ludicrous. Mexico would take Texas if Texas didn't have the entire might of the US defending it. Whats funny is people thinking that states being separated up would be good, its silly. They all have these "in a perfect world things would work like X" ideas, and they dress them up really nicely without truly understanding all the consequences.

Quote:
You are wasting your time studying the Civil War.

That was the 19th Century, this is the 21st Century. Just thought I'd mention that.
Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.

Quote:
That is anachronistic.

You are employing a fallacy....several actually....

Faulty Comparison

If you try to make a point about something by comparison, and if you do so by comparing it with the wrong thing, then your reasoning uses the fallacy of faulty comparison or the fallacy of questionable analogy.

Gambler’s

This fallacy occurs when the gambler falsely assumes that the history of outcomes will affect future outcomes.

Selective Attention

Improperly focusing attention on certain things and ignoring others.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to look only for evidence in favor of one’s controversial hypothesis and not to look for disconfirming evidence, or to pay insufficient attention to it.
I love this.....He does many of the above fallacys, selective attention, confirmation bias, etc. And the operative word is falsely for the gamblers bias, tell you what Mircea, smack yourself. Did it hurt? Do it again? Did it hurt? OK once more....repeat until gamblers bias no longer occurs. Guess what? Eventually it WILL stop hurting. That doesn't mean you should smack yourself now because it doesn't hurt.
Quote:
There is absolutely nothing....nothing...from the Civil War that is economically or militarily relevant today.
Oh no, nothing at all. This is of course so wrong it boggles the mind. Theres a TON of learning lessons militarily! And the economics of it are relevant for some things (although I do agree that it is limited on the economics side)


Quote:
The CSA was negotiating with Britain to enter the war on the South's side.



Did you ever stop to think that due to Liberal policies, those people feel disenfranchised?

The Framers of the Constitution were brilliant men who established a federal republic for a reason.

The US is heterogeneous and always will be (for all intents and practical purposes).

Federations thrive on diversity.....heterogeneity.

Liberal policies and ideology has shifted the US away from federalism to nationalism, and ultimately to a totalitarian State.

That is why people feel disenfranchised.

If you want future generations of Americans to be well-off, then restore both the Constitution and the federation.

That, is the key to your salvation.

Continue down the Liberal path of nationalism, and you will have a civil war....and it will be more frightening than you could ever possibly imagine.
I should probably look up a list of fallacies here, but I will leave it to the readers imagination.


Quote:
In the US there were Free Blacks and Slave Blacks.

In the South --- before the Civil War ---- there were Free Blacks who lived in their own towns and elected their own mayors and city councils and conducted their own affairs.

In the South --- before the Civil War ---- there were Black Plantation owners who owned both Black Slaves and White Slaves.

Native American groups had either other Native Americans as slaves, or Blacks as slaves, or both.

In the South --- before the Civil War ---- I could take you to cities and towns where you would see Black people and you would never have a freaking clue they were slaves. They'd probably dress better than you wearing suits and ties and big flowing gowns for the ladies --- their work clothes. They were accountants and shop managers and other skilled or semi-skilled professionals. And of course the trades...black-smiths, cobblers, tailors, etc etc etc.

The only strange thing would be that on the boardwalk, they would always step aside to let you pass, and they would never look you directly in the eye....they would always look down while speaking with you. Aside from that, they dressed nicely, lived in apartments atop their stores or in houses or hotels, and they even had a little spending money, but they were still slaves nonetheless.
So in Mircea's world, slavery is apparently A-OK! Look at those folks, yeah they're slaves, and have no civil rights...but look! Some small % of them can climb the ladder! Upward mobility exists and is great! Slavery is awesome! (replace the words slavery with economic inequality for fun)

Quote:
Anyway, it is not just the South that desires secession. Many people in many States......even in the New England States are pondering secession, if only for a fleeting meeting.
And most promptly realize the people discussing it are insane, or are living in a fantasy world where they make all sorts of assumptions that are mostly wrong that somehow make this a good idea.
Quote:
The only lessons to be learned from the Past are political and ideological --- nationalism in a diverse republic always fails....as it did then, it will in the Future....returning to federalism and restoring the Constitution is the only thing that will save Americans.


The economic and military aspects have no bearing on the Present or the Future.
Wow...just wow. Is this some new way of rewriting whats a good or bad idea? "Yeah I smacked myself in the face, and it hurt, but lets try it again!" Probably the next idea will be "Hey lets try trickle down economics, because...well...This time its different!" No. No its not.
Quote:
If, and when, the time comes, those States that wish to leave the "Union" will leave, and it will be all over in less than 6 months....probably less than 4 months.....and then new maps will have to be made because Canada, Mexico, and the united States won't be the only countries on the North American continent.

Seceedingly good....

Mircea
Bwahahahhaah! Seriously? Wow. How did that work out last time? Oh yeah....
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