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.
I was playing by their game, because I know not everyone in the south is a wide-load and not everyone in California is Anorexic, etc. But both have some good points, like food.
I just think it's silly that people argue about which 'state' or which 'area' is the best. I don't like fried foods...I don't like 'heavy' foods and I don't like places where I have to drive everywhere...so I hated where I was in the South.
Moved to evil California and love every minute of it. Although, I do find it funny that a lot of people who cry and moan about California have never actually been out here, or have simply stayed in the LA or San Francisco area and never actually explored the state.
Same with the South...if you get ALL your 'southern information' from New Orleans, you're not experiencing it correctly.
You seem to be extraordinarily hung up on California. It's one state. Supposing California is the bottom-dwelling state, it's neighbors are most of the Southern states. Merely by stating that California is bad doesn't mean the Southern states are good.
Just because there is good food out there doesn't mean you have to be a fat pig and eat it.
As far as slaves go, that's not what I was referring to when I said "quick to deny civil rights".
I have family that lives in CA and I know the state well - it's a Nice State There's a lot of good things about CA, the primary education just isn't one of them. I guess I could have just used Nevada as my example instead Our primary education is a national failure, not a particular state or regional thing.
There are fat pigs in CA too and the South has many skinny people as well Just stupid stereotypes.
Got ya on the civil rights - it's backwards that way and agree. But so is MUCH of the country. Most of your major cities in the South, don't care one way or anther if your gay
and have quite active gay communities. San Fran they are not, but you can't have everything.
I find it sickening that Southerners try to defend slavery and Jim Crow with this stupid strawman argument and lame attempt at deflection. Your own links (to a bizarrely slanted site) are talking about the 1700s! Nice try but no cotton bale.
And I find it equally sickening that that is as far as you can see it. Talk about a bizarre and deflective and strawman reply.
If you can find just one thread where I -- or anyone else -- has "defended slavery or Jim Crow" then I would like you to post it. What it really boils down to is that people like you expect that when the South and/or Southern history is attacked/ridiculed/etc, then we just take our medicine because everyone really knows the South was evil and the North virtuous. To point out, in effect, that people who live in glass-houses shouldn't throw stones is considered a "strawman" or "deflective" argument.
A bizarrely slanted site? What is bizarre about it? On the contrary, it is well presented and written, and with numerous footnoted sources. Further it tells a truth many either are unaware of or do not want to accept.
I have southern "roots" most of my family lives in Alabama or Mississippi. But others can be found in GA TN & KY. My mom and dad were from B-ham. I am from Virginia.
The only "heritage" we have is the legacy of slavery. My family has lived through the horrors of Jim Crow and being treated like cattle from the white southern people themselves.
Proud heritage? You tell me.
I think this southern heritage thing is only for white southerners. And will spawn nothing but hate into future generations of southerners, both black and white. And it won't be pretty.
Yeah and that was the first to outlaw it, so for the love of Jesus, you will not win this argument.
Listen, this didn't work the first and the second time you pulled this on me. and it won't work this time.
The fact you keep bringing it up probably means you have some sort of compulsive disorder. Or you have an addictive personality. You know repeat the same act time and time expecting a different result.
This retort is easily turned on its head. If you don't want to get wet, don't make a wave.
Sure it is working, as evidenced by your defensive indignation on the subject, and shallow attempt to draw moral distinctions simply because the North abolished slavery first. Something like, well don't you dare bring up my region's history because we are removed from the equastion by virtue of that fact. Sorry, won't work.
Nothing was done out of any regard for the plight of blacks as a moral concern. It was purely economic and there is a reason why the historical stereotype of the profiteering "yankee" exists. As several have pointed out, the northeast continued to profit by slavery in the South long afterwards. They could (or some did) righteously point out abolistion in their own states...but continued to buy cotton picked and ginned by slaves in the South to feed their own factories (where, incidentally, conditions were often worse than that of the slaves).
As it is, I don't need to "win an argument" with you, per se. In that narrow realm, you are personally of little importance. You will stick to the same hypocricy you always have. You know, repeat the same act and expect a different result. What I will do and will continue to do is point it out so that others might judge for themselves.
With all that said, you are correct in that I have a certain compulsive disorder and addictive personality. In this instance it translates into I am going to get a beer!
I have southern "roots" most of my family lives in Alabama or Mississippi. But others can be found in GA TN & KY. My mom and dad were from B-ham. I am from Virginia.
The only "heritage" we have is the legacy of slavery. My family has lived through the horrors of Jim Crow and being treated like cattle from the white southern people themselves.
Proud heritage? You tell me.
I think this southern heritage thing is only for white southerners. And will spawn nothing but hate into future generations of southerners, both black and white. And it won't be pretty.
I live in the South and have friends that are black, white, and hispanic. We manage to get along, and they don't blame me for things that happened way before I was born. Hate? No, only people that live in the past are full of that. The young generation seems to be doing much better with the whole racial thing.
Desert Kid, you must know better than that. Slavery was the #1 reason for the secessions of the states -- the number one reason for their asserting their states' rights. Not #2 or #6, NUMBER ONE. They spelled it out as such. They didnt hint around. You know the Cornerstone speech, etc. I wish you all would stop pretending otherwise.
The Southern states did not go out en-masse. Each state spelled out its own reasons and there were two distinct waves of secession. The Lower South -- South Carolina thru Texas -- left first. And true, slavery was prominetly listed, no ones denies that. But NOT the sole reason. It was tightly wrapped up in other considerations (for instance, specifically speaking, Georgia the tariffs, Texas the frontier protection issue, just to name a few). And the Upper South states did not mention slavery at all. Why ignore that one?
Anyway, it is always a double-edged sword when historical quotations are brought into play...
The Cornestone Speech? Yeah, this one by CSA vice-president Alexander Stephens is always trotted out. I will just reply the same way I did last time (on another thread) when you brought it up...
For one thing, this was his opinion. It was not official policy of the CSA government. But if you want to make it that way, then why should this quote by Jefferson Davis (President, CSA), count any less?
I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming for twelve years; I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind, it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battles, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery, we are fighting for independence, and that, or extermination."
Further, during his inagural address, Davis never mentioned slavery.
But as to the "cornerstone speech"? Read this, and an excerpt from it:
It is a common assertion nowadays that the Confederacy had no purpose or justification but perpetuating racist slavery.
That argument can be made intelligently, and has been made, but the lazy debater wants to treat it as a settled proposition above discussion. Any objection to it, or any suggestion of Southern legitimacy, is automatically dismissable because it amounts to a defense of the Confederacy, and even if someone who is not an outright racist or slavery-apologist would defend the Confederacy, the debater on the other side has the option to not be bothered with that distinction. Far easier to dismiss the opposition as crypto-racist.
It's the old fallacy of arguing in a circle. Yet people choose this tactic, perhaps in part because they find it frustratingly difficult to pin down American history or any part of it to such a simplistic idea as "it was all about slavery."
No one says slavery was not a large issue. That would be foolish. But it is much more foolish to think/pretend it was nothing more than that.
Quote:
Are you saying in this and the above posts that with only the boll weevil to interfere, in your alternate history the South would have peacefully chosen to free agricultural slaves... and would have chosen to educate them, train them and hire them to work in manufacturing plants? Start PAYING them? To live as independent neighbors and coworkers with the white workers?
Why on earth would you think this?
So what are you saying in your alternate history, delusianne? That Southerners would have kept slaves to this day? That the same economic and historical impacts that caused the gradual abolition of slavery in other parts of the country/western world, would not apply to Southern concerns as well? Or are Southerners just inherently more evil and racist?
Also, did any of this sarcastic irony (I will stand by that the previous are NOT oxymoronic! LOL) you attempt in your last few sentences ever become the "standard" outside the South? That is, altruistic measures to treat blacks as equals in the workplace and integrating them into society? On many levels, the South was much more integrated (by the standards of the day) than non-Southerns states. The major difference was that the South was just much less hypocritical about it. And this fact was never more evidenced than when the Civil Rights Movement went into the North...
The ones quickest to try and deny equal rights to people.
Definitely Southern pride.
Oh dear oh dear.
I do believe that without the north the south would be a third world nation like most of central and south America. Did they ever even experience the enlightenment?
Yawn. Here we go again. Another thread where miserable people put down a whole section of the country and the people who live here. Please, stay home. If I could just get rid of all the people from NJ, MA, etc. etc. etc. that invade my home state every winter, I would be a happy person. We must have something you like, because you keep invading us. Also, if you visit and are lucky enough to meet a Southern woman, then we can't get rid of you. If you are going to keep bringing up slavery for eternity, have fun. My mama taught me to only say nice things about people. That is obviously something mothers not from the South neglected to teach.
It is true that we are proud of our home states, and it is sad that other people want to take that away. Also, it is true that most of the people I know own their own homes. Our cost of living is much less than that of most other areas in the US, so more people can afford to own. Sorry, if that goes against the stereotype many of you have of the South. We are happy that many of you don't like us, because it keeps you away.
The Southern states did not go out en-masse. Each state spelled out its own reasons and there were two distinct waves of secession. The Lower South -- South Carolina thru Texas -- left first. And true, slavery was prominetly listed, no ones denies that. But NOT the sole reason. It was tightly wrapped up in other considerations. And the Upper South states did not mention slavery at all.
Anyway, it is always a double-edged sword when historical quotations are brought into play...
The Cornestone Speech? Yeah, this one by CSA vice-president Alexander Stephens is always trotted out. I will just reply with a sorta edited paste when this one addressed earlier.
For one thing, this was his opinion. It was not official policy of the CSA government. But if you want to make it that way, why should this quote by Jefferson Davis (President, CSA), count any less?
I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming for twelve years; I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind, it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battles, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery, we are fighting for independence, and that, or extermination."
Further, during his inagural address, Davis never mentioned slavery.
But as to the "cornerstone speech"? Read this, and an excerpt from it:
It is a common assertion nowadays that the Confederacy had no purpose or justification but perpetuating racist slavery.
That argument can be made intelligently, and has been made, but the lazy debater wants to treat it as a settled proposition above discussion. Any objection to it, or any suggestion of Southern legitimacy, is automatically dismissable because it amounts to a defense of the Confederacy, and even if someone who is not an outright racist or slavery-apologist would defend the Confederacy, the debater on the other side has the option to not be bothered with that distinction. Far easier to dismiss the opposition as crypto-racist.
It's the old fallacy of arguing in a circle. Yet people choose this tactic, perhaps in part because they find it frustratingly difficult to pin down American history or any part of it to such a simplistic idea as "it was all about slavery."
No one says slavery was not a large issue. That would be foolish.
So what are you saying in your alternate history, delusianne? That Southerners would have kept slaves to this day? That the same economic and historical impacts that caused the gradual abolition of slavery in other parts of the country/western world, would not apply to Southern concerns as well? Or are Southerners just inherently more evil and racist?
Also, did any of this sarcastic irony (I will stand by that the previous are NOT oxymoronic! LOL) you attempt in your last few sentences ever become the "standard" outside the South? That is, altruistic measures to treat blacks as equals in the workplace and integrating them into society? On many levels, the South was much more integrated (by the standards of the day) than non-Southerns states. The major difference was that the South was just much less hypocritical about it. And this fact was never more evidenced than when the Civil Rights Movement went into the North...
Excellent post and good points throughout but especially about delusianne and his alternate history. He appears to also live in an alternate reality. Subtract a few letters from his Username, add a couple more and the picture becomes crystal clear.
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.
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.
There's a lot of good things about CA, the primary education just isn't one of them. I guess I could have just used Nevada as my example instead
Our primary education is a national failure, not a particular state or regional thing.
