See also the secession declarations of Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas; or this speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens; or many other speeches, sermons, and Southern newspaper editorials.
This for sure.
Also, the idea that that we have been spreading democracy and free enterprise thruout the world by our military “interventions” since the Spanish American War into Afghanistan and Iraq today ignores the fact that our help to the poor in these endeavors has always been on behalf of Capital at the expense of the US taxpayer and the indigenous folks unlucky enough to have been born on exploitable resources.
Sure, like the purely Capitalistic intervention in WWII.:rolleyes:
Well, that was because of Da JOOZ, so it was Capitalistic in that sense. 
If that is the case - if “formally heretical” is a serious matter - it raises a new mystery. Why was Galileo treated so leniently at this time? By 1616, Galileo (in the Letters on Sunspots) had already publicly declared that heliocentrism must be true (indeed, the Letters are more explicit on the point than the Dialog was later on), and he had argued publicly about how the Bible should be re-interpreted to favor his view in the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. Yet at this time, 1616, when the man he thought was his main ally and protector, Barberinni, had not yet been elected pope Urban, Galileo essentially got off scot free. He was simply got told not to do it again.
I admit, I do not have independent knowledge of the force of “formally heretical,” but I have long assumed that it meant, pretty much, “heretical but trivial” because of the trivial consequences that followed, at the time, from Galileo being found to have committed a “formal” heresy.
My eyes roll with yours.
Corporate America had a good stake in Hitler (I will not cite in this thread). How does a self-declared Jew hater who in Mein Kampf declared a war of vengeance on the world for the indignities Germany had suffered at its hands, first rise to power and then come to “secretly” assemble a world class military and Jew collector, to everyone’s surprise?
I can’t get beyond this one.
Yes, that’s apparent.
My own contribution would be that I was not taught about a major portion of World War II - the War in Asia. Most people never learn that Japan had already been at war with China for several years before Pearl Harbor brought the Americans and Europeans into it and this was a bigger war than the one going on in Europe at the same time. If World War II was the merger of these two continental wars into a single global conflict, then that war began in 1937 not 1939.
Plasma’s another thing I wasn’t taught about in school. I learned that matter came in three types: solids, liquids, and gases. Which is not true. Most of the matter in the universe is actually a plasma. It’s only around planets that matters cools down enough to form into the other three states. Which means that a lot of what we learned about atoms is not generally true.
Do you think there would have been a Civil War if there was no slavery?
Without slavery, America as we know it would not exist.
Agreed. I was always taught (in Florida) that the Civil War was about slavery. Yes, states rights entered into it, in the sense of the Southern states’ right (as they saw it) to decide whether to hold onto their “peculiar institution,” but none of my teachers whitewashed this as an abstract political or philosophical debate.
It’s not clear from your post whether you still think this is true or not.
From what I’ve read, the British press gangs were authorized to only impress British merchant seamen. Non-British and anyone with no experience of sailing were safe.
There were a few cases where British seamen took American citizenship. This was not recognized by the British authorities, who regarded them as still being British, hence fair game for impressment.
There were perhaps a few Americans impressed by error. But it was also possible to appeal against impessment. A recruit who could make a good case that he wasn’t British would be released immediately.
So, basically, your dad was misinformed.
I’d like to say in reply to the 'The civil war was about slavery" discussion. I think you should acknowledge one simple fact, nothing as big as a war, is ever about a single thing. Slavery was the predominant issue certainly, but as others have pointed out there was bad blood on both sides, and can you honestly say that NOT ONE of the people involved on the side of the south was in it for states rights but not slavery? Or that NOT ONE of the people on the Northern side was fighting for the Union instead of against slavery. It’s just not as simple as ‘it was about slavery’ it’s best to say 'its about decades and possibly more than a century of conflict, most often over slavery but not limited to it."
Umm, no. You see many British at that time took the position that Americans were British. As you said they ignored American Citizenship if the person had been born a British Citizen, as many Americans had (since America didn’t exist until 1783 according to the British).
wiki:In 1795, the Jay Treaty went into effect, addressing many issues left unresolved after the American Revolution, and averting a renewed conflict. However, the treaty’s neglect to address British impressment of sailors from American ships and ports became a major cause of complaint among those who disapproved of it. While non-British subjects weren’t impressed, Britain didn’t recognize naturalised American citizenship, and treated anyone born a British subject as still “British” — as a result, the Royal Navy impressed over 9,000 sailors who claimed to be American citizens.
During the wars with France (1793 to 1815), the Royal Navy aggressively reclaimed British deserters on board ships of other nations, both by halting and searching merchant ships, and, in many cases, by searching American port cities…
For the next year scores of American ships were condemned in admiralty courts and American seamen were impressed with increasing frequency until, in the early summer of 1807, when three deserters from the British frigate HMS Melampus lying in Chesapeake Bay enlisted on the American frigate USS Chesapeake. After searching the Chesapeake, the deserters, David Martin, John Strachan, and William Ware were found to be native Americans who had been wrongly impressed. Unfortunately the search had also found that a crew member listed, Jenkin Ratford, was a British deserter however, he could not be found. Admiral Berkeley in anger issued an order to all commanders in the North Atlantic Squadron to search the Chesapeake if encountered on the high seas. Eight miles southeast of Cape Henry a boat from the British frigate HMS Leopard intercepted her but Commodore Barron declined to permit his crew to be mustered. The Leopard began approaching and the commander shouted a warning to which Barron replied “I don’t hear what you say”. The Leopard then fired two shots across the bow and almost immediately poured a broadside into the American ship and, without the Chesapeake returning fire, poured another two broadsides into her. Three crew were killed and eighteen wounded. The British boarding party not only arrested the British deserter but also the three native Americans. "
Also they took Landsmen: “The press gang would try to find men aged between 15 and 55 with seafaring or river-boat experience but this was not essential and those with no experience were called “Landsmen”. From 1740 Landsmen were legally exempt from impressment but this was ignored in wartime unless the person seized was an apprentice or a “gentleman”[6]. Two Landsmen were considered by captains to be the equivalent of an Able Seamen. If a Landsman was able to prove his status to the Admiralty he was usually released”
However, proving or appealing your status required getting back to a port, and then being allowed off the ship to make your claim. That could be months or years.
Finally, since Americans spoke English, the British sometimes took native born Americans and impressed them, this was common enough to be noteworthy:"This made it all the more difficult for the Royal Navy to distinguish Americans from non-Americans and led it to impress some Americans who had never been British. " “American anger at impressment grew when British frigates stationed themselves just outside U.S. harbors in U.S. territorial waters and searched ships for contraband and impressed men in view of U.S. shores.[21] “Free trade and sailors’ rights” was a rallying cry for the United States throughout the conflict.”
So, it was far more than a “few” and it was difficult and a long process to get out of being imprest, and some British seriously abused the system.
Thus it was a legit causus belli, and the British dumped it in 1815, even though it was not specifically mentioned in the treaty.
Well, for one, there aren’t all those sails blocking your view.
I don’t know about your circulatory system, but you are incorrect in the other two points.
There is an obvious selection pressure in favoor of removing the appendix from the gene pool. It’s called appendicitis.
And the selection pressure in favour of removing menopause, a cessation of fertility, from the gene pool, is even more obvious. It causes a cessation of fertility. That is the very definition of a negative selection pressure.
That’s the thing that makes it hard for me to understand how it could just be about slavery. I mean that if you went into say Boston in the 1860’s and asked “Should we continue to fight this war so we can free the black man” that large amounts of people would say something to the effect “Why would I want to risk death to free a bunch of n******?” I guess I figure it’d be a tough sell even if you could implant modern attitudes into people at that time so I would think doing that with 1860’s attitudes would be miraculous.
I can’t remember for sure who told me this (I want to say it was an astronomy professor in college) but I heard a good philosphy for this. Basically the idea that you could think of a scientific theory as simply a tool to predict reality. So just like using any other tool you need to ask youself what does this tool do and when can I use it? It’s ok that you can’t use a screwdriver to drive a nail since that’s not its job. It’s also ok that you can’t use a plain old hammer to put a nail in concrete since you can’t use it then. You can use a hammer to put a nail in wood and in that case it’s a good tool to use. As long as you know where and when to use a tool it has value.
The other half of this equation is cost. When looking at any tool besides knowing where and when to use you have to look at how much a tool costs to “buy” and how “heavy” it is. It might be nice that you have a multi function tool that can put in a nail, screw, cut wood, and measure. However if that tool cost $50k and you just need a hammer that tool is overkill. Also if the hammer is 1lb and this multifunction job was say 50lbs it’s far too heavy. Similarly if we had 2 theories and one can be learned by college students while the other pretty much requires phd level of study then the first one would be good if both make accurate predictions. Also if you have 2 theories and one is easier to use and you’re less likely to make errors you’d probably be ok with the simpler one even if the other was more universal. (IE the less universal one is cheaper and lighter, if both work in the situation you’re using them in then there’s no real point into using the other theory. As long as you know when you can or can’t use the easier theory you’re ok.)
You are talking about the theoretical virtues.
pdts