Random thoughts post 'em

[Shadow Step]

The right of the South to secede was the same right the original 13 colonies exercised when seceding from the British Empire. To say otherwise is to ignore historic fact and precedent. And the South never set out to attack the North, they were merely attempting to fortify and protect their own border, knowing their neighbor to the north would aggress (as they did).

And the patriots *were* labeled traitors in 1776, you know. The only difference is the South lost whereas the patriots eventually beat the British.

So I suppose I misspoke. To the North I suppose the South could have been considered traitors. But to continue labeling them as such to this day, after losing the war and being forced back into the Union, is a bit much, tbh. But whether or not a group is labeled as "traitor" is really subjective and relative to the side on which an individual stands. As such, I don't think it should be bandied about as historical fact.

I am surprised at how quickly this thread of discussion fulfilled Godwin's law, though.

I knew all of this, which is why I made the nazi comparison to start with and said a political agenda/party that really should just be removed entirely. The South wanted to keep slavery, and they tried to secede over that. Of course the North was going to attack when America was supposedly built on freedom yet allowed slavery to continue. It was hypocritical, and we knew that, but Southerners couldn't give up the whole idea.

Meanwhile, Hitler led a pure political coup, along with a few mentionings of fear mongering in corners, and established something that's very far removed from Germany as we know it and as it was. It had its own flag, structure, etc, much like the South did. The difference between the two is that when someone in Germany says, "You know, I would like to fly the Nazi flag" they are arrested because of the shit nazi's pulled, but in America people fight for their right to embrace a group that was fine destabilizing a new country so they could keep free labor.

The problem with Godwin's law is that it's very easy to draw connections from Hitler to other things. Not just on a factor of, "NAZI'S WERE EVIL!" but the way he did things, the repercussions on laws, etc. I actually think, outside of academia, that it's silly to negate an entire argument just because someone brought up Hitler. There's a lot of guys in control of nations doing very similar stuff, but the moment you bring that up it's all, "Hitler was the worst, don't compare anyone to him ever because he's bad guy number one til the Earth implodes."