You can always follow up when someone says “states rights” with “to do what?”… because the answer was “have slaves”.
Another interesting note I bring into the states rights argument is that the south wanted to force the north to send back escaped people and were actually sending people into the north to kidnap black people, many of whom were never born slaves.
So yeah the north wanted the right to gives rights to the people in it, and the south thought that didn’t apply to black people.
So yeah the north wanted the right to gives rights to the people in it, and the south thought that didn’t apply to black people.
I think that gives a bit too much credit to the vast majority of Union citizens. Yes there were some groups of Quakers who actually believed in freeing slaves and protecting their rights, but that was a minority opinion .
The majority of people in the union disagreed with slavery for economic and political reasons that were unattached to the morality of slavery. Even progressive politicians like Abe Lincoln who wanted to free slaves, also wanted them to be shipped to the Dominican Republic or Africa afterwards.
Abolitionist v radical abolitionist and emacipationist v radical emancipationist.
History is fun like that…
And to radicals, there is no greater foe
The war did polarize people into holding stronger opinions than they did before though.
Even if they started as unionists more than anything else, being opposed to the South turned into also opposing what they stood for. As evidenced by a lot of the most popular northern camp songs, matches and letters, it didn’t take long for “hang Jeff davis, the traitorous scoundrel” to turn into “hang Jeff Davis, the traitorous, slaving scoundrel. Let’s shoot rebels in the name of freedom!”.Wanting to shoot confederates is a weird reason to become pro emancipation, but I’ll take it.
And “limited government”. Limited to do what?
That’s an easy one.
It means “disassemble all checks and balances, strip the people of all power and authority, and concentrate the power and authority into the hands of a chosen party-aligned dictator or oligarchy.”
Small government doesn’t get any smaller than a totalitarian dictatorship.
Sorta, the valid but shitty argument is that it was an interstate trade dispute the South was mad at the federal government about.
What commodity was the federal government interfering with that got them so angry?
Agrarian South vs. Industrialized North made for an unfair trade balance. You can hardly trade a bale of cotton for a steam engine, that kinda idea I believe. Been 30+ since college American History, forgot the exact gripes.
We could probably find these disputes in the various Letters of Secession. They almost all start with slavery, but there were other complaints.
EDIT: I was wrong. The letters are almost 100% “bla, bla, bla, we’re being treated unfairly and we’re leaving.” Surprisingly little mention of slavery, but get a load of Mississippi’s letter! LOL my god, y’all just gonna have to read that one yourself. (I had always assumed that letter was typical and I was wrong.)
EDIT: Oh fuck me, I’m wrong again. The linked are merely the official ordinances, not Letters of Succession. Hence why they’re all dry legalese. But I did arouse your curiosity about Mississippi, so here go their letter.
Slaves, duh.
It’s not my argument people, it’s an explanation of the new version of states rights the right spews in bad faith.
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To own slaves I guess.
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state’s rights
wanted the federal government to override the rights of free states
made slavery mandatory rather than leaving it up to the states
tried to flat-out steal entire states using violence
Like every conservative, when they talk about freedom they’re only talking about their freedom to do what they want, and their freedom to make you do what they want using violence.
IMHO the bigger gotcha on the “states’ rights” lie is that the Confederate constitution gave states no more rights than the US constitution, while specifically denying one: the right to abolish slavery within their borders.
the biggest gotcha is asking back
“the state’s rights to do what?”
Ok, I know Marx was a contemporary of the civil war and wrote about it but every time I see him with a sensible take on it I’m just like “aren’t you in Germany then and it’s a massive pain in the ass to cross the ocean at the time. Why are your takes so sensible”
Marx sent a letter to Lincoln, and Lincoln’s staff responded via Ambassador Adams. It’s a really interesting moment in history that’s been buried by US Red Scare ideology.
from wiki on Adams:
Part of his duties included corresponding with British civilians, including Karl Marx and the International Workingmen’s Association.[7] Adams and his son, Henry Adams, who served as his private secretary
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm
Oh man that would be a fun tidbit for conservatives when they try the old “accckshully Lincoln was a Republican who fought to free slaves so it’s the Democrats that are the racists!”
“Ok, so how do you feel about Lincoln working with Karl Marx, you know, Mr.Communisim?”
Didn’t he edit a newspaper? I suppos having takes was kind of his job.
But muh heritage… /s
The word “heritage” is a disgusting one these days, thanks
conservativesfascistsThey have ruined heritage, patriot, the Gadsen flag, and damn near the US flag for me.
I am not American so I never understood that phrase. A state’s rights? Who gives a shit about a state? Isn’t everything about human rights like it always have been?
well, i think the idea is generally that Americans like issues to be decided at a state level rather than federally due to general “small government” principles, like they can trust their state level government to be more specifically beholden to their interests. this is usually in a right wing context, but not always, like famously California has much stricter environmental regulations than the rest of the country.
Which begs the question: why did they join a union in the first place if they wanted decentralized government?
Federalism is a complex topic. Some things are done better In a central way, and some are done better distributed.
Uniform regulation of commerce and military protection is really efficient.
At the time, there was no practical way for one body to make meaningful policy to manage both new York and south Carolina at the same time.
You can basically look at what the EU is doing and that’s why the states did it too, just starting with “shit we need money, a navy and soldiers” rather than "can we all just agree on food standards and currency?”
It’s the 10th amendment. All other 9 amendments and many thereafter are in relation to human rights.
And states rights and human rights can actually go hand in hand, as seen by state legislatures that have passed assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, and legal cannabis laws. It has also been used to ensure electors cast their vote for the nominee or candidate who received the most votes from the people.
Unfortunately it’s also been co-opted as a racist, misogynist dog whistle.
Not in America unfortunately.
I may be an anarchist, but I can admit Marx has some banger quotes.
I tend to consider him right in basically all his criticisms, misguided in formulating the solutions.
Presumably he ran into the trouble a lot of generous, intelligent, and honest people have, they assume everyone is basically like them other than circumstance and stress.
And, obviously you can trust a fellow socialist to run the vanguard states, right?
They get it. Heirarchy bad, racism bad, sexism bad, he’s been over this!
Or perhaps he was simply, like everyone, merely a product of his time. The workers of his day were barely literate, every state other than America and France (depending on what exact year we’re talking) were absolute monarchies, etc etc etc.
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“We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
Correct. The monarchies and oligarchs have it coming.
Interesting to hear that trying to annex places against the will of the people there is bad. Don’t think everyone claiming to follow Marx followed that rule lol
I wouldn’t say common, more that a broken clock is right twice a day
Aight, I’ll call your bluff, give me 22 things he was wrong about. I’ll wait.
That would require reading Marx lol. These hot takes usually come from reactionaries mimicking what they hear from other reactionaries/charlatans/media towing the stateline. Marx was wrong about some things of course, like the revolutions to a democratically worker owned economy would come from the industrialized centres. But knowing about the ideas which are critical of our current economic system is dangerous to a few, and freeing to the majority.
The part about “Marx said revolutions would come from industrial centers” is also commonly misinterpreted. Marx said that this would be how it would work out in western europe, but he actually even speculated that in a country like Russia, it might come from the peasantry instead.
How convenient
lmao his biggest critics have never read anything he wrote.
nice rhetoric, I’ll remember that
Hopefully dude is currently reading Marx trying to find logical fallacies in his philosophy. Dudes gonna come out a staunch Marxist in no time. There is a reason Libraries dont have his works available for loan on most Libraries.
Jordan Peterson said he’s bad so checkmate
Once again, broken clocks being right twice a day.
Still waiting on you to tell us what Marx was wrong about…
Oh yeah…
There are people that you shouldn’t waste too much of a breath on with a debate and I consider you and the rest of you fine folks here to be them.
Sure buddy
Ok.
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I’m not that well read up on his stuff. What was he so wrong about?
In his book, he charts the course of human history and tries to predict where it will end up. He comes to the conclusion that a violent revolution will soon come to pass as the workers overthrow their bosses and start sharing resources.
“Soon come to pass” was 150 years ago, the Revolution hasn’t happened. Marxist scholars since then have been recreating the letters between early Christians asking why He hadn’t returned yet as promised and pushing the date of the Second Coming back.
In my opinion, Marx wrote his conclusion first, then cherry picked the points in history that supported his conclusion.
There hasn’t been any anti-capitalist revolutions in the last 150 year.
Maybe read a history book?
I seems to recall the US losing a war to communists in the 1970s for instance.
any
I don’t think their point was that no revolution has happened but the revolution to change it all didn’t happen like he assumed
Marx didn’t consider capitalists holding the world hostage with nuclear weapons
plenty of successful revolutions did occur though, just not in places under the control of the ‘west’
very chauvinistic view to hold IMO
I mean the world revolution was already sorta stopped before nukes came into play. Maybe next time though, never say never
The US lost a war to Vietnamese nationalists that adopted the trappings of Communism in order to get materiel support from China. They rejected it, and China, as soon as possible
Vietnam is a unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist republic, one of the two communist states (the other being Laos) in Southeast Asia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam
Wer’re Sorry Try Again
The economy of Vietnam is a developing mixed socialist-oriented market economy
That doesn’t sound very communist to me, and I’ve heard plenty of times that a mixed economy isn’t a socialist one at all.
Or is that only when it’s a European country?
the Revolution hasn’t happened
conclusion first, then cherry picked the points in history that supported his conclusion
you hear those self-aware wolves howling?
In my opinion, Marx wrote his conclusion first, then cherry picked the points in history that supported his conclusion.
I can’t fathom the arrogance of people who say “Marx just didn’t think of x, y or z”. He invariably did, and a quote is easily found to prove them wrong. Yet they continue to say this bollocks. “Marx didn’t consider human nature, Marx didn’t know about x obscure economic theory,” on and on until the cows come home. Capital has 3 volumes, and each is thick and heavy enough to make a decent murder weapon. They are so long precisely because he did do the thinking you accuse him of not doing.
The one single thing we can legitimately say he didn’t anticipate was the computer revolution, and it in fact only strengthens his theories, as digital technology has gone on to strengthen the hold of capital, and laid bare its incestuous relationship with the State.
Nothing you said rebutted the section of my comment you quoted, you just started fighting strawmen
Don’t try and lie so blatantly. I directly responded to your implication that Marx just wasn’t thinking about things clearly.
In my opinion, Marx wrote his conclusion first, then cherry picked the points in history that supported his conclusion.
Nothing in that implies what you’re accusing me of
Oh, get fucked if you’re gonna try the pedantic game. Go ahead and tell me how I got it wrong and what you really meant if you’re gonna try this sleazy tactic. Otherwise, stfu with your bollocks.
Marx made mistakes though. For example, he assumed that the right of appropriating the whole product of a firm and control rights to direct the workers in the firm were attached to the ownership of capital. In reality, capital can be rented out just as labor can be hired. It is really the employer-employee contract that is at the core of capitalist appropriation. Ownership of capital just increases bargaining power to get favorable contract terms such as the employer contractual role
You just described Marx’s theories, while claiming to correct them.
Wild.
Marx thought that control rights over the firm were attached to ownership of capital rather than being logically separately acquired in the employer-employee relationship.
“It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge were attributes of landed property.” – Marx
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See, that’s what I mean. You treat The Revolution as an inevitability, then twist yourself into knots to justify why it hasn’t happened yet.
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