After the War, the Nuremberg trials and all that Germany, presumably with Allied counsel, decided...

[TreasonousBastard]

to outlaw Nazism and any mention of the previous hell we had all been through. With proper German precision, they understood that the only way to stop it from rising again was to stamp it out. Stamp hard. It isn't working 100% and there are still hard liners out there, but they are suppressed and understood to be a sort of unfortunate human frailty and ignorance, similar to mosquitos and other ills.

The Japanese have also taken peace to heart and after trying to take over China, and then the world, They, like the Germans, have found much more productive outlets in Toyota and Sony. That's a much more constructive way to take over the world.

China seems to have learned a lesson, too, and finds commerce vastly superior to warfare when possible.

Here in the US, though, we're happily killing ourselves and talk of nothing but destruction. We allow out home-grown Nazis and other haters "free speech" while they slowly destroy our better nature.

We are the sum total of years of immigration, and taking the best ideas of our European and Asian immigrants to heart, making us in theory, the best of the best. It just doesn't seem that way, though.

We must immediately start cracking down on the wingnuts, primarily the wingnuts who preach arms, and hate. Crack down hard and make them understand we simply will not put up with their shit. One of our biggest mistakes was winning the Civil War but treating the losers as heroes. Honoring their sacrifice without denouncing their beliefs is no honor at all.

Choose decency, and stamp out the deniers with no quarter.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. We also didn't stamp out the Confederates...

... after the Civil War, and look at the problems those people continued to cause for many years thereafter -- Jim Crow laws, etc.

And today, those same parts of the country are the most reliable GOP fascist voters.

The dog needs corrected immediately after unacceptable behavior, or it won't understand it... and it will seem more like cruelty rather than corrective action.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. That's what I've been saying. I don't know what Lincoln would have done, but Johnson happily...

treated them as lost brothers rather than as traitors. We're paying for it today.

Those statues should have been torn down in 1866, not rebuilt in the 1930's

[Buckeye_Democrat]

3. Agreed.

Andrew Johnson was a horrible President.

Too bad that Lincoln picked him as his VP, for the sake of trying to win more votes. Then he didn't simply replace him after the election was over.

[Celerity]

5. The Reconstructionists won power in the 1866 elections, and it only officially ended with the

Compromise of 1877, but iy always was hamstrung.

I deffo agree that Johnson was shit and really hurt Reconstruction's ultimate chances in the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1877

[thucythucy]

15. Lincoln was on record favoring "Forty acres and a mule,"

in other words: land reform. He wanted to break up the huge estates of the Confederate slave owner oligarchs, and distribute that land to freed blacks and poor whites. This would have given the white underclass a vested interest in the new regime, and, it was hoped, brought the South into some semblance of actual decency.

The first thing Johnson did--and I mean the very first thing--was issue an executive order taking jurisdiction of the traitor estates away from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, effectively gutting the whole idea.

Everything else followed from that.

One excellent source for this is "The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America" by Mark Neely. David Blight's books on Reconstruction are also well worth the time.

[Bread and Circuses]

10. Exactly

The Union should have hung hundreds of the traitors.

That was the message that should have been sent.

Now, we better get smart and apply all legal pressure. And if it's treason ----execution.
Period

[Celerity]

4. Stamp them out how? Our side will hew to the Constitution, their side is rapidly tossing away

Constitutional norms and also good faith in a mad dash to christofascism intertwined with white nationalism.

It is, unfortunately, likely going to come to some form(s) of kinetic warfare/violence at some point, the only questions are how soon, how intensive, and how widespread. The RW genie is not going to be put back into the bottle peacefully. They are only going to get worse and worse and worse. The scientifically designed mass programming is too widespread, too sophisticated, and 1st Amendment near absolutism ensures it will only continue to grow in both scope and intensity.

I also cannot see either side letting a peaceful breakup of the Union occur.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I've got a few problems with how we threw Father Coughlan off the air, but it was considered a risk

and his ideas un-American. The other side is today trying to shut us up, and too often succeeding.

It can be done, but we need the will.

[Celerity]

8. The 1st Amendment near absolutism is now too entrenched I fear. The long-wave constitutional

flaws (the Electoral College, the very nature of the Senate, the nebulous AF 2nd Amendment, the rise of the imperial Presidency, an almost unaccountable Supreme Court with lifetime appointments, a 1st Amendment written to allow an absolutist take to become entrenched that likely could lead to a national suicide pact, etc etc etc) were always going to come to the fore eventually, and in some respects it is amazing that it took 230 plus years (and it survived a civil war, although parts of it were temporarily jettisoned in order to preserve the Union) to really start to possibly unwind.

[TreasonousBastard]

9. I see a lot of problems with reinterpreting the Constitution, especially those first two Amendments

but I'm not that fatalistic. Kansas managed to bust a lot of heads with the population simply looking at the reality around them and telling all the politicians and talking heads to just bugger off and leave them alone.

Something tells me we're going to see a lot more of that now that people know they can do it.

It won't be easy, and the people who should shut up never do, but there's a little bit of sunshine.

[Celerity]

11. 2 words: Foetal Personhood

IF the SCOTUS drops that hydrogen bomb, all bets are off.

That would likely outlaw most abortions nationwide.

Then you truly have the nightmare scenario.

Many of the Blue States will never submit to that, at which point a true inflection point is reached, especially if a Rethug ever regains the POTUS, but also theoretically under a Dem POTUS as well.

Does a POTUS try to bring the Blue Sates to heel? If so that likely involves sending in federal LEO's or troops, at which point kinetic violence likely ensues and Blue state secession movements explode.

Do nothing, let the Blue states slide, and soon the Red states will use that to likely stop complying with previous SCOTUS decisions THEY disagree with. Chaos ensues again.

[TreasonousBastard]

14. I remember LBJ sending troops in 1968, the US Army under...

MacArthur chasing Bonus Soldiers out of DC, Kent State, and other times ignoring Posse Comitatus. OK, I don't actually remember the Bonus Soldiers, but I read about them a lot.

Point is that we have in the past largely ignored the idea of not using Federal troops when ignoring it seemed like a good idea. The way we're using Homeland Security types and the Coast Guard these days certainly shows some people could use a pencil sharpener.

If they really want to start a war, they better be damn sure they're ready for one. A garage full of AR 15s doesn't count.

In the 60's a lot of people seriously thought we might break up, but people who matter (for good or bad) thought that would really be bad for business.

[czarjak]

7. My uncle that served in post-war occupied Germany came home with my Aunt Katy...

Who lived through it all. Can't get my cousins to rectify for some reason. They're kinda still leaning to Momma's side for some reason.

[Lonestarblue]

12. What we need is news media not controlled by the profit demands of corporations.

PBS and NPR have been infiltrated by corporate donors like the Kochs who have demanded and gotten changes in their coverage that are more favorable to the right. Having watched PBS and listened to NPR for decades, I can say that the decline in their quality started after George W. Bush slashed their budget. Republicans were able to force the organization to rely more on big donations from the wealthy, and those donations often come with strings attached.

[TreasonousBastard]

17. We've never had a nonprofit news media. The Feds started...

NPR and PBS to balance the news media of the day.

[bucolic_frolic]

13. We are victims of the Enlightenment and its positive view of human nature

Our State is not strong enough, and our civil liberties too permissive, to cope with the darkest human instincts.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. Largely true. Aside from the obvious flaws like slavery,

both the Articles and the first version of the Constitution had some fatal flaws thanks to a misguided belief in human propriety.

The Bill of Rights was called that for a reason.

[GoneOffShore]

18. A very good take on what's going on.