Reply #19: Now now, if you choose

[AliceWonderland]

to bolster you points with a perky "bullshit", Mr. Muddle, you can't get upset when someone points it out. I've never been impressed with proof by vigorous assertion.

I have no problem with the multiple facets of the Civil War you point out, but then again, I never claimed that there weren't multiple facets. I did note that many of your facets boil down to the bucks, but I don't discount other motives, all the same. I said slavery was an economic issue and that war is a business institution. Of course the Civil War was fought for economics, and to say that doesn't mean an individual didn't have another motivating cause. I'll say it again: you are confusing what an individual would fight for with the industry and bureaucracy of war, Mr. Muddle.

But unfortunately, you're missing the point. Slavery, land patterns, economic and class issues, etc and so on, were all part of the same old same old. Roll out the factories, roll out the negroes to provide the cotton, roll out all the rest -- and when the situation reaches a boiling point, when various interests are a stone's throw from explosion, when the vile institution of owning another human being and calling that just another part of your culture becomes too hideous to be borne....then we bat our eyelashes and say "of course there's no choice, we must fight the good fight, what are you, some appeaser coward evil-lover!? I mean, what else can we do? What are you, some terra-ist lover? What, you love slavery? What, you hate freedom?" It never changes. Kill a few towel head terrorists -- oops! sorry, helpless victims of the 21st century Hitler, that's right -- and it's the same old same old. Wash, rinse, repeat. Line your pockets and build your empires until things get to a boiling point, then cry out that There Is No Alternative. Good grief, by that point, if there isn't an alternative, there's no great wonder why.

I liked the "equally lame", by the way. That was a very nice touch. Maybe you want to call me a "stoner dude" too? That will certainly convince me of the merit of your arguments.