Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Dawna, do you know what the average response time for a Mountie in rural Canada might be? A firearm is a tool. And I'd not put it past the antigun crowd to define anyone not in the Police or military as unfit to own a firearm. They already have.
In the US a child cannot buy a firearm, or the ammo for it. And of coarse neither can felons, the mentally unfit etc... though criminals aren't likely to obey the law anyway. A man w/ a functioning IQ of 17 isn't going to go into the local Wal Mart and buy a shotgun.
Think of it this way in Rural America or Canada for that matter. A woman is alone in her farmhouse when a car pulls into the farm yard; a couple of nasty looking characters get out and walk up to her door. The woman is alone she is pretty, she is tiny and some people call her a little slow. She feels it neccessary to order them of her land. They refuse. Now she knows she can lock the door and call the police; it will take these bad men a lot less time to bust in her kitchen door than for the police to arrive. Then they will drag her out of her home take her away in their car and do God knows what to her. That 12 guage shotgun in the closet gives her real bargaining power and a chance at safety she might not otherwise have.
The right to bear arms is not a right to threaten those who don't. A couple years ago Minnesota passed a conceal and carry law; the anti gun crowd crowed and cried about how there would be shootings in the street. Not one negative incident involving someone w/ a Conceal & Carry permit has occured since. If it had it would be plastered all over the front page of the Star Tribune.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
The firearm laws in Canada are quite draconian, and thus far we don't have a gun problem, nor do we feel the need 'to bear arms.'
Did Canada ever have a gun problem?
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Most of the guns owned by Canadians are used for hunting, and the idea of gun ownership to protect property is inconceivable to us, and with all due respect, laughable.
Collectively speaking for all Canadians doesn't seem like the way to express individual liberty.
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But when a person does obtain a gun strictly to protect their home and property, does that not make them 'armed?'
It is not the term 'armed' that I disagreed with, but rather the idea that the government arming people is an accurate representation of individuals exercising their liberty to arm themselves....or not to.
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Trying to defend your property with a gun can also open up a legal can of worms that would have been better left to police intervention.
I don't wish to drag this thread into a gun control discussion. So if I may, I'll use your above comment to get back to the subject of liberty, something which Americans have been accused here of not valuing anymore.
If you were my neighbor here, it would be none of my business if you assessed your situation and then chose to leave your protection entirely in the hands of the police. But to deny me the freedom to assess my own situation and choose my preferred course of protection IS to deny me liberty. My ownership does not endanger you as my neighbor, and in fact acts to protect you. In the event someone were to break into my home in the middle of the night and endanger my life, I prefer to decide for myself whether to take the legal hassle behind door #1 or the put my life in the hands of the intruder behind door #2. If he breaks into your house, you're free to wait for the cops to come and make out the report in the aftermath. That's freedom.
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Since a gun is an incredibly efficient killing device, I'm not convinced that depriving an unfit person the 'right to bear arms' is an infringement of their individual liberty.
I can't help but notice that nothing here in this thread has yet been offered in the way of defining and legislatively disqualifying "unfit" citizens from the exercisement of certains rights. Are you A) advocating widespread prohibition, B) advocating gun ownership be degraded to a government granted privilege, or C) keeping the process of declaring those unfit a secret?
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We don't allow children to drink, drive, or own guns for very good reasons.
Well of course not. They can't afford any of it. Mine are fortunate I feed them.
Can you explain how your personal liberty is at stake because some of your neighbors might own some firearms? Are the personal liberties of someone living next to a guide in Temagami more at stake than someone living in Toronto? I can surely say that my owning guns has never encumbered the liberties of my neighbors, even the two from Canada.
I am extremely tired of getting some good ideas for debate for a new thread and then seeing it shut down because of petty bickering.
This thread is about can there be liberty and union, not about special ed classes or how moronic souls can have guns.
If you both can't play nice on this thread, than for heavens sake, PM each other and rip each others guts out in private. At least let the rest of the board be not denied a forum for debate once again.
And if you both can't do that, then both of you get the hell off this thread and stay off.
Oh yeah, and Merry G**D** Christmas!
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Who is entitled to liberty? Merely those who can take and hold it so that they can decide who does or does not deserve liberty? Or is liberty an ideal that all have a right to?
Union allows liberty to exist and to florish, it defends those who are unable to defend themselves; ideally it prevents tyranny. This particular Union is strong because it does allow "morons" to coexist w/ brilliant minds. Liberty in the US is allowed to all who are willing to make some very simple allowances regardless of race, creed etc.
Is it possible w/out Union? Looking at the rest of the world and at history and comparing it to the US... no.
A union such as the United States at its simplest is simply an organization that man has developed in order that he may live in peace with his neighbors. It isn't streets and cities that make this Union but the people; men and women most doing the best that they can. Brilliant men standing to work alongside those who may be less so. It is more than one thing, more than just liberty. It is the process of education as well as a place to live, to make a living to build something for the next generation. A realization that there is something greater than self.
This Union is a very flimsy thing because it is based on an ideal; a dream if you will. There are laws of coarse and an unspoken agreement to follow those laws and not wreck the rights of others. Some bend & break those laws w/ the intent to profit from those who follow those laws and some, the most venal & corrupt, try to rewrite or write laws to their advantage. If a man continually takes advantage of the laws breaking and bending them to his own advantage and then hiding behind them; is unwilling to believe that laws apply to him. Then he has no place in in that Union or civilization.
Louis L'amour once wrote something that I think holds true today and I think is the nucleus of the differences on this board and any other discussing the Civil War. "Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene w/ perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries."
Merry Christmas & good will to men.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Shane,
Not a bad post and you made some good points.But I'd have to say that there are many Eoropean nations just as free and respectful of human rights as we are.Also in no way do I see the Union invasion of the Confederate homeland to suppress the freedom of others as a beacon of freedom for the world to admire.Had the Emancipation Proclamation been issued at the start of the war I'd agree with you.But this war wasn't about the black man or his rights.In case anyone wondered Lincoln offered to rescind the EP and reenslave blacks to end the war.This war was about forcing Northern will on Southerners.I admire the Union soldiers as they were fighting for what they believed was a righteous cause.But as usual in my opinion the men fighting and dieing were pawns in a grab for power.This was true on both sides.
__________________ "The sword is mighty, but principles laugh at swords. Overwhelming force may crush truth to earth but, crushed or not the truth is still the truth." Regards, Ashley
This is not true. What evidence can you cite for such a statement?
best,
marc
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There is no evidence for such a claim. Unfortunately there are some who purport to "defend the south" [which I think is kind of silly to start with, since the south needs no defending] who fabricate claims and put them on various websites where they are picked up by unsuspecting but well meaning folks who then believe those fabricated claims and pass them on. Such is the case here.
On the morning of February 3, 1865, President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward met with Confederate representatives at Hampton Roads on board the River Queen.
Confederate representatives Vice-President Alexander Stephens along with Campbell and Hunter brought up the subject of slavery. From the book:
"As to slavery, Seward reminded the Confederates of Lincoln's pledge, made most recently in his annual message to Congress: "I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that Proclamation, or by any Acts of Congress." The Secretary then dropped a bombshell by telling the commissioners that Congress had just submitted the Thirteenth Amendment to the states for ratification."
This information makes it pretty clear that Lincoln was NOT about to abandon or recind the EP. Now, you might be reffering to the preliminary EP that gave a chance to the states in secession to come back to the Union by a certain date and that slavery would not be affected in those states that ceased military action against the Union. But once the date was passed and the proclamation declared, Lincoln never considered recinding it.
BUT, a bit later on in the same book, something interesting is brought up.
"Stephens asked (Lincoln) what would be the status of the Southern slaves who had NOT been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. He and Seward agreed that only about 200,000 slaves had up to that point gained their freedom. According to (Confederate) Campbell, Lincoln said that there were different opinions about the effects of his proclamation: "Some believed that it was not operative at all; others that it operated only within the circle which had been occupied by the army and others believed that it was operative everywhere in the States to which it applied." This was only a question that only the courts could decide, but, if Stephens's later report can be credited, the President added: "His own opinion was, that as the Proclamation was a war measure, and would have effect only from its being an exercise of the war power, as soon as the war ceased, it would be inoperative for the future. It would be held to apply only to such slaves as had come under its operation while it was in active exercise."
Stephens's record would be highly suspect were it not confirmed by other, more contemporary evidence that Lincoln did not now insist upon the end of slavery as a precondition for peace."
Maybe this is where your confusion comes from, MobileBoy?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Collectively speaking for all Canadians doesn't seem like the way to express individual liberty.Cedarstripper
Cedar:
Okay. Most of the individuals who own guns in Canada do so for hunting purposes.
"If you were my neighbor here, it would be none of my business if you assessed your situation and then chose to leave your protection entirely in the hands of the police. But to deny me the freedom to assess my own situation and choose my preferred course of protection IS to deny me liberty. My ownership does not endanger you as my neighbor, and in fact acts to protect you. In the event someone were to break into my home in the middle of the night and endanger my life, I prefer to decide for myself whether to take the legal hassle behind door #1 or the put my life in the hands of the intruder behind door #2. If he breaks into your house, you're free to wait for the cops to come and make out the report in the aftermath. That's freedom."
Cedar, please understand that the Canadian perspective on gun ownership and this need to protect life and property is much different than that of the United States. With that in mind, I do accept the concept of liberty as it relates to gun ownership in your country.
"I can't help but notice that nothing here in this thread has yet been offered in the way of defining and legislatively disqualifying "unfit" citizens from the exercisement of certains rights. Are you A) advocating widespread prohibition, B) advocating gun ownership be degraded to a government granted privilege, or C) keeping the process of declaring those unfit a secret? "
I'm all for finding a way to keep guns out of the hands of those people who would harm themselves and others. Surely the richest and most powerful nation in the world can create a charter that would not only shelter the rights of those who find it necessary to protect their families; but at the same time ensure the safety and liberty of citizens from irresponsible and unsafe gun ownership.
"Well of course not. They can't afford any of it. Mine are fortunate I feed them."
But there are millions of adult North Americans who unfortunately live in a 'permanent child-like state.' Since these people are generally not licenced to drive a car, should they own a hand gun or rifle?
"Can you explain how your personal liberty is at stake because some of your neighbors might own some firearms? Are the personal liberties of someone living next to a guide in Temagami more at stake than someone living in Toronto? I can surely say that my owning guns has never encumbered the liberties of my neighbors, even the two from Canada."
I think we need to clarify who those neighbours might be. I'd feel a great deal more comfortable living next door to an armed guide in Temagami (beautiful area) than to an irresponsible, armed alcoholic/drug addict, or a person with severe mental challenges.
Using the above scenario, are my rights to peace, happiness, security and liberty not at risk when forced to live in an atmosphere of uncertainty and potential harm to my well-being?
A few days ago on a busy street in Toronto and near our largest shopping mall, a woman was killed and six other people were injured, including an off-duty policeman. Although it is suspected that this incident might be gang related and two of the shooters have been arrested, there are now twice as many murders in Toronto as last year, and of these, most were gun-related.
Our Prime Minister has made it perfectly clear that if he's reelected in the January elections, he will ban hand guns. I can assure you that there will be little public outcry to Mr. Martin's new regulation.
I have no wish to drag this thread into a gun control discussion either, but as an expression of liberty, I think it's timely and relevant. Should the right to 'bear arms' be restricted or is this an assault to individual liberty? If not, and I choose not to own guns, is my liberty not a risk because I might ultimately end up living beside someone who clearly should not own a gun?
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