All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[ouroboros]

One side fought a rebellion, willing to murder their own families and countrymen because they wanted to keep slaves.

Pretty clear who would be a clear-cut villain in the Civil War, unless you're a racist ***hole.

And if it had been as profitable for the North to keep slaves as it was for the South-- would we not have been dealing with two sets of villains?

[zinderel]

One side fought a rebellion, willing to murder their own families and countrymen because they wanted to keep slaves.

Pretty clear who would be a clear-cut villain in the Civil War, unless you're a racist ***hole.

Thank you. Now I don't have to post a lengthy rebuttal. Sometimes, brevity IS best!

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Florida Governor Rick Scott, who may or may a skeleton dipped in wax and given life. While still the CEO of a health insurance company that was caught illegally gouging the public on billing, Scott had to plead the Fifth Amendment a staggering 75 times to help himself avoid prosecution, as the company, HCA, was smacked with the largest fine in a fraud settlement case in United States history. His leadership in running Florida has been as equally questionable, with Scott cutting government funding to state run hospitals, education, and welfare whenever possible. He lost the state a mint’s worth of taxpayer money on a quest to drug test people on welfare that found statistically minimal drug use compared to the national average (go figure, poor people can’t afford drugs), and was eventually thrown out as an unconstitutional violation of the 4th Amendment by the courts. Gov. Scott has had ethics investigators breathing down his neck almost his entire tenure, as his friends and donors get lucrative government contracts, and that he failed to disclose his personal assets during campaign finance reports (he’s worth somewhere between $200 and $340 million). By December 2014, media investigations started to reveal that Scott’s decision to outsource prison medical care to Corizon Health for $1.2 billion had additional fees… the cost of over 660 malpractice lawsuits from shoddy care it provided Florida inmates that left as many as 30 people dying a month. Two months later, in February 2015, Scott is handed three more lawsuits that accuse his administration of widespread corruption, including his previous failure to disclose his finances while running for office, and a refusal to obey transparency laws, particularly over the firing of the former executive director of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Gerald Bailey, who Scott wanted to replace with party loyalists (when the FDLE is supposed to be non-partisan). From there, a series a lies and cover-ups started shaking out, including a time where Gov. Scott was claiming Bailey resigned (as if he wasn’t going to correct him). Scott and the state of Florida settle these lawsuits in August at a cost of $700,000 to taxpayers. The only reason this Voldemort-with-rhinoplasty hasn't been impeached is because Florida election law makes it nigh-impossible to impeach or recall a governor, and the people are opting to just wait him out. Rick Scott also is prone to tantrums, like when he refused to take the stage during the 2014 debates for Florida governor because his opponent, Charlie Crist, had a fan under his podium to blow cool air at his crotch (seriously) or the time Gov. Scott tried heading into a local Starbucks for some coffee, a woman spotted him, told him how choices he'd made had cut her Medicaid funding, and she shamed him for it, not taking his comeback of "creating jobs" before calling him an "***hole". Now, normally, CSGOPOTD doesn't make much of hecklers politicians might get... but it's how you react to them that counts. And Rick Scott, no lie... released an attack ad against the woman, calling her “a terribly rude woman,” a “latte liberal” and someone who “clearly has a problem.” And perhaps most Mr. Burns-like of any of his actions was how Scott adopted a rescue dog that he named “Reagan” during his 2010 election to look like a real softie, and then reporters realized it wasn’t ever around and started to ask about it… only to finally have his staff admit that Scott had “gotten rid” of the dog because it “acted too crazy”, and that they, to this day, have no idea what fate befell the poor canine.

Anyway, Rick Scott is widely rumored to be considering a challenge to U.S. Senator Bill Nelson for his seat in 2018, as he’s term-limited as Governor of Florida. Now, maybe it was tacky for Donald Trump to start pressuring Scott to run in the middle of relief efforts after Hurricane Irma (it was), but honestly… why would Scott want the job? He would have to be in Washington all the time, as a Senator, he wouldn’t quite be able to manipulate himself into the sorts of financial windfalls he has as governor, Bill Nelson is popular and Democratic turnout is expected to be high, and he’d be belittled, mocked, and bullied by Trump over every vote that comes up.

Here’s hoping the rumors don’t prove true, and this time next year, we’ll be posting our last Rick Scott profile, to announce his retirement.

[worstblogever]

And if it had been as profitable for the North to keep slaves as it was for the South--

Cut the s***. This isn't a hypothetical question. How misanthropic does someone have to be to approach history in a hypothetical situation rather than in reality of what happened?

Maybe it's because they don't want to be on the wrong side of history with the racist ***holes, even though that's clearly where they choose to stand, against all human reasons no to.

[zinderel]

And if it had been as profitable for the North to keep slaves as it was for the South-- would we not have been dealing with two sets of villains?

Since your hypothetical isn't what happened, it literally matters as much as asking, "If the South had grown rainbows instead of cotton, would they still be the villains?" Or "If the North had employed Terminators to kill Southern generals before they were born, would the South still be the villain?"

The reality is, that unless you can provide a list of of things, historically and/or culturally that the South has reason to be proud of, please share them. Because, as you are so find of reminding me, my perception is that everything about the Civil War casts the South as the 'villains', but that does not, contrary to your assertion, mean that the North were glorious heroes. Winners are not always heroes, and losers are not always villains.

Except when the losers fought a rebellious war over their insistence that owning other human beings was worth slaughtering their brothers and splitting the 'more perfect union their ancestors helped create.

[ouroboros]

Cut the s***. This isn't a hypothetical question. How misanthropic does someone have to be to approach history in a hypothetical situation rather than in reality of what happened?

Maybe it's because they don't want to be on the wrong side of history with the racist ***holes, even though that's clearly where they choose to stand, against all human reasons no to.

I tried posting the reality, which is that the North wanted to economically and politically undermine the South for reasons that had nothing to do with liberating slaves. The proof of this-- a good deal more logical than the theory that all Conf-monuments were tools of intimidation-- is shown by the North's decision to pull out the troops and let the ex-slaves fend for themselves.

No one paid attention to the reality, so I tossed out a hypothesis, to see if anyone could deal with that. Apparently anything outside the Liberal Narrative proves too much of a challenge.

[TheInvisibleMan]

you want some reality

my great great grandparents were slaves in Virginia in the 1860s (thats as far back as our family can trace)

when their owner died, he put it in his will that his slaves be freed

his family went to court to try and contest the will to keep the slaves

the court refused to hear the case on account of she was a "hysterical widow"

[ouroboros]

Since your hypothetical isn't what happened, it literally matters as much as asking, "If the South had grown rainbows instead of cotton, would they still be the villains?" Or "If the North had employed Terminators to kill Southern generals before they were born, would the South still be the villain?"

The reality is, that unless you can provide a list of of things, historically and/or culturally that the South has reason to be proud of, please share them. Because, as you are so find of reminding me, my perception is that everything about the Civil War casts the South as the 'villains', but that does not, contrary to your assertion, mean that the North were glorious heroes. Winners are not always heroes, and losers are not always villains.

Except when the losers fought a rebellious war over their insistence that owning other human beings was worth slaughtering their brothers and splitting the 'more perfect union their ancestors helped create.

Here's a "list," if you want to call it that, from the Daughters of the Confederacy site, the ones that some posters have unilaterally maligned for abetting the monuments.
But you've already decided that every aspect of Southern heritage is invalidated by the nature of the cause. Why do the motives of those involved matter to you, given that you've already formulated your judgment?

The United Daughters of the Confederacy appreciates the feelings of citizens across the country currently being expressed concerning Confederate memorial statues and monuments that were erected by our members in decades past.

To some, these memorial statues and markers are viewed as divisive and thus unworthy of being allowed to remain in public places. To others, they simply represent a memorial to our forefathers who fought bravely during four years of war. These memorial statues and markers have been a part of the Southern landscape for decades.

We are grieved that certain hate groups have taken the Confederate flag and other symbols as their own. We are the descendants of Confederate soldiers, sailors, and patriots. Our members are the ones who have spent 123 years honoring their memory by various activities in the fields of education, history and charity, promoting patriotism and good citizenship. Our members are the ones who, like our statues, have stayed quietly in the background, never engaging in public controversy.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy totally denounces any individual or group that promotes racial divisiveness or white supremacy. And we call on these people to cease using Confederate symbols for their abhorrent and reprehensible purposes.

[ouroboros]

you want some reality

my great great grandparents were slaves in Virginia in the 1860s (thats as far back as our family can trace)

when their owner died, he put it in his will that his slaves be freed

his family went to court to try and contest the will to keep the slaves

the court refused to hear the case on account of she was a "hysterical widow"

So-- if the court wouldn't hear the case, then the will had to be honored, and the slaves released? Please clarify.

[TheInvisibleMan]

So-- if the court wouldn't hear the case, then the will had to be honored, and the slaves released? Please clarify.

Yes, the will was honored and my forebears were released (bet that really bothers you)

but the reason given for them not hearing the case was in no way a legal one

my family was freed because of sexism and patriarchy

[TheInvisibleMan]

and no one should care what the "Daughters Of Traitors...I mean the Confederacy" have to say about anything

[worstblogever]

I tried posting the reality, which is that the North wanted to economically and politically undermine the South for reasons that had nothing to do with liberating slaves. The proof of this--

Oh please. The "proof" the Civil War was fought over slavery is abundant, several Southern states' letters explaining precisely that. If you're going to share some White Supremacist propaganda from the Daily Stormer about how the North were some sort of economic terrorists, you're more far gone than first thought.

Your "proof" seems to never be presented. You just claim you have it, which is a very Trumpian way about going about things, perhaps not coincidentally.

[zinderel]

Should I assume that, from your tirade about wanting the South to admit wrongdoing, that one way they could do that is to completely stop opposing the efforts of the people who want to take down any and all Confederate monuments? Yes, that would make things really easy, wouldn't it?

I don't specifically remember if you Zinderel have been advocating the punching of modern-day Nazis as a solution for problems. However, since you ask about my heroes, what moral compass do you claim for yours? Do they include people who chant about dead cops? Or the Berkeley rioters who beat up on innocent audience-members in order to protest Milo Yianoppoulos' presence? In other words, what separates your heroes from the figures you (incorrectly) attribute to me?

Since Nazis today didn't learn from history and choose to be Nazis today, yes, I stand on the side of those who enjoy throwing a punch at ideological monsters. I'm sorry that you find it more rewarding to take the side of the monsters, and not the side of the actual victims of the policies those monsters have enacted and want to continue enacting stsnding up to the monsters.

That said, none of them are my 'heroes'. For me, heroes are people like Schindler, who went against his leaders and did what he could to help people escape the hell that fascism created last time it reared its head. People like Rosa Parks, who refused to let a white man tell her that she was 'less than' anymore. People like Harvey Milk, who stood up and spoke for us all when he made his call for gay people to come out and show the world that we are everywhere, and not some boogeyman.

Those are heroes. What statue in the South commemorates a hero who stood up to his people and helped slaves escape slavery? What statue in the South commemorates someone who refused to be treated as 'less than' by the majority? Where is the memorial to the Southern heroes who stood up for gay rights? Women's rights? Why are they all to men who fought to protect people who owned slaves?

People who punch Nazis are not my heroes, they are my brothers, my sister's, my kith and kin. And people who defend Nazis are our enemies. And boy, will we talk shit about you behind your back. AND to your face. And if you chant "blood and soil"? If you chant "Jews will not replace us"? If you proclaim your desire to 'peacefully' ethnically cleanse the nation if you come to power? If you stand with people who do that, or defend people who do that? Then you will have to deal with the likelihood of getting punched in the face.

Sorrynotsorry.

[ouroboros]

Yes, the will was honored and my forebears were released (bet that really bothers you)

but the reason given for them not hearing the case was in no way a legal one

my family was freed because of sexism and patriarchy

Doesn't bother me in the least.

It's an interesting case of using one evil to beat another-- not unlike the Civil War itself.

[ouroboros]

and no one should care what the "Daughters Of Traitors...I mean the Confederacy" have to say about anything

I was asked a question, and provided an answer, even knowing it would be disregarded. That's all.