IMDB comments

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Originally posted by Bourne:


Two slips, actually: please read my previous post concerning your mislabelling the South as the "aggressor".

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In Japan, even now, schoolchildren are taught that WW2 was their battle against Western Imperialist expansion.

Pretty hefty spin but one I'm sure they prefer to the actual goods. Those few brave souls who've hoped to tell the true story faced career suicide and even assault.

IOW: Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861.

See, how it works is, the aggressor in this conflict was the guy who snuck up and started shooting.

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Three slips, even, if we count BOTH of your erroneous references to the Jackson[sic] presidency following Lincoln's demise.

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Same slip twice. A typo. It was clear by context who I meant. I sometimes say Peter Gabriel when I clearly mean Phil Collins. Whoopee. Yuh got me.

Hope you're also at least getting to look at all that ground you're losing.

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BTW, is your nickname chosen in honour of Jack the Ripper?

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Nope. Private thing between me and some freinds. There used to be a Redmichael out there and a Redjess. I'm the last of the three still using the handle. I know about the Ripper thing, of course but, no, this ain't that. One day I'll switch to something new.

Boy. That list of Confedrate accomplishments must be huge by now.

Having a hard time whittling it down? It must be difficult to choose when your society made such comprehensive boons to the world.




The Price of Knowledge is Knowing.
Audrid Dax

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Originally posted by Bourne:
If y'all don't mind, I'd like to weigh in on this discussion with something more substantive than my previous nit-picking; Red Jack, you're just bringing out the Troll in me, and I hate that. So here goes... etc.

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Bourne-

When they've done reading this post I'm sure some will dive in again with the weird and scare-ifying ProConfederate Rhetoric and say that I was being snide.

I swear that I was not.

I appreciated your second post. It was thoughtful and heartfelt. I don't know what I've said or what position I've taken which would, as you put it, "bring out the troll" in you but, setting that aside, I will address what you said in the spirit you said it.

Much of it is true.

It is mostly the rulers who do the deciding when and who to fight. It is mostly the propagandas of the higher castes which impels those who can least afford it to saricfice themselves and their fortunes for some cause in which the leaders themselves might not even really beleive.

It is also true that the U.S. has never had a so-called Good Samaritan law. It's perfectly legal to stand by and watch a crime take place and do nothing. You're not even required to call the cops.

A lot of evil goes unchecked because lawabiding (I won't say "good") people fail to act morally.

I agree very much with the spirit of your post. I even understand your desire to give the benefit of the doubt to the guys who did the bulk of the anonymous bleeding out on the various feilds of battle.

But here's the thing...

You summed up with a statement implying that there was some moral parity between the North and the South in this conflict.

There wasn't.

Even if I concede that the activities of the Federal Government were outside the legitimate Constitutional bounds (and I don't really, but, for the sake of argument) you have to remember that it was over the buying and selling of human beings that the South became outraged and went to war.

If I give a speech saying something to the effect of "All those Gorram MIMES are responsible for the world's ills. Those black clothed white faced devils are a blight on the safety of decent folks everywhere! What's with the face paint? What's with the silence? What we should do is round them up and FORCE them to renounce the leotard! FORCE them to speak. If they won't?" ::throat cutting gesture::

I would be laughed at and perhaps hauled away for either extreme public stupidity or attempting to fomment a riot.

The laughter comes because the people in the crowd, quite rightly, would think my worldveiw vis a vis Mimes was, at the very best, extreme. There would be no sympathetic response to what I had to say.

With the Confederacy, the opposite is true. Horrible, insane, morally bankrupt speechs were used to whip up the appropriate sentiment in the masses, to make them ready for war. Had those masses not agreed, there would have been no war. You can't plant in unfertile ground.

For all its hideous treatment of more than a third of its population, like South Africa (until recently), the South actually considered itself to be a democracy. So, had there been any desire to stay at the negotiating table with the Federal government, the Southern Representives would have stayed at that table or face the boot come the next election.

Instead we got a brutal war.

Yes. Absolutely. There were, I'm sure, several people on the Rebel side who looked up and said "What the hell? I'm not fighting over THIS."

Just as there were several more on the Union side who did the same. "And I give a damn about those darkies why, exactly?" they might say.

But simple arithmatic tells us that the number of true beleivers must have far far outweighed the number of reluctant fighters. And, even among those reluctant fighters, the number of those who disagreed with their government on issues of Slavery and Union must have been even smaller.

How do we know? Because the South was outgunned and outmanned from the beginning, yet they kept the war go

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Redjack, your last post reads a bit more diplomatic, for lack of a better term, and less a rant against all things Southern.

To respond to two points:

- Andersonville: Truly a horrible prison, but not due entirely to neglect. The prison was built as the war was winding down and the South had pitiful few resources to dedicate to the prisoners. I will be happy to point out the many attempts by the commander of the prison, and the Confederate Congress to alleviate the situation in Andersonville if you require it.

Some statistics:

Union prisoner deaths: approximately 22,000 prisoners; 8% of the POW population.

Confederate prisoner deaths: numbers between 28,000 & 31,000 (exact # unknown due to burning of Richmond & Atlanta); 12% of the POW population.

As for your request for "Confederate contributions", is that during the War or the contributions of Confederates to America and society in general after the conflict? If it is postbellum, I can gladly supply a lengthy list of Confederate contributions to the expansion and settling of the West, medicine, politics, etc.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Originally posted by BrownCoat1:
Redjack, your last post reads a bit more diplomatic, for lack of a better term, and less a rant against all things Southern.

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I myself am a southerner. Born in West Virginia. Lived between W Va., Virginia and Georgia for long chunks of my life. Small ess because I'm an American. I get the whole country not only one little region.

I like the Waffle House and Po' Folks and sweet tea instead of soda.

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To respond to two points:

- Andersonville: Truly a horrible prison, but not due entirely to neglect.

The prison was built as the war was winding down and the South had pitiful few resources to dedicate to the prisoners. I will be happy to point out the many attempts by the commander of the prison, and the Confederate Congress to alleviate the situation in Andersonville if you require it.

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Don't bother. The decent man would have opened the doors.

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As for your request for "Confederate contributions", is that during the War or the contributions of Confederates to America and society in general after the conflict? If it is postbellum, I can gladly supply a lengthy list of Confederate contributions to the expansion and settling of the West, medicine, politics, etc.

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Post the war there were no Confederates. That would have been treason.

Southern states have given us our best authors. (Mark Twain, not Shakespeare, is IMHO, the greatest writer in the English language.) Many of our finest statesmen and women and not a few artists, musicians and scientists.

And, of course, there's Jazz.




The Price of Knowledge is Knowing.
Audrid Dax

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Once again some a-wipe with time on their hands wants to vent their spleen. The fan base and attention they have given this show proves that it isnt a bore, and also their efforts, such as full page articles in newspapers etc.

The cast, normally I would agree if there was a weak link, I wont blow smoke up someone's butt just because, but in this case I simply can't find one. All the cast were excellent and outstanding.

Bury that WIPE!

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Originally posted by Redjack:
I don't insult intelligence. Only willful bending of that intelligence to ensure one's misunderstanding of complex facts and inspire nauseating apologies for an evil and illegal regime which, of course, The Confederacy was.

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Horse manure. You're posts have been quite insulting and this level of debate is both beneath your cause and couterproductive to your stated goals. Calling your opponents "scum", "children" and such are insults, designed not to convince your opponents, nor help others who might be trying to argue the same point. You don't want a debate, you want a flame war. That is apparent in your argumentative style.

Don't lie. The insults alone will cause those you are trying to convince to write you off as an immature or at least uncivil person, with no credibility, but a ton of arrogance.

The problem is that your case is quite strong. But it is not going to get a fair hearing because the manner in which you argue is too much of a distraction. You want folks to listen to you, and your point of view, try a more subtle, or polite approach. Even if you think your opponents are scum, children, or damned, telling them that to their face won't convince them of the rightness of your arguments. It will only give them cause to assume that you are full of crap, irrational, and thus not worthy of consideration.

Style does matter. You are not going to convince Browncoat1 or anyone in the audience by behaving badly. You don't need to, either. Insulting your opponent in the manner you have been doing, is not only ineffective but counterproductive. It not only won't accomplish what you want, (unless all you want is to troll for a flame war) and actually make it harder for the opposition to listen to you. If they don't listen, for whatever reason, you cannot persuade.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Originally posted by Drakon:
You're posts have been quite insulting and this level of debate is both beneath your cause and couterproductive to your stated goals.

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Says you. I will, of course, keep my own counsel on how to proceed. I find many of the expressed veiws here to have been so offensive it's difficult to keep from retching as I read them so, you know, there you go.

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Calling your opponents "scum", "children" and such are insults, designed not to convince your opponents, nor help others who might be trying to argue the same point.

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I never called my opponents scum. Not once. I implied that some of them were children in a sarcastic and, I think, humorous way.

Obviously what that meant was that, in the context of this discussion, I find some of their veiws to be so unformed or uniformed as to resemble those of children.

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You don't want a debate, you want a flame war.

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A flame war is when I just call names without making a point or, in fact, discussing the subject in question.

That hasn't happened. And it won't from this end.

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That is apparent in your argumentative style.

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Yeah. Never claimed to be Socrates. Waddaya gonna do? Takes all kinds to make a world, cheif.

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Don't lie.

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Never have, never will. No need.

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The insults alone will cause those you are trying to convince to write you off as an immature or at least uncivil person, with no credibility, but a ton of arrogance.

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Uncivil? Have a I sworn at anynone? Insulted anyone's mother? Said anything that wasn't absolutely so? Please. I simply describe a regime and the people that supported it in the appropriate terms. You just don't like my position or the fact that I won't give an inch.

The problem is that inch doesn't exist.

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The problem is that your case is quite strong.

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LOL. My "case?" LOL. You seem to be laboring under the impression that the argument here is between two equivalent veiws of the same events. It's not. It's between the facts and the results of generational whitewashing of those facts.

My "case." Sheesh.

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But it is not going to get a fair hearing because the manner in which you argue is too much of a distraction.

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A fair hearing. Look. I couldn't care less what your opinion of the facts is. I'm not coming to you or anyone here with my hat in my hands hoping for your approval or even agreement.

I'm pointing out the big elephant in the room. If you choose to ignore it, that's not my problem.

I want the actual rancid goods to be displayed instead of the pretty packaging.

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You want folks to listen to you, and your point of view, try a more subtle, or polite approach.

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When I want your advice on social graces I will absolutely let you know. Really. Sit by the phone.

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Even if you think your opponents are scum, children, or damned, telling them that to their face won't convince them of the rightness of your arguments.

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Never described anyone living as scum or damned so drop it.

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It will only give them cause to assume that you are full of crap, irrational, and thus not worthy of consideration.

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Irrational? I'm, if anything, hyper-rational. It's been a trouble to me my whole life.

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Style does matter.

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To you. Not to me.

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You are not going to convince Browncoat1 or anyone in the audience by behaving badly.

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Badly according to who? Last I checked we were all equals here. You're in no position whatsoever to lecture me on my behaviour. I haven't used profanity. I haven't even directly insulted anyone. Only their stupid arguments, lack of information and odious positions. That's allowed.

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You don't need to, either. Insulting your opponent in the manner you have been doing, is not only ineffective but counterproductive. It not only won't accomplish what you want, (unless all you want is to t

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