IMDB comments

Wow, I don't read for a few days, and look where this goes...

Anyway, I'm not a history expert, but I have to argue with one point:

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Originally posted by Drakon:
To a lot of folks, even to this day, individuals in other countries are still considered "others" or not quite human. It is a perception that while you and most of us fight against, still persists elsewhere. Sometimes even in our own enlightened arenas. One of the reasons why about 1 million Africans die each year of malaria, because DDT is "too harmful" to use to control the spread of the disease.

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I do know something about public health, and there's no reason to use DDT, really ever. Malaria was pretty much wiped out in this country before DDT was invented. How'd they do it? They provided and installed screens on everyone's windows. (If you want an epidemiological explanation for why this works, I'll provide it, but it's fairly involved.) Far safer, and cheaper in the long run. Also, DDT isn't very effective anymore, given that they used it so much for so long that all the mosquitos developed resistance to it.

The other safe and effective method to reduce (although not eliminate) malaria is to try to eliminate standing water during the dry season, where the mosquito eggs are.

This is not to say that people don't still look down on the "other", but not allowing people to use DDT is hardly evidence for the argument.

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This is quite late, I know, but I've been a little busy in RL....

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Originally posted by Redjack:
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...

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No fault of yours, I guess: I was just in the mood to nit-pick. Hey, some people juggle geese!

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

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That is your INFERENCE, not my IMPLICATION.
One of the rhetorical obstacles you're throwing up is the blanket characterizations of "North and South". Makes for a catchy miniseries title, but is of little use in distinguishing between the actions, beliefs and principles of individuals and groups. Which was the intent of my contribution. As I tried to explain at some length, not everyone fought for the same reasons on either side. I also made it clear that a person's fundamental apathy does not absolve one of allowing evil to flourish. The most obvious, immediate application of such reasoning in this discussion is to the Southerners who – by default – signed up to kill people in order to preserve the institution of slavery. I propose that such moral turpitude was (and is) more widespread than the Southern States. More on this in a bit.

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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.

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True that. And the ground was probably just as fertile in the North – there just wasn't enough “planting” going on. Keep reading.

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But simple arithmatic tells us that the number of true beleivers must have far far outweighed the number of reluctant fighters.

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Your reasoning here is worse than your spelling; arithmetic doesn't apply b/c we're talking about mental states and group dynamics.

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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 going til the wheels fell off.

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You are making huge assumptions about the source and nature of morale amongst the respective forces that are unsupportable. I could just as easily – without resorting to “arithmetic” - speculate that the Confederacy had a “home field advantage” as most engagements were fought in the Southern States. Or that a force that perceives itself as the defender, the underdog, or whatever, may be fighting with more murderous resolve, desperation, etc. Maybe even better strategic leadership, though I don't know enough about the individual engagements to say this for sure. Still plenty of possibilities, though.

And, once AGAIN, you are engaging in the logical fallacy of oversimplification. The “South” you are referring to was the Confederacy, made up of “indians” and “chiefs”, if I may be permitted an un-PC comparison. The “chiefs”, small in number and including the politicians and “businessmen” more than the generals and such, are more likely to have felt strongly about slavery than the “indians”. While their doing as told is bad, too, they probably cared no more about slavery than most of the “indians” they fought.

And herein is the point:

I don't believe the majority of Northerers were any less racist than the majority of Souherners (referring here to an irrational but stubborn belief in blacks' inferiority/savagery/etc). If you doubt this, you haven't read as much primary historical material as you claim. That being said, let's play “what if”. What if this this same Northern majority been subjected to the “Horrible, insane, morally bankrupt speechs” you referred to? Would they have responded differently? I know: if a frog had wings...point is, though, this goes beyond math. If you're sure the answer

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