Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "TimeGhost History"
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@milamber319 What people say they want in a poll and what they actually are willing to work to achieve are two different things. And where are these people concentrated. If 70% of the population of one state opposes homosexual marriage or raising the state minimum wage, while 70% in another state support both, how is it fair to force both states to adopt it? It is not a federal issue; it is a state issue. Nationalizing every local issue in order to get what you want done in your own state against the wishes of a majority of citizens in each state is a form of tyranny. It does not matter if this is accomplished by the courts, Congress, or the executive branch. I chose to live in Montana because I prefer its beauty and its laws to those of many other states. I do not interfere with what other states do internally, but I will resist any efforts to force their ideas onto my state through the federal authorities.
Saying you oppose gerrymandering sounds nice, but the issue is not so simple. Gerrymandering for political advantage is ethically wrong, but can be difficult to prove. Gerrymandering for other reasons has been tolerated by the courts. It has been allowed based on skin color, political leanings, income level, heritage, and geography. The main requirement is that each voting district be similar in population, though even here the courts may take issue because there is no agreed upon standard for what constitutes a similar population. Adding another wrinkle, under the Federal Voting Rights Act districts are required to have boundaries that offer minority voters an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. This is a very subjective notion and it can only be achieved in some cases through gerrymandering. Some states have adopted additional criteria, such as requiring districts to encompass compact, contiguous areas or to keep counties, cities and communities of interest together whenever possible.
Cloture and filibustering are internal rules of the US Senate. Only the senators have the power to change these rules, but few seem inclined to do so. The reason is simple. Power switches back and forth between the two main parties every few years. You hate the 60/40 rule when you are in power and love it when you are out of power. By the way, in the past the rule was 2/3 (67 votes), so 60 is actually an improvement.
I agree there exists a form of oligarchy among our elected members of Congress, but that is the fault of the voters. They keep sending the same people back to Congress. This is all done by popular vote (until 1913 all senators were selected by their state legislature) so we do have proportional elected representation - far more so now than in the past when only landholding (tax paying) white male citizens over 21 could vote.
Each branch of government is in constant tension with the other two branches and ignores them as much as possible. This is how it is supposed to be. When they all are in agreement we get such wonderful outcomes as Executive Order 9066 (the removal and detention of people of Japanese ancestry from the west coast during WWII).
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@milamber319 The federal minimum wage does not apply to all jobs. States are free to set higher minimum wages if they desire, but they are not allowed to lower them. What makes the states unique is their relationship to all other levels of government. The federal government was a creation of the collective states with certain powers assigned to it. All other powers reside in the states. Each municipality, be it a township or county, is a creation of the state and subordinate to it in all matters of law. Counties and cities can set higher minimum wages if state law allows it.
When you ask why a community can't change or ignore any law when an overwhelming majority of residents want it changed, the reason is simple. If they can disregard state laws, they can disregard federal laws and do whatever they like. But why stop there? If one block of a city wants to be independent, why can't it be? For the same reason, why can't one household or one person be a law unto themself (sovereign citizen argument)? This is exactly what happened in Seattle during the CHOP protest. The result was lawlessness and rule by thuggery. Even before the country became a nation, the colonies formed communities that operated under colonial, and by extension, royal rule. These later became the states. Every form of ogvenrment we have in America can be traced back to these roots. At the local level, if you want to change the process you will have change the state constitutions and state laws first. Even then, the state and it communities must conform to the Constitution where it is applicable, e.g., you can't reintroduce slavery.
Regarding gerrymandering, if I understand you correctly, you would not allow the state to use gerrymandering to draw up any voting districts that favors minority groups which the state believes are underrepresented. If this is your position, then I agree with you. The only boundaries that make sense to me are logical, simple physical ones that group people geographically into similar sized voting blocks, regardless of their political views or demographics. If you disagree, please let me know.
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@skabbigkossa The problem with your thesis is that you are allowing some unknown entity to determine whose knowledge and judgment is acceptable and should be listened to. This is a great way to shut down debate, but it in no way encourages different ideas and opinions. Some of the smartest men I've known lacked scholarly education, but I trusted their judgment and insight far more than anyone with a sheepskin. Were they to watch the TimeGhost series and offer comments, I would not dismiss them because they lacked a sheepskin in history. A degree does not make one savvy or wise, especially a degree in a topic that is mired as much in opinion as it is in recorded fact. My grandfather used to say that history is agreed upon error. I believe he was right. Despite our easy access to information via the internet, we can't be certain what we read, hear, and see is being presented in an accurate and unbiased way. We can't even be sure that the scholars and biographers of the past really got it right. Some famous historians now have been charged with whitewashing or embellishing history. Indeed, when I see the number of contradictory sources and opinions propagated on the internet, I am forced to make selective choices. Do I accept Schlesinger, Ambrose, and Shirer as gospel? What about Roosevelt, Kennedy, Churchill, and Speer? Are their portrayals accurate or simply self-serving? Reading some of the comments in this chain I see posters who are trying to separate history from politics. Politics is an enormous part of history. Without it history is reduced to numbers, places, and dates, and becomes little more than pablum, the dusty refuse many of us learned as small children. History should be presented as vibrantly as possible, and in the joint context of technology, geography, politics, economics, sociology, and the human condition. I think Indy and the crew are attempting to do just this. It will propagate discussion and disagreement. This a good thing and should be encouraged. If you find some posts inane, simplistic, or off topic, then say so, but don't tell others to shut-up and color. This isn't kindergarten. This is HISTORY!
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@TimeGhost You use the incorrect word "homophobia" to describe anyone who does not openly condone homosexuality. This is a corruption of a medical term that actually means to have an irrational fear or aversion to homosexuality. Yet today it has been repurposed to malign and silence anyone who does not conform to the corrupted meaning of the word. As historians who claim objectivity, you have just demonstrated your personal bias by using it as a pejorative.
With regard to "safe sex", there is no such thing. Using a condom does not prevent the transmission of AIDS; it merely lessens the probability of acquiring it during a single encounter. However, like a game of Russian roulette, each repeated play increases the probability of failure at some point. Yet I well remember seeing commercials that propagated the lie of telling men they would be safe from infection if they simply used a condom during anal sex. The only truly safe sex is that between two partners (whether heterosexual or homosexual) who remain monogamous while also being HIV free. In such situations the likelihood is very small that they will contract HIV from some form of tainted blood transfusion (unless they are intravenous drug users).
You claim I said HIV was only transmitted among homosexuals and intravenous drug uses when I actually said it was mostly transmitted among them. That it sometimes crossed into the heterosexual population was well documented back then. It is still transferred to the heterosexual population by tainted blood transmission and by sex with a partner who has HIV. But it has not spread widely into the general population because it is far more difficult to transmit through heterosexual intercourse than it is through male homosexual intercourse. To this day the disease exists predominantly among homosexual males in America.
I do believe the initial backlash against homosexuals in the 1980s has been exaggerated. There were those who said it was God's punishment, but they were a vocal minority. Others preached abstinence, but few humans ever seem able to manage this feat, no matter what the topic may be - gambling, drinking, drugs, sex, tobacco use. This left only two options, either use some form of prophylaxis or create an effective treatment/cure. These options were exercised after it became apparent HIV was spreading rapidly among the predominantly male homosexual population. Were we too slow to respond effectively? I'm not sure such a question can be definitively answered. One could try drawing a comparison with our response to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. But at this point about all we can conclude is that he have responded more quickly to the ongoing pandemic than we did initially with HIV/AIDS. It's far too early to tell if that response has been the best course of action or will be as effective in the long run as has our subsequent treatment of AIDS patients and HIV infected individuals. The history of both is still being written.
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@TimeGhost It may be possible the term was coined by more than one person, but I am referring to the work of clinical psychologist Dr. George Weinberg, who began using the word in the mid 1960s to describe an irrational fear of homosexuals. According to his obituary in the New York Times he was quoted as saying:
“I coined the word homophobia to mean it was a phobia about homosexuals,” Dr. Weinberg told Gregory M. Herek, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, in 1998. “It was a fear of homosexuals which seemed to be associated with a fear of contagion, a fear of reducing the things one fought for — home and family. It was a religious fear, and it had led to great brutality, as fear always does.”
Dr. Weinberg discussed his ideas with the gay activists Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke, who used the new term in a column they wrote for Screw magazine on May 5, 1969, discussing the fear felt by straight men that they might be gay. It was the word’s first appearance in print.
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Great job, Indy and team. I've long been frustrated by the common misuse and abuse of the word fascism. Like pornography, it is hard to define, but I know it when I see it. You have come the closest to explaining it. Most forms of fascism that I am familiar with contain elements of socialism, communism, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism. They appear to be devoid of individual freedom, democracy, and republicanism. Lableing them as left, right, liberal, or conservation only maligns those terms.
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Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and Nazism do share one very critical trait, a desire to concentrate power in the state at the cost of the individual. They go about it in different ways and to different degrees, but the end result tends to be the same - incarceration, torture, or death for all perceived enemies of the people. Terms such as left wing, right wing, and alt right have unclear meanings, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. This is particularly true when trying to comprehend the European vs. American use of these words. When our Constitution was written, our forefathers, well educated on the potential dangers of any form of government, sought to create one in which the consolidation of power was made extremely difficult. Indeed, it was the decentralization of power which was foremost on their minds and a cornerstone of our republic. Yet if any of them were alive today, they would be gravely disappointed to see how far we have drifted from their ideal. I suppose it is to be expected. Human nature can be as predictable as the actions of a moth drawn to a flame. Perhaps that is why the price of freedom is eternal vigilance (yes, I know this is a paraphrase).
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@TimeGhost I quite agree with your assessment. It is easy to use the words nazi, communist, and fascist because they clearly evoke those very meanings you described. People do tend to become highly partisan when words such as socialist, nationalist, liberal, progressive, conservative, left, right, alt, and neo are used. They must be defined by the context in which they are used. Since the focus right now is on German Nazis, Italian Fascists, Soviet Communists, and Japanese Imperialists, it would be a great service to us all if you could air a program explaining their similarities and differences at this point in time, and why there existed so much distrust and even hatred between these outwardly similar styles of government. I know this is a tall order and it will evoke much heated debate and disagreement, but it does seem like the elephant in the room.
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