Comments by "Patrick Cleburne" (@patrickcleburneuczjsxpmp9558) on "PragerU" channel.

  1.  @zenever0  Because you deny people's right to choose their own governments. Duh.
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  2.  @zenever0  You are the only one denying anyone's right to vote on anything.
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  3.  @zenever0  There's only one of us who's denying anyone's right to vote on anything, and it's not I.
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  4.  @zenever0  Even if it were true that the CSA didn't vote to secede, and it would still be true that there's only one of us who's denying anyone's right to vote on anything, and it's not I.
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  5.  @zenever0 Whatever... it's still true that there's only one of us who's denying anyone's right to vote on anything, and it's not I.
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  6.  @zenever0  Whatever... it's still true that there's only one of us who's denying anyone's right to vote on anything, and it's not I.
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  7.  @zenever0  Whatever... it's still true that there's only one of us who's denying anyone's right to vote on anything, and it's not I.
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  8.  @zenever0  If that isn't purely a deflection but you think there's some point to be made that has anything to do with anything I've said in this thread -- you keep directing this question at me after all -- explain.
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  9.  @zenever0  Explain? What's there to explain. They're inconsistent. Denying people independence, the right to self-government, as you're doing, on the other hand, is very much consistent with slavery.
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  10.  @zenever0 Because they were treated the way you think our government should treat its people.
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  11.  @zenever0  When reason and historical facts fail you, you can always make baseless accusations of racism!
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  12.  @zenever0  When reason and historical facts fail you, you can always just "describe" the person exposing your BS as racist!
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  13.  @zenever0  "Describing" me is the definition of an ad hominem. But when reason and historical facts don't support the argument you want to make, what else can a person as dumb as you do?
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  14.  @TheStapleGunKid  Nice fairy tale (if you hate freedom and want to feel good about destroying the foundations of American freedom)!
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  15.  @davidwilliams9908  I'll tell you what's a form of slavery: invading neighboring states in order to force your rulers on them against their will. And northern abolitionists said the same thing in the 1860's.
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  16.  @jjstak98h  And only so long as the laws were actually constitutional, as ultimately judged by them, the states.
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  17. "The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this – that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot." -Lysander Spooner "Ours is a government founded upon the consent of sovereign States, and will be itself destroyed by the very act whenever it attempts to maintain or perpetuate its existence by force over its respective members. The surest way to check any inclination in North Carolina to quit our sisterhood, if any such really exist even to the most limited extent among her people, is to show them that the struggle is continued, as it was begun, for the maintenance of constitutional liberty. If, with this great truth ever before them, a majority of her people should prefer despotism to liberty, I would say to her, as to a wayward sister, 'depart in peace.'" -Alexander Stephens "...it is forgotten, that the true glory of our government—the queen beauty of our system is, that it ceases with the will of the people. Its true strength lies not in navies and battalions, but in the affections of the people. Numbers in our midst... are vainly boasting that we propose to show the world that we have a government that is strong enough to meet the exigency and to suppress rebellion. But they fail entirely to apprehend and appreciate the true theory of the American system. Their is the old European, and not the American, idea of government... “The true strength of a free government—and they are the strongest of all, is in the devoted attachment of its citizen sovereigns. Let this be forfeited, and the government falls. “A government which is strong by the exercise of military power over its own citizens, is not a free government, but a despotism. “Instead of the peaceful separation of these States being a disgrace to our government in the eyes of the world, it will constitute in all coming time its truest glory, and will demonstrate the infinite superiority of the voluntary system of self-government over the despotic usurpations of the past.” -George Bassett
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  18. " telling them how they could live" Except the issues that led to secession weren't even that. The issue was a hostile political party ruling over them that had already proven its willingness to disregard the constitution in doing so. But as as far "how they could live," Republicans had made clear that they wouldn't interfere in those questions so long as they could control the federal government for their own advantage: protective tariffs, special interest subsidies, and the rest of their crony capitalist agenda, which their platform makes clear they stood for just as much as it makes their position clear "That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends..."
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  19.  @plno2443  I didn't say capitalist; I said crony capitalist, meaning profiting off of special government favors like federal government subsidies, protective tariffs... As Georgia said in its declaration of causes of secession, "The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all." It's no coincidence that the Age of Robber Barons followed the War of Northern Aggression. And big money's control over the federal government has grown further and further since then.
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  20. So the Confederate constitution used the word slave instead "person held to service." You think that proves why the North invaded and subjugated the South? And are you so incapable of presenting a rational explanation that you have to resort to word counts? Pathetic. But there isn't really any better justification for subjugating people, so you might as well go with word counts.
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  21.  @Blueslyfox  Preserve slavery from what? Lincoln, 1861: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Alexander Stephens, 1861: "...notwithstanding their [Republicans'] professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor. Their philanthropy yields to their interest. The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is a collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after though they come from the labor of the slave."
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  22. I have no idea who Jon Harris is, but how could there be any truth to the claim that the South fought for slavery if there wasn't anything the South stood to gain for slavery by going to war? It's not as if the South went to war to force the northern states to deliver up fugitive slaves (as they had been obligated to do under the constitution) or to make any other slavery-related concessions. If there was anything the South was trying to force the North to do about slavery or anything the North was trying to force the South to do about slavery, someone could say what that was, but it's nothing but vague, inexplicable myth. There's no substance to the claim.
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  23.  @TheStapleGunKid  You can't explain what that possibly means -- particularly what about slavery was supposedly at stake and how -- and you can't find anyone that said any such thing except decades after the fact after moving North and going to work for the same robber baron interests that Lincoln represented.
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  24.  @TheStapleGunKid  The Joseph Brown quote? Is that all you have? If it's such an anomaly, why even look at it? Or is the rest of the evidence too hard for you to twist and misrepresent like you do the Brown quote? As for Mosby, you can't really call something a lie that's too vague to be either proven or disproven. What was he saying was at stake? The fugitive slave clause? The 13th amendment? Or what? Of course, he didn't say. No one defending the North ever does. Why was he defending the North? Why do corporate executives today practically without exception say that racism and "institutional racism" are THE reason blacks get shot more often by cops? Because you don't get rewarded by corporate America or by the railroads for speaking the truth. You get rewarded by corporate America by spouting whatever the politically correct nonsense of the day is, by proving yourself willing to completely sell out. But who cares what Mosby said decades after the fact? What did Southerners say of the war at the time of the war? Nothing of the sort. What they said were things like: "...it has been reserved for your own State, so lately one of the original thirteen, but now, thank God, fully separated from them, to become the theatre of a great central camp, from which will pour forth thousands of brave hearts to roll back the tide of this [fill in the blank]." What do you think that Southern leader said in June of 1861? Abolitionism? Why can't you find any Southerner actually saying so of the war at the time of the war? Because it's a revisionist propaganda lie. The best you can do is find some vague statement by a corporate sell-out decades after the fact. Pathetic.
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  25.  @TheStapleGunKid  "He [Mosby] didn't have to say it. All he had to do was cite what the Southerner leaders said" who also didn't say, certainly not in any of the quotes you're sharing, what was supposedly at stake. The fugitive slave clause? The 13th amendment? Or what? Of course, they don't say either. Neither can you. It's all just an empty myth. "In any case, Southern leaders certainly did talk of the need to roll back the tide of abolitionism." So what? What did that have to do with secession? "...had advocated secession and war to preserve slavery..." You keep using that word "preserve" even though Southerners didn't. Why is that? Because you want to imply the lie that that word conveys, the lie that Southerners saw some threat to slavery posed by Republicans that seceding protected against. But there's no evidence of that in any of the above quotes. Neither can you say what that threat was or find any evidence of it in the declarations of causes of secession.
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  26.  @TheStapleGunKid  Is a single one of those quotes from the time of the war (i.e. after the start of the war)? Then they obviously don't prove what Southerners thought the war was about. That's why you quote a Southerner that moved to the North and sold himself to the robber barons (a robber baron that was also a Republican senator) from decades after the war, because he vaguely alluded to a myth that no Southerner so much as vaguely alluded to at the time of the war. You keep using that word "preserve" even though Southerners didn't. Why is that? Because you want to imply the lie that that word conveys, the lie that Southerners saw some threat to slavery posed by Republicans that seceding protected against. If there were any basis to your lie, that threat would be clearly spelled out in the declarations of causes of secession. Or you would at least be able to articulate what that threat was yourself and explain why the seceding states hid their real reason for seceding in their declarations.
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  27.  @TheStapleGunKid  "The idea that the threats to slavery the Southern leaders identified as their reason for secession didn't apply anymore after the war started is ridiculous. Of course they did." Then show me where they substantiated your still undefined myth after the war started. It's mighty suspicious that the best you can do is to quote a Southerner that moved North and went to work for Republican robber barons and said some vague thing three decades after the fact. "...a clear desire to preserve slavery." To continue practicing slavery, yes. To protect slavery against some mysterious threat that you can only allude to but can't define... some threat posed by remaining in the Union that seceding protected against... of course not, hence your dependence on vague quotes from multiple decades after the end of the war. What the declarations of causes of secession actually say is plenty clear. The South thought the North was trashing the constitution with respect to the fugitive slave clause, with respect to their rights to the territories... things that seceding didn't protect... but the South wasn't going to let the North rule over them for their profit (as the declarations of causes clearly show the southern states understood) without any regard for the constitution and without any legal limits... all while seeking to ruin the South even to the extent of supporting murderous terrorism against random Southerners. You can read. And you can't even articulate your alternative myth.
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  28. How do you fight a war over the right to own slaves when the "anti-slavery" side is willing even to support an irrevocable constitutional amendment protecting the right to own slaves? You don't (although you might try to confuse the history through historical revisionism later.) Lincoln in his 1st inaugural address: "...a proposed amendment to the Constitution... has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service... holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."
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  29.  @iitim2152  > He wanted to enact policies that would slowly bring an end to it... No, he didn't. He had no purpose, no inclination, to do anything directly or indirectly, to interfere with, let alone end, slavery in the southern states.
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  30.  @iitim2152  Those were his own words.
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  31.  @iitim2152  I already quoted exactly what you said. You said "he."
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  32.  @iitim2152  But it's good that you're backtracking.
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  33.  @jonathanreed7165  > That being said, the predominant cause of secession was probably the issue of slavery and its expansion. And why did the southern states care about slaveholding rights in the territories? Obviously not because of the territories themselves, because they were entirely willing to forfeit Kansas when they seceded. They cared about the territories because the territories were future states that would affect the balance of power in DC and determine not anything to do with slavery but things like protective tariffs.
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  34. ​ @TheStapleGunKid  Are you imagining that particular clauses in the Confederate constitution put particular questions to rest? I know you mostly like to avoid making sense of the things you say. They sound better if we don't try to make any sense of them.
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  35.  @TheStapleGunKid  It's "very easy to imagine how he..." but your position depends on not explaining it, because if your position were actually exposed to the light of day the indefensible nonsense of it would be clear.
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  36. Lincoln: "The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties [tariffs] and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."
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  37. That was over a year before the war even started. Too bad for people that want to try to justify the North's subjugation of the South (and subjugation of themselves to an unaccountable federal government) and war against government by the consent of the governed that there aren't any such quotes actually referring to the war.
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  38.  @oscarbenigsen4538  "There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas…" -Lincoln
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  39.  @jonnie106  Assuming it's even a real quote, obviously not the North's war to force its rulers on the South without its consent and to deny the southern states the right to independence and self-government, because the southern states were still part of the union and it was a year and a half before the start of the war. Why do you figure all these vague supposed allusions to a future war are so much more important and conclusive than what people said directly about the actual war itself that the North and South actually fought? Jefferson Davis, April 29, 1861: "we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honor and independence; we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. This we will, this we must, resist to the direst extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned the sword will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amity and commerce that cannot but be mutually beneficial. So long as this pretension is maintained, with a firm reliance on that Divine Power which covers with its protection the just cause, we will continue to struggle for our inherent right to freedom, independence, and self-government."
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  40.  @oscarbenigsen4538  > Davis declared, during the war, that the South broke the Union He did no such thing. The South didn't "break" the union. Did the UK "break" the EU? Did the 13 colonies "break" the English Empire? Did Algeria "break" France? If a worker withdraws from a labor union, has he "broken" the union? Of course not, and Davis never said any such thing either. But whatever Davis said about secession is beside the point I made in my first comment in this thread that it's "Too bad for people that want to try to justify the North's subjugation of the South (and subjugation of themselves to an unaccountable federal government) and war against government by the consent of the governed that there aren't any such quotes actually *referring to the war*." What Davis said in reference to the war is perfectly clear and accurately summarized in the quotes I already shared from the conclusion of that speech and in no way contradicted by anything else in his speech. Opponents like yourself of the principles of '76 (of all men being created equal and therefore not inheriting any right to rule over other people, of just government requiring the consent of the governed, etc.) wouldn't misleadingly quote things said in 1859 as if they had been said about the war if they actually had an honest case to make based on historical evidence that were actually relevant to the question of what the war was fought over.
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  41.  @oscarbenigsen4538  > that the South broke the Union. When you say that Davis said xyz about why the South "broke the Union," even though he didn't say anything about "breaking" the union, are you equating withdrawing from a union as "breaking" a union? Would you say the union was "broken" in 1788 when some of the states (enough to meet the arbitrary 9 of 13 standard of ratification they chose for themselves) abandoned the established government on their own sovereign authority and established a new government for themselves? Certainly there was no provision for that in the Articles like there was for Brexit in EU law. But what does it even matter if the pre-existing law provides for the terms of withdrawal from a union or not? If there's a withdrawal from a union is that union any more or less "broken" if the law provides for withdrawing from it?
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  42.  @oscarbenigsen4538  > If two or more people join in an acceptance of a common statement of terms, then that acceptance constitutes a union. If even one of the union's members should "withdraw" from that union, the union is broken. So the EU, by your terminology, was "broken" when the UK withdrew. > The parties agreed that their first union was weak and that they needed a better union. But only 11 of the 13 parties agreed that the proposed alternative was an improvement. And only 11 of the 13 parties initially chose to accept the new "statement of terms," as you put it, which "constitutes a union," and therefore the old union was "broken," right? > The government must fail to permit its subjects equal freedom of the pursuit of happiness. So how did the government established by the Articles of Confederation "fail to permit its subjects equal freedom of the pursuit of happiness"? Rather some of the states just decided on their own sovereign authority (just like the 13 states had in 1776) that they preferred another system of government, and that was sufficient. > The South withdrew from The Union without having a roundly established agreement as to whether such a thing was acceptable. And in 1788 11 states withdrew from the previous union without all the parties agreeing to it, but Americans still understood at that time that North Carolina didn't have any right to deny Delaware the right to choose a different government together with whichever other states wanted to join Delaware. > There was no protest against it. You're not asserting that North Carolina would have had a right to "protest" and deny the other states the right to establish the new government for themselves, are you? They didn't protest because everyone agreed there was no such right to protest. > The consent clause is not unlimited So consent doesn't really mean consent? Lack of consent only matters if the rulers that want to rule over you without your consent want to accept your reasons for not consenting? Do you say the same thing to slaves? Their lack of consent to their "employment" only matters if their masters agree to their reasons for not consenting to their enslavement? No, the standard in the Declaration of Independence is whenever it to them, the seceders, shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness, i.e. whenever they want to. And anything beyond that is just out of "respect to the opinions of mankind," but rights aren't contingent on others' opinions.
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  43. Lincoln, March 1861: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
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  44.  @TheStapleGunKid  What of it? What do you think that other quote proves with regards to the question of whether the southern states were defending the right to slavery as was foolishly claimed in the original comment? Or are you just looking for red herrings to hide from the facts that are relevant to the question in this thread?
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  45. The Republican-led North wasn't trying to abolish slavery when they went to war (and hadn't been before) at all. But that's the foundation of the Righteous Cause Myth used by people that fear and hate freedom to continue defending the kind of union that's based on physically beating your partners into submission rather than on consent.
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  46.  @sabin97  Lincoln in his 1st inaugural, 1861: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, which was a declaration of the Union's war aims, and which Congress passed by a practically unanimous vote shortly after the first major battle of the war, declared, "this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of... nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States [i.e. slavery]..."
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  47.  @sabin97  A formal declaration of the purpose of the war issued by the side in the war that invaded the other side is "cute"? You're not sure what more evidence anyone would need? You'd have to rebut things like formal declarations of the purpose of the war by the Union more seriously than merely dismissing them as "cute." But before we can even get to the evidence, I need you to explain what you're even trying to prove: what specifically do you mean when you say the war was about slavery? What could the South have done "about slavery" to end the war? Obviously, nothing. Lincoln went to war even supporting an irrevocable constitutional amendment protecting slavery. Lincoln: "a proposed amendment to the Constitution... has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service... holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." So that takes us back to the question of what you mean when you say the war was about slavery. But even if I grant the absurdity that respecting the United States' declared founding principles and allowing the 7 states that seceded pre-war to peacefully secede was an impossibility and therefore whatever motivated the first 7 states (so not counting VA, NC, TN, and AR) to secede was what the entire Confederacy was fighting for and the Union was fighting against -- which would lead to the absurdity of arguing that what the Confederacy and Union were fighting for and against were really irrelevant to what the war was about -- you'd still have to explain what about slavery was at stake if none of the southern states had seceded. For sure, the southern states wanted to continue practicing slavery in 1860-61. (So did some of the states that fought on the side of the Union, so that obviously doesn't prove much by itself.) But if you're suggesting that the South seceded because the North was threatening to abolish slavery or some such thing, you'll have to explain what you're saying and then provide evidence to back it up.
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  48. Saying that when the southern states sought their freedom that the ensuing conflict was "complicated" is like saying that when a slave sought his freedom from his slave master that the ensuing beating was "complicated." It's really not. People have a right to self-government. That ought to be very simple.
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  49.  @Dennis-nc3vw  "States rights to keep slaves for their economic benefit..." were not at stake in the war, but that's a nice, historically baseless myth if you want to make excuses for unchecked, centralized government.
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  50.  @TheStapleGunKid  Why don't you use the word "rebellion" to describe slaves seeking their freedom if it's as neutral a word as you claim?
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