Southern pride gone wrong!

[Geoff_M]

Keep grasping for straws there kid. I didn't say they were treated "the same". They were both treated horrendously, if also differently. It still sucked to be them.

If you get your jollies twisting it around, go for it. The fact you need to consistently and purposely misconstrue what people are saying here just shows you don't know what your are talking about or are just trolling.

OK, let's go back and look at some of your plain English. Here is the statement that I highlighted and you then took exception to (bolding mine):

The North has been just as callous and heinous in their treatment of the immigrants as the plantation owners were to their slaves. There were even plantation owners that were better to their slaves than the Northern mill owners were to their people.

Please tell me how the term "just as" is not an equivocation? If I say "His behavior towards me was just as it was towards her", would that be a statement that the behavior was "the same" or "not the same"? The only differentiation in evidence in your statement is that Southern slave owners existed that treated their slaves better than the folks up North... no "twisting" needed. Also, no need to "change it" or "spin it".

I didn't say they were treated "the same". They were both treated horrendously, if also differently.

Here's a word of advice (which I'm sure you'll ignore)... If you find yourself making comments that involve such linguistic and logical gymnastics as the above sentences, that's a pretty good sign that you're trying to defend a position that's indefensible. Continuing to do so will likely result in you contradicting yourself, or trying to debate things like what "many" and "some" means or what "is" is. The next thing you know you're hurling insults like telling people they're "blowing things out your rear", that they simply "don't know what they're talking about", calling them "kid", and accusing people of just trying to get their "jollies".

If you get your jollies twisting it around, go for it. The fact you need to consistently and purposely misconstrue what people are saying here just shows you don't know what your are talking about or are just trolling.

I don't have to imply anything. (Using my Kevin Spacey voice) "I don't think I'm alone here..." in getting that impression from what you've posted here. (Now will someone please pass me the Asparagus!)

Look here's the bottom line for me:

If you go to someone that's a descendant of African slaves and say "I realize that your ancestors were often treated in a callous and heinous manner by their owners, and their station in life sucked as slaves. However, I hope you will also realize that cases existed where their treatment at the hands of their masters was actually better than the the owners of Northern mills treated their workers. In fact, what the Northerns did was in some ways worse because they offered the illusion of freedom when in fact their workers wore figurative chains just as real as the ones your g-g-great grandparents did!" I would venture a guess that most of the people you tell this to would be pretty offended... and rightly so. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and guess that the level of ill feelings would probably equal or exceed the feelings of a neighbor that decided to fly the CSA Battle Flag in their yard.

On that topic, I personally don't care if someone flies that flag or not. I also don't think that most people fly it in order to make a racial statement, but is fact a statement of "heritage". However, I also think that it's inadvisable to do things that are sure to torque off a number of your neighbors, no matter how benign your intent... and I understand why most African Americas are uneasy when they see the flag.

 

[Wall-E1]

Let me spell it out for you using small words. Mabye that will help. I was being purposely contradictory to show how absurd it is to consider that someone chooing between slavery and death really had any choice. This was the supposed choice for BOTH groups we are discussing. Northern mill workers could choose to be bound to the factory where they worked for thier entire life or starve to death, and lsaves could either work for thier master or be killed. Nither really had a choice. It is a simple analogy. Why, oh, why is it so hard to grasp? My response to Bama fan about slaves having a choice was designed ot illustrate the absurdity of the idea that the choice between slavery and death really gives one viable options. That is the chioce BOTH groups are facing.

In other words, you were caught completely contradicting yourself. Instead of admitting it, or simply bowing out of the conversation, you have chosen to partake in some revisionist history of your own posts. I guess it's kind of like the revisionist history pertaining to the 30 year plan to end slavery that you were discussing earlier... the one where you cited your information from a time traveling, science fiction book.

Anyway, your posts obviously speak for themselves. I don't know why you continually insist on bringing attention to your previous posts.


Your first post, where you were responding to Bamafan's insinuation that poor workers had a choice, but slaves didn't. By your own response, you clearly did not agree with him...

A slave could also choose to sit down and refuse to work anymore. He was also choosing certian death for himself and likely his family, but he had that choice. No one could really force him to stand up and work. He could make the choice to refuse. I really don't see that much of a difference. The outcome is the same.

Then, a few posts later, you didn't agree with me, and suddenly you were yelling that slaves had no choice (the point that Bamafan was trying to get across to you earlier when you vehemently disagreed with him....

For the record: I AM NOT STUPID. Sorry that you seem to think so. As a not stupid person, I refuse to allow you to put words in my mouth or think and reason for me. It is really sad that you seem completely unable to comprehend th point I am tryingto make. NONE OF THEM HAD ANY REAL CHOICE.FOR ALL OF THESE GROUPS THE CHOICE IS SLAVERY OR DEATH. THAT IS NOT A REAL CHIOCE!!!!!

Your posts are what they are. They are not being taken out of context. Anyone can go back and reread the posts beginning with Bamafan's post #405 and your response at post #406.





Here are some other gems from you...

In this first quote you assert that an employee that owes a monetary debt to their employer is "pretty much" the same thing as southern slavery...

Yes, and add the fact that most of them owed massive amounts of money ot thier employers and yes they pretty much were slaves.

Arguing that the plight of the poor working class was equal to the plight of southern slaves...

I am just arguing that the existance of many of the poor working class immigrants in the North was just as bad.

One of my favorites. In this one, you are providing proof of the south's 30 year plan to end slavery. You describe it as a "great book" that discusses Lee's plan to end slavery. Of course, we soon find out that it is a science fiction novel...

I cannot find a free link to the information, but this is a great book that discusses, amoung other things, Lee's plan to phase out slavery by halting the import of new slaves, and stopping its expansion:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101599.Guns_of_the_South

(side note - the second book that was referenced also did not address this master 30 year plan to add slavery. It discussed the south's idea to free slaves if they joined and fought for the southern army. This was a plan born out of desperation, as they were losing the war).


After it is pointed out that your link is to a science fiction novel, you quickly change your assessment of that book from a "great book" to "the first thing I could grab quickly"...

The first one was just the first thing I could grab quickly that I knew referenced what I was looking for.

Another gem is your conspiracy theory as to why this 30 year plan t end slavery cannot be found anywhere on the internet...

Mosto f the primary source documents in question simply do exist on the internet becuase no one wants to beleive it could posibbly be true that the South was not the big bad bully in the situation. Most of them have not been widely published or digtized becuase there are not funds to do so. No one wants to fund something that could prove that this nation's peception of the ignorant biggots south of the Mason-Dixon could possibly be wrong.

You really have added a dose of levity to this thread, keeping it from becoming too heated, and for that, I thank you.

 

[princessmom29]

In other words, you were caught completely contradicting yourself. Instead of admitting it, or simply bowing out of the conversation, you have chosen to partake in some revisionist history of your own posts. I guess it's kind of like the revisionist history pertaining to the 30 year plan to end slavery that you were discussing earlier... the one where you cited your information from a time traveling, science fiction book.

Anyway, your posts obviously speak for themselves. I don't know why you continually insist on bringing attention to your previous posts.


Your first post, where you were responding to Bamafan's insinuation that poor workers had a choice, but slaves didn't. By your own response, you clearly did not agree with him...



Then, a few posts later, you didn't agree with me, and suddenly you were yelling that slaves had no choice (the point that Bamafan was trying to get across to you earlier when you vehemently disagreed with him....

Your posts are what they are. They are not being taken out of context. Anyone can go back and reread the posts beginning with Bamafan's post #405 and your response at post #406.





Here are some other gems from you...

In this first quote you assert that an employee that owes a monetary debt to their employer is "pretty much" the same thing as southern slavery...


Arguing that the plight of the poor working class was equal to the plight of southern slaves...


One of my favorites. In this one, you are providing proof of the south's 30 year plan to end slavery. You describe it as a "great book" that discusses Lee's plan to end slavery. Of course, we soon find out that it is a science fiction novel...

(side note - the second book that was referenced also did not address this master 30 year plan to add slavery. It discussed the south's idea to free slaves if they joined and fought for the southern army. This was a plan born out of desperation, as they were losing the war).


After it is pointed out that your link is to a science fiction novel, you quickly change your assessment of that book from a "great book" to "the first thing I could grab quickly"...


Another gem is your conspiracy theory as to why this 30 year plan t end slavery cannot be found anywhere on the internet...


You really have added a dose of levity to this thread, keeping it from becoming too heated, and for that, I thank you.

One of my college professors once told me that when your argument devolves to the point of personal attack, it is because you have no argument left. You, my friend, have reached that point and with more than one of us here. I refuse to continue to respond to the pointless personal attacks. I am sure you will take it as a sign that you have "won", but it is simply no longer worth my time, and is frankly beneath me to encourage this kind of childishness. GROW UP and find a better way to spend your time than attacking strangers on a message board!

 

[Wall-E1]

One of my college professors once told me that when your argument devolves to the point of personal attack, it is because you have no argument left. You, my friend, have reached that point and with more than one of us here. I refuse to continue to respond to the pointless personal attacks. I am sure you will take it as a sign that you have "won", but it is simply no longer worth my time, and is frankly beneath me to encourage this kind of childishness. GROW UP and find a better way to spend your time than attacking strangers on a message board!

Personal attacks? So, if I point out posts that are contradictory, that's a personal attack? If I group together a series of posts to display the source where you are getting your information, that's a personal attack? I have posted a series of your posts to display they are contradictory, and to show the back tracking/conspiracy theories related to the posts.

I guess I'm not as mature as you. I should take the high road when trying to get my point across, such as you have been doing...

Let me spell it out for you using small words. Mabye that will help.

 

[daisax]

This is a staggeringly sad thread. I haven’t encountered anybody rationalizing the conditions of slavery since Phil Donahue went off the air.

So what? These "northern white slaves" lived in fear of their children starving to death, freezing to death or of getting sick and not being able to help them

99% of urban people in the world then (and not too many fewer today) had those fears. They were living at subsistance levels – just an injury or an illness away from losing everything. If the only income available to purchase bread and tea (something I know my grandmother who grew up in company housing lived on for years) was working 6 days a week 12 hours a day and sending your kids out to pick up scrap coal to heat your stove, then that’s what you did. My great grandmother continued working, cleaning houses and doing laundry, because six months a year her husband would lose his job. The tannery would lay off workers because (in their minds) to give them year round employment gave them “ideas” about organizing, so better to keep them grateful for what little work they got each year.

Conditions were awful. It was abject poverty. Their kids still went to school. Two went to college. It was nothing like slavery, and as bad as it was, not terribly different from what they had left in the countries they left. What was different was access to public education so that their kids had better options. What was different was having a hard life, but one that you yourself directed.

Millions of immigrants came to America and worked in factories. Many of those immigrants were brought over by family members who came over first, got jobs in those terrible factories and mills, and encouraged the rest of the family to come, paying their passages one by one until they were all here.
There simply is no evidence that generation after generation were trapped doing so because “there was no way out.” People moved up and out of the entry level immigrant labor force. Not so much the slave labor force.

 

[LuvsDragonflies]

This is a staggeringly sad thread. I haven’t encountered anybody rationalizing the conditions of slavery since Phil Donahue went off the air.



99% of urban people in the world then (and not too many fewer today) had those fears. They were living at subsistance levels – just an injury or an illness away from losing everything. If the only income available to purchase bread and tea (something I know my grandmother who grew up in company housing lived on for years) was working 6 days a week 12 hours a day and sending your kids out to pick up scrap coal to heat your stove, then that’s what you did. My great grandmother continued working, cleaning houses and doing laundry, because six months a year her husband would lose his job. The tannery would lay off workers because (in their minds) to give them year round employment gave them “ideas” about organizing, so better to keep them grateful for what little work they got each year.

Conditions were awful. It was abject poverty. Their kids still went to school. Two went to college. It was nothing like slavery, and as bad as it was, not terribly different from what they had left in the countries they left. What was different was access to public education so that their kids had better options. What was different was having a hard life, but one that you yourself directed.

Millions of immigrants came to America and worked in factories. Many of those immigrants were brought over by family members who came over first, got jobs in those terrible factories and mills, and encouraged the rest of the family to come, paying their passages one by one until they were all here.
There simply is no evidence that generation after generation were trapped doing so because “there was no way out.” People moved up and out of the entry level immigrant labor force. Not so much the slave labor force.

Well go back and read from the beginning again because I haven't tried to "rationalize" slavery. Slavery was and is an awful thing, always will be.

Once more:

1. People cry and howl because someone wants to fly the Confederate flag,"OMG! How could they? They HAD SLAVES!!!" All the while hiding behind their superiority in flying the Stars and Stripes, (with me so far?).

(Now, regardless of the fact that the Civil War was about more than simply the slavery issue, I continue without going into it since some people seem to get really confused by that notion.)

However,

2. The North has done some extremely lousy things to people and immigrants in general as well. The North also had a hand in the starvation, relocation and a basic, concentrate effort to try and annihilate the Native Americans. Trail of Tears anyone? How about sending smallpox tainted blankets to them?

So,

3. The African American slaves are not the only ones that have been treated poorly in the United States. The Southern states do not solely "own" the stigma of treating people poorly because of their race, creed or color. They are the only ones that had that amount of slavery. (The North also had some slaves.) In case you didn't get it, "Slavery is Bad".

Therefore,

4. For another American to sit back and tell someone they shouldn't use the Confederate Flag as a source of history and pride, while honoring the Stars and Stripes as a source of history and pride, is wrong. Once again, I'll put in "Slavery is bad."

Only MHO. I certainly hope this is clear enough.

Where you got rationalizing slavery from is beyond my comprehension.

 

[daisax]

Today's American flag is quite different from the 1864 flag. If somebody other than a historical recreationist is flying the 1864 flag, I'd have some questions for him/her, too.