Why aren't Second Lifers supporting SOPA?

[Dillon Levenque]

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Randall Ahren wrote:

Based on your logic Dillon, you must really hate the Declaration of Independence as it was written by Thomas Jefferson, a slave-owning white man.

I think your analysis is based on a logical fallacy, namely ad hominem. Simply because someone had some quality that you find reprehensible doesn't mean that everything they said or did was wrong. 

Absolute power does corrupt absolutely. You don't think absolute power would corrupt you? 

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1: Nowhere in my post did I say that Lord Acton's comments should be disregarded or approved based on my understanding of his political beliefs.

2: I even took the trouble to add an ETA making that perfectly clear, knowing that sometimes people get in a hurry and 'see' things that don't actually exist.

You have no excuse. You're an old-timer here, and a pretty literate one at that.

[Randall Ahren]

Sorry, I don't understand your post. I in fact did not know that Lord Acton sympathized with the Confederates in the US Civil War. Grokking is.

[Void Singer]

'twasn't the only state right in question, and the history on both sides isn't nearly as neat a picture as our school books paint it. Over a third seceding were non slave owning states, largely in reaction to to the idea of using force to stop secession. and there were even slave holding states on the Union side (though deeply divided internally). there were complaints a many and dirty deeds on both sides. slavery was the just the poster child for it all because of the fundamental change in way of life it represented... it would be akin to a push to ban all automotives except for public transportation and emergency personnel in how devastating to the economy (for those states) it would be (and no I'm not comparing cars to slaves, there is no good modern comparison of the economic impact).

what it really boiled down to is the northern states said hey, we banded together for a common goal, and now we are one, and the southern states said, we don't have this goal in common, we're outta here.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

"Power corrupts.  absolute power corrupts absolutely." 

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I wonder how many people who have trumpeted that quotation as if they just made it up know that Lord Acton sympathised with the Confederates in the Civil War, because he believed in the cause they were fighting for: State's Rights against a tyrannical Federal government. Never mind that the particular (or should I say peculiar?) right in question was that of owning human beings.

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History is full of figures who had some good things to do, amongst a general moral reprehensibility.

Henry Ford, the great anti-Semite, who started an entire journal dedicated to the idea of containing the Jews. One of his most inspired followers was an Austrian man named Adolf...

Frank Baum didn't just write about Dorothy and Toto, but also about the need to wipe out every last man, woman, and child, of native ancestry - in fact he was one of, or at least styled himself to be seen as, the instigating figures of Wounded Knee.

Most of the American founding fathers were slave owners.

JFK was a rampant adulterer. So too, was MLK.

When looking to history and finding inspiration in one deed, don't discredit the deed and what it stands for just because the actors involved had other troubles.

If we had to do that, I'd never be able to call myself a patriotic American, being a half-native... Some might want to question how I can be a patriot of the nation that exercised a genocide against my race... But reality is more complex than simple labels.

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Void Singer wrote:

'twasn't the only state right in question, and the history on both sides isn't nearly as neat a picture as our school books paint it.

 

what it really boiled down to is the northern states said hey, we banded together for a common goal, and now we are one, and the southern states said, we don't have this goal in common, we're outta here.

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Slavery was already unprofitable for a few decades before the war broke out. The North proved that it was cheaper to pay a man less than he needed to survive, and not care for his needs or family, than to pay him nothing, but care for his needs and family.

- The robber barons of the Industrial age came out of roots set down in that age.

Given events in the Carribean where other Ashanti were gaining freedom in one way or another over the preceeding decades, the writing was on the wall for those held in bondage in the US - the war hastened the end of slavery, but the South would have gone bust without it.

 

While revisionists try to pretend it wasn't really about slavery... it was. There may have been no initial plan for emmancipation - but people were fighting for two distinct ways of live, one of them rooted in an ancient absolute evil of slavery (the South), the other in the dawning evil of class warfare (the North). Slavery was the topic of the day for everyone at the time - its just that the initial plan was one of containment vs. expansion.

 

[RudolphUkka]

This

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legislation represents a

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intolerable intrusion on national

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self-determination. Next you'll be

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forcing us in South Afrika to drive on the

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right - and it will be

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worse in Saudi Arabia where they currently all

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drive in the

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middle of the road.

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Rudi

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[Dillon Levenque]

I've come to the opinion I have fairly recently. I've read a lot of history from multiple perspectives. Yes, there were other factors involved. Yes, their were people and states involved for reasons not having to do with slavery. All that being said, I am of the opinion there would never have been a Civil War or anything close to it were it not for the basic fact of slavery.

 

[Storm Clarence]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

I am of the opinion there would never have been a Civil War or anything close to it were it not for the basic fact of slavery.

 

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I agree, and it still took us another 100 years to remotely see and feel the 'emancipation' of blacks in this great country.  How sad is that?  Rhetorical.

[RudolphUkka]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

I've read a lot of history from multiple perspectives.

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But never from the

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point of view of the

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illiterate.

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Rudi

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[RudolphUkka]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

I am of the opinion there would never have been a Civil War or anything close to it were it not for the basic fact of slavery.

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They managed to

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stretch conflict out for a

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of a lot longer in

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Northern Ireland. But that was just a tiny

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matter of

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religion, wasn't it.

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Rudi

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[Alisha Matova]

Sopa overreaches and removes due process. It will be abused. I'm all for ip protection, but there needs to be normal legal checks and ballances. Handing power directly to corperations is a choice we will all regret. I pray it doesn't pass.

[Storm Clarence]

Can anyone tell me where I can get a pirated copy of the SOPA hearings?

[Perrie Juran]

 

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Storm Clarence wrote:

Can anyone tell me where I can get a pirated copy of the SOPA hearings?

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[Void Singer]

I'll have to disagree that it was proven less profitable at the time, the north was far more industrialized at the time, and had the infrastructure in place, whereas the south did not. transitioning that even without the civil war would have proved extremely costly to the south, and proved even more costly with the war. Not to say that it shouldn't have been done, with that portion I have no argument. but it's naive to say that slavery was the only cause... interstate recognition of laws, protective taxes, non-suport on the frontiers, federal authority, and several other issues pushed non-slave states to align either with the confederacy or as (at least initially) neutral secessionists. If anything it's revisionist to ignore those other causes.

 

I don't see that acknowledging one takes away from the other, or even that noble principles can't be abused to support ignoble actions. For instance the topic of this thread... driven by the noble principle of preventing theft, but abused to lend itself to unaccountability and censorship. I'm all for the spirit of it, but violently against the means proposed by SOPA to enact it. To me it's a clear case of the cure being worse than the disease... the real solution is to find a better cure.

@Storm
now that's revolutionary thinking.... bravo =D

[Storm Clarence]

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Void Singer wrote:

@Storm

now that's revolutionary thinking.... bravo =D

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I am so glad you did not write Bravado.

PS But then again I would never have expected you to.  

PPS Some of the greatest sentences ever written ended with a participle.  

PPPS This was not one of them

 

[Randall Ahren]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

All that being said, I am of the opinion there would never have been a Civil War or anything close to it were it not for the basic fact of slavery.

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I doubt it. With the number of states in the union, there was inevitably going to one at sometime that wanted out after joining. Even today the word secession gets mentioned occasionally. The constitution has no provisions for a state to leave once it has joined. It's like marriage vows. There is no contemplation that the union could end because one or more parties to the union wants out. If there hadn't been a secession over the issue of slavery, there would have been one over another issue.

[Storm Clarence]

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Randall Ahren wrote:

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

All that being said, I am of the opinion there would never have been a Civil War or anything close to it were it not for the basic fact of slavery.

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 The constitution has no provisions for a state to leave once it has joined. 

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The U.S. constitution is silent but the Articles of Confederation were not: "America shall be perpetual."

Upheld by the Supreme Court in: "Texas v. White"  

[Randall Ahren]

Thanks Storm, I had to go look up Texas v. White. The US Supreme Court does suggest a way for a state to leave the union in that decision: "through revolution or through consent of the States."

 

[Storm Clarence]

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Randall Ahren wrote:

.. or through consent of the States."

 

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I say we sh*tcan New Jersey.  The sooner the better.  

[Perrie Juran]

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Storm Clarence wrote:

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Randall Ahren wrote:

.. or through consent of the States."

 

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I say we sh*tcan New Jersey.  The sooner the better.  

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What about the 51st State, ahem.

[Ceka Cianci]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Storm Clarence wrote:

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Randall Ahren wrote:

.. or through consent of the States."

 

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I say we sh*tcan New Jersey.  The sooner the better.  

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What about the 51st State, ahem.

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oh no not this again!! \o/ lol

[Void Singer]

hehe... what's even more interesting is that aren't 50 states now... technically there are only 46, with 4 being Commonwealths (KY, MA, PA, VA) that are treated as states (and then there are two more commonwealth territories, Peurto Rico, and the Northern Marianas islands).

which means I can say I was born in the United States, but not in any state, territory, district, or diplomatic holding.

[Storm Clarence]

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Void Singer wrote:

hehe... what's even more interesting is that aren't 50 states now... technically there are only 46, with 4 being Commonwealths (KY, MA, PA, VA) that are treated as states (and then there are two more commonwealth territories, Peurto Rico, and the Northern Marianas islands).

which means I can say I was born in the United States, but not in any state, territory, district, or diplomatic holding.

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I have too many friends in D.C. to leave them off the list.

[Void Singer]

I do too, which is why I made sure to include districts =)

[Perrie Juran]

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Void Singer wrote:

hehe... what's even more interesting is that aren't 50 states now... technically there are only 46, with 4 being Commonwealths (KY, MA, PA, VA) that are treated as states (and then there are two more commonwealth territories, Peurto Rico, and the Northern Marianas islands).

which means I can say I was born in the United States, but not in any state, territory, district, or diplomatic holding.

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I recently passed my Citizenship test in KY.  When I went to get new tags for my car they made me show them that I could turn my lights on, use a blinker signal, turn my wipers on and that I knew how to toot my horn.  Once I showed the officer that I could do those things and slipped him a five dollar bill, they let me get all official KY credentials.  I do love this state so much!