Theresa Tennyson

anselm Hexicola wrote: Take the case where your camera looks from on high (say, from a skybox) to distant ground-level terrain. There can be a distracting flicker that seems to follow sim boundaries. I know there is a Debug setting (or is it in Preferences?) that fixes this because I used to have it set - but it got lost in a Viewer update. Remind me what it is - I have scrolled through the 1 zillion Debug settings, but none of them "leaps out" as the obvious one. Thanks in advance. It's not a debug setting - it's under the Develop menu. Develop -> Rendering -> Object-Object Occlusion. De-selecting it should stop the flicker.

madman626 Fall wrote: Federal law supercedes state law, That true but that also be said that some State have laws That over Ride Federal law. Tell that to James Madison, et al: Article. VI. All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Iyoba Tarantal wrote: I shouldn't have to update any operating system if my computer still works just fine. I am being forced to ugrade from a perfectly good (more peripherals than machine now) nine year old, Windows XP machine to something bigger and fancier. Let's call planned obselescence what it is and scream from the rooftops that it S---ks! All that said, I find Linden Labs timing just impecable. On July 29, Microsoft comes out with Windows 10. I saw no reason to upgrade to Windows 7 (I have it at work and did not see much of an improvement in performance.) Windows 8 was a mistake, and not worth a new machine (My machine can't run Windows 7, so 8 was out of the question unless worthwhile), so you can guess what I'm waiting for. Naturally, I'd like to see Linden Labs, GIMP, and other critical software providers get on the Windows 10 bandwagon and for Microsoft to get any big bugs out of Windows 10 before I buy in. I'm used to having my online life in the hands of big corporations. Still, this means a wait of six months. So yes, I will give in to planned obselescence in December 2015/January 2016. And I will miss Maggie Mae (my computer) as I have missed few inanimate objects, but all good things come to an end. It would have been a lot better for Linden Labs to have kept supporting XP until the spring of 2016. I am just hoping I won't have to take a hiatus from Second Life due to technical issues. I can spend the fall with Exodus. (I get my eyes poked out from time to time, but not as much as you think.) I'll bow to useless technical change and corporate greed. And I'll planned obselescence one big RASPBERRY. Okay, I'm confused here. How is Linden Lab NOT supporting XP, given that they're providing a viewer that will work on it? The latest tools necessary to build a viewer to run on Windows won't run under XP. Talk to Microsoft about this one. You should be able to use the XP-compatible viewer for quite a while. None of this has anything to do with the servers at Linden Lab, which don't run under Windows at all.

Derek Torvalar wrote: DejaHo wrote: JoeKingleigh wrote: I am all for supremacy. I think the intelligent should take advantage of the stupid, and the strong exploit the weak, and practical eugenics will ultimately weed out those who are not fit to survive. But, but it's all about the flag! Where's the flag, Joe, where's the flag? You can't have a supremacy without a flag. So many ideas come to mind. . . Wow, bores have their own flag now?

Coby Foden wrote: Even Ebbe has noticed that the mesh starter avatars what Linden Lab throws on every new account are total crap. In the beginning he was using one of them but last time I saw him he was using classic avatar. They should burn all those starter mesh avatars in a bonfire. Big sign beside the bonfire: Linden Lab are very sorry that we ever introduced these. :matte-motes-bashful: :matte-motes-dont-cry: :smileyvery-happy: They were first developed right when fitted mesh was introduced. At the time there was discussion with in-world clothing makers about making clothing to fit them as well. They could have been a very good thing if they'd done what the makers of the current popular mesh bodies did - tweaked the rigging to the collision bones to smooth them out and used the default head mesh which isn't perfect but it's at least as good facially as those avatars and is customizable. If they had been developed fully and a good publicly available rigging weight set had been worked out they would have revolutionized SL clothing. I suspect the major problem with them is they were rushed out and I suspect that was Ebbe Linden's fault, as he started mentioning them right after getting the job and said they were coming "soon." If everyone had worked together to get them at least as usable as the Wowmeh body (the body that really created the entire current mesh body environment) things would have been very different.

Destrey Shamen wrote: This is a problem I've had before, I found the solution once and now I forget how to fix it. With some mesh items, when I scroll out or walk away from them they turn into triangles. But when I get closer to them, they go back to normal. It's kind of like when you first loading in and every thing is loading, that's what it's kind of like. It's driving me crazy because I don't know how to fix it! This is because mesh items are built with a series of different "levels of detail" ("LOD'S") for when they're seen at different distances from them. There are mesh makers in SL who make objects which fall apart at greater distances because the version of the mesh seen LOD's used for distance viewing are badly made/and or have very little detail - either because they didn't 'realize it or they intentionally sacrificed detail at a distance to reduce land impact. The ultimate solution is just to not buy mesh made to look like that, but of course that isn't a real option day-to day. However, if you go to the debug settings and go to the debug setting "RenderVolumeLODFactor" you can increase the value of that setting until things look better from reasonable distances. A lot of people recommend using a RenderVolumeLODFactor setting of 4 which works for most things - I use 2.5 myself. It causes more video/system memory to be used and means that mesh makers will have an excuse to keep doing what they're doing now but it will improve how things look immediately.

CaptchaL wrote: I was banned from VAW Island ... I'm new in SL and I haven't understood all the rules yet. I'd like to go to VAW Island again - Lot of fun ! Is there an access recovery (I wish yes) ? And how many time for recover this access please ? Thanks That's a private island and you'll have to ask the owner about lifting your ban - there's nothing we or Linden Lab can do about it.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: In the federal elections of 1932 and 1933 the nazis got 38% and 32% of the votes, both a win, but not enough to form a government. Note the decline in votes. Also note that the decline in votes was after the reichstag fire, resulting in the Reichstag Fire Decree, together with the Article 48 in turn resulting in the arrests of many of the political nazi opponents. So one might argue how fair those elections actually were. No, the 32% number was in November 1932 - in March 1933 after the Reichstag fire the Nazis polled 43% - according to the article you quoted, no less. I suspect that public opinion in Germany under Hitler was similar to Russia under Vladimir Putin. He was pretty popular with the general population. Most of my post was made before I found out about the Madagascar Plan. This would indicate that even during World War II the Nazis weren't always planning on killing all the Jews as part of their underlying philosophy - they just killed six million people because it was, well, the most convenient thing for them to do at the time. Still horrifying, of course. Maybe even moreso.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Drake1 Nightfire wrote: Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: I completely fail to understand how you can compare any of those groups to the nazis, let alone conclude they are worse than the nazis. As far as I know, most hate groups have their origins in prison, not in politics. Their wish may be white United States, but I do not see they have any plans or opportunity to actually turn that wish into reality. Nor do they terrorise the entire nation, forcing that nation to march along, on a path to destruction. I have never heard about big plans about genocide on Africans and their descendants. If anything, they seem to deny it ever happened in nazi Germany. Having a certain wish (a white America) is not the same as creating a dictatorship with the main goal being the destruction of an entire race. They would never have succeeded, but with about 1/3rd of the race as they defined it exterminated, they were well on their way. The Nazis didn't "force the entire nation to march along," at least before the start of World War II. They were elected and formed a government using legal means, and then due to a [possibly staged] incident the German parliament gave Hitler dictatorial powers. One reason is that the Nazis didn't publically identify themself as being against groups, but by being pro-German. Obviously Hitler was extremely anti-Jew, as were some of the rest of the Nazi power structure, but a lot of the rest of Germany just went along. The more strident anti-Jewish literature like Der Stuermer was looked on as a joke even by many in the Nazi party itself. I'm not sure the Holocaust would have happened the way it did if there hadn't been the war because it would have just been so conspicuous in peacetime no matter how much things were hidden. I could easily see the Jews forcibly removed from the country but the majority of Germans probably woudn't have supported wholesale slaughter if they'd known about it. ETA: While looking for something else, I found that there was a Nazi plan to do exactly this (deportation) - to Madagascar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan I recently found a "Confederate catechism" written in 1929 that was meant for young American Southerners to read, basically justifying everything the Confederates did. The history wasn't the most rigorous I've ever read, let's put it that way. However, one of the things it mentioned that without the war slavery "would have just faded away" due to changes in agriculture. It didn't mention exactly what would have happened to the ex-slaves though. All things considered, I doubt that they would have become ordinary citizens after they ceased being useful. I'm not saying they would have been exterminated by any means (although it's not completely outside the realm of possibility - say after a large violent insurrection by the slaves) but it's very likely they would have been shipped Somewhere Else, and not by their choice. Actually some in the North (including Abraham Lincoln at times) considered similar "solutions", but at least they'd have been voluntary.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: They felt that way, because from the moment they were born, they saw blacks as slaves, not whites or reds. So they certainly did see it as a part of their culture/society/heritage. Since the southern life was so dependant on the (black) slavery, it was percieved as a vital part, a cornerstone of their society. I have a feeling your "based" and my "based" aren't the same. Maybe "originated" is the better word for what I'm trying to explain. What I am saying is that the black slavery didn't start because the whites saw them as inferior. White and red slaves were harder to keep and not as readily available at a certain point. A crucial factor here is malaria, killing a lot of caucasians and indians, but not Africans. The master/slave relationship is based on the concept that the slave is inferior to the master. If whites didn't see blacks as inferior, why were they used as slaves? Granted, the blacks weren't the only group seen as inferior, but they certainly were seen that way. The Nazis weren't the first group to commit genocide - for instance, the Ottoman Turks systematically killed off all the Armenians they could get their hands on in 1915. Does that mean that Nazi Germany wasn't "based" on killing Jews?

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Dresden wrote: Oh, I get it... it isn't as bad to enslave, torture and kill people to make a buck, as it is to do it just because you just feel like it... right? ...Dres No you do not get it at all. I am fairly convinced slavers felt they weren't doing anything wrong. It was all in the open. Nothing to be embarrased about. Why do you think the death camps were all hidden from the get go and in the end for the better part destroyed? The nazis knew very well what they were doing was wrong in the mind of any sane person. Why do you think Aktion T4 was terminated the second it came into the public eye? The slaveowners of the Confederate States of America felt what they were doing was right, but they knew significant numbers of people in the United States thought it was wrong. It had been like this for the entire history of the United States as a nation. In the leadup to the American Civil War Northern politicians took steps, not to end slavery in the South, but to prevent its becoming established in the new territories of the West. This was one of the major bones of contention that led to thoughts of secession in the South.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: No need for caps, I hear you loud and clear. The southern states were (and are) infected with racist ideas, formed over a long period of time. One could argue they didn't know any better. If one is raised with black slaves, who are only allowed to and therefor only able to do simple tasks and nod at the boss, it's not a big surprise they are considered inferior. If you are born into slavery, it's not a big surprise you actually feel inferior. That does not mean their society was based on having black slaves, as I pointed out. The same is the case for the Hitler Jugend. They were raised with a certain idea and I do not blame them for believing what they were told. This is not the case for the nutjobs who started it all. The society that developed into the Confederate States of America was based on African slavery, because they were Africans, and because they considered it was okay for Africans, and only Africans, to be slaves, because Africans were inferior to Caucasians. This is what they said in their own words. How can you say that their society wasn't based on this when they say it was themselves?

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Amethyst Jetaime wrote: How many have to die before you think that slavery wasn't as bad a the nazies? This type of evil is evil, regardless of the number who actually died.. If you read back a bit, you will see that I do not consider the amount of casualties any kind of benchmark. That amount is not measurable anyway. What sets slavers apart from nazis, is the fact that slavers acted on economical basis, they swapped whites for reds just as easily as the reds for blacks. Their view on the value of human life is not one I share, but it's not as horrible as blaming an entire group for something they didn't cause, then exterminating them altogether. In the slaver's mind it is their right to prosper on the loss of others. In the mind of a nazi, it's fine to commit genocide without any valid reason. THE PARTICULAR GROUP OF SLAVERS IN QUESTION DID NOT AND WOULD NOT SWAP RACES. RACE IS WHAT THEY WERE ABOUT. IS THERE SOME REASON WHY YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND THIS?

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: The Constitution of the Confederate States of America literally had a clause saying that the government was forbidden from ever passing a law forbidding Negro slavery. Article I, Section 9, Part 4: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves, shall be passed." Which indicates to me that they didn't find it natural at all to have slavery. Would that have been the case, why would they have such a clause? By your reasoning every law would only exist because people thought it was unnatural to not violate them. The leaders of the Confederacy thought slavery was natural, as witnessed by thier own words, but knew that some other people didn't and they wrote that clause in case people tried to commit the "unnatural act" of banning slavery.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: I was referring to the origins of American or U.S. slavery, not the confederate society. I'm sure after so many generations, a lot of people considered slavery to be a big part of their heritage or way of life. You have to place the speech, on the eve of the civil war, in that perspective. However, this whole thread is actually about [what people think of as*] the battle flag of the Confederate States of America. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America literally had a clause saying that the government was forbidden from ever passing a law forbidding Negro slavery. Article I, Section 9, Part 4: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves, shall be passed." http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/confed/trans.html ------------------ * A lot of people flying Confederate flags don't really know a lot about them. For example the Duke boys in the "Dukes of Hazzard" television show named their car "The General Lee" (after the general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia) but painted on the battle flag from the Confederate Army of the Tennessee.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: Difference between Jim Crow laws and the Final Solution? Huge. Difference between Jim Crow laws and the Nuremberg laws of 1933 to the beginning of World War II? Very small. There's an atrocity that needs to be added to the side of slavery in the Western Hemisphere - the slave class wasn't even originally part of the society in the first place. They had to be shipped in because most of the original native population/slave candidates died off. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/slaveship.htm Exactly. The (1935) laws were very similar. That's why I do consider it a leap, not a warp. It's frightning to see how the nazis took this enormous leap from segregation to extermination in under 10 years. The circumstances were there, if not the intentions. I do not see how the Jim Crow laws would have ever resulted in genocide. U.S. slavery has its origins in Europe. From white slavery it became red slavery, until it was more economical to use black slaves. This is where the two "ideologies" differ so greatly. Slavery was not a goal, the goal was cheap labour. So the driving force was cold economics. Although woven into Southern society, it wasn't the basis of the community. It wasn't an ideology. The Final Solution was a goal, although the question might be what the result would have been had it been completely executed. You could argue the goal was creating a common enemy to strengthen the nation, with the extermination of Jews being the means. Either way the society of nazi Germany was built around creating enemies and getting rid of them one way or another. The driving force was hatred. The Jim Crow laws and the Nuremberg laws were both the most those societies felt they could get away with at the time. The difference was the Nuremberg laws came before the highest level of atrocity and the Jim Crow laws came after (and after an incredibly bloody war.) As far as the portion of your quote I bolded, the Vice President of the Confederate States of America begs to differ with you - he said slavery was the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy, in so many words. Apparently you didn't read the entire thread: "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal."

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Hence my last reply. The leap from slavery to extermination is huge, but not as huge as the difference between the Jim Crow laws and the Final Solution (or Action T4, or the extermination of gypsies, homosexuals etc). So please keep those three apart in this discussion. "Unwanted" as not wanted to be part of society, as in segregation, is not the same as not wanted to exist. I think I was very clear on that earlier. Difference between Jim Crow laws and the Final Solution? Huge. Difference between Jim Crow laws and the Nuremberg laws of 1933 to the beginning of World War II? Very small. There's an atrocity that needs to be added to the side of slavery in the Western Hemisphere - the slave class wasn't even originally part of the society in the first place. They had to be shipped in because most of the original native population/slave candidates died off. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/slaveship.htm

DejaHo wrote: Did she read my first post? Because I don't make the jump from the confederate flag to that of the atrocities of Nazi Germany it is assumed I . . . ? The leap between Nazi Germany and the slaveholding/Jim Crow culture of the southern United States may not be as great as you think. IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER - It's obvious that at its height, Nazi Germany was much worse than the southern United States as far as pure atrocity. BUT: Both societies were built around the idea that there was a ruling race (Aryans/Whites) which was fundamentally superior to a sub-race (Jews/Blacks) and therefore the sub-race should have radically reduced freedoms as part of the natural order of things. Huge numbers of the ruling class just accepted this without question. Of course the Whites of the South didn't systematically exterminate the Blacks; however, a cynic would point out that they needed to keep them around for labor. If a Black was seen as a troublemaker, well... Also Nazi Germany's reign of terror lasted about 12 years. The Southern society lasted for and affected generations. Please don't think I'm judging everyone from the South as complicit in this; neither am I giving Northerners a free pass. But the Confederate Battle Flag is not only a symbol of the Confederate military, but the symbol of the entire society. It is worth noting that the battle flag first appeared on the Georgia state flag and on the South Carolina capitol flagstaff during the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's. It's also why this symbol may have different meanings for a person depending on whether they're White or Black.

DejaHo wrote: DejaHo wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: DejaHo wrote: Then you can't fault us for our ignorance. No; only for being content with it. You assume, and you are wrong. I am content with nothing in life. However, you have offered nothing but questions of those who don't seem to follow your doctrine. Show me. Teach me, but don't spit platitudes and make assumptions of me. And your assumption is wrong because you think I am defending the confederate flag; or even racism. I am defending the right to fly what ever **bleep**ing flag you want to fly. And I am willing to die defending your right to do so. Even if you would not defend my right to do the same. Talk about being content with ones ignorance, Theresa. When did I say that you were content in your ignorance? I only said someone could be faulted for that. And if you aren't defending the flag, why did you write: The 'flag' flew over the battlefield. It was raised and flew on the mast of the USS Columbia in WWII. It flew on retaken conquered islands in the Pacific. If flew on the tanks and jeeps of southern soldiers in Vietnam. It, as far as I know, has never flown over the housing quarters of slaves. But I'm asking questions again. Teaching moment offered: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Politics-Voices/2015/0623/How-Confederate-battle-flag-debate-is-twisting-history

DejaHo wrote: Then you can't fault us for our ignorance. No; only for being content with it.

DejaHo wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: DejaHo wrote: Perhaps you're laboring under the misconception that the confederate battle flag is simply a symbol of Southern pride... it's not. ...Dres Perhaps I am Dres. This is what I have been taught. This is what I witness. Yes, there are those who abuse and misconstrue its meaning to support their own hatred, but I do not. What if what you've been taught is wrong? What if what you've witnessed is incomplete? What if it's actually you who's misconstruing the meaning? Vilification of that battle flag and the Confederacy is part of the cultural revolution in America that flowered half a century ago. Among its goals was the demoralization of the American people by demonizing their past and poisoning their belief in their own history. P. Buchanan How exactly does that answer my question?

DejaHo wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: Derek Torvalar wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: DejaHo wrote: Dresden wrote: DejaHo wrote: Drake1 Nightfire wrote: DejaHo wrote: In a PC world, humor is a capital offense. No, LL should not follow the likes of others and ban images of the confederate flag. What's next banning Christmas perhaps? The rainbow flag? How about the Russian flag raised at the UN? Wal-mart and others are following the John Ashcroft model - cover all the naked statues . . . None of your examples ar symbols of atrocity.. You have: a stolen holiday, a sybmbol of equality and love, and a countries flag. And you Godwin'ed the thread with your first post. I disagree... it's not a Godwin when it's a fair comparison. ...Dres Do you really think Nazi Germany = Southern CSA? It is a totally disproportionate analogy. I am not a southerner, but I never made the leap to equate the two. Probably because you're white? You are being obtuse. And intimating that because a person may be white that they cannot discern the obvious differences between the two without being biased. I wasn't the one who suggested it was a fair comparison in the first place, now was I? I'm just suggesting that what race you are may have some impact on your opinion of a group of people who built the "cornerstone of their society" on thoughts like these, from Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America (and a moderate among them, mind you) : The 'flag' flew over the battlefield. It was raised and flew on the mast of the USS Columbia in WWII. It flew on retaken conquered islands in the Pacific. If flew on the tanks and jeeps of southern soldiers in Vietnam. It, as far as I know, has never flown over the housing quarters of slaves. Some Confederate Army officers traveled with their personal slaves, so ipso facto it flew over housing quarters of slaves. And now you know.

Derek Torvalar wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: DejaHo wrote: Dresden wrote: DejaHo wrote: Drake1 Nightfire wrote: DejaHo wrote: In a PC world, humor is a capital offense. No, LL should not follow the likes of others and ban images of the confederate flag. What's next banning Christmas perhaps? The rainbow flag? How about the Russian flag raised at the UN? Wal-mart and others are following the John Ashcroft model - cover all the naked statues . . . None of your examples ar symbols of atrocity.. You have: a stolen holiday, a sybmbol of equality and love, and a countries flag. And you Godwin'ed the thread with your first post. I disagree... it's not a Godwin when it's a fair comparison. ...Dres Do you really think Nazi Germany = Southern CSA? It is a totally disproportionate analogy. I am not a southerner, but I never made the leap to equate the two. Probably because you're white? You are being obtuse. And intimating that because a person may be white that they cannot discern the obvious differences between the two without being biased. I wasn't the one who suggested it was a fair comparison in the first place, now was I? I'm just suggesting that what race you are may have some impact on your opinion of a group of people who built the "cornerstone of their society" on thoughts like these, from Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America (and a moderate among them, mind you) : "The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.” "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal."

Amethyst Jetaime wrote: Barge into private homes without being invited in. Unfortunately some oldbies do this too, but news are the worst offenders. Not a day goes by when at least two newbs do that at my house. Not just barge in but barge in and CLICK ON EVERYTHING RANDOMLY, at least while I'm gone. I find doors open, water running, fires lit in the middle of summer, etc. The really ambitious ones change textures on my landscaping rocks. I've locked down most of the more interesting functions of things when I can. Although I suppose it's possible that I just have a poltergeist - I do live in a very old part of the world.

Rhonda Huntress wrote: Amethyst Jetaime wrote: As far as LL is concerned, I wouldn't want them to stomp all over free speech, but using it in a racist manner should be banned and AR'd, IMO. I am white in RL and I find it offensive myself. One could write an novel about iconography and intent. To me it is just a field of colors and shapes and not any more offensive than a cross or the herringbone pattern in the brick sidewalk outside. It's the people who use it that I find offensive.. You can take away their symbol but they would just find another. Just because I'm curious, what does the rest of the world think? Do the Koreans just roll their eyes at American arrogance to think their internal squabbles mean anything? A few weeks ago we were having a very similar conversation about Nazi symbolism - Americans (in the thread, at least) were generally less bothered by it than Europeans. In particular, there was thinking among Americans that it was just "history" and Europeans considered it "political." At the time (before the Charleston shootings, mind you) I remember thinking that for Americans the Symbol Known as the Confederate Battle Flag had similar connotations.