(08-27-2017 12:13 PM)umbluegray Wrote: (08-26-2017 11:38 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: One thing that gets ignored in all the "treason" comments is that the relationship between the federal government and the states was viewed much differently in 1860 and before versus today. This was reflected, among other ways, in that the country was usually referred to as "these United States" rather than "the United States," as today. You were first and foremost a citizen of your state, and your status as citizen of the US was derived from you state's membership in the US. Note that military units in the war were referred to as names like the "Indiana Rifles" or the "Tennessee Cavalry" and the like, whereas military units are not so designated today. In that construct, Lee's first obligation was to Virginia, and his obligation to the US was secondary to that. That was his quandary, and that of many others.
I wonder what will ultimately be done with someone like Joe Wheeler, who was a confederate general who returned to the US Army after the war, and was a general in the Spanish-American War.
This is true.
From the time of the founding of this nation state's rights were primary except in those areas identified in Article I.
To clarify the intent Amendment X is included in the Bill of Rights.
There is a very carefully defined agenda to denigrate some of our founding fathers. And those attacked reflect the oldest political rift in this country. The founders who supported clear distinctions between the powers of the state and that of the federal government are the ones under attack: Washington & Jefferson frequently suffer the same denigration that Southern war heroes suffer. But the Federalists do not. Their lives are not dissected for flaws to exploit.
Similarly I think Christianity has been under a parallel attack. In matters of faith "perfection" has been permitted by the vanity of believers to be a quality assigned to their favorite "faith" personality. They have forgotten that acknowledgement of imperfection is the first step toward grace. By doing those two things they have given their enemies the only two tools they need to reduce faith to hypocrisy. Human faces of "faith" all have flaws. Find those flaws and make them public and their followers are scattered, or worse, become dupes in the eyes of the public. But the second tool is that those who are truly humble, truly faithful, and only want to be able to find ways to help others are disqualified because they admit their flaws up front. This position is upheld by the false public notion that all Christian leaders need to be perfect and therefore those who seek to be of service must strive to that standard, a pursuit which by its very nature is doomed to fail.
Both practices are alien to the scripture and practice of early believers. I you don't believe this attitude is still prevalent just try sponsoring a 12 step program at your local church, or invite the people you have financially helped to attend your worship services. If they don't look like us, act like us, or worse should they admit that they have flaws, then they aren't very well received during what for many is the most delusional hour of the week.
Bullet I loved your links here. My great grandparents were long livers. Their grandfathers fought in the war along with all of their brothers, one of which died at Elmira in a Union Prison Camp. I grew up hearing the stories from the first man to ever take me fishing. They had a radio and produced their own electricity by windmill which also served as the pump. They had only 1 other electrical appliance in the home, a refrigerator. They went to a church that was Baptist, but not the Southern Baptist iteration we have today. Their services centered on the needs of the neighbors, praying for those facing crises whether of their own making or not, and in approaching all of these topics in the humility of "there but for the grace of God go I". There was no we are holy and they are not talk. There was empathy. There was no Gospel of Prosperity the very thought of such was foreign to them. Their church was a simple wooden structure with outdoor plumbing and a pit for church gathering cookouts complete with a long wooden table under a lean-to where everyone sat with their fans to brush the gnats away while they ate. The preacher was a farmer and money was not the focal part of worship. Offerings were left at the prayer rail and no usher stared you down as the plate was passed.
But, their community knew no real crime. Their neighbors had helping hands when confronted with crisis. And they lived pretty much in peace.
Now while I'm not saying this is idyllic I am saying that the memory of that kind of faith was not passed on either. Somehow we have transformed a God that we serve into one that only exists to handle our problems so that we can appear to our peers to be as perfect as they are in this the best of all possible worlds as Voltaire would say.
So the loss of the memory of our ancestors means as Carl Jung once said "if you don't know who you are the world shall surely tell you" has come to pass. Slavery did rob a people of their collective ancestral memory. The electronic media destroyed the front porch and talking across the fence to neighbors. I challenge folks to walk door to door to meet your neighbors. In our culture today a few will receive you but most will think you are a kook for even trying to get to know them.
We are enslaved today politically, spiritually, and legally because of that loss of connection to our heritage. Since we do not have those who were actually there to tell us their observations we only have the classroom with standardized books taught by those who grew up with standardized books, and the media to tell us.
Because of that all old people know nothing and are wrong about everything they say that doesn't line up with what teacher says and what TV tells you. God does not exist because God's people are all hypocrites pretending to be perfect instead of empathetic sinners looking to help others, and our rights have been long forgotten as long as Daddy Government doles out our allowance.
I don't mean to be pessimistic, but this is why all nations die. They start as collective efforts of free people who are committed to one another for their survival. That spirit of courage and cooperation, usually bolstered by faith, permits them to flourish. They do so well they start to live independent of one another and do so until they forget that they need each other and that the personal decisions of your neighbors affect you too. They are independent so long that they believe that they are perpetually correct so they become infallible, obnoxious, and selfish. Cohesion is now non existent. They assign the most difficult and vile tasks of a free society to immigrants. This includes the most vital role of all, the defense of the nation. The only problem is they never bond with those they designate to be their servants so the two grow in opposition to each other until enemies play upon that division to destroy you. Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, many European countries at different eras of history, and dynasties in the Far East in China and Japan, all crumbled this way.
Those who perpetuate the divisions in this nation are our enemies. Some of those live abroad and some live right here. We are in the phase now where enemies preempt the nation from addressing its fatal flaws by creating gridlock in government. The only way this is ever accomplished is through the use of capital. This happened for decades prior to the Civil War and I would strongly suspect that Lee's picture hung on Ike's wall because if not for reasonable men like Lee and others in the North and South we could never have rebuilt our connections and would have been doomed. Admiral Halsey's hero was Stonewall Jackson. Halsey was a New Jersey native.
In 1865, even with the setback of the Lincoln assassination, we still had the shared time at the Ivy Schools and West Point to bring former classmates and friends back together to reconnect not only those relationships but the nation.
Today we have none of that. We are connected to nothing other than our Universities and churches and a few sparse social ties and from all of those we might be connected well to half a dozen people. We don't even know our extended families, let alone our neighbors, or the leaders over in the next county. Unless you are active at a high level in a political party you aren't connected to much at all. And those who have the party connections are usually enslaved to the money that gives them power.
So with no sense of personal heritage, no extended knowledge of family, and little faith on average, a feeling of powerlessness arises when the tube bombards you with the failings of the nation and world. Out of such hopelessness and frustration grows violence. And that violence is then used as the justification for the death of the freedoms that have been left to you.
The greatest enemies that we face have no faces. But they have wealth and power and are motivated by greed to keep the government of the people, for the people, and by the people, from actually protecting and serving the people. Just like between 1800-1861 we have a Congress that deals with nothing, takes what it wants, and puts the blame back upon the divisions within this nation and they do so because it profits them. They represent only the super wealthy and they are bereft of duty, honor, country, as the touchstones of their service. And we the people can't get organized enough to rid ourselves of them by ballot.
