The numbers simply mean that the “52%” don’t know that there are 52% of them.  How could they have known that during the poll? I don’t know if it is a doubt in themselves as much as a doubt that others share their viewpoint. If once they are aware of this number will the 78% go down? Of course what percentage of the 52% read polls?

Its too early for people to know what everyone else thinks. I think that will change when there is a Democratic candidate and it gets closer to voting time. Then you’ll have more people at work and such talking about who their voting for, or against. Maybe then the 52% will feel like they aren’t alone and will feel strong enough to vote. People need to feel like they are part of the group and backing a winner. Sad but true.

Yuck.  Presidential elections piss me off.

Aside from sometimes very significant differences you can get in poll results depending on the word or placement of the question (which then gets glossed over by a summary statement of the results), Pablo’s correct.  There’s not a lot of contradiction between people liking (or disliking) Candidate A, but also believing that A won’t (or will) win the election.  Indeed, the opposite ("I love A, and he’s going all the way in November!") is usually chalked up to wishful and partisan thinking.

If condition in the US and the World don’t substantially worsen over the next 10 months, I think it likely Bush will beat whomever the Dems put up. That has nothing to do with my opinion (favorable in some cases, less than favorable in others) of his performance, but a judgment of American politics and the advantages of the incumbancy.

I never assume that my opinions on political matters are universally agreed with, no matter how blindingly self-evident they are to me.

I think Dave it it on the head.

When you add to that the fact that many believe the election was bought, whether or not it is true, that contributes to the pessimism of the left.  Just anecdotally, it seems like people don’t think the election will execute the will of the people.

Not to mention the fact that the electoral college acts as a low pass filter on the popular vote, eliminating some votes in discrete units (states) from having any effect.  If you didn’t vote with the majority of other voters in your state, your vote is tossed into the garbage can.

Maybe it is time we reworked the electoral college and went to ranking candidates with a popular vote?

Numbers = math = ouch.  Eye wanders over to some shiny stuff.  Bush must be voted out.  That is all.

I love that tag lone! Forget your doubt and vote them out!

Forget your doubt and vote them out! :dance:

I’m registered :nod:

This is from an earlier post.

. . . Just anecdotally, it seems like people don’t think the election will execute the will of the people.

Not to mention the fact that the electoral college acts as a low pass filter on the popular vote, eliminating some votes in discrete units (states) from having any effect. If you didn’t vote with the majority of other voters in your state, your vote is tossed into the garbage can.

Maybe it is time we reworked the electoral college and went to ranking candidates with a popular vote?

Shortly after the last presidential election, a slightly distant cousin circulated the following email. His proposals show one way to address the issue raised by Dast. 

A Constitutional Crisis!
November, 2000

There is an urgent need in These United States for a long overdue Constitutional Amendment, to insure that the current, totally unnecessary and unacceptable Presidential election deadlock shall never happen again!!  It must be assured that whoever runs The Nation is doing so with a mandate from a clear majority of all legitimate voters.  In the absence of a current war or depression, the top priority of whoever we end up with as President, and with all members of Congress, must be to initiate such a simply stated Amendment with the following provisions.

1.The President and Vice President shall be elected by a simple majority of the popular vote.  The Electoral College is abolished.

2.All absentee ballots shall be mailed as early as necessary, to be received and counted on or before Election Day.

3.If no candidate receives a clear majority - not merely a plurality - of all votes cast, there shall be an immediate run-off election between the two leading candidates. This shall apply to Congressional as well as Presidential elections.

The following provisions are also strongly recommended.

4.  There shall be a uniform national format for ballots and a simple mechanical means of counting them, to maximize reliability and uniformity of results. All voters shall receive an official receipt for having voted.

5. To motivate the maximum number of eligible voters to vote, the Internal Revenue Service shall add a �poll tax� to the calculation of each taxpayer�s tax liability, consisting of 1% of their taxable income, or $100, whichever is largest, from which the taxpayer shall be excused upon attachment of their voting receipt to their income tax return, for all years in which there was a Congressional or Presidential election.
______________________________________________________________
The time for all citizens to start applying pressure for this or a very similar Constitutional Amendment was several generations ago, the second best time is Immediately!  Think for yourselves!  Please pass this around!

Are parts of this controversial? Sure, but what proposed or actual Constitutional Amendment hasn’t been? Would implementation be difficult? Yes, just getting agreement on a national system and working through reliability and security issues would likely be monumental tasks. But consider the current situation. The 2000 election demonstrated reliability problems with a system involving manual ballots, and there are issues with the electronic voting machines used in some states.

VernR,

I’m not sure I like the poll tax bit.  It would serve only to motivate those who actually pay taxes.  That is, unless the $100 minimum applies to someone with 0 income, which seems unfair.

Not to mention the fact that the more money you make, the more “motiviated” you would be by the IRS.  I’m not sure that is the message we want to send out.

Maybe we should give out free beer at the polls?  Or maybe that would only motivate alcoholics.

I think a good idea may be to make the days we vote national holidays.

The poll tax idea is interesting.. but instead of making it 1% or $100.00 with whichever is larger… make it 1% or up to $100.00… the other way those damn rich conservative bastards will get even more of a tax break just for voting for their dumbass candidates

Other than that.. yeah abolish the electoral college as the technology now exists to count absolutely every single vote. It is insane that the worlds foremost democracy elected a leader that didn’t win the popular vote.

It is insane that the worlds foremost democracy elected a leader that didn’t win the popular vote.

Not like it’s the first time.

There is an urgent need in These United States for a long overdue Constitutional Amendment, to insure that the current, totally unnecessary and unacceptable Presidential election deadlock shall never happen again!!

It didn’t happen in the late 1800’s, I doubt it’ll happen now.

I agree with Dast that we should make Election Day a holiday.  Make it visible so people don’t forget(especially non-Nov elections).  I really like the early voting I usually get to do were I live, since I can do it at City Hall on a Saturday.  I think the biggest issue is making it easy for voters to get to the polls.  Second would be getting FACTS about what’s in the election visible to voters - Presidential is usually a gimme on that, but local stuff sometimes takes effort to find out.

Why not make Election Day a holiday , add a box saying"none of the above” to the ballot and make voting compulsory. After all anybody should have a few minutes for their country once every 4 years.
Not sure about it myself,just a thought!

add a box saying"none of the above” to the ballot

Maybe just do a write in for “None of the above"…

Ragman -

Yes it has unfortunately happened 4 times so far.

Just because it didn’t happen in the 1800’s doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen now. Not saying that it will, but just because it didn’t happen in the past does not mean it won’t happen in the future.

I think both reps and dems know that the next election is going to be corrupt; the reps appear to be reveling in it, while the dems appear to unhappily concede that it will happen.  The free-thinkers (all 23 of them) are having aneurysms.  I already checked the UN webpage, and there isn’t a handy “please oversee my country’s election to ensure fairness” form, so I think we’re probably fuct.

I already checked the UN webpage, and there isn’t a handy “please oversee my country’s election to ensure fairness” form, so I think we’re probably fuct.

OMFG that is the funniest thing I have read in a while…

OK, time to clear up some misconceptions:

1) Nobody knows who won the popular vote. Many states, including CA, only count absentee ballots until it is mathmatically impossible to change the outcome for their state’s vote in the EC. In a state with CA’s population, that could easily leave more votes than even get cast in a state like ND completely uncounted. What we do know is about the votes that were counted.

2) Which leads to the problem of abolishing the EC. Why count the vote from puny little states like ND? Just count the vote on the coasts, and we can probably mathmatically eliminate the need to count the votes of “fly-over” country. Think of the money we’d save.  We might as well eliminate the Senate while we’re at it. After all, it’s based on the same principle of equalizing states rights. I mean, why not just toss those cry baby low population states out of the US? It’s this type of thinking that led to the civil war (bonus popular myth correction: no, the civil war really wasn’t about slavery, it was about states rights).

Let’s face it, the ONLY reason you want to ditch the EC is because you lost. If the tables were turned you’d be singing it’s praises, telling the conservatives they just had sour grapes.

3) We are not a democracy, we are a republic. Which is yet another reason why we don’t do things by popular vote. If you’re wondering why we shouldn’t I refer you to Plato’s “Republic”. And what he predicted is coming true: the more democratic this country has become, the more the people have voted themselves a legacy.

Sheesh, next thing ya know, you’ll all be telling me that salt is bad for me…

(bonus popular myth correction: no, the civil war really wasn�t about slavery, it was about states rights).

http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?category=1

North Carolina agreed-- their secession was about their state’s right (to defend the institution of slavery).

For you to assert that the war was strictly about state’s rights is to engage in exactly the kind of misrepresentation that gets perpetuated in the average High school, where teachers tend to assert that the war was all about slavery. 

And there you have the major problem with ALL forms of discourse today (political, religious, educational, etc)-- extreme assertions of truth always separated into only two possibilities. 

Because “gray” is the color of miscegenation, and we “kin’t be havin thet, Chet!”

As for a Democratic or liberal candidate getting the benefit of the way that the electoral college is stacked-- would that even happen?  Ever?  Has it ever happened?  I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t fully understand how it plays out in practice, but it seems that the EC is pretty clearly designed to improve representation for rural, agrarian, less populous and (by definition) more conservative states.  How would Democrats/liberals/greenparty/anarchist-commiepinko-homolovin-affirmativeaction-votethemselvesalegacy- well, you know, evil people like me-- How would we ever benefit by the way that the system is set up?

When I write states rights, it’s not their right to have slavery (or not) to which I refer. The causes were based in the agricultural states basically being ignored by the Federal government while the industrial states were getting pretty much getting whatever they wanted. These problems went back many years before slavery was even thought of as an issue. Just how shallow could a person be to go and fight and die for the right to own a slave? On the other hand, if a man felt that a government that taxed him did not represent his interests, in fact was contrary to them… well I think there’s been some wars of independence fought over such issues.

Slavery was not an issue until AFTER the war started. Lincoln (a hick, snagletoothed, trailerparklivin’, rednecked, skinheaded, truckdrivin’, guntotin’, homophopbic, slashnburnin, evil Republican conservative, you know, like you think I am) freed the slaves in states that had already claimed their independence. Let’s think for a moment why he might have done that, yet left the slaves in the north (the factories and homes were full of them) enslaved. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

Personally, I don’t want to have to trade with a forgien nation for food, so I’m willing to put up with things like the EC and the senate. When it comes to things like eating, I can become fairly practical.

I find all of that a very compelling argument David.

Not as compelling as any of the arguments provided by the site that I linked to, but if you’re really that invested in promoting this “the war wasn’t about slavery” idea, feel free to rebut their arguments in this forum. 

I have no desire to recreate their arguments myself, just as I have no desire, at this point, to argue that teaching “creation science” in high schools might be a bad idea.

If Slavery was not an issue until after the war started, then why did South Carolina emphasize it so heavily in its official statement of why it was seceding?  Again, I refer you to the link.  SC specifically stated that its primary reasons for secession were twofold.  The North had become increasingly hostile to the institution of slavery, and the North had turned a blind eye to SC’s legal demands to have their property (slaves) returned.  SC didn’t cite long standing grievances and tensions going “way back.” They openly stated that, for them at least, slavery was a pretty damn important factor in their decision to secede.

Do I assert that the civil war was, therefore, entirely about Slavery?  I do not.  Because it’s a simplistic answer and simplistic answers only result in “simple” people. 

But don’t bother considering any points that I’ve raised here, or even attempting to mediate between the two possibilities, because any lack of rigidity in your position on an issue immediately reflects metaphorically on the rigidity of your penis, the wellspring of manliness and strength, and one must be STRONG at times!  We must not let them sap our vital essences!  Or flouridate the water!  Because debate is WAR-- it’s not about approaching the truth, it’s about POUNDING THE OTHER GUY INTO THE DIRT!!! 

And that’s what I teach all my students, because I love the sort of society that that kind of thought has created.

You can assert that slavery was not an issue until AFTER the war started until you turn blue in the face, but I can dig up plenty of references indicating that slavery WAS an issue. 

I’m not going to, because I just found out that I’ll be losing my job at the end of this semester, and as a grad student I’m not officially covered by unemployment insurance or anything else.  There is NO safety net for me, so I’ll be looking for work, rather than trying to get you to adopt a rational and measured approach to the issue.

As for “buying food from a foreign nation” I think the cost of importing food from Brazil and South America may well be cheaper then using import taxes to protect local agriculture, and then subsidizing American agriculture to overproduce beef and milk.

And if the agricultural states did secede, they’d still have to sell food in order to support their economy.  Industrial/coastal areas would simply have to buy food at fair market prices.  What’s so wrong with allowing that to happen?  And would it really be more expensive than subsidizing agriculture with tax dollars?

Just how shallow could a person be to go and fight and die for the right to own a slave?

How shallow would someone have to be to fight a war over oil?  Or because the US wants a military foothold in the middle east in order to prepare for possible future conflicts with China?  Or because George Jr. has a personal grudge?

But that’s not the reason most soldiers actually WENT to war-- they’re there because Saddam is an immanent threat, because he funded Al Qaeda, because he gassed his “own people” (the Kurds have NEVER been “Saddam’s people"), and to free the Iraqi people.  And some of them are there because their friends joined in High school, and they figured “what the hell, guess I’ll go too.” In other words, soldiers frequently go to war over issues that have absolutely NOTHING to do with why that war is actually being fought.

Since when has a war EVER been fought for the reasons that people claim it was fought?

People still think that the American Revolution was a popular uprising to shake off the “tyranny” of the British.  The truth is (despite the impression created by Mel Gibson’s The Patriot) that most people weren’t much affected by British taxes, and didn’t much give a damn.  But this is a patriotic “truth” that the right often embraces as a “fact” in the same way that the left embraces the “fact” that the civil war was all about slavery.

Whatever.  Pursue the truth.  And question the things that you believe are true.  I don’t reject your assertions out of hand, and I don’t think you’re some redneck homophobic scum, either.  I just think you’re buying someone else’s “line” in much the same way that you accuse others of buying into “liberal propaganda.”

And you never answered my question.  Under what circumstances is the EC ever going to benefit the more urban, populous states?

Back to Dave’s first post.

1) Nobody knows who won the popular vote. Many states, including CA, only count absentee ballots until it is mathmatically impossible to change the outcome for their state�s vote in the EC. In a state with CA�s population, that could easily leave more votes than even get cast in a state like ND completely uncounted. What we do know is about the votes that were counted.

At first glance I though you had a point about not counting all absentee ballots. However, that would only be valid (in my mind) if the absentee ballots counted were a fair sample of those submitted. The only way to gaurentee that would be through some process of random selection. Do the states that you mentioned do that?

2)Which leads to the problem of abolishing the EC. Why count the vote from puny little states like ND? Just count the vote on the coasts, and we can probably mathmatically eliminate the need to count the votes of �fly-over� country. Think of the money we�d save. We might as well eliminate the Senate while we�re at it. After all, it�s based on the same principle of equalizing states rights. I mean, why not just toss those cry baby low population states out of the US? It�s this type of thinking that led to the civil war (bonus popular myth correction: no, the civil war really wasn�t about slavery, it was about states rights).

Where did this come from? I don�t see anyone here advocating eliminating the influence of small states.

Let�s face it, the ONLY reason you want to ditch the EC is because you lost. If the tables were turned you�d be singing it�s praises, telling the conservatives they just had sour grapes.

Here you presume to understand what is in other peoples minds. As I stated in my previous post, I didn’t originate the proposal, a cousin did. I have no idea whether he was upset because a conservative Republican won the election, or because of the debacle in Florida. For my own part, I think that both parties could have selected a better candidate for the last election; and, given that, I didn’t much care for its oucome. But, tough rocks, thats the system.

3)We are not a democracy, we are a republic. Which is yet another reason why we don�t do things by popular vote. If you�re wondering why we shouldn�t I refer you to Plato�s �Republic�. And what he predicted is coming true: the more democratic this country has become, the more the people have voted themselves a legacy.

True, we are a republic. We, the electorate, select representatives to exercise our sovereign power. However, I would submit that, with the exception of the president, we elect our representatives at all levels of government by popular vote. Further, it has been a very long time since the presidential electors have exercised independent judgement.

I’m not sure what the last sentence means. How have we become more democratic, and what legacy or legacies have the people voted for themselves?

Back to the basic issue. The electoral college was established before the current party nominating systems came into being.The function of the EC was to consider candidates and select the president. Since it longer serves that purpose, why keep the institution?

I have no idea whether a popular election for the presidency would select a Rep, a Dem, a liberal, a conervative, or a moderate; and I don’t think anyone elese knows for sure. Whoever wins, wins. My only concern is that the election be fair, and that each vote cast gets counted.

Differrent issue. Both parties gerrymander when they have the chance, and I think that that sucks no matter who does it. The state of Iowa has an elaborate system to establish balanced districts. The second redistricing plan for 2001 can be viewed at
http://www.legis.state.ia.us/Redist/June2001report.htm.

Here is one of the salient statutory requirements

5. A district shall not be drawn for the purpose of favoring a political party, incumbent legislator or member of Congress, or other person or group, or for the purpose of augmenting or diluting the voting strength of a language or racial minority group. In establishing districts, no use shall be made of any of the following data:
a.Addresses of incumbent legislators or members of Congress.
b.Political affiliations of registered voters.
c.Previous election results.
d.Demographic information, other than population head counts, except as required by the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

One of Iowa’s goals is to construct compact districts, but that goal is subservient to other criteria such as striving to have each ditrict represent the same head count, and preserving county and municipla boundries to the extent that they can.

I would like to see every state adopt a system like that. Not that I ever expect to ever see it happen.

Nowiser,
Do you research all your topics only on the web? Perhaps that is why you�re looking for a new job now. No insult intended, just an observation. And I am truly sorry that after years of education, most likely at my expense, you�re now going to be actually expected to contribute something back to society in the form of a job. OK, that was meant as an affront. Reality has it�s little way of sneaking up on us, much like a windshield on a bug.

Back to your argument: Please list even one reference that proves that slavery was an issue BEFORE the beginning of the civil war. I think you�ll find that at least some states had already begun talk of succession before the slavery issue was raised by anyone. I can�t find an actual reference anywhere, but I can find plenty of people who think there must be one and base their comments on it. I bet you believe silicone breast implants cause cancer, global warming is a fact and is caused by man, vaccines cause autism, and salt is bad for you. Lots of people saying so, doesn�t make it so.

I agree that the war in Iraq was largely about blood for oil. American blood spilled because the French wanted a good deal on Iraqi oil. Likewise I agree that wars are seldom fought over the reasons history books (or even state web-sites) say they were. You need to realize that those that win the wars, write the histories. Indeed, wars are generally fought over fairly complex issues. There is no simple explanation. States rights, is a fairly broad sweeping thing, but it is, I believe, what the civil war boiled down to. Comparing a civil war to a foreign war is like comparing your home garden to Industrial farming. Yes, it�s the same basic concept, but both the how and why aren�t even approached from the same angle, let alone resemble each other in form or function. I don�t want to entangle this discussion further with your complete lack of understanding about modern foreign warfare, but most guys on the line have one common motivation: each other. It�s something like � I don�t want to die, and I don�t want my buddy next to me to die. So I�m going to do my part so that he doesn�t get killed because I let him down, and he�ll do the same for me.� It might start off with �I follow orders, we were sent here to do such-n-such for my country.� You might find some guy 10 years later that tells it different, but talk to some guys that who just came back, and I think you�ll find I�m right.

I think that if you want to peruse historical truths, particularly about wars, it is far better to ignore the opinions and look at the verifiable facts. Then try to figure out the why on your own. The way people think does not change much from millennia to millennia. Read some Chaucer, Beowulf, or the Bible. You�ll see people behaving pretty much the same as they do now. You think that the way people think changes? �It may spring from the belief that human history is a simple, unilinear movement from worse to better � what is called a belief in progress � so that any given generation is always in all respects wiser than all previous generations. To those who believe thus, our ancestors are superseded and there seems nothing improbable in the claim that the whole world was wrong until the day before yesterday and has now suddenly become right… Believers in progress rightly note that in the world of machines the new model supersedes the old; from this they falsely infer a similar kind of supercession in such things as virtue and wisdom.� (C.S. Lewis, 1940).

Once again I agree that the �shake off tyranny� idea is a bit simplistic. Most folks didn�t care much until the Brits tried to confiscate the guns. Hmm, does history repeat itself?

Lastly, and I thought it was self-evident in my argument, the EC isn�t meant to benefit the large population centers (like where I�ve lived most of my life). It�s meant to benefit the low population states. The idea is that to have a harmonious union, one must make certain concessions, sometimes seemingly irrational ones, in order to keep everyone involved happy (You aren�t married, are you ). And the connection here is that it�s a lesson we should have all learned in the civil war.

VernR,
In explanation: If the poll vote is in and I have a winner that is ahead by 10,000 votes, and I have only 5,000 absentee ballots, I need not count them at all. Even if all 5,000 of them are for the loser, he�d still lose. I�m not suggesting random sampling is used.

Where did this come from? I don�t see anyone here advocating eliminating the influence of small states.

Other than that.. yeah abolish the electoral college as the technology now exists to count absolutely every single vote. It is insane that the worlds foremost democracy elected a leader that didn�t win the popular vote.

You�re correct, I make a presumption. I thought this was a discussion. I believe it to be true, based on the evidence. I welcome any correction. I have heard an amazing amount of whining over the results of the election from many sources. The term in question is almost over, I wish people would get over it. I�m pretty sure LBJ won many elections through illegal means. Conservatives of the day thought it was wrong and said so, they�ve gotten over it now. Him being dead helps, though.

I�m not sure what the last sentence means. How have we become more democratic, and what legacy or legacies have the people voted for themselves?

I would say that being in office has become an end in itself. Officials worry so about getting re-elected that they watch the polling data closely. And the technology for doing it has all but eliminated lag time. Then they start making decisions based on polls rather than what they know to be right (or wrong). Also, public referendums are becoming increasingly more popular. So SS has gone from being a subsidy meant to keep the elderly poor from being indigent, to being a retirement program. Welfare, originally meant to feed the starving, now includes medical benefits and housing. And now, we�ve added drug benefits to our seniors, EIC, and national health care keeps rearing it�s head. Through it all our Federal Taxes have increased tenfold. There are fewer and fewer actual taxpayers (getting everything you paid in refunded out does not count), and more and more beneficiaries. When the people who benefit out-vote the people who pay, something�s going to give. Personally, I advocate a vote weighted on the percentage of taxes you�ve since the last election. The people paying the most should have the largest voice in how it gets spent. Or, a flat tax would achieve pretty much the same thing.

You make some excellent points about the EC and representative government. I would have to guess that based on the idea that lower population areas tend to yield more conservative thinking, that presidents elected solely on pop vote would tend to be more liberal. Worse, since they would not need electoral votes, large portions of the interior would not even see campaign material from even the major candidates. Campaign money would only get spent were it would have the biggest affect, in the population centers. Forget making campaign promises to the farming industry, you likely won�t even visit their states. And it would spiral from there. How do I know: look at PA. I�ve never seen a gubernatorial candidate anywhere close to the rural area where I live. They advertise and appear in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, even Scranton, but nowhere near here. The newly elected (liberal) Rendell tried to pass legislation so that the rural areas would have to help pay for fire departments in the cities. He doesn�t care how much he ticks them off, because none of them voted for him to begin with. Imagine something like that on a national scale.

Do I do all of my research on the web?

Of course, that’s why I’m ABD.  And I’m not losing my job because I lack competence, I’m losing my job because WSU’s funding has been slashed.  But the personal attack served its intended purpose.  For a moment there I was filled with a sense of personal worthlessness, convinced that I had no critical consciousness, that my research skills were sorely lacking, and that my penis had shrunk.

Then I got over it.

I’m aware that the Civil War was not entirely about slavery, and for you to claim that that is my assertion is “straw man” fallacy.  My actual claim is that slavery was certainly PART of the issue, so for you to dismiss it as being irrelevant, or unrelated, (as you did) is sloppy thinking on your part.  But if you want to think sloppily, that’s your call.  You can always respond to my pointing out that sloppiness by simply asserting that my arguments have no validity-- berating my “lack of understanding of contemporary warfare"-- and saying that the general truth that I asserted [that most soldiers aren’t overly concerned with the reasons why they’re actually fighting], might be true in most cases, but the Civil War was some kind of special exception,

You can assert all those things all you want, but that doesn’t make them true.

I can provide you with five different secession statements from five different states, that all state that the North’s hostility to slavery is a large part of the issue.  Granted, it has occurred to me that those statements might be a convenient explanation, in much the same way that WMD was a convenient explanation, so those statements alone are not enough to establish that slavery was a prime cause.

I can pull them off the web, or if it’ll make you feel better, I can dig them out of actual texts.  Either way, they read exactly the same.  But the little stab about how I probably have nothing to contribute to society, and educators like me are a waste of your precious tax dollars, was appreciated.  Considering that I’ve been working twelve hour days for the last three weeks, without getting a day off, and I make approximately 10k a year, I have to wonder exactly how much you expect for your tax dollar.  (There may be other reasons why slavery is a sensitive issue for me).

If your contention is that the Civil war was not a moral conflict, but an economic one-- I would agree with you.  But slavery was a large part of that economic conflict.  Heavy importation duties on foreign goods often compelled Southern states to buy American (and often inferior) goods.  Northern States benefitted from monopolizing the importation of slaves.  Southern states paid high taxes and received little return in terms of government spending.  I could be wrong, but that’s my understanding of what some of the core issues were.

But the Southern plantation system was rooted in slavery, not industrial manufacture, and when the North became increasingly hostile to Slavery, unfair import duties and other issues that had been tolerated (begrudgingly) by the South, became intolerable, as the root of their economy was being attacked.  Slavery had been made illegal in England, and there was a great deal of social debate about the moral issues surrounding slavery.

And you’re telling me that you can’t find any references to slavery being an issue before the Civil War?  Perhaps you should do some research on the web.

IF your objection is to the idea that slavery was a moral issue that spurred Northern involvement in the war, I’m not contending that that is true.  It’s often represented that way by people who wish to portray the South as inherently bigoted and evil, and the North as great liberators.  On the other hand, the South has made a habit of claiming that slavery had nothing to do with the conflict, when it absolutely did.  The South was highly aware of the fact that their economic system was rooted in slavery, and slave owners were not insensible to the potential problems created by the abolition movement.

Wait, I think I’m getting confused here, the abolition movement didn’t exist before the Civil War.  No, wait, I’m getting it wrong again.  It existed, but it wasn’t a real threat, and the South didn’t have use armed force in order to crush it on occassion, no wait, I’m sure I’ve got that wrong again. . .

See how you’ve got me all flustered?!?!

There is no simple answer

I could have -sworn- that that was exactly what I said.

States rights, is a fairly broad sweeping thing, but it is, I believe, what the civil war boiled down to.

“boils down to” = reductive.  And by being reductive you effectively dismiss the idea that slavery had some role in the causes for the Civil War.  That’s an insupportable assertion.  The South may have been grumbling about secession for quite some time (as did some Northern states), but the developing hostility toward the roots of their prosperity was most certainly an issue.  And NO I’m not going to go dig up old pre-civil war speeches by Southern senators about the dangers of miscegenation, the Biblical support for the institution of slavery, the abhorrence they feel about the ideology of the “equality of man” etc., etc.  But just because I’m too lazy to actually go dig them up doesn’t mean that they aren’t out there. 

As far as Lewis’ ideas about “progress,” I believe he is basically correct.  Primarily because my training has been as a medievalist.  Although I’ve never heard of this Chaucer fellow.  The Bible?  What’s that?  And Beowulf?  What does a howling wolf have to do with literature?

Lastly, and I thought it was self-evident in my argument, the EC isn’t meant to benefit the large population centers (like where I’ve lived most of my life). It’s meant to benefit the low population states

Then it doesn’t really make a lot of sense for you to berate the liberals for whining about the EC, because if the situation was reversed we’d be defending it.  You admit that the likelihood of the situation being reversed is minimal.  So we have every right to bitch, and it isn’t hypocritical, because we’re never going to have the opportunity to be hypocritical about it!

(I reserve the right to BE hypocritical, however, if it ever DOES happen by some strange fluke.)

I’d say more, but I have to go give a lecture on Celtic social structure and the Irish Celtic system of Brehon law, and how those issues contextualize the Tain bo Cuailnge, so I’ll have to sign off.

But if you want to attack my usefulness to society again, David, just post here, and I’ll come by and read it for my daily dose of humility.

Nowiser, dude, I count on you to cut through the muck and enlighten internet readers and I’m seldom disappointed. I only regret that you weren’t a teacher of mine, though what was that I just said about enlightening the internet readers…

Take a day off - You deserve it.

This guy doesn’t actually need enlightening, so much.  His command of the economic sources of the Civil War is probably pretty good.

I’m more concerned with the fact that he is “boiling down” the Civil War to being rooted entirely in those economic causes, and ignoring the social stresses that were concurrent and contributory.

As for the “you wish I had been one of your teachers,” I can only say thank you.  The nature of the job is that, most of the time, students have no idea of what you may have done for them until years have passed.  A little positive reinforcement goes a long way.

Particularly when the financial remuneration is so freakin’ meager.

So thank you.