Agrippa Rome and Out of Bounds

Originally posted by StarValleyWy
In Agrippa Rome, everyone strived to obtain a slave. But not just in Rome.

Every society on earth was striving to obtain slaves. Because?

Do an experiment. Buy three pounds of wheat. Take a rock. Grind the three pounds of wheat into what you call flour. Make bread.

<edit> Now you know the meaning of "memes".

That's why. If you dare do t ...[text shortened]... o we still "recognize" dictators and allow them to hold their people as slaves? If so.... Why?

Omg! They're right, sometimes if I read too many of your posts you start to make sense.

Now take this same theory of yours and apply it to the north vs south cival war and you understand why the industrial north could afford to look down upon the agricultural south.

Yes slavery is wrong, but without the indutrial structure that the north had, they might not have looked down so fast.

We have a war fought not on prinicple, but on economics.

Originally posted by Nyxie
Omg! They're right, sometimes if I read too many of your posts you start to make sense.

Now take this same theory of yours and apply it to the north vs south cival war and you understand why the industrial north could afford to look down ...[text shortened]... fast.

We have a war fought not on prinicple, but on economics.

Yes. And a war fought on the edge of viable "human ethics"?

Civilization is a growing and needy thing. What we were depends on "when" we were.

What are we "now"? Now being such a big thingy to us?

Can we with good conscience condone "Dictator States"?

Or are we moral turds if we can do that?

Originally posted by Nyxie


We have a war fought not on prinicple, but on economics.

I will just offer an option of self-education.

What did the Maine first under Chaimberlain do? Why?

Here is what he did say as he remembered back to the 50 "deserters" and men to be shot should he so say. That he forgave and welcomed into the fight of good against tyranny.

"The State of Maine stands here today for the first time in her own name. In other days she was here indeed--here in power--here in majesty--here in glory; but as elsewhere and often in the centuries before, with that humility which is perhaps the necessary law of human exaltation, her worth merged in a name mightier than her own, so here, content to be part of that greater being that she held dearer than self, but which was made more worthy of honor by her belonging to it - the United States of America. For which great end, in every heroic struggle from the beginning of our history until now, --a space of more than two hundred years,--she has given her best of heart and brain and poured out her most precious blood.

"Today she stands here, in a service of mingled recognitions; humbly submitting to that mysterious law of sacrifice and suffering for the deliverance from evil; bending sorrowfully above the dust to which have returned again the priceless jewels offered from her bosom; proud that it was her part and lot that what was best in her giving and what was immortal in her loss should be builded into the nation's weal; and stretching out her hand, of justice and of grace, to raise along these silent lines of battle monuments eloquent of her costly devotion and of the great reward. She stands here--not ashamed when the roll of honor is called, to speak her own name, and answer, Here!

"The organization of the army of the Union was a counterpart of that of the Union itself. In its ultimate elements and separate units of organization, the personal force and political authority of each State were present; but they were merged and mingled in another order, which took another and higher name when exercised jointly, in a single aim, for the common weal. For reasons various but valid, the regiments and batteries of the several States were, for the most part, separated in assignment, distributed in different brigades, divisions, corps, armies. Some sad suggestions there were amongst these reasons; for one, the care that in some great disaster the loss might not fall too heavily on the families of one neighborhood. But there was a greater reason. Our thoughts were not then of States as States, but of the States united,--of that union and oneness in which the People of the United States lived and moved and had their being. Our hearts beat to that one high thought; our eyes saw but the old flag; and our souls saw it, glorious with the symbols of power and peace and blessing in the forward march of man.

"But now that this victory is won, this cause vindicated, and the great fact of the being and authority of the People of the United States has been thus solemnly attested,--the moral forces summoning, and as it were consecrating the physical as token and instrument of their convictions,--now, the several States that stood as one in that high cause come here in their own name,--in the noblest sphere of their State rights,--to ratify and confirm this action of their delegates; to set these monuments as seals to their own great deeds, and new testament of life.

"Today we stand on an awful arena, where character which was the growth of centuries was tested and determined by the issues of a single day. We are compassed about by a cloud of witnesses; not alone the shadowy ranks of those who wrestled here, but the greater parties of the action--they for whom these things were done. Forms of thought rise before us, as in an amphitheatre, circle beyond circle, rank above rank; The State, The Union, The People. And these are One. Let us--from the arena, contemplate them--the spiritual spectators.

"There is an aspect in which the question at issue might seem to be of forms, and not of substance. It was, on its face, a question of government. There was a boastful pretence that each State held in its hands the death-warrant of the Nation; that any State had a right, without show of justification outside of its own caprice, to violate the covenants of the constitution, to break away from the Union, and set up its own little sovereignty as sufficient for all human purposes and ends; thus leaving it to the mere will or whim of any member of our political system to destroy the body and dissolve the soul of the Great People. This was the political question submitted to the arbitrament of arms. But the victory was of great politics over small. It was the right reason, the moral consciousness and solemn resolve of the people rectifying its wavering exterior lines according to the life-lines of its organic being.

"There is a phrase abroad which obscures the legal and moral questions involved in the issue,--indeed, which falsifies history: "The War between the States". There are here no States outside of the Union. Resolving themselves out of it does not release them. Even were they successful in intrenching themselves in this attitude, they would only relapse into territories of the United States. Indeed several of the States so resolving were never in their own right either States or Colonies; but their territories were purchased by the common treasury of the Union. Underneath this phrase and title,--"The War between the States"--lies the false assumption that our Union is but a compact of States. Were it so, neither party to it could renounce it at his own mere will or caprice. Even on this theory the States remaining true to the terms of their treaty, and loyal to its intent, would have the right to resist force by force, to take up the gage of battle thrown down by the rebellious States, and compel them to return to their duty and their allegiance. The Law of Nations would have accorded the loyal States this right and remedy.

"But this was not our theory, nor our justification. The flag we bore into the field was not that of particular States, no matter how many nor how loyal, arrayed against other States. It was the flag of the Union, the flag of the people, vindicating the right and charged with the duty of preventing any factions, no matter how many nor under what pretence, from breaking up this common Country.

"It was the country of the South as well as of the North. The men who sought to dismember it, belonged to it. Its was a larger life, aloof from the dominance of self-surroundings; but in it their truest interests were interwoven. They suffered themselves to be drawn down from the spiritual ideal by influences of the physical world. There is in man that peril of the double nature. "But I see another law", says St. Paul. "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind."

No one of us would disregard the manly qualities and earnest motives among those who permitted themselves to strike at the consecrated life of the Union, and thus made themselves our foes. But the best of virtues may be enlisted in the worst of causes. Had the question of breaking up this Union been submitted to the people of the South as American citizens, I do not believe it possible that such a resolution could have been taken. But the leaders of that false cause knew how to take advantage of instincts deeply planted in every American heart; and by perverting their State Governments, and making their conspiracy seem to be the act and intent of the States, sprung an appeal to the sentiment of loyalty to the principle of local self-government; and the thrilling reveille of cannon swept the heart-strings of a chivalrous and impressionable people. There are times when it is more natural to act than to reason; and easier to fight than to be right. But the men that followed that signal made a terrible mistake. Misled by fictions; mistaught as to fact and doctrine by the masters of political history and public law; falsely fired by misdirected sentiment; mazed in the strange contradiction that they were at once the champions of democracy and the exponents of aristocratic superiority, they forgot the calm, true life rolling on above;--the mightier solution of differences,--the great coherence of affinity, stronger by counterpoise of attractions and interfusion of unlikenesses, than any mere aggregation of sameness in elements. They did not understand this rich, composite nature of the great People, born of the eternal energies of freedom; incorporate under the guarantees of highest law; dedicated to immortal life in the great covenants of mutual human faith.

There was no war between the States. It was a war in the name of certain States to destroy the political existence of the United States, in membership of which alone, on any just theory of the government, their own sovereignty as States inhered, and could make itself effectual. To this absurd pass did that false theory come, -- a war of States against the people; and if successful, the suicide of States.

"Our enemies, it is true, by their choice of field, secured the opportunity to say they were resisting an invader; that they were fighting for their native soil and birthright; for their homes and all that men held dear in them. We understand the power of sentiments like these, even when abused and played upon by indirection.

"The State is dear to all of us. It is the guardian of what we may call home rights; the almoner of home-born charities; the circle within which likeness of material, identity of interests and sympathy of sentiment make a crystal unity. Were our own State attacked in its high place and rightful function, we should defend it as valiantly as our brethren of the South were made to think they were defending theirs. But no such assault was made. We fought against no State; but for its deliverance. We fought the enemies of our common Country, t

Originally posted by StarValleyWy
Yes. And a war fought on the edge of viable "human ethics"?

Civilization is a growing and needy thing. What we were depends on "when" we were.

What are we "now"? Now being such a big thingy to us?

Can we with good conscience condone "Dictator States"?

Or are we moral turds if we can do that?

You do consistently. You think 9/11 gives you an excuse to wage a War of Terror. Do you know what extraordinary rendition means? Look it up!

Originally posted by blackada
You do consistently. You think 9/11 gives you an excuse to wage a War of Terror. Do you know what extraordinary rendition means? Look it up!

I could care less about 9-11.

Have I ever justified removing Saddam on any grounds other than he being a slaver master?

I might have stuck up for the UN a time or two. They said he had all these terrible weapons and passed several resolutions saying he had to account for them.

But I have no more reason to remove Saddam than I do for any and all dictators. I just don't like them. I'm a very simple being.