Louisiana Lawmaker Forced to Clarify There Was No ‘Good’ in Slavery

[Alizia Tyler]

Huh, so weird you'd quote a celebration of racist, anti-semitic white supremacy.....

My object as I've said a few times is *to get everything out on the table so it can be discussed*. I have examined,, for example, this sort of thing so I do not know if what they say about Jewish involvement in culture-manipulation is true or not. There are many people today who say all sorts of different things. I assume that some part of it is real but also that they exaggerate.

My views are -- as you have certainly noticed -- 'racialist' and I do not deny race-categories as having importance. But my views and ideas have nothing to do with *hate*. At this point (it could change I guess) I do indeed see America, the nation, in the throws of social crisis brought about by those policies that have displaced and *dispossessed* the white demographic. This *white demographic* has no advocates, no one that stands up for it, except on the fringes. That is where certain ideas and perspectives get pushed. All of this I have expressed, and I think all of this can be rationally expressed and explained. Perhaps I can say *defended*.

The *coercive* force operative so strongly in the present insists that people see things in one particular way. It is becoming a forced ideological position. If you do not see it that way, you are cast out. So, the divisions will only increase, not decrease.

What I have observed happen is that the opinions and ideas of people who are citizens of the US, who make up something around or close to 50% of the country (or maybe it is less) have been pushed out of the field. I have been thinking about the strange fact that a man elected President had his communication-channel shut down. Was silenced. Who did this? Who or what made the choice? Who decides such things? That seems just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social control, coercion, and a certain type of tyranny.

Those involved in it tend to support and defend it. They see no issue. I can understand why but it still looks really quite weird.

So do you mean to say that it is weird that I might consider and be open to those *perspectives* of which you are certainly aware? Is that really so weird?

 

[Master Debator]

My views are -- as you have certainly noticed -- 'racialist' and I do not deny race-categories as having importance. But my views and ideas have nothing to do with *hate*. At this point (it could change I guess) I do indeed see America, the nation, in the throws of social crisis brought about by those policies that have displaced and *dispossessed* the white demographic. This *white demographic* has no advocates, no one that stands up for it, except on the fringes.

What a hilarious claim. This country has had nothing but white leaders until fairly recently and in the case of the Republican party, is still largely and overwhelmingly white. There's a reason why you can only share your views instead of make arguments because the examination of your views finds them to be contrary to facts and reason.

The *coercive* force operative so strongly in the present insists that people see things in one particular way. It is becoming a forced ideological position. If you do not see it that way, you are cast out. So, the divisions will only increase, not decrease.

Good. The gulf between racists and non racists should be so wide that racists have no refuge or safe space from which to operate comfortably from. They should find their calls going unanswered and doors slammed in their faces. What you describe isn't a bad thing it's something that's long over due.

What I have observed happen is that the opinions and ideas of people who are citizens of the US, who make up something around or close to 50% of the country (or maybe it is less) have been pushed out of the field. I have been thinking about the strange fact that a man elected President had his communication-channel shut down. Was silenced. Who did this? Who or what made the choice? Who decides such things? That seems just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social control, coercion, and a certain type of tyranny.

That's not tyranny. The people who did it were the people who own and operate that platform he was speaking from and they no longer wanted to provide him that platform. That's actually freedom of association, not tyranny. Maybe you should look those two words up in the dictionary instead of coming here and embarrassing yourself.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

This country has had nothing but white leaders until fairly recently and in the case of the Republican party, is still largely and overwhelmingly white. There's a reason why you can only share your views instead of make arguments because the examination of your views finds them to be contrary to facts and reason.

No, I rather think it is because when I make my assertions I am aware of other facts which I emphasize. I talk about those facts, and my perspectives about them, using reason and referring to facts. And that is why I said:

I do indeed see America, the nation, in the throws of social crisis brought about by those policies that have displaced and *dispossessed* the white demographic. This *white demographic* has no advocates, no one that stands up for it, except on the fringes.

I am unsure what you refer to when you say *contrary to reason*.

Good. The gulf between racists and non racists should be so wide that racists have no refuge or safe space from which to operate comfortably from. They should find their calls going unanswered and doors slammed in their faces. What you describe isn't a bad thing it's something that's long over due.

If what is going on in America today -- this new radicalism, this new aggressive activist application of Critical Theory, then I must disagree with you. Or I must take issue with you. I do think I grasp your motives here though.

I understand that you have this view, and I understand why you have it, and what you propose, what you refer to, must necessarily be opposed. And what must oppose it is, of course, a renewed and strengthened race- and culture-consciousness. However, I am not at all certain that this will come about. And I must admit that now, in the present dispensation, it seems unlikely. But it is impossible to say what will happen in the coming months and years.

In order to even conceive of the view that I have, in order to think it, requires as I said a meta-political view and stance. That is why I referred to Madison Grant because that is what he asserts. If it does not happen that the people, the white demographic, does not become aware in this way, the processes that are in motion today will only increase. That means the movement that is *anti-white* and wants to restructure the United States will grow stronger eventuating in something I personally do not want to contemplate.

Since this has come about through demographic shift, which is a manifestation of meta-politics -- issues that precede politics or pre-determine politics -- all I can do is to state this. Which is all I am trying to do: make clear statements, make efforts to *see clearly*.

That's not tyranny. The people who did it were the people who own and operate that platform he was speaking from and they no longer wanted to provide him that platform.

Sure, I have heard that argument. It is true only in a way. It is a superficial statement and opinion. The actual truth is something else. The larger reason why those two entities withdrew the platform is because about 1/2 of the country had looked to Donald Trump (for all his myriad imperfections) as a means to assert their own position, ideas, desires, hopes et cetera. The *general system* of powerful players in that system made specific decisions. Censorship essentially. A concerted effort was made to block that communication and to stop developing political and social movement, and to try to *make it go away* or become ineffective.

Again, these statements are made only to *get clear* and to say truthful things.

Maybe you should look those two words up in the dictionary instead of coming here and embarrassing yourself.

I don't feel 'embarrassed'. I feel . . . uncertain, hesitant. But this has been so for many months now, and indeed years.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

I would agree that the current liberal representation is one that its adherents “will to be true.” At the same time, I believe that this is the only way both political groups and whole nations accomplish anything. The leaders, with or without input from the people, decide on a course and pursue it single mindedly. Whether the course is good or bad is irrelevant; the angels use the same tools and methods as the demons.

You make a good point. What I am uncertain about is if the term 'liberal' fits. It seems to me that various forms of radicalism were set in motion. And they have become hyper-radical today. It seems to me true that this began under Obama. He (and his group) seemed to have set things in motion that have set the nation on a strange path. Intentionally. As if what they were doing was 'for good' and 'for the good'.

While I recognize that *they* (for example this might include Master Debator and Jasper and also Tiger who are aligned with the present motion and movement largely because they are African Americans) are all in favor of this manifestation, and they really do have their reasons, I am uncertain if a significant sector will go along with it. The white demographic I have been referring to. Those who did rally to Donald Trump and became *problematic* for the Left-Progressives. As I have been saying I think that these people are tremendously adverse to *seeing* and thinking in racial terms. By training perhaps? I am also uncomfortable thinking in such terms, yet it seems necessary.

What a strange position this places me in. But I don't want to associate anyone with my own views which are, in their way, rather radical. So by conversing with you I don't want to taint you!

Take the North’s decision to challenge the South’s peculiar institution. I think that there existed altruists concerned with the evils of slavery, mostly abolitionists. I don’t think Northern politicians, like modern liberals today, cared about anything but power. But their concerted desire to break the power of the South trumped all other considerations, and that force of will, backed up by heavy industry, carried the day.

Yes, Abe Lincoln was such an abolitionist and hated slavery as an abomination. And he worked for years behind the scenes to export African-Americans en masse out of the country.

I believe that I agree with you that the primary conflict was economic and geo-politcal. I do not think the North could have allowed a hostile nation to exist to its south and to control access to the Mississippi. It would have been clearly stated today that this was the reason, but I have not found specific evidence that this was a consideration.

There were as many in the South itself opposed, quite adamantly, to slavery (as I am sure you know). I simply am uncertain what would have developed in the South if it had been left to its devices. The war intervention itself created a whole range of animosity and, perhaps, social pathology.

The trouble is, force of will doesn’t ensure anyone’s reign for all time. While I don’t endorse all of the actions certain Southerners took to fight Northern power, their insistence on their right to define themselves is something I do support. Whether they will be defeated in the current contest remains to be seen.

That is my thought as well. And there is a similar will that is alive today that sort of picks up on that same oppositional position.

 

[Tigerace117]

You make a good point. What I am uncertain about is if the term 'liberal' fits. It seems to me that various forms of radicalism were set in motion. And they have become hyper-radical today. It seems to me true that this began under Obama. He (and his group) seemed to have set things in motion that have set the nation on a strange path. Intentionally. As if what they were doing was 'for good' and 'for the good'.

While I recognize that *they* (for example this might include Master Debator and Jasper and also Tiger who are aligned with the present motion and movement largely because they are African Americans) are all in favor of this manifestation, and they really do have their reasons, I am uncertain if a significant sector will go along with it. The white demographic I have been referring to. Those who did rally to Donald Trump and became *problematic* for the Left-Progressives. As I have been saying I think that these people are tremendously adverse to *seeing* and thinking in racial terms. By training perhaps? I am also uncomfortable thinking in such terms, yet it seems necessary.

What a strange position this places me in. But I don't want to associate anyone with my own views which are, in their way, rather radical. So by conversing with you I don't want to taint you!

Yes, Abe Lincoln was such an abolitionist and hated slavery as an abomination. And he worked for years behind the scenes to export African-Americans en masse out of the country.

I believe that I agree with you that the primary conflict was economic and geo-politcal. I do not think the North could have allowed a hostile nation to exist to its south and to control access to the Mississippi. It would have been clearly stated today that this was the reason, but I have not found specific evidence that this was a consideration.

There were as many in the South itself opposed, quite adamantly, to slavery (as I am sure you know). I simply am uncertain what would have developed in the South if it had been left to its devices. The war intervention itself created a whole range of animosity and, perhaps, social pathology.

That is my thought as well. And there is a similar will that is alive today that sort of picks up on that same oppositional position.

I hate to break it to you but one doesn’t have to be African American to despise the Confederacy.

Again, the South was explicitly fighting to defend slavery. Those unwilling to fight for slavery, as in West Virginia, East Tennessee, Texas’ German population and areas scattered across rural parts of the south, were routinely and brutally attacked. That’s not even getting into the century of tyranny under Jim Crow.

 

[Master Debator]

No, I rather think it is because when I make my assertions I am aware of other facts which I emphasize. I talk about those facts, and my perspectives about them, using reason and referring to facts. And that is why I said:

I am unsure what you refer to when you say *contrary to reason*.

I mean contrary to facts. What facts have you emphasized to prove the white demographic has no advocates? None.There are hundreds of white state and federal representatives advocating on behalf of their constituents.

If what is going on in America today -- this new radicalism, this new aggressive activist application of Critical Theory, then I must disagree with you. Or I must take issue with you. I do think I grasp your motives here though.

I've told you my motives many times. To subjugate white supremacists. It's not some big secret I've been keeping from you.

I understand that you have this view, and I understand why you have it, and what you propose, what you refer to, must necessarily be opposed. And what must oppose it is, of course, a renewed and strengthened race- and culture-consciousness.

More than half of white Americans want nothing to do with your white wing culture. That would seem to be a bit of an obstacle for you.

However, I am not at all certain that this will come about. And I must admit that now, in the present dispensation, it seems unlikely. But it is impossible to say what will happen in the coming months and years.

Impossible to say for certain but certain enough to be extremely confident. Your culture is going extinct.

In order to even conceive of the view that I have, in order to think it, requires as I said a meta-political view and stance.

No, that's not how knowledge and understanding works. You don't have to believe in something to understand it. That's a silly argument that people are going to laugh at you for suggesting.

That is why I referred to Madison Grant because that is what he asserts. If it does not happen that the people, the white demographic, does not become aware in this way, the processes that are in motion today will only increase.

I know. I also know you're highly unlikely to convince a large enough number of Whites to go along with your Dissident Right desires, hence my gloating and mockery.

That means the movement that is *anti-white* and wants to restructure the United States will grow stronger eventuating in something I personally do not want to contemplate.

Anti-white supremacists. The reason your anti white rhetoric falls on deaf ears is because the Whites you're trying to convince don't feel assaulted by the changing demographics or the political ascendency of minorities and marginalized people.

Since this has come about through demographic shift, which is a manifestation of meta-politics -- issues that precede politics or pre-determine politics -- all I can do is to state this. Which is all I am trying to do: make clear statements, make efforts to *see clearly*.

All you can do is look upon your waning power and weep.

Sure, I have heard that argument. It is true only in a way. It is a superficial statement and opinion.

No, it's actually a fact. I know you have a difficult time separating facts from your hideous opinions.

The actual truth is something else.

No it isn't. You can't even be specific. Entities... powerful players... censureship essentially... just a collection of conspiratorial victimhood. A private company kicked Trump off their property. That's what freedom looks like white winger.

I don't feel 'embarrassed'. I feel . . . uncertain, hesitant. But this has been so for many months now, and indeed years.

You don't seem bright enough to know you should be embarrassed.

 

[JasperL]

My object as I've said a few times is *to get everything out on the table so it can be discussed*. I have examined,, for example, this sort of thing so I do not know if what they say about Jewish involvement in culture-manipulation is true or not. There are many people today who say all sorts of different things. I assume that some part of it is real but also that they exaggerate.

We all know the game. You're just getting racist white supremacy and now anti-semitism out there, to discuss. So let's discuss Hitler. What did he do wrong, in your view? You quoted favorably from the man who gave him the blueprint - you know, isolate the undesirables in ghettos, and we could of course let them live out their pathetic, worthless lives, just not reproduce. Who could have guessed Hitler and those willing to do THAT would escalate to genocide? Was that the problem - the whole genocide thing? Just took the man's advice on how to save and advance the Aryan race a bit too far?

My views are -- as you have certainly noticed -- 'racialist' and I do not deny race-categories as having importance. But my views and ideas have nothing to do with *hate*.

It's a compassionate contempt for other, obviously inferior, races. Just clear-eyed (blue eyes, preferably) race realism. I think that's the preferred term.

At this point (it could change I guess) I do indeed see America, the nation, in the throws of social crisis brought about by those policies that have displaced and *dispossessed* the white demographic. This *white demographic* has no advocates, no one that stands up for it, except on the fringes. That is where certain ideas and perspectives get pushed. All of this I have expressed, and I think all of this can be rationally expressed and explained. Perhaps I can say *defended*.

The *coercive* force operative so strongly in the present insists that people see things in one particular way. It is becoming a forced ideological position. If you do not see it that way, you are cast out. So, the divisions will only increase, not decrease.

And I really don't get that. After all, look what happened when Hitler took the advice of the man you quoted? Other than the genocide thing, I don't know why we in 2021 wouldn't accept that basic framework as perhaps a bit unfortunate but necessary, because "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." Got to break some eggs to make an omelette, as they say. Prolly all that's needed in this era is just a benevolent (to white people) dictator for a few years, to clear out the undesirables by force, which is unfortunately required at this point, then we can get back to something like the Constitution for white people.

What I have observed happen is that the opinions and ideas of people who are citizens of the US, who make up something around or close to 50% of the country (or maybe it is less) have been pushed out of the field. I have been thinking about the strange fact that a man elected President had his communication-channel shut down. Was silenced. Who did this? Who or what made the choice? Who decides such things? That seems just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social control, coercion, and a certain type of tyranny.

Well, sure, it's a type of tyranny and the wrong type. Not the good type of actual tyranny necessary to save the white race. That'd be OK.

Those involved in it tend to support and defend it. They see no issue. I can understand why but it still looks really quite weird.

So do you mean to say that it is weird that I might consider and be open to those *perspectives* of which you are certainly aware? Is that really so weird?

Perhaps the better word is 'surprising.' Given the conversation, I can't say I was surprised at all when you favorably quote a Hitler favorite and author of his early blueprint. It's sort of what a lot of us expected, in fact. Not at all surprised you are 'open' to Hitler's basic philosophy on race, if not his execution, no pun intended, well maybe a little, given the millions of executions.

 

[JasperL]

While I recognize that *they* (for example this might include Master Debator and Jasper and also Tiger who are aligned with the present motion and movement largely because they are African Americans) are all in favor of this manifestation, and they really do have their reasons, I am uncertain if a significant sector will go along with it.

Just to clarify, I'm white, dad was pasty white, freckles, red hair, blue eyes, originally from the Isle of Man. My ancestors on that side arrived in the late 1700s. My mother was a product of Mississippi and like many was a product of race mixing, in her case 'indian' blood - dark hair, dark eyes, white but tanned easily. I've spent my entire life in states that were part of the CSA - Tennessee (originally, and my home now), Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina.

Dad (and my mom, though we weren't as close) is still my hero, though long dead, because he taught me not to judge or hate based on idiotic considerations like race, even though he grew up in the heart of the south where Jim Crow wasn't just the law but a way of life, where casual racism was just how things were. His mom, my grandmother, still called the nice black ladies who helped her in her infirm elderly years 'nigger girl' or some variant - just rolled off her tongue like water - well into the 1980s.

He taught us differently and I will forever be grateful for that, and love him for that, despite the ease for him to simply accept 'how things were' where he grew up. He rejected that outlook in spite of his upbringing. There are lots of those stories in the south - and that's what we should celebrate, not the dead enders who cling to the Jim Crow attitudes if not the actual regime itself.

The white demographic I have been referring to. Those who did rally to Donald Trump and became *problematic* for the Left-Progressives. As I have been saying I think that these people are tremendously adverse to *seeing* and thinking in racial terms. By training perhaps? I am also uncomfortable thinking in such terms, yet it seems necessary.

We're not adverse to seeing or thinking in racial terms. We (or I at least) have given it a lot of thought, and reject the ideology of idiots/failures/losers and bigots, though in my experience those go together like hand in glove. My uncle on my mother's side was a huge failure in his personal life, and a raging racist his entire life. Those are not unrelated in my experience.

What a strange position this places me in. But I don't want to associate anyone with my own views which are, in their way, rather radical. So by conversing with you I don't want to taint you!

Yes, Abe Lincoln was such an abolitionist and hated slavery as an abomination. And he worked for years behind the scenes to export African-Americans en masse out of the country.

I believe that I agree with you that the primary conflict was economic and geo-politcal. I do not think the North could have allowed a hostile nation to exist to its south and to control access to the Mississippi. It would have been clearly stated today that this was the reason, but I have not found specific evidence that this was a consideration.

Correct - it was about slavery. They told us this, many times, in their own words, to the world and to each other. We should believe them, not pretend that the Lost Cause narrative was true.

 

[reflechissez]

Huh, so weird you'd quote a celebration of racist, anti-semitic white supremacy.....

Nope, not weird -- consistent.

 

[JasperL]

Nope, not weird -- consistent.

Yep, it's the official slipping of the mask, or hood, as it were.

 

[Ouroboros]

Already did.

Your delusion is noted and dismissed.

 

[Ouroboros]

Maybe one day you can realize an argument in favor of idolizing racist slavers and traitors is ultimately a losing one.

Still not my argument. It’s funny to see you struggling to find new ways to make the same stale accusations.

 

[Ouroboros]

No amount of blatant lying can change the fact that the South was explicitly fighting to defend slavery.

If you believe it and clap your hands, maybe it will become true.

 

[Tigerace117]

Your delusion is noted and dismissed.

Again, just because you don’t have an issue with it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

 

[Tigerace117]

If you believe it and clap your hands, maybe it will become true.

Oh, it already came true.

The Reasons for Secession: A Documentary Study

The root cause of the American Civil War is perhaps the most controversial topic in American history. Even before the war was over, scholars in the North and South began to analyze and interpret the reasons behind the bloodshed.

www.battlefields.org

Mississippi

“ Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth… These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”

Texas

“The servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations.”

Georgia

“That reason was [the North's] fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity.”

South Carolina

“ Those [Union] States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States.”

 

[reflechissez]

Yep, it's the official slipping of the mask, or hood, as it were.

Her schtick is probably unappreciated at Stormfront (or whatever they're calling themselves these days). It's not intellectually stimulating to jump immediately to the n-word when one can tease it out with wordy tomes in 1500-post threads.

 

[Ouroboros]

Where's the 'acceptance' from the defenders? I seem to remember a massive white supremacist rally when one side 'won' the decision to take down those monuments in Charlottesville.

As I've said on MANY threads on this subject, I want the decision resting in local communities. If they want to keep a statue of a dead confederate slaver and traitor, that's their business. I don't support vandalism, period. But when Memphis decided years before the current movement to relocate Forrest, that should be their decision. The state took that away from them, and rested it in the hands of a bunch of assholes 200 miles away. When

I agree. But my point is it's hard to unify blacks and whites under banners and monuments erected to celebrate and defend white supremacy.

Both sides do indeed seek to take advantage of what should be locally determined affairs, and both are capable of committing or abetting acts of vandalism and other crimes to serve their ends. However, while the Right used to be known for extreme vigilantism, the Left has excelled them, and no, I don’t believe the vandals are just outliers. Anyone who believes that dozens of these attacks just happened spontaneously is terminally naive.

When I posed the question about figuring out things that could bind communities, I automatically excluded the sort of things that are zero sum games, where one group wins and the other loses. That trick never works.

 

[Ouroboros]

I read that little admission that you and other white wing Southerners want to live in a safe space where your statues of dead racist slavers aren't actually representations of racist slavers but economic injustice. Not for slaves of course but the economic injustice committed against a group of people robbing the lives and labor of black people. I did see that. And I found it hilariously weak as arguments go but entirely indicitive of the soft victim like mentality of today's millennial white wing.

I’m sure you were amused by your own fantasies, particularly the one in which conservatives are the ones whining about their victim hood. Let me know when you want to discuss our differences rationally. I won’t hold my breath though.

 

[Ouroboros]

Well, why did "they" in the north need to break the power of the South? What ends were accomplished by that if you don't reference slavery? Where did the interests of the north and south, other than on slavery, diverge to such a great extent that secession, then war, were the only options?

Interesting that the fate of black slaves makes no mention anywhere. Your narrative is of whites in the north versus whites in the south and 4 million slaves aren't even bit players. It's also notable that one position - the anti-slavery, barriers to expansion to the territories - is the clearly morally correct choice. You can't both sides slavery. There is in fact a right and a wrong, and the south chose the wrong side. Even at that time, the civilized world, except for the south, was recognizing this basic fact, that slavery of another race, because of their race, then their kids, and their kids forever in perpetuity, was not a defensible position. It was the 'original sin' of the founding, and simply not sustainable to a country founded on the idea of human rights, for all men.

As someone said elsewhere here, the South had a lot of political power. The North wanted it. The question of human rights was as much eyewash as the South’s claims of inherent inferiority.

Horrors, are you saying the Muslims weren’t civilized? They didn’t abolish slavery till the 20th century.

That’s all for today, kids.

 

[Tigerace117]

As someone said elsewhere here, the South had a lot of political power. The North wanted it. The question of human rights was as much eyewash as the South’s claims of inherent inferiority.

Horrors, are you saying the Muslims weren’t civilized? They didn’t abolish slavery till the 20th century.

That’s all for today, kids.

It was the South— not the North—which started the war by shooting at US troops in order to protect slavery.

No amount of desperate squirming from you can change that

 

[JasperL]

As someone said elsewhere here, the South had a lot of political power. The North wanted it. The question of human rights was as much eyewash as the South’s claims of inherent inferiority.

Horrors, are you saying the Muslims weren’t civilized? They didn’t abolish slavery till the 20th century.

That’s all for today, kids.

You didn't answer the question - the 'north' wanted power for what end?

And it's the south that seceded, not the north, and only because Lincoln was elected. He hadn't taken office, so it's not something he DID, just him about to take office was too much. You can't blame 'the north' for the CSA traitors seceding before Lincoln took the first act as president.

The 'spark' was the south saw its power threatened because slavery was threatened in the territories. Their dreams of expanding slavery were likely dead and they feared that loss of power that would eventually threaten slavery in the existing states, something NOT at risk with Lincoln's election. See, it's not hard to connect power threats with a specific issue when you talk about slavery. Your argument fails because you can't identify another issue important enough to the SOUTH to secede over. It was about slavery - not any principle or some general 'power' struggle. Slavery - the end.

You're also, again, assuming that slavery couldn't possibly be a legitimate human rights issue for those in 'the north' and are effectively both sides'ing the slavery question. One really is the morally correct choice. You want to pretend there was no 'good' or right answer. That's just wrong.

 

[Master Debator]

I’m sure you were amused by your own fantasies, particularly the one in which conservatives are the ones whining about their victim hood. Let me know when you want to discuss our differences rationally. I won’t hold my breath though.

I'm amused by your reality. You white wingers are nothing but crying victims. But what rational discussion is there to be had with someone who wants to cry over the economic tyranny perpetuated against racist slavers....

 

[Alizia Tyler]

We all know the game. You're just getting racist white supremacy and now anti-semitism out there, to discuss.

Since I came to this forum I have been discussing more or less only *forbidden topics*. I am deeply involved in them. In a way I would say so much so that until I can solve them or resolve them I will be *trapped* by them.

As you have provided some biographic material I too have some biography to share. Why? Because I think that to understand someone you have to understand their *location*. And location for me is a complex concept. Since where a person is located seems to determine how they interpret things. Even how they situate themselves metaphysically. By location I do not mean necessarily physical location.

In my case what I have come to understand about myself is my *core conflicts*. My mother comes from a looooonnngggg line of Sephardic Jews (Holland, Morocco, Spain, Belgium mostly are her roots), my father is a pure blood (if you will allow such a vulgar term!) Englishman who converted to Judaism. And I grew up in and around very strict religious community in Venezuela. Toward the age of 14, more or less, I rejected Judaism and began to convert to Christianity. I regard my father’s conversion as a reprehensible backward step. We tolerate each other these days but do not talk in any depth. And my out-marriage, not to mention my association with Christianity, renders me thorough persona non grata in my former Orthodox community.

Everything about *my choices* has always involved rebellion against the structure of ideas and therefore having to turn against, and also confront and oppose, those who tried to tell me what was proper and right to think and proper and right to believe. My opposition started early with opposition to my religious and cultural matrix. And it was the men in my world, less the women, who always tried to correct me — as you might imagine would happen in a strict religious environment And especially a traditionally Jewish one.

In the course of time, and definitely when my sister married her husband, an ex-patriot American, and when I met my future husband through him, I have been drawn further and further into essential controversies — controversies that have to do essentially with philosophical, religious and metaphysical questions and those problems and issues that define our age. And how would I describe what is the essence of my experience? and why do I persist in wrongthink and crimethink? I can answer that question because I understand it well . . .

I think our entire present can be understood to be a lie. I think we live within a *structure of lie*. What I mean by this is not that a given person constructs lies (of the sort that I am talking about) but that we are born into and are raised up in these lies. The first order of lie — if you will go along with my term — has to do with our metaphysical condition. From a Christian perspective therefore the first order of lie is our own condition as fallen creatures in a fallen world. The Christian path, as I conceive it, is in essence that of breaking out of metaphysical prison — to the degree that this is possible. What I am saying here may or may not be intelligible to you, I have no idea.

But what I am trying to say here — again for biographical purposes — is that my fate and my destiny seems to be that I will forever have the task before me of sensing that lies of all sort surround me; that I must confront them; that I will always be *in trouble* because I have been isn such trouble all my life (!) and that I have my whole lifetime in which to continue in what I had begun or what had been begun for me outside and beyond my own choice and decision. That is the nature of Fate of course.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

We all know the game. You're just getting racist white supremacy and now anti-semitism out there, to discuss. So let's discuss Hitler.

So I have one other biographical detail which, as I have tried to understand my own self, seems crucial. As I am sure you well know if you are born into a Jewish environment you are born into a realm of consideration, a realm of existence and also *being* which defines itself through and in relation to the European events of the mid-twentieth century. Hitler is of course (and I have said this many times) *the emblem of ontological malevolence* (and that term I got from Jonathan Bowden).

Obviously, you are working, rather precipitously in my opinion! to push the conversation you want to have to the essential point you want to make, and in the way you conceive of it you lay it out right there by invoking the core, defining symbol (emblem) that has defined our entire recent age.

Hitler is always a backdrop for you-plural and really for all of us. Hitler is an intensely laden and super-charged emblem into which tremendous psychic content is projected. It is odd to meditate that Hitler is one of the most googled names by people who, I gather (why else would they google him?) are confused by and have questions about the *meaning* of this man.

But as I say this was far more true in my own case given my background. So here is the odd element I want to bring out. When still in Venezuela back around the time that I was between 13 and 14 year old I had the only *vision* of the sort that comes during the day (not for example through a dream) while walking one day in downtown Caracas. It was in front of this strange, partially completed building (I will post a photo of it because it became a subject of my artwork) where I always used to pause and stare at.

What happened is that as I was standing there I was overtaken with a giant *perception* (I do not know how to describe it except in this way — a wave of perception) in which I saw a series of different images, all having to do with wartime Europe, and with Germanic Europe, and a voice (I think masculine if that matters) that recited to me a whole range of things about the Germanic movement and about Hitler. Not so much in *words* but in idea-images. But not so much Hitler in a specific sense. But something in a far larger sense. Perhaps I might say now in a meta-political sense.

The gist of it was that this *movement* began in positive ideals and sentiments amd aspirations — I guess you might say as a means to *do good* in the world — but it was drawn down into the world of earthly powers and of course of violence and lost the means to complete its original intention when it became *trapped* within the means to enact itself as will.

I lost the notebook where I wrote all this down and I don’t think I am doing a good job of explaining the strange intensity of the *message* here. But I can assure you that this weird vision had a profound impact on me. Not at that moment (I was too young perhaps to process it) but because it seemed to speak to many things about me and my life that would later become important.

But what did it mean? I did not know at that time certainly. But later I came to realize that there was something essential and crucial to be understood about those events — what happened in the very core of Europe at that time.

I mention this because it was you who said “Let’s discuss Hitler”. And it is always you-plural who resort to this image and emblem.

I suppose I must make some sort of *encapsulating statement* about what this strange vision has meant for me personally. I will try. It has meannt, and it means, that it is my path and destiny to go into the core of those things that motivate human beings and human life. Within all creation-activity, within any creative decision that is made in life by anyone, anywhere and at any time — at all times — the *shadow* always follows, always accompanies, is always part-and-parcel of creative action.

I know that it is likely that you-plural will extract parts of what I say here and do all you can to restate it, to twist it, to make it into what you want it to be and need it to be in pursuit of your ‘conversational objectives’, and of course I know this and accept it (I would have to be crazy to persist here knowing that these are the conditions of engagement if I did not agree to subject myself to you in this sense). But I write not so much as specifically to you but also as an act of self-clarification.

My theory is that my own self-clarification can be useful to others self-clarification.

 

[Master Debator]

I think our entire present can be understood to be a lie. I think we live within a *structure of lie*. What I mean by this is not that a given person constructs lies (of the sort that I am talking about) but that we are born into and are raised up in these lies. The first order of lie — if you will go along with my term — has to do with our metaphysical condition. From a Christian perspective therefore the first order of lie is our own condition as fallen creatures in a fallen world. The Christian path, as I conceive it, is in essence that of breaking out of metaphysical prison — to the degree that this is possible. What I am saying here may or may not be intelligible to you, I have no idea.

It doesn't seem as if it's even intelligible to you. Can you, in your own words describe what these metaphysical truths you believe in are and why any of us should believe in them?