Thursday, August 28, 2014

Goldman’s Tripe

Warning: Simplified (and smarter) spelling ahed!

In my time I hav heard a lot of silliness from Lincoln apologists over the years but David Goldman’s tripe pretty well toppt them all. He said:

If Lincoln had not fought the Civil War in 1861, the French invasion of Mexico in 1862 would have established a link with the Confederacy and prevented a Northern blockade.

I had no idea that Lincoln was a soothsayer who could foresee, a year before it happt, that France would take over Mexico in 1862 … Therefore, he HAD to invade the South to stop the spred of slavery thruout Central America. Pardon me while I wrap duct tape about my head to stop this dumbness from bursting my skull.

Mr. Goldman, even if there were som grand European conspiracy to expand work with the South to spred slavery thruout Central America, there has never even been a hint that Lincoln knew of it. Otherwise he would hav touted it. His silence on the subject is thunderous.

Furthermore Mr. Goldman, let me giv you a few fast lessons in geography and international strategy that you seem to be overlooking by buying into this conspiracy theory.

1. The “imperial powers” of Europe had no need of the South if they wisht to spred slavery thruout Central America (CA). Indeed, slavery was still legal in British Honduras (Belize). They had their own foothold in CA. They could hav brought up slaves from Brazil. They didn't need the South.

2. Texas borders Mexico. Had there been any great conspiracy with France, then it would hav been an eath thing to ship arms and munitions to the South overland thru Texas (and cotton the other way). As of 1862, Yankee troops had not yet split the South along the Mississippi.

3. The political reality is that Britain and France could hav acknowledgd the Confederacy and openly allied with it or at least escorted their own ships thru the Yankee blockade. Had the British and French navies done so, it would hav afforded much needed funds, arms, and munitions to the South.

4. It is well known that Lincoln did not invade the South to free the slaves. The end of slavery was an outcome of the war, not its goal.

Anent the they-got-what-they-deservd hit piece by Spengler that you fawn'd over, I felt like I needed to put even more duct tape about my head to keep the dumbness of that writ from making it burst.

Nonetheless, there is no market for Hollywood epics about Sherman’s March to the sea, arguably the most brilliant military campaign in the history of American arms, …


Oh yea … Sherman cutting a swath of theft and destruction* thru Georgia mainly against old men, young boys, and women stands right there with Jackson’s beating off the British at New Orleans; Patton’s march thru Europe against the Nazis; the drive athwart the Pacific against the Japanese; MacArthur’s stunning drive that drove the commies back over the 38th … NOT! And Goldman wunders why we still haven’t come to terms over Lincon’s unlawful war and the following oppressiv 12-year occupation …

Spengler goes on to write:

… the number of rapes and murders committed by his [Sherman’s] soldiers can be counted on one’s fingers.

Yea, and I reckon that Spengler believs the official Japanese rape and murder stats from Nanking as well. Let us not forget that any such stats would hav likely only been upper class white women. Black, slave women women were open game for Yankees. Besides, he was going thru pretty fast. I don't think that a woman rape'd by the tail-end units would hav rac'd to catch up to Sherman to report it.

Sherman like'd picking on the weak and non-combatants so much that he repeated the same tactics against the American Indians. But I reckon that Spengler believs that rapes and murders done by American soldiers against the American Indians didn’t happen either.

Somhow Goldman brings this all to the riots in Ferguson, Mo. … Missouri might hav been a slave state but it didn’t secede so I’m not sure how it is suppose to fall into Mr. Goldman’s outlook that we’re all still suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

As loath as Goldman is to admit it, Judg Andrew Napolitano was dead right when he said Lincoln had done a terribl thing by invading the South and yes, surely, Lincoln could hav found a better way. Goldman seems to think that slavery would not hav ever ended** and that the end justified the means. But then he believs in som world conspiracy theory too. 

He and Spengler believ that we should rejoice at Lincoln trashing the Constitution. I remind you that the US was only one of two lands that ended slavery thru war … the other being Haiti … and that US was not the last land where slavery was legal. I think that belongs to Brazil whereto more than a few Confederates went after the war. For true, a Brazilian friend of mine who is of mixt race background is proud of her confederado heritage. Yes, slavery ended peacefully in Brazil which wasn’t a problem for the Confederate colony there since out of the thousands that went, only four households own'd a grand total of 66 slaves. (Alcides Gussi, State University of Campinas).

I’ll wrap this up with qwote by Lysander Spooner (lawyer, abolitionist, entrepreneur):

The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.  No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure. (Emphasis mine.)

And that, Mr. Goldman, is why America cannot come to terms with Lincoln’s War. In the end, it has enslav'd us all.



After-writs

*Sherman apologists often tout that his havocking of Georgia hasten'd the end of the war and/or that it broke the will of the South to fight. Neither is true. His plundering, burning, and widespred havoc no more broke the will the South than did the Blitz break the will of Great Britain. If anything, it would hav stiffen the doggedness to fight back.

The truth was that the South was forspent. Sherman was a hard, competent fighter but no tactical genius. It had been Jefferson Davis' blunder of relieving Johnston and putting Hood in command that led to the sudden downfall of Atlanta (and likely Lincoln’s re-election); the following march to Savannah not any great strategic handiwork by Sherman. Notwithstanding the havocking by Sherman, had Lee slippt away from Grant, the war would hav gone on. It’s as simple as that. Many wanted to keep fighting anyway … guerrilla warfare if they had to. It was Lee’s call for an end that qwell'd that line of thought, not Sherman’s wanton war on civilians.

**Worldwide slavery was on its way out. Indeed, not only were there Suthern abolitionists, but the slaveowners were a small minority.

We alreddy saw hints of it before the War of Northern Aggression. Slaveowners would hire Irish immigrants to do dangerous work that could cripple or kill a man if somthing when wrong. Why? For that the slaveowner had too much invested in a slave to risk the slave being crippl'd or kill'd. If an Irishman died, the could eathly hire another. Far from being free labor, a slave was deep investment and an ongoing cost. A slave had to be hous'd, cloth'd, fed, and even given medical care until they died—tanstaafl! Thus was cheaper for a slaveowner to hire an Irish immigrant than risk a worthful slave.

The Confederate colony in Brazil saw this. They prosper'd by hiring the local nativs to work the fields even tho slavery was still legal in Brazil. In the end, even in Brazil, the small minority that held slaves could not hold out against the majority.

The same would hav happen'd in the South. Not only is there is no reason to believ that slavery would be ongoing today had not Lincoln invaded the South, it is more likely, as in Brazil, that race relations would hav been much better in an orderly shift than in the kaotic downfall and oppressiv occupation following Lincoln’s War of Northern Aggression. It is the backlash from the vengeful Yankee 12-year, harsh, ruthless, carpetbagging, they-deserv-it-and-worse downtroddenness that sour'd race relations for the next hundred years. This likely would not hav happt had there been a frithful, that is peaceful, shift away from slavery.