Horatius

Anytime I see something that looks like it was written by a 16 year old for the Godlike Productions forums here, I'll call it out every time. I am a lower middle class white male BTW, exactly the demographic stuff like this is aimed at and I hear this crap every day. Fear, ignorance,machismo and bigotry are major factors in any U.S. election, it's no mystery at all. If you want people to vote against their own self interests you have to press the right buttons.Watch and learn. If my use of the word Sonny offended you I do apologize, I hope you do not require counseling to recover from the trauma.

We ain't all bigots and knee jerk reactionaries over here sonny. What, in particular, is bigoted about that statement? A screed such as this appeals to fear and bigotry,you have to be incredibly naive not to recognize that. If Obama is the nominee you will see a lot of this sort of thing. It's something the Republicans do very well, although they will publicly disavow it. Before it is over Obama will be portrayed as some slathering anti-American Muslim fundamentalist lusting after white women. It doesn't work on everyone but it will constantly be in the background and will sway many white voters.

We ain't all bigots and knee jerk reactionaries over here sonny.

I agree with Neil on much of this but I think it should be pointed out that the Crusader sack of 1204 was particularly brutal http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/choniates1.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade. If I remember right even the Pope was outraged http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1204innocent.html. This weakening of the Byzantines and the subsequent European refusal to assist them later against the Muslims is really strange. It's almost as if they perceived Islam as the lesser evil at the time or maybe they just had so much antipathy towards the vestiges of Rome (or Orthodoxy) that they would rather cut off their nose to spite their face. I don't think there is much doubt even a medium sized European army could have saved the Eastern empire. If I remember right the artillery used by the Muslim armies to breach the mighty walls of Constantinople was made in Europe!( I'm wrong here apparently this was an Ottoman invention http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/defau...m?ArticleID=369 but I'll leave it in because I remember something about European artillery maybe that the Byzantines requested some built but were refused ) How long the East could survive or recover any kind of power is debatable though. Sorry, a bit off topic I know, I think it is an interesting and pivotal part of history though especially since it meant the the final destruction of the Roman empire. Unless of course you see the Ottomans as a continuation of it. It looks awfully complicated to me almost Byzantine lol. In the end I suppose many cultures had a part in preserving the greco-roman heritage (and losing much more of it). Thank god for Arabic numerals though

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think the Ottoman's were Arabs at all but were the very people that comprised the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia that converted to Islam. They ruled Arabs, Christians, Jews and many other cultures and ethnic groups. Baghdad had many Christians and was supposedly a great center of culture at that time. I see them more as a Muslim version of the Byzantines because they absorbed a lot of that culture and being in control of Constantinople (and Greece) meant they would have access to documents and learning dating back to Rome itself. The Crusader sack of Constantinople in 1204 is an interesting counterpoint to the Ottoman's conquest in 1453 when Mehmed II declared himself Caesar and made Constantinople the capital of the empire.

Don't confuse government which should be the citizens protection against predatory and outright fraudulent practices of corporations. As flawed as they are today we seem to forget the reason the FDA, USDA and similar government agencies exist( hint sinclair lewis). If they become controlled by the very interests they were created to regulate then there is a problem (and there is a problem). Sawdust in your milk? maggots in your beef ? Trichinosis in your pork? don't see that much anymore. I think some peoples ire is misdirected . If a company could sell you a drink with an ingredient that would kill you in 29 years and get away with it they would. We need more and non political regulation not less. .If you want to sit on your porch with a 4-10 loaded with lead be my guest, just let me fish through on your creek please.

"brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio" -Horace ( I struggle to be brief and become obscure) Not sure why I like this quote but it has stuck with me since i first read it in grade school.

I think the Black Plague would have to be up there, maybe at the top for the effect it had on civilization.

I learn something from the Ancients every day. But if criticizing the Chinese government is bashing, so be it. The only thing that worries me more than the Beijing government are jihadist Islamic groups (whom I also bash frequently). Maybe I should have put ironic instead of funny in my first sentence. Destroying American labor unions in the later part of the 20'th century paved the way for this. Our manufacturing base is gone and will never return. China holds our debt and is the darling of the corporations, for now. You won't see Busch or business leaders 'bashing' China. It's guv'mit policy Ursus, get with the program. Bashing Muslims is perfectly acceptable until we find another more fearsome bogyman. Chicoms are old school.

It's funny how China bashing has become so fashionable to both the right and left wing masses. The great international corporations have certainly made a fortune outsourcing their manufacturing there. Now southern China is starting to resemble the Cleveland-Pittsburgh rust belt as they pick up stakes and move to even cheaper labor in Vietnam,Thailand or Malaysia http://www.economist.com/business/displays...27&fsrc=RSS . Meanwhile the West is increasinly engaged in electronic money shell games and doing each others laundry. A big fuss is made of the romantic notion of a 'Free Tibet' but is the old Tibetan Theocracy really something to be admired or even yearned for by most Tibetans? http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html . The original Olympic Games lasted over a 1000 years and wars and political disputes were suspended for there duration. Maybe we could learn something here from the ancients for once.

Look, you can not talk about the CSA without talking about slavery.That is what they were about that is ALL they were about. Glorifying them as some poor state struggling for their rights is nonsense. I hate to use that tired old example of the Nazis but in this case it is fitting because the CSA was every bit as monstrous. It is illegal today in Germany to display the Nazi flag or espouse Nazi propaganda but it is done enthusiastically in the US even today in regards to the CSA. Moral relativism at its worst. If it didn't influence our society even today I wouldn't care so much but it does in many subtle and insidious ways. Maybe we should focus instead on the good things that the CSA bequeathed to civilization ...oh wait there isn't any. Anyway it is 140 years too late to eradicate the symbols and ideology of the Confederacy. I guess I am not making my point clear but that is just my ineptitude.No JR I don't believe any government has the right to subject their people to enslavement or death, if it does that government is illegitimate.

Anyone that wants to read more of these kind of justifications for what should be indefensible in excruciating detail can find much still. Might want to start with the opposition debate to the civil rights act of 1964 or that great statesman Orval Faubus, for modern examples. Like I said the mindset is still alive. The states rights concerns of the South were their fears that slavery would be abolished, that's it. That was also their noble 'philosophy' if you can call it that, this wasn't the second coming of the founding fathers after all. Most of us over a certain age have heard it all before ad nauseum hell, George Wallace received 10 million votes. Pointing out that the Indian wars were genocidal or that there were no black officers in the Federal army is apples and oranges. There were Jews in the Wehrmacht also, so what. The fact is northern society was not based on slavery and over the years actively fought it, slowly and unevenly to be sure but it or racism was not officially condoned. The South was entirely based,dependent and proselytized slavery and racism as a philosophy and way of life. It infected the whole nation. I think to give them any legitimacy whatsoever is absurd. Actually it's better than that According to The State v. John Mann. 13 N.C. 263 1829 it was perfectly legal to murder your 'property' This can be used to justify more barbarism I suppose after all it's the law.

Absolutely they had the right and a moral obligation too,there was no moral equivalence at work here.The Constitution was changed to reflect this reality because the Constitution was flawed. These were not ancient peoples who knew no better, this happened a mere 70 years before the Third Reich. Not many romanticizes the Nazis racial theories today or suggest there should have been some kind of peaceful accommodation hoping they would change. Let's not kid ourselves the CSA and the culture behind it was evil, its very Raison d'

As Lincoln said there was no way the republic could endure the way it was. I see no way the south would have altered their society peacefully, ever. As others have pointed out they were the ones that seceded and started the war precisely to avoid any change. Not far from my house is the grave site of William Sherman the purported father of Total War and the man that 'made Georgia howl ' . He understood like no other that to win the Civil War southern society had to be destroyed completely. Maybe if Lincoln would have lived Reconstruction wouldn't have been such a dismal failure but probably not.