I go off half cocked commenting on a comment on a blog I never read

As I was reading Rebellion Blog tonight, I read the following paragraph in the post "How the Northern view shaped the Civil War":

Of course. Billy Yank (the average Northern soldier, not the uninformed pest who drops nasty comments on this and other Southern blogs) fought out of loyalty to his nation, not to "free the slaves." Problem is, the powers that be exploited those loyalties to enrich themselves and expand their power. As I've argued before, wars are fought for power and treasure, not to do good deeds.


Curious about the uninformed pest, I clicked on the link and ended up reading an uninformed post on a blog called kindredblood.wordpress.com. Don't feel obligated to bookmark it, by the way.


In the comments section, one of the respondents, it seems to me someone who has never attempted to look at another perspective of how this country might have or should have evolved differently, said this, getting my dander up:

Cornbread Bridgemanon May 22, 2011 at 12:14 am said:

Border Ruffian, are you going to “ruff me up” if I don’t subscribe to your line of thinking? I simply believe that there are good and bad people in both the north and the south. (seems reasonable)  I do not think that the people of the south have a monopoly on morals, courage, and intelligence like many in the “Lost Cause” movement feel that are exclusive to those born south of the Mason-Dixon Line. (terrible gross generalization)

Soldiers on both sides of the issue in the war were, for the most part, good men. There were some bad men in uniform on both sides, there were deserters and bandits in both the blue and the gray. It isn’t necessary to continually disparage Union veterans in order to remember and honor your Confederate ancestors. (Veterans of the Union Army are not typically disparaged by modern supporters of the Confederate cause, just the political and military leadership, and the choices that they made)

Look at the true history. The real veterans of the war attended reunions of savage battles together and became friends with those that they had fought against. This hatred of men who served honorably and their descendants after 150 years is ridiculous. It reminds me of the Blacks that want reparations for their ancestors being slaves over 150 years ago. (not sure I follow this, but OK)

Then, this concluding statement of the comment (that probably no more than a couple of dozen people will ever read) made me decide to forego exercise tonight and write a response:

"Does anyone truly believe that things would have been better had we splintered into a group of individual states or mini-nations instead of being the United States of America? I don’t think any person with any degree of intelligence will argue that point."

Here is what I wrote:

Honourablemeanson May 23, 2011 at 10:08 pm said:

Your comment is awaiting moderation. 

“Does anyone truly believe that things would have been better had we splintered into a group of individual states or mini-nations instead of being the United States of America? I don’t think any person with any degree of intelligence will argue that point.”

I do. I wave THAT flag every day.

To think that way, you have to check your premises and think outside the box you were raised in. I am the product of both New York suburban public schools and an Ivy league education...(not your typical Confederate flag-waver)

Why have one experiment in democracy or one experiment in economics that affects 350 million people, rather than 50 experiments? Don’t you think that more progress could have been made?

Everytime the Supreme Court makes a decision that effects 350 million people, almost inevitably incrementally increasing Federal power at the expense of local power and the power of each individual citizen, (remote unaccountable sovereignty)

Everytime the President gets us into a war without Congressional approval, (monarchical rule)

Everytime Congress passes a 2000 page bill that less than 1% of the Congressmen have read,

Everytime I think of the Representatives voting for TARP, despite 50% of the constituents who called to voice an opinion said “No”, and the other 50% said “Hell, No!”,

Everytime the Congress passes a law governing moral issues or individual choices, whether it is a Christian conservative republican or a progressive/socialistic Democrat and the freedom of the individual to choose is diminished if they remain “law abiding”,

Everytime the Congress raises the debt ceiling and impoverishes my children,

Everytime Congress reinforces crony capitalism and statism and the progressive media blames all the woes of the country on “capitalism” and “the free market” (modern equivalent of Clay and Lincoln’s favored “American system),

Everytime that an unaccountable SWAT team bursts into a home without a warrant, or a TSA goon puts her hand on and under the breast implant of a 68 year old mastectomy patient to make sure it’s not C4 instead of saline,

Everytime the Federal Reserve devalues our already faith-based currency and robs every one of us of our purchasing power, so that the government can pay back its debts in cheaper dollars than it leant out,

Everytime a public school teaches a kid that the “national” origin of the United States (as opposed to the compact theory) is the only way to think about the founding of this nation,

Everytime government money goes to subsidies, special projects, or new agencies to endear a politician to his constituency, at the expense of someone else (the taxpayer) who produced the wealth but will never benefit himself,

Everytime I think of people saying we are “a free country” but the South was brought back into the Union at the point of a gun,

Everytime I think of the cultural war of the past 50 years waged by progressives against the remnants of Southern culture,

Everytime I see what the victory of the Union made possible in this nation,

Everytime I think of the evolution of this continent’s political entity from voluntary federated republic to involuntary “nation” to militarist empire, trying to spread democracy to other cultures at the point of a gun, to empire teetering on the verge of collapse:

I wave the flag of the People who are sovereign, and had accountable representative servant government, the flag of the Jeffersonian.

When you hear a modern Southerner or a wartime Confederate leader like Robert E. Lee refer to the noble aspects of the Confederacy, this is what they are referring to…

But other than the above, I agree with you that “I don’t think any person with any degree of intelligence will argue that point.”

Link

Also, check out my comment on this guy's "Maps for thought" page, where he tries to junk Southerners as fat, lazy and stupid...

http://kindredblood.wordpress.com/maps-for-thought/#comment-1040