Movin' on Out

Roy Moore's favorite graven image is being wheeled out of the rotunda as I type. To the shock of the assembled protestors, no lightning bolts, toads, or plagues of boils are yet in evidence. The jurisdictionally irrelevant and legally… ahem… novel suit filed by Moore's supporters is being treated roughly like the joke that it is.

Comments

[joe]

"Duty, honor, coountry still have meaning down south."

Bush family. Kennedy family. Enough said.

dude, we don't get to start everything over when we find a better way. We just have to sort of work the new system in on top of the old. No more government-sanctioned Year Zeros for me, thanks.

[thoreau]

As to the interesting question of how the US would have fared in more recent wars had the South won the Civil War:

Harry Turtledove has written some very interesting "alternative history" novels about the South winning the Civil War. One thing to consider is that the North and South could have easily found themselves on opposite sides in WWI, if each formed different foreign alliances for defense against the other. In his speculative fiction, the CSA (Confederate States of America) was allied with England in WWI, so the USA was attacked via Canada as well as from the south. He also puts the USA on the same side as Germany. Since the CSA is too busy fighting its northern neighbor to give much help to Europe, the result is that Germany wins WWI. Hitler doesn't rise to power in Germany in his alternative world, but a fictional character every bit as scary rises to power in the embittered south and finds another ethnic group to demonize...

One need not agree with the details of Turtledove's speculations on what would have happened to agree that friction between the USA and CSA could have made WWI even more hellish.

[Jim Walsh]

Winston Churchill allegedly said (OK, I read it somewhere) that had the South won the war, there would have been no WWI or WWII. I've never been able to find this statement (or figure out the logic behind it). Can anyone verifiy - and explain what the hell it means?

[matt]

thoreau,

I thought you were tired of people bringing up the civil war...why do it now?

[thoreau]

That surprises me. Without getting into all of the details that people might dispute, I always thought WWI started out as a dispute in Europe. The US wasn't involved initially.

I'm willing to believe WWII might not have happened, because maybe if the South had won the Civil War the USA and CSA would have been neutral in WWI. (Maybe.) In that case, WWI might have (just maybe) come to a different conclusion that perhaps would have (just perhaps) avoided WWII. So no WWII seems plausible (not definite, just plausible), but no WWI seems less believable to me.

[thoreau]

Matt-

Because we finally got an interesting Civil War topic. Instead of the usual stuff about whether the South had the right to secede or whether Lincoln was a good President, somebody raised a big historical "what if?" question. What if this nation had been divided into two? How would the course of history be different?

That's much more interesting to me than some rehashing of whether the war was about slavery or tarriffs or whatever.

[matt]

So instead of discussing actual history we'll discuss make-believe "what-if" history instead?Seems kinda odd to me but I guess I'll just stick to those pesky constitutional questions and let ya'll discuss the "what if's." I'm not trying to pick on you, just wondering why topics like the right of secession and lincoln's dictator-like rule isn't interesting enough.

[thoreau]

What if's are interesting because they help us understand the cause-and-effect relationships in actual history.

Debating the right of secession and whether the war was about slavery brings little insight. The battle lines are drawn, the factions are firm, and the whole topic is tainted by the handful of slavery apologists out there (although I don't think any of them post on Reason).

The right of secession and whatnot would be more interesting in a different context. Maybe if the secession were attempted by, say, native Hawaiians, or Alaska, or the folks at the Free State Project.

[Bruce Bartlett]

It's worth noting that the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell exactly 6.66 points the day this happened. (Read the Book of Revelations if you don't know the significance of "666.")

[Anonymous]

"Lincoln's dictator-like rule"

and people wonder where Libertarians get the reputation for being wingnuts

[matt]

Wingnut, eh?

Well who do you suppose suspended habeas corpus (which is the duty of congress not the president), arrested thousands of northerners critical of his war, shut down northern newspapers who editorialized against him and the war, conscripted thousands of men into his army, confiscated private property, deported his loudest northern critc (Vallandigham D-Ohio), waged war on southern civilians, and executed those who wouldn't take a loyalty oath...it wasn't robert e. lee or stonewall jackson

[joe]

If America had been "divided in two," it wouldn't have stayed that way. It would have continued to divide and divide, until it became a gaggle of squabbling, jealous little republics, manipulated against each other by what would have remained the Great Powers of Europse. Divide and conquor, just like we did to the Plains Indians.

[Steve]

You know, The Onion said it in their "What do you think" section this week, and I feel as though no one had really picked up on this argument:

With the extent to which religious conservatives have become singularly obsessed with this Ten Commandments monument, has it not become essentially an idol ("graven image"), itself AGAINST the Ten Commandments?

Good phrasing, Julian.

[Anonymous]

A graven image of the Ten Commandments would seem to violate the Ten Commandments, right?

[Chris Puzak]

They should just move the monument into the men's bathroom. Roy Moore and friends will then be putting all their efforts into getting the monument out of the courthouse.

[Flem Snopes]

anyone able to find a PDF format copy of the complaint filed by this judge's supporters? what an apocalyptic Four Horsement Are Afoot nightmare pleading this must be

Flem

[the ghost of Bobby Lee]

Can somebody please explain to me why the US bothered to keep these fools in the deep south in the Union? Most of the trouble of the past 150 years has been caused by these ignorant, hypocrutically religious meatheads.

Especially Alabama and Mississippi!

[Sean]

Bruce,

CNN is showing the DJIA down 6.70. Although if you round 6.66 up you get 6.7. And we all know how the devil likes to cut corners. Would we be interpret this any differently if the Dow had risen this amount rather than fallen? Would this show the rise of the devil rather than his defeat? Or his defeat rather than his rise? Had it risen/fallen by 66.6 would that mean 10X whatever it was supposed to mean? What if the market had risen/fallen 666, rather than a decimal with the same numbers (after all, there weren't a whole lot of decimals in revelation)?All very interesting questions, wish there was a book or something that had the answer.

Let's just all agree to be glad that the amount wasn't 6.16, we would probably be burning now.

Keep in mind though, today's date was 8-27-03, and if you multiply 8*27*03 you get 648. If you multiply tomorrow's date in similar fashion, you get 8*28*03 = 672. Does it make anyone else nervous that 666 falls in between these. I know I'm not sleeping tonight.

[thoreau]

Oh, boy, the Civil War argument will start yet again unless we defuse it with some humor.

Sadly, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would be useful for this situation.

[Gene 6-Pack]

Yet when Ashcroft ordered the veiling of a Greek Godess statue, all hell broke loose. One would think the nation has no problems at all when issues like this are given the attention they don't deserve. Next, we can't use A. D. in a date since this references a religeous date.
And as for the South, were it not for the south, the U.S. might well have lost the last several wars. Duty, honor, coountry still have meaning down south.

[Mo]

Ashcroft didn't cover the statue of Athena because of religious reasons. He covered it because there was a titty showing above and behind him. He was afraid of too many "boob under a boob" jokes.

[Franklin Harris]

"Can somebody please explain to me why the US bothered to keep these fools in the deep south in the Union?"

I should note, for the record, that most of the bozos in Montgomery supporting Moore are OUTSIDE AGITATORS.

[fredH]

Gene:

Where have you been for the last ten years? A.D. and B.C. have been replaced by the politically correct with CE (common era) and BCE, respectively. Just read any scholarly article on history or archeology that has been published in the last decade.

[Franklin Harris]

"Can somebody please explain to me why the US bothered to keep these fools in the deep south in the Union?"

I should note, for the record, that most of the bozos in Montgomery supporting Moore are OUTSIDE AGITATORS.

[matt]

Don't worry thoreau I won't go off about the civil war again, but I still can't get over how a supposedly libertarian site like reason can support an unconstitutional power grab by federal courts over what should be a state issue.

[Anonymous]

Because the state is being insane.

Are you trying to say that states should be allowed to do anything to their citizens? If that were the case, we'd still have slavery and witch trials.

[dude]

A lil off topic: I know that now you're supposed to use BCE and CE but since they merely replace a few letters and the entire focus of the calendar is still Before Baby Jesus and After Baby Jesus (yes I know it's Anno Dominae or something) how is this any more sensitive and inclusive and all that rot?

(I know, asking for logic might be a bit much. But then again logic is just another scam by the Pale Penis People).

[Anonymous]

"Ashcroft didn't cover the statue of Athena because of religious reasons. He covered it because there was a titty showing "

As much as I dislike Ashcroft, it's not like he's totally original. The same thing happened with the Standing LIberty Quarters in the 1910's.

[dude]

I maintain Ashcroft covered the boobies lest he get sued for sexual harassment - hostile work environment.

(Ok, he probably did it because he's a prude).

[Madame Gaudy]

Sean, that sounds a lot like what they did with 09-11-01.

They twisted that numerology into all sorts of contortions to come up with a barrel full of cockamamy explanations.

Flight 11; the two towers = 11; eleven flight attendants; building collapsed at 11 a.m., foorball game on TV had 11 players, etc., etc., ad ridiculum.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, and a marriage between a 42-year-old Alabama man and a 14-year-old Alabama girl (with or without parental consent) couldn't possibly work.

Because a 42-year-old penis couldn't possibly fit into a 14-year-old vagina.

That's like trying to push a coaxial cable through the eye of a needle.

[Anonymous]

So Move it on Out, man!

[Jean Bart]

matt,

The Confederate states did similar things; in fact they enacted conscription first.

[Jean Bart]

matt,

BTW, the Confederate armies, when they did invade Union territory, were famous for capturing and "sending down the river" free blacks and escaped slaves.

[Finstrom Lisa]

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DATE: 02/27/2004 11:19:43
I criticize by creation -- not by finding fault.