Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator

Sorry to derail, but is it weird that I’m picturing Davis and Hitler exchanging pleasantries over dinner somewhere in Hell?

The Nazis and Confederates (as well as latter-day Redeemers) may have been different breeds of virulent and bloody-handed racist, but once they realize they have more in common with each other than they do just about everyone else, well…
 
Zyobot said:
Sorry to derail, but is it weird that I’m picturing Davis and Hitler exchanging pleasantries over dinner somewhere in Hell?

The Nazis and Confederates (as well as latter-day Redeemers) may have been different breeds of virulent and bloody-handed racist, but once they realize they have more in common with each other than they do just about everyone else, well…
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As much as I find myself preferring to humanize the South and not make them cartoon villains like Hollywood likes to do? No one ever said the Confederates, especially the slave owners were fighting for a noble cause.

Not to mention hot headed and arrogant as hell.
 
Tiamat said:
As much as I find myself preferring to humanize the South and not make them cartoon villains like Hollywood likes to do? No one ever said the Confederates, especially the slave owners were fighting for a noble cause.

Not to mention hot headed and arrogant as hell.
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Not saying the South was Satan’s Legions on Earth — heck, I don’t even think Nazi Germany went quite that far — but as @Circle of Willis and others have pointed out, Davis and his accomplices were largely unapologetic and twisted enough to actively advocate slavery as a positive good, not a necessary evil to be gradually phased out.

So, while they may not have resorted to industrialized mass-murder of “undesirables”, I think that given time, they could’ve easily gone down a road that’d have made the Reichstag applaud thunderously, had the CSA survived and clung onto its racist, slavocratic ways. Then again, I guess it’s possible Jefferson and the other infamous Confederates were shaking their heads in dismay as Berlin was getting pummeled and Hitler ate his Walther after cowering there for three months, so however “shameful” their fate was, at least they didn’t get the Nuremberg Treatment or unanimously vilified like the Reich did. 🤷
 
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Zyobot said:
Not saying the South was Satan’s Legions on Earth — heck, I don’t even think Nazi Germany went quite that far — but as @Circle of Willis and others have pointed out, Davis and his accomplices were largely unapologetic and twisted enough to actively advocate slavery as a positive good, not a necessary evil to be gradually phased out.

So, while they may not have resorted to industrialized mass-murder of “undesirables”, I think that given time, they could’ve easily gone down a road that’d have made the Reichstag applaud thunderously, had the CSA survived and clung onto its racist, slavocratic ways. Then again, I guess it’s possible Jefferson and the other infamous Confederates were shaking their heads in dismay as Berlin was getting pummeled and Hitler ate his Walther after cowering there for three months, so…
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To think a device called the cotton gin is partly to blame for this bit of stupidity…
 
S'task said:
Davis was perhaps one of the most opportunistic and evil men of the Civil War, who functionally preyed upon the "nationalism" of others in the South for their own power... and then when defeated spent decades writing and rewriting history in order to paint himself as the hero and others as villains. Davis was a foundational intellect of Lost Cause Histography, and, something a lot of modern people forget, is that the initial wave of Lost Causers actually tended to DEMONIZE Robert E. Lee (since, yanno, he ended up losing the war and surrendering) while holding up as heroes figures like Jubal Early, Bedford Forest, and Thomas Jackson (who likely would have hated being lionized by these people).

Lee's lionization came not from the Lost Causers, but from the military and veterans not just those who fought under him, but also those who fought AGIANST him. There was good political reasons for this too, firstly Lee pushed for peaceful reconciliation between the North and South and lived the few years after the war exility in that way, despite the Federal government fucking him over because the Secretary of State wanted to give a friend a memento. Secondly, Lee had always been more skeptical of secession and thus made, in some respects, a perfect hero for the South to hold to in the Civil War. A man loyal to his State which had gone astray and fought brilliantly to the end but was also gracious in defeat (it helped that Lee WAS actually a good general whom had pulled multiple victories out over bad odds to the point where his maneuvers were studied for generations after, and that he had won the respect of those who served under him to the point where he had a strong degree of personal loyalty from his troops... and finally that even in surrender he had advocated for them to Grant, whom had respected those requests from Lee, Grant's terms of surrender to Lee were actually quite generous to the troops and not, as he was famous for "unconditional").

Basically Davis is scum, and I wish people focused on hating him more than Lee...
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So in short comparing the lost causers of yesterday to the lost causers of today is like comparing Andrew Tate to George Washington. While they are both "manly" for they are fundamentally different from each other and one of them is somebody no reasonable person should want to have anything to do with.
 
KilroywasNOTHere said:
So in short comparing the lost causers of yesterday to the lost causers of today is like comparing Andrew Tate to George Washington. While they are both "manly" for they are fundamentally different from each other and one of them is somebody no reasonable person should want to have anything to do with.
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Not really.

You see, the original Lost Cause histography never actually managed to take hold academically, rather it hybridized with what was, at the time, the more acceptable historical take and basically became a kind of subversive counternarrative to the official history of the US starting in the early 1800s through the Civil War. Thing is, you might recognize a bunch of the Lost Cause narrative...

Slavery was a foundational institution that the entire US was based on and much of the economic success of the early Republic was based on the success of slavery and the southern plantations.​

Sound familiar? This is one of the core conceits of the Lost Cause histography and the earlier Calhoun political theory of the US. It also happens to be shared by the modern 1619 and Social Justice Histography of the US. There's further similarities, but functionally much of what the 1619 and Social Justice people claim is historical is actually just rebranding Lost Cause and Calhoun Histography of the US.

Likewise this sudden demonization of Lee fits right in with the classic Lost Cause histography, as I mentioned the original Lost Cause saw him as the core failure of the Confederacy, it wasn't Davis' fault or the plantation class' fault, rather it was the US' fault for creating the economic conditions that required the south to use slavery.

It's actually uncanny how much of the Social Justice narrative of American history aligns with the old Lost Cause histography...
 
LordsFire said:
It's fronted by the institutional descendants of the same people and movements, and like the older versions, is ultimately just an excuse to practice racism 'morally.'

Not really that surprising at all.
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As long as you have the critical component of enough "useful fools"...
 
S'task said:
Not really.

You see, the original Lost Cause histography never actually managed to take hold academically, rather it hybridized with what was, at the time, the more acceptable historical take and basically became a kind of subversive counternarrative to the official history of the US starting in the early 1800s through the Civil War. Thing is, you might recognize a bunch of the Lost Cause narrative...

Slavery was a foundational institution that the entire US was based on and much of the economic success of the early Republic was based on the success of slavery and the southern plantations.​

Sound familiar? This is one of the core conceits of the Lost Cause histography and the earlier Calhoun political theory of the US. It also happens to be shared by the modern 1619 and Social Justice Histography of the US. There's further similarities, but functionally much of what the 1619 and Social Justice people claim is historical is actually just rebranding Lost Cause and Calhoun Histography of the US.

Likewise this sudden demonization of Lee fits right in with the classic Lost Cause histography, as I mentioned the original Lost Cause saw him as the core failure of the Confederacy, it wasn't Davis' fault or the plantation class' fault, rather it was the US' fault for creating the economic conditions that required the south to use slavery.

It's actually uncanny how much of the Social Justice narrative of American history aligns with the old Lost Cause histography...
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Same political party
 
. . . I should have put quotes around "uncanny" up there, y'all missed my sarcasm...
 
S'task said:
Likewise this sudden demonization of Lee fits right in with the classic Lost Cause histography, as I mentioned the original Lost Cause saw him as the core failure of the Confederacy,
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I don't recall hearing this from anyone else ... what are you referring to when you say classic Lost Cause historiography and the original Lost Cause? Skimming Pollard's book has not given me that impression, and of course from all I have heard Jubal Early did no such thing.
 
strunkenwhite said:
I don't recall hearing this from anyone else ... what are you referring to when you say classic Lost Cause historiography and the original Lost Cause? Skimming Pollard's book has not given me that impression, and of course from all I have heard Jubal Early did no such thing.
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This was something done very early on by the Lost Causer that they quickly stopped when it became apparently that Lee was still hugely popular in the South among the Confederate veterans. Like I said, the veneration of Lee was quickly folded into the Lost Cause, but when you actually look at the history of things, veneration of Lee was encouraged by both sides, though for different reasons. Grant, for instance, had a MASSIVE respect for Lee and purposefully intervened to keep him from facing imprisonment and treason charges after the Civil War and the Union was fine with the South having him as a hero since he provided an example of being gracious in defeat and pushing for reconciliation.

I'm trying to find some of these sources; however, the internet is so awash in the recent statue and renaming controversy items finding older articles and scholarship is difficult... as well as some of this is from my recollection of the numerous Civil War histories I read and was read to by my father growing up as well as stuff from displays at the various Civil War battlefields across Virginia.
 
S'task said:
This was something done very early on by the Lost Causer that they quickly stopped when it became apparently that Lee was still hugely popular in the South among the Confederate veterans. Like I said, the veneration of Lee was quickly folded into the Lost Cause, but when you actually look at the history of things, veneration of Lee was encouraged by both sides, though for different reasons. Grant, for instance, had a MASSIVE respect for Lee and purposefully intervened to keep him from facing imprisonment and treason charges after the Civil War and the Union was fine with the South having him as a hero since he provided an example of being gracious in defeat and pushing for reconciliation.

I'm trying to find some of these sources; however, the internet is so awash in the recent statue and renaming controversy items finding older articles and scholarship is difficult... as well as some of this is from my recollection of the numerous Civil War histories I read and was read to by my father growing up as well as stuff from displays at the various Civil War battlefields across Virginia.
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No problem, I completely understand not being able to point to the specific thing. But it sounds to me like the Lee-hatred was likely, instead of being a hallmark of "the original Lost Cause", was a view held by a small minority of the mess of opinions and ax-grinding from which the Lost Cause congealed. Still, it's important to recognize that Lee-worship wasn't initially as much the default as it later became.
 
strunkenwhite said:
No problem, I completely understand not being able to point to the specific thing. But it sounds to me like the Lee-hatred was likely, instead of being a hallmark of "the original Lost Cause", was a view held by a small minority of the mess of opinions and ax-grinding from which the Lost Cause congealed. Still, it's important to recognize that Lee-worship wasn't initially as much the default as it later became.
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That may well be.

Though it's not entirely relevant to my original point: veneration of Lee is a mostly harmless (and arguably a positive) thing that was not just pursued by the Lost Causers and as such the modern demonization of Lee is... troubling. On the other hand, people hating Davis and the other founders of the actual Lost Cause histography is well deserved and I wish they were more the targets of the modern backlash than Lee, who had nothing to do with it.
 
S'task said:
That may well be.

Though it's not entirely relevant to my original point: veneration of Lee is a mostly harmless (and arguably a positive) thing that was not just pursued by the Lost Causers and as such the modern demonization of Lee is... troubling. On the other hand, people hating Davis and the other founders of the actual Lost Cause histography is well deserved and I wish they were more the targets of the modern backlash than Lee, who had nothing to do with it.
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Veneration of Lee may have done more good than harm at the time, but only insofar as it was necessary to patch the nation back together. It certainly took on a life of its own and outlived its usefulness. (And the fault lines the nation is strained by now are not, I think, ones that continued veneration of Lee would really help with.) Demonization is going too far in the other direction but overcorrection is common when repudiating bad history.
 
Lord Sovereign said:
Vlogging through History has already torn him to shreds. Razor is just giving people like him more ammunition now.

I do enjoy the Rageaholic, but he isn't winning this fight.
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Unfortunately for Razorfist. Family Histories from a ton of non white and white families in the South that report the truth about what happened during the Civil War exist. And they don't paint a rosy picture of the Confederacy and the years afterwards.
 
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Lord Sovereign said:
Vlogging through History has already torn him to shreds. Razor is just giving people like him more ammunition now.

I do enjoy the Rageaholic, but he isn't winning this fight.
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Actually he defended a bunch of his points here and dug in further into what statist scum Lincoln was, also he reminded us all thet there is the whole rpess of Britain giving its own view of the war.

In any case, this is just the first of a three paeter series, and the 3rd part will be dewli g with that boomer attention whore of yours. :cool:
:devilish:
 
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