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The way it was explained to me is it is a demon showing how much he cares for what Christians think. It was put up at the place where witches were burned to show that God is more powerful than any demon.
Is it normal that some topics seem to be empty as if all post were deleted ? (No New Posts) American Revolution and Beyond 0 Posts The Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers, and the birth of the United States 0 Topics(No New Posts) Early Nineteenth Century 0 Posts The early years of the Republic and the expansion West 0 TopicsSame with The Age of Reason and Industrial Age !!!
The board is getting a renovation. I also sent you a PM.
Virginia obviously is taking the war to the courts, where they should have done in the first place rather than siding with South Carolina who fired on Ft. Sumter.
Going to the courts? In what way was slavery legally defensible? That is an especially valid question given the whole all men are created equal statement from the Declaration of Independence. The south would have been in the unenviable position of at a minimum defining Negroes as not people. Face it, the only way the questions that led to the Civil War were going to be settle was war and the South lost. Hence, slavery is no more. Arguing over a battle flag is arguing over crumbs. Virginia wants to salvage some crumb of "honor" by recovering what they lost in open conflict. The best thing Virginia could do is honorably concede they lost and the battle flag does indeed belong to the state that captured it in honest, open combat.Don't get me wrong, I am a southerner and pround of that heritage but slavery was indefensible. The whole "states rights" arguments boils down to slavery and it's probity.
It's their flag that their troops died trying to protect. I can see them as a wounded party.
I can't. I can however, see them as sore losers trying to at least partially overturn the verdict of history. What I find particularly galling is the veiled threat by Virginia to lawyer up if Minnesota doesn't pony up the flag. Very post-modern of them.
Keeping it only festers old wounds.
How so? How exactly is Virginia the wounded party here? It is not as if Virginia was not in a state of rebellion at the time of the flag's capture.
IMO to the winner goes to spoils. So I think that by the laws and customs of war the flag no longer belongs to Virginia.
I agree with you 100% Daniel. I don't see how Virginia, the losers, have any claim on the battle flag. I also would not trust them to give it back after any loan period farther than I can throw them.
As I understand it, an EMP device is relatively easy to build and with nuclear weapons their effects can be very widespread indeed. Think of a strong solar flare exponentially increased in power and concentrated in time. Solar Flares cause disruptions all the time, I often notice them with satellite reception and check the NASA space weather site when I think I am being affected by one. Even solar flares can knock out power lines. The biggest problem in defending against such a device is that while electronic equipment can be shielded, the shielding is bulky and increased shielding increases in size logarithmically while EMP strength increases exponentially so shielding is both very expensive and very impractical because it is so easy to defeat by simply increasing the yield of an EMP device.
The problem is that states are the arbiters of the law. As we have seen from recent executive conduct (PPACA implementation, IRS targeting, NSA scandal) the law apparently is whatever those charged with enforcing it says it is. We have also seen thr state grow less accountable through recent Supreme Court decisions, the two that spring immediately to mind are the magical transformation of the individual mandate from a penalty to a tax and the 2005 Kelo decision.What we are seeing is a breakdown of what we would consider the Rule of Law. Law is for lawyers and lawmakers anymore and not the individual, Property is yours so long as the state allows you to possess it. This is not just the case in the US, it is happening all over the Western world, corruption seems to be increasing rather than decreasing or remaining stable.I can completely understand Minnesota's reluctance to loan the flag to Virginia.
Would a state really want to project to the world that its run by people who make contracts in bad faith?
States do that all the time, or what do you call when the state government says ti will do one thing and then does another. An example is the highway they built on my grandfather's farm. It was not supposed to take any of the farmland but a neighbor was politically more powerful so they ended up taking 60 acres of our land for the highway to cross. If that is not breaking faith, what is?
The problem with a loan of an item associated with strong feelings is you never know if the loaned item will ever be returned. I say they took it on the battlefield and it is now theirs to decide what happens to it. If Virginia wants it back, they should have won the war. They did not and the verdict of the battlefield stands.
A well moderated site that I also occasionally post to is the Veteran's Benefits Network. It is a forum for people pulling their hair out dealing with the VA can vent and even get some good advice. They have a water cooler area but will no hesitate to ban partisan commentary. They also don't allow straight venting, they understand that dealing with any bureaucracy is maddening and do a real good job of keeping invective to a minimum while giving helpful advice to veterans caught in the Tar Baby that is the VA.
Once the EMP strikes, there won't be any more forum anyway, right?
Funny you mention that since I am currently reading a sci-fi trilogy where that is exactly what happens.
The Worst 3 Presidents1) Andrew Johnson - There could not have been a worse person to try and lead the country through Reconstruction. He was impeached for good reason.2) Nixon - Watergate has forever tainted the presidency and took away much of the luster of the office. I don't think people have really trusted a president since.3) FDR - The New Deal and his attempt to stay in office forever, if he had not died he would have ran again. Let's face it, the Constitution was amended because of him and to stop another populist from turning the Presidency into a lifetime appointment.
