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by pchristensen
1679 days ago
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I was a little startled by your statement, so I charitably tried to figure out where it was coming from. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Confederat...) said that the South seceded to protect slavery, but the North attacked the South to put down the rebellion, not necessarily to free slaves. So I would say that you were technically right that the Civil War was not declared to end slavery, but the overall conflict (and 30+ years leading up to it) was unquestionably about slavery. |
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If the modern right believed that the left wanted to take all their guns and destroy their way of life, and attempted to secede based on that, it doesn't matter that most on the left don't care at all about limiting gun rights, the war that results will still be about guns, because that is the simple answer. Republicanism (relating to republics, not asses and elephants), libertarian ideals, subordination of government to the people all CANNOT be discussed as motives, because the simple, loud and ideologically clear position of individual vs collective capacity for violence is too big and drowns out the nuance.
Similarly, the actual US Civil War cannot be reasonably discussed, because consideration of any other socioeconomic and historical factors in addition to that of slavery is seen as ignoring or attempting to whitewash the institution of chattel slavery. The rural/urban industrial/agricultural divide is still a big issue in the modern context, and we still avoid actually discussing it, instead focusing on the implications of such a divide: illegal immigration, migrant worker exploitation, human trafficking, etc.
The shifting of the Overton Window feeds back into our perceptions, and reinforces a black/white, everything has an answer worldview.