The Dumbest Outrage

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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Sun May 06, 2018 10:04 pm

Let's drive the thread back on topic, please. Thank you.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby cmsellers » Mon May 07, 2018 6:24 am

One hundred and sixty two years ago to the month, the US was more divided than it had ever been before. Some people thought that holding other humans in bondage was super-nifty; others thought that it was totally uncool. One of the latter people was a senator by the name of Charles Sumner, who took to the floor of the Senate to compare slavery to rape and call a certain pro-slavery senator a stuttering adulterer.

This analogy was so shocking and unwarranted that a cousin of said senator, US Representative Preston Brooks decided the only acceptable solution was to beat Senator Sumner until his cane broke. After which the good people of the slaveholding states saw that the impudent senator was rightly chastened and sent replacement canes to Congressman Brooks while newspapers on the pro-slavery side exhorted Brooks to "hit him again."

My point being, this isn't the first time the US has been divided, with half the country believing the current state of affairs was beyond the pale, the the other half believing the first half's reaction was.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby DoglovingJim » Mon May 07, 2018 9:44 am

cmsellers wrote:One hundred and sixty two years ago to the month, the US was more divided than it had ever been before. Some people thought that holding other humans in bondage was super-nifty; others thought that it was totally uncool. One of the latter people was a senator by the name of Charles Sumner, who took to the floor of the Senate to compare slavery to rape and call a certain pro-slavery senator a stuttering adulterer.

This analogy was so shocking and unwarranted that a cousin of said senator, US Representative Preston Brooks decided the only acceptable solution was to beat Senator Sumner until his cane broke. After which the good people of the slaveholding states saw that the impudent senator was rightly chastened and sent replacement canes to Congressman Brooks while newspapers on the pro-slavery side exhorted Brooks to "hit him again."

My point being, this isn't the first time the US has been divided, with half the country believing the current state of affairs was beyond the pale, the the other half believing the first half's reaction was.

Did... Did that really happen?
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby Aquila89 » Mon May 07, 2018 10:35 am

Absolutely.

(Side note: an even more outrageous incident happened in the Hungarian parliament in 1912. István Tisza, President of the House of Representatives used police force to remove numerous opposition representatives from the House, because they wouldn't stop obstruction. A few days later, a representative named Gyula Kovács went into the House, jumped off the journalists' gallery, shouted "There is still a member of the opposition here!", and fired three shots at Tisza, but missed him. He then turned the gun on himself, but survived with a permanent head injury. After Kovács was carried out, Tisza continued the session. All of this is described in the official parliamentary record.)
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Mon May 07, 2018 9:41 pm

cmsellers wrote:One hundred and sixty two years ago to the month, the US was more divided than it had ever been before. Some people thought that holding other humans in bondage was super-nifty; others thought that it was totally uncool. One of the latter people was a senator by the name of Charles Sumner, who took to the floor of the Senate to compare slavery to rape and call a certain pro-slavery senator a stuttering adulterer.

This analogy was so shocking and unwarranted that a cousin of said senator, US Representative Preston Brooks decided the only acceptable solution was to beat Senator Sumner until his cane broke. After which the good people of the slaveholding states saw that the impudent senator was rightly chastened and sent replacement canes to Congressman Brooks while newspapers on the pro-slavery side exhorted Brooks to "hit him again."

My point being, this isn't the first time the US has been divided, with half the country believing the current state of affairs was beyond the pale, the the other half believing the first half's reaction was.


And yea were we all comforted when Sellers said "Hey guys, don't worry, we were pretty divided before the Civil War, too"

DoglovingJim wrote:Did... Did that really happen?


Dude, Andrew Jackson straight up had a duel with a guy who insulted his wife, along with about eight thousand other people. Duels were actually pretty commonplace then (Looking at you, Hamilton) Teddy Roosevelt was so fond of boxing that as the president, he had a sparring partner who hit him so hard that he lost vision in one eye (you have to wonder who had the balls to punch Teddy Roosevelet).
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby cmsellers » Tue May 08, 2018 12:08 am

Doodle Dee. Snickers wrote:And yea were we all comforted when Sellers said "Hey guys, don't worry, we were pretty divided before the Civil War, too"

I'm not trying to be comforting. I'm just saying that this is what this reminds me of. The political establishment is putting up with things which should be beyond the pale. Someone got so upset she ignored proper decorum. And the supporters of the current SQ get in a huff about the lack of decorum.

If it does come Civil War 2.0 it's likely to be one of the shortest civil wars ever, seeing as the pro-Trump side has a lot more guns and a lot more people who know how to use them.

Doodle Dee. Snickers wrote:Dude, Andrew Jackson straight up had a duel with a guy who insulted his wife, along with about eight thousand other people. Duels were actually pretty commonplace then (Looking at you, Hamilton) Teddy Roosevelt was so fond of boxing that as the president, he had a sparring partner who hit him so hard that he lost vision in one eye (you have to wonder who had the balls to punch Teddy Roosevelet).

Preston Brooks felt that it would be beneath his honor to challenge a brothel-mouth like Charles Sumner to a duel. The only thing that squared with his dignity was beating Sumner like the slaves he defended.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby NathanLoiselle » Tue May 08, 2018 12:11 am

No Sellars. It goes Civil War and then Infinity War. We all know this. First was the Civil War which pitched bro against bro and then Infinity War where
Spoiler: show
half the bros die due to a chintzy looking glove.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby Cobra-D » Tue May 08, 2018 12:53 am

cmsellers wrote:If it does come Civil War 2.0 it's likely to be one of the shortest civil wars ever, seeing as the pro-Trump side has a lot more guns and a lot more people who know how to use them.


While the first part is true the second part is highly improbable. At best it’ll be a draw.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Tue May 08, 2018 2:10 am

Yeah, Republicans definitely aren't the only ones with guns, they're just the only ones who have the NRA, who think they're the only ones who speak for gun owners.

Anyways, much as I wondered if a civil war is on the horizon, I'm not sure how it could be possible. The last one happened because there were a whole bunch of states with their own armies, now there are big ass federal armies. The closest thing I can think of is the Texas Guard, which probably wouldn't stand up very long. If we were to have a civil war, it would probably look more like Syria.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Tue May 08, 2018 2:57 am

Judging by rhetoric spouted by Trump's base, only grasp of gun ownership is the NRA and their only grasp of the soldier is Chris Kyle. Therefore, no liberal could possibly defend their self or be part of a militia.
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Last edited by Deathclaw_Puncher on Tue May 08, 2018 3:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby Crimson847 » Tue May 08, 2018 3:03 am

cmsellers wrote:If it does come Civil War 2.0 it's likely to be one of the shortest civil wars ever, seeing as the pro-Trump side has a lot more guns and a lot more people who know how to use them.


The pro-Trump side is more likely to own guns and be trained in their use, but they're also smaller in number and substantially older on average. The people of fighting age in this country are all in the Millennial generation or the leading edge of Gen Z, the very age groups that most despise Trump. The combination of those two factors means the opposition would be able to field a much larger army. Meanwhile, the opposition is wealthier and controls the overwhelming majority of the country's infrastructure due to its dominance in the cities and on the coasts, and would have the support of most of the international community. Going by the history of the first American civil war, being more gun-savvy on average (as the Rebels also were compared with Union soldiers) probably wouldn't make up for a big advantage in numbers, infrastructure, money, and diplomatic strength.

That being said, a new civil war probably wouldn't go down like the first, with standing armies meeting in pitched battle and fighting it out until one side is conquered. If there's an open war like that, the military probably splits, leaving both sides with control of some of our military assets (including nukes). Even something like a 70-30 split of the goodies would still leave the underdog with more firepower at their disposal than any other country in the world. So open war would mean a war between two nuclear-armed superpowers, conducted entirely on our own soil. A more likely scenario would be a guerilla war, like the Troubles but with less of a power disparity between the belligerents.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby Absentia » Tue May 08, 2018 9:37 pm

The Civil War was not the last time the country was deeply divided. From the '50's through the early '70's, we had the Red Scare, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, and Watergate. There were riots and people died.

If the worst we do to each other now is say mean things on Twitter and in mildly inappropriate comedy bits, I think we're going to be okay.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby gisambards » Tue May 08, 2018 11:33 pm

Absentia wrote:The Civil War was not the last time the country was deeply divided. From the '50's through the early '70's, we had the Red Scare, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, and Watergate. There were riots and people died.

If the worst we do to each other now is say mean things on Twitter and in mildly inappropriate comedy bits, I think we're going to be okay.


While I don't think America is remotely on the brink of a second civil war, I think it's hard to deny that America is currently at least as dangerously divided as it was during the '50s, '60s and '70s. It's gone well beyond mean things on Twitter and mildly inappropriate comedy bits. Someone did try to assassinate Trump during the election. In the last three years, there have been multiple terror attacks motivated by domestic American politics, from both sides of the spectrum: the proliferation of the Pizzagate rumour nearly leading to an actual massacre; the targeted shooting of white police officers at the BLM protest in Dallas; a neo-Nazi driving his car into a crowd of protestors in Charlottesville; a left-wing activist trying to gun down the Republican congressional baseball team. Tensions are clearly really high right now, and they only look set to escalate.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby Absentia » Wed May 09, 2018 12:18 am

Isolated, rogue crazy people who are tangentially motivated by politics aren't what I'm talking about (and it's not like nobody really famous and important got assassinated in, say, 1963). I'm talking about movements that bitterly divided sane, ordinary Americans. I don't think we're there yet, to the extent we were then.
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Re: The Dumbest Outrage

Postby gisambards » Wed May 09, 2018 12:37 am

Absentia wrote:Isolated, rogue crazy people who are tangentially motivated by politics aren't what I'm talking about (and it's not like nobody really famous and important got assassinated in, say, 1963).

There has been an abnormal spate of terror attacks directly motivated by domestic American politics over the last few years. That can hardly be ignored as a sign of political tension.
I'm talking about movements that bitterly divided sane, ordinary Americans. I don't think we're there yet, to the extent we were then.

I'm really not seeing a difference. What was happening then that isn't also happening today?
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