[QUOTE=c.captain;153485]let me also just say regarding the US Civil War that unlike WWII the vanquished were not forced to erase all symbols of their past which led to the conflict but in all cases, the losers were the aggressors and started the war with their actions. Germany forbade all symbols of Nazism and Japan foreswore all militarism in their new constitution yet the American south was allowed to retain the Confederate flag which I believe was a terrible mistake so now today there remains a split in the US which will not ever be healed as a result. The US south was never forced to foreswear their secessionist past which was WRONG for the nation!
America’s bloodiest and most needless war never has ended even to this day. It was started for horrible reasons but the vanquished somehow still believe their cause was just. IT WASN’T THEN AND NEVER WILL BE![/QUOTE]
Good thread but C.Capt, you lost me on this post.
First, any comparison of the CSA to Nazi Germany is regrettable and misplaced. The Nazi party was vanquished as were it followers. The defeated CSA and followers were still Americans and the goal was reunification.
Second, we have a number of cadets who call south of the Mason-Dixon line home. Regarding the display of the Stars & Bars, they feel it represents heritage, not hate. Out of respect for their Yankee classmates, they keep such displays discreet.
Third, I find our southern friends to be rabidly loyal US citizens. They will defend the US of A with greater passion than you could imagine.
Still fighting the war? Really? The only hazard to Yankees I’ve experienced is a serious warning not get pulled over for a traffic violation is South Carolina while in possession of a Connecticut license.
Maybe I don’t know what I don’t know but I just don’t buy the us vs them argument.
It should be mentioned that, while abominable and inexcusable, slavery was legal practice in the good ole Union, and was aided and abetted to the fullest degree by Northern businessman as well as Southern.
That is, until the sitting administration decided it was no good for them, and responded by blockading, invading, and occupying their neighbors by force of arms, killing people who by the Norths own opinion were not CSA citizens but merely US citizens in rebellion. Thus openly admitting they were killing their own people over standing US law which was not abolished until the 13th amendment in 1865, conveniently after the offending parties were laid low. This righteous, godly Union then celebrated their victory by committing wholesale genocide against entire Nations of Native Americans…how is this ok I ask all of you??
The South had it dead wrong about slavery!! They should have abolished the practice, assisted their former slaves, and moved on as part of the US or their own nation. But to laud the Union ignores verified history accepted by both sides. Flag waving by proponents of either side is absurd, ignores terrible evil and deeds on both sides, and is downright distasteful.
BTW, i am a proud patriotic US citizen and glad of it. Our flag had flown over many noble deeds. I cannot agree that the Civil war was one of them, the doctrine that might makes right and you have no right to break away and form your own country smacks of King George III and the British Empire…
Also I agree with jetryder that the us vs. them mentality is part of what is destroying our nation as we speak, IMO.
Hated to contribute to derailing this here Nazi thread but couldn’t contain myself…
As for the Waffen-SS, yes an inexcusable and evil organization…Interesting point of fact, there is one Waffen-SS officer who was exonerated after the war by the Western allies for his affiliation and actually commended for his humanity. Read about him the other day and had no previous idea. He is the lone exception, however.
Slavery in the USA was on its way out anyway. Advances in farming technology would have made slavery obsolete and cost prohibitive.
People make it seem that slavery was a southern thing only. While it is a dark spot on the USA’s history we were neither the first nor the last country to have the institution of slavery.
before I answer individual posts to this thread let me make a few statements for the record:
I did not first bring up the Civil War in this thread and nor make any comparison between the Confederacy and Nazidom. My point was and still is that after they were defeated utterly, Nazism was made illegal in Germany and all signs of Nazism banned. The same holds true when a militarist Japan was forbidden to have a standing army after WWII. My comparison was that after the Civil War, the south was not made to destroy all symbols of the Confederacy and I believe they should have been forced to because even to this day, any display of the Confederate States’ flag symbolizes the south’s side of the war which is an affront to the Union. I say that this has fostered a division in the USA for close to the 150 years since the war ended. This has to do with one side being an aggressor in a terrible cause but not about the conduct of the other side since there are always crimes committed during war and the Union hardly is spotlessly clean in their conduct. It is about the side of the vanquished being chastened in defeat which was certainly true for Japan and mostly true for German but I really don’t see where the south was truly humbled in their defeat? It didn’t take long for white supremacy to take hold in the south after the war and I say something was lost where this so called “southern heritage” excuse was allowed so that the Stars and Bars could keep flying in the Old Confederacy. I say the entire United States of America lost when the south was allowed to enact its own laws after the war. They should have been forced under gunpoint to true and full unification with the rest of the nation!
Nazism is in and of itself a crime against humanity and members of the Waffen SS represented the worst of that hideous ideology. I brook no sympathy for any Nazi and believe any man who was in the SS is guilty of war crimes by simply being a member of it, hence my strongest possible condemnation for Pieter Schelte Heerema’s legacy. If he was a member of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine it would be more easily excused, but the SS were the ones who carried out the “final solution” and murdered millions upon millions of defenseless civilians in the most heinous and horrible of ways imaginable. That the photo of Heerema shows him smiling as he is, tells me of a man proud to be wearing that uniform and hardly one who put in on at fear of some death. As far as I know, no one was ever impressed into the Waffen SS. You always volunteered and were not accepted until you proved your Arian purity.
how is imposing a naval blockade of southern ports swerving into an unnecessary war? Yes, a blockade can be considered as an act of war but it is hardly an act of aggression.
Violence is not the only diplomatic and economic tool at a country’s disposal, and it wouldn’t have taken anything so obvious to let the CSA’s economic system fail on its own and bring them back, humbled and ready to play ball.
if the south could not challenge the Union Navy in their blockade and if the Union Army made no incursions onto Confederate soil, would force the Army of Virginia to invade the North out of frustration and again becoming perpetual aggressors in the war. The North could have played the Civil War with many more smarts than they did and at less cost too!
[QUOTE=c.captain;153515] 2. Nazism is in and of itself a crime against humanity and members of the Waffen SS represented the worst of that hideous ideology. I brook no sympathy for any Nazi and believe any man who was in the SS is guilty of war crimes by simply being a member of it, hence my strongest possible condemnation for Pieter Schelte Heerema’s legacy. If he was a member of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine it would be more easily excused, but the SS were the ones who carried out the “final solution” and murdered millions upon millions of defenseless civilians in the most heinous and horrible of ways imaginable. That the photo of Heerema shows him smiling as he is, tells me of a man proud to be wearing that uniform and hardly one who put in on at fear of some death. As far as I know, no one was ever impressed into the Waffen SS. You always volunteered and were not accepted until you proved your Arian purity.[/QUOTE]
Don’t think anyone can argue with that.
I would however like to know more about Heerema’s mitigating culpability. What exactly did he do to warrant forgiveness?
tell us how the non slave states “aid and abet to the fullest degree” the institution of slavery in the south?..please qualify this statement with factual citations…
That is, until the sitting administration decided it was no good for them, and responded by blockading, invading, and occupying their neighbors by force of arms, killing people who by the Norths own opinion were not CSA citizens but merely US citizens in rebellion.
it was the Confederate States which first declared their secession from the United States. It was the militia of South Carolina (who was the first to declare their secession) that fired the first volley on a United States military fortification in Charleston Harbor, not the otherway round. The Confederacy were the ones to declare a shooting war with the Union. Maybe the Union army was about to resupply Fort Sumter but that is not a declaration of war and firing on it in “self defence” does not wash! Anyone in the Confederacy who took up arms against the United States was then therefore a belligerent combatant and fair in the rules of engagement.
Thus openly admitting they were killing their own people over standing US law which was not abolished until the 13th amendment in 1865, conveniently after the offending parties were laid low.
for the Union, the war did not start over slavery but slavery was most certainly squarely behind the Confederate States declaring their secession from the USA. The Union’s position for the first two and a half years of the war was for preservation of the republic. Only after the Battle of Antietam in late 1862 did Lincoln have the political capital to finally do what he knew must be done to make the war a truly just cause against a hideous ideology which finally culminated in the Emancipation Proclamation. Pardon me all to HELL that the Civil War did not start out about slavery for the Union but for Lincoln it always was the reason behind the war and he proved to no have fear and temerity to take a principled stand on the matter of slavery when many others in the Union leadership did not want to make it the main reason the Union was fighting and losing hundreds of thousands of men each year.
This righteous, godly Union then celebrated their victory by committing wholesale genocide against entire Nations of Native Americans…how is this ok I ask all of you??
what the USA did to eradicate native Americans from their land in the 1870’s and 1880’s was tantamount to criminal genocide and is a horrible black smirch in the history of our Nation. Had Lincoln lived, how the US would look different today with a different historical narrative is something scholars like I always want to explore. Would Lincoln have wanted to wholesale kill or displace native Americans like his successors seemed to wish to do with relish. How might the reconstruction been different and how might that alone led to real unification between north and south?
The South had it dead wrong about slavery!! They should have abolished the practice, assisted their former slaves, and moved on as part of the US or their own nation.
glad you accept that
But to laud the Union ignores verified history accepted by both sides. Flag waving by proponents of either side is absurd, ignores terrible evil and deeds on both sides, and is downright distasteful.
BULLSHIT…I am not going to coddle the vanquished when their cause was WRONG and they refuse to be CHASTENED in their DEFEAT! The South needs to apologize for starting a terrible war for terrible reasons FIRST and then let the healing begin!
BTW, i am a proud patriotic US citizen and glad of it. Our flag had flown over many noble deeds. I cannot agree that the Civil war was one of them, the doctrine that might makes right and you have no right to break away and form your own country smacks of King George III and the British Empire…
sorry but no sale that the cause of the original Patriots in 1776 were somehow equal to the Rebels in 1861…NO COMPARISON and NO FORGIVENESS!
Also I agree with jetryder that the us vs. them mentality is part of what is destroying our nation as we speak, IMO.
when the South truly realizes their role in a time which almost destroyed the nation, then I will consider progress as being made but until then, I am doubtful we can ever be One Nation under God, indivisible, in Liberty and Justice for all…
[QUOTE=Slick Cam;153533]To respond would be so lengthy as to require its own thread in Scuttlebutt section if parties are interested in the discussion…
I’ll provide citations there or via PM if that doesn’t fly…[/QUOTE]
no it doesn’t require its own thread…it just takes effort to compose a reply here
[QUOTE=c.captain;153546]no it doesn’t require its own thread…it just takes effort to compose a reply here[/QUOTE]
This entire conversation is silly. It was a war that almost resulted in the USA not being the USA. It was started by the !%'ers in the south but fought by their minions. Once things went Lincoln’s way he freed the slaves. A lot of folks in the south AND north never got over that. Apparently people that are black scare the hell out of white people so they started the Jim Crow law and kept the ex-slaves and their descendants non-citizens for years. Poor black people and their poor white brethren went north to get jobs, both groups were looked down upon Then came the civil rights act which officially abolished the Jim Crow crap but not the mindset of the people. Nothing has changed except the poor white and poor black have even more in common today than ever.
Funny thing is, whenever I visit the south I read about some Civil War reenactment being held. What is up with that? Reenacting a war you lost? Don’t see the Japanese, Germans etc doing that insane crap. Celebrating your ‘heritage’ what heritage is that? Losing a war? Get over it. It is the US of A now, has been for many, many years.
[QUOTE=c.captain;153517]how is imposing a naval blockade of southern ports swerving into an unnecessary war? Yes, a blockade can be considered as an act of war but it is hardly an act of aggression.
if the south could not challenge the Union Navy in their blockade and if the Union Army made no incursions onto Confederate soil, would force the Army of Virginia to invade the North out of frustration and again becoming perpetual aggressors in the war. The North could have played the Civil War with many more smarts than they did and at less cost too![/QUOTE]
What would be the strategic objective of an invasion launched “out of frustration?” What would the marching orders look like for that one? “Take your army into this field and stomp up and down until the blockade is lifted?” You might be a fellow liberal, but you have a habit of raving like a freeper who’s furious that Obama hasn’t launched nuclear weapons against Mecca “to show um rag-heads who’se boss” or something.
[QUOTE=tengineer1;153551]Funny thing is, whenever I visit the south I read about some Civil War reenactment being held. What is up with that? Reenacting a war you lost? Don’t see the Japanese, Germans etc doing that insane crap. Celebrating your ‘heritage’ what heritage is that? Losing a war? Get over it. It is the US of A now, has been for many, many years.[/QUOTE]
bravo sir…BRAVO!
I simply love the southerners view of the war of valiant deeds done by brave shoeless soldiers for the “lost cause of the old Confederacy” when in reality those soldiers were not really fighting for anything other than preservation of an inhumane system of the very wealthy getting to own people in the pursuit of profits. I wonder what microscopic percentage of all southern soldiers owned or in any way benefited from slaves or slave owners yet these men marched line abreast into miniballs fired from rifled muskets or cannon shells bursting in their ranks and died hideously painful needless deaths as a result? No benefit to dying for themselves nor their kin, but they were sure pissed off because the Union Army set foot on their sacred soil! MADNESS!
Why still fly that battle flag and reenact those bloody battles (especially those the Confederate Armies lost like Gettysburg and Shiloh)? What point on earth does it prove? I swear to God they are proud of being foolish idiots! Here’s something for y’all, pretending to fight those battles again still won’t bring you that elusive victory you didn’t get a century and a half ago! ADMIT YOU LOST THAT ONE AND MOVE ON TO WATCHING YOUR NASCAR!
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;153565]Back to the original topic: SHOULD the owners of Pieter Schelte recant or not?
My vote: back track on the name or let’s do what we did to its namesake: bomb it into submission![/QUOTE]
hear, HEAR!
I also advocate grabbing the balls of any of these Dutch in the offshore industry and crushing them…Lord knows how much they like doing it to us in the GoM!
Fucking McDermott giving away everything to them in the late 90’s in OUR Gulf of Mexico. I was working for them at the time and witnessed first hand the hideous mistakes made by J Ray when HeereMac was dissolved. Giving Heerema the DB102 was a fatal act of incredible stoopidity which ultimately doomed the fools!
[QUOTE=Glaug-Eldare;153552]What would be the strategic objective of an invasion launched “out of frustration?” What would the marching orders look like for that one? “Take your army into this field and stomp up and down until the blockade is lifted?”[/QUOTE]
are you too daft to understand what taking an action out of frustration means? It means that if the Confederacy could not challenge our blockade with their navy then all they have to take action is on land. If the Union army didn’t cross into Confederate territory to fight then the CSA army would have to cross into the Union to do battle making them a further aggressor in the War. Everyone of you Confederate sympathizers seem to always use the term invasion against the Union. I say the Union never should have marched into the south nor engaged the Army of Virgina in anything other than a defensive battle on northern soil if OUR territory was violated.
I say the North should have just bottled the Confederacy in and cut off their air supply until they succumbed to economic hypoxia. Blockades and sanctions take time to work however and how long would the Union have waited?