LogFAQs > #971003399

agesboy posted...

yeah sure the confederacy fought for state rights to uphold slavery, treating some human being as subhumans compared to other human beings

they are TOTALLY legit

(i still live in louisiana if pappy is trying to audit me. flag/robert e lee fascination has confused me most of my life)

Your confusion is probably because you don't understand the CSA was fighting for a lot more than to just preserve slavery -- which, in all honesty, would've eventually ended there anyway without a war (as was the case everywhere else in the world -- among other things, it was a reason for the USA fighting for independence because the Brits were outlawing it throughout their colonies). And, overlooking that Robert E Lee had distinguished himself in the Spanish-American War, there's been a North-South divide in the US for centuries, which is understandable because of the country's size and diversity.

However, the idea that some individuals are entitled to other individuals' labor for free is a cornerstone of most governments. The verbiage has changed, with things like "tithing" falling out in favor of "taxation" and the amount claimed has varied (it's a lot more today than it was historically in most places), but the underlying elements are the same. Even the way we describe citizens reflects the nation that they belong to their government.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The sort of people who think along those lines are really saying "People who disagree with ME are wrong". And if anything, those are the sorts of people who should probably be locked away from everyone else.

But unfortunately, those are quite often the kinds of people who get into power and lock up (or murder) everybody else.

agesboy posted...

There's propaganda and then there's empirically proven history. Like, do you think the holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy? At that point you aren't disagreeing with a person or a group of people; you're disagreeing with history itself. I KNOW you're gonna disagree with this train of thought based on less specific terms but seriously, do you also not think holocaust deniers are a nutjob? We have that level of proof for a lot of stuff.

...that's not how propaganda works. Propaganda CAN use the truth -- and most propaganda does use at least some truth (or aspects of the truth). However, the truth you choose to emphasize and the truth you choose to downplay can be used to create highly-biased, motivating statements to incite extreme behavior. The idea that propaganda is necessarily untrue material is just patently wrong and there are -- to put in your words -- "empirically proven history" to that effect.

And the idea of "disagreeing with history" is silly since history isn't necessarily some great static, unchanging object. We're constantly revising our opinions of historical events as new facts emerge or new contexts inform our narratives. However, most people believe the Holocaust happened (although their understanding of it can be relatively low), whereas a good portion of this board STILL tries to claim 9/11 was an inside job, the moon landing was faked, and countless other widely-debunked conspiracy theories. All of that is their right under free speech and, to be blunt, if history wasn't able to challenged, some conspiracy theories that turned out to be true would be denied -- governments HAVE actually done a lot of the things people claim.

agesboy posted...

It's easy (and, well, correct) to say the government manipulates public opinion, but you can't just oppose the status quo because it is the status quo. You need a reason for stuff like "MLK was assassinated" like "the FBI literally told him to kill himself or they'd blackmail him".

What? Not sure what you were going for, but the MLK assassination was unrelated to the FBI's blackmail attempt. Unless you're suggesting a conspiracy theory in lieu of how MLK was actually killed? Not sure what you're going for. However, the killer confessed and acknowledged having confessed.

Conner4REAL posted...

The biggest blurred line is where you are inciting a crime or your words actually cross over the line.

the age old yelling fire in a crowded theater or convincing someone else to commit a crime or inciting a riot.

The nature of most criminal misconduct is widely open to interpretation. It's generally what a prosecutor decides they want to pursue, often based on what they think they can win and what it'll do for their public standing.