The Absurd GOP

[Dio]

Seeing as the South was generally treated as a conquered nation, it's different. That was the Reconstruction Era. Southern states, and not even all, didn't even have members in the US congress until the 40th US Congress.

The South was a conquered nation? Not in 1862.

Notice how I "treated".

[The Grand Nudger]

Still wrong. That was part of the revisionist push post war, like all of those statues to traitors. Propaganda, not history. I also think that's a bad thing, and certainly a bad way to form an identity from which to govern in the present.

[Rev. Rye]

Even then, the "conquest" wouldn't happen until 1865, a bit less than three years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written. And even then, the South was treated surprisingly leniently.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Notice how I "treated".

Except they were not and that's just "lost cause" revisionist nonsense.

[Rev. Rye]

Notice how I "treated".

Except they were not and that just "lost cause" revisionist nonsense.

Of course, even most Lost Causers acknowledge that the war wasn't over by the time Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Admittedly, Antietam, the turning point of the war, was fought a few days before it was issued, but the Confederacy was by no means, treated as a conquered nation by this point. There'd still be over two and a half years left, with six battles even bloodier than Antietam left to come at that point.

[The Grand Nudger]

So, what have we learned? Tribalism bad. EO's bad. Anti-democratic policies bad. Anti-american policies bad.

Well, looks like the end of the GOP to me, then - but..somehow, I doubt it'll actually fall that way...

[LinuxGal]

Except they were not and that just "lost cause" revisionist nonsense.

Of course, even most Lost Causers acknowledge that the war wasn't over by the time Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Admittedly, Antietam, the turning point of the war, was fought a few days before it was issued, but the Confederacy was by no means, treated as a conquered nation by this point. There'd still be over two and a half years left, with six battles even bloodier than Antietam left to come at that point.

Antietam was the worst single day.   But issuing the Emancipation Proclamation was a brilliant piece of propaganda.  It transformed the war from being about "Muh staits raaaats" to slavery and took any possible intervention by Europe off the board.

[The Architect Of Fate]

So, what have we learned?  Tribalism bad.  EO's bad.  Anti-democratic policies bad.  Anti-american policies bad.

Well, looks like the end of the GOP to me, then - but..somehow, I doubt it'll actually fall that way...

Really all I got was Dio is bothsidism made manifest.

[Rev. Rye]

Of course, even most Lost Causers acknowledge that the war wasn't over by the time Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Admittedly, Antietam, the turning point of the war, was fought a few days before it was issued, but the Confederacy was by no means, treated as a conquered nation by this point. There'd still be over two and a half years left, with six battles even bloodier than Antietam left to come at that point.

Antietam was the worst single day.   But issuing the Emancipation Proclamation was a brilliant piece of propaganda.  It transformed the war from being about "Muh staits raaaats" to slavery and took any possible intervention by Europe off the board.

Well, for the North, anyway. Looking at several states' declarations of secession, not only do they mention slavery, in the cases of Georgia, Texas, and Mississippi, that's literally the first reason they gave.

And when Alexander Stevens, the VP of the CSA, gave his Cornerstone Speech, he stated outright that the CSA was founded on the foundation of slavery.

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

[The Grand Nudger]

Roses are red, and so is a field littered with bodies. I'm always down for griping about our government, that's on-brand. Still, it seems like we can give the respective sides the credit for all that they've worked for, and acknowledge that they fuck up in their own peculiar manners. I wouldn't have picked sedition, seccession, and white supremacy, but then again it's not my gop. The people want what the people want.