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Ensis Ferrae wrote:i agree that MLK was doing his speeches and travelling, ultimately for all human rights, not just blacks in the south. i think that Malcolm X did not get a holiday because of the 2 civil rights leaders, MLK was a christian, mr. X, a muslim. Additionally, MLK preached peaceable solutions, whereas malcolm X was more militant about gaining civil rights.

Or it could be that Malcolm X was more of a regional figure than MLK. If you had gone to California and said MLK's name they would have known who you were talking about. Malcolm X would have gotten you a puzzled look. He was well known in parts of the midwest and parts of the north east but was not really a major player on the national scene. He became much better known after his death. He was also a much more complicated figure that is still divisive even among those who admire him.

that honor goes to the Vikings.

How do you discover something that is already known? If I take a trip to England can I rename the country because I am discovering it for the first time, regardless of the fact people have been living there for quite some time? The Vikings didn't "discover" the western hemisphere, they were the first Europeans (that we know of) to make to make trips there.

As far as not understanding how one could confuse the Caribbean with India, well get rid of the idea that there is such a thing as the Caribbean and it becomes fairly easy to understand.

Ahtman wrote:How do you discover something that is already known?

I discovered a Burger King near my campus.

Someone else probably knew it was there before me.

On the subject of Malcolm X and Dr King....

Look at the major shifts in the 20th Century. Womens Suffrage, you had the Suffragists, who were peaceful, and the Suffragettes, who were more...direct (Kings Horse anyone?) Dr King and Malcolm X in a perverse way, needed each other. I think it was ultimately inevitable that the Blacks would get the vote. Malcolm X made Dr King seem the better candidate for negotiation. And yet Malcolm X and his more radical approach threatened to take over should the more peaceful Dr King be sidelined...

Slaves in the Border States controlled by the north throughout the war were not freed until six months after the war ended and were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. The south may have seceded to maintain their slave based economy but the war was about bringing them back into line until breaking the south economically by ending slavery became a necessary war tactic.

The disparity of how black troops were treated was interesting. Blacks fighting for the south were given full pay and fought in mixed units, not so for those fighting for the north.

Orkeosaurus wrote:Well, that's fair.

He still wasn't a Latino though. And he killed and enslaved a bunch of people that were native to Latin America.

I think most Latin American countries named it "Discovery Day" or something, because they didn't like Columbus.

of course, how the hell you confuse India with the carribbean, i will never know. At least the Vikings knew what they were doing when they were sailing, and discovering new lands.

Exactly. Vikings never get the credit they deserve for their seamanship. Just drinking beer and worshipping Thor.

i did not deny or refute that he enslaved, or besicked (i know its not a word, but he spread disease and illnesses to the locals) the natives. so yeah... if all it takes to get a holiday named for you is to kill off tons of people, and generally enslave them for "the greater good" then there should be a sight more holidays for those types of people

another thing that the US history books "taught" me in school, was that the Vikings found Iceland and Greenland "by accident" and that they navigated the same way feudal Japanese did (by keeping the shore in sight). which through my own reading, is quite frankly wrong. ohh, and originally, it was Vinland, not Greenland. Additionally, the Vikings have recently been thought to have extended their influence into regions that now have cities such as Moscow and Istanbul (tho the Istanbul thing, i know it used to be constantinople)

Ensis Ferrae wrote:besicked (i know its not a word, but he spread disease and illnesses to the locals)

It's not, but it should be.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:another thing that the US history books "taught" me in school

Isn't part of growing learning that most of the stuff you were taught as a kid was a load of ? To be fair it isn't just US history books that do this. Like Japanese history books that say that one day Japan was minding it's own business and the US for some unknown reason decided to be mean to them and stop shipping them oil. So, with a sigh and a heavy heart these peaceful people had to attack the US.

yes school systems are all faulty in one regard or another, but its another matter entirely, when me, as a high school junior can tell my teacher flat out that the book is wrong in one regard or another..

seems like the board of education should have a panel to check the truth behind statements made in "textbooks"


sorry.. Ahtman, i am rather mesmerized by your avatar sometimes

Ensis Ferrae wrote:Additionally, the Vikings have recently been thought to have extended their influence into regions that now have cities such as Moscow and Istanbul (tho the Istanbul thing, i know it used to be constantinople)

Constantinople was founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine. The Rus were a Norse tribe though.

The Byzantium emporer's had a mercenary Norse unit as guard-very fearsome evidently. Russia yes, the Norse heritage is celebrated in Russia if I remember correctly.

Hey, all I know is that we native sons of Virginia celebreate Lee-Jackson Day every year.

And as a Virginian, I'm going to tell you all that Robert E Lee was no "traitor".

You're right. He was a Traitor with a capital T. The only thing that saved his neck was he was kept around to try to quell the guerrilla activities that were still going on.

A miracle of generalship and from what I understand a truly decent man. However, as President I would have swung him from a tree.

Frazzled wrote:You're right. He was a Traitor with a capital T. The only thing that saved his neck was he was kept around to try to quell the guerrilla activities that were still going on.

A miracle of generalship and from what I understand a truly decent man. However, as President I would have swung him from a tree.

like the old tire swing me dad and i made when i was a kid?? sounds like fun!!

i should point out that many warfare innovations were brought about during the Civil war, such as trigonometry being used to calculate artillery fire. so regardless of whether you view the southerners of that time to be traitors or not, the war itself, in the long run helped us maintain a sort of "superior" position in world politics.

Boy, I oughta shoot you!

lol, i am naturally putting on my most sarcastic showing with the tire swing bit

I must warn you john, we have tested Genghis Connie's "Flingshot I" pumpkin slingshot. Yes, it can also be used to shoot water balloons out to 50 feet. No supersoaker water gun can match my water balloon launching uber pwonage!

MUAHAHAHA!

Fine.

I'll just get the hose!

JohnHwangDD wrote:Hey, all I know is that we native sons of Virginia celebreate Lee-Jackson Day every year.

And as a Virginian, I'm going to tell you all that Robert E Lee was no "traitor".

Actually agreed on General Lee, morally he was not a traitor. Factually, he was.

And yeah Lee-Jackson Day is the Friday before Martin Luther King Day, but it's not a proper holiday as nothing closes (except DMV, but screw them)

When I lived in VA, Lee-Jackson Day was *our* holiday when the Feds celebrated MLK day.

Lee-Jackson Day replaces MLK day.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Fine.

I'll just get the hose!

That won't help you John. Like everything else, texas hoses are bigger! (of course we're in a drought so nothing will be coming out of the hose but hey its the thought that counts)

We're in a drought, too.

But our hoses are thicker, and that's what *really* counts.

I'm confused Why would it replace MLK day? Couldn't you get two holidays? Isn't that better?

If everything that "deserved" a holiday got one... well no one would ever work. How about a holiday for the majority of my ancestry? We could call it NINA (No Irish Need Apply) day! People seem to forget that every race of people has been mistreated in one way or another, and honestly to this day even kind hearted people will display a strange form of stereotyping and racism. Saying hey your black, or white, or whatever is technically wrong. You might call me a white guy, but I am predominantly Irish by ancestry. Do we need to celebrate the confederacy? I won't say absolutely no, sometimes remembering a mistake is the best way to learn from it. I am not saying the south was entirely wrong, nor right. It was a turbulent time in this country, something to learn from... and rather then focusing on things like this from the past we should be looking forward to the rough times right in front of us, though we should never forget what we have left behind us.

Irish have St. Patty's Day.

@Frazz, You seem to have missed the point that I made about there being no Law maintaining forced membership in the union.

I again ask, "How can someone be guilty of a crime if there is no law dictating that such actions are in fact a crime?"

There was no law stating that the Souths actions would be considered treasonous. So how can they be traitors?

@sexist: It just *does*.

Frazzled wrote:
Yes Texas could Secede, as written in its constitution and agreed to when merged with the US (as well as the ability to split into five states, how cool is that). But it was the only state that could do that.

Virginia and New York both have it written into their state constitutions that they are allowed to secede, as well.

focusedfire wrote:

sebster wrote:Secede. Prima facie. Secession.

Not looking to criticise, just fyi.

Thank you, I've been relying on spellcheck a little to much lately.

Yeah, I do the same.

Upon reviewing the above mentioned documents I admit that race/slavery was one of the issues for secession for some states. But it was an issue only under the unions violation of states rights along with unfair restrictions on trade and actual property ownership(non-slave related).

As to slavery being the dominant issue I still disagree. Each state had its own causes for grievance. It does seem that the south felt that the north was using the slavery issue to openly violate its own laws, and to also use the issue to unfairly under-represent the states that maintained a legalized slave status. This seems to be the source of contention from the southern states point of view. Not so much that slavery was their issue but that it was the Northern states excuse to unfairly and unconstitutionally oppress the South.

Yeah, the North wasn't some noble neighbour looking to end slavery, and that's where it gets complicated. But in terms of the motives of the South its pretty clear. Or as you put it in your next post;

focusedfire wrote:Actually I think Ahtman put it more succinctly.

Yeah, he does that quite a bit around here. The sod .

Ensis Ferrae wrote:i should point out that many warfare innovations were brought about during the Civil war, such as trigonometry being used to calculate artillery fire. so regardless of whether you view the southerners of that time to be traitors or not, the war itself, in the long run helped us maintain a sort of "superior" position in world politics.

Half a million dead seems a heavy toll for minor ratio improvements in a field that was pretty much completed by the medieval period.

not saying that a field artillery "improvement" was the 'best' thing to come out of the war, there were naval fleet commanders who developed tactics for assaulting coastal defenses that actually saved a large portion of their fleet., thus saving many lives.

War is a long history of tragedy, of course its probably even worse if you are fighting people who, less than a year ago, were your neighbors and countrymen.

of course, it may just be me, but it seems that innovation seems to follow a simple formula: build a bigger or better weapon, use it on the enemy, the enemy in turn builds tougher armor to defend against that weapon, whilst developing a new weapon thats better than the one used on them, and so on and so forth.

Innovation is built on rivalry, but rivalry manifests itself outside of violent conflict. Many of the greatest advances in art, architecture, and engineering occurred because group 'x' felt the need to upstage group 'y'.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:not saying that a field artillery "improvement" was the 'best' thing to come out of the war, there were naval fleet commanders who developed tactics for assaulting coastal defenses that actually saved a large portion of their fleet., thus saving many lives.

War is a long history of tragedy, of course its probably even worse if you are fighting people who, less than a year ago, were your neighbors and countrymen.

of course, it may just be me, but it seems that innovation seems to follow a simple formula: build a bigger or better weapon, use it on the enemy, the enemy in turn builds tougher armor to defend against that weapon, whilst developing a new weapon thats better than the one used on them, and so on and so forth.

Technological innovation is built around competition, but its also built around long term stability. While war is a hyper competitive environment so you get lots of development, most innovation tends to be re-engineered concepts and the like. But big steps forward, starting with entirely theoretical concepts and decades of development, just doesn't get changed by war. A war won't bring us a quantum computer any quicker.

I think war just accelerates specific technologies ahead a few years, but doesn't really do anything to the overall rate of progress.