its amazing how people rationalize their beliefs. and scary too.

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

I dunno whats worse, being property or 3/5 of a person

So basically people in the South are still pissed off they don't have the right to own people. Mmmk.

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1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi

That does seem to be what its all about, doesn't it.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

maybe its more about people unwilling to deal with the complexities of life, be it past or present. i.e. black and white, all or nothing thinking. one can appreciate many aspects of the south, such as the beautiful architecture, the food, the language, the literature (faulkner, eudora welty, walker percy, carson mcmullers, harper lee, tennesse williams etc.) the music (jazz, country blues, from muscle shoals to new orleans to nashville etc) the land itself, including beautiful coastlines, mountain ranges, etc and yet realize that their were many abuses of the indigenous and "imported" peoples. its a mixed bag. and one issue does not negate the other.

think of turkey, which is a fairly new (1915?) country, set up by a fairly progressive guy -Ataturk - who wanted a modern, secular state, i.e. non muslim, and succeeded on many of these wishes. However, along the way, he just happened to massacre a lot of kurds and armenians. It's been illegal to speak of such things in Turkey - or to even speak kurdish - for quite a while, and only now are the Turks willing to think about the faults of their founding father.

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

For a lot of people in the South, it's about what happened to their direct ancestors that might explain some of the leftover angst about that war.

Take my great-grandmother on my father's side for instance. Her family had a small farm on the Catawba river in NC. Just a small family farm, didn't own any slaves, probably in what would be considered the lower economic strata of that time, Scottish mountain folk who wanted no part of the war and just to be left alone.

Then in the last few months of the war Sherman's army comes rolling thru that area, and Union calvary took everything that wasn't nailed down and burned down everything but their house.

From my grandmother's description, after that my great-grandmother had a deep-seated hatred of the federal government almost to her dying day. In her view, they'd minded their own business, hadn't owned slaves, had remained at least neutral in the war and hadn't done anything against the federal government - so why in hell did their own government and army steal everything they owned and literally burn them out of house and home?

By the same token, during Lee's forays into the northern states, I'd imagine there were some Pennsylvania farmers who hated the South until their dying days after having their farms looted by Confederate troops.

Then you had the Reconstruction Era. The states that had seceded were under military rule and occupation for upwards of 5 years or better after the war - that's an inglorious claim to fame that no other area of the country can make. And you had the unscrupulous activities of individuals known collectively as "carpetbaggers" who took advantage of the situation for their own personal gain. I'd imagine there were instances as well where some of the occupying troops didn't see the need for personal restraint and got away with what they could.

Even George Carlin many years ago, talking about the way the federal government had treated the native Indian tribes, and in reference to the Reconstruction Era and military occupation, said he considered the South to be just another minority that had been screwed over by the federal government. If I remember correctly, this was back in the 80's - he made mention in the same tape of all the Reagan administration officials that had had to resign or been indicted for unscrupulous activities.

And for some of the states that eventually seceded, it WAS the question of state's rights and the legitimate role of the federal government that was the straw that broke the camel's back and finally pushed them into secession - some states, such as NC, didn't secede until asked by the federal government to supply troops for use against the core states that had already seceded - they saw this as an illegitimate use of the army by the federal government to impose it's will by force of arms over individual states, regardless of who fired the first shot.

And it was by no means a unanimous decision - in NC at least, a large portion of the population wanted no part of secession and wished to remain in the Union. So, given what happened in the war and during Reconstruction, you can imagine some of the hard feelings that were engendered when people who had wanted no part of this whole mess ostensibly received the same treatment as the firebrands that had started it, simply because of which state they lived in.

Bottom line - war and it's aftermath is a bloody messy business, with hardships and hard feelings that often last for years for those affected by it. Look at what's going on in Afghanistan and Iraq - I'd imagine there are farmers over there who could give a whit less who runs their country, as long as they're left in peace, but are pissed off at us because a stray bomb or shell took out their goat herd or a family member.

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Just say "NO" to Ethanol - Drive Diesel

Mitchell Oates
Mooresville, NC
'87 300D 212K miles
'87 300D 151K miles - R.I.P. 12/08
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD 67K miles
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club

I find it funny how peoples opinions are unchanged by information or facts.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty..... http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_tea_party_militia.html?source=mypi

Its there right to do that, might keep the Federal boys a bit more honest if more states jump on board.

I'd love to see the states governments take a bit of power back from those morons in DC.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Like the morons in the state capitals do anything better.

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1979 Black on Black, 300CD (sold), 1990 Black 300SE, Silver 1989 Volvo 780, 1988 300CE (vanished by the hands of a girlfriend), 1992 300CE (Rescue).

They should be arrested and charged with inciting and promoting domestic terrorism. This nonsense of a small minority of political malcontents taking up arms should be dealt with by the full authority of the federal government. If they don't like the law they should either leave the country or elect a majority whom support their views. This is a country of laws, not mob rule. If they want to die by the bullet, then so be it. I don't have a problem with executing traitors or terrorists.

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Question Authority before it Questions you.

Aren't they only 'Questioning Authority'?

Seems like your tag line should read different than what you have there...

As far as the idea of States' Rights. I am a believer in the FEDERAL SYSTEM as written in the CotUS.

The Federal Government has defined areas in which it should be playing. Over the past 70 - 80 years it has usurped a lot of the areas that were once reserved for the states.

Either we reverse this or just junk the 50 states and create say 7 regional governments, with no real power as in the Departments in France or Counties in the UK.

I for one feel that in the Civil War both sides fought with valor and honor and should be honored

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"I have no convictions ... I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy"

Current
Monika '74 450 SL
BrownHilda '79 280SL
FoxyCleopatra '99 Chevy Suburban
Scarlett 2014 Jeep Cherokee
Krystal 2004 Volvo S60
Gone
'74 Jeep CJ5
'97 Jeep ZJ Laredo
Rudolf ‘86 300SDL
Bruno '81 300SD
Fritzi '84 BMW
'92 Subaru
'96 Impala SS
'71 Buick GS conv
'67 GTO conv
'63 Corvair conv
'57 Nomad

Big difference between "questioning authority" vs. reaching for your gun. One is done through debate and reasoning, the other one is done by using threats of violence and death.

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Question Authority before it Questions you.

As yet, they are trying to go thru it legally. AT THIS TIME, according to the article, they are going thru it legally. . So, if they want to form it and what not, why do you have an issue with it? Now if they step over the legal line, fine. Send them on a federal sponsored vacation to warm and sunny Gitmo.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

"Step out of line, the man come, and take you away"

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

I live in Oklahoma and know some of these states rights people.

I like to point out to them that during the Viet-nam era they were all for the Feds mowing down protesters.

Now they are the protesters and fear that the Feds are going to come after them.

I try to caution them about this, and point out that if the Feds did not just wipe out the Veit-nam protersters then why do they think the Feds are coming for them? They find this line of thought upsetting as it implies that they are not important enough for the Feds to waste their time on.

One of them told me he had to do something, even if it was wrong. I pointed out that Tim McVeigh thought the same way. (Invoking the name of McVeigh here has a way of bringing people back to reality. Oklahoma is small enough that many people here know someone that McVeigh killed.)

How can anyone reason with this type of thinking? I sugessted that if this ever gets going they call themselves "The Dale Gribble Brigrade".

If you really want to set one of these folks off then let them rant for an hour or so and then tell them you liked their speech better in the original German.

The only good thing about this whole thing is that these folks represent about .00001% of the population. The best part about this is that it makes it easy for the Feds to keep tabs on them.

They don't like hearing that, either.