Socially Acceptable Hatred

American Thinker ^ | September 9, 2012 | James Lewis

[Sherman Logan]

Japan did not give up in WWII because the casualty rates were unacceptable.

They gave up because they had lost the ability to fight back effectively and (more importantly) because the moral shock of the A bomb finally gave those who wanted to give in the upper hand over the fight till everybody is dead crowd. And even then the extremists almost prevented the surrender.

Oh, I forgot the deadliest war of modern times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War

60% to 90% of population dead. Took place during and after our War. Paraguay picked a fight with an alliance of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. Quick look at map indicates this not a good idea.

[lentulusgracchus]

Its Orwellian preaching with - let’s face it - some pretty loose assumptions, is pretty offensive.

In what way is it "Orwellian"? Do you mean that it's "prolefeed", an invitation to "Two Minutes' Hate"? Or that it propounds the lesson Orwell learned the hard way, very nearly at the cost of his life, about dealing with the Communists in Spain when they got nasty about pushing the labor-syndicalist leadership of the Spanish Republican forces aside (and executing many of them), and taking over the war in the name of Stalin and Stalinism?

I'm not sure what you mean.

[lentulusgracchus]

... I largely agree with Karl. I hate it when that happens. BTW, I haven’t looked into his more doctrinal type writings recently, but if this article is typical the guy was a hell of a writer.

Really bellyfeel old Karl's prolefeed, do you? But you hate it when you realize what you're doing? Mmmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm.

Yeah, maybe there is a lesson in there somewhere.

[lentulusgracchus]

In actual fact, the tariff issue tended to unite the NW with the South (both mainly agricultural regions) against the NE. This allowed the South to dominate national politics for decades before the War.

So what do you do if you want to break that up?

Wedge issue!

[Sherman Logan]

The term “wedge issue” is usually used to describe a more or less unimportant issue blown out of proportion by the opposition to drive a wedge between two factions of its opponents.

That was not the case here, where slavery and its expansion was a quite genuine issue.

The expansion of slavery was a highly effective wedge, but as an issue it was created by southern and Democratic Party insistence on changing the 30 years settled Missouri Compromise to allow slavery to expand into Kansas and Nebraska.

So it was a wedge issue they created and used against their own interests.

In actual fact the issue was created by the extremist”fire-eaters” of the South whose true goal was to force the South out of the Union. They succeeded in accomplishing their faction’s goals, though very much against the interests of the South as a whole, as it turned out.