But it IS connected. The "baby" in your metaphorical bathwater was drowned at birth and needs to be buried.If we disagree or agree here defends on what the metaphorical baby represents. Slavery? Yes, then we agree. But since I was the one who set forth the metaphor, I would like to be able to define the terms within it. Slavery and its weaker cousin bigotry are the slime in the bathwater. Flush it out. Remember, the south isn't the only place in the world that ever had slavery. If I recall, some of the ancient societies also had slaves (and other barbarities such as routine torture, dicatorships, and so forth), yet we don't say 'ignore the wisdom of the ages'. There is a baby, distinct and separate from the bathwater. And I believe the baby must live!
We are not citizens of the states in which we live. We are AMERICANS. Florida to Alaska, SoCal to Maine. We are Americans first, last, always; to identify ourselves primarily as Virginians, Texans, Alabamans, Californians, etc. is a death sentence to our culture and to the West as a whole.Since you are arguing with, it seems, me, I guess I can immediately use myself as a counterexample to show you are off on a misguided tangent here. I am originally from New York, but have lived in several states. I do not consider myself anything but first and foremost a Christian, and then an American (but always a Giants fan).
Do I agree with a position I assume you hold, that those who put their love of 'Dixie' ahead of their love of being 'Americans' are wrong, strange, destructive, and worthy of strange looks? Absolutely.
Do I think that pride in regions, particularly of birth, is a bad thing? Absolutely not.
The way that the South lost--through its disunity and the impossibility of the states of the "Confederacy" to unite in their own defense--is the very proof of the utter naked falsehood of the idea of state primacy.I think that the Constitution set a much better balance. The federal has primacy, but only on those things where the constitution prescribes it to have primacy. The balance is what works. Totally centralized governments have been tried, repeatedly, throughout history. They can work as long as the governance in the centralized repository is good, but they can represent monsterous regimes when it is not. Eventually, you will get one of those monsters, it is only a matter of time. And the confederacy showed the flaws on too loose an arrangement. The founders were wise to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. They saw the errors of the confederacy, and put in place matters to correct them that kept in place the idea of individual sovereign states, part of a unified whole, but distinct and able to govern themselves in accordance to the desires of the people, subject merely to the constraints of the rights endowed to all men.
Should we throw away the Constitution due to the fact that for a time, it also permitted slavery? No, I think you would agree that baby grew up well. It did not need to be drowned in the slavery sludge. So why should all the good that is embodied in other aspects of southern heritage be subject to abject dismissal? Why should a suspicion of the concentration of power be scorned because the southern states once held slaves? How do you make such a philosophic jump?
The entire world has only one think keeping it from endless world war: a strong United States to define and keep international peace. That peace is maintained ONLY by a United States that is strong, free, and UNITED.No disagreement, at all. As a matter of fact, nothing but strong agreement.
State's rights applied would be a death sentence for billions of people.Obviously, I do not think your concluding statement follows from what you argued just above. To me, it was akin to stating that "The New York Yankees have been a dominant team throughout the history of baseball. The color blue is an abomination which must be removed from the spectrum."
There IS a role for the states as a COUNTERWEIGHT to the Federal government.Exactly. And to be a counterweight, it must not have its weight blown away as a feather with the rhetorical wind of 'the south equals slavery, states rights equals support of slavery'.
That works to keep the Federal government from becoming too overbearing, and gives us "laboratories of freedom" -- state legislatures -- to test out ideas before taking them national. But to advocate the primacy of states over the Federal government is political idiocy at best, malign fascism at worst. N-O T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U.The constitution spells out which sovereignity has premicy where. The federal, as proscribed in the constitution. The states, everywhere else.
Our nation would be better off if it remembered that. We seem to have forgotten " as proscribed in the constitution. The states, everywhere else."