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If the police are concerned enought to have an entire family handcuffed and on the ground, they are not going to put up with a dog running around.

I was just up fixing supper and I saw that video on the Abram's report on MSNBC. That dog walked outta that car wagging his tail and playfully sidling up to the officer the way dogs do when they want to be a part of what the "humans" are doing -- and boy, they always do! It was really cute to see -- up until that part where the dog's head gets blown open like a melon from a shotgun blast.

Oh, but it's just a dog -- who cares, right? Wrong. I watched how those officers responded, and when I saw their positions and how they jolted into full response mode, it looked like "THE TRAINING" kicking in. The U.S. have thoroughly militarized their police force, and it shows.

Oh yeah, it's just a dog, and that Scott what's-his-name that got killed in his California home during a no-knock raid was just one guy, and that elderly black gentleman who died of a heart attack during a no-knock raid was just an old man, and Amadou Diallo shouldn't have pulled his wallet on those NY cops, and those folks in Waco were just ignorant wackos. It all doesn't mean a damn thing -- just scattered anecdotes among a sea of good solid Andy Griffith types, right? Wrong again. It is 100%, top-down, symptomatic. Hell, Illinois just let out four death row inmates who were tortured into confession -- that Leroy Orange guy got electric shocks to his balls and an electric rod up his ass. So yeah, everything's just hunky-freakin'-dory, Mr. Gridlock.

You won't find much difference between what Washington and Madison thought and what Jackson thought right down to what Lincoln thought. Their ideas were the same.

Washington urged an "immovable attachment" to the national union. So did Lincoln. The changes I bet you don't like came later.

Jefferson advocated the right of secession, from England in the Declaration of Independence and from the Union in subsequent writings.

You're right, it was only about 66%. Now it's down to 0%.

I suppose slavery could have ended here the way it ended in England and Brazil -- nonviolently. Instead we chose to slaughter a million people and discard the original vision of the republic. Oh well, at least slavery's gone, huh?

You're right, it was only about 66%. Now it's down to 0%.

I suppose slavery could have ended here the way it ended in England and Brazil -- nonviolently. Instead we chose to slaughter a million people and discard the original vision of the republic. Oh well, at least slavery's gone, huh?

>> Gosh, old Honest Abe is so eloquent it almost brings tears to my eyes.

> Lincoln is talking about a revolutionary right.

> There is no right to unilateral state secession under U.S. law.

OK, I understand now. It's acceptable to gain your independence by outright war and bloodshed, but unacceptable to do it by the peaceful consent of the people.

Sorry, in 1858-59 more tariff revenue was generated by Boston ($5,133,414.55) than by the 10 largest southern ports combined ($2,874,167.11). And New York generated almost 7 times as much revenue as Boston ($35,155,452.75). All figures from "Lifeline of the Confederacy" by Stephen R. Wise.

Charles Adams of "When in the Course of Human Events" cites tariff revenues from the 1830's and 1840's of $90 million from the South, $17.5 million from the North, for a total of $107.5 million. As confirmation of this, he points out that these amounts are proportional to the exports of both sides -- $214 million from the South, $47 million from the North.

Fort Sumter was a military fort, nothing more and nothing less. The Customs House in Charleston is, if memory serves, on East Bay Street. Perhaps you can see the wisdom behind putting a customs house miles away from the wharves where the tariffs would be collected but it makes no sense to me. Can you explain the logic to me?

Read my words: I said "floating" customs houses. You make my point: there is no wisdom in having a customs house miles away from the wharves. That's why Lincoln gave the authority to set up ships to collect tariffs out on the water.

>> The slave trade would go through New York and Rhode Island; the slaves would be sold South ....

Interesting premise, except for one thing. Slave imports, legal slave imports, ended in 1808 through federal legislation as the Constitution provided. Slavery was illegal in New York by 1827. So how could this be fueling the tariff engine you describe in 1860?

There was plenty of clandestine slave trading going on. By far most slaves went to Brazil, but a few were sold to the South. Slave trading was a hanging offense, but that sentence was only carried out one time, in 1862, when the Yankee slave trader Nathanial Gordon was hanged after being captured with a boatload of slaves going to the West Indies.

Nevertheless, the North still profited handsomely from slave labor, even without official engagement in the slave trade. That's because they collected tariffs on goods produced with slave labor. Whether you import 'em or just breed 'em, they're still slaves.

>> I always thought some of the Northern states should have seceded in protest of this violation of their own states' rights.

Interesting, except that, of course, arbitrary secession is not an action guranteed by the Constitution and is illegal.

First, the Constitution did not explicitly forbid secession, and therefore by Amendments 9 and 10 this right was retained by the States and the people. The Constitution, at least as originally framed, does not give us rights, it only denies the government certain rights.

Second, it was Abraham Lincoln himself who most eloquently affirmed the right of secession in his July 4, 1848 letter to the New York Tribune:

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world . . . Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit. "

Gosh, old Honest Abe is so eloquent it almost brings tears to my eyes.

Third, the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence affirms the natural right of secession. Do you think King George thought the American colonists had a "right" to secede from Britain? No. But what some politician thinks has no bearing on natural rights.

But if it was a 'states rights' issue, it is interesting to note how the south was against states rights in this instance but claim to be all for it in others.

Absolutely. Very well said. You won't find me defending either Northern or Southern hypocrisy. And there is plenty of it all around.

Hell, it was Massachusetts that threatened to secede four times, first on the adjustment of state debts, second on the Louisiana Purchase by Jefferson (clearly unconstitutional), third during the War of 1812; and fourth on the annexation of Texas. One resolution actually passed the state house. Those wascally webels!

Not the only instance, apparently.

That's the beauty of the net -- you get to forge your ideas under the scrutiny of thousands of other people.

You got me there, Walt. Sorry, that was sloppy history on my part.

Lincoln was not blockading Ft. Sumter before the skirmish, but he was setting up floating custom houses to collect taxes and tariffs from ships using the Charleston port. Lincoln's primary concern was collecting tax revenue. He saw the Confederacy drawing away to establish free trade with England and the rest of Europe, and it horrified him. "What then will become of my tariff?" were his words.

A free trade zone between the Confederate States and Europe would have been a disaster to the Union's tax revenue, since the South was paying nearly 90% of all tariff money received by the federal government.

It was a great game for the North. The slave trade would go through New York and Rhode Island; the slaves would be sold South to harvest the cash crops; the South would sell the cotton and tobacco to Europe in exchange for industrial goods they did not produce; the North would collect large tariffs on these exchanges. A wonderful racket. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 helped sustain it: the federal government decreed that all Northern states must return all runaway slaves to their "proper owners". I always thought some of the Northern states should have seceded in protest of this violation of their own states' rights.

Interesting quote from Robert Penn Warren -- I'll have to read that. As I recall, he was a prominent writer from the Southern Agrarian movement, right?

But they were warned:

Who opened hostilities? Lincoln did, by blockading sea ports. This itself an act of war.

Who shot a gun first? Yes, the secessionists shot first at Ft. Sumter. Whoop de freakin' do -- the total death toll was one poor horse.

Who drew the first human blood? It was a Massachusetss regiment marching through Baltimore on April 19, 1861, firing on civilians and killing twelve. (Sheesh, what is it about that April 19th date?!)

You are correct -- the Confederates were warned. It was a member of Jefferson Davis' own cabinet, Robert Toombs, who sounded the alarm. He was ardently opposed to firing on Ft. Sumter. He correctly saw it as falling for Lincoln's bait to draw them into war:

The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has ever seen, Mr. President. It is suicide, it is murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountains to ocean; and legions, now quiet, will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary, it puts us in the wrong. It is fatal.

For all those around the world who would secede from a tyrannical government, please heed the words of Robert Toombs. Do not fall into the trap of war. Secede firmly, quietly, and peacefully.

The American secession from Britain in 1776 was bloody, yes, and it was one of those rare successes. At least in that secession the British fired first.

Too bad Robert Toombs had not been president of the Confederacy in 1861.

Yes, when you put hot coffee in a thermos, it will eventually assume room temperature.

Perhaps the melting of the steel beams was inevitable. But if it had been delayed by even a couple of hours, thousands of lives might have been saved.

Sometimes, there are materials that are too dangerous and need to be banned. Not always,but indeed sometimes.

Goodness, what can I say? I am sorry to hear that your father died from asbestos exposure. And I'm sure there are many more stories like it out there.

Perhaps the answer isn't a total ban on the substance itself, but the adoption of more stringent safety standards for working with it. I wonder what the practices were in your father's day. Did they even wear respirators? I don't know, I'm just asking.

My father-in-law once worked in coal mines, and he knew many people with the black lung syndrome. But modern technology has transformed the coal-mining industry, and it is much safer to be a coal miner today than it used to be.

Perhaps the total ban on asbestos is an example of "throwing out the baby with the bathwater".

Ooh, the plot thickens.

I went to the article at OverLawyered.com and tried to follow the link to the Port Authority directive. The link is broken. I wonder if anyone has a copy of this document?

Thank you. Your hurricane example is still valid, and it got me thinking.

Precisely. Another example is the ban on DDT, which has caused the deaths of a million people from malaria. Thank you, Rachel Carson. Indeed, it is a "Silent Spring" when your village has been wiped out by malaria.

Another example might be excessively stringent restrictions on arsenic in drinking water. You can waste millions of dollars achieving ridiculously low levels, and maybe save a couple of lives. But those millions of dollars might save thousands if spent in other ways. That is also an example of "opportunity cost".

Not necessarily true.

Let's say you are driving a Ford Pinto in 1973. A drunk driver rear-ends your car, and the gas tank explodes, killing you. The drunk driver would not be the "only" one to blame for your death.

Your loved ones would blame the drunk driver and the people who designed the faulty gas tank.