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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   24705 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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Judging by precedent, studiously ignoring them seems to be a popular option.

Yes. Multiple times in our history, our politics has chosen the openness of the electoral system over strict adherence to the law.

This kind of prosecutorial discretion used to be considered 'wisdom', the kind of compromise that keeps the system going at the expense of absolute legalism.

I always deeply resented the sort of "wisdom" you're describing, and that hasn't really changed. I resent the fact that our political establishment has insulated itself from any form of legal accountability, and one of the reasons I continue to support Trump is because I want the contrast as stark as possible. Prior to Trump, one could claim that the insulation from legal consequences was at least impartial, because both sides enjoyed it. Now we see that both sides enjoyed it because they were part of the establishment, not because the system was actually impartial. The common knowledge is useful for coordinating defiance to that establishment.

This wisdom is why the South is currently the most patriotic part of the country instead of a hotbed of political terrorism and separatist ideology.

I'm legitimately not sure whether you're being sarcastic or not. The argument would make sense either way.

I'm serious. The light hand used against the ex-rebels after the Civil War -- Reconstruction but not imprisonment or execution -- played an important role in reconciling the South to once-again membership in the Union.

No argument there. But Reconstruction didn't actually work like it was supposed to, resulting in Jim Crow, and that sowed the seeds for lots of problems we're still dealing with. There's an argument that letting things slide helps keep the peace, but if people start noticing that one cohesive group has its wrongdoings ignored, and another group has even non-wrongdoings hammered mercilessly, that builds resentment.

Whether or not a successful Reconstruction where blacks enjoyed equal rights and Southern whites were reconciled to this and to the Union was ever really in the cards is a pretty deep historical question that would probably take a lifetime of historical research to opine on in an informed manner.

But not coming down hard on ex-rebs absolutely kiboshed any chance of serious armed insurgency and Ireland-style long term separatism. I'm of the opinion that a bit stiffer a spine from Congress in the 1880s could have preserved most of the civil rights against made but, as per above, that's not really something I can back up to an adequate degree.

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