Most well known civil rights institutions are still centered on entitlements as the answer. Jackson, Sharpton, etal, get the publicity. What new ideas have either of those morons presented to help the blacks? Other than themselves I mean.

Arkansas celebrates Robert E. Lee Day, today. Why all these posts on Martin Luther King?

Because Lee was a traitor.

OJ:

Rrriiight, him and George Washington

No, he stuck with Virginia and his principles.

Yes, treason is a principle, just a bad one.

Palmcroft:

The Revolution too was a mistake.

OJ: subsidiarity

Palmcroft;

Subsidiarity needn't devolve so far or else it has no end but anarchy.

"people of this Commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, SOVEREIGN, and independent State; and do and forever hereafter shall exercise and enjoy every power...not hereafter be by them EXPRESSLY delegated to the Unitied States."

This was part of the New Hampshire state constitution adopted in 1792 three years after the US constitution and seems to indicate they thought of themselves as an independent state. (Which they were). No one accused them of being treasonous because they believed in states rights.

And by the way, at least Lee wrote his own speeches.

OJ: it's federalism, not anarchy; it doesn't become anarchy until the central government breaks with the federalist nature of the union it serves; sort of like the Supreme Court "discovering" a latent right to privacy and God-knows-what-else.

Lee was fighting ethical anarchy.

Where is it stated that states could secede because they disagree with the results of a Presidential Election? The very nature of a democracy implies that elections are bonding.

The Slavocracy could not tolerate the election of a "black Republican" and decided that since they could no longer control the results of elections, they would no longer abide by them. That is a pernicious doctrine.

Robert E Lee and the other Confederates were traitors. One can be sympathetic to Lee and some others because they did not fight for material gain themselves, but because they did not like the idea of armed soldiers traipsing through their homes. But they erred greatly and caused a great tragedy. Ultimately, they failed the test of moral strength and character to do what was the right, but painful, thing to do.

Instead of honoring those who fought for the Confederacy, we should honor those Southerners who fought for the Union. I believe they numbered 100,000 - a number greater than any single army deployed by the Confederacy.

They felt the right thing to do was to stick by their home state rather than the nation-state.

That's pretty understandable given the era.

Although given their cause was at bottom, the perpetuation and extension of a slave-holding counry (cf. Patrick Cleburne's suggestion going down like a lead weight) by armed force when they had lost at the ballot box, they shouldn't be celebrated as heroes.

Like you say, guys like Farragut and Thomas ought to get more credit than celebrating Robert E Lee Day.

"pernicious doctrine" (right of states to withdraw from the Union)

Might be pernicious, but the point of the discussion is whether it was "assumed" at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. I sincerely think it was.

By the way your use of the word pernicious, is odd since the constitution had other language to the effect that slaves were to be counted as 3/5 of a person. Is that pernicious? If so are you saying the original constitution was pernicious in total?

Is it pernicious if Britain withdraws from the EU on the election of someone they disagree with? Why not just say the that doctrine weakened the US Constitution?

I fail to recall secessionists presenting that point of view at the US Supreme Court before they lobbed ordnance into the walls of Ft Sumter.

Palmcroft:

Why should a county stay in a state? A city in a county? A street in a city? A citizen in a street? A child in his household?

OJ:

Government stratification should increase only to the point at which the inherent rights of the governed are fully protected. When the first level of government cannot protect the inherent rights of the governed, another layer must be added; however, that layer supersedes as little as possible the aegis of previous layers, it, for the most part, just supplements ancillary layers so that the law of subsidiarity can remain in effect.

"Big Government" is not a complaint about national defense, a supplement to state and local layers; it's a complaint about the federal government deciding the issue of abortion or sodomy, all of which supercede decisions more appropriate at layers closer to the individual.

Lee was fighting for subsidiarity when he was fighting for his friends and neighbors against the power grab from D.C.

Well said by JimGooding

Ali
They didn't take the issue to the Supreme Court because they felt the Supreme Court, a branch of the US Govt. could not legally exert Jurisdiction over the Subject Matter (being secession)

When a man is invited onto your property, you can't attack him because of trespass. When you ask him to leave and he doesn't, then he has initiated the aggression against you property rights.

OJ
Martin Luther King was honorable and more importantly courageous. My original remark about Bobby Lee was to merely tweak a more lively
discussion. Was he a traitor? I don't think so, but I can certainly see how, today a person could think that.

Jim:

Government is not primarily about rights, but even using your standard, to hold that secession was necessary in order to protect the "inherent rights of the governed" borders on lunacy. Ask any of the slaves.

Bobby Lee's opinion on slaves

http://www.civilwarhome.com/leepierce.htm

By the way Robert E. Lee was a "cabana boy". The Custis Family had the money, the land, and the slaves.

H;

He fought to keep them enslaved. &, you'll have noticed, the point of the war was that secession is treason.

In a letter recommending arming the slaves to fight.

"Such an interest we can give our negroes, by granting immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully (whether they survive or not) together with the privilege of residing at the South. To this might be added a bounty for faithful service"

But you are correct OJ, he did wrong. You know Lincoln had offered to let him command the Union Forces. You saying he should have taken it. Should Kurd's fight for the Shia Iraqi government against Kurds?

h:

Of course he should have taken it. Kurds are helping the Shi'ites fight for Iraq. Ike beat the Germans. Ideas matter, not blood and soil.

"Kurds are helping the Shi'ites fight for Iraq"

Actually they aren't. They are fighting for Kurds and it just happens to be beneficial to the Kurds at the present time to help the Shia.

Your point is certainly correct regarding Ike and the Germans, but I don't see that as the same, since he obviously had no affinity towards Germans as Lee had to his own community in Virginia.

Not community, race.

But I still don't get why a nation would honor a guy who chose loyalty to friends over loyalty to the nation?

H: Lee had sworn to defend the constitution from its enemies, foreign and domestic. He decided that he'd rather break his sworn oath and fight for his neighbors' right to hold slaves.

The constitution specifically provides for the admission of new states, but not for the secession of any admitted states. That was not an oversight.

One-third of the population of the south went without being asked whether they wanted to secede.

"not community, race"

He was committing himself to shooting white men, not Black men. The post above indicates he was recommending that slaves be armed (and later freed) if they would fight with the South.

But Ok, if it's important that it be just Race and not community, then you are even more correct that he did not do the right thing. So therefore he is a traitor to his community (white southerners) or a traitor to the larger nation. He was a traitor, just like the Virginians who rebelled against King George.

And apparently so will the Kurds be, if they fail to support Shia against the Kurds. Suddenly you make traitor sound not so bad.

"Lee had sworn to defend the constitution from its enemies"

He didn't think he was an enemy of the constitution.

OJ
No one is suggesting that the "nation" honor Robert E. Lee. However I place friends over nation when those friends are not violating the laws of the nation. Which merely begs the question of the right of states to secede.

David

"One-third of the population of the south went without being asked whether they wanted to secede"

They didn't even have a choice to be here.
Slavery is bad. The northern states should never have agreed to join a union with the south or in the alternative seceded. Why did they?

Abe Lincoln -- greatest
American. Ever.

R.E. Lee -- not so much.

H:

Arkansas celebrates a man who, as you suggest, would have cut and run on them if it helped VA.

The thing that's so funny about all this is that your bete noire Jesse Jackson was lecturing black kids about the perils of cultural degredation when Ralph Reed was in short pants. Civil rights leaders talk about this all the time. It speaks volumes that you guys are ignorant about that.

Actually it's Farrakhan who's the best on this. Jackson sold them out.

Silly me, I'll comment about what's been written by William Raspberry:

This piece relates to my pet peeve about white folks' children: white families are dropping the ball on dedication to schooling. We do not suffer from inadequate school funding, we suffer from inadequate commitment to homework and corresponding classroom dedication. (It's probably more apparent in the black community but more consequential in the white community.) American school performance lags too far behind several other countries, for the gap to be due to just teachers unions and their liberal-influenced agenda. The nationwide figures must also be due to parent-and-child attitude among the dominant community - - the whites.

Gosh, I certainly didn't anticipate that this piece's comment section, with its large B.S.-laden sidetrack, would drive home the nature of white folks' shoddiness. Indeed, the words "...we must work constructively to improve the standards themselves" applies to far more whites than blacks(although percentage-wise it's a reversal.)

What would whites do if they didn't have blacks to look down upon: pick jews or hispanics?

LarryH:

Leave their doors unlocked.

OJ

The essence of Robert E. Lee is that he would NOT turn and run on you in order to be on the winning side. Granted he would abandon you if you were manipulative and were attempting to unfairly change the rules of the game in mid-stream.

David

"provides for the admission of new states, but not for the secession of any admitted states"

After the war the former Confederate States were required to abandon their "right to secede" in order to re-enter the Union. By implication one can assume they could only abandon that right if it had previously existed.

There is no statement of perpetuity in the US Constitution, but the irony is that the Articles of Confederation (from which the states withdrew in order to form the USA) did have a statement of perpetuity.

h:

As you've pointed out, he chose neighbors over America--he'd have chosen them over Arkansans too right? & his county over VA?

Larry:

There's a white president telling folks all that. Where are black political leaders? Leaving it to Cosby...

OJ
Like you said, ideas matter. He would choose those who remained true to their ideas, and abandon those who would abandon their ideas.

You seem to assume that the new faddish interpretations of Lincoln regarding what the US Constitution meant, trumped the previous accepted interpretations. Granted Lincoln slaughtered enough people that now his interpretation is the truth. Lee had the b*lls to stand up to that, regardless of whether he's in Heaven or Hell for taking that stand.

Yeah I would like to have "neighbors" like that.

MLK made his inspiring speeches before poverty pimping became so lucrative, before the trillion dollar War on Poverty. Keeping blacks down isn't a racial issue, it's a financial one.

It's fun watching Bill Cosby being trashed. He's already established his bona fides, so they have to tread lightly and dance around the subject. No cracks about Uncle Tom or Oreo Cookies.

I give him credit for speaking the truth even though he must have known that he'd be at best shunned. No other prominent blacks have joined his crusade, not even his wife.

Proof positive that the welfare of black youth isn't the reason for those sanctimonious ramblings of black media stars like Juan Williams and William Raspberry.

Cherchez les bucks.

h:

No. I assume that each of us doesn't get to decide for ourselves.

H: The Constitution was, as Garrison said (quoting Isaiah), "A covenant with death, an agreement with Hell." Although they didn't put it as piquantly at the time, the founders understood the deal they were making. They were masking over the issue of slavery in order to get a stronger national government. The need to make both north and south comfortable (although slavery was less of an issue with the north than it would become) led directly to some of the unique features of the federal government which serve us well today. For example, without the compromises necessary to appease the slave states, George Bush would not have won the presidency in 2000.

Were the founders right to make this pact with the devil? I hate "what if" history, but it does seem likely that both the nation and the world are better off because of the existence of a continental US; slavery was ended earlier than it otherwise would have been; and a constant competition between north and south would have retarded the advancement of both nations.

There was, nonetheless, a noisy secessionist movement in the north and, had Lincoln chose, the Union probably would have accepted the south's secession. There is, though, no doubt that Lincoln was right to go to war to preserve the Union, though by doing so he must take on a good share of the blame for inventing the modern world.

As for Lee, he left the Union army to join the Confederate army, knowing he was going to war against the Union. That cannot be squared with honor.

The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States. Federal law has supremacy over state law. There is no provision in the Constitution or federal law for a state to leave the Union. It is simply not possible to make a law-based argument for the right of a state to secede. As for the natural right of secession or revolution, it belongs to the victors. The south lost, and thus is stuck with the law. Nor should we, today, be under any misapprehension that the CSA was a legitimate government.

As for Lee and neighbors and his bravery in abandoning his country in order to preserve iniquity, the parallels with Forster's maxim that "If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country" are too obvious (and should be too painful) to dwell upon (except that I will dwell on it to the extent of noting that by "friend", Forster meant "homosexual cadre."

Anon: Jesse Jackson did some great work along these lines 30 years ago, and even 10 years ago was honest and brave enough to foreshadow Bill Cosby when he admitted that if he was walking down a dark street at night and heard footsteps behind him, "I would hope it was a white person not a black." Even his first race for the presidency was a useful attempt to get the Democratic party to take black political power seriously. Now, though, he has allowed his Fortune 500 protection racket to take over all aspects of his life.

David:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

That was good enough for George Washington to secede from the British Empire with honor; somehow, General Lee is not granted that right by you under the same reasoning, making his choice to go home and protect his homeland against Yankee agressors worthy only of opprobrium. You do an injustice to a fine man in that regard.

Your statement "Federal law has supremacy over state law" is only true in so far as the Feds wield the hammer of a standing army; for it is, in most instances a matter of power rather than law.

Palmcroft:

Washington was wrong.

OJ: alright, that's twice you've said that, so I'll chase that car, how was he wrong? with what part of the Declaration of Indepence do you quarrel?

Palmcroft: 1. Washington won. It makes all the difference. Had he lost, he would have been hanged. No one thinks that the British Empire was in any way required to acquiesce in our treason.

2. The Declaration is an act of the Continental Congress, and not of the United States of America. It explicitly states that it is the declaration of the united States, rather than of the people of the United States. It is not US law.

3. The Declaration is a great work of rhetoric and a fundamental statement of the dignity of the citizen. But the bill of particulars, meant to demonstrate "a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism", is nuts.

Well David, I'm glad we settled all that. I won't worry with mere legalism anymore. In other words Law comes from the business end of a gun and if your gun misfires you're a traitor.

Thank goodness, otherwise we would have anarchy.

The independence part.

OJ:

the indepence you oppose was brilliantly affixed by Mr. Jefferson to inherent rights as a fact and as a cause; to be against the independence of the colonies is to be against both the notion of God's hand in our creation and the social justice of subsidiarity, the bedrock of the conservative mind: sir, they are of a piece

to oppose any of the three is affirm we were just rocks manipulated by an indifferent God and to justify all manner of ills that flow therefrom

pish posh--they were petulant about taxes.

H: Of course law comes from the business end of a gun. Where did you think it came from?

Ah well I knew it all along, but I thought with you being a lawyer dedicated to showing people how to evade..er avoid the effects of law that maybe you could have thrown out an expensive latin phrase or something like posse comitatus

Not that I'm a paying customer or anything.

Well, you can't beat Cicero:

Summum ius summa iniuria.

or

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.