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>without any violence at all... Excepting, of course, all the violence used to keep the slaves as slaves in the first place I assume? Because, what? That's not

>without any violence at all... Excepting, of course, all the violence used to keep the slaves as slaves in the first place I assume? Because, what? That's not real violence? Come on man. It's slavery. There was already grotesque violence. Only question was, what were different nations willing to do to stop it? But where slaves were concerned, every nation involved was already perfectly ok with massive, grotesque, and global scale violence. It was kind of a necessity for that kind of thing to work.

pdonis 8y ago
> Excepting, of course, all the violence used to keep the slaves as slaves in the first place I assume? Because, what? That's not real violence? It's real violence, sure, but it's there in all of the cases, so it drops out of the comparison we're making. We're not talking about the costs of slavery itself; we're talking about the costs to end slavery. A million lives seems to me like a much bigger cost to end slavery then paying off the slaveowners. Not to mention the fact that all those other countries that didn't have to fight a war to end slavery ended it sooner than the US did; so actually we should be considering the costs of slavery itself--for all the extra years that it existed in the US compared to those other countries. Which just makes the "fight a war to end slavery" option look even worse by comparison.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  This is the US man. We didn't pay the British Crown a cent, and no one saw any reason to change that policy for southerners. Paying for freedom is not something America as a nation was given to doing in the Late 18th and 19th century. Heck, vast majority of us wouldn't do it today. This country was literally founded on the principle of not paying for freedoms. And this history is the very reason we carried so much caché and influence through the 20h century. People knew our history and admired it. Historically, the incrementalists have taken a back seat to us, not the other way around. And I mean come on guy? What's with these ideas? Any violence against slaves just "drops out". But other violence does not? We should pay off slaver owners? A million lives is too much to pay to end slavery? A million lives is far less than the body count of 400 years of the slave trade. How many lived and died as slaves? How many were killed, beaten, or left for dead? Or maybe just thrown overboard? etc etc etc. As to the question of paying off slave owners, what part of our history to 1860 would lead you to believe that it was our policy to pay money for freedom? You either didn't pay attention in history class, or you are willfully ignoring the nature of how we got our start. Presumably because it is inconvenient, and doesn't fit with your narrative. And, yeah, on the question of just ignoring the violence against slaves, that's just not even worth commentary. But hey man, we can just agree to disagree. Obviously we're just different people. You have a nice rest of the day.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > What's with these ideas? Paying off the slaveowners is not just an "idea". It actually happened. In every other country that ended slavery. That's why I'm drawing the comparison. Every other country managed to end slavery without fighting a war that cost a million lives. So why did the US have to? > what part of our history to 1860 would lead you to believe that it was our policy to pay money for freedom? You're missing my point. Of course it wasn't our policy to pay money for freedom. That's why we had to fight a war that cost a million lives to free the slaves. My point is, why wasn't it our policy to pay money for freedom? Why couldn't we do the obvious thing that all the other countries did to free slaves without it having to cost a million lives? And if your answer is "we should never pay money for freedom", why not? The slaves were freed either way. Wasn't freeing them the goal? Wouldn't it be better to achieve that goal without it having to cost a further million lives? > on the question of just ignoring the violence against slaves You're missing my point again. I'm not ignoring the violence against slaves. I'm pointing out that that violence happened regardless of how the slaves were freed. So when counting the cost of freeing the slaves, you can't factor in the violence that happened while they were slaves, because that violence had already happened; freeing the slaves with a war that cost a million lives didn't make any of the violence against the slaves while they were slaves go away, any more than paying the slaveowners for the slaves' freedom did. The million lives it cost in the US Civil War wasn't instead of the 400 years of violence against the slaves; it was in addition to it.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      Oh guy. Come on man. You don't negotiate with terrorists. Maybe I should just ask you to get a better idea of how you're thinking about this whole thing, do you think we should have paid the British?
      - pdonis 8y ago
        > You don't negotiate with terrorists. So you think the slaveowners were terrorists? You think the British in Colonial times were terrorists? On what basis? > do you think we should have paid the British? I answered this in another part of this subthread: yes, if the British would have accepted payment in exchange for our independence, and we could have afforded the payment, we should have paid them.
pdonis 8y ago
> Only question was, what were different nations willing to do to stop it? Yes, exactly. Some nations were willing to tell their moralizers to shut up, and just pay off the slaveowners. The US wasn't willing to make that compromise; we let the moralizers drive the process, so we had to fight a war and kill a million people.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >The US wasn't willing to make that compromise; we let the moralizers drive the process, so we had to fight a war and kill a million people... Yeah, "moralizers" like Hamilton, Washington, and Ben Franklin, who were so obstinate and short sighted they refused to simply pay the British Crown instead of fighting such a destructive war. Too bad you couldn't be there to show them the error of their ways. /s Yeah, this is another case where you and I are just different people. We'll just agree to disagree. Have a nice day though.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > moralizers" like Hamilton, Washington, and Ben Franklin, who were so obstinate and short sighted they refused to simply pay the British Crown instead of fighting such a destructive war You think the Colonies could have paid the British Crown to become independent? Where are you getting that from? What makes you think the British would have accepted it? But if you are just asking as a pure hypothetical--should the Colonies have paid for independence, if the British would have accepted that resolution--then my answer would be yes, of course. Independence was the goal; if we could have gotten there without having to fight a war, so much the better.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      There was no option to pay the south either, but you believe we should have. So why not engage in revisionist fantasies. But no, I don't believe we should have paid the British either. Of course not. Pay off every world power hard up for money that comes along? No way. You start off that way, you've set yourself up for extreme and painful failure. Best to have one war at the outset so that all the other global powers get the message loud and clear. You can try paying off bullies if you like in your own life, but I can guarantee you that it won't work. The only thing it will create is more opportunists. You're being a bit naive man.

pdonis 8y ago

> Excepting, of course, all the violence used to keep the slaves as slaves in the first place I assume? Because, what? That's not real violence? It's real violence, sure, but it's there in all of the cases, so it drops out of the comparison we're making. We're not talking about the costs of slavery itself; we're talking about the costs to end slavery. A million lives seems to me like a much bigger cost to end slavery then paying off the slaveowners. Not to mention the fact that all those other countries that didn't have to fight a war to end slavery ended it sooner than the US did; so actually we should be considering the costs of slavery itself--for all the extra years that it existed in the US compared to those other countries. Which just makes the "fight a war to end slavery" option look even worse by comparison.

bilbo0s 8y ago
This is the US man. We didn't pay the British Crown a cent, and no one saw any reason to change that policy for southerners. Paying for freedom is not something America as a nation was given to doing in the Late 18th and 19th century. Heck, vast majority of us wouldn't do it today. This country was literally founded on the principle of not paying for freedoms. And this history is the very reason we carried so much caché and influence through the 20h century. People knew our history and admired it. Historically, the incrementalists have taken a back seat to us, not the other way around. And I mean come on guy? What's with these ideas? Any violence against slaves just "drops out". But other violence does not? We should pay off slaver owners? A million lives is too much to pay to end slavery? A million lives is far less than the body count of 400 years of the slave trade. How many lived and died as slaves? How many were killed, beaten, or left for dead? Or maybe just thrown overboard? etc etc etc. As to the question of paying off slave owners, what part of our history to 1860 would lead you to believe that it was our policy to pay money for freedom? You either didn't pay attention in history class, or you are willfully ignoring the nature of how we got our start. Presumably because it is inconvenient, and doesn't fit with your narrative. And, yeah, on the question of just ignoring the violence against slaves, that's just not even worth commentary. But hey man, we can just agree to disagree. Obviously we're just different people. You have a nice rest of the day.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > What's with these ideas? Paying off the slaveowners is not just an "idea". It actually happened. In every other country that ended slavery. That's why I'm drawing the comparison. Every other country managed to end slavery without fighting a war that cost a million lives. So why did the US have to? > what part of our history to 1860 would lead you to believe that it was our policy to pay money for freedom? You're missing my point. Of course it wasn't our policy to pay money for freedom. That's why we had to fight a war that cost a million lives to free the slaves. My point is, why wasn't it our policy to pay money for freedom? Why couldn't we do the obvious thing that all the other countries did to free slaves without it having to cost a million lives? And if your answer is "we should never pay money for freedom", why not? The slaves were freed either way. Wasn't freeing them the goal? Wouldn't it be better to achieve that goal without it having to cost a further million lives? > on the question of just ignoring the violence against slaves You're missing my point again. I'm not ignoring the violence against slaves. I'm pointing out that that violence happened regardless of how the slaves were freed. So when counting the cost of freeing the slaves, you can't factor in the violence that happened while they were slaves, because that violence had already happened; freeing the slaves with a war that cost a million lives didn't make any of the violence against the slaves while they were slaves go away, any more than paying the slaveowners for the slaves' freedom did. The million lives it cost in the US Civil War wasn't instead of the 400 years of violence against the slaves; it was in addition to it.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    Oh guy. Come on man. You don't negotiate with terrorists. Maybe I should just ask you to get a better idea of how you're thinking about this whole thing, do you think we should have paid the British?
    - pdonis 8y ago
      > You don't negotiate with terrorists. So you think the slaveowners were terrorists? You think the British in Colonial times were terrorists? On what basis? > do you think we should have paid the British? I answered this in another part of this subthread: yes, if the British would have accepted payment in exchange for our independence, and we could have afforded the payment, we should have paid them.

pdonis 8y ago

> Only question was, what were different nations willing to do to stop it? Yes, exactly. Some nations were willing to tell their moralizers to shut up, and just pay off the slaveowners. The US wasn't willing to make that compromise; we let the moralizers drive the process, so we had to fight a war and kill a million people.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>The US wasn't willing to make that compromise; we let the moralizers drive the process, so we had to fight a war and kill a million people... Yeah, "moralizers" like Hamilton, Washington, and Ben Franklin, who were so obstinate and short sighted they refused to simply pay the British Crown instead of fighting such a destructive war. Too bad you couldn't be there to show them the error of their ways. /s Yeah, this is another case where you and I are just different people. We'll just agree to disagree. Have a nice day though.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > moralizers" like Hamilton, Washington, and Ben Franklin, who were so obstinate and short sighted they refused to simply pay the British Crown instead of fighting such a destructive war You think the Colonies could have paid the British Crown to become independent? Where are you getting that from? What makes you think the British would have accepted it? But if you are just asking as a pure hypothetical--should the Colonies have paid for independence, if the British would have accepted that resolution--then my answer would be yes, of course. Independence was the goal; if we could have gotten there without having to fight a war, so much the better.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    There was no option to pay the south either, but you believe we should have. So why not engage in revisionist fantasies. But no, I don't believe we should have paid the British either. Of course not. Pay off every world power hard up for money that comes along? No way. You start off that way, you've set yourself up for extreme and painful failure. Best to have one war at the outset so that all the other global powers get the message loud and clear. You can try paying off bullies if you like in your own life, but I can guarantee you that it won't work. The only thing it will create is more opportunists. You're being a bit naive man.