Nematocyst wrote:I thought the Baptists were worse than the Evangelical. Westboro and Landover make the people condemning Harry Potter and D&D look like well mannered smart people.
Also, why all the hate on the Osprey? We finally get a VTOL capable of holding more than two dudes and we treat it as if it was something other than a godsend
Landover is a parody. Westboro should be. And while Baptists will vary from congregation to congregation (as with most denominations), most aren't
nearly that bad.
Ilya Muromets wrote:I wonder if a new reason for people to get pissed just popped up. I almost half expect some self-proclaimed, die-hard fan of Robert E. Lee go into a rage at a fic having "Massa Robert" get owned in modern war games and getting lectured about it. I mean, you'll never know what some people can get all pissed about, after all.
Then there's that part where Lee admitted that slavery was the true cause for secession, which is guaranteed to rile up the "It was about states' rights, not slavery!" crowd.
1) Though I know Stuart is shooting for commercial viability to at least some extent, I think the response to such people often does need to come down to "if you're offended, then go somewhere else." Yes, there are times and places to be offended, but I do wish that more people would tell what I'll call "professional complainers" (i.e. people who complain when 99% of people and 95% of the supposedly offended people don't care...whomever instituted some of the NCAA rules a couple of years back falls under this category) to sod off. Also, I suspect that most of those people won't be buying the book anyway.
2) On the Civil War, I do view the question as mixed. In the Deep South (i.e. the states that seceded earlier), I believe it was primarily slavery, with a side of states' rights thrown in for good rhetoric more than anything. In the Upper South (i.e. VA, NC, TN, and...I
think TX was the other late state out), however, I think the question was more mixed and that states' rights played a more substantial role (even though the two were hopelessly entangled by the rhetoric of the day). I think the fact that they didn't secede until it became clear that a war was going to happen over the matter is the best evidence for that; absent their secession, the CSA was probably screwed, so this doesn't seem to be the most pragmatic move, but I
can see armed conflict between the states being enough to put people over the edge...I seem to recall that, for example, Clement Vallandigham was personally anti-slavery but threw up his fit over the federal government not having the authority to force states to stay in the union (something that was a disputed view at the time; bear in mind that there had previously been a secessionist movement in New England on the slavery matter as well). And yes, I know the South shot first...that doesn't change the fact that there were people who genuinely wanted out of a central government that was willing to go to war to keep what were often seen as sovereign units part of it. In short, it was about slavery for a lot of people, but there were also a number (increasing as you got outside the cotton states) for whom the war did legitimately revolve on the right of a state to secede if nothing else, something that was at the time an unresolved question. Do remember that nullification had also been held as a legitimate doctrine within living memory at the time, too; this isn't as crazy as it sounds now.[/rambling]
" - 
