Why do you like a Confederate victory?

[Morty Vicar]

The essential difference for your Scottish example, is that some eligible voters, choose of their own free will not to participate. That's on them, and they get to live with the impact of their inaction. A wise woman once told me that she was going to vote, even though she though both candidates were "worthless a$$holes". She voted anyway, as she felt that gave her the functional right to complain about the outcome. If she did not choose to vote, she felt that she forfeitted any claim on complaint.

I kind of agree with that. Even spoiling your ballot paper makes some sort of a statement at least, although it's also pointless. Russell Brand made a big deal about the BNP in some documentary, but then a few years later he announces he doesn't vote because 'it's a waste of time'. So if the BNP do get in imo he has no right to protest.

 

[Captain Jack]

Self determination

Land owners, not anyone else used to be the only eligbile voters. Why? Because they had control of the power & resources

Indians and Women were not treated as full citizens with full rights. Mathmatically, that's well over half the population of most areas....

Blacks (and too often women) were not treated as human, but as property. Humans are not property

It's real hard to defend the indefensible.

Indefensible from today's perspective. Utterly defensible from the contemporary perspective.

The segment of the population with the right to self-determination was the same segment with the right to vote. By your logic every the election of every President, Senator, and Congressman up to, and well past, that point in time was indefensible. Assuming you disagree with that statement why? Why were some decisions legitimate and others not when made by the same pool of people? My answer to this question is that the South's secession was illegitimate because they lost. No more, no less.

Branding something evil or immoral or indefensible because it violates our modern morals is about the most useless judgement I can conceive. It doesn't help us understand why people thought the way they did in the past and it doesn't help us avoid thinking that way again in the future. It serves only to swell ones ego and sense of self-righteousness.

*I'd like to make very clear that I'm not trying to justify slavery or the disenfranchisement of women. I'm merely pointing out that we should be uniform in the application of our moral judgements and that said judgement, while satisfying, isn't particularly useful.

 

[Driftless]

Indefensible from today's perspective. Utterly defensible from the contemporary perspective.

The segment of the population with the right to self-determination was the same segment with the right to vote. By your logic every the election of every President, Senator, and Congressman up to, and well past, that point in time was indefensible. Assuming you disagree with that statement why? Why were some decisions legitimate and others not when made by the same pool of people? My answer to this question is that the South's secession was illegitimate because they lost. No more, no less.

Branding something evil or immoral or indefensible because it violates our modern morals is about the most useless judgement I can conceive. It doesn't help us understand why people thought the way they did in the past and it doesn't help us avoid thinking that way again in the future. It serves only to swell ones ego and sense of self-righteousness.

*I'd like to make very clear that I'm not trying to justify slavery or the disenfranchisement of women. I'm merely pointing out that we should be uniform in the application of our moral judgements and that said judgement, while satisfying, isn't particularly useful.

I do understand the futility of trying to judge both across time and culture. I'm also quite sure that if I were born in a different time and location that I would most likely think differently than I do now. To be sure, I also believe that no time or cause, or nation is pure as snow. The US has been guilty of crimes against humanity - by our current standards - at different points in our history.

However, I live now, and I am a creature of my environment. I was raised to view human slavery as great evil, regardless of who employed it, or when. The fact that it was employed by my own countrymen on a huge scale is a permanent blot on our history. For the purpose of the OP's point, I so loathe the idea of a CSA victory, that I choose not to participate in those discussions as a general rule. If that is futile sel-righteousness, I'm OK with that.

 

[NHBL]

Necessary evil?

I'm sketching out a timeline where the traitors do manage to, in part, break off from the United States--but this makes things worse for the south, as the industrialized North is thoroughly pissed off. President McClellan ends up a one-term president, and someone is elected in '68 on a promise of never again letting the USA stay weak. The continued attempts to keep up with the USA in military build-up leads to the South ending up in economic trouble...and then the last civil war begins...

 

[Binky the Clown]

The thought of a world where all romantic notions of a "lost cause" are throughly discredited by the actions of a surviving Confederacy just speaks to me, I guess.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

I find it fascinating due to the fact it would place two totally different nations (in philosophy and governance) across from each other on the North American continent. It's also fascinating to think of the repercussions this would have for the idea of liberal republics world wide. The only stable and prosperous republic is torn asunder in a civil war over slavery with the only others in the world in Latin American constantly shifted by military juntas. Couple that with the crushing of the liberal revolts of 1848 and you have a recipe for a very different world. Reform might settle more around the ideas of a parliamentary monarchy with the monarch being seen as a sign of national stability against 'anarchic republicanism' which envelopes the Western Hemisphere.

Imagine the different world that would breed, it would have an effect on the power and legitimacy of the idea of a monarchy and breed a much different socialism. The world as we know it would be changed in ways we probably can't even totally conceive. We can imagine them though, and while some things would certainly be darker, it would have a very interesting effect on the world.

It's kinda what I'm trying to explore with my 'Great War' TL

 

[FleetMac]

The first time I realized I enjoyed the idea of a Confederate victory, in reality, was the idea of a USA-derived state that split off in general. Before I joined this forum, the notion of the USA ever splitting apart or being eliminated as an entity was utterly foreign to me. After reading several TLs on here wherein America was either conquered or stillborn, I realized that at the very least a Southron state on its own was the next-best thing, even if it was only a distant second. Compounding this was the fact that I grew up in rural Virginia, and one couldn't help but notice all the Civil War battlefields and relics of that period in American history; add the two elements together, and suddenly the idea of a CSA victory didn't seem all that preposterous.

Of course, I'm aware of the challenges such a concept brings in terms of making it possible, let alone the unappetizing implications resulting from it. The late Robert Perkins' "The Black and the Gray" was the first real TL using this idea I ever read, and while there are parts that in retrospect were...dubious in terms of realism, to say the least, it broached the subject in a way that got me interested (bear in mind, I had yet to read the TL-191 books outside of a little browsing).

 

[Blue Max]

Hi, I've been a browser on this forum for several months now and in that time, I've noticed a large number of threads dealing with a confederate victory in the ACW. As I'm writing this there are three timelines on the front page dealing with that same thing. Obviously the civil war is a huge event in American history with many possible butterflies, but given the odds against a CSA victory, it seems to be very popular. So my question is, what do you find appealing about it? Is it just a underdog type of thing or just a large percentage of Americans on the forum.

I don't.

As a biracial American with a deep belief in the importance of human dignity and rights, the success of a nation ideologically committed to human enslavement is the stuff of nightmares, similar in vein to a Hitler Wins WWII style of story.

I enjoy stories with the opposite line of effect; the Union wins earlier, easier, and builds a better nation with a better reconstruction and the quiet removal of the Wilsonian revival of racism.

The Confederacy is high octane nightmare fuel. I think a dark story that discusses the ramifications of SLAVERY TODAY, the effects of Modern Style-American Democracy collapsing under its own contradictions, and the world giving up on the idea of universal rights in favor of some kind of National Moralism that unites, as Hitler did, one's nation, one's ethnicity, and one's ethics.

Would be quite a scary world indeed.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

I don't.

As a biracial American with a deep belief in the importance of human dignity and rights, the success of a nation ideologically committed to human enslavement is the stuff of nightmares, similar in vein to a Hitler Wins WWII style of story.

I enjoy stories with the opposite line of effect; the Union wins earlier, easier, and builds a better nation with a better reconstruction and the quiet removal of the Wilsonian revival of racism.

The Confederacy is high octane nightmare fuel. I think a dark story that discusses the ramifications of SLAVERY TODAY, the effects of Modern Style-American Democracy collapsing under its own contradictions, and the world giving up on the idea of universal rights in favor of some kind of National Moralism that unites, as Hitler did, one's nation, one's ethnicity, and one's ethics.

Would be quite a scary world indeed.

As a Conservative American, with a deep belief in importance of human dignity and rights, the success of a nation ideologically committed to Communist tyranny, is the stuff of nightmares, similar in vein to a Hitler Wins WWII style of story.



I enjoy stories with the opposite line of effect; the West wins earlier, easier, and builds a better world, without the long standing acceptance of Communism or Marxism, as anything but the moral equivalent of Nazism.


However, Timelines, or even discussions of Soviet Victories, or even extended survival, can be interesting and entertaining as mental games, or as educational exercises.

 

[eliphas8]

I enjoy stories with the opposite line of effect; the West wins earlier, easier, and builds a better world, without the long standing acceptance of Communism or Marxism, as anything but the moral equivalent of Nazism.


However, Timelines, or even discussions of Soviet Victories, or even extended survival, can be interesting and entertaining as mental games, or as educational exercises.

Socialism is in no way the moral equivalent of Nazism. The urge for a world transformed by freedom and equality cannot be correlated to the extermination of the Jews.

 

[Kung Fucious]

Personally there's one Confederate Victory scenario that I'd like to see but haven't yet.

The Victory of the Confederacy proves to be short lived as the shortfalls of the Confederate Constitution come to light, namely that it's government is quite powerless, even when trying to deal with disagrements between the states. This leads to the breakup of the confederacy.

However the United States doesn't fare any better, as the terms of the peace means that every state has the right to secede, several choose to do so in the face of such a humiliating defeat. the New England States led the charge, California and the Mormon territories followed suit, by the early 1880's the United States was officially dissolved after the residences of D.C. drove out the remaining members of the Federal government and turned the city over to Virginia.

What would come after that?

I've been toying with such a scenario for the past few days, where the South wins the Civil War (either OTL's ACW, or an earlier, messier one under a President Fremont ala Heart of Dixie), and the Union, rather than going full Revanchist/TL-191, washes its hands of the matter and keeps chugging along, while the South limps along for a generation before imploding into various mini-confederacies/state governments, so you end up with an industrialized, federal North and a balkanized mess in the South.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

Socialism is in no way the moral equivalent of Nazism. The urge for a world transformed by freedom and equality cannot be correlated to the extermination of the Jews.

A very interesting belief system, as every Communist government we have seen in OTL has been NOT free, Not equal, and normally involved the mass murder of counter revolutionaries.

 

[Saphroneth]

A very interesting belief system, as every Communist government we have seen in OTL has been NOT free, Not equal, and normally involved the mass murder of counter revolutionaries.

See, that's the thing.

The core tenets of socialism (as a basic philosophy) involve equality. The implementation has always failed, though.

The core tenets of Nazism involve killing off millions of people. The implementation succeeded in so far as they killed millions of people.

i.e. the actual communist/socialist states around the world have been poor implementations of what may actually need to only ever be done by a staged process. (For examples of the staged process, see: government run healthcare, laws regulating capitalism, legal and active unions, and universal suffrage. Hi, I'm from Britain, have some free healthcare. We're all a little bit socialist.)
The actual Nazi state we have seen in our history was a justly truncated implementation of a horrific policy which axiomatically required the deaths of millions.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

See, that's the thing.

The core tenets of socialism (as a basic philosophy) involve equality. The implementation has always failed, though.

The core tenets of Nazism involve killing off millions of people. The implementation succeeded in so far as they killed millions of people.

i.e. the actual communist/socialist states around the world have been poor implementations of what may actually need to only ever be done by a staged process. (For examples of the staged process, see: government run healthcare, laws regulating capitalism, legal and active unions, and universal suffrage. Hi, I'm from Britain, have some free healthcare. We're all a little bit socialist.)
The actual Nazi state we have seen in our history was a justly truncated implementation of a horrific policy which axiomatically required the deaths of millions.

Both Nazism and Marxism had in the core tenets conflict with those who did not agree with them.

Nazism was based on Race, Marxism on class. Both killed millions.

A system that claims to aim for something, but always "fails"?

NOt very convincing to me.

 

[Saphroneth]

Both Nazism and Marxism had in the core tenets conflict with those who did not agree with them.

Nazism was based on Race, Marxism on class. Both killed millions.

A system that claims to aim for something, but always "fails"?

NOt very convincing to me.

I live in a socialist country right now. It has policies of social welfare, national health service, and many nationalized industries (and used to have many more), and walk past two different union headquarters on my way to work (UNITE and UNISON).
That's in London.


I do agree with you, by the way, that actual socialist (ie stalinist/marxist/leninist) governments don't work whenever they've been tried. But socialist principles are applied by many modern nations.


Either:

Universal subsidized healthcare, national workers' unions and unemployment benefits are NOT socialist;

Or:

Many first world nations use some socialist policies;

Or:

Britain is a third world hellhole.

Any flaws with that argument? (i.e. what's the fourth option?)

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

I live in a socialist country right now. It has policies of social welfare, national health service, and many nationalized industries (and used to have many more), and walk past two different union headquarters on my way to work (UNITE and UNISON).
That's in London.


I do agree with you, by the way, that actual socialist (ie stalinist/marxist/leninist) governments don't work whenever they've been tried. But socialist principles are applied by many modern nations.


Either:

Universal subsidized healthcare, national workers' unions and unemployment benefits are NOT socialist;

Or:

Many first world nations use some socialist policies;

Or:

Britain is a third world hellhole.

Any flaws with that argument? (i.e. what's the fourth option?)

It's interesting that I keep saying Marxism and you keep hearing Socialism.


When I said Nazism, did you hear Fascism? Did your mind start making defenses for non Nazi fascist governments?

Why the difference?

 

[Saphroneth]

A very interesting belief system, as every Communist government we have seen in OTL has been NOT free, Not equal, and normally involved the mass murder of counter revolutionaries.

was your reply to

Socialism is in no way the moral equivalent of Nazism. The urge for a world transformed by freedom and equality cannot be correlated to the extermination of the Jews.

So when others say socialism, you appear to hear communism.

I was reacting to the post of yours I have quoted above, and how it in turn reacted adversely to a statement that socialism is not the moral equivalent of nazism.
If you do not contest the statement that "socialism is in no way the moral equivalent of Nazism", then we have no quarrel. If we do, then see my prior posts.

In any case, "Marxism" bears relatively little resemblance, in original form, to the states which have implemented it as communism. It has many bad ideas, but also many good. (It is hard to argue against his statements that were a reaction to unbridled, full-on, Victorian, make-kids-work-in-mills factory production.)

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Now now everyone, this is veering into a political discussion about socialism in a thread about a Confederate Victory, perhaps we should leave that for another time yes?

 

[Saphroneth]

Now now everyone, this is veering into a political discussion about socialism in a thread about a Confederate Victory, perhaps we should leave that for another time yes?

Fine by me. To answer the original question:

I don't particularly like CSA victories. I would probably like one where the Brits are involved in making the CSA independent, and then turn around and say "Oh, by the way, we really don't like slavery". (Possibly even making it the price of aid?)
Alternatively, a TL in which the Brits (and/or France) actually intervene on the side of the Union would be fun....
In part, that's because I'm a Brit. I prefer things to go well, overall, and don't have all that much knowledge about the order of the battles of the ACW - and both of those make me disposed against the ACW turning out differently, because the CSA was pretty damn horrible.
But overall I just don't have much interest in the ACW generally.

 

[Urcea]

I don't like Confederate victory threads, and I commend posters like tfsmith121 for crushing that nonsense with a torrent of logic, reason, and facts. Even if it's a literary exercise, the idea of a Confederate victory is repulsive.