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Originally Posted by zhangmingzhao
smallpox, you're points are valid. That does not mean that the people of the South all wanted to cede from the union. Obviously, the free peasants and the slaves had a serious interest clash with those slave owners who were the active champion of the breakup. The clash was real. The free peasants want the land for themselves, esp. the new land. The slave owners wanted otherwise, i.e. to expand their plantations further to the new land.
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You can't say any of this. In the words of Frederick Douglass, an ex slave in a southern plantation that educated himself and became one of the head for the emancipation cause realised that slaves had no idea what the alternative to slavery was. I'm not advocating slavery in any way, but most blacks after emancipation either came back to their "lords" to become wage workers or went to live in cities. I have heard very little for a cause of emancipated Americans calling for owning their own land in the lines of those emancipated in Russia or China.
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Then, was it meaningful to have a popular vote to determine the fate of the southern states? No way. People will fight to their death. Slaver owners' freedom to their property means the enslavement of the slaves.
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Why would elections not be significant?
People don't fight to the death when they have elections.
Further the right to own property in this case is overruled by the right to human dignity and life.
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In fact, the Southern slave owners had not once trampled on popular votes and brought troops to enforce their will upon some states. If slave owners allowed to separate, will their slaves be allowed to separate from the South? If a Southerner happen to be with the union, can be declare independence from the South? You have not grappled with the significance of an act of ceding from the union. And you are looking at a history from an attorney's standpoint.
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Considering the slaves accounted for the majority of the population, an entirely democratic system would have called for the removal of things such as the Jim Crow laws, and others; but slaves were only 3/5 of a man for election purposes. So there was nothing democratic in the process of secession. Further, considering the decentralization of the American system, secession is a much weaker issue. Even though the South could separate into a different nation, it still had the autonomy to pass discriminating laws (again, the Jim Crow laws).
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When you have a minority who had all the means of propaganda, who were politically much more organized and experienced than others, who were more educated and enjoyed themselves more in public administration since they did not need to sweat to make a lliving, what do you expect the outcome of so-called freedom of speech? NO, here I do not object the freedom of speech. I just want to remind everybody that the loudest voice does not represent the voice of the people automatically.
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But in a fair democratic elections, each vote is equally strong.
Freedom of speech is not reliant on propaganda. It's reliant on the opinions of the majority. Fox can throw at me all its propaganda at me, I am not affected by it what's so ever, subsequently I believed they realised this long ago and their theme of super action news and rhetorics have toned down. Anti-WTO protests are opposed by the powerful, yet they receive much attention.
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Dalai Lama can not represent Tibetans. You and I can not, commies can not. The decision lies with the Tibetans. The vast majority of them and other ethnic groups living in Tibet. You seems to say autonomy or independence is good for them, where did you get that impression?
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Let them have elections, and let them decide. Where did you get the impression that the Dalai Lama can not represent Tibetans and say that they ought to chose when they have not made the decision? Is this one of those -- you're free to chose whatever you like, as long as you make the "right" decision? Autonomy and independence is good for everyone as it entails decentralization.
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I am for personal freedom. Freedom means self-reliance and not be controlled by others. When someone owns you, as the ex-slave owners of Tibet's serfs, you are not a free person. And the freedom of speech is really pointless to you. If you're free and without a job, you are free and free to be starved. Freedom of speech is really not the first priority to you.
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Freedom of speech does not suggest the lost of economic opportunities, if that was what you were suggesting. There's no such thing as self-reliance. We're all interdependent. I'm not a slave because I depend on my job for an income. I'm as dependent on my job as my boss is dependent on me for his income.
Freedom of speech serves as a voice to everyone. Whether or not these voices become mainstream is a different story, but hte fact that they're there is justice enough to have some facts (yet we have none from China because of the lack of freedoms).