bjohnsonaz:
You:
"I doubt a "confederacy" would've amounted to a hill or beans."
Me:
I don't know how one could predict that one way or another with any great certainty. It would have been a fairly large country, with great resources. Depending upon how westward expansion would have progressed, maybe it would have eclipsed the north. I suppose it might have depended on whether they would have remained one "country" or disolved into separate small states. If a bunch of small states, one wonders what effect that "America" would have had in fighting the Nazis and in surviving the cold war.
I think such "wondering" makes assumptions which are inconsistent with each other.
To begin with, the Nazis and Communist only rose, due to US economic, political and military intervention into WWI in 1917-- which literally raised up the Bolsheviks, while devastating Germany.
This never would have occurred, had the states retained their independent soveriegnty; for few states-- if any-- would have allowed their citizens to be drafted to fight in foreign wars, at which their security- or even their interests-- were not directly at stake.
Likewise, the central bank would have been unlikely to form-- and thus the Great Depression would have been scarcely a market-correction; as such, Germany probably would have come to a peacable standoff against the Soviets, leading to the demise of socialism in both: for a war can only exist, so long as at least one side perceives a profit from its continuation. (And the US entered into WWI, largely because one J.P. Morgan perceived such a profit from this-- in addition to others in the corporate-statist empire that Abe built).
Nor, if the states had remained soveriegn, would the taxation of private income, have allowed the funding of such foreign escapades by the US.
As such, US interventionism would never have been able to accomplish such global destabilization of foreign affairs, as it did under Wilson. No WWI devastation of Germany, no support of communism, and no Great Depression-- and thus, no WWII or Cold War-- just a much better-learned lesson by FOREIGN states that it's more profitable to get along peacefully, than to make reckless alliances which fail to discriminate between defense and offense (which led to the mockery now known as the United Nations-- which led to our current mess in Iraq).
Finally, the absence of the Great Depression, would have avoided the tragedy in Japan which led to the rise of the Workers Party there, following WWI-- which in turn led to the Rape of Nanking and similar imperialist expansion.
Part of the speculation, comes from taking such assumptions for granted, that things would have turned out the same way, as if such isolated events are truly possible; in this way, those who accuse others of "isolationism," are themselves the most guilty of it-- in their thinking.
On the contrary, statist destabilization and intervention of political and economic matters, tend to lead only to more of the same-- as proven when WWI, the so-called "war to end all wars," was followed only 14 years later by WWII-- just as the Federal Reserve System, which was said would "end market panics forever," led to the greatest market panic in history 14 years later.
Speculations based on such simplistic thinking and propaganda, only compound the failure to properly understand historical contexts-- leading to further faulty decisions due to be based upon such.
The issue, it seems, thus comes down to the fundamental principle of individual liberty, vs. claims of "necessary subjugation for the greater good;" the founders were clear, that necessity is always the plea of a tyrant, and that individual liberty was a right that was "unalienable," i.e. there WAS no "greater good" which could justify its sacrifice.
As I've explained above, if this principle was indeed upheld, then the simple economic forces of free private-consumer choice in the marketplace-- as well as the greater liberty of individual right to be free from military conscription, where in one's very life and liberty are forcibly sacrificed to the (supposedly) "greater good" of the state-- and in a land which dares to mock the premise of freedom, by pretending to abide by it-- then the bloodiest century ever, could have been largely avoided.
However, those who mock this principle of liberty by continuing to defend its destruction as having been beneficial, insult not only the intelligence of any observer who indeed has any-- but also plain moral decency.
The simple fact, is that this all started with the Civil War; if state sovereignty had been respected, then individual freedom would have resulted-- leading to the consequences I've explained.
So you see what happens when you mess with freedom? There is no concept more fundamental-- or, therefore, more devastating when undermined.
