North versus South

Nothing like being a hypocrite, US government.

Also I love how this went from the US Civil War to Vietnam with in four post.

Also I agree with Leutenant_Germany that the US civil war was a "poor mans fight" as most of the Southern soldiers didn't own slaves or at most one slave.

I don't know how to continue this thread, so yeah. Long story short, the rich men started the civil war, and the poor men fought, which is actually the case for both north and south. In the north, I believe you could pay $300, which actually is quite a sum of money for most in that day, and could get a substitute for them. And the only people who could pay this draft were the rich. In my honest opinion, the civil war hardly accomplished anything, if showing that you can't secede from the US (sorry Puerto Rico) or you will get your asses kicked. Slavery was abolished, yes, but did it really accomplish anything? The blacks in America were still discriminated against, North and South, and the blacks were still technical slaves, but under the guise as tenants.

You do know that there were two factions right, a north vietnam and south vietnam? We backed the south, soviets and china backed the north. So please explain to me how the US supporting southern vietnam equals us supressing their right to freedom?

@Shisno the US civil war most certanly accomplished something, it was not just pointless war. Besides freeing the slaves,which despite them still being descriminated against, is still very important. Today black people have equal rights, if slavery was never abolished thatwould be kind of impossible. There is also the fact that it settledthe question(at least partially) of how much power the federal government should have vs state power, and it kept the US together. If we just let south go can you imagine how much history would have changed?

I understand. Yes it did pave out the way for civil rights, and yes, it did free the slaves, but what I am saying the immediate short term effects were pretty shitty. The KKK. Military occupation of the south. Massacres of blacks in southern cities. It really sucked. And on the topic of Vietnam, we killed north and southern vietnamese because we thought they were communists. That was our justification to butcher innocents.

True the short term effects sucked, but in the grand scheme of things the long term effects are always more important. I think if you ask any black person in american today, i pretty sure they would say it was worth it.

I am dumbfounded at this. Believe it or not we didn't just show up in vietnam so we could kill us some vietnamese. The whole thing had it's root in the cold war. The soviets were working to spread "communism", we were working to stop it. That is how we got involved in the first place. Our goal was to stop a northern takeover of the south, not kill everybody.

We supported a corrupt, unpopular government and because it was capitalist, we supported it.

I would say less corrupt and more unstable, it changed hands frequently throughout it's short history, which certainly contributed to how weak the south was when compaired with the north. And It was not unpopular, there was plently of public support in the south during and before the war.
The US support of southern vietnam was part of our wider containment policy, basically trying to stop or at least limit the spread of communism and the influence of the USSR. While I think we handled the vietnam war poorly, I can't blame us for getting involved. At the time we were in a constant state of competition with the soviets, the space race, the korean war, everything else. So naturally if the soviets started getting involved with the north, why wouldn't we get involved with the south?

Meh, let's just end this off topic debate. If you think you won, great, I could care less at this point. ANYWAY, on the topic of the civil war, I find it strange that the North technically was a sort of discriminatory populace. They only had these thoughts erased after World War 2. It is strange that they fight for the emancipation of slaves (which is totally ossim), and some of them actually be discriminatory. Also, I believe that Southern slave owners justified having slaves by saying Northerners exploited poor people in factories (*cough* minimum wage *cough* child labor *cough*), saying that they were no different. What are your thoughts on this (other than rich man's war, poor man's fight)?

Well I think most northerners were fighting more for unity of the US then the freedom of slaves(even though this was one of the major issues that caused the civil war), and the fact that blacks were still greatly discriminated against in the north supports this.

As for explotation in for factories, I have never heard of southern slave owners using this as a justification for slavery. In fact before the civil war, the north was not that industrialized, only haveing a small industrial base(which would turn out to be huge advantage, as the south was not indutrialized at all). It was during the civl war itself, that northern industry grew exponentially. It was not till after the war, that you had countless children working factories for a few pennies, which would basically last untill after the great depression.

But even before the war, the North was heavily industrialized (if just mainly in major cities), and had a bigger population and more railroads. Child labor started existing as soon as the North started industrializing. Although maybe not a justification for slavery, it still was an issue that contradicts the Union's later stance to abolish slavery. But back to industrialization, the North was heavily industrialized, if not the most industrialized nation on the face of the Earth (possibly behind the UK).

Before the war while the north did have an industrial base(along with a bigger population and railroads, three major advantages in the war), it was nothing when compared to what would develop during the war and after in the gilded age. You could argue that the use of child labor was a contradiction(it's a bit of a stretch), but again most northerners were fighting to keep the union together not free slaves. And I don't think I have ever heard of the south using that as a justification for slavery.

The South would had to denounce slavery enventually or face isolation from foriegn powers. For many Southerners who fought in the war that was one of the main reasons they fought the war. During the end of the war a divison of black and white troops was recruited and trained and southern senators when told about the division said, "If we are going to let the blacks fight for us now why did we begin this war?"