"A Lack of Ability to Compromise Led to the Civil War"

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/30/john-kelly-a-lack-of-ability-to-compromise-led-to-the-civil-war.html

Obviously, people fall on both sides of whether Kelly was correct in what he said. Viewpoints on something that we only have historical documents to reference will differ. I guess this is the era of "alternative facts".

But, what he said - "a lack of ability to compromise led to the Civil War" - I feel like there's some irony being lost there. We, as a country, are steadily losing all ability to compromise. Things that used to be semi-rational conversations now border on the absurd.

I was reading a Reddit thread a little while ago, and the comments on this topic read like a "who's who" of examples of this - "Republicans this..." "Democrats that..." "Liberals suck..." "Conservatives blow..."

 

Well, first, it was not a civil war....

 

Very few are.

 

Slave, no slave
States rights, federal control

Both pretty polar points of view. Where would you compromise?

 

The lack of ability to compromise led to most wars, no?

 

I guess the funny part is that his statement has sort of led to an argument about "who" didn't want to compromise.

 

3/5, Missouri, and Kansas-Nebraska, apparently. That last one I'm not as familiar.

 

Once the bullets start to fly and the bodies start stacking up it becomes a moot point. You have politicians with zero skin in the game deciding the fate of soldiers. If you go to war, there better be a damn good reason and you better be in it to win.

 

Hearts and minds ain't enough?

 

Depends. Inside every communist gook there is an American trying to get out. Or however the line in full metal jacket went. I'm too lazy to look it up.

 

Believing that fiction is why a lot of people have trouble seeing the enemy.

 

In modern context of fighting religious extremists that is very true, but I'd wager historically, opposing soldiers have more in common with each other than they do the people who sent them to war.

 

Yup.

Pick 10 random wars across history and I would wager that at least 9 of them represent common men dying for the interests of wealthy people.

 

The slavery thing was the major bone of contention during the constitutional convention. Compromise allowed the formation of an "acceptable" constitution. It postponed the eventual conflict for nearly 90 years but the issue was obviously to divisive to remain buried. Read "A Few Good Men", excellent book on the formation of our constitution and how things came to be.

 

Wars are about money.

 

I don’t agree with the General. There is no compromise between slavery and no slavery. It’s like if you marry a chick and she adamantly wants kids and you just as strongly don’t. Or vice versa. That’s a marriage that will 100% end in divorce or worse. He may be wrong, but the libtards again are using disagreement to demonize someone. They should just keep talking, they’ll help the Orange One get elected again.

Wars are absolutely about money. I believe at the time of the Civil War slaves represented about half of the South’s wealth. No people would give up half their wealth without war. One of the reasons the South took a 100ish years to recover is that we instantly wiped out half their capital assets. Some parts of the South are still far behind the North in economic development. Losing half your wealth at a pen stroke isn’t easy to recover from, hence why they preferred to shoot than talk.

 

Lincoln offered reparations to the slave owners.

 

From taxes they paid?