• bassomitron@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    You are correct that there was more going on at the time than only slavery. However, slavery was the primary catalyst the tipped the scales far enough for open rebellion, so it isn’t wrong to say that the civil war was about slavery

    Edit: not that you did say it was wrong per se, but bringing up all the other nuance leaves room for the people arguing in bad faith to say it wasnt about slavery, despite the primary argument being about if other states had the right to force other states to obey their slave laws. There’s a time and place for it, such as people genuinely interested in the deeper history of that time. In the current climate, it tends to come off as dismissive to the root cause.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      There’s a time and place for it, such as people genuinely interested in the deeper history of that time. In the current climate, it tends to come off as dismissive to the root cause.

      Mate…

      But reasons for why the last civil war happened isn’t just important for historical reasons unfortunately.

      It’s worth understanding it on a deeper level than a single word.

      It’s more important to understand how enough people can be tricked into fighting a civil war than ever.

      Now is the time for people to know about it, because it really looks like it could happen again.

      • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I think you misunderstood what I meant. There’s a notable amount of people what try to deflect and say that the civil war was in fact not about slavery and point to all the discourse surrounding state rights/federal overreach. However true that may be, the entire reason that discourse even took place was because of slavery, so the civil war was definitely about slavery. I was simply stating that bringing up all the other information is unnecessary/counterproductive 99% of the time in casual conversation.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          and point to all the discourse surrounding state rights/federal overreach.

          And the correct response is that the South was the one wanting a strong federal government with the ability to force states to follow laws that weren’t laws in their own state, while the North was the one fighting for “states rights”

          You don’t fight misinformation with more misinformation.

          I was simply stating that bringing up all the other information is unnecessary/counterproductive 99% of the time in casual conversation.

          I disagree.

          I think when we’re staring down civil war 2.0, it’s important for people to understand deeper than a single word, because a single word doesn’t explain why the war happened.

          Distilling it down to just that one word just validates the misinformation from the South, hundreds of years later when no American has an excuse to not know what really happened.

          “Conservatives” are literally still trying to force others to do what they want while disquising it as “freedom” so obviously the details still matter and it’s worth the couple minutes (and usually downvotes) to get specific

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            You don’t fight misinformation with more misinformation.

            What misinformation? Please tell me how it wasn’t ultimately about slavery.

            I think when we’re staring down civil war 2.0, it’s important for people to understand deeper than a single word, because a single word doesn’t explain why the war happened.

            But again, slavery is exactly why the war happened. But if you wanted to get truly technical, the war was fought to preserve the Union. Preventing secession was the formal justification that North declared for going to war with the Confederacy.

            Regardless, my main point is that every time a “Confederate/Rebel pride” person talks about the civil war not being about slavery, they inevitably bring up the whole state rights vs federal power debate to try and detract from it ultimately being about slavery.