If certain (poor, failing) red states (which are perfectly happy to accept federal dollars from richer, blue states) are so against abiding by anything but their own rules, why don't they just seceed and get it over with?

"why don't they just seceed and get it over with?"

They tried that and they are mostly poor because of that.

Its hard to survive economically when your people are starved out for four years and then an army comes through and torches the whole place.

Sucks. I guess they'll have to choose between being poor and not being allowed to fly a racist symbol as a state flag.

they were pretty poor before that as well -- well, those who weren't benefiting from slaves and indentured servitude.

though i'll agree -- it definitely is hard to survive economically when

1. the secessionist path that is taken does not turn out to be as immediately fruitful as hoped and
2. the economic buttress of the previously-functioning economy is an issue (if not a cause) that sustains the Unpleasantness.
   

This one is particularly awesome, San. You're whining about events that happened over 140 years ago constituting a justification for the South's continued malaise? I suggest you pick up a history book--the vast majority of the world's states did not even exist in 1865. E.g., look at South Korea. The entire peninsula was annexed by a hostile foreign power (Japan, of course) in 1910. The country remained in thrall to imperial Japan for the next thirty-five (35) years, during which time much of its population was reduced to serfdom, or worse (far worse, in the case of an entire generation of young Korean women). Following that, it served for several years as the battleground in an ideological proxy war between the world's most powerful and aggressive states, during which it saw further destruction unleashed on a scale William Tecumseh Sherman could only dream of.

Of course, despite the fifty or years of horrors the nation went through, it has fully recovered and is now recognized as a first-world nation, and has a per capita GDP essentially equivalent to that of, haha, Mississippi.

Maybe the difference is that South Koreans, unlike Southerners here, aren't trapped in a hopelessly backwards and fundamentally self-defeating mythology, and don't use history as a crutch.

My US history is a little fuzzy, but didn't the Confederates fire the first shots at Ft. Sumter? Didn't Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, say that slavery was a "cornerstone of the Confederacy", only to change his tune when the war ended? The fact is that tensions over slavery beginning in the 1830s were the reasons for any North/South hostility in the firsty place. The Southern representatives in the Federal government consistently voted on pro-slavery lines, including the Gag Order of 1835-1844 and the attempts to annex Cuba and Nicaragua as slave states, as well as ensure that all new territories be pro-slavery.

You're US history isn't that fuzzy, DaveS, you even give dates... and if you weren't being sarcastic with those questions, yes, you are right. i would like to point out that while slavery was a major issue - maybe THE major issue - of the civil war, it wasn't really the cause. slavery wasn't instituted and then BAM! disagreement over it erupted. in the US, slavery existed since the nation's conception and had existed for long before during exploration and colonization of the Americas. since slavery was an established institution, which went largely undisputed for a long time, i don't think we can attribute the entirety of the civil war to it. im sure there were a mulititude of factors contributing to the war, actually. a history professor of mine last year, for example, would argue that the industrial revolution and the changing economic situation were more proximate causes than slavery. but i still say that today, the confederate flag is a symbol of racism - probably because, for decades, we've been oversimplifying the history of the civil war, boiling it down to a fight over race and slavery.

"well, those who weren't benefiting from slaves and indentured servitude."

Um, only a tiny amount of the population actually had slaves, and most of the economy was not supported by slavery.

"You're whining about events that happened over 140 years ago constituting a justification for the South's continued malaise?"

You have to be an idiot to think that destroying that much of an infrastructure would have no effect.

"Didn't Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, say that slavery was a "cornerstone of the Confederacy", only to change his tune when the war ended?"

And Robert E Lee stated that Slavery was against Christianity from the beginning.

Whats your point?

This one is particularly awesome, San. You're whining about events that happened over 140 years ago constituting a justification for the South's continued malaise?

Blacks are still whining about what happened 140 years ago as a justification for their continued malaise, so I guess that it's only fair.

What "infrastructure", /r/-tard? Wooden houses? Hahaha. The internal combustion engine wouldn't be invented for decades to come, there were no roads. There wasn't any steel girder construction yet, so there were few in the way of buildings to destroy that would have endured anyway.

Oh yeah, "San", southern railroads used a proprietary 5'0" gauge as opposed to the 4'8 1/2" in use in the North, the UK, and most of the rest of the civilized world and ultimately had to be reset in 1886 anyway, as the southern "standard" was retarding commerce.

So, what else could it be, oh wise one? What lasting effect was there? Why has the South still failed to "rise again", when cities such as Dresden and Hiroshima have come back?

Sorry if facts and logic make you uncomfortable, big chief, but you raised the point. Now let's see you defend it. I have about as much faith in you doing so as I do in finding an egg salad sandwich on the surface of the moon.

"What "infrastructure", /r/-tard? Wooden houses? Hahaha."

No roads?

Are you retarded?

What do you think they moved carts on?

Why would the Romans build roads 2000 years ago if you needed them for cars?

The Infrastructure of the South - cities, roads, dams, bridges, etc, were all destroyed, along with stores of goods and stores of crops.

You are a damn idiot.

Oh, that's rich, carny. How, pray tell, does one "destroy" a mere trail? Oh no! Antebellum-era "dams" were destroyed? Whatever did the beavers of the American southeast do?! And the crops! Ohhh, the crops! How can any civilization ever recover from losing some barley and cotton a century and a half ago? By your estimation, I suppose 9/11 probably set New York back until about the year 5000, right? Christ, man, I live in Chicago! Our entire friggin' city was burned down SIX YEARS AFTER the Civil War ended!!! Holy fucking shit, what would we be BUT FOR the fire? But for the fire, Chicago would probably dwarf New York, London and Tokyo put together, in all measurable aspects. Hell, throw Singapore, Mexico City and Berlin in there too, just for fun.

Take a minute out of your evidently busy day and google the "Tennessee Valley Authority", cretin. Reading about the federal dollars a great democratic President like FDR poured into the region to haul your brethren into the 20th century will probably cause a tear to roll down your pasty-white face. A notable accomplishment, to be sure, but no replacement for those grand and lovely beaver dams so callously destroyed by the madman Sherman and his nefarious comrades.

The beavers. Remember the beavers. Never again.