The Union was taken, by (the) North ..., from a contractual institution that can either be cleaved to or scrapped, and turned into a divinized entity, which must be worshipped, and which must be permanent, unquestioned, all-powerful. There is no heresy greater, nor political theory more pernicious, than sacralizing the secular. But this monstrous process is precisely what happened when Abraham Lincoln and his northern colleagues made a god out of the Union. If the British forces fought for bad King George, the Union armies pillaged and murdered on behalf of this pagan idol, this âoeUnion,â this Moloch that demanded terrible human sacrifice to sustain its power and its glory.

For in this War Between the States, the South may have fought for its sacred honor, ... . We remember the care with which the civilized nations had developed classical international law. Above all, civilians must not be targeted; wars must be limited. But the North insisted on creating a conscript army, a nation in arms, and broke the 19th-century rules of war by specifically plundering and slaughtering civilians, by destroying civilian life and institutions so as to reduce the South to submission. Shermans infamous March through Georgia was one of the great war crimes, and crimes against humanity, of the past century-and-a-half. Because by targeting and butchering civilians, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman paved the way for all the genocidal honors of the monstrous 20th century. There has been a lot of talk in recent years about memory, about never forgetting about history as retroactive punishment for crimes of war and mass murder. As Lord Acton, the great libertarian historian, put it, the historian, in the last analysis, must be a moral judge. The muse of the historian, he wrote, is not Clio, but Rhadamanthus, the legendary avenger of innocent blood. In that spirit, we must always remember, we must never forget, we must put in the dock and hang higher than Haman, those who, in modern times, opened the Pandoras Box of genocide and the extermination of civilians: Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln.

Perhaps, someday, their statues, like Lenins in Russia, will be toppled and melted down; their insignias and battle flags will be desecrated, their war songs tossed into the fire. And then Davis and Lee and Jackson and Forrest, and all the heroes of the South, âoeDixieâ and the Stars and Bars, will once again be truly honored and remembered. The classic comment on that meretricious TV series The Civil War was made by that marvelous and feisty Southern writer Florence King. Asked her views on the series, she replied: I didnt have time to watch The Civil War. Iâ(TM)m too busy getting ready for the next one. In that spirit, I am sure that one day, aided and abetted by Northerners like myself in the glorious copperhead tradition, the South shall rise again.

If we put Senators back under the control of state legislatures, they'll be less influenced by outside money because the state legislatures can yank the leash when these "law makers" stop representing their constituents appropriately. This would make the Citizens United decision less relevant, at least on the Senate side.

The House reps are another story, (etc.)

And yeah... he could have stayed anonymous if he'd wanted to be kidnapped and hauled off to a black site. Putting his name and face to the news gave the story credibility and staying power. Snowden is the man to thank for the 82% concern about NSA surveillance and the ~60% support for weakening the Patriot Act. True, it's not enough to put an end to their shenanigans and restore reverence for human rights and due process, but it's definitely a setback for the NSA.

Snowden's revelations have either hurt or in some cases come close to ruining the business of many US companies. While it is the norm on this forum to assume the worst about large corporations in particular, In many cases companies have suffered damage without collaborating in any way with the NSA that has yet been proven. Cisco for example has been losing sales not because they allowed the NSA to screw around with their equipment but rather because the NSA intercepted their shipments. I don't expect corporations to be reluctant to cooperate with the NSA in future out of some moral idealism, companies will be reluctant to cooperate with the NSA simply because this affair has taught them that cooperating can result in a serious impact on their bottom line and if there is another Snowden that impact might be even worse.

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