causes of the American War Between the States

[The Rabbi]

2. Cannot force a player to work without pay unless that is so specified in the contract the player chose of their own volition to sign.

A non-issue.  Yes, the players get paid, and yes, they sign a contract.  However, the amount they get paid isn;t set by the market, as there is no competition, under the draft system.  Further, some slaves get paid.  Its the inability to quit and go to workk for another employer that is at issue here.

They can certainly work for another employer.  As long as that employer isnt part of the NFL.  Player salaries arent set by the market? Then who does, the Tooth Fairy?  Is there some unknown reason these guys make millions of dollars a year?  Overt generosity of the owners?  No, I dont think so.

Rich, you aren't making sense.
Google gets to "draft" any one who wants to take a job with them into any department they choose.

[The Rabbi]

You have provided your own proof.  The USC bars involuntary servitude and slavery.  And yet we have had a draft many times since then.  Obviously there is no contradiction.

It also says the right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed" - how's THAT  working out?

Why dont you bring up the exploration of the Hebrides, or the Yalu River, or the Isles of Langerhans, or strip poker?

[richyoung]

You have provided your own proof.  The USC bars involuntary servitude and slavery.  And yet we have had a draft many times since then.  Obviously there is no contradiction.

It also says the right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed" - how's THAT  working out?

Why dont you bring up the exploration of the Hebrides, or the Yalu River, or the Isles of Langerhans, or strip poker?

Can't stretch your mind around the idea that sometimes the government violates its own constitution, and sometimes 5 out of 9 Supremes wil go along with it?

[cordex]

1. Cannot require someone who doesn't choose to work for them to do so.

Technically true, but misleading.  They can require someone to work for a particular team in the league, or not in the league at all.  With the exception of major league baseball, I know of no other busniess or businesses that are allowed to operate in this way, inapparent defiance of federal law.

My point stands.  I don't care who they end up working for, they choose of their own volition to become a professional football player and are not forced to do so by the NFL as you both admit and have documented.

2. Cannot force a player to work without pay unless that is so specified in the contract the player chose of their own volition to sign.

A non-issue.  Yes, the players get paid, and yes, they sign a contract.  However, the amount they get paid isn;t set by the market, as there is no competition, under the draft system.  Further, some slaves get paid.  Its the inability to quit and go to workk for another employer that is at issue here.

My point stands.  In a master-slave relationship, the slave does not have the authority to demand wages.  The master can choose to pay the slave in hopes of obtaining better quality of work or greater efficiency, but can also choose to refuse to pay the slave who is required to continue working for the master.  This type of scenario is decidedly not present in the NFL situation.

3. Do not in any way "own" the player except insofar as the player has willfully sold or leased their time, likeness, name, personality and other aspects to the NFL.

In a situation were the player is not free to "market" his skills to thte highest bidder, one can hardly claim that such contracts are "willfully" entered into.

My points stands.  Players are not required to utilize their skills in professional football.  That is one field of many that their athletic talents can be applied to.  As you have already admitted, they can always refuse to play for the team that drafts them.  If they don't feel they will receive the market-value of their abilities playing football, they can go into some other job.  The free market works both ways when the employees are not slaves - as is the case here.

Again, I don't care how evilly or illegally the NFL operates - NFL players are not slaves in any sense of the word.

No, Google doesn't get to "draft" anybody.  If they did, it would go like this:

Say you graduate college with a computer science degree.  Google picks you in the third round of the "IT" draft, and tells you you HAVE to work for Google, writing Java aplets.  No matter that you want to work for Microsoft, working on internet browsers, Google owns your rights, and will pay you an average 'third round" wage - or you don't work in the IT field at all.

No, Rich, that isn't even close to a reasonable analogy. 
1. Players must wish to play for an NFL team before their being drafted can mean anything.  In the overwhelming majority of cases, this means they have to attend try-outs.  In other words, apply for the position.
2. You don't have to work for anyone.
3. Just because you aren't picked by the team you want to play for - or by any team at all - doesn't mean you can't use your athletic talents for something else.  Another sport, perhaps.  Or in a job that requires physical strength and endurance.  In other words, "NFL sanctioned professional football" is not equivalent to "the IT field".

Rich, you're wrong.  Your claim that NFL players are slaves is simply without merit.

[richyoung]

I'm not claiming they are completely slaves - just pointing out the slave-like aspects of thesystem, and how they are almost universally accepted and tolerated.

[Perd Hapley]

rich, you're still making no sense.

The Rotary Club and Sam's Club are forms of slavery.  Discuss.


3200 posts!  Woo-hoo!

[The Rabbi]

I'm not claiming they are completely slaves - just pointing out the slave-like aspects of thesystem, and how they are almost universally accepted and tolerated.

As I said many posts ago, virtually every commitment has "slave-like" aspects.  It ceases to be a useful guide to anything and ends up just being silly.  The notion that NFL players, who have spent most of their lives dreaming of playing in the NFL and get richly rewarded for it, are slaves, doesnt pass the laugh test, much less the smell test.

[Perd Hapley]

Rabbi, you're off-topic.   

The Rotary Club and Sam's Club are forms of slavery.  Discuss.

[cordex]

Hey fistful, you really ought to reconsider waiting to have children.  You're in full-fledged parent mode already. 

Rich,
Rabbi is right.  Whenever you commit to something, you remove some of your freedom to do something else.  That holds true whether you're committing to work for someone or to help a friend move.  That doesn't make you a slave.  On the other hand, being a parent, mentor or cat owner might be considered slavery.

[The Rabbi]

Sorry, Fistful.

I dont know what the rotary club does other than have lunch and listen to speakers.  A bad lunch and a boring speaker would probably qualify for slavery, maybe even eternal damnation while it was going on.
Sam's Club is slavery waged by the forces of corporatism, whatever that is.

[richyoung]

Hey fistful, you really ought to reconsider waiting to have children.  You're in full-fledged parent mode already. 

Rich,
Rabbi is right.  Whenever you commit to something, you remove some of your freedom to do something else.  That holds true whether you're committing to work for someone or to help a friend move.  That doesn't make you a slave.  On the other hand, being a parent, mentor or cat owner might be considered slavery.

If the commitment is FREELY ENTERED INTO, without coercion, then I agree with you.  I submit that the NFL involves substantial coercion - thats its whole purpose - to FORCE good players to play on BAD teams.  For less than market pay.

[Perd Hapley]

richyoung, your intellectual timidity is exceeded only by your intellectual dishonesty.  You're just skirting the real issue, because you don't want to admit that the Rotary Club AND Sam's Club are BOTH reprehensible forms of slavery.  AND what ABOUT the Mighty Morphon Power Rangers?  NO slavery THERE, i SUPPOSE.   

[richyoung]

No - but the Columbia Record Club comes close....

[The Rabbi]

richyoung, your intellectual timidity is exceeded only by your intellectual dishonesty.  You're just skirting the real issue, because you don't want to admit that the Rotary Club AND Sam's Club are BOTH reprehensible forms of slavery.  AND what ABOUT the Mighty Morphon Power Rangers?  NO slavery THERE, i SUPPOSE.   

And dont forget both the Mickey Mouse Club and The Club of Rome.

[richyoung]

Free the Disney Seven!

[Iain]

Well Ashcroft said it was to free the slaves.

[Otherguy Overby]

What is not a part of general history is that Lincoln was corresponding with Karl Marx throughout the Civil War.

Lincoln was a closet commie.  IOW, it's obvious why and how we've ended up with our present government.  FDR finished us off...

[Perd Hapley]

Wow.  I thought this thread had already wandered all over the place and spent most of it's time in Koo-Koo.  Way to up the ante, OO.

[Hugh Damright]

Another argument for the Unionist position was that the Constitution was ratified by "We the People," rather than the states, and thereby the states were bound to the will of the whole people, southern and northern.

I think that right there is one of the causes of the Civil War. It is a political error of the people of the North. The US Constitution was ratified by the people AS STATES, it is a compact between the States. And if some States violate the contract, then others are no longer bound.

"A breach of the fundamental principles of the compact by a part of the Society would certainly absolve the other part from their obligations to it." -James Madison

"Should the whole body of New England continue in oppositition to these principles of government, either knowingly or through delusion, our government will be a very uneasy one. It can never be harmonious & solid, while so respectable a portion of its citizens support principles which go directly to a change of the federal Constitution, to sink the State governments, consolidate them into one, and to monarchize that."  -Thomas Jefferson

[richyoung]

Wow.  I thought this thread had already wandered all over the place and spent most of it's time in Koo-Koo.  Way to up the ante, OO.

A lot of things peole THINK they know aren't so - take the shootings at Kent State, for example.  Not many people learn from the school history books or TV that the SDS and Yippie movements were deliberatle trying to get students killed as "martyrs", that out-of-town isntigators were observed on campus and arrested in town, that the whole thing was planned because the Ohio National Guard was already streached thin with a wildcat trucker's strike, racial unrest in Cleveland, and riots ot Ohio University.  That shell casings from .32 and .22 weapons were found on campus - (note - NOT guard weapons).   That .45 bullets were recovered that didn't match any guard weapon on the scene.  That one of the wounded was shot in the BACK of the head with a "non-military bullet". That bullet holes in sculptures and walls support the claim by the guardsmen that they were fired on first.  That at least one undercover agent was caught on campus with a possibly fired .32 revolver, and another .32 was later recovered froma nearby river with 2 rounds fired.

[cordex]

A lot of things peole THINK they know aren't so - take the shootings at Kent State, for example.  Not many people learn from the school history books or TV that the SDS and Yippie movements were deliberatle trying to get students killed as "martyrs", that out-of-town isntigators were observed on campus and arrested in town, that the whole thing was planned because the Ohio National Guard was already streached thin with a wildcat trucker's strike, racial unrest in Cleveland, and riots ot Ohio University.  That shell casings from .32 and .22 weapons were found on campus - (note - NOT guard weapons).   That .45 bullets were recovered that didn't match any guard weapon on the scene.  That one of the wounded was shot in the BACK of the head with a "non-military bullet". That bullet holes in sculptures and walls support the claim by the guardsmen that they were fired on first.  That at least one undercover agent was caught on campus with a possibly fired .32 revolver, and another .32 was later recovered froma nearby river with 2 rounds fired.

Wow, Rich.  You're right - I'd never heard any of that.  You should start another thread about it.

[Perd Hapley]

Hugh, I've seen your name at THR.  Welcome to the Society.

Another argument for the Unionist position was that the Constitution was ratified by "We the People," rather than the states, and thereby the states were bound to the will of the whole people, southern and northern.

 The US Constitution was ratified by the people AS STATES, it is a compact between the States. And if some States violate the contract, then others are no longer bound.

"A breach of the fundamental principles of the compact by a part of the Society would certainly absolve the other part from their obligations to it." -James Madison

I challenge your first assertion, but am willing to be persuaded.  If memory serves, the Const. was ratified by special conventions held within the various states, not by the state governments themselves.  If the state governments had been party to the ratification, they would have done so through the legislature, no?

How do you think your second assertion applies? 

Can you give me some context for Madison's statement?

I'd like to know the context for Jefferson's, too, but I can't see how it would apply in any case.

Thanks,

fistful

[richyoung]

A lot of things peole THINK they know aren't so - take the shootings at Kent State, for example.  Not many people learn from the school history books or TV that the SDS and Yippie movements were deliberatle trying to get students killed as "martyrs", that out-of-town isntigators were observed on campus and arrested in town, that the whole thing was planned because the Ohio National Guard was already streached thin with a wildcat trucker's strike, racial unrest in Cleveland, and riots ot Ohio University.  That shell casings from .32 and .22 weapons were found on campus - (note - NOT guard weapons).   That .45 bullets were recovered that didn't match any guard weapon on the scene.  That one of the wounded was shot in the BACK of the head with a "non-military bullet". That bullet holes in sculptures and walls support the claim by the guardsmen that they were fired on first.  That at least one undercover agent was caught on campus with a possibly fired .32 revolver, and another .32 was later recovered froma nearby river with 2 rounds fired.

Wow, Rich.  You're right - I'd never heard any of that.  You should start another thread about it.

Maybe next May Day - which was the start of all the rioting.

[Hugh Damright]

I challenge your first assertion, but am willing to be persuaded. If memory serves, the Const. was ratified by special conventions held within the various states, not by the state governments themselves. If the state governments had been party to the ratification, they would have done so through the legislature, no?

Sorry, I don't mean to say that the US Constitution is a compact between the governments of the States, I mean to say that it is a compact between the people of the States. And yet, amendments can be ratified by either State Conventions or by State Legislatures, so I reckon the State Goverments are a player. I believe the way it went is that the Constitution was ratified by State Conventions, and the Bill of Rights was ratified by State Legislatures.

But my point was that the US is not a State, it is not empowered by the people as one sovereign political body, but rather the US is a Union which is empowered by the people as fifty sovereign political bodies.

How do you think your second assertion applies?

"The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
 
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made ...

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States ...

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation." - SC Declaration of Secession

Can you give me some context for Madison's statement?

"It had been alledged [by Mr. Patterson], that the Confederation having been formed by unanimous consent, could be dissolved by unanimous Consent only. Does this doctrine result from the nature of compacts? does it arise from any particular stipulation in the articles of Confederation? If we consider the federal union as analogous to the fundamental compact by which individuals compose one Society, and which must in its theoretic origin at least, have been the unanimous act of the component members, it can not be said that no dissolution of the compact can be effected without unanimous consent. A breach of the fundamental principles of the compact by a part of the Society would certainly absolve the other part from their obligations to it. If the breach of any article by any of the parties, does not set the others at liberty, it is because, the contrary is implied in the compact itself, and particularly by that law of it, which gives an indifinite authority to the majority to bind the whole in all cases. This latter circumstance shews that we are not to consider the federal Union as analogous to the social compact of individuals: for if it were so, a Majority would have a right to bind the rest, and even to form a new Constitution for the whole, which the Gentn. from N. Jersey would be among the last to admit. If we consider the federal Union as analogous not to the social compacts among individual men: but to the conventions among individual States. What is the doctrine resulting from these conventions? Clearly, according to the Expositors of the law of Nations, that a breach of any one article, by any one party, leaves all the other parties at liberty, to consider the whole convention as dissolved, unless they choose rather to compel the delinquent party to repair the breach."  -The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 by James Madison TUESDAY JUNE 19th. IN COMMITTEE OF WHOLE ON THE PROPOSITIONS OF MR. PATTERSON

I'd like to know the context for Jefferson's, too, but I can't see how it would apply in any case.

I think that it applies because you keep calling the Southerners traitors when it was the yankees that have always been attacking the Constitution. Jefferson said it in 1800. My whole Region said it in 1861. And I'm saying it now.
 
The South seceded so that free and constitutional government might live on. The New Englanders, like the Old Englanders before them, turned against our Chartered and Constituted rights. The South has stayed true.
 
I recall Jefferson's comments coming from an era when the yankees got in power and gave us the Alien and Sedition Acts ... Here's a link to Jefferson's letter - http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl133.htm

[Perd Hapley]

you keep calling the Southerners traitors

I did?