From: fjmccall@gmail.com
Nicholas Benjamin wrote:
>
>I'm confused too. Soupdragon seemed to be claiming there's some sort of
historic experience in the US with having referendums for breaking up the
country. The last time anybody got quite that far preceded the invention of
the referendum by a good 50
years; and it was a really eventful 50 years that included things like the
first banning of race-based voting, and the abolition of slavery. Which means
if you are actually implying the South seceded via a referendum, then you are
by definition arguing
that South Carolina let slaves vote in 1861. Which makes no sense whatsoever,
which is why I brought up the discrepancy.
>
So you don't know what 'referendum' means. Let me help:
refˇerˇenˇdum
?ref?'rend?m/Submit
noun
a general vote by the electorate on a single political question that
has been referred to them for a direct decision.
Note that "electorate" word in there? What that means is that if you
couldn't normally vote you don't get to vote in a referendum. So
there is nothing that says that in a referendum over secessesion that
slaves would have suddenly been allowed to vote. It's listed in
dictionaries in 1847, which predates the US Civil War and explodes
your rather silly remark that it hadn't been 'invented' yet.
>
>I suspect he has no idea about any of the facts he's claiming to present, and
he's just throwing language at the wall to see what sticks.
>
I suspect you're not bright enough for your suspicions to matter.
--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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