Willis Hart Virulent Idiocy Has Him Referring To Civil War Atrocities As "Ethnic Cleansing"

I'm thinking that the Libertarian Willis Hart must have been a Southerner who lived during the Civil War era in a former life. Likely one that strongly supported seceding from the Union due to his desire for slavery to continue. Although he no doubt lied about the reason being tariffs (OST #5 & SWTD #241).

I say this because the dude blogs about it with regularity. Likely hundreds of posts by now. And all of them concern his belief that the South had the right to leave the Union and Lincoln wanted them to stay so he could pass out tariff money extracted from the South to his cronies (DSD #20).

Willis Hart: My personal theory is that he [Abe Lincoln] just got so addicted to the tariff revenue which had fallen disproportionately on the Southern states and with which he was using to solidify his political power and cronyism that the dude literally couldn't stop himself. (3/15/2014 AT 7:23am). [Also] Willis Hart: ...from 1832 to 1857, the tariff was actually quite low (Andy Jackson having caved in prior to Lincoln). But it was more than doubled by the Morrill Act... (3/21/2014 AT 9:41pm).

Both of these assertions are hogwash, given the fact that "the passage of the [Morrill] tariff was possible because many tariff-averse Southerners had resigned from Congress after their states declared their secession". The Morrill tariff (the tariff that really jacked up the rate) wasn't in place before succession! Prior to that tariff the trend was for cutting the rate. The fact is that the Morrill tariff "replaced the low Tariff of 1857, which was written to benefit the South". A FACT Willis acknowledges!

Another complaint of Mr. Hart's is the fact that the Northern armies committed atrocities against the people of the South.

Willis Hart: On the Warped Logic that, Since the South Fired the First Shot in the Civil War (the Truth Being that Lincoln Maneuvered Them Into this a la Polk with the Mexicans), this Gave Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Butler, etc. the Right to Ethnically-Cleanse and Dispossess Hundreds of Thousands of Innocent Civilians and Starve to Death Three Year-Olds and the Elderly... If any other nation or leader on earth had perpetrated these atrocities, it would have gone down in history as pure, unmitigated horror. But because it was us (and especially because it was Abe Lincoln), yeah, not so much. I really think that we need to reexamine our history and, yes, especially those "good wars". (3/9/2016 AT 8:51am).

OK, so I agree with Mr. Hart that war crimes were committed, but none of this was "ethnic cleansing"!

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous. (Wikipedia).

People living in the North were NOT ethnically different from people living in the South, therefore the term "ethnic cleansing" DOES NOT APPLY! I suspect that Willis using it has something to do with his strong racial biases. White people killing other White people is "ethnic cleansing" in the White-centric world he resides in. A reality created by a delusion so strong that it has the Harster wondering how many Black people voted to secede! Here is some real warped logic for you!

I don't think I've ever seen anyone argue that any Civil War war crimes were A-OK, btw. For the record, what I find most disturbing about the Harster's obsession with Civil War war crimes is that these war criminals are all LONG dead. Their crimes occurred over 150 years ago. More recent war crimes that still living presidents are guilty of? Those he dismisses. Clearly he's only for reexamining ancient history and not recent history.

Maybe in his NEXT life he'll be advocating we reexamine the Iraq war and proclaiming that, if any other nation or leader on earth had illegally invaded 2 countries, killed tens of thousands (shock and awe [1]), locking away (without trial) many innocent people (and justifying it by labeling them "unlawful combatants") it would have gone down in history as pure, unmitigated horror?

Remember that ex-preznit bush "claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq" (George Bush: "God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq")? And remember when he referred to the "war on terror" as a "crusade", implying that this was a Christian war against Muslims? Given that the Crusades were holy wars initiated by various Christian Popes to capture the Holy Lands, which were held by Muslims.

No doubt, certainly from a Afghan or Iraqi point of view, the US was perpetrating some "ethnic cleansing", no? I mean, with bush's wars there was forced removal (by death) of a people who were ethnically and religiously different than the more powerful invading force. SURELY the mass murder that took place in Afghanistan and Iraq fits the definition of "ethnic cleansing" WAY better than what happened during the Civil War (where both sides were ethnically and religiously very similar).

Footnote
[1] According to Iraq Body Count, "on a per-day basis, the highest intensity of civilian killings over a sustained period occurred during the first three "Shock and Awe" weeks of the 2003 invasion, when civilian deaths averaged 317 per day and totalled over 6,640 by April 9th, nearly all attributable to US-led coalition-forces, reaching 7,286 by the time of President GW Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech of 1st May 2003". (Iraq Body Count report: how many died and who was responsible?).

Video: preznit doofus refers to the "war on terror" as a "crusade" implying that the US is carrying out a religious war of Christianity V Islam (0:12).

OST #118