A retired Tennessee law enforcement officer was held in jail for more than a month this fall after police arrested him over a Facebook post of a meme related to the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Prosecutors eventually dropped the criminal charge brought against Larry Bushart, but his stint behind bars came to exemplify the country’s tense political and legal climate following the tragedy, when conservatives sought to stymie public discourse about the late controversial figure that it saw as objectionable.
Now, Bushart is suing over his incarceration.


I think you might need to learn less civil war mythology and more actual history.
They weren’t holding up to their principals then either, the whole thing was genuinely about states rights they just said their rights overruled other states rights because ownership of property didn’t change via interstate travel.
It’s far more stupid then most textbooks imply.
To retain ownership across state lines where the property is considered a limited person in the other state. What part of this makes you think I do not know the property in question were people, that isn’t however why the feds got involved. State sovereignity was. Even after emancipation it was still legal to own people and still technically is to this day as slavery was never outlawed it was simply limited. To add to that children were still held as property until I want to say 1930 to the point that the first successful children’s welfare group was the goddamn ASPCA arguing children are property like livestock that it’s morally and economically unreasonable to abuse.
Your myopic and arguably ignorant meme usage and is implication is exactly what I mean by mythology.
Naw, the meme holds: “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”.
south caronlina seceded because of state’s rights to slavery. Almost all articles of secession had the same language. Have some history.
No one said the meme was wrong, I said it was myopic.
But it isn’t. It is right on point. Even the secession articles say it out loud. The fight was over slavery.
You just admitted it was about states rights… Hence myopic. We had the same issue with drugs pre federalization as others have pointed out and notably slavery was never outlawed in the United States.
No, states rights to slavery. Why try to whitewash it? That’s myopic, and dogwhistling in support of slavery.
Uh huh, states rights. The federal government did not intercede because of slavery, they likely wouldn’t have acted at all past flimsy legislation if not for fort Sumter.
Don’t believe me, listen to Lincoln, listen to Jefferson Davis.
It’s not white washing it, when people say it isn’t about states rights they are the ones removing context not the other way round.
But that wouldn’t work for say heroin.
If your state says heroin is legal and the fed says it’s illegal, you can’t really leave your state and still legally be in possession of it.
I guess you could claim you own a person in a red state but once they leave, you no longer own them?
Wasn’t that the red states’ whole complaint? That their slaves shouldn’t be considered free men once they leave?
So in conclusion, the whole states rights argument doesn’t work because what they actually wanted was to have their state’s laws apply across the country.
And this doesn’t even talk about the moral issues which imo and most people’s opinion should override the above logic anyway.
That was an actual issue in America, nice of you to point that out for me and it’s also why drug prohibition was federalized.
Correct, that was their property right claim. It’s nonsensical but quite a lot of wars are over nonsensical shit.
No one said it worked, they fought and lost a war about it but that doesn’t actually make it not their argument nor does it imply we shouldn’t teach that property rights across state lines were the cause of the civil war, not in particular slavery as slavery was never outlawed and people were still considered property until well into the 1900s.
Nuance is sometimes difficult to deal with but that doesn’t mean we should pare away inconvenient truths.
Morality is subjective and therefore difficult to argue which is why they fought it as a property rights issue instead.
Everyone knows that owning other people is a topic with such significant moral subjectivity, so talking about racially justified ownership of other humans really emphasizes the need to have a nuanced perspective on property ownership.
Think about how you sound.
No one is saying slavery wasn’t involved, it clearly was.
No one is saying racism is a good thing.
What I am saying is that the federal government but it’s own explanation did not get involved because of racism or slavery but rather state sovereignity and succession.
Slavery may have been their reason for seceding, it isn’t however the framework of their disagreement with the federal government not the reason the federal government got involved. So to say it wasn’t about states rights is straight up, flat out wrong.
I can’t help not notice you didn’t provide any evidence for your claim that “no one cared about states rights” or that it states rights were solely a post war conjuring.
You’re wrong, call me a racist I don’t care since I know you’re wrong and simply attacking me on a personal level says you’re emotionally involved to the point you’re willing to ignore actual facts in favor of feelings.
Insightful rebuttal.
Thanks man
Ya huh.
Ah, I see you had a history class in a “lost cause revisionist” state.
It’s an actual fact bud. It may not be one you like but it’s a fact none the less.
Saying the civil war was about states rights is like saying the Holocaust was completely legal.
Both positions are factually correct, but it completely misses the inhuman and immoral pretexts that lead to those actions. The American civil war was about slavers trying to prolong their lifestyle of abusing other human beings regardless of what the laws of the country were. They saw that slavery was going away, and they responded by starting a war of secession.
It was. Read a book, no one is saying they weren’t also racists or that they the state right they wanted preserved was property rights over people in interstate travel.
Duh, I went over that specifically and at length.
I literally quoted
Jefferson DavisAlexander Stephens (VP of the Confederacy) a month into the Confederacy. You should go read a fucking history book. Racism and slavery was the foundation of the Confederacy, as stated by the people that started it. States rights is a bullshit excuse. The confederate states wanted to force non-slave states to return escaped slaves, despite them have the rights (specifically a state right) not to return human beings to slavers. Fuck off with this fake ass daughter of the Confederacy propaganda.Edit : Fixed cornerstone speech attribution.
And I quoted him before in the legislature and after the war both specifically referring to states rights.
No shit?
That does not change it from being the framework for succession and their main complaint.
Ah you mean they challenged state sovereignity which is… A state right!
You just admitted it was fact, when I was taught in school they would specifically tell you it was not about states rights when in fact it was. The federal government did not intercede because of slavery they interceded because of state sovereignity.
You fuckoff, as I recall you chose to interject yourself. Did you not?
Exactly. The slave states didn’t care about states rights at all. All they cared about was keeping slaves. If the believed in what they were saying about states rights, they wouldn’t have tried to force non-slave states to turn over freed slaves. The entire “confederates wanted states rights” argument is bullshit. They used the states right excuse to uphold the practice of slavery, and completely ignored these rights when they were used against slavery.
The Confederacy was about keeping slaves, and it was not about upholding the sovereignty of states. That was myth invented after the war was lost to whitewash the people who fought for the “right” to own and abuse human beings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy
You can keep arguing after this I guess, but from this point forward, you would be knowingly promoting and defending a racist slaver-apologizing fraudulent piece of revisionist history.
I would love to see your evidence about that one. I’m quite sure free states cared very very much about state sovereignity hence their objections to shave owning states attempting to exert their authority in free states what with the war about it and all.
No shit? I wonder if we went over this already? Oh yes, we did in fact already talk about this and simply disagreeing with the framework they chose to make their argument does not make it any less of a fact.
I already provided pre war evidence that directly refutes your feelings on the matter.
This isn’t lost cause theory, it’s stating a series of facts you simply don’t agree with.
I’m not promoting anything you buffoon, you’re simply trying to call me a racist because you can’t win the argument because the facts simply aren’t on your side.
youre fucking dumb lmao
Read a history book those are all facts. Sure repubs were the “good guys” at the moment but that too is warped, Lincoln was against immediate emancipation but for slow rolling emancipation.
Look it up, the mythology behind the civil war in this country is fuckin wild.
youre fucking dumb and any conversation about the civil war, states rights, and property that does not mention slaves and that people are not property is disingenuous and fucking stupid. youre a fucking moron lol like fr? it was about states not recognizing property? you fucking clown lmao it was about (southern) states not recognizing people
No it wasn’t. Emancipation is the outcome not the cause, even after Sumter was attacked Lincoln refused to act on slavery. The feds got involved to preserve state sovereignity and reenforce Lincoln’s position that states did not have the right to secede. Slavery was certainly involved it wasn’t however the cause of federal intervention.
You’re pushing American mythology and ignoring the factual basis for federal involvement. Did you never wonder why Lincoln went with essentially an executive order (that by the way lost him 30+ Republican seats in Congress) rather than passing an amendment rather then passing an amendment first? It’s because he didn’t have the support needed to pass it because the North was also racist and also wanted to keep slaves they just wanted a different mechanism for gaining and keeping slaves ie. Lawful imprisonment.
Yeah, I’m pretty sick of the “It was a different time” bullshit too. It was not about property because people are not property, and humans decided that slavery is wrong LONG before the Civil War. Look in the fucking Bible, the most disseminated piece of literature of all time, and the book that many dumbasses say the US was founded on.
I don’t believe people are property but we aren’t talking about what I believe we’re talking about how the civil war was framed and specifically the mythology it’s evolved into. Sure sane people don’t believe slavery is a righteous endeavor but clearly that’s not changed anything today nor in the past given that slavery hasn’t ended globally and in the US slavery specifically and legislatively isn’t illegal in certain instances like lawful imprisonment, again mythology.
Not talking about other places. I’m suggesting that the arguments about “states rights” and “property” are disingenuous because they imply that we didn’t agree that slavery is fucked to begin with. If we are a country founded on Christian values as many would suggest, then it is not possible to have an argument about “property” when you’re referring to people. This was true in 1860, as well.
It was literally framed at the time as states rights and specifically interstate property rights, this is what I mean by mythology. You want to ignore actual history because it makes you feel weird, that’s how mythology starts and progresses.
We literally didn’t agree that’s why there was a fucking war about it genius.
The country wasn’t founded on Christian ideals, that’s more mythology you can literally read the founders talking about the nation not being Christian or Christ based at all. Moreover slavery is not just legal in Christianity but fucking prescribed, it’s more mythology.
It quite literally was not true in 1860 hence the goddamn war and continuing racism in America.
That’s clearly the property that was being referred to, I’m sorry I didn’t specifically spell that out for you.
It was about states rights, they just framed it as interstate property rights because slaves were property. Again I apologize for not pandering to the dumbest among us but you’re making a good point that I shouldn’t discount just how dumb people can be.
do you support the “lost cause” of the confederacy?
Clearly not.
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Nah, that’s how we get here in the first place.
do you think that “tHe CoNfEdErAcY sHoUlD’vE wOn ThE cIViL wAr”? if so, then let me say that i’m very glad the union won the civil war back in 1865. seriously!
You just asked me three times in a row of I support the Confederacy and got the answer no 3 times so you decided to go ahead and ask again?
How exactly do you think knowing history makes me a racist or Confederate sympathizer? Are you seriously so dense that you think that framing the cause of the civil war correctly is tacit support of the Confederacy?
…said the devil’s advocate supporter
No one is sitting anything but teaching history instead of mythology. Though I do think you might need to work on your teaching comprehension if you got support or of anything I’ve said.
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It was dude. When people say it wasn’t about states rights they’re simply wrong. The only reason the federal government stepped in was to protect the federal governments right to control interstate trade. Yes the trade was slavery but to ignore history because it makes you feel icky is to be willfully ignorant.
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Dude is non binary and I don’t particularly care what you prefer, I prefer not to be called a racist or Confederate sympathizer but you went ahead and did it anyway didn’t you?
It was about states rights you can read Lincoln talking about it, you can read Jefferson Davis talking about it and notably some of the union states were slave owning states when they entered the union.
No it was not, it was about property rights across state borders, there’s a reason emancipation didn’t happen until like 3/4 off the way through the war and that’s because Lincoln didn’t have support for it in the legislature and talked about it at length. Sure the outcome was emancipation but was not the cause. Seriously! Read a fucking history book dude.
what do you think of the confederacy?
Traitors clearly, I’m legitimately amazed you think knowing history is supporting the Confederacy. I know quite a bit about WW2 and want that taught directly as well, does that make me a Nazi?
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You don’t want to put words in my mouth but you advise me of being devil’s advocate and imply I’m a racist or Confederate supporter. You’re full of shit.
Because that’s how it was fucking started read a goddamn history book. Or I dunno if you need it dumbed down watch the John Oliver bit on it.
https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-resolutions-relations-states
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I’m a leftist you buffoon. Seriously!
Maybe don’t accuse people of being Confederate sympathizers for knowing fucking history.
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I’m the type of leftist that will tell you to read a goddamn history book and mind your goddamn business while your at it. Personal attacks are after all very good evidence your argument sucks and you can’t defend it without disparaging me.
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It’s not what you meant? It’s literally what you accused me of. Seriously!