The Trent Incident nearly caused a war between the Union and Britain. Lincoln thought one war at a time was the wiser choice.
I recently finished Shelby Foote's 3 volume civil war set - this is pretty much an exact quote from the first book. I've always imagined what may have happened had the Southerners not been set free, or the British ship damaged, sunk, or even fired directly on. Had Britain entered the war, or even just supplied the South with more arms, supplies, money, and even arranged European mercenaries had British troops not been sent.
As for the politics forum, I'm with Brooke (obviously), but I understand why it isn't here. Back in 2000 during the fracas and hanging chad stuff, this forum turned into a battleground, where friend turned on friend quickly, sort of like the first part of this post, it became a literal modern civil war with words. Unfortunately the other side to that sword is many who didn't like the censure or lack of politics on the forum left, and held a grudge, there are hundreds, nearly a thousand, over at another website who bring this up from time to time, having left Aces High the game, over Aces High the forum, which sucks. I think many will wander back when the new version comes out, there is already a squad with nearly a dozen players from there that have returned, and many more ask about the game there now. I can't ever see a politics forum coming back, but SimHQ did precisely what Brooke has suggested, isolated and quarantined their politics, war, economy, and other sensitive subjects in a manner that hasn't interfered with their huge forum traffic in the other gaming areas. It's even hard to find if you don't know where to look for it, and there are still some rules, but for the most part there is very little mod interaction in their entire bbs, which is far larger than here. So, I believe it CAN be done, but also believe it won't be, at least not here.
and I think new visitors would unfortunately visit there first and form their opinion about the community based on the most negative things allowed to exist there
That argument doesn't hold up very well here, since the game itself and its comm system, both vox and 200, have politics, bad language, and fights over any manner of subject matter, take your pick, popping up on an hourly basis, still to this day. Yet it doesn't receive near the censure or attention and moderation that the forum does. The actual game = do whatever you like, with a 5 percent chance of getting muted, the forum however, behave or die. Using the "defending the new customer" shield..well that shield is in splinters really when you consider the fact that the first thing a player will see is in fact the game, not the forum, HTC itself says most even long term players never read the bbs, much less new sign ups, so stop banging this "protect the children and new customers from the forum" gong. I would bet for every 10 customers that see something negative in the game, maybe 1 sees something negative on the forum, if that. If protecting the newbies is so critical, why is the place where they are most likely to see negative things a free for all still, and always has been?
