REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Lincoln's Evil: Can Someone Explain This to Me, Calmly and Rationally?

POSTED BY: HKCAVALIER
UPDATED: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 18:37
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 5:52 PM

HKCAVALIER


Hi,

I've never understood how it is that Lincoln's detractors have come to the conclusion that he was some kind of evil dictator on the order of Hitler. Now, I am aware of his destructive legacy--how he expanded Federal power beyond anything dreamed of by the founders (except Hamilton, perhaps?), but I don't see how that makes him an evil man, any more than dropping the H-bomb on Japan made Truman an evil man--only a very, tragically mistaken man.

From what I've read of Lincoln's own writing, his ideas on slavery were at times inspiring and at other times, quite muddled, even wrong headed by our standards, but not prima facie evil.

Here's the bottom line for me: I read Lincoln's own writing and I read a deep, complex, and ultimately decent person. I get the same feeling when I read Jefferson and Washington. When I read Hamilton, on the other hand, I read a crook and a dispiriting elitist. And when I read Churchill, on the one hand I read a terrifically eloquent and brilliant man and on the other, a disturbing and disturbed bastard. These latter two men disturb me and trouble me, but not Lincoln. What am I missing?

I've tried to read up on this issue online, but I've failed to find anything that isn't so distorted and overblown that even PN would blush to read it.

So, what should I read? Which of Lincoln's own writing reveal the monster lurking in his soul?

Also, how did he pull it off? How did he single-handedly dismantle everything great about this nation and brainwash an entire people into thinking he was a swell guy? No other would-be dictator in history has been so successful at not only getting away with such a crime, but maintaining his evil sway over his nation a hundred years after his death. Dictatorships end, dictators' statues get torn down, their memories indelibly stamped with their infamy. But not Lincoln. How?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 6:36 PM

MINCINGBEAST


Very interesting thread. I can't explain Lincoln's evil, calmly or otherwise, but I find that point of view to be a refreshing contrast to Lincoln's deification. I could be persuaded that Lincoln was evil; I want to think the worst of people. But when people explain things angrily and irrationally, I tend to lose sight of their point, then focus on their anger and hope to coax more of it from them. Considering the scope of Lincoln's presidency, anger and irrationality almsot seems inevitable.

And also, you do Hamilton a grave injustice.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 6:46 PM

BYTEMITE


Perhaps, unlike the others, the reason Lincoln doesn't disturb you is because maybe he did think he was doing good. He thought that saving the union was the most important thing at the time. But his influences, the same people who benefited from the civil war, they had anything but benevolent intentions.

But Frem might have something more concrete and evil minded to accuse Lincoln of. I haven't studied this that much.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 7:59 PM

FREMDFIRMA


because winners write the histories, even if they do a pretty bad job of it.
i dont think you are going to have much luck finding a really neutral source because i think its impossible to look at the evidence once its unwrapped from all the excuses and the lies and not hate him real bad.
the closest you will get is a guy called dilorenzo because he makes sure he has proof before he says things, which he kind of has to because like any well established myth or religion as soon as you question it everybody who believes in it gets really really mad at you.
there also really isnt any evil because of evil thing, its more that he was mad with power and going crazy from the little blue pills he was taking because they were full of mercury and eating his brain.

his biggest crime is breaking consent of the governed, because up till them that was what government power came from, not the barrel of a gun, and he changed that, and if you think that isnt a horrible thing ask anyone in the middle east how it feels to have supposed democracy shoved down your throat with a gun.

edit: i do not believe he stopped taking them when he said he did either, that makes no sense unless the damage had already been done.

-frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 8:33 PM

MINCINGBEAST


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

his biggest crime is breaking consent of the governed, because up till them that was what government power came from, not the barrel of a gun, and he changed that



Which specific acts broke the consent of the governed? A period of martial law and suspension of habeas corpus rights? Not waving goodbye when the Rebs collectively yelped "Ya'll can't govern us no more" and fired on Ft. Sumter? You see to know the subject well. Also, what kind of context does the war provide for his actions?

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 8:35 PM

RIVERDANCER


I uh, I heard that he was a vampire hunter...

HRWATPWRTCITG

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 8:45 PM

MINCINGBEAST


Quote:

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Perhaps, unlike the others, the reason Lincoln doesn't disturb you is because maybe he did think he was doing good. He thought that saving the union was the most important thing at the time.



Who doesn't think they're doing good, aside from self-conscious Super Villains? Hitler thought he was doing good when he gassed the jews; the jews disagreed.

Maybe Lincoln's deeds don't disturb if you agree that saving the union was doing good.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 8:54 PM

FREMDFIRMA


oh yes, its also a good idea to take the histories themselves with a big grain of salt too, since they were with very few exceptions written by extreme party loyalists, since those who were not happened to be rotting in jail thanks to lincolns policy of locking up the staff of any newspaper that didnt kiss his butt hard enough.

to imagine the effect that might have had, try to envision what a history of the reagan and bush years might read like if you let auraptor write it.

-frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 9:34 PM

HKCAVALIER


Aw crap, Dilorenzo is the best? That just doesn't make sense to me. Cuz that guy sucks (but come to think of it, not as much as the others I've looked into). I've heard reasonable arguments made that show Wilson to be a rabid white supremacist, FDR to have some pretty obvious fascist leanings, but somehow Abe Lincoln was so goddamn evil NO ONE can be civil about him?

That doesn't scan, Frem. It doesn't. And history is written by the winners only gets ya so far. It does not get ya all the way to what we have with Abraham Lincoln. Again, his absolutely triumphal con-job is without precedent in all of human history. (ETA: all despots attempt to control the press, but somehow Lincoln had perfected it and no dictator since has been able to duplicate his success?)

And if he was losing his mind, I should be able to read that in his writings, no? (I'll check it out.)

That said, I do recognize the consent of the governed thing--that is huge, but I can't lay that at one man's feet. Good God, if that value was so sickly that a single President could wipe it out completely, then there hadda be some major stressors on that value before Abe came along!

Couple huge cultural shifts in this country at the time: the genocide of the indigenous peoples--who exemplified kingless governance to shocked Europeans for generations, exemplified American independence to the Founders, inspired the preamble to the Constitution (we "the people") and were an integral, defining part of the post-colonial life. And the other huge influence on the American scene was the huge influx of European immigrants that flooded our borders in the second half of the 19th century--people who knew nothing of the native American way of life, people who understood power as a pyramid and had no taste for anything else. These two factors in combination had much to do, I believe, with the destruction of the original American spirit.

And, sorry, but even though Lincoln was an opportunistic abolitionist, abolitionism was a big part of why the northerners on the ground were fighting that war. To call them all the victims of propaganda is simply misanthropic.

But thanks, Frem, you have given me the best argument against Lincoln that I've seen.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 10:01 PM

FREMDFIRMA


well, obviously you want to read dilorenzo with a grain of salt too, but his stuff is properly sourced, which puts him ahead of just about anyone else in the discussion.
it isnt just who he was that makes lincoln so awful as what we was, a fulcrum on which the whole path of this country pivoted, and the front man for a party that always wanted a new aristrocacy no matter how they could get it and so he was their tyrant king.
lincoln was not an abolitionist at all, he supported and is suspected to have written, an amendment to constitutionally protect slavery, and a letter of him asking a florida politician to support it confirms at least that he supported it.
he was also bugnits crazy, because all those people saying how calm and reasonable he was in public and them many of them had a different story in private, probably because of that whole rotting in prison for not kissing his butt thing, because theres plenty of evidence his rages and strange behavior continued right on up till he died.

but yes, if you read all of dilorenzos stuff even with his obvious dislike just on the evidence its pretty awful and paints a very dark picture, lincoln is the guy who shelled new york with artillery for being angry over gunpoint conscription, while at the same time saying how awful slavery was so hes an obvious liar on top of everything else.

-frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 11:14 PM

FREMDFIRMA


im going to be mean, im going to say it.
there is another guy who pulled off such an epic scam and go away with it in spite of being a nasty person who was front man for an agenda full of bloodshed and cruelty, and we still build statues of that scumbag too.
jesus of nazareth, and you get about the same reaction to pointing out his flaws and lies as you do lincolns, which should tell you something about whether the belief in lincoln rests on evidence or faith.

-frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 1:04 AM

AGENTROUKA


Asking with the neutral curiosity of an agnostically raised person: Jesus?

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 2:52 AM

RIVERLOVE


Anyone know what Lincoln said to his aide after he woke up groggily from one his infamous 3-day drunken weekends?




"I freed the WHAT?"

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 4:07 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Couple huge cultural shifts in this country at the time: the genocide of the indigenous peoples--who exemplified kingless governance to shocked Europeans for generations, exemplified American independence to the Founders, inspired the preamble to the Constitution (we "the people") and were an integral, defining part of the post-colonial life. And the other huge influence on the American scene was the huge influx of European immigrants that flooded our borders in the second half of the 19th century--people who knew nothing of the native American way of life, people who understood power as a pyramid and had no taste for anything else. These two factors in combination had much to do, I believe, with the destruction of the original American spirit.


Em, I disagree with all of this.

I have much respect for the Native American lifeways, prior to contact with European culture, there's much evidence that at least within individual tribes people were raised with a calm, stable outlook and freedom to make their own choices about their lives.

But the Europeans, and their American born descendants, had absolutely no respect for the Native Americans. At best they pitied them (with misguided attempts to supplant their culture by stealing their children and making them Christians), at worst they hated and feared them, and saw them as just an obstacle to getting their resource rich lands. The Constitution and Declaration of Independence was NOT inspired by any respect the Founding Fathers had for Native American culture: George Washington did a lot to try to kill them all off, and was the first to propose moving them all to reservations.

As for Europeans, I imagine plenty of them who chose to come over understood what America meant. There was work, there was the dream (then attainable, at the time), and if you went out west, once you established yourself, you were left alone. You think the IRISH particularly bowed to European authority types? Let me recommend to you Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal for a read, then, and point out it was mostly the Irish causing a ruckus during the 1857 New York City Police Riots, who were at that time the big wave of immigrants due to the potato famine. So no, I disagree with your assessment.

Rather, I would imagine that the policies Lincoln solidified were a result of a slow progression from old Federalist influences, which because of the two party system never quite completely left Congress.

So I might also disagree with Frem here, in that Lincoln can't be both out of his wits AND the master implementer of all these bad ideas. Back in those times, a man who seemed genuinely insane would most likely have been removed from his duties by close friends and associates and put in an institution, no matter who he was. So if Lincoln really was going mad, he only remained in office because he was useful for some reason, and I suspect that despite the irritability, Lincoln might have been really susceptible to suggestion and manipulation.

He did, after all, have an entire troop of pro-corporate thugs around him after the first assassination attempt.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 4:17 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Asking with the neutral curiosity of an agnostically raised person: Jesus?



Jesus was a total badass. Raiding jewish temples to throw out the money changers, and overturning tables, and almost certainly at the time, an anti-Roman insurgent.

No, he didn't shy from a fight, and if you understand just who his associates were and what they were up to, it paints a somewhat different picture than the peaceful bible messiah.

I don't think it necessarily makes Jesus a scumbag, though, just a trickster-type and a rebel. I suspect some of Frem's strong negative opinions about Jesus come quite a bit from his strong dislike about what Christianity has become. I'm not sure Jesus ever anticipated his little personality cult/bunch of freedom fighters would have evolved into the Romanesque authoritarian types in charge now. I suspect he wouldn't be happy if he knew.

...I think we actually had this conversation before, this seems very familiar.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 4:27 AM

AGENTROUKA


Byte,

if Jesus was mainly a freedom fighter against the Romans, who inserted all the peaceful, religious bits that got people so invested in him?

I mean, I do not doubt that much of the story has been distorted to present a pro-Roman picture (Pilate, anyone?) but unless Jesus message was contradictory to begin with, his original Jewish followers should have noticed some serious changes if he never did preach about meekness, giving the emperor his due, etc...

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 5:23 AM

BYTEMITE


Well, you gotta remember, there was a pretty big gap between the time of Jesus living, and the time when Christianity became accepted among the Romans.

This is something else that's been modified, because when Christians were forced underground, we have no surviving record from them apart from the bones and a few etchings on the catacombs. But they likely continued to believe in an ass-kicking Jesus, because it fit their situation.

But when Christianity had to become accepted as a mainstream religion, Jesus' character had to become mainstream friendly as well, so poof, gone was his rebellious anti-establishment ways in favour of something that kept the population complacent. Even though they resisted Christianity for a while, transforming religions into something that worked for the Empire was something that the Roman officials did very well.

And yes, many of those parables Jesus gives can be shown to have come from other sources, and were retroactively attributed to him.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 6:11 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

I don't think Lincoln was evil. If he was crazy, it doesn't seem to have interfered with his ability to function as president. He certainly had some ideas I consider 'crazy' but then most people do.

I do think he was wrong. Often wrong. And as hard as it is to defend a bunch of racist jerks in the south, they ought to have been able to choose secession. Clearly, Lincoln's goal was to restore the Union, whatever the cost. The slave issue was a path to victory, not a moral imperative. If he could have saved the Union without freeing slaves, it seems likely to me that he would have. He himself enslaved much of the nation in order to free it by conquering it, which is a basic contradiction of principles.

He is considered a great man because the ultimate outcome appears superficially positive. We have a large, powerful nation where slavery is illegal.

But slavery didn't actually end at the conclusion of the war. It persisted in the form of extreme inequality. The real freedoms gained were post-war and hard-won by the people who continued to be mistreated by the masses.

And is having a powerful nation enough of a reward for committing wrong acts? Is accomplishing something positive for all the wrong reasons and using all the wrong methods enough to make you a hero?

I think Lincoln was an important President. But I don't think he was necessarily a Great President.

--Anthony



Due to the use of Naomi 3.3.2 Beta web filtering, the following people may need to private-message me if they wish to contact me: Auraptor, Kaneman, Piratenews, Wulfenstar. I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 6:27 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg


I agree with Anthony.

I seriously doubt that Lincoln was a good President, or even a good guy.

First, he (along with others) forced the South to try a leave, by levying high taxes and fees against them, simply because they had an indentured workforce that could/was outpacing the North.

Second, he only tried to make it about slavery as a way to get folks to fight.


If Lincoln actually cared about the Union, he could have lowered the taxes against them.. and Lthen,

If he had cared about freeing the slaves... bought them off the Southerners. ike France did, I believe.

No Civil War. No long lasting segregation.


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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 6:37 AM

MINCINGBEAST


Seems the consensus was that Lincoln was a Satanic figure, sort of an American Caesar who saved the Republic by destroying it, and did many unspecified evil things. Will no one advance the view that he was some sort of secular saint?

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 6:55 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


I don't disagree with the characterizations of Lincoln and his actions, however I'd like to point out some of what might have been behind it.

Abraham Lincoln has long been posthumously diagnosed as Unipolar (severely depressed). A lot of famous people were unipolar or bipolar, and given such things were unknown at the time, diagnosis can only be done by historical writings, hospitalizations, suicides, suidical ideation or attempted suicides, personal writings, family history and other things, all of which have to be taken into account before a posthumous diagnosis is given.

For example:
Quote:

The meeting breaks up the next day. In the nearly empty hall, a man sits alone, elbows bent, hands pressed to his face. He confides to someone who approaches him, "I’m not feeling too well." The man is Abraham Lincoln. He is battling a crushing depression.

The event is recounted in Joshua Shenk’s outstanding new book, "Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness." Writes Mr Shenk:

"Lincoln’s look at that moment – the classic image of gloom – was familiar to everyone who knew him well. … He often wept in public and cited maudlin poetry. He told jokes and stories at odd times – he needed the laughs, he said, for his survival. As a young man he talked of suicide, and as he grew older, he said he saw the world as hard and grim, made that way by fates and forces of God. ‘No element of Mr Lincoln’s character,’ declared his colleague Henry Whitney, ‘was so marked, obvious and ingrained as his mysterious and profound melancholy.’ His law partner, William Herndon said, ‘His melancholy dripped from him as he walked.’"

Mr Shenk relates that depression was a constant throughout Lincoln’s adult life. He never overcame it. He never rose above it. His life was one long unceasing litany of sorrow. At times, he completely gave in to his condition. He would fail to get out of bed. He would behave very strangely. He would alarm his friends and associates.

Much was investigated before he was diagnosed, and it might help explain some of his eccentricities and actions.

That is NOT to excuse the things he did, but is more of at least a partial explanation of what was behind some of his decisions and actions. The more we understand people, historical figures and others, the more we can see the whole picture, in my opinion.

I would also suggest that, as others have, no “insane” person would survive as Prez unless he had serious backing to protect him, as well as the fact that no Prez is responsible for everything that happens during his Presidency. There are other politicians, agendas, supporters, advisors at work, so blaming Lincoln for all the ills of his time as President seems to me simplistic.

I know Frem’s hatred of him has come up time and time again, but I believe in the grays in life, so I would say yes, he did things that are worthy of damming, but I don’t think we can reasonably damn him for everything bad that happened.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
signing off


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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 7:43 AM

FREMDFIRMA


i think he means the german forty-eighters when hes talking about immigrants who wanted a king, and it was the parties agenda more than lincoln himself that was being put in play, the same as how the neocon agenda got shoved by bush even if bush was an idiot and a lunatic, and yes it was quite similar in that with enough sucking up they could get lincoln to do anything.
another good example of his inner character is the accounts of his reaction to the atrocities he ordered sherman to commit, when he read about them, you can look that up yourself easy as i did.
and no, i dont think christianity became a religion of bloodshed, intolerance and hypocrisy because it was always like that from the very start, what kind of a god asks someone to murder a baby just for fun, tortures people for amusement and lies so much that the real miracle of the bible is that none of those stupid people ever get mad about being lied to.
and it wasnt making it friendly that got that stupid little blood cult accepted as a primary religion, it was their policy of murdering anyone who did not agree with them which they kept right on doing even here to the native americans and still do to the middle east, and the only reason they dont do that stuff here is because they got what they wanted, control of almost everything and their hate for anything different ripping us all apart at each others throats so their evil god can get off on the misery.

niki, he was taking blue mass which was full of poisonus mercury and it was eating his brain, and he claimed that he stopped taking them but i believe that as much as a drunk who claims he stopped drinking because reports of his rages and strange behavior exist right up till he died, and i think that there were people in his party who knew all about it and like most addiction there would be a cycle of back and forth between sane and crazy which they took advantage of.

-frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 8:55 AM

KANEMAN


Abraham Jefferson Lincoln, a.k.a. The Sexy Ocelot, born at the Lincoln Memorial Hospital (1809-2008) to a Black-Jewish-Italian-Native American man, and an eight foot tall she-bear, was an outspoken slavery advocate, world renowned plumber, masseuse, triangle player, racist stand-up comedian, and pimp who became President of the United States after a voting mishap. In the early years of his career, he was famous for his offensive jokes about Blacks that he put in his speeches promoting slavery. Often considered the Michael Richards of the 1800’s, Lincoln’s acts typically included jokes about slavery, Africa, your mom, and Kentuckistan Fried Chicken. However, as racism slowly started to become unacceptable in society, he moved on to insulting women in his act. Historians such as Sain of Lycia said this was a smart move on Lincoln’s part because “making fun of women will never age”. Eventually, Lincoln become president through a bizarre, freakish voting discrepancy involving Oprah, a Slaxe, and rabid squirrels. During the beginning of the American Civil War, Lincoln was granted Emergency Powers by the first mentally disabled member of the Senate in order to quickly quell the rebellion. Near the end of the war, the Senate had nearly no power, and many people began to worry about the US becoming an Empire. Lincoln tore up a petition called the Petition of Senators Against Emergency Powers Used to Gain More Power. This prompted John Wilkes Boothy, a senator, to assassinate Lincoln at Fords Theater, ending his reign as dictatorial leader. Abe Lincoln was also a renowned samurai and zombie slayer.

Being one of America’s most good-looking Presidents[4], Lincoln is therefore accepted as one of America’s greatest Presidents. A great strategist, Lincoln reportedly made sure that tall lecterns were installed on the stage wherever he debated an opponent, thereby ensuring that the audience couldn’t actually see his opponent (let alone hear him).

The not-so-funny people at wikipedia have a different opinion on this...Humor enc.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 9:09 AM

MINCINGBEAST


Quote:

Originally posted by kaneman:
Abraham Jefferson Lincoln, a.k.a. The Sexy Ocelot, born at the Lincoln Memorial Hospital (1809-2008) to a Black-Jewish-Italian-Native American man, and an eight foot tall she-bear, was an outspoken slavery advocate, world renowned plumber, masseuse, triangle player, racist stand-up comedian, and pimp who became President of the United States after a voting mishap. In the early years of his career, he was famous for his offensive jokes about Blacks that he put in his speeches promoting slavery. Often considered the Michael Richards of the 1800’s, Lincoln’s acts typically included jokes about slavery, Africa, your mom, and Kentuckistan Fried Chicken. However, as racism slowly started to become unacceptable in society, he moved on to insulting women in his act. Historians such as Sain of Lycia said this was a smart move on Lincoln’s part because “making fun of women will never age”. Eventually, Lincoln become president through a bizarre, freakish voting discrepancy involving Oprah, a Slaxe, and rabid squirrels. During the beginning of the American Civil War, Lincoln was granted Emergency Powers by the first mentally disabled member of the Senate in order to quickly quell the rebellion. Near the end of the war, the Senate had nearly no power, and many people began to worry about the US becoming an Empire. Lincoln tore up a petition called the Petition of Senators Against Emergency Powers Used to Gain More Power. This prompted John Wilkes Boothy, a senator, to assassinate Lincoln at Fords Theater, ending his reign as dictatorial leader. Abe Lincoln was also a renowned samurai and zombie slayer.

Being one of America’s most good-looking Presidents[4], Lincoln is therefore accepted as one of America’s greatest Presidents. A great strategist, Lincoln reportedly made sure that tall lecterns were installed on the stage wherever he debated an opponent, thereby ensuring that the audience couldn’t actually see his opponent (let alone hear him).

The not-so-funny people at wikipedia have a different opinion on this...Humor enc.



This is as close as this thread got to calm reason and historical context.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 8:39 PM

DMAANLILEILTT


i think that the idea that lincoln was evil came from the fact that he was bad. just looking at the lead-up to the civil war before fort sumter, he had a few choices. he could've: decided to attempt to negotiate with the confederacy, attack swiftly and end the war with minimal economic damage to the south or, do nothing and hope the problem goes away. naturally he chose the latter.

also i think lincoln would not fit in as a member of the republican party today.

i don't think anyone major in the civil war could be called evil, but ulysses grant could be called a bit of a cockhead. he knew he could never match robert lee in tactics and so decided to use his superior numbers to just walk through the confederate forces. then when he became president, he failed to make reconstruction do anything meaningful in the south, allowed a ridiculous amount of racial violence to happen and appointed corrupt officials all across the south.

"I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?"

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 8:58 PM

AGENTROUKA


Byte,

what seems missing there, for me, is how an anti-establishment, ass-kicking religion would ever become mainstream without changing itself FIRST.

Unless you're arguing that Constantine's conversation heralded a very sudden change that all the previously anti-Roman Christians gladly embraced, the transformation must have taken place long before it became mainstream, meaning that either other parts of Jesus' message were dominant enough to take focus away from anti-Roman kick-assery or they had some other motivation to accept a rebel religion and then switch it around.

It doesn't want to make sense to me that there was a change SO radical that the messages about peace and meekness are fake add-ons that hadn't been there before.



.. is it just me or have we had this discussion before?

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 12:56 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Dmann - Burying your enemy in the bodies of your own men because they were poor conscripts you could just replace by impressing more at gunpoint isn't exactly the act of a mere "cockhead", that's a seriously horrific thing to do.

Oh and don't forget Grants little corruption problem that damn near got him impeached, either.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 3:53 AM

BYTEMITE


AR: haha, yeah, I'm pretty sure we have.

I'm not sure I believe that Constantine was the first Roman higher up conversion to Christianity, for the exact same reason you mentioned. It doesn't make much sense, and the conversion of someone in as key position as Constantine doesn't happen overnight, and not without precedent, like the legend would want you to believe. There's more going on there, that history has glossed over for some reason.

Supposedly the Emperor BEFORE Constantine, Diocletian, was one of the worst prosecutors of Christians, making edicts to rescind Christian legal rights... But that suggests that they HAD Christian legal rights prior to then.

Reading further, it sounds to me that after about 205 A.D., when persecution began in earnest, that Christianity had already split into two camps, one that tried to remain "pure," and one that tried to comply with Roman demands (except probably the edicts for pagan sacrifice). Guess which group won out in the end. Also sounds like some regional magistrates of the Empire were reluctant to enforce Christian persecution, having Christian sympathies... Such as Emperor Constantine's father.

A lot of the persecution of the era was exaggerated by the influence of a "cult of the martyrs," as well. Though it does sound pretty bad. But by the time of official prosecution, a large number of Christians were from rich and influential families. Possibly because before the Nicene Council convened, and decided to build the church doctrine on Peter's perspective, women held respected positions in the Christian community, and while they couldn't become priests, were considered disciples as much as the men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletianic_Persecution

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 4:06 AM

OUT2THEBLACK


A very good book on Lincoln. Many of the words are his own , and they're surrounded by well-informed historical context :

http://www.amazon.com/Fate-Liberty-Abraham-Lincoln-Liberties/dp/019508
0327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279202645&sr=1-1


The Fate Of Liberty

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 4:30 AM

BYTEMITE


More information, from the wikipedia entry on The Historical Jesus.

Quote:

Jesus preached in Galilee and Judea (modern-day Israel) for one to three years in the first half of the first century.

Following the fall of earlier Jewish kingdoms, the partially-Hellenized territory was under Roman imperial rule, but there were ongoing hopes of a revival of independent sovereignty. The Roman Prefect’s first duty to Rome was to maintain order, but although the land was mostly peaceful (notably between 7 and 26[30]), there were continued risks of rebellion, riots, banditry, and violent resistance (see also Zealotry). Four decades after Jesus’ death, the tensions caused by Jewish hopes for a restoration of the kingdom of David culminated in the first Jewish-Roman War and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.[citation needed]

In the Judaic religion of Jesus' day, the Pharisees were a powerful party, espousing (like the first Christians) belief in the resurrection of the dead, retribution in the next world, angels, human freedom, and Divine Providence.[31] The more conservative Sadducees held power in the Temple. The Essenes lived ascetically and looked for an imminent apocalypse. According to scholars such as Geza Vermes and E.P. Sanders, Jesus does not seem to have belonged to any particular party or movement.



Quote:

The gospels and Christian tradition depict Jesus as being executed at the insistence of Jewish leaders, who considered his claims to divinity to be blasphemous, see also Responsibility for the death of Jesus. Historically, Jesus seems instead to have been executed as a potential source of unrest.


Quote:

Jesus began preaching, teaching, and healing after he was baptized by John the Baptist, an apocalyptic ascetic preacher who called on Jews to repent.

Jesus was apparently a follower of John, a populist and activist prophet who looked forward to divine deliverance of the Jewish homeland from the Romans.[85] John was a major religious figure, whose movement was probably larger than Jesus' own.[86] Herod Antipas had John executed as a threat to his power.[86] In a saying thought to have been originally recorded in Q,[87] the historical Jesus defended John shortly after John's death.

John's followers formed a movement that continued after his death alongside Jesus' own following.[86] John's followers apparently believed that John might have risen from the dead,[89][dubious – discuss] an expectation that may have influenced the expectations of Jesus' followers after his own execution.[86] Some of Jesus' followers were former followers of John the Baptist.[86] Fasting and baptism, elements of John's preaching, may have entered early Christian practice as John's followers joined the movement.[86]

John Dominic Crossan portrays Jesus as rejecting John's apocalyptic eschatology in favor of a sapiential eschatology, in which cultural transformation results from humans' own actions, rather than from God's intervention.



Quote:

All four Gospels agree that Jesus was crucified at the requested of the Jewish Sanhedrin by Pontius Pilate. Crucifixion was the penalty for criminals, robbers, traitors, and political insurrection, used as a symbol of Rome's absolute authority - those who stood against Rome were utterly annihilated.


Quote:

The sage of the ancient Near East was a self-effacing man of few words who did not provoke encounters.[102] A holy man offers cures and exorcisms only when petitioned, and even then may be reluctant.[102] Jesus seems to have displayed a similar style.[102]

The Gospels present Jesus engaging in frequent "question and answer" religious debates with Pharisees and Sadducees. The Jesus Seminar believes the debates about scripture and doctrine are rabbinic in style and not characteristic of Jesus.[103] They believe these "conflict stories" represent the conflicts between the early Christian community and those around them: the Pharisees, Sadducees, etc. The group believes these sometimes include genuine sayings or concepts but are largely the product of the early Christian community.



However, the only real historic evidence I can find for Jesus actually engaging in behaviour that could vaguely be called insurrectionist was the cleansing of the temple scenes, which some historians think Jesus might have done twice, instead of just the once recorded. In any case, Jesus didn't seem to think highly of many of the Jewish and Roman higher ups in his region, and his teachings and actions made them very nervous, enough that they would execute him as a political insurrectionist.

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Saturday, July 17, 2010 5:36 AM

DREAMTROVE


HK

It should be blatantly obvious.

I'm serious. Most evil dictators don't require lots of digging. First off:

1. He killed a million people.

Okay, rather than start with "He's good!" from there, you should automatically put him in evil and then have to work towards good.

If you are skeptical enough, then every argument presented to try to persuade you should be attacked by a counter argument that you go and dig up from one of the opponents, which I think is a pretty standard thing people do to try to form objective opinions.

Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?

Argument against Lincoln: No, slavery was not an issue. He had an emancipation plan on the table that he already knew would be far cheaper than the war: Buy out all the outstanding contracts on slaves, then declare emancipation.

2. He attacked america, a land he was sworn to defend. Burned a decent portion of it to the ground.

Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?

Yes, well, we heard that one.

3. He arranged to marginalize the southern vote to prevent southern democrats from getting control of congress

Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?

4. Conscription
Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?

5. The income tax.
Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?

6. Handing everyone's captured assets to his friends (Why didn't Bush do this? Just invade america, capture the land and companies you want and hand them to your friends!)
Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?

7. Tossing out Habeas Corpus et al.
Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?

You see how the excuse gets old real fast?

John Quincy Adams was an abolitionist too, he just wasn't willing to kill a million people to get what he wanted.

Most economists predicted slavery would fall apart around 1880 or so, which it did, but it certainly didn't end because of the civil war. Slavery came right back after the war. Of course, it's still with us, but it's nowhere near as strong as it used to be. See, there's a snag with slaves: they make such terrible consumers, because they just don't buy anything. An industrial economy doesn't have a lot of use for such a population.


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Saturday, July 17, 2010 9:32 AM

HKCAVALIER


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
HK

It should be blatantly obvious.

I'm serious. Most evil dictators don't require lots of digging. First off:

1. He killed a million people.

Okay, rather than start with "He's good!" from there, you should automatically put him in evil and then have to work towards good.

I am truly getting sick of this board. The contempt folk around here have for their ideological opponents is overpowering. This post of yours fairly drips with contempt for the poor fools who don't happen to think as you do. You frame the debate as those with any sense or morals vs. the utterly brainwashed fools who would cleanse Lincoln's sins away all for slavery.

First of all, Lincoln did not kill a million people. Sorry. He was just President and approved policy which lead to their deaths. You might call that splitting hairs, but I'm talking about what makes a man evil. Yeah, he declared war without the consent of Congress, but by that criterion, every President since Carter has been evil. Going to war, per se --much as war is, I'll grant you, thoroughly evil--doesn't make an individual evil for participating. As I mentioned, I wouldn't say Truman was evil and he was far more directly involved with the murder of some 200,000 people, as it was he who gave the order and only a few men in the planes who carried out the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And what of the millions of soldiers in our American army since, who have waged war on total strangers merely at the behest of our government? Is every last one of them evil? Is it not evil to kill total strangers who have done you no harm for money? I personally would never do that, but I am not so misanthropic to believe that anyone who would is evil.

The more I've leaned of our Civil War, the more bizarre it seems to me. A Civil War is supposed to be between a revolutionary faction trying to take over the nation's government, and the government. That's a civil war that makes sense. But the South seceded. I honestly don't know what would have happened to the U.S.A. if secession were simply allowed to stand. Would our divided nation merely have been scooped up by the British and the French or later by Russia and China? The South as a nation would have been very poor, very beholden to the generosity of other nations. I dunno.

I'm still trying to suss out why they seceded in the first place. As far as I can tell at this point, they seceded merely because they feared the Republicans would take their slaves away. They seceded before Lincoln was even inaugurated! It wasn't his evil policies that lead them to break with the North. At this point it looks like they seceded because they lost an election (sound familiar?); because policy was not going to favor their economic interests for a term. Good god, if secession happened like that to this day, there would be no U.S.A. Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing at all, but I can't write off the people who felt differently as evil.
Quote:

If you are skeptical enough, then every argument presented to try to persuade you should be attacked by a counter argument that you go and dig up from one of the opponents, which I think is a pretty standard thing people do to try to form objective opinions.
I don't usually condemn people personally based on evidence unless it is truly extraordinary: planning and carrying out the Final Solution, genocide for the sake of genocide, sure, evil. Ted Bundy killing upwards of 100 women for kicks, yeah, pretty evil. The Civil War is not so clear cut, not by a mile.
Quote:

Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?
This is a stupid joke of a strawman. You're not even trying. Why bother with me if it's all so simple? It makes me crazy when otherwise brilliant and decent commentators such as yourself resort to this kinda crap.

Anyone who has looked into the matter beyond High School, knows Lincoln was principally concerned with maintaining the Union. Though he was obviously opposed to slavery on principle, he was not an abolitionist. His comments on the matter remind me of Dr. Paul's comments on abortion. He is personally against it, thinks it is deeply wrong, but he would put his personal feelings aside to be the President of the Nation.
Quote:

Argument against Lincoln: No, slavery was not an issue. He had an emancipation plan on the table that he already knew would be far cheaper than the war: Buy out all the outstanding contracts on slaves, then declare emancipation.
And this is the argument made that the war was not about slavery. Again, people seeing the actions of an entire nation as merely the All Knowing Hand of the President at work. What fascinates me about the war is how much it really was about abolition to the folks in the north who fought it. The South could see that they were in a losing ideological battle on slavery and so far, it looks as though they seceded because of that.

I see slavery being a ticking time bomb for the young nation ever since the Continental Congress. The division between North and South was present in 1776, as it was in 1861, as it continues today. The Civil War did not create it, but I'll grant you, it may well have made it permanent.
Quote:

2. He attacked america, a land he was sworn to defend. Burned a decent portion of it to the ground.
Um...what, then, does "secession" mean? The South was no longer a part of the United States at that point. If your morality were in place at the time, the U.S. would never have expanded beyond the original 13 states, as every war of expansion was an attack on america, as you say. I wouldn't have had any problem with that either, but I don't judge all Americans as evil because of western expansion. Is there a solution to the problem of secession other than just letting the South split off? Is it just and appropriate that the South seceded merely because an opposing faction gains power in the government? People speak of secession today and I think it betrays a shocking lack of respect for democracy. How is the South's secession in 1861 different? (I know, it doesn't justify going to war--I don't approve of the war between the states, anymore than I approve of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki--but I'm interested in your opinion on the matter anyway.)
Quote:

Argument for Lincoln: But, he had to, 'cause, you know, slavery?

Yes, well, we heard that one.

Did I mention that I'm getting sick of this board?
Quote:

3. He arranged to marginalize the southern vote to prevent southern democrats from getting control of congress.
As I said, the South seceded before he even took office. And I'm not up on the specifics of the gerrymandering you're talking about, but isn't that still in the purview of Congress, not the Chief Executive?
Quote:

4. Conscription.
Um...the Southern States instituted a draft. Neither side anticipated upwards of 30% casualties on the battle field. Y'know, if I ran a country and we were at war and 30% of our soldiers were dying, I'd make peace. Neither the Southern nor the Northern governments chose that option. Yay for them! But, yeah, you're right, it was all Lincoln's fault...
Quote:

5. The income tax.
Yeah, much better to pay for a war by borrowing from China. It sucks that the income tax was not repealed after the war, but dayum, I don't call a man evil for being honest about the cost.
Quote:

6. Handing everyone's captured assets to his friends (Why didn't Bush do this? Just invade america, capture the land and companies you want and hand them to your friends!)
Still reading up on this--can't find any quick trustworthy sources. Demonizing one's subject sure doesn't inspire confidence in one's findings.
Quote:

7. Tossing out Habeas Corpus et al.
Wartime shit. I don't like it, but at least it weren't permanent.
Quote:

You see how the excuse gets old real fast?
It must suck to live in a world overrun by idiots. How can you stand it?
Quote:

John Quincy Adams was an abolitionist too, he just wasn't willing to kill a million people to get what he wanted.
After admitting that the war was NOT waged against slavery, you throw this in? Doesn't do a thing for your argument. Just makes you look kinda dickish.
Quote:

Most economists predicted slavery would fall apart around 1880 or so, which it did, but it certainly didn't end because of the civil war. Slavery came right back after the war. Of course, it's still with us, but it's nowhere near as strong as it used to be. See, there's a snag with slaves: they make such terrible consumers, because they just don't buy anything. An industrial economy doesn't have a lot of use for such a population.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Are you saying that Lincoln abolished slavery to open new markets? And you're not a Marxist? lol Thanks for the chuckle! I need it after that post.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Sunday, July 18, 2010 2:44 PM

DREAMTROVE


HK

No contempt was intended. I think this is obvious, all you have to do is look with an unbiased eye. Remember, I'm coming at this from the right, it's in my best interests to defend Lincoln, but I can't. He's just an SOB.

Quote:

First of all, Lincoln did not kill a million people.


Nonsense, of course he did. He was a military dictator. He ran the war as CiC. It wasn't an act of a complex govt'l process, it was an act of a lone wolf Lincoln.

As for other CiCs who have killed a million or more for this country or any others, you haven't seen me defending them on this board, ever, have you?

Quote:

I wouldn't say Truman was evil


You wouldn't?!?!?! You are far more forgiving than I. I would have called Truman one of the most Evil SOBs to walk the earth. At least Lincoln *had* a cause, even if he was loaded down with special interests that pushed him towards doing evil in it's name. Truman's cause was that Japan had the Pacific and Truman, like FDR before him, wanted it, and Truman was willing to slaughter millions to get it.

As for what would have happened to the South after secession, I don't know. I do know that there was a powerful contingent that wanted war with mexico, a war they would have ultimately lost. I guess that I would suspect that the south would probably reintegrate into america under different terms, but it might have stood as two countries kind of the way America and Canada do.

Interesting question.

Quote:

planning and carrying out the Final Solution


My father's family was completely wiped out in the holocaust. I've studied the subject a lot. I remain unconvinced that there was a final solution. I suspect that the holocaust was largely a corporate event, and I say that as a general free market component.

Corporations ran slave labor camps with a high attrition rate, and the definition of jew got very greedy, as they constantly needed more slaves for their war contracts.

The Nazis were evil for several reasons, Kristallnacht, the invasion of Austria et al, and extension of executive powers, etc. I'm just not sure there was a final solution per se.

Quote:


I'm still trying to suss out why they seceded in the first place.



The republicans had a scheme to partition the western states to create a permanent southern minority in congress. This isn't really a mystery, virtually every state mentioned it as the reason for seceding. Either Davis or Lee made the famous quote on this one, something to the effect of "what point is it to be part of a union in which your vote is never counted." The end result was that the partitioning happened anyway, but not until the end of the century.

It's unfortunate for the south that slavery became the wedge issue, but it did so not because it had popular support, but because it had industrial financial support.

I'm not arguing that Lincoln was not well intentioned, BTW, just that the devil is in the details. He had a plan on the table that he knew would work that he knew would be cheaper, and probably told himself that he shouldn't pay the debt on slave contracts because then plantations could profit, and he wanted to punish the bad people. But I suspect what he really wanted was to take what was theirs and make it his, the same as any other tin plated dictator.

Quote:

This is a stupid joke of a strawman. You're not even trying.


You're right, I wasn't trying, but it is what people bring up whenever you criticize any of the absurd things that Lincoln did. I thought that putting that one catch all statement next to a litany of Lincoln's evils would make it look as absurd as it is. It's like the way the Bush crowd says "But Bush had to do (the patriot act, the war, habeas corpus, gitmo, torture, homeland security, etc.) because, y'know, 911?" It's a dumb excuse. Take away the dumb excuse and Lincoln has nothing.

Quote:

Lincoln was principally concerned with maintaining the Union. Though he was obviously opposed to slavery on principle, he was not an abolitionist.


Yes, but he wanted more than that. He knew that keeping the south was easier than ending slavery: The south had a simple demand, equal representation. He could have met that. And could have bought the slaves. What he couldn't do was take over the south and "northify" it. That they would never stand for.

He was an abolitionist though, but then, a lot of people were. Actually, he thought sending them back to africa would have been a good idea. He also toyed with cutting off a piece of the US and making it into a Blackistan.

It is possible to be evil and eloquent at the same time. Just check out Winston Churchill sometime.

I wasn't saying that Lincoln himself was all about slavery in his argument, I was saying that his defenders tend to be. Nothing personal was intended.

Quote:

Um...what, then, does "secession" mean?


I'm not much of a civil war historian but my sister and mentor both are, and both assure me that slavery was *not* a major issue to most of the people who fought in it. Not an argument, just 2 cents from the peanut gallery like the holocaust comment. I tend to shoot down individual pieces of information if I think they're incorrect.

To know what secession means you have to know what the union means. In 1861, the union was a loose affiliation of states for mutual protection. It was not a country the way England was, it was more like the EU. Lincoln's concept of union was much more far reaching, and it was a concept that many member states felt uncomfy being a part of.

This is a running theme in american history. Obama has now increase the concept further even than Bush, and it's reached levels that resemble empire. I wouldn't be at all surprised if states seceded as a result. But this doesn't make them foreign powers any more than Norway's withdrawal from the EU in '94 has made it not a European country. American states are american states and might indeed continue to believe in our constitution, or at least the articles of confederation, being our actual binding document, without believing in expanded powers that fit the concept of the role of government held by some elected executive.

Under Bush both Hawaii and California made moves towards secession, and now under Obama we see it with Arizona. Regardless of what you might think of the wedge issues involved, the overall concern was the overreach of executive power outside of consitutional bounds.

As far as the expansion of the US:

The US is all states which sign its constitution or articles of confederation into law. But many of those states were purchased (louisiana and member territories, alaska) and taken in a war with santa ana, who attacked the US, for which we're really not responsible. The wars of agression of the US were with the indians, and later the sioux, and then hawaii, all native peoples. Some states thus are more questionable than others, giving hawaii the best claim to independence, followed by the five states of the sioux nation, which are currently claimed by the Sioux Nation, which seceded under George W. Bush and claimed them. I suspect the population of those states would support the sioux claim if they thought they could get away with it.

Quote:

Is there a solution to the problem of secession other than just letting the South split off? Is it just and appropriate that the South seceded merely because an opposing faction gains power in the government? People speak of secession today and I think it betrays a shocking lack of respect for democracy. How is the South's secession in 1861 different? (I know, it doesn't justify going to war--I don't approve of the war between the states, anymore than I approve of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki--but I'm interested in your opinion on the matter anyway.)


Yes, Diplomacy.

This isn't just a case of states leaving, it's a case of the unions leaving the states. The states signed on to being part of a union with certain guarantees of representation and certain admissions and limits to executive power. If the union fails to meet those criteria that were signed into law by treaty, then the member states are not bound to follow without a new deal being brokered. It may be that the states with to make no further bargain than the initial deal they signed, but that by itself doesn't mean they want out of the old one. If they did want out of the original arrangement, a deal could be brokered for that as well, to break up the union, but I see no serious evidence that this was the case. It seems to me that they didn't want in to a new bargain in which they were to shift from 1/2 to 1/3 representation, and which embodied a great expansion of executive power.

I see no reason why secession is an insult to democracy, not that I would care, I think it's a terrible form of Govt. (It gave us Hitler, and WWI+II, and every conflict since then. In fact, it began by giving us the Peloponnesian War) But in any case, all states are internally democracies, so I don't see the connection.

If you mean because of Obama, or Bush, that they were supposedly elected, I'd say, maybe, but two things

1) not really. Bush was elected in a primary by 3 million fundamentalist Christians whom he had convinced that he was a man of peace who would use the power of the presidency to feed the world's poor (I am sooo not making this up).

I suspect that Obama was elected in a primary by a similar starry eyed group who did not support going to war with balochistan and khandahar, secret prisons, torture, the partiot act, or a pending war and sanctions against iran, to say nothing of national policies such as the right of the govt. to randomly assassinate its own citizens without trial *(now official policy)

* I would generally say that each president is pretty much just like the last, only they each push the envelope a little and expand executive power a little. Strangely, none of them ever give it up ;)

2. The executive is not meant to be a tyranny of the majority. In said executive expansion, Presidents (who are not your elected representatives, but who is really?) expand their presidential power to make a new office which does not match the description of the one they were elected to, so they can not really be said to be elected. Obama is now an international agent of US interests, and under him Hillary Clinton (of his cabinet, not his enemy, not really...) commands a secret army with no external checks, which can invade an attack anyone in or out of the US and does so all the time. I'm pretty sure that *no one* voted for that.

If what you do when elected is radically change the job description then you're not really democratically elected to that position, are you?

I suspect an independent Hawaii would still be a democracy and not revert to being a monarchy, but I don't personally think they're better off for it. I can't say that they *should* be a monarchy because they were before we invaded, but I also can't say they *shouldn't* be. It's really their choice. Democracy is definitely not better than other forms of govt., and no one should be bound to it because they were born into it, or because their ancestors were conquered by it.

Quote:

As I said, the South seceded before he even took office. And I'm not up on the specifics of the gerrymandering you're talking about, but isn't that still in the purview of Congress, not the Chief Executive?


Sort of. The secession was an ongoing process. Seven states had announced their intent to secede, but it was not a done deal yet. This was a time for a diplomat. And, yes, there's a strong part of this which is Buchanan's fault, and you'll find almost no one who will defend Buchanan, who probably wanted them gone from his union.

Conscription was one of the points I thought he was evil on. It wasn't really a change either. It would have been a better sell to pick Washington or someone, but as I said, I wasn't really trying.

You won't find me defending Jefferson Davis either.

But as you pointed out, the thing about boards on the internet is that all arguments come down to "Someone is Wrong on the Internet!"

Discussing the topic to learn more about it is interesting. Arguing with people trying to convince them of a political point of view, particularly that they should be democrats or republicans is fairly pointless.

Quote:

Yeah, much better to pay for a war by borrowing from China. It sucks that the income tax was not repealed after the war, but dayum, I don't call a man evil for being honest about the cost.


I assume this was sarcasm, but I actually agree with the statement: I would respect a nation that borrowed money from China to fight its wars. That isn't what happened with Iraq since we spent some 10 trillion on our wars, with the last few presidents, and we only borrowed 800 billion or so from China, but it would be a better way to go.

Taxes are evil, and the income tax is most evil. If you dig into property rights you'll find all of this "taxes are the new slavery" stuff, but it's basically true.

A 50% tax means 50% of the time, you're working towards the executive agenda. That means 20 hours a week. The net effect of your labor, 20 hours a week, would be toward that execuitve agenda. Regardless of where the money is allocated and on what basis it is taxed, the lions share of that agenda is always war, over 90% of it, and the tax rate on american workers is over 50% when you add all taxes together. Since your wages are transferred economically, you check spreadsheets or whatever which you can do for 20 hours so someone else can bomb Khandahar. I call that a pretty evil system, especially since outside of that system there is basically zero support for attacking Khandahar. Even McChrystal, the guy who until so recently was in charge of doing just that, said that these people represented zero threat to us and we bascially had no business being there.

But overall, wouldn't it be better to have no war, and work 20 hours instead of 40, and have the exact same income?

Anyway, lincoln's tax was 3% but it was the initiation of the income tax.

Quote:

Demonizing one's subject sure doesn't inspire confidence in one's findings.


point taken, I'm not very good at rhetoric, but I suspect that attacking Lincoln is kind of like attacking Mao, it's not really a controversy because I don't see it as a balanced argument. I kinda seem him as a megalomaniacal dictator claiming a moral authority.

Oh, on the last point, not a marxist because I don't believe in a top down socially engineered economy. Mainly, I don't trust the people who would run such a structure.

See, I believe people are smarter than the left tends to, which is why I trust them with control of the society. Marx makes a lot of good points on economics, but he loses me on the solution. Essentially, this sort of this would require a platonic philosopher king in order to work, and such a person, even if they exist, would quickly be replaced by a nietzchian will to power of the most depraved element available, which is what happens to communism.

I actually don't think that Lincoln had that in mind, but I suspect his industrial backers did, and that they ultimately would have won that point with or without them. Not only was slavery a dead end consumer market, it was wreaking havoc on the industrial labor market as slaves were getting leased out to industry. They already had a functional economy, and the breakdown was removing consumers (sort of like how the workers in iPod City will not be able to afford and iPad.)

But I suspect Lincoln himself wanted rid of blacks, and recognized that slavery was causing the importation of blacks. Hence the ship them back to africa or isolate them in a standing state model. Not sure of this, because I undoubtedly have not read as much about lincoln as you have. My sister was big into him for a while. The thing is, when you admire someone, you can read lots about them, but when they kinda turn your stomach, you tend to give up and read something else.

Most politicians turn my stomach, esp. those with a lot of power, or who exercise a lot of power. Good leaders are rare, and part of me thinks that you only get them by accident.

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Monday, July 19, 2010 8:15 AM

HKCAVALIER


Thank you, DT, for this second post. Really puts the first in perspective for me. I can see that what looked like contempt to me only appeared that way because of the intensity I was bringing to this discussion and not you. Hard to judge light-heartedness on the internet, particularly when my own feelings are so intense (and they are very intense much of the time).

Not to be glib but I really think our disagreement is summed up in your comment: "You are far more forgiving than I." I suspect that to be true of me in regard to a lot of folks and accounts for all sorts of disagreements.

Whenever I dig into the real history of past eras, I thank my lucky stars that I'm living now and not then. All past eras are fundamentally and deeply disgusting to me on some level. The norms of hygiene, physical and mental, make me shudder. Just the thought of the smell of past ages alone makes me gag! I can imagine myself dying so many ways before I reached adulthood, imagine myself taking my own life in so many horrendous circumstances in the past, which for their time, were quite ordinary.

Jefferson was a truly great man who owned slaves. I know I could not say that of a contemporary slaver. The guy didn't even know that it was destroying him morally, he had a glimmer of understanding, but it didn't lead him to free his slaves while he lived. And oddly, it didn't seem to destroy him the way that participating in a slave trade nowadays would destroy a man.

The progress the masters of this earth have made over the centuries is glacial. Far as I can tell we moved from aristocracy to plutocracy and, credit where credit's due, that's a big improvement. But, my god, it's still such a brutal paradigm.

I consider the truly evil person a vanishingly rare creature. Human beings participate in evil, I believe, mostly out of a lack of feeling, a lack of empathy and a lack of real self-knowledge/self-love. It's just numbness and fear and a lack of vision to see our way out of the darkness much of the time.

The biggest issue I have with the war between the states was how rabidly, or so it seems, both sides wanted it. Where was the diplomacy? Where was the political solution to the South's grievances? Conscription and the draft didn't happen until they were losing upwards of 30% of their soldiers in the field. It was a bloody, bloody massacre any way you look at it and yet they all kept killing. Can you imagine if we were to have hundreds or thousands of American casualties a month in Afghanistan today? Would we still be fighting such a war?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Monday, July 19, 2010 8:30 AM

JONGSSTRAW


Easy to see why the nanny-state Left loathes Lincoln. Just read his own words:


"You cannot help the poor by
destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak
by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity
by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up
by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man
by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage
by taking away people's initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently
by doing for them,
what they could and should do for themselves."


Abraham Lincoln





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Monday, July 19, 2010 4:02 PM

DREAMTROVE


HK

Generally when someone asks a simple question, I try to give a simple answer. The question on the thread appeared to me to be "where are you guys (lincoln's opponents) coming from?" I thought the answer to that was that excuses of greater good do not carry an ever degenerating series of actions into the light of justification.

As for politics, I'm not particularly forgiving. For instance, Obama dove into negative territory for me on civilian attacks in pakistan, pretty early on. I held off judgment until 18 months because while I can fail to forgive someone on a human level, they still might have good policies. Ultimately, not enough. Bush? gimme a break. There's nothing there worth even trying to save. I could never forgive clinton for Waco, but that seems small compared to his greater evils which deserve their own thread, the greatest being rwanda. I guess the previous recent presidents fall into a complicated area for me of "personally, a lot of these guys did things I disapproved of, but overall, as policy makers, I'm not sure." Historically, Truman is really evil, FDR probably wasn't as personally evil, but probably did more actual evil. Wilson was pretty evil. Aside from that, probably just Lincoln. I have some issues with Washington on Indians, and oh yeah, Jackson. Jackson was an unmitigated disaster. My favorite presidents are probably Teddy Roosevelt and John Quincy Adams.

I always think the past is probably better than today. Many things come to mind:

1. The environment was more in tact. The world is so destroyed and polluted now.

2. The cultures of the world were more distinct, in tact, and independent.

3. There were places you could go to escape the totalitarian authority of the powers that be.

I wouldn't have wanted to live in an early city, but then again, I wouldn't want to live in a modern one.

Jefferson is complex. I think that slave owning did not destroy him internally, I think that he was more or less ignorant of the wrongness of it. Every generation has something like this. There are many people today who support our current policy of killing muslims to set up better govts. for them because we think we know best for them. It's a pretty similar mentality, yet you would not condemn someone just because they were in the military or supported either major political party.

The thing that bugs me most about Jefferson is his blindness to the arrogance of intellectual revolutionaries of his day. He and Franklin both thought that revolution would be great for France, and not the disaster that it was, and a fair amount of that was that they weren't able to see that France was not in the same situation as America. Similar situation with founding fathers re: the Indian conflicts. There's so much White Man's Burden thought behind this, just as there is in our current foreign policy.

Politically, I'm not sure we've made progress at all. I think we might have lost ground. It all depends on who you call we when you look. Not all places in the world were run like England. We have a strange history that is taught here, in the US, what Henry Ford called the "follow the gold" history: First, there was Egypt, then Israel, Greece, Rome, Spain, England, America. The way you get this history is to take the gold that was in Fort Knox and follow it back through the ages. Of course, this ignores a lot of other places which also had histories. I suspect this is really a history of persistence commodity capitalism. It has more than its share of brutality, but still I would argue, less than socialism. Outside of those two, I think there are many much better ideas, including some that have been tried, under almost every system, including democracy and monarchy.

My view of evil men is that they are ordinary men who were given lots of power and had no discipline, so they then fell to the advice of worse men. I don't think Hitler was the most nefarious destroyer ever because if it were true, he would not have effectively been able to run a country from 1933 to 1938. In 1938, something strange that I don't fully understand took place, and Germany went from being a socialist state to being Mordor. I suspect this had a lot to do with a change in Jaffar-like evil advisors, but it's really a fairly radical shift that is often ignored in our history books. Hitler was probably an incredibly weak person internally, and succumbed to the worst advice, including that which was ultimately self destructive. This is the sort of thing I think that evil men are made of.

The issue is complex for me because Taoism doesn't have a concept of "Evil," and I have to try to understand why the actions of some are so definitely worse than others. I suspect it would be simpler to cut the world into the good and evil, but maybe also lazier.

There really wasn't any diplomacy I think because the south wanted out and the north wanted war. But where in this can you find a soft spot for lincoln? I can't respect someone who seems hell bent on war.

If we had this level of casualties in Afghanistan, you would never know because they lie so effectively now. But of course the war in Afghanistan *IS* a civil war, it's just not our civil war.

The simple solution to the war it seems was to get rid of Lincoln and Lee. Maybe they could have done that sooner with a couple of revolvers. Generally I think that fighting continues because foreign interests have an interest in fighting.




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Monday, July 19, 2010 4:40 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Easy to see why the nanny-state Left loathes Lincoln. Just read his own words:


"You cannot help the poor by
destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak
by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity
by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up
by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man
by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage
by taking away people's initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently
by doing for them,
what they could and should do for themselves."


Abraham Lincoln





uMM, BUT doesn't Obama like Lincoln?

I'm officially lost.


The laughing Chrisisall


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Monday, July 19, 2010 4:51 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The simple solution to the war it seems was to get rid of Lincoln and Lee. Maybe they could have done that sooner with a couple of revolvers. Generally I think that fighting continues because foreign interests have an interest in fighting.


Indeed, it worked pretty well for Aaron Burr in regards to Hamilton, although Lee wasn't spoiling for a fight, he initially opposed seccession and was a dutiful man, even when his duty as he perceived it was very unpleasant, in fact our current SecDef, Gates, reminds me of Lee - he'll do his duty, try to, even when it's impossible, ridiculous or unpleasant, he'll do his best.

If you were gonna clip someone on the Confederate side who was a prime mover for a war and a nasty bit of business besides, you should have saved that revolver for Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was the Confederacys variation on general Sherman.

The irony is that Sherman had the full confidence of the Union government and specific orders to commit atrocities, and Forrest was mistrusted by the Confederate government and while they did "look the other way" for far too much of his conduct, they did not approve of, nor did they order, those atrocities.

That's another fucker we shouldn't be building statues of, you ask me.

As for Jackson, his abuse of the spoils system by installing yes-men and flunkies, as well as his actions toward the native americans are unforgiveable, but he did have one redeeming quality, such as it was, while in office.

He pulled us out of debt for the first and only time in our history by crushing the pet-bank, centralized banking, and permanent debt concepts of the Hamiltonian Federalists, and for THAT he deserves a single ounce of credit even if it didn't last.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2010 6:37 PM

DREAMTROVE


Duty is of course part of the problem. We need people who will question, but somehow the system doesn't breed that.

Jackson killed the bank, for the moment. I think that we need more permanent fixes. They will come right back if you don't create something that they can't beat. I suspect we have it backwards, and it should be us infiltrating them, not just us defending against them infiltrating us, re the whole international capital.

I just noticed the text on the left of this box reads:
Quote:


Images and Vidoes


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