Confederate States Of America (2005)

In re #3079, I would like to hear more.

I'm not as familiar with the small naval combatants as I should be. I do know the "gunboats" of the interwar period were primarilly riverine and coastal defense craft.

I did find a listing for a patrol frigate "Corpus Christi" which was of the Tacoma class and served in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans during the latter part of WWII.

Also, from my reading of a couple of books by Capt (ret) W. G. Winslow, who served on the heavy cruiser "Houston" (sunk in the battle of the Sunda Strait, 1942), the Patrol Yacht "Isabel" did interesting duty on China Station.

As far as individual states "declaring war" on other countries, without further specific information, I can only remark Article I, Section 8, reserves the right to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, raise and support armies, and provide and maintain a navy, to Congress; while Section 10 prohibits similar powers to the individual states.

Going back to the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, similar prohibitions on individual states are found in Articles 6 and 9. These were fundamental sovereign rights that were denied the states.

I believe Birmingham Bob reported that the Federal troops were "committing suicide on the gates Richmond" late in the war.

"The Convention as a whole rejected the idea of amalgamation, so there was nothing in the Constitution that implied or stated it."

The convention as a whole, chose to strengthen the Union by denying the states what little claim they had to full "sovereignty, freedom, and independence." The Philadelphia Convention was a nationalist exercise.

You claim not to want ad hominems but spend a lot of time attacking those who disagree with you as communist or socialist or somehow bigoted against your views. So far as I can tell, that's ad hominem. You aren't confronting the actual arguments people make, you're just dismissing their views out of hand because of labels you pin on those who oppose you. I really doubt that you can separate out style and substance. You may think you have some deep, convincing argument but what you actually say and how you say it defines you here, and what results isn't much like the patient voice of reason. And when you throw out all books written in the past half-century or so by writers at major universities, you come off sounding like a yahoo, and condemn yourself to ignorance. Not because those books are always right, but because that kind of blanket condemnation can only impoverish discussion.

I don't reject Bowers because he's a New Dealer or a Democratic hack or a racist or a White supremacist. I don't even reject him because his book is so offensive. I reject his book because it's the work of a lazy man who doesn't bother to question or investigate but simply writes out of his own prejudices and appeals to the prejudices of others. I point out to you that he was a Rooseveltian hanger-on, because you use that style of argument, and I inform others that he had scant respect for the capacities and aspirations of African-Americans, because they tell me that's important to them, but it's the shoddy quality of the work that turns me off to him, and I've looked into his book enough to confirm that impression.

I do have to laugh at the way you separate out Southern voters for FDR from the rest and blame what happened since then on the Northerners, while absolving Southern Democrats of their responsibility. North and South, the country was in more or less the same boat in 1932 with Southerners crying out for relief and federal assistance as loudly if not more loudly than anyone else. Southern Democrats did tend to back off later, particularly when racial questions arose, but you come across sounding like a real Dixiecrat jackass when you lump the Irish and Italian Catholic voters of the cities in with liberal ideologues. "Urban Ethnic Progressives" indeed. After you get caught up on Southern history, you might put a little effort into reading up on 20th century Northern history. Am I patronizing? No, because I haven't called you "boy" or "son" yet.

What you're doing is constructing a crude schematic for making snap judgments about American history. Thus Northern Ethnics in the 1920s or 1930s have to be programmatic liberals, far more so than Southerners, because their states are now so Democrat. Thus, the backers of high tariffs in the 19th century have to be for "vast, programmatic expansions of government and infrastructure," because it fits your projection of 20th century politics back on the 19th century. The details get lost in this imposition of the scheme on the realities of the time, and you don't see how the past may differ from the present.

Your portrait of Lincoln as an abolitionist not very different from the more militant members of the movement is also worthy of comment. You don't want to be described as "pro-slavery," but you attack those in 19th century politics who weren't even modestly opposed to slavery or who weren't fully pro-slavery. The fellow who believes that eventually slavery should end some day and begins by restricting its territorial expansion is lumped in with those who favor direct action and immediate abolition. Perhaps having a conspiracy theory helps one to do that, but it looks like you deny anti-slavery Northerners any opportunity to stand their own ground, and put any opposition to slavery or its expansion beyond the pale. If you actually were proslavery or "pro-slavery-as-it-existed-in-the-Southern-states-in-19th-century-America," how would your view be any different?

You're very fond of the word "teleology." I scarcely know what you mean by it. If you're saying that it's "might makes right," I certainly don't agree with that. It's just that we disagree who and what was right during the period in question. If you're refering to some historical process, I don't think one can deny that there are such processes, though it would be foolish to claim that we could fully understand them. If you're saying that your opponents argue that consequences override moral and legal rules, I'd say first of all, that you and they don't agree about what moral and legal rules dictate in this case, and second that you are as quick to argue from consequences as anyone else. You just don't see it, because you assume that the consequences that you deplore are implicit in your principles and the consequences that others would regret are somehow apart from the moral and legal principles at issue. That's something you might want to work on.

I don't argue that the Unionists were right because they won. The degree to which they were right -- and it is a question of degree -- contributed to their victory. But it's possible that it would be more clear how right they were if they lost, and we really saw what the consequences of that defeat would have been. I suspect that for a lot of people the Confederacy was right because they lost. Because they lost, all the blame for whatever came afterwards can be heaped on the heads of their opponents. Had they won, they'd have their share of responsiblity for the continent's troubles. But in defeat they can always remain pure victims, free of blame for what would come in the future.

Maybe you can see the duplicity of your argument. If someone argues that the world is better off because the Union was preserved, you can call that, in your own way of speaking a "teleological" argument and hence an invalid one. Yet you habitually malign the Unionists because of what came afterwards, and your arguments are just as consequentialist as what you abhor. Now you can claim that you're in favor of the founders' vision, and that the consequentialist part of your argument grows out of that, but your opponents likewise consider that the founders' words and actions support their view of things. The founders foresaw all manner of problems that could assail the Republic, among them fragmentation and civil war, as well as tyranny. That's why the Framers of the Constitution were keen on union and not so wild about secession.

You take what's happened since 1860 as a proof that the founders believed in secession. Others dispute your premise, and it doesn't look like you're in any position to brand others consequentialists or "might makes right" realists. What you're trying to do is to claim for your arguments an immunity from the attacks you make on others -- to argue that you alone stand on principle, and the others are simply arguing from convenience. But that doesn't fit the actual discussion we're having. People disagree about what the founders intended and what the states could do and you can't simply assume that you have the key and damn opposing arguments as "teleology."

You seem to think that I agree with your Kimberly Smith's ideas about emotionalism in argument. And that's quite a switch, considering you brought her up in support of your views. I don't agree with her valuation. A colder, more rational style of argument is preferable. It's a mistake when countries get carried away by their emotions, and it leads to real trouble.

But I do understand where she's coming from, and how hard it is for those who feel passionately about something to adapt to the styles of argument of those who simply dismiss their concerns. I don't think that publishing slave narratives, or pointing out a wrong, or calling for a change of heart is an "incitement to violence."

And I can't help chuckling, after watching you weave all over the rhetorical road, clutching at your breast, charging conspiracy, claiming those who disagree with you want to kill you, to hear you proclaim that you "argue for rational discourse." You want to believe that your own excesses are a matter of "style," rather than of "substance," but the two can be hard to separate. How could I, after watching your performance now and in the past, be entirely condemnatory of abolitionists who may have used similar emotional arguments? How could anyone else looking on? How can you?

Your idea seems to be that a permanent "gag rule" should have been imposed preventing discussion of whatever went against Southern interests, but if someone really cared about slavery, how can one deny them the right to speak about it? You pile on the emotionalism freely and without constraint and expect your audience to condemn others for trying to raise a moral question that unavoidably touches the emotions.

At the heart of your performance seems to be "I'm right, therefore those who disagree with me are irrational or emotional or crudely materialistic and results oriented or liberal or Marxist." But it's not at all clear that you are right, and other observers will note that rational and emotional, mateialistic and idealistic, principled and results-based arguments are used by both "sides" in the debate.

I suspect many people have some sympathy for the Old South. I did when I came here. But while you guys play on that it's not what you're after. You want people to say that the secessionists, Confederates, and indeed, the proslavery faction, were right and justified in their actions, even when judged by modern standards. And that you won't get, because there's a lot that's questionable or worth condemning in the secessionist movement and the Confederacy. The most you will get is some understanding -- and not even that if you don't extend similar empathy in the opposite direction.

The South started secession before Lincoln even entered office.

So? It was their right to do so. But it was Lincoln who violated the various amendments and parts of the Constitution after he became president.

And the point is?

You were the one who talked about the Bill of Rights protecting individual rights from state governments. I pointed out that historically this didn't apply before or during the war, the period we've been talking about. Hello? Is anyone there?

How does that justify secession?

I presume you are talking about the 10th Amendment here. As I said, Jefferson Davis used it as a backing for the states having the power under the Constitution power to secede if they wanted to for whatever reason. From the Congressional Globe, January 10, 1861, Senator Davis speaking:

...the tenth amendment of the Constitution declared that all which had not been delegated was reserved to the States or to the people. Now, I ask where among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any power to coerce a state; where among the provisions of the Constitution do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and if you find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository, the reserved rights of the States? How was it ever taken out of that source of all power to the Federal Government? It was not delegated to the Federal Government; it was not prohibited to the States; it necessarily remains, then, among the reserved powers of the States.

Most people would probably agree that there is a right to revolution against tyranny and that peoples ought to be able to decide their futures by voting, but unilateral self-determination over all other legal ties and procedures is the sort of mistake that conservatives have long warned against. From the days of Napoleon to those of Hitler conservatives have opposed "plebiscitarian" politics and theories of direct, unfiltered democracy.

Now while the rebels and Confederacy did have representative institutions of a sort, the defenses people have made of their actions have much of Rousseau's worship of the "will of the people" in them. In such theories, the state acts unilaterally and is not required to consider the opinions of other parts of the union or bound by constraints of law.

Immediate and unilateral action by states or other groups which would be justified in extreme circumstances by the right of revolution, becomes standard procedure, overriding elections and constitutional procedures. There's an impatience with checks and balances and compromise measures. In the end, the self-assertion of this or that group comes to override other moral and legal concerns. Relativism and subjectivism come to be more important than older natural law concepts.

Northerners saw a lot of what we deplore about modern politics in the secessionists of 1860/1. They may have overreacted when they responded, but it won't do to whitewash the things that appalled them about the rebellion: the repudiation of debts, the burning of property, the seizure of weapons, the formation of a league, the call for an army. It seemed like the coming of anarchy or a new tyranny, and much of what came afterwards has to be seen at least partially in light of Southern actions and Northern reactions in the early months of 1860.

Try to detach yourself for a moment from your passionately-held beliefs and read your posts through the eyes of a typical Reagan-Bush Republican voter who doesn't share your sectional animosities and historical hobbyhorses. There's a lot in your outbursts to turn off the average conservative voter, just as there is much in them that a conservative statesman like Washington or Madison or Taft, or conservative thinker like Santayana or Babbitt or Eliot would find ill-conceived and wrong-headed. They would not share your extreme view elevating the people above constitutional and traditional restraints on power, which include restraints on the power of the populace. To read The Federalist Papers is to be aware that while the people rule, the power of numbers is channeled and checked like other powers to prevent rash or dictatorial actions.

Populism has uses and virtues. It can rally voters in defense of their liberties or to get rid of corrupt politicians and crooked deals. It can keep elites from getting too established in power, and it's a good thing to be able to throw out the party in power every so often. But populism can also become a way of emotionalizing politics and pulling the wool over the eyes of voters. The same kinds of bargains go on, behind a facade of public control. Radical or extreme populism brings diminishing returns. It may only help to organize political factions and not make people freer or society more democratic or better governed.

First, Madison never was a Federalist - which is to say, a memebr of an early political movement. he was, however, a life-long federalist - a friend and supporter of the new constitutional form of government.

Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Wilson, Franklin, and others realized that the proposed Constitution must not be held hostage by a minority, or even a single disaffected state (such as "Rouge" Island). The nine-state rule was in keeping with the supermajority concept which had operated under the AoC&PU, for some issues.

Madison addressed the issue of non-unamimous ratification forthrightly in the Federalist. As Madison's biographer Ketcham notes, "Madison had for eight years been disgusted with the abuse of power by the states and had in the convention proposed far more severe limitations on them than were finally approved." The new constitutional form of federal government was designed to further limit and restrain the states.

The ratification of nine or more states would work to isolate and influence the holdouts to be part of something greater than themselves. It was a master stroke of genius.

The South started secession before Lincoln even entered office. So? It was their right to do so. But it was Lincoln who violated the various amendments and parts of the Constitution after he became president.

The South seceded before Lincoln became President (at least the deep South did).

So what Lincoln did afterward was not the cause of their leaving.

And the point is? You were the one who talked about the Bill of Rights protecting individual rights from state governments. I pointed out that historically this didn't apply before or during the war, the period we've been talking about. Hello? Is anyone there?

The war was fought in order to preserve the government that would defend individual liberty.

It was the South which had rejected individual rights for collective ones in the states rights philosophy.

How does that justify secession? I presume you are talking about the 10th Amendment here. As I said, Jefferson Davis used it as a backing for the states having the power under the Constitution power to secede if they wanted to for whatever reason. From the Congressional Globe, January 10, 1861, Senator Davis speaking: ...the tenth amendment of the Constitution declared that all which had not been delegated was reserved to the States or to the people. Now, I ask where among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any power to coerce a state; where among the provisions of the Constitution do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and if you find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository, the reserved rights of the States? How was it ever taken out of that source of all power to the Federal Government? It was not delegated to the Federal Government; it was not prohibited to the States; it necessarily remains, then, among the reserved powers of the States.

To imply that the 10th amendment gave the right of secession is just nonsense.

The powers left to the states were just that, powers that the state had control of, not subject to Federal control.

It could not be construed that it gave a state the power to break the union for whatever reason they felt like, as if it was an escape clause to the Constitution.

Getting back to your mistaken concept that the Convention rejected "amalgamation," I would remind you of Madison's discussion from Federalist No. 39.

The new form and function of the Congress, combined with the separate federal executive and federal court system, were testament's to the nationalist blueprint of the Constitution.

Whereas the delegates of the old Congress had met in state caucuses, and cast their vote as a state, the new House of Representatives was elected directly by the people, based on proportional representation. Those representatives voted in Congress individually - a national concept. The Senate was originally chose by the state legislatures, providing a federal component to the national legislature; but the laws of Congress acted directly upon the people of the nation.

The indirect election of the President, through the Electoral College (as compared to the proposals for a direct election {nationalistic} or election by the state legislatures {federal}) was of "mixed national and federal principles."

The Supreme Court and its subordinate federal court were decidedly national institutions. The federal laws were required to be enforced by state courts. The Army and the Navy were national institutions.

If your observation is that the amalgamation of the states was incomplete, you are correct. The states retained a degree of autonomy. Madison described the new form of government to be "composite - neither strictly national nor strictly federal"

The critera for view that the tax hike was the third highest in peacetime, is the total amount of revenue gathered.

And that would be a severely flawed measure, confirming my suspicions when I asked you to detail it. Surely you would agree that an income tax hike that raised all brackets to 97% would be exhorbitant and probably the worst tax hike in U.S. history. Yet such a tax rate would be so high that it would serve as a severe damper on income earning activities and virtually kill off the U.S. economy, meaning that revenues collected by the government would severely decline from, say, the current rate. OTOH, we could adopt a bill tommorrow that only raises the top bracket by 5% and revenues would probably increase substantially. Now unless you are willing to assert that a tax hike of only 5% on the top bracket is larger than a tax hike that raises all brackets to 98%, I simply do not see how your measure could be sustained.

As for Lincoln and taxes, he was never President during peacetime, so we do not know if he would have cut taxes.

He was president for a month and a half during peacetime and used it to make good on his campaign promise to collect the new Morrill Tariff. He also held several other offices before that including congressman and state representative as well as candidate for several offices including U.S. Senator. Throughout that entire career he never saw a tax he didn't like.

Nor is it necessarily true that taxes have to be raised during wartime. We're in the middle of a war right now, are we not? Yet President Bush has consistently cut taxes since he took office, thus violating your assumption that wars and taxes have to occur together.

And Lincoln was responsible for that-how?

By creating them. Using your same inept reasoning, we should cease blaming FDR for social security after 1945 even though he created it just like Lincoln created the income tax.

Sometimes war measures do not get removed at all, like withholding tax, which was something that we got in WW2.

Hence the problem with government programs in general.

And when was Lincoln alive to make policy during peacetime?

His entire lifetime prior to April 11, 1861 excepting the Mexican War and the War of 1812. During that period he served as a state legislator, congressman, Republican Party official and stump speaker, U.S. Senate candidate, U.S. presidential candidate, U.S. president elect, and a month and a half as President. He had more than enough of an opportunity to espouse, promote, and execute peacetime tax hikes.

By amount of money it took in.

As noted previously, measuring a tax cut's severity on its revenue rather than its rates is economically fallacious for the reason that it violates the Laffer Curve. In doing so it leads to conclusions that are downright idiotic whereby a relatively minor 5% tax hike would be rated as "larger" than a 60% tax hike that causes economic ruin to a degree that it suppresses revenues.

So what Lincoln did afterward was not the cause of their leaving.

Not the cause of the deep South leaving, no. But Lincoln did cause several other states to leave by raising by raising an army to coerce the seceded states. As Alexander Hamilton said during the ratification debates for the Constitution:

It has been well observed, that to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single State. This being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts or any large State should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would not they have influence to procure assistance, especially from those States which are in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this present to our view? A complying State at war with a non-complying State; Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another; this State collecting auxiliaries, and forming, perhaps, a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself! Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a Government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself -- a Government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a Government.

Works for me.

The war was fought in order to preserve the government that would defend individual liberty. It was the South which had rejected individual rights for collective ones in the states rights philosophy.

The Constitution is the legal foundation of individual rights, and it was being violated by Northern states, not Southern ones. The Constitution was ratified on a state by state basis by the sovereign voice of the state, i.e., the voters of that state. Several Southern states held referendums where voters expressed the sovereign will of the state about whether to secede or not. That was generally more than was done to accept the Constitution in the first place.

To imply that the 10th amendment gave the right of secession is just nonsense.

That's your opinion. Probably you accept Lincoln's argument that the Union preceded the states too. My sympathies to you and your relatives, if that is the case.

The critera for view that the tax hike was the third highest in peacetime, is the total amount of revenue gathered. And that would be a severely flawed measure, confirming my suspicions when I asked you to detail it. Surely you would agree that an income tax hike that raised all brackets to 97% would be exhorbitant and probably the worst tax hike in U.S. history. Yet such a tax rate would be so high that it would serve as a severe damper on income earning activities and virtually kill off the U.S. economy, meaning that revenues collected by the government would severely decline from, say, the current rate. OTOH, we could adopt a bill tommorrow that only raises the top bracket by 5% and revenues would probably increase substantially. Now unless you are willing to assert that a tax hike of only 5% on the top bracket is larger than a tax hike that raises all brackets to 98%, I simply do not see how your measure could be sustained.

Now that you have finished talking in circles, the answer is that the tax raised over 100 billion dollars, hence, considered the third largest peacetime tax hike.

As for Lincoln and taxes, he was never President during peacetime, so we do not know if he would have cut taxes. He was president for a month and a half during peacetime and used it to make good on his campaign promise to collect the new Morrill Tariff.

That month and and a half was spend dealing with the secession crises.

As for the Tarriff, it had been passed by Congress.

What did you expect him to do veto it?

He also held several other offices before that including congressman and state representative as well as candidate for several offices including U.S. Senator. Throughout that entire career he never saw a tax he didn't like.

And just how many tax bills did he vote for?

Nor is it necessarily true that taxes have to be raised during wartime. We're in the middle of a war right now, are we not? Yet President Bush has consistently cut taxes since he took office, thus violating your assumption that wars and taxes have to occur together.

We are able to fight this war without effecting the entire society.

This war is not on the level of the Civil War or World Wars.

"Incorrect, and knowingly so. The United States of America is founded on the Constitution, and on no other document. Period. End of sentence. End of subject."

Your ignorance is breath-taking.

And Lincoln was responsible for that-how? By creating them. Using your same inept reasoning, we should cease blaming FDR for social security after 1945 even though he created it just like Lincoln created the income tax.

No, only one with your lack of reasoning skills would even dare to make a logical leap like that.

But keep telling yourself that it is true, I am sure you can convince yourself of anything.

Sometimes war measures do not get removed at all, like withholding tax, which was something that we got in WW2. Hence the problem with government programs in general.

Agreed.

Some are temporary like Lincoln's war tax, and others aren't.

And when was Lincoln alive to make policy during peacetime? His entire lifetime prior to April 11, 1861 excepting the Mexican War and the War of 1812. During that period he served as a state legislator, congressman, Republican Party official and stump speaker, U.S. Senate candidate, U.S. presidential candidate, U.S. president elect, and a month and a half as President. He had more than enough of an opportunity to espouse, promote, and execute peacetime tax hikes.

So name them!

Tell me just how many awful taxes Lincoln is directly responsible for.

By amount of money it took in. As noted previously, measuring a tax cut's severity on its revenue rather than its rates is economically fallacious for the reason that it violates the Laffer Curve. In doing so it leads to conclusions that are downright idiotic whereby a relatively minor 5% tax hike would be rated as "larger" than a 60% tax hike that causes economic ruin to a degree that it suppresses revenues.

100-120 billion is alot of money-period.

The level of severity of differing taxes does not change the fact that the taxes that Reagan signed into law brought in over 100 billion dollars, the third highest total in peacetime history.

By the way, did taxes go up or down under Reagan in Californa while he was Governor?

They went up.

Despite Reagan’s aversion to taxes, the corporate tax rate doubled during his tenure as California governor, and the top personal income rate jumped by nearly 60 percent.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3638299/

Incorrect, and knowingly so. The United States of America is founded on the Constitution, and on no other document. Period. End of sentence. End of subject.

You aren't holding your breathe are you?

LOL!

the Confederacy's President, Jefferson Davis, had no philosophical turmoil suspending the writ of habeas corpus and jailing Southerners without specified cause.

The Confederate Congress authorized Davis to suspend habeas corpus for specified time periods. Lincoln on the other hand suspended it on his own in 1861, for which the US Congress later had to indemnify him. If Lincoln had the power to suspend habeas corpus, as some Northern posters argue, why did the US Congress authorize Lincoln to suspend it in 1863?

Amazing how you could predict what a post-war Lincoln adminstration would have done!

It's not very hard when you go with what we know about Abe Lincoln. We know for a fact that Abe Lincoln never wavered in his support for higher taxes during his entire 30+ year political career. Based on that information and the absence of any indication at all that he was having a change of heart on taxes, it is a safe conclusion that he would not have deviated from the course he had been on since the 1830's.

I don't know, the Confederates are a pretty stubborn bunch. they are still giving people a hard time and they lost the war over a hundred years ago.

And the yankees loved to needlessly tax and spend. They are still taxing and spending like crazy 140 years after Abe Lincoln showed them how to do it.

Since Lincoln had only one term as a Congressman and one full term as a wartime President, your statment is simply nonsense.

Not at all. In addition to his term in congress, Lincoln openly espoused higher taxes during his many terms in the Illinois legislature, as an Illinois and presidential campaign stump speaker for the Whig and Republican parties, and as a peacetime candidate for President in 1860. When somebody asked him during the 1860 campaign if he was still a protectionist like he had been in the 1830's and 40's Lincoln answered "I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views."

So they did end it.

It's unconstitutionality caused it to be ended. Evidently Ulysses Grant cared more about that document than his former boss.

The protective tarriffs were constitutional.

But nevertheless exhorbitant taxation.

And Jeff Davis did not raise taxes to pay for the war?

Not the way Lincoln did, tu quoque boy.

Well, that is why we have elections now isn't it?

Too bad that Lincoln rigged every election he could get his hands on by sending in federal troops when there was a chance the people would vote against his guy.

It is called a Republican form of Government, and the people decide the make up of the Government.

The "people" one decided that FDR made up the government. That does not make his tax and spend policies and his despotic relationship with Joe Stalin any less insidious though.

If they vote in Republicans who want higher taxes, who are you to complain about it?

The guy paying those higher taxes, which the government has no real right to collect from me seeing as it did not earn the money it takes. Using your ever-bizarre logic, BTW, the people voted in Bill Clinton once upon a time so who are you to complain about gays in the military, vetoes of the partial birth abortion ban, the 93 tax hike, the assault weapons bill, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

The Democratic Party was as competetive as the Republican Party and had every fair chance to win elections also.

Bob Dole was as competitive as Bill Clinton and had every fair chance to win the election.

He had two years as a congressmen and 5 as President, all of them were involved with war issues.

...and a combined three decades of constant involvement in politics as a state legislator, Whig and Republican party official, senate candidate, stump speaker, and presidential candidate. He espoused higher taxes during them all.

As a Congressman Whig, he had to vote to fund the Democrat's war on Mexico.

But Mexico attacked a U.S. garrison and fired the first shot. That is, after all, what it takes to start a war according to you, is it not?

No, because FDR made Social Security a part of the very fabric of our society, Lincoln put in a tax that was later ended.

Is the income tax not a part of the very fabric of society today? Lincoln's income tax was simply delayed for a couple decades till they worked out the problem of its unconstitutionality. It came back under his banner in 1913 and has been here ever since.

The Confederate Congress authorized Davis to suspend habeas corpus for specified time periods. Lincoln on the other hand suspended it on his own in 1861, for which the US Congress later had to indemnify him. If Lincoln had the power to suspend habeas corpus, as some Northern posters argue, why did the US Congress authorize Lincoln to suspend it in 1863?

To make sure that there was no confusion on its support for what Lincoln did.

This "movie" will be the Hollywierdos attacking the red staters for re-electing Bush. Nothing good will come of this movie.