Posted on 12/04/2006 6:10:06 PM PST by goldstategop
RUSH: John in Shreveport, Louisiana. Hello.
CALLER: Mr. Rush, don't you think you're being a hypocrite when you're not -- when you don't want the Iraqis to decide the problems themselves, especially since Abraham Lincoln took two -- two generals named Lincoln [sic--Grant] and Sherman who were responsible for the deaths of 59,000 southern people? And since you hate Confederate heritage that much, don't you think that we should allow the people of Iraq to decide their own fate?
RUSH: (Laughing.) Gee. I hate Confederate heritage?
CALLER: No kidding.
RUSH: On the basis of what do you say that?
CALLER: Okay, allow me to quote you from 2001: "The American Civil War was the first conflict in human history to set a people free from the bondage of slavery." Your quote, sir.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: And that's not --
RUSH: Well, the point is, we fought --
CALLER: -- power --
RUSH: Are we going to have this argument, Steve?
CALLER: Yes, sir, we are, if you've got the nerve to hold it!
RUSH: I'll have this argument with you any time you want. I've been hearing from you guys since I started this show. I know, it's about states' rights, it was about freedom; it was about independence. But it was about preserving the union -- and Abraham Lincoln knew that you couldn't preserve an America with the institutions defined by our Constitution if one man was allowed to own another.
CALLER: Well, you could not preserve the Constitution as long as you could override it by military power and invasion.
RUSH: Well, there was the preservation of the union that was the number one --
CALLER: How about the preservation of the Constitution, shouldn't that be predominant?
RUSH: Look, you still want to secede? What's your solution?
CALLER: We have no choice, we're under occupation now. The thing about it is you still have to lie about Abraham Lincoln to prove your, to make your point.
RUSH: I'm not lying about Abraham Lincoln. What do you mean, you're still under occupation?
CALLER: Put it this way. The South was not allowed to vote its own way; we're not going to allow Iraq to vote its own government, either.
RUSH: But we did.
CALLER: Do you think we're really abiding by that? What they voted for, we're trying to subvert it by military occupation. No difference than what they did here for 12 years in Louisiana. You don't think we don't see that? You don't think we don't see you as a hypocrite for what you say about, oh, yeah, preserve the union, but let's never mind, let's take away the vote from those who are the voting citizens --
RUSH: I cannot believe this!
CALLER: -- Constitution!
RUSH: I can't believe this. You are taking out your frustrations at having lost the Civil War on me and claiming I'm a hypocrite because of my stance on the Iraq war?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Which I don't even think you know what it is.
CALLER: I don't think you know -- I don't think you know who Abraham Lincoln was.
RUSH: I certainly know who Abraham Lincoln was. He's one of the greatest presidents in the history of the country.
CALLER: Who said that --
RUSH: And it wasn't because he defeated the south. It was because he preserved the union.
CALLER: He preserved the union by trampling the Constitution!
RUSH: He did not trample the Constitution. He suspended habeas corpus. He did do some things I wish Bush would do.
CALLER: Like kill 59,000 innocent civilians?
RUSH: Are you talking about Sherman's march through Atlanta?
CALLER: And -- and -- and Grant's shelling the city of Vicksburg. Hello?
RUSH: It won the war, didn't it? You ever heard of Gettysburg? It won the war and that was the objective. I'll tell you what I wish Bush would do that Lincoln did. Take all these anti-war agitators and send 'em to Canada. Send the National Guard in there. Send Harry Reid over to Baghdad if he's going to be so socially --
CALLER: Like that Ohio Congressman Vallandigham, huh?
RUSH: Absolutely, like that Ohio congressman, that Democrat that was snatched out of his house and sent down to Jefferson Davis, who also didn't want him.
CALLER: Well, at least I got you to acknowledge that.
RUSH: Acknowledge what?
CALLER: Well, the fact that Lincoln did have his secret police who went into people's houses, pulled them out in the middle of the night, and had them -- and had them --
RUSH: You know what? I hope before you die you learn to thank God for Abraham Lincoln.
CALLER: I hope before you die you learn what a racist and a bigot and a power-hungry maniac he was.
RUSH: I'm the racist and the bigot?
CALLER: I didn't say you were. I said he was!
RUSH: Oh. Abraham Lincoln? How in the world you can call a guy who ended slavery a racist and a bigot? I have heard everything now. Everything, in 22 years of hosting this program, I have heard everything.
Sure they can. (Listen to "16 Tons" sometime.)
ML/NJ
I wonder if the coal miner would agree with you. I doubt it, since I'm not aware of any great hue and cry among free white people wanting to trade places with black slaves.
That question was settled by the Treaty of Paris. The U.S. didn't go around and take whatever it wanted.
Well, actually they did. But they backed up their actions by winning their war of rebellion. The Treaty of Paris was the Brits conceding the point.
You're so naive. You buy into that Clinton everyone-does-it-crap. There's no evidence whatsoever that Jefferson had a phyical relationship with any of his slaves. Sally Hemmings, whom I assume you are thinking of, spent a couple of years with Jefferson in Paris where I believe slavery had been outlawed. She could have walked away any time she wanted to, but she didn't.
ML/NJ
Ease up - it was just a joke. I have more respect for Jefferson than any other president including Washington and Lincoln, though Washington is a close second.
Har, har, hardy, har, har.
Why don't you go off to comedy.com or some other place you might find more suitable to your tastes. Friends of Mr. Jefferson do not think that the Sally Hemmings stories are funny.
ML/NJ
It always comes down to this:
How about the preservation of the Constitution, shouldn't that be predominant?
Yet they are always too stupid to realize that the Constitution means nothing if it doesn't have a nation to Govern. Even if they are right about the Constitution as it related to secession (they aren't), the second they leave, the Constitution is meaningless, and therefore they can't use it to say Lincoln violated their rights. They didn't have any under the Constitution anymore, because it no longer applies to them.
They also don't realize that even John Locke, who was one of the largest influences on our Constitution, argued that there would be some situations that the Executive would have to supercede the law in order to save it. Even while I think it is best for practical purposes to stick to the letter of the Constitution, morally, the principles involved are much more important. And the principles had gone bye-bye in the South.
Their entire arguement is based on philosophical misunderstandings and semantic games that don't hold up. They are just too angry, bitter and xenophobic to admit it.
I think Ticonderoga was taken before the Treaty of Paris.
ML/NJ
Look. I've done this with you already. Some of my relatives died in gas chambers. The Southern slaves were cared for in their old age, by law. If you think slavery is the worst of human conditions, you haven't a clue.
ML/NJ
Well if you want to admit that taking Sumter was an act of war then I won't argue with you. But once the British and the U.S. had agreed to an end to hostilities the disposition of all remaining facilities in British hands was settled by the Treaty of Paris. The states didn't go around screaming "Mine" and demanding the Brits leave immediately.
Yep. That sums it up.
Notre Dame Law Processor Gerard Bradley explains something very important: If you base your law on something that defines away what a human is, your law is illigitimate and has no base on which to operate. You cannot say man-made law is legitimate if, in order to get it, you define away what a human is. What a human is must be an organic truism if law made by humans is to have any basis at all.
He applied it to abortion, but it works for slavery as well.
There is nothing in the UN Charter that gives a member nation the right to quit either. I don't know about you, but I've been in favor of quitting the UN for about 40 years now.
ML/NJ
The U.N. is not a sovern entity. Never has been, and hopefully never will be. Huge difference.
free dixie,sw
Maybe so, but 99% of the rest of the world thinks you are a joke, so it's a fair tradeoff.
ML/NJ
Oh sure. They were, no doubt, sent to Florida where they could live out their days in old age homes.
Most slave owners didn't have to worry about caring for old slaves because most slaves didn't live to old age. Jefferson Davis, for example, had as many as 113 slaves at any one time, none of whom were over 60 and only a handful over 50. Most slave owners were like Davis, who bought and sold slaves to take advantage of their more productive years and sell them off while they still had value. Also, slaves worked till they died. Their duties may have become physically less demanding but there was always something they were expected to do.
If you think slavery is the worst of human conditions, you haven't a clue.
The coal miner could hope for better for his children, and our history is full of men who pulled themselves up out of dire poverty into successful adulthood. Lincoln rose from the edge of civilization to become a successful lawyer and president. Thomas Jackson worked sun up to sundown sawing wood, working in mills, tending farms but got a chance to go to West Point and later achieved a level of middle class comfort with slaves of his own. Slaves, on the other hand, were slaves. Their children were slaves. Their grandchildren were slaves. They had no property of their own, their marriages weren't legally recognized, they could be sold at a whim or beaten by their master. They had nothing that couldn't be taken away from them with no recourse. So yeah, I can't imagine anything worse than being a slave, and considered property and not a person.
Actually it is. Certain limited powers have been given to it. It taxes. It has a post office. It has a flag. It has troops under that flag.
ML/NJ
Wow. Could you name some names please so we all won't think you are a joke?
Well then consider my great-grandmother taking a shower, her last shower, and probably weighing 80 pounds, wondering what happened to her children (if she could think at all).
ML/NJ
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