Confederate Kook Still Smarts Under Civil War "Occupation" (El Rushbo Defends The Union Alert)

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?

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: 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.

CALLER: How about the preservation of the Constitution, shouldn't that be predominant?

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.

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 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: 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.

RUSH: And it wasn't because he defeated the south. It was because he preserved the union.

RUSH: He did not trample the Constitution. He suspended habeas corpus. He did do some things I wish Bush would do.

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 --

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, 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: 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.

Lease was terminated.

What lease would that be? A lease would imply that SC held ownership of the land and/or facility. They didn't, having ceded that by SC State law in 1836.

Fort Sumter was little more than a tax collection center, and having withdrawn from the union southern states were no longer obligated to pay the unfair tariffs.

Ft. Sumter was a coastal defense work, approved by John Calhoun when he was SecWar, which the citizens of SC desperately wanted, enough so that they passed legislation vacating any ownership claims of anybody but the Federal Government. Ft. Moultrie, which was also seized by the Confederates, was an active coastal fortification until after WWII. No taxes were collected at either fort.

...yes, he ran roughshod over the Constitution (suspension of habeas corpus, etc.)...

*sigh*

Would all of you please read up on the Laws of War?

Once a nation is at war, as the Union was against the Confederacy, then habeas corpus is always suspended! (Or should be, hello President Bush?) What do you think all this insanity over Gitmo is about? We don't give the enemy a trial, we either kill him on the battlefield or use a military tribunal and hold him prisoner. We're talking about war here!

The Constitution and its guarantees are not for application to the enemy in a time of war. Whining about habeas corpus in reference to an enemy combatant is sheer madness! It's like complaining that nobody read that poor Nazi soldier his Miranda rights before shooting him!

It stated that the enslavement of the Negro could not be limited and forbidden. It was a political document that wrote slavery in as a right and picked out one race to be enslaved. Our Constitution never mentions a particular race to be enslaved and in fact, never even uses the word slavery.

I have been agreeing with MUCH of what youve been saying on this thread - I think you are the only one here who is hitting close to the concerns and questions I have had about the war and what started it. Being a Texan in a VERY Southern part of Texas (our little town even had its own Reconstruction battle known as the Jaybird-Woodpecker War), the situation is as emotional today as it was then.

The only thing Im wanting to ask you about...not as a quibble, but because I want clarification...how could Lincoln defend the Constitution from the premise that by standing for the legality of slavery where it already existed? Im not entirely sure that slow attrition of that instution would have passed through without some painful consequences. And I know I have a ready source for looking up what is in the Constitution as it was written out up to that time (so I will be looking it up while I wait for your answer), but I seem to recall right off hand right now that there were laws already in place in the US Constitution that legalized slavery everywhere in the Union, it was just some states who actively used it as opposed to others. In looking back on history, the Founding Fathers who decided to let later generations settle the problem of slavery built into the government the Achilles heel that would effectively allow for centralization to be incurred. It seems (going by my rusty and very faulty memory of history) that slavery itself was built into a government that would be torn apart by the issue, knowing that slavery would either be spread as part of the "manifest destiny" (and I *do* remember that was never a position of any of our Founding Fathers and/or Presidents but the buzz phrase of a journalist) or some future Congress would magically decide to wipe it from the books.

The question I have for the Confederates here is : if there HAD NOT been a confrontation such as what happened, would the South have ever woken up to see how its enslavement of a people violated the very Constitution they now claim to have been violated by "those damn Yankees"? Would those in the SOUTHERN sphere of the Congress have fought to erase the laws written into the Constitution to complete the passion for freedom the Founding Fathers had? Would they have lived up to the Faith of their Fathers in the manner that the FF had hoped? These are some serious doubts that are brought out in full glaring contrast whenever Confederates start yelling about "upholding the originality of the Constitution." Anyone educated in the history of the Constitution can see what was written into the Constitution before 1860.

On the other hand, Im really not all that sure that Lincoln was that wise in trying to starve out the institution. I have to wonder if there would have been less pain for him to go in and push for a total wipe out of those laws that limited the freedom of a certain sector of the population at the time based on skin color and continental origins. As a Texan who probably knows her own state's early history (if you want some REALLY interesting bits on what led to the Civil War, read up on "Polk's War" or the Mexican War of 1847. You'll find some VERY VERY familiar names there), I feel it was imperative that slavery be stopped. It was awful that we had to come to blows because of it. But Im not all that willing to say that the North had altruistic intentions. If it was the Constitution that they were defending, all that pain and horror could have been staved by fighting it out on the floor of the House and Senate.

Heh. In writing all of this, am thinking now I have a taste of why it was such an emotional time in our nations history. We were caught between a rock and a hard place. Makes me appreciate just how hardy and resilient and wonderful America is. I pray God help us through the Muslim infiltration.

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