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.
DixiePing
Maybe? But we are living with the Yankee Leviathan to this day. I love a quote McPherson gives of a Harvard professor writing in 1869: "It's as if I am not living in the country of my birth." This was a guy living in Cambridge who never owned slaves. Lincoln lovers should ponder his words.
ML/NJ
Yes, he was a great Virginian and a great American, fighting to preserve the Constitutional Republic against the liberal Lincoln, who was fighting to centralize power under a Union.
Damn it Jim, I told you, It's TWO DIFFERENT WORDS!!
It's just a guess...but you when to public school didn't you?
I don't think secession was unconstitutional or illegal. Stupid? Yeah, I'll willingly grant that. But the "several States" signed on to the Constitution one at a time, and there was nothing in there forbidding them to leave.
The Union wasn't really dissolved, to be technical. Eleven of the member States decided they wanted out. The remaining member States were still there, same as they ever were.
What we're talking about here really is a cornerstone of our Constitution--what powers accrue to the states and what to the Federal government. The ultimate power accruing to a state is the power to say "screw this, we're outta here." Once you deny a state that power, there is nothing stopping the Federal government from doing what it's done the past 140 years--grow, metastasize, and slowly eat away at the rights of the people supposedly guaranteed by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
}:-)4
Was Lincoln the cause or was war the cause? FDR and the Cold War imperatives sure justified a great many reasons for federal government expansion.
Rush has let me down deeply
Yep... From what I have read, is is that is was the South who fired the first shot....
HUH?!?
Lincoln had Federal troops in unConstitutional occupation, wanted one state to attack another, attempted trespass to resupply his occupation troops, etc. To say the South started it demonstrates quite a lack of historical knowledge. After all, it wasn't even "the South" at the time when the shooting began...it was the Federal government making war on individual states.
Plus, recall that the Union had more slave states than the Confederacy at the beginning!
BTW, my family was very involved in abolitionist activities and several of my forebears wore the blue and shed blood in the fight. But that doesn't mean I'm going to lie about history.
"...Lincoln, who was fighting to centralize power under a Union."
The 10th amendment is the prime exhibit for this, although I'm not sure Lincoln fought for this specific end.
Ever since the Civil War, the federal government has usurped more and more state power per the 10th Amendment. The federal government will continue to grow in power and influence until some event as equally traumatic as the Civil War occurs to turn it around and restore the 10th Amendment, if it indeed can ever be restored.
Everyone is a bigot. Not that there is anything wrong with it.
Just goes to show you that all of the nuts aren't in Palm Beach (or Rio Linda, for that matter.)
How did the Cold War imerpatvies caused an increase in federal government expansion with the exception to an increase in the military???
RUSH: [...]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 --
True. But Grant was the first one out of that bunch willing to actually *use* that superiority. Grant was willing to sustain horrendous casualties (see the Wilderness campaign) because he knew if he kept pushing, despite his own losses, he could grind down the Army of Northern Virginia and push them back, which he did.
Grant also ended up with some pretty good subordinate commanders, like Lee. But Lee lost many of his during the war (Jackson, Stuart, etc.). Grant's subordinates got better as the war went on.
I'm not saying Grant was an idiot. He was certainly a better general than anybody possibly thought he would ever be. He was the right man for the job, just like Montgomery was in 1942. As a tactician, I still maintain he was Lee's inferior, just as most military historians maintain that Montgomery was Rommel's inferior. But neither Grant nor Monty had to be superior to their opponents. They just had to be the right kind of leader for their circumstance, and they were.
}:-)4
The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Facts and Falsehoods Against the South by George Edmonds.
Facts etc. can be considered a primary reference because it used statements about Lincoln directly from those that knew him and was originally published in 1904. Many of those books were destroyed to save Lincoln's face but some survived. The SCV republished the book just recently.
I spent a semester at Lincoln Memorial University at Harrogate, Tennessee, and thanks to Col. Sanders, they have the third most stocked repository of Lincoln's papers and books. They were eye openers for one that had been spoonfed the routine college information at most universities.
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