Posted on 06/17/2002 1:35:37 PM PDT by shuckmaster
Abraham Lincoln should without a doubt be named Americas greatest war criminal. His war of invasion not only killed over 600,000 innocent Americans but it was obvious from his earlier speeches that he had previously advocated the prevalent constitutional right of democratic, state by state secession. Lincolns War also effectively overthrew the existing decentralized, limited federal government that had existed and governed well in the US since established by Americas founding fathers. Lincoln bastardized a respected federal government with limited powers into a dictatorial, uncontrollable Washington federal empire.
Because of Lincoln, the former American constitutional republic fell from a dream of liberty and limited government into the nightmare big government we have today without the earlier checks and balances of state sovereignty. After Lincoln, In foreign policy, the US forgot George Washingtons warning about neutrality and we became an aggressive military abroad until today we have troops defending the Washington Empire in over 144 nations around the world.
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connections as possible. It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.George Washington
Lincoln shares his war criminal actions with other well know tyrants that waged war on their own people. History shows us that politicians make war against their own citizens even more than against foreign nations. The reasons are often to establish and preserve their power base, as was the case in the Russian Revolution and the Mao Revolution. For others, like Hitler, it was misguided super patriotism and racism that brought death to tens of millions. Sadly, in the case of Abraham Lincolns war against the Confederacy and Southern civilians, it was all for money, company profits and government tariff revenues. A simple case of political pay back in return for the Northeastern manufacturing interests that supported the Republican Party and his campaign for the presidency.
Early in his career, Abraham Lincoln was an honorable statesman who let election year politics and the special interests supporting his presidential campaign corrupt a once great man. He knew what he was doing was wrong and unconstitutional but succumbed, as in the case of many modern day politicians, to the allure of money, power and ego.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.
-- Abraham Lincoln January 12, 1848
This quote above shows Lincoln as a statesman 12 years before he plunged the United States into its most disastrous war. Suffering a death toll so high in death rates as a percentage of total population, his act of carnage ranks with the political genocides of Stalin, Lenin and Mao during their communist revolutions. A death toll so great that it dwarfs the American deaths in all of our many declared and undeclared wars before and since this American holocaust of death and destruction.
From the following quote you can see that later Lincoln radically adjusted his rhetoric to meet the needs and demands of his business establishment supporters and financial supporters.
No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. --Abraham Lincoln
Why the complete change in rhetoric and actions? Simple, to preserve high tariffs and corporate profits for the Northeastern business establishment. Lincoln who earlier in his career had obviously favored the right of peaceful secession, provoked a war that killed 600,000 Americans, as a pay back to the eastern manufacturing establishment that bankrolled his presidential campaign. These special interests would have suffered serious financial loss if a low tariff Confederate States of America were allowed to peacefully, democratically and constitutionally secede from the United States in lawful state constitutional conventions of secession which were identical to the ratification conventions when they had joined the Union. Thus the real reasons for the death and destruction of Lincolns War were covered up and hidden by historians who continue, even today, to deny the truth and hide the ultimate costs of Lincolns American holocaust.
While Lincolns death toll is small in comparison to total deaths by Mao, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, there are many similarities between these men. In the Russian Civil War, from 1917 - 1922 around 9 million died under Lenin and we must add another 20 million under Stalin from 1929 to 1939. The Mao communist regime in China killed 44 to 70 million Chinese from 1949 1975.
Still the US constitutional republic, as established by our founding fathers, was in effect destroyed by Lincolns unconstitutional war just as surely as Mao and Lenin over threw the existing Chinese and Russian governments.
The multitude of Lincoln apologists would say that this is just another Confederate argument certainly not accepted by most historians. I might counter that the opinions and books of these "so called" establishment historians who live off my tax dollars through government funding at liberal controlled universities and think tanks are prejudiced towards Lincoln and Washington DC. They are no different from the official government historians in China, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Their job is to lie to the American people and cover up a true and honest account of our history in order to support the government and political system in power.
History shows us that a fair and honest discussion of Lincolns wartime actions will not be possible as long as the Washington political establishment remains in power. Since Lincoln, the Washington Empire has reigned supreme and omnipotent and for this reason, establishment historians have never honestly debated the Lincoln war crimes.
Consider this. Was a fair and honest account of Lenin or Stalin written and published during the Soviet Communist regime? Of course not. Could a less than worshipful history of Hitlers Third Reich have been published until after 1945? No! Even today, with only nominal communist control of China, an honest appraisal of Maos revolution and crimes against the Chinese people still is not possible. It is no different today in the United States than it is in Red China or was in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Just as Lenins statue could not be toppled in Red Square until after the fall of the Soviet Communist government, or the truth about Hitler couldnt be told until after defeat of Nazi Germany, it is the same here in the United States.
It is my hope that someday, in the not too distant future, a true account of the war crimes of Lincoln will be discussed, debated and even acknowledged. The Lincoln Memorial should be remodeled to show the horrors of "Lincoln the War Criminal" with the opportunity for all to visit Washington and learn how war crimes, genocide and holocaust are not just crimes that foreign politicians commit. Government and political tyranny can and has happened here just like in Germany, China and the Soviet Union and that through education and honest history, it will never happen here again.
In the future, may we have the opportunity to learn about the Nazi holocaust at the United States National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and then have the chance to visit the Lincoln War Crimes and American Holocaust Museum a few blocks away. One will state for all the world that NEVER AGAIN will a tyrant or government be allowed to target, exterminate and destroy an ethnic, racial or religious minority. The other will pledge NEVER AGAIN in America will we allow a president or government to make unconstitutional war against Sovereign states or their citizens and then cover up the truth up for over 145 years.
We should start today with an honest appraisal of what Lincoln really did to Dixie, how our black and white innocent noncombatants suffered under his total war policy against civilians. Finally we should address the cost in lives, lost liberty and federal taxes the citizens of the US have had to endure because our limited constitutional republic was destroyed.
Abraham Lincoln was a great man, a smart politician and he could have been an excellent president, had he considered the short-term costs of his high tariff and the long time price every American had to pay for his war of invasion. It is time to stop worshipping Lincoln and educate the public about the war crimes he committed against the citizens of the Southern States so this WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN! --Ron Holland.
Some say "the Democrat Party of 1860 is not the Democrat Party of a hundred years later."
I say "bull-hockey." They've ALWAYS been the same: Demagogues of the worst sort.
Way back when, they used race-baiting. Now, they use...race-baiting. The identity of the race with whom they're aligned may have changed, but that's simply because Democrats have no principle. Whatever works to get them elected and keep them in power, that's what they'll do.
The Democrats are almost single-handedly responsible for the Civil War. They bear responsiblity for nearly making the division permanent, with their "peace movement" in the 1864 election (Hm, "peace movement," trying to capitulate to an enemy far weaker than you are, I think I see a pattern there, too).
The Democrats made sure the southern United States was "kept down" through the years so as to secure their hegemony.
And Democrats ruled all those years as pretty much a single party, and are the major reason the South lagged economically behind the north during that entire time.
Support for the slaveholders' rebellion is, emphatically, simply a support of Democrat Party dirty tricks then and now.
It's a treasure and a must-read for any serious student of U.S. history.
It's something alright I'll give you that. It's a fanciful revision to condone lincoln's actions. Heck, even McPherson himself calls lincoln a 'benevolent dictator'. Yeah, it's chockful of something
Is there some sort of scale involved here? Say for instance, only 500,000 Americans were killed - would Lincoln have made "Saint"? < /sarcasm >
Lincoln had flaws like any other leader our nation's ever had. But he led us through the nation's darkest hour, a crisis that far exceeded the two World Wars we've fought in on FOREIGN SHORES. As the war ground on, very tough decisions had to be made. He made 'em, and he took the brunt of criticism for them.
History shows that he was the greatest President of the Nineteenth Century, hands down. Perhaps, like GWB, that was an accident of chance, but as I believe that God has had His Hand in the affairs of this country since it's beginning, I don't believe in chance--then or now.
In my salad days, you tried to be clever and intellectual. Now, it's definitely "in" to be an idiot.
I'm very busy at present, but you make it sound worthwhile.
The anti-Lincoln bigotry exhibited here, and the sentimental and regional base of it has been, to put it mildly, illuminating to me.
Regards,
Richard F.
Actually, I had a couple of customers in from Richmond about 7 years ago and they had a Saturday stay over so we went down to O'Garas and got liquored up on a Saturday afternoon. After some discussion, we decided to go down to the Historical Society and steal the Stars and Bars back for the Virginny Rebs!!! We were serious about doing it, but apparently it's locked in a sealed steel vault about three stories below ground. We basically wandered around like three Alzheimer's patients until a security guard kicked us out. It's fairly secure from seizure. Good fun, they were great folks. Those guys were game faced and ready to rock, too. It's not smack talk material with them. We actually went to a cash machine and got bail money before our assault! Yikes.
We should have returned the flag to the Virginia contingent three years ago. It's an important icon to a lot of folks down there, and up here it's virtually non-existent to our residents. It was a disrectful gesture IMO. Lots of brave kids from both sides died in that battle, it's no disrepect to the Minnesota dead to return a symbol of their kin's sacrifice back to them. I asked Terwilliger about, and I guess it was decided to deny Virginia's request in some committee. Stupid stuff.
The mental gymnastics are still going on, they've just been turned to discussion of history. Unfortunately, the passing of the segregationists means that people are able to construct their own Fantasy South. The Fantasy South looks a lot like the South or the America of today. But it's projected backwards to 1960 or 1930, 1860 or 1830. It's appealing to some in that one can appear to be a rebel and a loyalist, to thumb one's nose at political correctness, yet remain within its terms and conditions and even use current political correctness against those who tried to improve things in past years.
The old segregationists turned a lot of people leftward. If I had a dime for every liberal whose eyes watered at the mention of "Freedom Summer" and "Freedom riders" .... But the Russells at least made it clear that our past wasn't one great PC love fest. When one had to take ongoing segregation and bigotry into account, one couldn't whitewash past history, and turn Southern history into one long tale of victimization at the hands of the Yankees.
This is ignorant. Pig ignorant.
Shame on Ron Holland, who has done good work, and ought to know better.
Richard F.
So in your opinion it is okay for ONLY those you praise to committed genocide. That makes you hypocrite.
By the way, Hitler's greatest enemy was his own stupidity. Also, you completely ignored World War I.
So I think it all had to happen, to create the American Superpower, a nation that can lead the World in the war against nuclear terror.
No nuke, nor radiation bomb has YET been used against us.
If you HAD actually been paying attention to what the government has been saying. You would have noted that they say the only way they can protect us is only if they take away all OUR rights.
My opinion is I would rather be dead than be a slave. There is no point in living if you have no rights.
The Sum of All Fears is just a movie, but the nuclear threat is very real. It's time for us to fight together and launch some "pre-emptive strikes" against the sponsors of nuclear terror. Let's roll, y'all.
The Sum of All Fears MOVIE is a politically correct 'blame the white man' piece of garbage. Also, the only "pre-emptive strikes" , besides what has been done in Afghanistan, by the government has been against OUR rights.
If the government were serious about terrorists, Arafat and Saudam would be dead and the House of Saud would have fallen by now.
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