Posted on 09/06/2003 9:14:08 AM PDT by quidnunc
What is with the love-affair that some paleos have with Gorbo? I can understand the "no foreign entanglement" angle, but why do they cross the line into being outright apologists for the Soviet regime?
This was once a very libertarian nation consisting of loosely federated states able to act independently in most things and collectively for things like free trade and national defence. Now we are pawns of a bloated national state.
Linclon had his view of "nation." He felt the US was ultimately stronger as a nation rather than unaffiliated states. He also had a vision of the US as a nation that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
I believe he also saw the "freedom" of the nation as something to extend to all citizens, although that was not his mandate when he was elected. The fact is he had no mandate when he was elected.
It's so popular these days for some conservatives to hammer Lncoln at every opportunity. What makes me curious about that is if these hammerers feel we will be a better country when the next great schism comes to pass as is the trend.
Finally, given Lincoln's vision of "Country," What could he have done differently and still bring it about. He had a Congress that seemed quite pleased to be able to blame Lincoln for all the evils in the world yet was likley collectively relieved that anyone about was willing to make some decisions about issues at all.
He had a nation, not a loggerheads, but rather, quite literally, at each others throats.
I have always thought, not that he was a conservative, but that it took a fantastic amount of character to pull it off at all. Lincoln was in a truly winless situation, yet he knew that some men must do more than just talk. I find Lincoln as good as any President and better than most.
Ahh, another government "educated" person. If you were to read anything before the revisionists got around to changing it, you would note that the North imposed tariffs on imported factory goods, and our European trade partners responded by slapping massive tariffs on agricultural goods. This allowed the North to have high wages and even cheaper cotton and corn while the South had to pay maximum prices for machinery (which would have replaced slaves) and received minimum income for their products. Last time I checked, tariffs are anathema to Libertarianism (which is Libertarian consistancy since our country's forefathers believed that tariffs were the least immoral tax.)
Interestingly, the Libertarian ideal is sort of like the North's attitude towards the South. Impose virtual tariffs on the manufacturing and IT through massive domestic taxes, obscene regulation, and rabid tort lawyers - then eliminate tariffs on the foreigners through subsidies, tax grants, free insurance, and cheap and plentiful education to foreigners. This makes the "Takers" (Libs) the North, and the Producers the "South". The Libs laud about inexpensive goods and laugh at the "Southerners" income problems.
Given the increasing centralization of pwer in D.C., you think this is even possible?
There are large parts of Florida and the Southwest that have American as a second language, and so many of those homes don't understand the language at all. While that has always been the case in some of our urban areas such as New York, San Francisco, Honolulu and others, there were numerous pressures to amalgamate the people, at least by the next generation. Now we not only forgive this "balkanazation," we subsidize it i.e. we encourage it. We put no premium on at least the next generation getting with the program.
Our older institutions are getting routed and our rebuilt institutions don't force the next generation to have a clue as to what their true rights are or why. We also belittle any affection toward "our country" as archaic, xenophobic and not chic.
For those that consider Lincoln to be a marxist of his day, I give you Olympia Snow, Jim Jeffords, Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter. By this I mean we are getting so horribly polarized as a political body that there can be no basis for communication. I don't want any part of their vision of what this country should be.
In California we can see the catastrophe that is wrought by so many ultra liberal policies that even today politicians are loathe to decry. It can't be long before the Northeast follows in those footsteps.
Today you have a supposed conservative administration that wants to spend money growing programs so fast it would embarrass Hubert Humphrey or Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson, the radical liberals of the last generation.
Yes, I would say this nation could split along numerous seems, mostly caused by plans to subsidize activities that can't be economically sustained. It won't happen in the next year, or the next five, but has to eventually given trends. When it does, the separate parts will be so regionalized, and the things that really made this country great will be so expunged from our memory that there won't be anyone left to suggest an alternative.
Today's Republicans are Reagan's Conservative Republicans, NOT Lincoln's Radical Republicans.
Many, if not most, of the paleocons are synpathetic to the Confederacy and believe the South's cause during the Civil War was just, so it's a given that Honest Abe occupies a place in their pantheon of horribles.
Yep, Ol'Abe and Billy Sherman really showed them rebs where the bear did his business in the buckwheat, didn't they?
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