_________________
It is as though your species' brain is too small to hold a simple thought such as, WE WILL KILL YOU FOR DISOBEYING!
This is not a complex idea.
Joined: 25 Feb 2007 Posts: 46 Local time: 7:41 PM Location: CO
Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 3:55 pm Post subject:
L. Neil Smith is no admirer of Lincoln either. This essay was written some time ago (2001?). There are links at the bottom of the page to essays by DiLorenzo and others and to various books on the topic.
It's harder and harder these days to tell a liberal from a conservative -- given the former category's increasingly blatant hostility toward the First Amendment, and the latter's prissy new disdain for the Second Amendment -- but it's still easy to tell a liberal from a libertarian.
Just ask about either Amendment.
If what you get back is a spirited defense of the ideas of this country's Founding Fathers, what you've got is a libertarian. By shameful default, libertarians have become America's last and only reliable stewards of the Bill of Rights.
But if -- and this usually seems a bit more difficult to most people -- you'd like to know whether an individual is a libertarian or a conservative, ask about Abraham Lincoln.
Suppose a woman -- with plenty of personal faults herself, let that be stipulated -- desired to leave her husband: partly because he made a regular practice, in order to go out and get drunk, of stealing money she had earned herself by raising chickens or taking in laundry; and partly because he'd already demonstrated a proclivity for domestic violence the first time she'd complained about his stealing.
Now, when he stood in the doorway and beat her to a bloody pulp to keep her home, would we memorialize him as a hero? Or would we treat him like a dangerous lunatic who should be locked up, if for no other reason, then for trying to maintain the appearance of a relationship where there wasn't a relationship any more? What value, we would ask, does he find in continuing to possess her in an involuntary association, when her heart and mind had left him long ago?
History tells us that Lincoln was a politically ambitious lawyer who eagerly prostituted himself to northern industrialists who were unwilling to pay world prices for their raw materials and who, rather than practice real capitalism, enlisted brute government force -- "sell to us at our price or pay a fine that'll put you out of business" -- for dealing with uncooperative southern suppliers. That's what a tariff's all about. In support of this "noble principle", when southerners demonstrated what amounted to no more than token resistance, Lincoln permitted an internal war to begin that butchered more Americans than all of this country's foreign wars -- before or afterward -- rolled into one.
Lincoln saw the introduction of total war on the American continent -- indiscriminate mass slaughter and destruction without regard to age, gender, or combat status of the victims -- and oversaw the systematic shelling and burning of entire cities for strategic and tactical purposes. For the same purposes, Lincoln declared, rather late in the war, that black slaves were now free in the south -- where he had no effective jurisdiction -- while declaring at the same time, somewhat more quietly but for the record nonetheless, that if maintaining slavery could have won his war for him, he'd have done that, instead.
The fact is, Lincoln didn't abolish slavery at all, he nationalized it, imposing income taxation and military conscription upon what had been a free country before he took over -- income taxation and military conscription to which newly "freed" blacks soon found themselves subjected right alongside newly-enslaved whites. If the civil war was truly fought against slavery -- a dubious, "politically correct" assertion with no historical evidence to back it up -- then clearly, slavery won.
Lincoln brought secret police to America, along with the traditional midnight "knock on the door", illegally suspending the Bill of Rights and, like the Latin America dictators he anticipated, "disappearing" thousands in the north whose only crime was that they disagreed with him. To finance his crimes against humanity, Lincoln allowed the printing of worthless paper money in unprecedented volumes, ultimately plunging America into a long, grim depression -- in the south, it lasted half a century -- he didn't have to live through, himself.
In the end, Lincoln didn't unite this country -- that can't be done by force -- he divided it along lines of an unspeakably ugly hatred and resentment that continue to exist almost a century and a half after they were drawn. If Lincoln could have been put on trial in Nuremburg for war crimes, he'd have received the same sentence as the highest-ranking Nazis.
If libertarians ran things, they'd melt all the Lincoln pennies, shred all the Lincoln fives, take a wrecking ball to the Lincoln Memorial, and consider erecting monuments to John Wilkes Booth. Libertarians know Lincoln as the worst President America has ever had to suffer, with Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson running a distant second, third, and fourth.
Conservatives, on the other hand, adore Lincoln, publicly admire his methods, and revere him as the best President America ever had. One wonders: is this because they'd like to do, all over again, all of the things Lincoln did to the American people? Judging from their taste for executions as a substitute for individual self-defense, their penchant for putting people behind bars -- more than any other country in the world, per capita, no matter how poorly it works to reduce crime -- and the bitter distaste they display for Constitutional "technicalities" like the exclusionary rule, which are all that keep America from becoming the world's largest banana republic, one is well-justified in wondering.
The troubling truth is that, more than anybody else's, Abraham Lincoln's career resembles and foreshadows that of V.I. Lenin, who, with somewhat better technology at his disposal, slaughtered millions of innocents -- rather than mere hundreds of thousands -- to enforce an impossibly stupid idea which, in the end, like forced association, was proven by history to be a resounding failure. Abraham Lincoln was America's Lenin, and when America has finally absorbed that painful but illuminating truth, it will finally have begun to recover from the War between the States.
L. Neil Smith is the award-winning author of 19 books including The Probability Broach, The Crystal Empire, Henry Martyn, The Lando Calrissian Adventures, Pallas, and (forthcoming) Bretta Martyn. An NRA Life Member and founder of the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus, he has been active in the Libertarian movement for 34 years and is its most prolific and widely-published living novelist.
Permission to redistribute this article is herewith granted by the author -- provided that it is reproduced unedited, in its entirety, and appropriate credit given.
Joined: 05 Sep 2004 Posts: 3477 Local time: 4:41 PM Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 5:08 pm Post subject:
That was a good video. Thanks _________________ "I love and treasure individuals as I meet them; I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to" -George Carlin
Celebrant: Forgive us, Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying.
Congregation: And bare-faced flattery.
--Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Posts: 2138 Local time: 7:41 PM
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:52 am Post subject:
Quote:
take a wrecking ball to the Lincoln Memorial
I wouldn't demolish the Lincoln Memorial or the Monument, I would just add to it telling it like it is. Relabel some of the exhibits as "Previous attempts by revisionists to make this savage man into a noble."
Destroying pieces of history is as bad as burning books, no matter how much you disagree with the ideas dominant in that particular period of history.
..although all the pennies and $5's can gtfo for all I care. _________________ “Here, here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on the living in the land of freedom. Here you go America - you are free to do what well tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!” ~ B.Hicks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNOPu_wU6hs
Joined: 05 Sep 2004 Posts: 3477 Local time: 4:41 PM Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:28 pm Post subject:
I'm waiting for the day when the mainstream decides that these criticisms of Lincoln are valid and that he really was a douchebag.
Because, on that day, and this is a prophecy, the apologists/fundies will immediately change their tune on Lincoln. They'll switch from arguing that Lincoln was a faithful fundamentalist to agreeing that he really was a nonbeliever who really though xianity was a pile of shit, as we all here already know is the case. And then they'll use Lincoln as just one more example of how rotten all of us atheists are. Before Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Pol Pot, there was Abe Lincoln.
Shame on you, atheism! _________________ "I love and treasure individuals as I meet them; I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to" -George Carlin
Celebrant: Forgive us, Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying.
Congregation: And bare-faced flattery.
--Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 9289 Local time: 8:41 PM Location: Where Scum Are
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:00 am Post subject:
Good stuff, Ivan.
I'm no Lincoln fan, and one of the few things I agree with y'all an-caps with is that the Civil War really did lead to an inappropriate solidification of a strong Federal government.
I really don't like DiLorenzo's silly pedagogy about the strange Lincoln cult amidst academics, however. I find it quite hard to swallow that academia is fine with criticising any president whatsoever except for Lincoln. That and his interpretations of people personally attacking him without substance seemed the typical stuff of the paranoid. Maybe that's happened. Maybe it hasn't. But the info presented was certainly not enough to convince me on the matter.
I do like some of the stuff he's done, however, and I'm personally no fan of Lincoln, so I do wanna read his stuff on Lincoln. I appreciate the link, and I praise Rothbard for C-SPAN. _________________ The whores and politicians will shout 'save us'...
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 3886 Local time: 2:41 AM Location: Poland
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:08 am Post subject:
Philosophos wrote:
That and his interpretations of people personally attacking him without substance seemed the typical stuff of the paranoid.
I'm not sure about paranoid, I think he might be just a bit butthurt about being flamed by others.
Quote:
and I praise Rothbard for C-SPAN.
_________________
It is as though your species' brain is too small to hold a simple thought such as, WE WILL KILL YOU FOR DISOBEYING!
This is not a complex idea.
Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Posts: 10021 Local time: 6:41 PM Location: USA
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 7:52 am Post subject:
Philosophos wrote:
Good stuff, Ivan.
I'm no Lincoln fan, and one of the few things I agree with y'all an-caps with is that the Civil War really did lead to an inappropriate solidification of a strong Federal government.
I really don't like DiLorenzo's silly pedagogy about the strange Lincoln cult amidst academics, however.
You've clearly never read anything by Harry Jaffa. _________________ aa #51, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man"
Joined: 05 Sep 2004 Posts: 3477 Local time: 4:41 PM Location: Los Angeles
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject:
In my experience, the people who are really into Lincoln are something near cult members, at least as a caricature. But I don't think Lincoln is the only case of this. Most of the founding fathers (just the name "founding fathers" sounds kinda silly to me) have been deified.
Its also pretty natural for humans to do this. Its easy to make historical figures larger than life.
I agree there is a unhealthy reverence for certain people like Lincoln and like the founding fathers. I wouldn't say its actually a cult, but I don't think DiLorenzo means to actually compare them with an actual cult. Lots of people use the word "cult" loosely (me included) _________________ "I love and treasure individuals as I meet them; I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to" -George Carlin
Celebrant: Forgive us, Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying.
Congregation: And bare-faced flattery.
--Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 3886 Local time: 2:41 AM Location: Poland
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:22 pm Post subject:
Godless Red Scum wrote:
Well, there's plenty of bad shit that can be said of Lincoln, but eh...can't seem to get on the haters bandwagon for this one.
I don't think there's a haters bandwagon as much as HeWasAnAssholeJustLikeEveryOtherPoliticianPerhapsEvenASlightlyBiggerOneSoPleaseStopDeifyingHim bandwagon. _________________
It is as though your species' brain is too small to hold a simple thought such as, WE WILL KILL YOU FOR DISOBEYING!
This is not a complex idea.
Joined: 16 Feb 2008 Posts: 837 Local time: 7:41 PM
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:25 pm Post subject:
Ivan_Ivanov wrote:
Godless Red Scum wrote:
Well, there's plenty of bad shit that can be said of Lincoln, but eh...can't seem to get on the haters bandwagon for this one.
I don't think there's a haters bandwagon as much as HeWasAnAssholeJustLikeEveryOtherPoliticianPerhapsEvenASlightlyBiggerOneSoPleaseStopDeifyingHim bandwagon.
Well if that's the bandwagon I won't jump on, but I'll certainly wave as you pass by. Thing is that I can sympathize with both Lincoln's greatest admirers and his biggest critics.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 3886 Local time: 2:41 AM Location: Poland
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject:
Moloth wrote:
So... he preserved the Union, abolished slavery and ended the Civil War...
I don't se how preserving the union was a good thing, especially since in the end it granted the federal governmet far more power then was originally intended, slavery would have ended anyway, and he started the Civil War, not ended it.
Godless Red Scum wrote:
Well if that's the bandwagon I won't jump on, but I'll certainly wave as you pass by. Thing is that I can sympathize with both Lincoln's greatest admirers and his biggest critics.
Fair enough. _________________
It is as though your species' brain is too small to hold a simple thought such as, WE WILL KILL YOU FOR DISOBEYING!
This is not a complex idea.
Joined: 27 Aug 2003 Posts: 23062 Local time: 7:41 PM Location: Warner Robins, GA
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:31 pm Post subject:
Ivan_Ivanov wrote:
Moloth wrote:
So... he preserved the Union, abolished slavery and ended the Civil War...
I don't se how preserving the union was a good thing, especially since in the end it granted the federal governmet far more power then was originally intended, slavery would have ended anyway, and he started the Civil War, not ended it.
"War of Northern Aggression", huh?
the right to own slaves is greater than the right to not BE a slave, i guess... _________________ -=The Believer is Happy; the Skeptic is Wise=-
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