…Don’t fix it! It isn’t broken.
It may have been manipulated by Soros and Company to toss the election to the Democrats, but its not broken yet.
55 per cent of Chrysler to the Union. 35 per cent to Fiat. 10 per cent to the Government and the bondholders! Talk about redistributing the wealth of this country.

One fallacy (among others) in this campaign promise that has bugged me is the subtle implication that the other 5% aren’t working for their windfall profits…errr…salary. Story after story after story I hear from these 5%er families tell me otherwise…in fact, all I hear in the stories are the 60 or 70 hour weeks these 5%ers spend working to by their own choice for their own reasons.

Churchillianisms that THE ONE should keep in the back of his mind in his quest to be thought of as Lincolnesque, but probably won’t: “If you insist on sleeping with dragons, you’re liable to end up being eaten by them”
“Woe to the man that keeps feeding the crocodile in the hopes the beast eats him last.”

demonstrate exactly why Abraham Lincoln was our greatest President.

I recently purchased the commemorative silver dollar celebrating the bicentinnial of his birth and the reverse of it contains the last 43 words of the Gettysburg Address. If you read this speech, it is only a couple of paragraphs and takes just a minute or two, but it is so powerful that it is almost unbelievable that a simple man like Abraham Lincoln could have written it. Not to mention, he did not have speech writers or focus groups to help him write it, or a teleprompter to help him deliver it.

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

Something the “hardly working” lefties will never understand.

“… use that stolen money to find their own left-wing political agendas.”

Well, they’re always in the last place you look.

I have to say that I am truly exhausted by the endless conservative praise of Abraham Lincoln. He has been deified by those who glory in his “eradication of slavery.” He, much like Reagan, has been manipulated to stand for every conceivable, and often contradictory position. Several points here…

We as Conservatives supposedly believe in self-government and self-determination by the States. As constitutionalists we believe that the original Constitution of the United States is to interpreted as it was written and intended. Here is the problem with LIncoln, he did not believe that States had the right to leave the Union. He believed that the Union is perpetual. This belief, however well-intentioned, leads to statism. A perpetual union means that no matter how despotic Washington becomes, no matter how evil the government, no matter how heavy-handed the tactics, independence and secession were only right one time in the entirety of human history, and that was in 1776. The idea of a perpetual union is ridiculous in light of America’s War of Independence. Our very Declaration of Independence calls for the right of secession.

“The issue is one of slavery,” the moralists cry. The problem with LIncoln is that he was most certainly NOT a moralist. He never acted to free the slaves in the territories of the Union – which were the only slaves that he had the power to influence. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation well into the war as a way to stave off recognition of the Confederacy by the French and British governments. The decree freed on the slaves in areas not under Union control. A clause specifically excluded areas of the Confederacy reoccupied by the Union. Lincoln held no special love for the African-American. He regarded slaves as inferior.

Lincoln was so opposed to the Union’s breakup that he presided over 600,000 deaths and more than 1,000,000 total casualties in 5 years of war. A population comparison would translate that number to 6,000,000 and 10,000,000 respectively, in today’s numbers. He used illegal methods of search and seizure to sustain his government. He allowed the U.S. Army to commit unspeakable atrocities, and introduced for the first time in the history of post medieval Western civilization the concept of Total War against the civilian population. His government even contemplated using chemical warfare against the South!

For Lincoln, the end justified the means, and his war resulted in the beginning of the end for those who believed in limited central government.

The sad part of the whole issue is that it is cloaked in the moral issue of slavery. There is no doubt that slavery is reprehensible, and in our enlightened 21st century minds it is difficult to imagine that Americans ever condoned such an abhorrent system. However, slavery was allowed in the original Constitution. It was Lincoln who threatened to change the compact by which the Southern states entered the Union. By negating their right to relinquish membership within the Union, he established once and for all that when Washington and the majority of the nation passes judgment on an issue the rest of the country has no recourse. Self-determination by the States has no validity anymore.

The abuses of Reconstruction, the false passage of the 14th amendment, and the total devastation of an entire section of the United States is the legacy of the Civil War. African-Americans gained very little from the war. The federal government gained unprecedented strength and power, including the income tax!

I am not defending slavery. I am defending the rights of the several states to determine their own destinies in areas not granted to the Federal government by the Constitution. Lincoln was no conservative, and he was no hero. No one responsible for one million deaths can be a hero. The reason that this argument cannot be made in the public square is because it is always seen as a racist defense of the antebellum culture of the South.

Finally, I would submit that Barack Obama does indeed line up with Abraham Lincoln. They both have shown a propensity to change the Constitution to fit their political agendas. They both have a love for a strong federal government. They both have shown a talent for offending Great Britain. They can both be seen as radicals in their respective times. They both can be described as relative novices. They both gained national recognition as great speakers from one moment in the national spotlight. They were both elected in a period of intense national divide.

The difference? This time around the state’s righters are on the correct side of the moral issue. What happens when Washington passes national health care, income tax rates of 50%, and forces passage of a hate crimes bill that orders churches, parochial schools, and other private organizations/businesses to end discrimination against LGBT persons? You either believe in state’s rights or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways. In 1860 state’s rights were bad. Today they’re good? Philosophically, you must either hold to a state’s rights agenda that lets other states pass laws that you find to be morally wrong and misguided, or you must strive to control a strong federal government that forces your political agenda on every state.

I must sarcastically agree with the heading of this thread. Lincoln most certainly was a BAD EXAMPLE. But Obama is a great modern depiction of what it was like to be on the wrong side of Lincoln.

Now I’ll sit back and wait for the hate to roll in from all of the so-called limited government conservatives, whose sacred cow just got vilified.

Lincoln is discussing the issue of slaves as property rights. Just prior to the portion you quote, Lincoln quotes an adversary, “He says that upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed to go in a new Territory, like other property,” referring to arguments in support of the right to transport slaves as property. Lincoln is arguing the government’s right FOR taking “property” (slaves) from their rightful owners! Additionally, Lincoln’s quote refers to kings obtaining wealth by taking bread from the working man, not exactly the anti-socialist argument you are trying to make.
As always, it’s best to go to the source and make your own decision:
http://tinyurl.com/d6cw8k (Google Books)

To show us how much of a fraud Obama is ? Or, to lavish praise on Lincoln ?

I read your column and like a few other commenters here, I was wondering why you overlooked some of the statements made by Lincoln that would not support your presupposition of him being anti-slavery.

Then I read the comments, and when you were called out on it, your response, Warner, was to use an ad hominem attack on a professor that was not even here to defend himself. Smooth.

Obama is more like your idealized Lincoln than you will ever see. He is willing and able to tell his audience whatever he believes they want to hear. Then he will do that which he feels will deliver the results he wants.

How did you come to the conclusion that I hate Lincoln ?
Project much ?

Which “guys” misrepresent Lincoln’s views on slavery and The Constitution ?
All I did was ask why you were misrepresenting what he said by leaving some of it out!

When did I say he was a dictator ?

When did I say he abused the Constitution ?

When did I say he did not care about slavery ?
Can you not read ?
By my realizing he did speak of slavery, I have shown that I know he did care about slavery.

When did I call him a racist et c, et c, et c ?

You may think you have spent years arguing with foolish Lincoln haters, but, it is obvious that now you prefer to accuse anyone that doesn’t say you are always right about Lincoln, of things they have not ever said !

You should have just stuck with a better comeback, like “Oh Yeah ?”