tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15935045.post3535878795495422936..comments2024-01-19T02:23:51.665-06:00Comments on Journal Wunelle: An Unalloyed Substancewstachourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447198404608861357noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15935045.post-75347648735495245142008-09-16T19:03:00.000-05:002008-09-16T19:03:00.000-05:00Well, this is a different matter. Self-determinat...Well, this is a different matter. Self-determination seems much sounder argumentative ground than the equation of Lincoln to Hitler.<BR/><BR/>Though I've argued what a seminal force in history was Lincoln the man, I don't believe he is the wellspring from which arose the very idea of union. He was, after all, elected by a majority of citizens of the whole nation, having run on a platform that went no further on the subject than to not advocate the parceling up of the nation into ideological segments. Seven states immediately seceded upon his election, in protest that he opposed the extension of a slave-based economy into the new territories of the country. This was the majority will of the country's citizens. It seems irrational to blame him for vowing, as the country's President, that the nation itself should not be allowed to disintegrate on his watch; and he surely did not invent the idea that the nation's territory would have to be protected by force.<BR/><BR/>Any question of self-determination must also include the will of this majority of citizens who voted him into office. No duly elected President would, or could, have waved a hand and said "let 'em go," and we would not have stood for such poor stewardship of our country.<BR/><BR/>Lincoln got so eloquently to this point in his Gettysburg speech, connecting the struggle of the war to the still-unknown question of whether people could really govern themselves through difficult times without imploding. Self-determination is surely more than just letting everyone do what they want regardless of the consequences to the greater whole on which the component pieces depend. The Constitution may not address this specifically, but I think it's safe to say there are no easy shear points for the disaffected to just go their own way.<BR/><BR/>So I quite disagree that his Presidency represents the failure of the Experiment; on the contrary, he played an almost superhuman role in preventing its failure. I think he was surely no military man (to the charge of militarism), and I'm not sure how you find "corporatism" stemming from his years in office. As for nationalism, I think his commitment to democratic self-government was deep and pure; there was nothing jingoistic about it, I believe.<BR/><BR/>All this stands to one side of my recognition of Lincoln as a moral force, as a person without vindictiveness and who was deeply pained at the bloodshed and death that were the cost of holding the country together. The war and its aftermath would have been starkly different under anyone else, I think.wstachourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12447198404608861357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15935045.post-46655604230761005102008-09-16T13:35:00.000-05:002008-09-16T13:35:00.000-05:00I don't remember the constitution enumerating the ...I don't remember the constitution enumerating the power to the Federal government to compel, through force, any State to remain under it's jurisdiction. In fact it was the States that created the Federal, not the other way around. And in doing so they did not sacrifice their sovereignty to exist as free and autonomous States outside of the very limited powers they afforded to the Federal Government. <BR/><BR/>I don't mean to tweak the squishy liberal, no. I do, however, have a special distaste for the man Lincoln. For it was he who almost single handedly put an end to the American Experiment as it was meant to be, an exercise in self government and self determination. , and ushered in our current age of militarism, corporatism, and nationalism. And all the while I'm told by both squishy liberals and rigid conservatives that the man is the greatest president we've ever had.<BR/><BR/>You're right about your last comment though. Such references as the one I made are cheap debate tactics, I know.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06748025048481866622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15935045.post-36232783905009149642008-09-15T09:18:00.000-05:002008-09-15T09:18:00.000-05:00It's impossible for me to take your comment seriou...It's impossible for me to take your comment seriously (perhaps you're just playing <I>tweak the squishy liberal</I>).<BR/><BR/>Hitler sought to systematically exterminate a race of people for what amounts to a hastily-invented political religion; his rationale is easily and quickly rebuffed by the simplest scientific inquiry. Hitler showed himself to be a sociopath again and again in his dismissal of the suffering of others--indeed, he gleefully inflicted that suffering.<BR/><BR/>No such criticisms apply to Lincoln. The idea he sought to defend was the very constitution that, through the expressed will of the people, put him in stewardship of the office and the country and the ideals on which it was founded. To claim to find malice in Lincoln--where malice is explicit and undeniable in Hitler--is to confess that you haven't looked at Lincoln at all.<BR/><BR/>As for Hitler's praise of Lincoln, Fred Phelps praises his god for inventing AIDS. But that neither makes the god real nor his illiterate explanation of AIDS valid.wstachourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12447198404608861357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15935045.post-65181723947191272212008-09-14T15:54:00.000-05:002008-09-14T15:54:00.000-05:00Well I wouldn't go so far as to call Hitler and Li...Well I wouldn't go so far as to call Hitler and Lincoln opposites. I mean I know Lincoln only killed a tenth of what Hitler managed, but 600,000 is nothing to scoff at. And besides, in his book Hitler praised Lincoln for using such sufficebt force against the South.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06748025048481866622noreply@blogger.com