In his notes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of Maryland's delegates, Dr. James McHenry -- which were first published in The American Historical Review, vol. 11, 1906, he wrote in an anecdote on p. 618: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”
Well, we haven't kept it. Let's stop kidding ourselves. That battle has been lost. All the furniture is still arranged as it was, and there is still plenty of lip-service to our institutions; but the imperious occupants of our houses of government are running things now as though we had a socialist state.
Don't be deceived by references to "democracy." Without a Republic, a democracy can be as totalitarian as Stalinist Soviet empire. Read J. L. Talmon's The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, a study of J.J. Rousseau's Social Contract, or Groen van Prinsterer's Unbelief and Revolution, a study of how Rousseau's democratic ideology played out in the French Revolution.
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During the first Inaugural speech of the tyrannical War Criminal, Lincoln (Rightly, THE hero of this Puritan Empire), the gangly-legged bastid said that he and the Federal Govt had not one thing planned to address the matter of legal slavery but woe betide that state which did not collect Tariffs in amounts sufficient to satisfy this malign Mercantilist for he promised to wage war on any State if it did not collect sufficient Tariffs (taxes).
Lincoln, he was Commie before Commies became cool...
Of course, the Government school system washed the minds of many generations of its student-captives to such a point that the VAST majority of Americans alive today (including Glenn Beck, but I suspect he is from another Planet) love that evil liar.
And, so it is no surprise that it has taken this late in our history for some to begin to awaken to the reality that the Republic died a long damn time ago.
"...that evil liar."
Lincoln can be argued to have been much less than an iconic secular saint, sure. But here you sound much like Thomas A. Droleskey, whom when heard in person helped me begin to understand why traditionalists are viewed as having jumped the shark. People love Lincoln because he helped abolish slavery, an institution marred by lots of evil. Pretty simple.
Dear JM. Me as The Fonz?
I like to think of my own self as more like Chief Wild Eagle of F-Troop.
As for Lincoln, I have always considered he earned his Honest Abe nickname for the same reason that a 400 lb mobster is known as, Tiny.
Just consider The Emancipation Proclamation which did not free one - not one - slave.
I will concede he invented total war against a civilian population and that he wore a funny hat - but, other than that, Sic semper Tyrannis
IAS:
Impressed as I continue to be by your wit and prowess, If find it hard to believe you don't think Lincoln *helped* abolish slavery. As for total war, Southerner that I am, two sides both contributed quite heftily to that debacle. And in Providence I think it helped the world, much like, despite gross flaws, some VII currents. To wit, at least we no longer have Popes taking the kids of Jews captive in the Vatican to follow-up on their nursery baptisms! [to throw a wild curve ball into things]. Cheers.
Dear JM During the lulls in telegraph communication during the war, Lincoln used to return to the oval office and chip golf balls into his stovepipe hat and it was his character and relaxation routine that gave the POTUS its charming character in that now all POTUS are considered (by me at least) to be professional liars and amateur golfers.
To the extent it was then possible, Lincoln was as personally involved in running the war as LBJ was involved in running the war in Vietnam; that is, it was HIS policy of total war against women and children in the south on the part of Northern Generals that was so evil and completely contrary to International Law as taught at West Point (where both Union and Confederate General has studied) and, even worse, as he heard the stories of the atrocities committed against the Southern women and children by such men as Sheridan and Sherman;
Lincoln listened eagerly, never once expressing shock. (Meeting of 03/27/1865, with Sherman and Grant jaw-boning about the atrocities of bummers ( Looters)
Lincoln was a monster who hated negroes and was working on plans to deport them right up until the time he reaped what he had sown.
His cynical, and late to the game, exploitation of the slavery issue was as real as is the hair on head of NBA Announcer, Marv Albert.
America was the only country in the west that had to kill scores of thousands to rid itself of slavery and such a cause does not justify what the Union Army did.
I have walked the still blood stained floors of the Carter House in Franklin, Tennessee (Where the Army of Tennessee died under General Hood) and I have walked the blood stained bedroom at Carton House where Surgeons severed arms and legs and I have walked the Confederate Cemetery outside Carton House where lie buried the fine and brave young young men from all of the States of the Confederacy who had walked there to fight the northern invaders and during the long hours I walked and thought in those places, and watered the graves with my tears, I knew in my soul that Lincoln was a monstrous war criminal for choosing this fight with his fellow citizens and nobody will ever convince me otherwise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99xWL1wEGDk
.Dear JM. As a Southron, you might like what IANS has recommended before;
In a too-long-neglected Double CD "White Mansions/Legend of Jessie James," Mr Waylon Jennings sings a fair amount on "White Mansions" and whenever I listen to him sing on that CD, when I hear his deep, rich, soulful voice, and I hear his mournful low-note guitar playing, I always imagine that I am hearing a chain of memory being dragged across the rocky floor of some long-forgotten Southern Sepulcher.
And the chain is being dragged by a hated Haint, dressed in his ragged Confederate Gray Long Coat, and the chain he is dragging is comprised of the links of lies, enmity, and ignorance, forged in the minds of the Jacobinite North and imprisoning nearly the entire populace with its haughty and vindictive "memory," and this Haint will haunt that sepulcher until America releases him from his bondage with the key of righteousness; a righteousness that, finally, after long last, gives the Southern Cause its due respect and honors the memories of the descendants of those who fought with such heroic courage.
Here is a sample:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-1_-6adQs4
Distressing stuff, it is.
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