History repeats itself

Why do you include so many Wiki links in your posts? You even linked "eg."

 

Do you do it by hand or programatically?

 

I'm having a hard time taking anything you say seriously because of glaring historical errors. For instance, you start off this series of assertions with something that I believe is incorrect:

Abraham Lincoln was assasinated immediately after the conclusion of the Civil War, so the Radical Republicans ensured that the states formerly in rebellion went through a dark period of Reconstruction. Lincoln did not have the opportunity to do what you claim, and the states formerly in rebellion did not have political self-control for a number of years to come.

That's harsh and unsubstantiated rhetoric.

You have your facts mixed up. The Radical Republicans, not the Democrats, pushed through the amendments outlawing slavery.

There are also numerous other problems, but I don't have time to go through them.

 

stanleyg,

I hope your US history teacher was pretty forgiving.

Hey, if your current career doesn't work out, you should consider writing fiction. You have a vivid imagination.

 

so...if we string together a bunch of unrelated wiki links, that somehow counts as credible references?

Somehow, I doubt that burden of proof would earn a "c" on a seventh-grade term paper.

I'm still laughing at your ridiculous assertion that pro-life folk are reincarnated Confederate soldiers. If writing fiction doesn't work out for you, try comedy.

 

"tolerated"... Try "forced".

Actually, Johnny Reb was standing for the absolute constitutional RIGHT to secede from the Union. Further, they were standing for the notion that when the 10th Amendment said "reserved to the states and the people" that's what it meant.

Further, it wasn't/isn't these who have presented the primary threat to our libertarian form of democracy/republicanism. It has been the "progressive socialists" who have been intent, and largely successful, in the centralization of power and confiscation of rights since Lincoln proved that might always trumps right.

Abortion and capital punishment are not "morality politics". The libertarians who started our nation instituted capital punishment for murder as well as other crimes.

Abortion's legality isn't a moral issue any more than murder or stealing is. It is a "rights" issue. The fundamental question is, "Does the free exercise of a freedom (engaging in sex) with known consequences result in a "super-right" to end another person's life when the consequences are not desirable?" Any and all reasoning that can be used to justify abortion can be used to justify virtually every crime on the book. Further, most laws have a moral aspect to them.

The implementation of these two laws was far, far from "libertarian". There is nothing libertarian about forced bussing or quotas.

The massive deficits are directly the result of social spending started by FDR and grown up through Carter. Though I personally would give on the legality of drugs issues if all social spending and government interference in the consequences of choosing to use drugs were rolled back... drug enforcement and law enforcement in general ARE NOT the cause of deficits.

Nope. We are fighting an enemy and an ideology that is both hostile to us and dangerous to our security. This enemy and its ideological allies have repeatedly attacked us and our interests. With religious fervor, this enemy makes no qualms about the fact that they will not and cannot rest until the world is Islamic. By their interpretation, which apparently is the literal one, Muslims are supposed to spread Islam... and use force if necessary to remove resistance.

Only the genuinely naive would believe that Islam and communism are comparable and especially concerning the zeal of those who seek to fight its battles.

Indeed. Another revisionist has selectively ignored the impact of socialism while lamenting the "Johnny come lately religious conservatives" who find the only way to battle social/economic liberalism is on the "field chosen by the enemy"- the government.

I am all for de-centralization and disempowerment of the federal gov't. I am not for abandoning the field to socialists and social liberal dictators. Social liberals are not libertarian. They have no interest in allowing people like me to promote our views about morality. They want to dictate their views to us and use the education system to indoctrinate our children in direct contradiction to our values.... all in the name of tolerance of course.

 

BTW, I would be perfectly happy to disempower the gov't so that it could not effect a social change/outcome then let my views on morality compare with those of liberals in the free marketplace of ideals and commerce. Would you really?

 

The linkies have to be by hand -- to substitute 'Liberalism' for the typed 'libertarian' was deliberate. Appears as though mis-direction was intended from the beginning -- to the end!

Waste of time. Nothing of interest, and mindset is blatant.

 

Moving this to the history forum. I imagine the history buffs over there might have a thing or three to say.....

 

"Should have" is, of course, purely your opinion.

It sounds like you think Lincoln should have severely punished the rebellious states by...doing what exactly? Hold them in subjugation and under martial law for ...how long? Hang how many of the ex soldiers? All of them?

I shudder to think what would have been the result if he had done as you suggest.

Could be we would have had another civil war or a series of them until another President as wise as Lincoln came along and ended that insanity.

I like the way it actually happened a lot better.

 

Here is another example of how history repeats itself:

President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, and he used those acts to jail newspaper editors.

In 1862, when copperhead democrats began criticizing Lincoln's violation of the Constitution, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation and had many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. Over 13,000 people in the North were arrested during this time for speaking out against Lincoln, including many newspaper editors. Finally, in 1866, after the war, the Supreme Court officially restored habeas corpus in Ex-parte Milligan, ruling that military trials in areas where the civil courts were capable of functioning were illegal.

President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, and he used that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as "Hyphenated Americans," most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, and he uses that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: "It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen - he is still a Japanese."

We now see Bush attempting this again with the Military Commissions Act that he signed last week.

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." —James Madison

 

Where are we now as a result of the above listed presidents?

 

Since you gave no concise references to support your specific assertions, you need to cite your sources first.

Sort of, but not really.

He lived for four days after Lee surrendered his army, but because of the realities of communication in those days, there were still Confederate divisions in the field that knew nothing of Lee's surrender. The war really didn't wrap up for several months.

From the Wikipedia article on the Civil War:
"Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of folding the Confederacy back into the Union with dignity and peace, Lee was permitted to keep his officer's saber and his near-legendary horse, Traveller. Johnston surrendered his troops to Sherman on April 26, 1865, in Durham, North Carolina. On June 23, 1865, at Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nations' area of the Oklahoma Territory, Stand Watie signed a cease-fire agreement with Union representatives, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down. The last Confederate naval force to surrender was the CSS Shenandoah on November 4, 1865, in Liverpool, England."

Lincoln did not have the opportunity to do what you claim because of his assasination. Furthermore, what kind of punishment would you recommend toward most of the able-bodies men and boys of the Southern United States? Execution? It would be an unprecedented bloodbath and a stain on history. Imprisonment? Not enough jails and incredible hardship on half the nation and the business interests of the North. A punative program of "reconstruction"? That's exactly what the Republicans did.