People need to know the truth about Lincoln

jem · Jul 10, 2010

I did not know life guards could do anything other than save people.

Why did the Baywatch lifeguards need to bring Garner down from the police station on his bike if they could have written the tickets themselves?

My nullification was on el fuerte one block south of Palomar Airport as well.

jficquette · Jul 10, 2010

Quote from jem:

I did not know life guards could do anything other than save people.

Why did the Baywatch lifeguards need to bring Garner down from the police station on his bike if they could have written the tickets themselves?

My nullification was on el fuerte one block south of Palomar Airport as well.
More...

Me either. I told the guy that I saw him behind me but didn't think he would care.

He was driving one of those white lifeguard Jeep deals with a surfboard on top with cop lights.

Apparently they have police power within a certain distance of the ocean.

Live and learn.

John

PS I guess you know this already but from Palomar Airport road north to Carlsbad Village Drive is notorious for being a speed trap. They work in teams and if you go more than 5 miles over you get busted.

bigarrow · Jul 10, 2010

Quote from Index piker:

nice but this does not change the facts that:
1) The north did not invade the South with the idea of enforcing abolition.
2) The idea of succession was far from uncommon even in the north.
3a) "slavery" was just one point of contention concerning the larger issue of states rights.
3b) The states combined to form the Union (of states) not the other way around.
3c) Power rested within the states to check power run amok centralized despotic rule.

4) economic mercantilism , political power grabs enabling corrupt crony capitalism to flourish has been quite effectively sanitized from the authorized story.

but hey keep trying
More...

#1 is an opinion.
#2 this does not support or hurt your argument, and really doesn't mean anything,
#3 Slavery was a very large and main point, not just "another" point of contention.
#3b true but has nothing to do with the war or Lincoln
#3c despotic rule is not true, not then not now
#4 another opinion

Not saying you are right or wrong but your argument is weak.
Do you have any facts to back up what you're saying?

Index piker · Jul 10, 2010

Quote from bigarrow:

#1 is an opinion.
#2 this does not support or hurt your argument, and really doesn't mean anything,
#3 Slavery was a very large and main point, not just "another" point of contention.
#3b true but has nothing to do with the war or Lincoln
#3c despotic rule is not true, not then not now
#4 another opinion

Not saying you are right or wrong but your argument is weak.
Do you have any facts to back up what you're saying?
More...

1&4 are not opinions they are facts.

I contend that the Federal govt was in the process of stealing the power from the states. Plus the threat that a new Confederation of states introducing a free trade zone depriving it of revenue and political power were the reasons for the War of Northern aggression.

IOW: the imperial federal govt just didn't want to lose it's mercantilistic tax base, not unlike the first revolution.

Too bad the founding fathers won a revolution only to be subjugated 80 yrs later by a closer tyrant.

Index piker · Jul 10, 2010

Quote from bigarrow:

#1 is an opinion.
#2 this does not support or hurt your argument, and really doesn't mean anything,
#3 Slavery was a very large and main point, not just "another" point of contention.
#3b true but has nothing to do with the war or Lincoln
#3c despotic rule is not true, not then not now
#4 another opinion

Not saying you are right or wrong but your argument is weak.
Do you have any facts to back up what you're saying?
More...

Counter argument to 3b&c

Jaffaâs Hitlerian Defense of Lincoln

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

In his book, A New Birth of Freedom, Harry Jaffa begins the second chapter with a quotation of Adolph Hitler taken from a book authored by Hermann Rauschning in which Hitler supposedly said that after the Southern states were conquered in America "the beginnings of a great new social order based on the principle of slavery and inequality were destroyed . . ." He later (page 503, note 10) makes the incredibly vulgar and tasteless comment that his old intellectual nemesis, the late Mel Bradford, agreed with Hitler. How charming that Jaffa would put such a thing in print for the family and friends of the quintessential Southern gentleman/scholar, the late Professor Bradford, to see.

Jaffa is blissfully unaware that there is much doubt that Hitler ever said this, and he addressed the same slimy remark to me in a recent debate I had with him at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California. At the time, I didnât think such gutter language was worth commenting on other than to say, "Well, I guess we now know where Harry gets all these crazy ideas about political philosophy." Besides, the comment drew jeers and boos from the audience and was a blow to his credibility. Why interfere with the man when he is busy placing his own foot in his mouth?

But on second thought, I recalled that Hitler himself was rather a fan of highly centralized government and a fierce opponent of state sovereignty, just like Jaffa. This of course is not to compare these men; Hitler was the devil come to earth. I am only suggesting that Jaffaâs smart aleck remark is historically backwards: Hitler was a consolidationist, just like Jaffa. Hitler understood all too well that the surest way to establish dictatorial government was to concentrate power at the center; Jaffa has never learned this lesson.

Jaffa has spent a lifetime expounding upon Lincolnâs rendition of constitutional history that was first invented by Joseph Story and Daniel Webster â that the Union preceded the states, as opposed to the view (the correct one, in my opinion) that the sovereign states formed the government as their agent by adopting the Constitution. (St. George Tuckerâs A View of the Constitution is the best exposition of the latter view; Jaffaâs book is the best of the former view).

On page 566 of the 1999 Mariner/Houghton Mifflin edition of Mein Kampf Hitler clearly expresses the Lincoln/Jaffa view: "[T]he individual states of the American Union . . . could not have possessed any state sovereignty of their own. For it was not these states that formed the Union, on the contrary it was the Union which formed a great part of such so-called states."

This is consistent with the argument put forth in Lincolnâs First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861) where he said: "[T]he Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence . . . by the Articles of Confederation in 1778 . . . and establishing the Constitution. . . . It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union . . ." Jaffa has spent a lifetime repeating this theory.

Hitler (p. 567) mocked what he called "so-called sovereign states" in Germany because they stood in the way of a centralized Reich with their "impotence" and "fragmentation." Such impotence and fragmentation of government was purposely designed by some of the American founders precisely because they wanted to limit the powers of the central government.

Hitler praises Otto von Bismarck for proving "the greatness of his statesmanship" by gradually diminishing the sovereignty of the German states and centralizing governmental power in Germany. This was a most welcome development, Hitler wrote, since the power of the central state in Germany was supposedly threatened by "the struggle between federalism and centralization so shrewdly propagated by the Jews in 1919-20-21 and afterward . . ." (p. 565). Federalism is "a league of sovereign states which ban together of their own free will, on the strength of their sovereignty" to cede some (but not all) of their sovereignty to form "the common federation" (p. 566). Hitler was violently opposed to such a system.

But Bismarck did not go nearly far enough in destroying statesâ rights, said Hitler. "And so today this state, for the sake of its own existence, is obliged to curtail the sovereign rights of the individual provinces more and more, not only out of general material considerations, but from ideal considerations as well" (p. 572). Thus, a rule "basic for us National Socialists is derived: A powerful national Reich . . ." (emphasis in original, p. 572).

Moreover, Hitler wrote, the centralization of governmental power and the destruction of statesâ rights as a check on that power was inevitable throughout the world: "Certainly all the states in the world are moving toward a certain unification in their inner organization. And in this Germany will be no exception. Today it is an absurdity to speak of a âstate sovereigntyâ of individual provinces . . ." (p. 572).

Hitler ridiculed the advocates of statesâ rights and federalism in the Germany of his time by saying, "the cry for the elimination of centralization is really nothing more than a party machination without any serious thought behind it" and reveals "the inner hypocrisy of these so-called federalistic circles. The federative state idea, like religion in part, is only an instrument for their often unclean party interests" (p. 573).

The National Socialists, moreover, would totally eliminate statesâ rights altogether: "Since for us the state as such is only a form, but the essential is its content, the nation, the people, it is clear that everything else must be subordinated to its sovereign interests. In particular we cannot grant to any individual state within the nation and the state representing it state sovereignty and sovereignty in point of political power" (p. 575).

"The mischief of individual federated states . . . must cease and will some day cease," Hitler ominously warned (p. 575). The "lesson for the future" is that "The importance of the individual states will in the future no longer lie in the fields of state power and policy . . ." (p. 575).

And finally:

"National Socialism as a matter of principle, must lay claim to the right to force its principles on the whole German nation without consideration of previous federated state boundaries, and to educate in its ideas and conceptions. Just as the churches do not feel bound and limited by political boundaries, no more does the National Socialist idea feel limited by the individual state territories of our fatherland. The National Socialist doctrine is not the servant of individual federated states, but shall some day become the master of the German nation. It must determine and reorder the life of a people, and must, therefore, imperiously claim the right to pass over [state] boundaries drawn by a development we have rejected" (p. 578).

Jaffaâs quotation of Hitler from the Rauschning book is of dubious validity. If he wanted to learn of Hitlerâs actual views of statesâ rights he should have gone to the original source: Mein Kampf. There he would have found a body of ideas with which he is intimately familiar and in total agreement with.
More...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo20.html

IOW: The Jeffersonian's could not have been more prescient in their fears of a centralized state.

lincoln referred to hereafter as "King Asshole" had legislators who were likely to vote against him arrested and prevented from voting.

Thousands were held political prisoner without charge for disagreeing with him.

Censorship of virtually all newspapers critical of his policies was enforced.

The unconstitutional income tax was introduced.

King asshole was guilty of significant deviation from acceptable behavior towards civilians and what today would be considered war crimes for which he would be hanged just like Saddam Hussein.

King asshole was a dictator no matter what they taught you in nursery (indoctrination) school.

The story of king asshole is the premier propaganda case study of whitewashing the truth for over 100 yrs.

Index piker · Jul 10, 2010

Tom DiLorenzo on Abraham Lincoln, US Authoritarianism and Manipulated History

The Daily Bell is pleased to present an exclusive interview with Thomas DiLorenzo.

Daily Bell: How did you arrive at your insights about Lincoln? Explain, in a short summary if you can, what they are.

Thomas DiLorenzo: As for my research and publications on Lincoln, Civil War history was a hobby of mine for years, and I began thinking about how I could combine my profession, economics, with my hobby and get a few things published. I was struck by the fact that for his entire adult political life Lincoln was almost exclusively devoted to Hamiltonian mercantilism â high protectionist tariffs, other forms of corporate welfare, a central bank modeled after the Bank of England to pay for it all, and political patronage and matching politics. It made no sense at all that his ascendancy to the presidency had nothing to do with these issues, as America's court historians say, or that these issues had nothing to do with the reason for the war. In fact, in his first inaugural address he literally threatened "invasion" and "bloodshed" (his exact words) if the Southern states that had seceded refused to continue to pay the federal tariff on imports, the average rate of which had just been doubled two days earlier. The entire agenda of Hamiltonian mercantilism was put into place during the Lincoln administration â along with the first income tax, the first military conscription law, and the creation of the internal revenue bureaucracy, among other monstrosities.

Daily Bell: You write about Lincoln from an economic perspective. Shouldn't more history be written this way? It seems a natural marriage.

Thomas DiLorenzo: Most historians generally know nothing at all about economics, but that doesn't stop them from writing book after book on economic topics, including the economics of the Civil War. There are a lot of books out there in university libraries that contain the facts about Lincoln, but these facts rarely make it into the textbooks that American children use. Education is dominated by the state, after all, and the state only criticizes past politicians who were not sufficiently statist (like Warren Harding, for instance). Being an economist and a libertarian gives one a very different lens with which to look at this information. Historians simply don't understand the importance of how the American political economy was transformed by the Lincoln regime, and most of them are rather buffoonish, excuse-making court historians when it comes to Lincoln who is, after all, the face and image of the American empire.

Daily Bell: Was it difficult to write a revisionist history about Lincoln?

Thomas DiLorenzo: As a libertarian, I saw it as my duty to spread the truth about what a horrific tyrant Lincoln was, with his illegal suspension of Habeas Corpus and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of political dissenters in the North; his shutting down of over 300 opposition newspapers; his deportation of the leader of the congressional opposition, Democratic Congressman Clement Vallandigham of Ohio; and his purposeful waging of total war on civilians. He destroyed the voluntary union of the founding fathers and destroyed the system of federalism that was the hallmark of the original constitution by using military force to "prove" that nullification and secession were illegal. Might makes right. Unlike England, Spain, France, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, and other countries that ended slavery peacefully in the nineteenth century, Lincoln used the slaves as political pawns in a war that both he and the U.S. Congress declared to the world in 1861 was being waged for one reason only: to "save the union." But as I said, he really destroyed the voluntary union of the founders.
More...

Index piker · Jul 10, 2010

interview continued

Daily Bell: Was the Civil War popular in the North? What did people think of Lincoln in his day?

Thomas DiLorenzo: Lincoln was immensely unpopular during his time. How could he not have been, with having imprisoned tens of thousands of people in the North without any due process, shutting down hundreds of newspapers, handing thousands of Northern men death sentences in the form of military conscription, and generally ruling as a tyrant. Even with the South out of the union he only won the 1864 election with 55% of the vote, and that was after federal troops were used to rig the elections by intimidating Democratic voters at the polling places.

The Civil War was immensely unpopular in the North. That's why Lincoln had to imprison so many dissenters and shut down most of the opposition press. It's also why he resorted to the slavery of military conscription. There were draft riots in New York City and elsewhere. In the July, 1863 New York City draft riots Lincoln sent 15,000 troops who fired into the crowds, killing hundreds in the streets. Entire regiments of Union Army soldiers deserted on the eve of battle again and again, and tens of thousands â probably more â deserted.

Slavery could have been ended peacefully as all other nations did â and as the Northern states did â in the nineteenth century. There were still slaves in New York City as late as 1853. The real purpose of the war was to end once and for all the ability of American citizens to control the federal government by possessing the powers given to them by the Tenth Amendment, including the power of nullifying unconstitutional federal laws, and secession or the threat of secession. Thomas Jefferson believed that the Tenth Amendment was the cornerstone of the Constitution. Lincoln, who was the political son of Jefferson's nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, removed that cornerstone by orchestrating the murder of some 350,000 fellow American citizens, including more than 50,000 civilians according to historian James McPherson.

Jefferson's dream of an "empire of liberty" was ended once and for all, and America was on the road to becoming just another corrupt, mercantilist empire like the British and Spanish empires.

Daily Bell: We notice that municipal corruption began right after the Civil War. Were eruptions such as Tammany Hall mere coincidences or a symptom of something deeper?

Thomas DiLorenzo: It was no mere coincidence that the post-war Grant administration became notorious for political corruption associated with the government subsidization of the transcontinental railroads. American politicians had debated the constitutionality of granting taxpayer-financed subsidies to corporations ever since 1789. The biggest opposition to the subsidies came from the South: presidents Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Tyler all opposed them, or insisted that the Constitution be amended first to permit them. Northern politicians were always the biggest supporters of corporate welfare.

Daily Bell: Did the Civil War mark the end of the US as a republic and the beginning of the US as an empire?

Thomas DiLorenzo: In The Real Lincoln I quote the historian Leonard P. Curry as saying that after the war there were no longer any "constitutional scruples" about squandering taxpayers' money on corporate boondoggles. The railroads were only the beginning of what is on display today with multi-trillion dollar bailouts of Wall Street, General Motors and Chrysler, and even now the Greek banks (which Wall Street must be heavily invested in).

Daily Bell: Did British and European bankers secretly back the North during the Civil War even though the perception was that Britain was sympathetic to the South?

Thomas DiLorenzo: There was no secret conspiracy of British bankers to support the Lincoln regime. The Lincoln administration financed the war with tax revenue, the printing of "Greenbacks" (which created massive inflation), and borrowing, including borrowing from European bankers. It was all out in the open. This is how governments always finance wars.

Daily Bell: Why didn't the South just stand down? There's a theory that if the South had simply declared its independence and walked away that there would not have been much the North could do. Why did the South willingly embark on a shooing war?

Thomas DiLorenzo: The South did not "embark on a shooting war'" Lincoln did. The states were sovereign, and therefore had a right to secede, as they do today. Article 7 of the Constitution proves this by stating that the Constitution is to be ratified by political conventions of the states. No human being was harmed, let alone killed during the bombing of Fort Sumter. South Carolinians considered the fort to be their property, paid for with their tax dollars, and erected for their protection. Lincoln responded to Fort Sumter with a full-scale invasion of all the Southern states that ended up killing some 350,000 Southerners. For this he is hailed as "a great statesman" by our court historians.

Daily Bell: Still, there are those who believe it was a mistake for the South to have initiated hostilities at all.

Thomas DiLorenzo: Lincoln had sent warships to Charleston Harbor, and successfully duped the South Carolinians into foolishly firing on the fort. Afterwards, Lincoln wrote a letter of thanks and congratulation to his naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in getting the war started in this way. It was the biggest political miscalculation in American history: Lincoln (and many other Northerners) believed the war would be relatively bloodless and last only a few weeks or months.

Daily Bell: It was a terrible tragedy and still evokes strong emotions today. Have you brought anyone in mainstream academia over to your side?

Thomas DiLorenzo: There are many American academics who have thanked me for writing my books on Lincoln, and they are using them in their classrooms. But the "Lincoln Cult," as I call it, is a lost cause. These are people whose human capital is entirely wrapped up in the spinning of fairy tales and myths about Lincoln; revealing the truth about the real Lincoln destroys their life's work, so I am not the least bit concerned about persuading any of them. My books are written for the general public, students, and open-minded academics who don't have a financial stake in maintaining the false Lincoln myths.

Daily Bell: Has American academia become at least a little more evenhanded as a result of your exposes?

Thomas DiLorenzo: The Lincoln myth has deified not only Lincoln but the American presidency in general. The poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren once wrote that the war gave the North a "treasury of virtue" because of all the myths that were fabricated after the war. In war, the victors always write the history. This false virtue has been used ever since to portray American foreign policy as benevolent, selfless, and saintly. Thus, there are many people with careers, income and wealth dependent upon the propping up of the American foreign policy establishment with the myth of "American exceptionalism." Anything "we" do is right and just, simply because it is "we" who are doing it.

Daily Bell: Why was Lincoln assassinated? Did he break with the monetary backers of the Civil War in your opinion?

Thomas DiLorenzo: As for why Lincoln was assassinated, I suspect it was simply an act of revenge for having micromanaged the murder of hundreds of thousands of fellow American citizens from the Southern states; burning many of their cities and towns to the ground; and plundering tens of millions of dollars of private property. Southerners also knew that Lincoln had attempted to have their president, Jefferson Davis, assassinated by Union Army soldiers. (Look up "The Dahlgren Raid" on the Web).
More...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo186.html

jem · Jul 10, 2010

Quote from jficquette:

Me either. I told the guy that I saw him behind me but didn't think he would care.

He was driving one of those white lifeguard Jeep deals with a surfboard on top with cop lights.

Apparently they have police power within a certain distance of the ocean.

Live and learn.

John

PS I guess you know this already but from Palomar Airport road north to Carlsbad Village Drive is notorious for being a speed trap. They work in teams and if you go more than 5 miles over you get busted.
More...

I did not know that either. I find myself turning down faraday to the 5 to go north most of the time. So I only travel el camino north on that stretch when I try to go east on college.