Still waiting for the Cabal guys to deliver...

Rearden Metal · May 12, 2003

I thought that might be the case. I was aware of Lincoln's repulsive views, but I believe that most people are not.

alfonso · May 12, 2003

Hmm, I guess the Civil War period puts a libertarian (I assume) like you in a bit of a bind: on the one hand you would have to support the rights of the southern states to secede, yet on the other hand you have to support the freeing of the slaves, no?

Rearden Metal · May 12, 2003

You are correct about my Libertarian/Objectivist beliefs.

Regarding slavery, I think it's pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that it's wrong to enslave people. But as far as the south's right to seccession- well, that's a very good question.

While I'd like the government to only do the bare minimum of 'governing', the objectivist view is still that the government certainly must interfere when people are being physically abused. Saving people from being chained up and worked like farm animals is definately something the government needed to stop.

What if the south had no slaves, and wanted to secede? Well, that would have been a whole different matter entirely....

alfonso · May 12, 2003

Intervening to prevent violence is one of the roles that objectivists see for a government, correct. The question would be, though, does a state that has seceded still fall under the jurisdiction of the union it was previously a part of? That's to say, that although, yes, slavery certainly is an infringement upon personal freedom (to say the least), if a state has a consitutional right to secede, and it exercises that right, and if it (slavery) is still legal within a seceded state, what right does the rump union have to intefere?

If you say that it does have that right, what difference is there between intervening in the affairs of a seceded state and intervening in the affairs of another sovereign nation (whose policies you don't like), the former being a fledgling version of the latter?

hardrock375 · May 12, 2003

Quote from Rearden Metal:

Interesting Abe Lincoln quote there... Is that how you feel about race relations? Wouldn't even surprise me if you did. The far left and the far right are often known to converge...
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Well, the Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves in the states that were in rebellion.

Madison · May 13, 2003

Quote from Rearden Metal:

What if the south had no slaves, and wanted to secede? Well, that would have been a whole different matter entirely....
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civil war hostilities began in early 1861.

the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in late 1862.

alfonso · May 13, 2003

Quote from hardrock375:

Well, the Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves in the states that were in rebellion.
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Well, weren't they pretty much the only states that actually had any slaves anyway?

Madison · May 13, 2003

Quote from alfonso:
Well, weren't they pretty much the only states that actually had any slaves anyway?
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not exactly.

Lincoln's preliminary proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862, declared that on New Year's Day, 1863, slaves in areas then "in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." For areas not deemed to be in rebellion, slavery would be unchanged.

The final proclamation, issued January 1, 1863, identified those areas "in rebellion." They included virtually all of the Confederacy, except areas controlled by the Union army. The document notably excluded the so-called border states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, where slavery existed side by side with Unionist sentiment. In areas where the U.S. government had authority, such as Maryland and much of Tennessee, slavery went untouched. In areas where slaves were declared free--most of the South--the federal government had no effective authority.

By the summer of 1862, Congress was pushing hard for emancipation. Now Lincoln's proclamation, a vital step on the gradual path to freedom for American slaves, articulated emancipation as the government's new policy.

Although his famous proclamation did not immediately free a single slave, black Americans saw Lincoln as a savior. Official legal freedom for the slaves came in December 1865 with the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery.
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http://www.nps.gov/anti/freedom.htm

Madison · May 22, 2003

(excerpt)

Along with the political victory of the neocons (by victory I mean the reality that they now control many levers of power) has come shock and alarm of those who disagree with their policies. Their critics left and right regard their use of domestic police powers as contrary to constitutional guarantees, and their foreign policy as nothing but untrammeled aggression that violates human rights and makes us ever more vulnerable.

Despite its political victory, the future of neo-conservatism rests with the war on Iraq and its aftermath. They brought about this war over the objections of most of the world, and relied heavily on the crudest form of chauvinistic sloganeering to sell it to the American people. Iraq has been destroyed, with most people living amidst appalling wreckage that neocons apparently failed to anticipate. Their raw military power unleashed utter chaos, barbarism, and fanaticism in what was once the most secular and liberal Arab state.

The neocons had a limitless faith in two tools: bombs for destruction and dollars for reconstruction. With their appalling ignorance of the complexity of society, they believed that these two tools were enough to reconstruct the region, and maybe the whole world. It was only a matter of political will, so they believed. The bombs caused the regime to flee, but the dollars have not been able to put it back together again. As only a slight symbol of the Pyrrhic victory, the Saddam dinar is now at its highest value relative to the dollar since 1996. No WMDs were ever found, and terrorism in the region is getting worse.

...

Thus with neoconservatism, we have the statist aspects of the old conservatism minus the libertarian aspects that led the old conservatives to favor decentralist political institutions and free enterprise. Add to that the natural tendency of anyone in power to use the tools they have at their disposal. What we end up with is a danger to liberty as fierce as any ever posed by the left.

But by the standard of loving Leviathan, today's neo-conservatism is worse than every brand of conservatism that preceded it. It is worse than Reaganism, which included some libertarian impulses, and worse than National-Review-style conservatism from the 1960s and 1950s. One expects pro-state affections from socialists, but the puzzle of neo-conservatism is how it could exist within a group of self-professed non-socialists who even claim to despise what the collectivist left has done to the world.

Thus the great fallacy of neo-conservatism is the one that afflicts all non-libertarian ideologies: they believe that society can be managed by the state in both its political and economic life. They believe this to a lesser extent than some left socialists, but to a far greater extent than most thinkers on the right.

What they miss or do not want to face is precisely what the socialists never wanted to accept: that society is made up of acting, choosing human beings with their own values and ideas and plans, and it is they and not the state who do the hard work of creating civilization, a creation that is easy to destroy through statist means but impossible to rebuild through such means; that many social forces like culture and economics are beyond the final control of state power; and in the long run, it is people, and not philosopher kings whispering in the ears of gullible statesmen, who will determine the course of history.

link
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trader556 · May 22, 2003

Quote from alfonso:

How long has it been, 7, 8 weeks since the world was 'saved' {cough, cough} from the immiment threat of those Iraqi WMDs ? You know, the ones that Bush and Co ("Co"? hmm..) simply had to 'save' America from, like, right now, or else.

Well, just in case anyone (in America) still cares (big if, what with a roaring 'new bull' {bigger cough} why let small matters like possible wholesale international impropriety spoil the party) there's still nothing showing up.

You really have to begin to wonder don't you? Just how much of a threat these weapons -- if indeed they exist -- actually were?

Obviously the number one sign that things maybe amiss was that if there's any time you could justify using such an arseanal (again, IF you actually had one) wouldn't it be when a foreign agressor is pounding, er shocking and awing, your cities to dust? Of course, nothing of the sort happened.

Then, the inquiring mind has to ask: Just how sure was the Bush admin that Iraq had any WMDs at all? Afterall, going on 8 weeks now with nary a suspicious popgun turning up, wouldn't it be only sane to begin to suspect that this war was fought -- and this is the positive spin -- on pure conjecture? That Iraq might, just might, have something to hide? (And, afterall, Saddam is such a nasty SOB, we'll be able to sell this one to Joey Six no sweat.)

Well, I just came across some investigative reporting by Seymour Hersh at the NewYorker (yeah, yeah. bastion of liberalism blah blach) which simply adds fuel to my contention that Miss America ain't as innocent as the faithful like to believe.

In "Selective Intelligence", Hersh 'exposes' (<-- hey, it's journalism; keep the table salt handy) the Office of Special Plans' (I'd never heard of it either) sham intelligence that threw Americans into the post 9.11 'guilt by suspicion' panic. Recommended reading.
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Ahahaha, are you serious? What weapons of mass destruction

Man it was all a ploy to dupe our people. and invade another country to steal their oil. Screw them all. What's few thousand of innocent lives both our and theirs in front of few trillions $$$$. Oil mafia shrub and company got they wanted. Lots of $$$$$ in petrodollars.

weapons of mass distraction they have been moved to Syria, or is it Iran? hmmmmmmm North Korea? Nuhhhhh no oil there to steal hehehehe

where are you all mfer's warmongers now???

here's a gif for ya

WAIT WE FOUND THEM

The cache of chemical weapons includes 873,020 pounds of sarin, 1,657,480 pounds of VX nerve agent and 1,976,760 pounds of mustard agent - enough to kill or incapacitate millions.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/03/16/Worldandnation/Not_Iraq__but_Annisto.shtml

In the mean time we feast on freedom fries, 70% believe that the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq, and 66% are grossly overweight. Nice going Can you say feed the people bullshit??

This nation USED to stand for some values and principles. Now it's screw everyone. Who's gonna stop us? NOBODY!!!