Ron Paul Opposes Lincoln, Supports Property Rights & Free Association
On Meet the Press this weekend, despite Tim Russert’s hostility, Ron Paul hit a home run when questioned about his views on property rights, the right of free association and Lincoln’s War of Aggression:
About 4:50 into the broadcast, Paul defends his views on the Civil Rights Acts AND his opposition to the necessity of Lincoln’s invasion of the South. My wife and I watched this and our mouths dropped open. Did he really say that? Is a man that principled really the best-funded Republican candidate for President?
I mean, I thought Tancredo was the best we could do, and a little stomach-turning Lincoln-worship might be part of the deal if we wanted to save that which was left of our nation. But Paul shows what’s possible when people stand consistently on principle.
I am reminded of Robert E. Lee’s quote regarding the outcome of the war:
“In spite of failures which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge, or of the present aspect of affairs, do I despair the future? The truth is this: the march of Providence is so slow, our desires so impatient, the work of progress is so immense, and our means of aiding it so feeble, the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.”
Does Ron Paul mark the end of the Lee’s “ebb”?
A post on Lew Rockwell’s blog sums it up beautifully:
George W. Bush and the Republican establishment are, if nothing else, Lincolnian, regardless of what anyone might say. The party of corporatism, imperialism, centralism, economic fascism, dictatorship, aggressive war, militaristic duplicity, conscription, direct taxation, cronyism and police statism has never strayed much from its 1860s roots. And it has always advanced despotism in the name of liberty and national honor, from Lincoln to Teddy, from Nixon to Reagan, from the Bushes to Benito.
Ron Paul is indeed an exception within the GOP. And he has stood up, heroically, to the Lincoln myth. This will get people thinking — perhaps there is something similarly wrong with aggressive war on the Iraqis and on the Southerners, a continuity between the rape of Atlanta and the rape of Fallujah, between Lincoln’s internal improvements and Bush’s Haliburtonization of Middle East policy. Maybe Operation Iraqi Freedom and the War Between the States were both murderous and deceitful. Maybe the two Republican administrations to suspend habeas corpus unilaterally, only to have their kept Congresses rubberstamp the tyranny, have a lot in common, after all.
No one serious who really thinks about it for more than 45 seconds can conclude there would still be slave plantations in America if not for Lincoln, so that smear just won’t work. Black Americans won’t fall for it either, despite the PC establishment that has taken for granted this demographic for so long. Americans of color can tell which Republicans are a genuine and grave threat to their liberty, and it’s not the one who challenges the corporatist warfare state that has always depended upon blacks as cannon fodder.
But Ron Paul has done something that no presidential candidate of any prominence has done in many, many years — he has challenged the cult of Lincoln, the ideological godhead of the modern American regime. The Federal Reserve, the Income Tax, the Wilsonian empire and now the Lincolnian central state have all become national issues of discourse again. Thanks, Ron Paul. Once again, you have told the American people what they need to hear. If we want America to become a free country, we must go further than overturning the legacy of George W. Bush. We must overturn much more, and replace it with liberty itself. We are closer to that goal than ever, as the ideological basis for the modern American system is crumbling at every moment of exposure to Dr. Paul’s truth serum.
December 29th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Great Article……………There is also a “You tube” clip of Judge Napalitano(Which is on staff to FOX news)going into great detail in explaining what a tyrant Abe Lincoln was!
December 29th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Parts of the blog quote is going to be where we “part ways”. I’m about to go saddle my horses and ride some fence. I’m enjoying the holidays and don’t really have time to do a detailed response. But let me just say: I wish we had a Teddy Roosevelt today. A Ronald Reagan today. If we did we wouldn’t be ringing our hands about Presidential nominees.
TR stood against the corporate moguls and short sighted immigration policies of his day and deserves credit. Ronald Reagan stood up to Communists at home and abroad, returned national pride, and deserves credit.
Even so they both (and certianly Lincoln) can be fairly criticised. But what’s this “rape of Fallujah” nonsence? To me it’s insurrection. Nutty harmless insurrection, perhaps, but just the same almost completely discredits the writer and the root of this thread.
And “conscription”? Uhh it’s an all volunteer military dude.
December 29th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I agree some of the rhetoric at LewRockwell.com is over-the-top; I agree with about half of what they say. I think they’re good political strategists, and part of what they’re doing is co-opting some of the language of the Left to build a bigger anti-state coalition. The War in Iraq has really opened up some avenues of criticism on the Left not available before: it has shaken their belief in government. So now you have militia types allied with granolaheads, both supporting the anti-state platform of Ron Paul.
I also believe that I can’t be consistent as a Southerner in opposing what Sherman did and then supporting Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In a more Christian age, before the triumph of secularism and Lincoln, wars were fought between men and did not generally extend to terrorism against civilians. So our point of reference is warped as to what is really Christian in war, and our government and military violates that consistently, though less than those they have fought generally. But two wrongs don’t make a right.
And Mitch, some neoconservatives have explicitly called for conscription as a way to meet poor military recruiting efforts that cramp their ability to conquer the Middle East for foreign interests at the expense of American boys’ blood.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:20 am
An eternal question: what are the ethics constraints during a time of war? In the Old Testament, you see God specifically telling the Israelites to kill “civilians” - women & children - to wipe out an entire town, city, or nation. What is the difference between that and Hiroshima? I’m not saying that the bombing was God-sanctioned, I’m just posing a question.
I’m also not saying there’s an easy answer, and these questions must be asked and discussed. In the end, though, I think every president just has to do the best they can with the situation they are handed.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:53 am
What happened in the OT was clearly God-sanctioned genocide, based on DIRECT revelation from God. The world is God’s and He can do what He wants. But to take a direct command from the OT and leave its execution up to human discretion would be unthinkable.
That’s why Christian scholars derived “Just War” theory, to systemize Biblical teachings so that no one could use the Bible as a cover for unbiblical pacifism OR aggression. In such an extreme example, we see why the evangelical practices of private revelation and private interpretation of Scripture are so dangerous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war
December 29th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I am absolutely convinced that the practice of conscription is a bellweather for the popularity of a given conflict. [Mincing words to ensure inclusion of undeclared "wars"] And it probably indicates whether or not a war is “just.”
If there has been an attack on the country, and the people are incensed, there will be no need for conscription. And Augustine pretty much defined defensive wars as just.
If, on the other hand, special interests and high-powered elites have some strategic objective in prosecuting an [ahem!] offensive war, then they may have to give serious consideration to conscription, because incentivizing people to throw themselves under the bus, so to speak, will only take them so far. And offensive wars — especially against an enemy who has no modern military capability to speak of, nor the ability to project power throughout its own borders, much less beyond them — do not meet the criteria of Just War Theory.
As for Lincoln, Sherman, and “total war”: I think there is more than the obvious social reasons to why America has been in a long, slow slide into spiritual dissolution.
December 30th, 2007 at 7:35 am
On the subject of “Conscription”, I completely support it. Be it peacetime or war, the draft forces a nation to look at it’s military position across the board from the poverty striken to the most wealthy. It forces the Harvard and Yale student to postpone college, just as it does the poor child that exits high school looking for a job.(Vietnam was a class travesty allowing college defferments)…………….Part of the problem is that Washington is filled with “Ivy Leagers” , that never served in the military, or simply joined the “Gaurd” because they came from political families……”Blackwater”(AKA Security Company)is nothing more than a private army for hire, that reaks with potential disaster for not only the Pentagan, but world oppinion of our approach to foreign intervention. Military service makes for a more informed voter in the future as well.
As for “Total War”, there are some cultures that require that the “Will to wage war” must be broken at the citizen level. Deaths of the fiebombing of Tokyo actually surpassed Hiroshima, and General Curtis Lemay even told an under officer that “We will be hung as war criminals if we don’t win this war!”(The winner never has war criminals). As a “noninterventionist”, it saddens me that Ted Kennedy refuses windmills blocking his view of the Atlantic, the citizens of Florida refuse drilling rigs on the horrizon as Alabama,Lousiana, and Mississippi have adjusted to, and there is no drilling in Anwar so that reindeer are not disturbed!…………….When the ELITIST in America lose their children and grandchildren to war, our policies may change?
December 31st, 2007 at 8:11 am
You unknowingly make my point for me, roho. The power eilte will never put their sons and daughters in harm’s way. There will always be deferments, peace corps service, or the National Guard for them. (Though — ironically — that last is, in this war, the only thing keeping us from a draft) Not to mention, an unwanted war being forced on the people, like this one is, by a tyrant only compels draftees to wager their lives in support of a souless, entrenched bureaucracy so that the self-preserving cowards calling the shots can, at no cost to themselves, pursue their fevered dreams of power.
Like I said, in a necessary and just war, I don’t think you’d have any dearth of volunteers. Only a defensive war can be just; that does not include retaliatory or “pre-emptive” (whatever that means) wars.
December 31st, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Okay, it’s “over the top”, I feel much better. And let’s face it, I’m not inclined to file too long a response on an internet blog. Now I don’t have to.