Posted on 02/14/2009 10:56:52 PM PST by Eleutheria5
Lincoln was wrong on principle—there certainly WAS and IS a right to secede from the Union. Forcing any state to remain in the Union tramples on self-government and transforms the Union into an Empire.
Which is what it has been since 1865.
Lincoln is ultimately responsible for Roe v. Wade, the most imperialistic act of the federal government in history.
Wilson was going insane and his wife started running the affiars of state.
Where is Jimmy Carter? That man was a total disgrace. The president that gave us Iran, Inflation, Gas Shortage, Unemployment, declining Military, misery index.
The only good thing he gave us was Reagan.
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The TOTAL inability of the MSM,TV networks, to mention Ol'Jimmah Boy is ulcer producing for me...Worst since WW1, worst since Great Depession, etc etc when the truth is Worst Since Ol' Jimmah Boy....
Oh good Lord, is there nothing that you unreconstructed rebs won't blame the man for? There are times when I honestly wish you had won. Watching you wallow in that Southron cesspool the confederacy would have become would have been worth it.
How can FDR be on the 10 best list? Because of his big government policies the depression was prolonged for years longer than it would have if he had done nothing. WWII got us out of the depression, FDR kept us in it.
I wouldnt worry too much about the MSM hiding the facts about Liberala too much. The Media is like the referees in Studio Wrestling. They always catch the good guy doing something but then they look away when the bad guy picks up a chair and hits the good guy.
The South would have abandoned slavery, possibly in a somewhat orderly manner, within a generation. I believe the South would have rejoined the Union eventually.
The whole point of acting on principle is that no one CAN know what the future holds. That’s precisely why acting on principle is moral, and “consequentialism” and “situational ethics” are immoral.
It’s true that slavery was a criminal enterprise. In that case, the South should have been allowed to go their own way—and be criminals—leaving the Union free of slavery, free of being any longer complicit in slavery. When the South eventually got rid of it, they could rejoin—with the principle of self-government intact.
The Union insisted on the end of polygamy before admitting Utah. The Union should have expelled California and New York when they legalized abortion—which is an infinitely greater crime than polygamy.
Any ten worst list that doesn’t include Jimmy Carter is inaccurate. Carter gave is an Islamic Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a horrible economy that he didn’t know how to fix, and he fiddled while all sorts of disasters happened around the world. He was a one term president, unlike either Nixon or W. for a reason. As for best presidents, Washington belongs on the top of that list and Ronald Reagan should definitely be in the top 5.
One of the reasons Lincoln was correct in his course was that there was not a unified South to let go their own way. The hasty and often politically manipulated secessions were of dubious validity in reflecting an overwhelming sober popular sentiment for separation. Lincoln had a responsibility to the significant segment of Southerners who looked to their Union for liberation from the Confederate usurpers. In short, there was no South for Lincoln to let go. In the end, the disintegration of Southern support for the Confederate cause late in the war supported the validity of the opinion the secessions were merely a phony political power grab in the first place.
I need to go dig out Paul Johnson’s “A History of the American People” and read some more. Thanks.
Your “best” President considered your “worst” President to be a role model and tried to emulate him whenever possible.
Sure, these academics are mostly lefties, and have a bias against Dubya and Nixon. Regarding the top 5, leaving Lincoln out for a moment (I’ll get to him later), it astonishes me beyond measure that Harry Truman, a political hack if there ever was one, was picked as the 5th greatest President! Any President in 1945 would have made the decision to use the atomic bombs on Japan, so that does not count as some great act of courage. The Soviet Union gobbled up all of Eastern Europe under Truman’s watch (he did save Greece and the tiny enclave of West Berlin, though), and the Communists overran China. Now he may not have been able to do much about Eastern Europe, but his support to Chiang Kai Shek was horribly ineffectual. Worse still is Truman’s desire for American troops to “die for a tie” in Korea, after the Red Chinese intervened in Nov. 1950. And then, having the temerity to fire the foremost military commander in American history, Douglas MacArthur, because MacArthur disagreed with Truman’s fecklessness. The cowardice (and there is no other word) and backstabbing of MacArthur’s fellow general officers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is also apalling. Truman claimed that the decision to fire MacArthur was unanimously endorsed by Secretary of Defense General George Marshall, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Presidential Adviser Averell Harriman, and by General Omar Bradley and his entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. MacArthur replied by pointing out each of these individuals had personal prejudices against him: Marshall disliked MacArthur from way back—at least to the time the Phillipines were lost to Japan on Mac’s watch; Harriman resented a heated conference in Tokyo; Acheson had a spiteful attitude against MacArthur because of MacArthur’s interference with the State Department’s socialistic concepts for Japan. As for Bradley, his enmity undoubtedly had its origin in MacArthur’s refusal to accept him as his senior ground commander for the invasion of Japan because of his decisions and actions connected with the Battle of the Bulge, where he was the ground commander and which resulted in approximately as many American casualties as were sustained in the entire Southwest Pacific Area campaigns. Why the other Joint Cheifs didn’t step up, I don’t know; presumably they were cowed by “Brad.” If an organization, even such a select group as five-star general officers, doesn’t behave as a family, with utmost loyalty toward, and expected from, it’s members, how can it function properly?
As for “Honest Abe”, yes, it’s true, he fosterd incompetent bunglers as generals for at least the first 2 1/2 years of the Rebellion (Grant, Sherman et al. would rise to the occasion later), but it must never be forgotten that he treated the Union like it was a Mafia family or a roach trap, to wit: “Once your in, there’s no gettin’ out. IMO, that’s shameful.
I agree. How can any serious list of top ten presidents not have Washington and Jefferson as 1A and 1B.
Any list that doesn’t include U.S. Grant as in the bottom 10 is not worth a lot...magritte
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