Posted on 04/27/2003 12:31:21 PM PDT by quidnunc
It's impossible to know whether they're talking sense or engaging in subversive mischief until a century or so after they die.
As much as Kesler may desire to think that his school is rooted in "the hallowed ground of reason," reality paints a much different story. Jaffa is about as much to "Lincoln and the Union" as Khomeini was to Mahomet and the Shari'a.
Both rejected the tools of reason long ago and, in its place, adopted a quasi-religious blind adoration for their respective idols and dogmas. To attempt to pass either off as exercises in reason is no more valid than calling war "peace," day "night," and up "down." As is so with each of these items, blind idolatrous adoration and reason are mutually exclusive of each other - the presence of one precludes the presence of the other.
That statement too is a falsehood. Beard et al aside, the pro-Lincoln responses to him are hardly a rejection of "Marxist and progressive history" that the Jaffaites claim. No more explicit and direct form of Marxist history exists than that written by Marx himself, and far from rejecting Marx's own arguments about Lincoln, the Jaffaites have embraced many of them. Marx personally adored Lincoln and wrote so at length many times. Much, if not most, pro-Lincoln scholarship ever since has echoed with Marxian concepts.
In all seriousness - to tout Abraham Lincoln's life and writings as an exercise in and defense of the doctrine of "equality" openly defies readily known and accessable reality. Lincoln had no doctrine of "equality" beyond a political soundbyte that he would turn around and directly contradict on the drop of a dime. To pretend otherwise is to exert blind faith in that which never existed.
Just wait until the Claremonsters show up to argue that Lincoln didn't really say what he said, and that some nonsensical esotericism, to which they only have access, underlies Lincoln's sayings. That has become, of late, their way out of Lincoln's irrefutably existant and frequent self-contradiction on all matters of race, slavery, and equality.
Be warned though. We cannot expect reason to convince them of anything otherwise. The Abratollah has already proclaimed himself Imam and lingers to preach the esoteric Lincoln that only he "knows" in fullness, all to guide the world until his Mahdi returns to cleanse it of the southern "infidels." When the rational demonstrate falsehoods in the Abratollah's teachings, he claims ownership of the form of truth. When that claim is objected to as an exercise in irrationality, he extends his claim to encompass the very same tools of reason that his actions defy and violate. It is all an exercise in the very same circular logic of the Wlat brigade:
The Lincoln is god, therefore the Lincoln is perfect.
The Lincoln is perfect, therefore the Lincoln can do no wrong.
The Lincoln can do no wrong, therefore all who claim he did wrong are in error.
Since all who claim that the Lincoln did wrong are in error, he must have done no wrong.
Since the Lincoln did no wrong, he must be perfect.
Since the Lincoln is perfect, he must be god, and thus his divinity is demonstrated.
The rational observer recognizes the circular idiocy in this manner of thinking, but the Lincolnites, who dwell in irrationality, respond in expected fashion - they erroniously label any such characterization of their logic a scarecrow, only to turn around and indulge in that very same creature of straw that they just claimed was not their own. But point this out to them, make note of the fact that their prophet is a fraud, question the validity of their esoteric claim to the "truth" of that same fraud, draw attention to the reality that their mahdi is as non-existant as the hill he dwells under and they respond not by acknowledging those facts but instead issuing that great racial fatwah of condemnation to tarnish and label you on their own self-proclaimed authority.
There is no claim of reason to the Lincoln cult, no claim to rationality, for their Lincoln is, by definition, an extrarational being that they have determined, by their own arbitrarily exercised extrarational means, to exist beyond the reach of reason itself. That is why this crowd is so dangerous, why their Lincolnian idolatry is so pervasive, and also why they will never admit that they are wrong. But reality dictates that they cannot escape rationality and must ultimately bear its consequences. One cannot worship both God and mammon. A mutual exclusion precludes it.
Criticise the "precious". How could we? </sarcasm>
Doesn't help your case to let your emotions overrule your good sense - one of the many things that distinguishes us all from the left is the fact that we don't need to rely on personal smears to lay out our arguments ;)
I suppose this will come back around again to our old dispute of whether morality and ethics comes from within or without - if it comes from...elsewhere, then listening to that innate sense is entirely appropriate. If not, then that innate sense is nothing more that reason and experience again, I think
It may or may not be nothing more than reason and experience, but even if it is limited to that, the innate sense can still be valid even if the person sensing it isn't able to give all the reasons for why it's so. Yeah, that involves a risk that it could be coming from some evil demon instead, but that's where that ol' leap of faith comes in.
We'll get you a beer while we're at it ;)
Shhh! I think he knows we are aware of his precious' evil and the need to destroy it. We've got to watch out - Waltrot cannot be trusted!
Thanks Edith....you're almost trained.
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