Learning from Lincoln: Both Onscreen and Off

Townhall,com ^ | December 8, 2012 | Daniel Doherty

[Nowhere Man]

Lincoln had just as much experience as OBummer. Says something, doesn’t it?

[stanne]

“. . . one could argue — rather persuasively — that our 16th president was the least qualified candidate ever elected to high national office; in fact, his public service record included just four terms in the Illinois state legislative, one unremarkable term in the House of Representatives”.

Who is Daniel Doherty? Why is he writing in Townhall?

And he ascribes logical thinking to Reid?

This kind of numbness to the real situation is very harmful, very.

[tenthirteen]

Abraham Lincoln was an inspiring and effective Executive who had an uncanny ability to get things done. That he was elected to the Presidency is astonishing. It is my belief that he was placed there by forces beyond anything that we can understand.

[stanne]

Ah, no. A whole lot more, plus life experience.

I do wish people would look at the complete picture here.

I do not think I’ll see this fluffy movie if this mind numbing result is going to happen to me or my family.

Bulechh!

[Neoliberalnot]

Lincoln has long been upheld as the model statesman, the leader from whom all leaders should learn. And they have. The use of war as a tactic for shoring up central power is a dominant theme in the century that followed his catastrophic civil war. In fact, every political leader in the world that seeks to crush rebellion and put down secessions looks to Lincoln’s example.

To study Lincoln’s legacy is to gain a greater understanding of what drives the despots of our own time. We are better able to see through the fog of propaganda. This is a very accurate portrayal.

[loveliberty2]

In evaluating Constitutional interpretation, the views of Jefferson, considering our political Party positions today, especially in light of the movie being discussed here, as well as O'Reilly's Lincoln book, we might re-read Lincoln's letter to Henry L. Pierce and Others:

Springfield, Ills, April 6, 1859

Messrs. Henry L. Pierce, & others.

Gentlemen

Your kind note inviting me to attend a Festival in Boston, on the 13th. Inst. in honor of the birth-day of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My engagements are such that I can not attend.

Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago, two great political parties were first formed in this country, that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them, and Boston the head-quarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson should now be celebrating his birthday in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere.

Remembering too, that the Jefferson party were formed upon its supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and then assuming that the so-called democracy of to-day, are the Jefferson, and their opponents, the anti-Jefferson parties, it will be equally interesting to note how completely the two have changed hands as to the principle upon which they were originally supposed to be divided.

The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.

I remember once being much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men engage in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after a long, and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of his own coat, and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have perfomed the same feat as the two drunken men.

But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.

One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success.

One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they apply only to "superior races."

These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard--the miners, and sappers--of returning despotism.

We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.

Your obedient Servant
A. Lincoln--

(Bolding added for emphasis)

---

Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.

Source for this reproduction of the letter is

Today's ". . . van-guard--the miners, and sappers--of returning despotism. . . ." appears to be the so-called "progressive movement," with its intent to plan, control, manage, and rule a people who, for over 200 years, claimed individual liberty and Creator-endowed life, liberty and rights as protected by their Constitution.

[Paperdoll]

Abraham Lincoln was the epitome of honesty and Godliness. Also for these two rare virtues, he was loved and hated. He pondered every aspect of a problem, then he did the RIFHTR THING. His wit was unequaled then and now.He was tall in stature, and also literally towered intellectually over men. God sent him to us at a point in time the country needed him. President Lincoln served his God, and his country, well.

May God pleasse send us such a man as Abraham Lincoln today. AMEN

[nothingnew]

Lincoln decimated the Constitution.

He put people who disagreed with him in prison and suspended Habeas Corpus.

The south (and the North, where the were slaves also) were very close to stopping slavery on their own.

His actions were nothing more than consolidating federal power over the individual states.

He was a tyrant.

FMCDH(BITS)

[Neoliberalnot]

The historical facts show that Lincoln did not establish liberty in America; he unleashed terror. Lincoln shredded the Constitution; ignored the courts; obstructed free and fair elections; criminalized speech; outlawed dissent; refused to honor existing treaties with Indian nations; proclaimed women and children, the sick, and the elderly legitimate military targets; and waged an unprovoked and illegal war, which killed more than 600,000 Americans.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Here's the most important thing we can learn from the former president though it may be too late. Abe will explain from "the other side."

You initiated a policy to tolerate the Marxist-Alinsky radicals and let them rant; not only has it not ceased but was constantly augmented by decades of infiltration and indoctrination. You now have two Americas. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half statist and half free; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

Obama is a biological-ideological issue of the 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus radical, psycho spoiled brats..

and here they all are. The ruling elite New Normal.

[Kaslin]

This paragraph and the next one say it all

One need only spend a few hours watching “Lincoln” (a masterful and deeply engrossing film that I encourage all Americans to go and see) to understand why our 16th president was by all accounts “

a political genius.”

And there is still much we can learn from him.

On the other hand, that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave a genius? Don't make me laugh

[Kaslin]

You judge the movie like some one who judges a book by the cover of the book

[trisham]

I will not spend a cent to see this movie. I’ve never liked Lincoln, and I despise most of those in the film industry.

[stanne]

I judge this movie by the reactoins like I judge many books and movies, as well as the reviews and previews.

[Kaslin]

Great find. Thanks for posting

[Kaslin]

Very well said

[Kaslin]

That is your opinion to which you are entitled. Nothing more

[Kaslin]

No one forces you to see the movie

[trisham]

?