Comments on: Barack Obama and the lessons of Lincoln

By: Truth_Teller

Truth_Teller — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 10:23:32 +0000

Though it greatly offends me that you say requiring proof of ID is tantamount to “shameless attempts to hinder the poor, the young, the old and those in racial minorities from using the ballot box”, I respect your right to your view Mr. Wapshott. However, I despise your idea that we should submit to the subjugation of a voter fraud supported socialist Democratic party. Your president had better not cause the collapse of the US economy, for if he does there may well be opportunity for the many oppressed people in this land to become free. In the last war of Northern aggression, the North had the moral high ground, many more and better weapons and many more people. None of that will be true in the next, and you may be well served to remember, the South almost won the last time. Take my advice let’s separate the china and all go peacefully on down the road, so you can remain a happy socialists and we can once again live free and independent of government subjugation and oppression.

By: Gordon2352

Gordon2352 — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 22:33:11 +0000

The rest of your article is multiculturalism bullshit.

No nation with extreme multiculturalism — as we now have — can survive for long. The lessons of history are there for those who care to understand what we have done to ourselves by this Pied Piper’s message.

For the rest, your celebrations are far too premature. Your troubles are just beginning.

The only paragraph that has any meaning whatsoever is this one. “The desire of so many Americans to break free because they cannot accept the democratic verdict of the people – what some, quoting John Adams, Lord Acton and Ayn Rand, consider “the tyranny of the majority” — threatens the very Constitution they affect to admire. Lincoln famously declared, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” but went on to say he expected old enmities to soon be forgotten and Americans to reunite. “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; 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,” he said. Today it seems the chasm that separates red Americans from blue Americans will get deeper before we become a whole nation again.”

I do not think this nation will survive the “tyranny of the many”, nor would I want it to under the circumstances.

We have drifted too far from our basic principles to ever survive.

It should be noted that Lincoln was wrong in his assessment that “old enmities (would) soon be forgotten and Americans (would) reunite.”

The only way Americans were “reunited” was at the end of a bayonet. And thus it remains today.

Free speech is viciously suppressed if it is not “politically correct”.

Lincoln was, however, absolutely correct in stating a “house divided against itself cannot stand”. The irony few seem to understand is that this applies more now to this “house” than at any time since the Civil War.

By: jagsr71

jagsr71 — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:46:01 +0000

And then the alarm went off and you woke up!! Get Real!! Obama is NO Lincoln.

By: AlkalineState

AlkalineState — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:38:42 +0000

“Secession is a deeply American principle”

So is burning Atlanta. So let’s do this again, all you incest states.

By: Bagehot

Bagehot — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:36:54 +0000

Nothing obvious about it, Wapshott. The country continued to face immediate existential peril. Ron Paul is a racist crank, and his supporters are mostly batey clods who think the military should come free of charge. As this thread will prove, you have much to learn about what Americans mean by liberty.

By: pbgd

pbgd — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:56:34 +0000

I find it interesting that many freed slaves adopted the names of slave owners like Jefferson and Washington, but I know hardly anyone named Lincoln.

By: AlkalineState

AlkalineState — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:46:14 +0000

Author writes: “…the requisite votes were found to convert his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 into law. Whether Obama can pull off a similar coup and save America from a ruinous combination of high taxes and deep public spending cuts remains to be seen.”

Dude. Surely you do not equate some little budget pissing match to abolishing slavery. The fiscal cliff is not even a cliff. It’s more like medicine. It’s the Simpson-Bowles plan and it will end up happening in some form because most people want it to, when you take away the silly label.

I can only guess that you had to draw some kind of comparison between Lincoln and Obama because you undertook the topic when this movie came out, and then you came up against a deadline. The ‘fiscal cliff’ is not even in the same universe as slavery.