Friday, March 06, 2009

Lincoln and Obama


23 Comments:

At 3/06/2009 9:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your history of Lincoln is as misplaced as your optimism about the market all the way through this bust.

You really should read the article by Walter Williams that I link to above, since I know you respect Walt.

 
At 3/06/2009 10:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bush did so much as well.

 
At 3/07/2009 1:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

To Anonymous....I did a quickie search on this book and found the following link which probably has its own bias. Would love to hear your take on this particular review.

http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.736/article_detail.asp

 
At 3/07/2009 2:11 AM, Blogger jr said...

Obama and Lincoln have more in common than might meet the eye...both big fans of centralized national government, no matter how you slice it.

DiLorenzo is an economist, albeit specializing in "economic history and political economy," as the back of the book says.

Anyway, one thing that I think DiLorenzo tries to address is that there were other issues of the day besides slavery. Whether the indifference toward slaves he portrays Lincoln with is accurate or not, I have no idea, but moving the conversation beyond the myopic slavery/abolition dichotomy is moving in the right direction regarding Civil War studies.

(See also Lincoln Unmasked)

 
At 3/07/2009 4:00 AM, Blogger juandos said...

How many people today are still under the massive misimpression that the Civil War was about the abolution of slavery?

 
At 3/07/2009 5:55 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Anonymous, it seems anything that isn't 100% negative is optimistic to you. Your comments reflect you oversimplify everything and make false assumptions. I'm sure you've been bearish for five years being a one-trick pony using the broken clock method, and were finally right for the wrong reasons.

It's amazing watching Obama's spending spree, in part, because he doesn't realize or care the private sector will be crowded out and replaced by an inefficient public sector resulting in massive waste. He already proposed spending over $2 trillion (including interest on the public debt), over the past five weeks. Obama seems to be in such a hurry to pass social programs, he forgot about a timely and effective stimulus to stop the economic contraction.

 
At 3/07/2009 6:27 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

However, after the stock market bubble burst in 2000-02, I don't recall anyone predicting a second bubble.

 
At 3/07/2009 10:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

a bit heavy handed for a mere 6 weeks as President don't you think. wow.

 
At 3/07/2009 12:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obama and Lincoln have more in common than might meet the eye...

I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody

- Barak Obama

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.
- Abraham Lincoln


Obama heads a party whose economics views are completely at odds with Abraham Lincoln's. Those who supported Lincoln were ardent capitalists. "Free Soilers", who believed in the dignity of labor and a man's right to the fruits of that labor. As the quote above shows, Lincoln understood something that the clueless, leftist, sheep who chant O-ba-ma will never understand. That is, that in a free society with upward mobility, the gap between the rich and the poor represents, not some imagined injustice, but one's potential. When the left has succeeded in eliminating this gap, they will also have succeed in destroying your individual potential.


Lincoln, like the founders, understood the connection between property and liberty:

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” — James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179, 1794

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free. — John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it. — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

Lincoln was trying to preserve what Obama, and his minions, seek to destroy.

 
At 3/07/2009 1:08 PM, Blogger jr said...

Anon. 12.22, your point is well taken, but "big centralized government" is broader than just capitalism/socialism. (To an extent, Bush had the same tendency to big government.) Subsidies, tariffs, massive debt (which Obama is not averse to according to his own budget), increasing the size and scope of the federal government...the question for interpreters of history to answer is to what extent did the war drive Lincoln to do these things and how much of them were his own policy positions? (I guess the same could be asked for Bush with his war and how he left free market principles "to save free market principles.")

 
At 3/07/2009 1:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm not going to defend Bush's spending, his "compassionate conservatism", other than to say that he was far better than the alternative.

 
At 3/07/2009 2:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Absurd and totally brainless to try to forge a judgment on any president only a few weeks into his first term . . . unless, of course, you already solidified your judgments prior to his taking office and your only real goal is to undermine his chances of success.

Fortunately, more than the critical mass of the country is thrilled to finally have a genuine, dynamic, and brilliant leader in the white house, the virtual antithesis of his predecessor . . . and the candidates his party put forth last year.

It is infinitely obvious that the right is so despondent about being out of power, and fearful of never regaining it, that it is obsessed with incessantly disparaging and undermining the new leadership. That's all it has! After all, it can't point our attention to the past eight years in which we did everything their way resulting in this horrendous near-depression. So they'll keeping throwing the feces on the wall, hoping that if they throw enough - long enough - some of it will begin to stick.

At this point, my having struck a nerve or two, some of you can't wait to start typing and throwing the smelly stuff my way. Predictible.

 
At 3/07/2009 3:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Having "a genuine, dynamic, and brilliant leader" doesn't amount to much if one doesn't like the direction he or she is being "led" anymore than having a leader who is the "virtual antithesis."

Sheep and lemmings...Republicans and Democrats are sheep and lemmings, I'm just not sure which are the sheep and which are the lemmings.

 
At 3/07/2009 3:42 PM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Mika, if there isn't an economic boom, with a steeper rise in living standards than the 2000s, after trillions of dollars of government spending, Obama will be the biggest failure in history by far, or at least make Bernie Madoff look like he was chiseling nickels and dimes :)

 
At 3/07/2009 4:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fortunately, more than the critical mass of the country is thrilled to finally have a genuine, dynamic, and brilliant leader in the white house, the virtual antithesis of his predecessor . . .


Reality will soon catch up to Barak Obama. American public opinion continues to move against him.

75% believe he is spending too much money. (see above link)

And this doesn't factor in that the sycophantic, left-wing media routinely oversample Democrats when conducting polls.

Or that his popularity lags Bush's for his first month in office. Even following the contested election.

81% of Americans oppose Barak Obamas plans for forced unionization.

58% of Americans oppose Obama's plans to fund foreign abortions.

As for "... being out of power, and fearful of never regaining it."60% of Independent voters think Obama wants to spend too much money. And these guys haven't even gotten the bill yet.

As THIS VIDEO clearly demonstrates, most of the people who voted for Obama are completely clueless when it comes to how the government works and who is in charge. They are products of their declining culture, easily led and ready to accept, without question, anything the media tells them. Perfect fodder for socialists.

 
At 3/07/2009 5:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Abraham Lincoln

 
At 3/07/2009 6:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Abraham Lincoln


Leave it to a leftist to take this quote out of context. Read the whole speech. He is clearly talking about the condition of slavery and denying that anyone has the right to "buy" or "fix for life" laborers.

It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers, or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed; nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

[...]

Again, as has already been said, there is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States, a few years back in their lives, were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all—gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty—none less included to take, or touch, aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost.


The last two sentences are a direct repudiation of the welfare state and warning against those who grasp for power at the expense of opportunity.

 
At 3/07/2009 7:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

leave it to a Conservative. You helped screw up the economy now you want to twist a quote around to meet you views. Nice try

 
At 3/07/2009 7:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What does "t" stand for, Thumbsucker?

 
At 3/08/2009 2:43 AM, Blogger Roy H Norris said...

Try These Direct Quotes from Abraham Lincoln:

"What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." (Spoken at Springfield, Illinois on July 17th, 1858; from Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 1894, Vol. 1, page 273).

"Why should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated." (Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862, from Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol 5, page 371).

"I will say, then, that I am not nor have I ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races---that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race." (4th Lincoln-Douglas debate, September 18th, 1858; Collected Works. Vol. 3, pp. 145-146).

Between late August and mid-October, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas travelled together around the state to confront each other in seven historic debates. On August 21, before a crowd of 10,000 at Ottawa, Lincoln declared:

"I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

He continued:

"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position."

Many people accepted the rumors spread by Douglas supporters that Lincoln favored social equality of the races. Before the start of the September 18 debate at Charleston, Illinois, an elderly man approached Lincoln in a hotel and asked him if the stories were true. Recounting the encounter later before a crowd of 15,000, Lincoln declared:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people."

He continued:

"I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Great emancipator my ass!

Roy H.

 
At 3/08/2009 10:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can say that I feel a special gratitude to this singular figure who in so many ways made my own story possible –- and who in so many ways made America’s story possible - Barak Obama, speaking of Abraham Lincoln, February 12, 2009

 
At 3/09/2009 4:58 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"Absurd and totally brainless to try to forge a judgment on any president only a few weeks into his first term . . . unless, of course, you already solidified your judgments prior to his taking office and your only real goal is to undermine his chances of success"...

Sadly mika proves that he or she wasn't paying attention to the real world prior to the election (not that McCain would've been a better choice)...

Obama Wanst the Redistribution of Wealth

Obama Ranks Second In Freddie/Fannie Contributions

Obama Sued Citibank Under CRA to Force it to Make Bad Loans

 
At 3/24/2009 12:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

lol funny stuff...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlW8fkCQs0o&feature=channel_page

video of a Lincoln comparison

 

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