Originally posted by Mairuzu
All I said was lincoln sucks
Yes, and I imagine you criticize him for the same reasons Paul does, right?
thus, my comment about how it isn't hard to see why people think Paul is a racist.
You then said you supported Paul because of liberty. I then pointed out that Lincoln did more for personal liberty than Paul ever could.
You then basically told me I thought Lincoln was perfect, when all I was saying is "better than Paul"
and seriously, opposing the ending of slavery because of concerns over federal power and the economic rights of slave owners is like opposing the fire department because of the rights of arsonists. Anybody who opposes ending slavery because "the government shouldn't do that" has no idea what freedom is in the first place.
Originally posted by Oliver North
Yes, and I imagine you criticize him for the same reasons Paul does, right?
I'm not sure. The only thing I can recall Paul saying about Lincoln was that he shouldnt have gone to war. I'm basically going off Judge Andrew Napolitano on this one.
Emancipation proclamation didn't really free all the slaves.
Lincoln didnt really care to free the slaves or not.
Arrested 3000 journalist and publishers in the north. etc
Originally posted by Oliver North
thus, my comment about how it isn't hard to see why people think Paul is a racist.
Its hard for me to see why he would be.
Originally posted by Oliver North
You then said you supported Paul because of liberty. I then pointed out that Lincoln did more for personal liberty than Paul ever could.
You're saying because I beleive in liberty that I should support Lincoln? You must not know much about lincoln.
I don't see how he did much for liberty, he even denied habeas corpus.
Paul isnt and wasnt president. The comparison was failed to begin with.
Originally posted by Oliver North
You then basically told me I thought Lincoln was perfect, when all I was saying is "better than Paul"
Actually you were being sarcastic so I replied back with sarcasm.
Originally posted by Oliver Northand seriously, opposing the ending of slavery because of concerns over federal power and the economic rights of slave owners is like opposing the fire department because of the rights of arsonists. Anybody who opposes ending slavery because "the government shouldn't do that" has no idea what freedom is in the first place.
No one opposed the end of slavery. Strawman.
actually, ya, I may have mixed that up.
there are the constitutional/libertarian types in the south who oppose the whole thing on the grounds of it violating the individual rights of slave owners, nothing I can find from Paul, with the exception of opposing the war. so that is likely my bad.
almost at my neuro-anatomy class, I'll watch the nepolitano vid after. to point out, however, I haven't nor wouldn't claim that Lincoln was perfect or did everything perfectly.
Lincoln was a pragmatist, and the Union needed a pragmatist to lead it through the Civil War.
Him suspending habeas corpus in Maryland was probably going a little further than he needed to, but it's difficult to find a moment in American history as dangerous to the continued survival of the USA as the Civil War.
As for the Emancipation Proclamation, it's true that it only applied to those slaves in Confederate territory (thus, the slave owners in the border states would be mollified), but it was still a much greater measure than that which any president before had dared to take against slavery.
Edit: From what I recall (I could be wrong) Paul's stance on emancipation was that the government should have purchased the slaves' freedom from their owners rather than just declaring them free. Which is...well...putting economics over humanity to say the least.
Originally posted by Oliver North
that's what I thought I had heard him say, but I couldn't find a link within the first 5 google results, so I stopped looking.
Found it for you.
(in response to the host saying slavery wouldn't have ended without the civil war)
"Oh come on, Slavery was phased out in every other country in the world and the way I'm advising, that it should have been done is do it like the British Empire did. You buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 americans and it lingering for a hundred years- the hatred and all that existed...
So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. That doesnt sound to radical to me, that sounds like a pretty reasonable approach."
The British Empire wasn't comparable to the USA in terms of the slave situation.
The British Empire didn't really abolish slavery within its territory, it simply redefined all of its slaves as servants. As late as the early 20th century it was still shipping Indians to East Africa as cheap (read: free) labor, hence why there was until recently a sizable Indian minority in Uganda.
The British Empire also didn't have the silly notion of state's rights which was the real cause for the Civil War (that and the polarization of the Republican and Democrat parties on a North-South axis). The British Empire was simply the British Empire. There were no states (or territories, provinces, dominions, etc.) with pretentions to sovereignty that could secede. Slavery wasn't an issue in the British Isles (barring child labor and exploitation of unskilled laborers in mines and such) so the public had no reason to support slavers. On the other hand, the British stood to gain quite a bit from using their new moral high ground as pretext to raid the ships of rival nations that still engaged in the slave trade.
If you look at the political system in America and the long term history of enmity between Northern and Southern states going back to Independence as well as the problem of state's rights, there was really no plausible way to avoid something like the Civil War short of a ridiculous compromise that would have allowed slavery to continue unabated until something came along to make it economically indefensible.
You have to understand that the concern of the white slaveowners was not just their property or economic security. They saw slave owning as a fundamental right. They also feared what would happen if the millions of slaves were suddenly free to move about as they pleased.
I think there's a good argument that even in the absence of slavery, the Civil War between North and South might have happened anyway, it just would have started over another issue of state's rights.