Tag: conservatives

Enough About the Bad Guys, Who Are Some Good Guys?

Note the humble man in the back of the room studying his notes (Ron Paul)

It does seem that these days we are bombarded with all kinds of fear, hate and the like from all those in and around our government.

Throughout this time there have been some that have stood up for truth in our empire of lies.

Tom Woods shares his take which I find extremely accurate:

By my estimation, the best U.S. senator — by far — throughout this fiasco has been Rand Paul, and the best member of the House has been Rep. Thomas Massie.

Both have been excellent on lockdowns, masks, vaccines and vaccine passports. Both have pushed back against Fauci. Were it not for Rand, we probably wouldn’t know a thing about gain-of-function research and Wuhan.

Ain’t no way a product of the GOP establishment was going to come out swinging like Rand.

Mitt Romney standing up to Fauci? Don’t make me laugh.

John McCain standing up to Fauci? This is the guy who assured us he was learning about economics because he bought Alan Greenspan’s book — an indication of utter hopelessness if ever there were one.

Most Republican governors were horrendous through this ordeal.

But Rand Paul and Thomas Massie? A+ throughout.

Yup .. just two guys influencing public opinion and government a little at a time. Quite the up-hill battle.

Rand Paul challenges Tony Fauci with the truth ..
Thomas Massie listening to Tony Fauci’s lies

Tom goes on to identify the source of their inspiration:

The key: both are products of the Ron Paul revolution.

Now let’s recall: when Ron Paul himself was running for president, both the media and the Republican establishment — and, to their eternal shame, some “conservatives” — ridiculed him. He’s a “crank”! We demand someone who will flatter us and speak in platitudes we recognize!

It was embarrassing.

Here was the man who, on the House floor in 2001, predicted exactly what would happen with the housing boom and bust. He said the Federal Reserve was replacing the dot-com boom with a real estate boom, which would surely unravel.

He knew Fannie and Freddie’s days were numbered.

Not one other person running for president in 2008 or 2012 had had the first clue about any of this.

And of course he was right: when the market tried to send people red lights in 2000 and 2001, the Fed turned them all green. So people persisted in the same bad investments, making the eventual crash all the worse, and perpetuating the myths that “housing prices never fall” and “a house is the best investment you can make.” (The 2001 recession is the only one on record in which housing starts actually increased.)

Dr. Paul was withering on the U.S. warfare state, and this of course turned “conservatives” against him. The idea was: we favor limited government, but exporting feminism to Afghanistan and running a world empire? Sign us up!

Not exactly the conservatism of yesteryear, that.

Now, after COVID, perhaps some conservatives are willing to entertain the idea that the whole regime is dangerous and rotten and run by liars, and that that just might also include the people who run the foreign policy.

Incidentally, has anybody been checking in on where Rick Santorum stands on lockdowns? Or the utterly forgettable Tim Pawlenty, whom Sean Hannity promoted? Or any of the other empty suits?

Ron created something lasting. Unlike the suits, he took on rather than aped the establishment. He raised issues like the Federal Reserve that no focus group told him to mention, simply because he considered it urgent for the American public to know about them.

Ron Paul weathered Washington DC and the swamp for many years, but always brought his humble attitude with his truth-bombs with him everywhere he went .. EVEN if what he said would lose him votes!

“He told a Florida audience that free trade with Cuba was the morally correct position, even though he knew that meant a lot of people would never consider voting for him.

Who else does that?

Who else just honestly tells us his views, and is consistent in those views over a 40-year period?”

Great questions. The list of people is very short in this country and this society. I remember Ron being laughed at when he suggested that merely legalizing heroin would NOT suddenly cause a lot of people to “do heroin”. Truth can’t be tolerated when certain narratives are involved sadly.

I also remember Ron saying that we should treat other nations like Jesus’ Golden Rule suggested for individuals. The GOP gathering did a big LOL .. they could not comprehend treating China and Russia and especially Cuba with respect. These days both GOP and Democrats think economic sanctions (similar to what drew Japan into WWII) are a solution. Only to the elite from their safe offices in DC can they pretend that no one is hurt by a foreign policy like this.

Here is a glimpse into what life was like in 2012 when American’s had a chance to do better ..

I was gifted (thank you Captain1776) into being able to meet Ron Paul in person in 2019 at a conference near Dulles International in northern Virginia, and I can tell you he is the genuine thing, a man who is the same in public as he is in private.

A real gentleman who can speak truth to power, whether it be US Empire foreign policy or Covid-19 response.

We need more truth-tellers .. are you up to the challenge?

-SF1

 

 

Democrat’s Blind-spot is Facts, GOP’s Blind-spot is Emotion on This One – Nanny State Over-reach

The one US political party, including both wings, gets various national topics so wrong almost 100% of the time whether it is the economy, foreign policy OR their favorite one to argue over, the nanny/police state.

As David Stockman points out clearly in his article “Triumph of the Woke Mob Led By Two Doddering Old Fools” …

Nanny State over-reach was the underlying cause of George Floyd’s arrest and  unjust death—just as it is the source of most of America’s unfortunate violence between  police and unarmed citizens, back, white and otherwise.

The facts of ‘racism’ NOT causing all this doesn’t deter the Democrats since it has been an effective rallying cry and the GOP remains stuck in the religious fervor around the blue-line’s effort in the War on Drugs/People overreach. In fact, the blow-back of each wing’s push just intensifies the whole conflict with disrespects the people while triggering the masses to back the state in whatever solutions they come up with. It is a sick cycle  that sees the poor, disadvantaged and unarmed at the mercy of the state.

Needless to say, the George Floyd case was not an aberration. During the recent past  there were 38 such police killings of unarmed black citizens in 2015, and then 19, 21,  17 and 9 during 2016 through 2019, respectively. That’s 104 black lives lost to the  ultimate abuse of police powers.

Of course, the number should be zero police killings of unarmed citizens. There is no  conceivable excuse for heavily armed cops—-usually working in pairs or groups—to  cause the death of lone, unarmed civilians, regardless of race or anything else.

Unarmed seems to still unnerve the state-empowered police effort, however, it gets even more ridiculous when one learns the REASON the police were involved:

.. the Minneapolis police officers originally attempted to put George Floyd  safely in the back seat of a squad car after his arrest for the petty crime of attempting to  pass a counterfeit $20 bill, but he resisted them intensely for up to five minutes .. Floyd’s death was due to an arrest which shouldn’t have happened and bad police  behavior that has nothing to do with race.

Yup. the Left’s “it’s because he’s black” doesn’t stick here and the GOP’s “he should just bow to the Redcoats and the crown” doesn’t either. This “crime” is outside the scope of the police, as it was the store’s issue to deal with as there was zero threat of violence from this man towards others and towards the Redcoats.

During the same five-year period in which 104 black lives were lost, a total of 127  unarmed white lives were wasted by the police, as well. That included 32 white  killings in 2015 followed by 22, 31, 23 and 19 in 2016 through 2019, respectively.

Overall, 302 unarmed citizens were killed by the police during those five years, with  the balance accounted for by 71 deaths among Hispanic and other victims. That is, the  real issue is illegal and excessive police violence, not racial victimization.

Indeed, the fact that 34% of these police killings involved black citizens compared to  their 13% share of the population is not primarily a sign of racism among police forces,  although it is continuously construed to be.

It’s actually evidence that the Nanny State, and especially the misbegotten War on  Drugs, is designed to unnecessarily ensnare a distinct demographic— young, poor, often  unemployed urban citizens— in confrontations with the cops, too many of which  become fatal.

Alas, young black males are disproportionately represented among this particular in harms’-way demographic, and that’s the reason they are “disproportionately”  represented in the 302 cases cited above.

White lives matter too, so the facts seem to suggest a “wrong place at a wrong time” situation here as the police only target the part of town that has a lot of young, poor and unemployed.  Amazingly, getting anyone hopped up on power can easily expand the scope of involvement of the Redcoats in the area, not content with solving REAL crime, they focus on low-hanging fruit just like a deputized HOA Karen does:

But I digress.

.. statism in the sphere of law and order is every bit as dysfunctional as it is  in the realm of economics, yet neither conservatives nor progressives recognize it.

The US political system loves dysfunction, because it creates more “business” for itself.

It was at this point in the article I thought this was a summary, but as it turns out, David Stockman does straight into the data after offering this synopsis:

Conservatives want way too much law and police empowerment in the service of cultural  norms that are none of the state’s damn business in the first place; and progressives  confuse the often brutal and unjust over-reach of law enforcement agencies as a  manifestation of racism, when it is actually just policing expectorations in behalf of  inappropriate missions such as the enforcement of drug laws.

The data is revealing for the Nanny State’s real impact on the people, it is deathly.

  1. George Floyd’s fatal arrest for  allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill; Eric Garner (NYC 2014), subdual for selling un-taxed cigarettes; Rayshard Brooks for falling asleep drunk in his car at a subsequently  incinerated Wendy’s in Atlanta; and Breonna Taylor of Louisville for being awake in her  own apartment at 1:30 AM when police barged in with guns blaring in a drug  enforcement raid. 

  2. In  the most recent year of complete data (2018), there were 9.3 million arrests in the US  excluding traffic enforcement charges of DUI. Yet among this massive number of arrests, those involving serious crimes against persons and property accounted for just  521,000 or 5.6%. These included:  Negligent murder and manslaughter: 11,970;  Rape: 25,205;  Armed robbery: 88,128;  Aggravated assault: 395,800;  That’s it. That’s the contribution to core public safety delivered by the 850,000 sworn  law enforcement officers in the USA—about 0.6 arrests per year for serious crimes per  law enforcement officer. 

  3. the single largest category of arrests in 2018 was for drug abuse violations,  which totaled 1,654,282. In fact, while total arrests for all crimes in 2018 were no higher than they were in 1977  despite a 100 million/50% growth in the US population, and had actually dropped from  a peak of nearly 13 million in 2006, the opposite trend was extant in the case of the  nation’s misbegotten War on Drugs arrests.  As shown by the chart below, drug arrests in 2018 were nearly at peak levels and were  up by more than 171% since 1977—the vast majority of which are made for drug  possession generally, and marijuana possession most often.

  4. the next largest arrest category after drugs is one called “other  assaults” for which 1,063,535 arrests were made in 2018. Yet the FBI’s own definitions  raise considerable doubts as to why these are even a proper matter for law enforcement  by the state:

    Other assaults (simple)―Assaults and attempted assaults where no  weapon was used or no serious or aggravated injury resulted to the  victim. Stalking, intimidation, coercion, and hazing are included.

  5. Next category we have all the victimless and vice crimes, including the following  number of arrests:  Prostitution and commercialized vice: 31,147; Sex offenses excluding rape and prostitution: 46,937;  Gambling: 3,323;  Liquor law offenses: 173,152;  Curfew and loitering law violations: 22,031;  Vagrancy: 23,546;  Public drunkenness: 328,772;  Disorderly conduct: 329,152;  Forgery and counterfeiting: 50,072;  Weapons carrying and possession: 168,403;  All other offenses: 3,231,700. The latter huge number tells you all you need to know. The UCR lists 27 enumerated  categories of crime including all of those itemized above yet when  the whole lists is exhausted, 32% of arrests occurred for crimes that are so minor even  the FBI is embarrassed to enumerate them!

Nothing like majoring in the minors! But I guess that is what “pays the bills”, Redcoats extracting loot from the people. Some things never change and government will never be your savior from this evil and broken world.

Ya think? Lord Acton was spot on!

The masses seem to believe there are only two options in decision-making, which is why the US political-complex limits itself to GOP and Democrats. Yet there is a third option, a road much less traveled. This is a path that reduces one’s dependency on the Nanny State and takes life underground.

Something to think about right?

-SF1

Lost Opportunities: 1776, 1787 and 1861 led to 1865 and Beyond

The efforts toward freedom and liberty have been frustrated for centuries, and it was in the mid-late 1700s where such promise seemed at hand. The American colonies were left on auto-pilot until the British Empire was hoping for some ROI and decided to push for some taxes and control. Please note that human nature’s default is that those in power will push for control as well as compensation for their “management” of society towards orderly conduct.

It does seem to be that the people of this era were pretty well versed (no pun intended) in what they experienced and learned in nature as well as what wisdom could be found in the Bible. It was these kind of people (think Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine) that would help draft the Declaration of Independence.

There is a line in this document that does acknowledge ” the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as well as “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as well as “that all men are created equal”. That last quote never implies that we are to be made equal by man, but that God sees us each as equal, as in made on God’s image, uniquely.

So in God’s/Nature’s God eyes, we are all equal, BUT we are each unique and never equal while on this earth. We are born with different gifts and talents, with various thinking capacities as well as emotional and physical capacities. Men are not the same as women, but equal in God’s eyes.

The problem comes with the progressive always wants to play god and make plans to “make” everyone equal, to “make” the climate perfect and to second-guess God’s decision that we are either male or female. They think so highly of themselves that they feel they can improve on what God has created. I am guessing if they want to work on themselves, then I say let them. However, they are never content with that .. they want their ideas to be applied across society with force. This is where government enters.

The opposing force to these ideas used to be the church but it seems like there is so much in-fighting in those circles that there is little energy left to bring wisdom to the discussion. Another opposing force, or so I thought, were “conservatives”. Well, while we have heard for decades about the conservative (political) fight .. it is just smoke and mirrors because obviously there are zero principles involved.

The conservatives have not just recently let the people down in this regard, even in 1871 critical thinkers saw the GOP “conservatives” for what they are .. Robert Lewis Dabney here calls them out for what they were in his day:

“.. Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation..”

“.. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always—when about to enter a protest—very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from having nothing to whip…” [source https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/equality-is-not-americas-founding-principle ]

In summary, it seems like the opportunity presented in 1776 birthed 13 free and independent colonies by 1783, but quickly was swallowed up by the political fears that led to 1787’s coup d’etat when the US Constitution was secretly birthed and ratified in the next two years. No longer was Nature’s God acknowledged until the Confederate Constitution was ratified in 1861.

The failure of the seven, eleven or thirteen states to secede peacefully from the United States of America would put an end of a reliance on “Almighty God” and His Word, the Bible, in trusting Him with our future as a people and as a country.

The future looks more and more like being first century Christians in the Roman Empire.  Always in the minority and always despised until they see the love we can share from our Almighty God and then things may turn around.

-SF1

A Federated Republic Would Never Have to Depend on One Person for Its Survival

I will lay the blame primarily on Abraham Lincoln, whose reaction to the secession of seven states in 1861 led to this republic’s change from version 1.0 in 1781 to version 2.0 (thanks to the US Constitution(1787), a coup d’etat by any simple analysis) to version 3.0 in 1865 that rendered the states as impotent servants to the master (general/federal government), a virtual democracy (i.e. mob rule).

Lincoln’s effort to save actually destroyed!

The genius of the Articles of Confederation is that it recognized as each state was in fact a sovereign country (just like the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized). The presidential election pre-US Constitution was a non-issue, and 99% of Americans only saw the federal government when the post-rider stopped a few times a week. Furthermore, if one state had a tyrant, it would minimally impact other states.

In 2020, I would give almost anything to have the federal politics happen hundreds of miles away and have little impact on my day to day, year to year life in my own community. Can it be that whatever “federal” power is necessary that it be with this aim:

The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their Liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever. – Article III ‘The Articles of Confederation” 1777

The US Constitution brought the executive branch to a much more powerful level encouraged by those like Alexander Hamilton who saw royalty and a central government as the path toward empire. The empire has been realized, but at what cost? The cost was the soul of this republic.

Today’s situation did not happen overnight, and most people could trace it back to the 1970s, but few realize that the real roots of this go back much further. The wedding of big government and big business was a Whig wet dream from the early 1800s that Lincoln himself believed in like a religion. Even by 1861 the US Constitution was easily raped by Lincoln himself all in the name of “safety” for the “union”. Preserving all thirty-some states with territories to the west complicit with big business barons working their behind the scenes magic with the US government to eliminate the competition.

Enter a recent book review “The Election to End All Elections” by Angelo M. Codevilla on Michael Anton’s new book called ‘The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return‘

[Michael Anton] urges Americans to vote for Trump, disappointed though they may be with his performance, because they know even better than before how much this country’s ruling class would use control of the presidency to hurt us in our private and public lives for having dared to reject their mastery. Trump, imperfect as he is, is like a finger in a dike that, if removed, would loose a deluge. Anton describes how the Democratic Party-led complex of public-private power has been transforming our free, decent, and prosperous country into its opposite—and how it’s going to do to the rest of America what it has already largely accomplished in California.

Personally, I find more and more people disillusioned with how the Marxist inroads into not just the colleges but also much of corporate America has been achieved in the past few decades. Many went to college for “communications” finding out that the MSM is nauseating to consider working for, and others now feel the same way about the medical fields (MIC – Medical Industrial Complex) with the Covid-19 “over-reaction”!

It is intriguing that a rather young person would see with such clarity just into what California is experiencing right now, and all the dots that line up as to the sequence of bad decisions to get to where millions are in a state of exodus there. Angelo writes in the review of Michael’s book:

[Here] in 2020 productive middle-class families are fleeing California—so much so that the state will probably lose a seat in the House of Representatives after this year’s census. And all because its government—controlled by oligarchs in the entertainment and high-tech industries, as well as the state bureaucracy and public sector labor unions—raised taxes, imposed regulations, let public services decay, stopped defending against criminals, and empowered left-wing social activists. Today’s California is for government-favored oligarchs and those who service them. You want a career? If you don’t conform every word and action to the ruling orthodoxies, your work and talents will be wasted. You want your children to grow up intelligent and decent? The schools will teach them little reasoning and much depravity. Like you, they will also learn to compete by favor-seeking rather than by performance. You see crime rising, sense that you have to protect yourself, but know that, in most of the state, the police will arrest you for it. And you are sick of paying for it all.

The bottom line it seems is that in much of middle-upper class America, most kids do not become taxpayers until they are almost 30. This allows the Marxist/totalitarian mindset to take root the longer kids are in college, making PhDs the ones with the most student debt and the most likely to be compliant in whatever corporation will have them! This is by design.

Michael Anton goes on to say:

The real power…resides not with elected (or appointed) officials and “world leaders”; they—or most of them—are a servant class. The real power resides with their donors, the bankers, CEOs, financiers, and tech oligarchs—some of whom occasionally run for and win office, but most of whom, most of the time, are content to buy off those who do. The end result is the same either way: economic globalism and financialization, consolidation of power in an ostensibly “meritocratic” but actually semi-hereditary class, livened up by social libertinism.

The intellectuals from the monarchy days is what I am reminded of. These types do NOT like competition, and government is big and bad enough to wield a club apparently. Angelo continues:

Despising any divine or natural authority and contemptuous of America’s history, those in the ruling class make war on the American people’s culture and national identity. Ironically, this ruling class, led almost exclusively by white men, has cast white men in general as the proper targets of universal vengeance—an inversion of reality sustained by a near-monopoly of power over corrupt institutions and mass communications. Anton’s section on “Propaganda and Censorship: Narrative, Megaphone, and Muzzle” is particularly worth reading.

Insightful stuff here. It is at this point where the talk turns to conservative vs. liberals .. and right away I think of the civil approach the South had with the “rule(US Constitution)-breaking” North where the ends justifies the means:

Truth-bomb time from Angelo:

They [ruling class] do not believe they have to worry about controlling their own violent troops because they are sure that they have nothing to fear from conservatives. That is because conservatives have continued to believe that the United States’s institutions and those who run them retain legitimacy. Conservative complaisance made possible a half-century of Progressive rule’s abuse. The War on Poverty ended up enriching its managers while expanding the underclass that voted for them. The civil rights movement ended up entitling a class of diversity managers to promote their friends and ruin their opponents. The environmental movement ended up empowering the very same wealthy, powerful folks while squeezing the rest of America into cookie-cutter living and paying inflated energy prices. The feminist movement delivered divorce and abortion—far from benefiting women, it has made millions dependent on ruling class favor. The COVID-19 pandemic has had almost nothing to do with public health and almost everything to do with separating, impoverishing, and disconnecting people inclined to vote against the ruling class. As leftist judges rule, conservatives respond by appointing judges who pledge not to rule. As leftist governors establish their brand of effective sovereignty by decree, conservative ones obey court orders. So long as, and to the degree that, the illusion of legitimacy stands—so long as the Right obeys while the Left disobeys and commands—there is no end to what the Left can do because there is so little that conservatives do to fight back.

.. until there is physical fighting, and like with the War Against Southern Independence, all the gloves will come off.

The boomerang and blow-back are real things that the Left is not ready for, and some in rural America are hoping for, so for now Trump, just one person, is holding it all back. Federation to Democracy to Socialism/Fascism/Marxism which is a very toxic brew.

Peace out.

-SF1

Source: Claremont Review of Books

If Lincoln is Considered a “Conservative” … What Does That Mean?

When I first started reading World Book Encyclopedias as a boy, I am sure I ran across terms like liberal and conservatives. I am not sure they were thrown about like they are today to attempt to place people in two different and opposing camps,but I know these words were used.

In terms of philosophy of any kind, words matter. One needs to know the definition of the day is seems. So when one reads historical books, newspapers and journals, context matters. Back in 1800, liberal thought is very far away from today’s liberal thought, it seems. The same can be said of the word conservative.

Looking at the root of that word I would contend that it means to “conserve” or even “preserve” something. Obviously, one can be extreme in these things as one can attempt to preserve everything from a previous generation, however, most intelligent beings see things of value that their ancestors did that makes life better for any people group that desires to get along, be allowed to bring their own unique value to society and to freely trade and barter in a free market so wealth is created 360 to again allow society to thrive.

This article in Beliefnet does touch on the attempts of modern day conservatives (only in name) to disrespect anyone who dares to trample on the ‘conservative’ nature of their hero, their god, Abraham Lincoln. I would like to use a few clips toward generating some thought around this important topic, because again, words matter and our thinking through these things help us to sort through the wasteland of people’s beliefs these days and identify what is true and honorable enough to preserve for future generations.

“The debate over Lincoln on the Right is so important,” Lowry writes, “because it can be seen, in part, as a proxy for the larger argument over whether conservatism should read itself out of the American mainstream or—in this hour of its discontent—dedicate itself to a Lincolnian program of opportunity and uplift consistent with its limited-government principles.” – Rich Lowry, editor of National Review

Ok then, I almost threw up in my throat when I read Lincoln in the same sentence as “limited” government but I will share what the author of this article, Jack Kerwick, has to say:

Now, being neither a Lincoln scholar nor even an historian, I am neither a “hater” nor a deifier of Lincoln. I am, however, a philosopher, a political philosopher, and a conservative political philosopher to boot. As such, I confess to being at a loss to account for how any self-avowed conservative, any proponent of “limited government,” could look to, of all people, Abraham Lincoln as a source of inspiration.

Ok, Jack and I are indeed tracking. It continues to amaze me that with Lincoln’s true record of achievements that “limited government” would be considered something that he believed in. Well, since we know the typical character of politicians, maybe at one time Abe believed in “limited” government:

Of course that was in 1848 around the time of the Mexican War which he was against, so you will have that. However by 1860/1861 he no longer believed that because then he would have let the seven southern states leave in peace, right?

Back to what Jeff has to say:

Lincoln presided over America during what remains, by leaps and bounds, its darkest hour. More tellingly, he was, at the very least, instrumental in making it its darkest hour, for Lincoln waged a war unprecedented (in our history) for its death and destruction, and he waged it against Americans. Whether or not he had the constitutional right to do so, whether or not the South was the aggressor, are utterly irrelevant considerations.

To repeat, for our purposes here, Lincoln’s legal and moral prerogatives or lack thereof simply do not matter. What matters is that for four long years, the President of the United States conducted the bloodiest war that, before or since, our nation had ever witnessed, a war that laid waste to much of the country, to say nothing of the genuinely federal character of the government that the Framers of the Constitution ratified.

Exactly, for if “Limited-Gov Abe” was really all that he was claimed to be, his split personality took over in 1861 when he was inaugurated in early March. Lincoln refused to meet southern peace commissioners, refused to meet with Napoleon II and delayed calling Congress to meet until JULY 1861 after preparing for war was well underway.

The point is that whatever else may be said of Lincoln, it is difficult to see how, with Lowry, we can say of him that he was “perhaps the foremost proponent of opportunity in all of American history,” “the paladin of individual initiative, the worshipper of the Founding Fathers, and the advocate of self-control ..”

Seriously?

However, when you think about it, if you want to redefine “conservative” you can use a legend whose qualities match your own and call it all good:

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe today’s “conservatives” do need Lincoln, for given their obsession with fundamentally transforming the Islamic world into a bastion of Democracy and their own country into the melting pot of the universe, today’s conservatives care as much about preserving the decentralized character of American government as did Lincoln.

As a result, they are about as conservative as him as well.

Can I get a “bingo”?

-SF1