NationStates Jolt Archive

Let's take a look at some quotes from Lincoln. Can you imagine them coming out of the mouth of a contemporary Republican politician?


Some thoughts relevant to our current “war”:

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

Important principles may and must be inflexible. (Even principles like "we don't torture prisoners"?)

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.


On business:

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. (Replace slavery, the moral/economic debate of Lincoln's day, with some of the debates of ours: with “reasonable levels of poverty”, “healthy levels of unemployment”, or “acceptable levels of deaths due to pollution”)

These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it."


Some with an anarchist bent:

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.

I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would like to God that such a system prevailed all over the world.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.


Other:

The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four, calling a tail a leg don’t make it a leg.

Politicians are a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men.

No, they are not, which is why I surrendered my membership to the Republican party almost six years ago.

The idea of smaller government and the authority of states rights were reasonable and legitimate goals. Today, the Republican party advocates for as big a federal government as the Democratic party does and seeks to impose it's will on individual states by labelling dissenters as unPatriotic, unChristian activists.

There are many different types of Republicans... there's Conservative Republicans, Neo-Con Republicans, Republitarians, Moderate Republicans, Liberal Republicans, on and on. The reason why we haven't had any "Lincoln" republicans is because our economy is screwey, and we like to know that there's someone at least ATTEMPTING to watch over it.

I DO wish that there were a few more Republitarians in office (Republitarians are Libertarians who run as Republicans), they seem a lot more like Lincoln Republicans.

Republican Liberty Caucus homepage: http://www.rlc.org (that's a "republitarian" site)

I don't know if I am a full on Republitarian, but somewhere in there.

EDIT: In additon, many of you know that I am an advocate for Democracy. I've been getting sick of activist judges in California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusettes, and DC, overriding the will of the people. Quit controlling our lives, and let us govern our nation, or state at least.

No, they are not, which is why I surrendered my membership to the Republican party almost six years ago.

The idea of smaller government and the authority of states rights were reasonable and legitimate goals. Today, the Republican party advocates for as big a federal government as the Democratic party does and seeks to impose it's will on individual states by labelling dissenters as unPatriotic, unChristian activists.

No one has done that. Mass hysteria by the kookizoids over a Patriot Act that imposed RICO standards on terrorists is labeling disssenters as unpatriotic? Conspiracies under every tree? Sounds Rush like to me. :roll:

Why omit the great Lincoln quote from your list:

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.



But Lincoln has said a great many things, for instance this Lincoln quote could easily come out of the mouth of any modern Republican:

Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

I DO wish that there were a few more Republitarians in office (Republitarians are Libertarians who run as Republicans), they seem a lot more like Lincoln Republicans.

I have to disagree. Check another famous Lincoln quote that is as true today as it was then and applies to the "liberty" espoused by what passes for a Libertarian movement in America:

"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name---liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names---liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty... Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people... ...have been doing something to define liberty; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary, has been repudiated."

Why omit the great Lincoln quote from your list:

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.

I didn't know that was Lincoln. Excellent!

But Lincoln has said a great many things, for instance this Lincoln quote could easily come out of the mouth of any modern Republican:

Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

I can certainly imagine a Republican saying it, but not believing the spirit of it. If they did, their economic policies would not do so much to concentrate property and the means of production in fewer and fewer hands. Lincoln's sentiment here is true, but is only meaningful in an environment in which the common man can truly and justly benefit from his labor.

I'd have to say no since they exchanged the Radical for 'dead in a box clutching a fist full of money wearing a sneer and a frown' Conservativism.

Political Parties change. Democrats used to be pro-slavery...are they still now?

Ok...don't answer that

the point is, parties change. Party values change. What was a Republican 200 years ago isn't the same type of Republican today.

Political Parties change. Democrats used to be pro-slavery...are they still now?

Ok...don't answer that

the point is, parties change. Party values change. What was a Republican 200 years ago isn't the same type of Republican today.

That's exactly my point! Political-speak like "the party of Lincoln" or "the party of Roosevelt" is very misleading, even dishonest. Our modern parties try to attach themselves to beloved (yes, romaticized) politicians or long-dead versions of their party to garner favor rather than honestly talking about their current policy positions. This came home to me last week when I heard a Republican higher-up who was lamenting the fact that African-Americans showed no loyalty to "the party of Lincoln".

No, they are not, which is why I surrendered my membership to the Republican party almost six years ago.

The idea of smaller government and the authority of states rights were reasonable and legitimate goals. Today, the Republican party advocates for as big a federal government as the Democratic party does and seeks to impose it's will on individual states by labelling dissenters as unPatriotic, unChristian activists.


I didn't know Republicans were left-wingers?

No, they are not, which is why I surrendered my membership to the Republican party almost six years ago.

The idea of smaller government and the authority of states rights were reasonable and legitimate goals. Today, the Republican party advocates for as big a federal government as the Democratic party does and seeks to impose it's will on individual states by labelling dissenters as unPatriotic, unChristian activists.


I didn't know Republicans were left-wingers?

Erm, since when has the left wing criticized people for being unChristian? About the only time that's happened is when you get people like Jerry Falwell saying that America deserved 9/11 because of homosexual toleration, and that's more the hypocrisy angle than anything else. . .

As for the main argument, no, the Republican party has long since stopped being the party of Lincoln. It is now far more the spiritual disciple of Goldwater and Rand than it ever really was the Party of Lincoln. Heck, it stopped being the party of Lincoln during the Grant administration. . .