In Paul Ryan’s word string he gave in response to the SOTU there was this odd reference to Abraham Lincoln:
Their day of reckoning has arrived. Ours is around the corner. That is why we must act now.
Some people will back away from this challenge. But I see this challenge as an opportunity to rebuild what Lincoln called the “central ideas” of the Republic.
Even in the context of Ryan’s word string this citation of Lincoln makes no sense at all, but if you go back the the speech where Lincoln describes what he defines as the “central ideas” of the Republic–then Ryan’s word string seems all the more disconnected from historical reality:
Our government rest in public opinion. Whoever can charge public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much. Public opinion, or [on?] any subject, always has a “central idea,” from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That “Central idea” in our political public opinion at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, “the equality of men.” And although it was always submitted patiently to whatever of inequality there seemed to be as matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress towards the practical equality of all men. The late Presidential election was a struggle, by one party, to discard that central idea, may be the perpetuity of human slavery, and its extension to all countries and colors. Less than a year ago, the Richmond Enquirer, an avowed advocate of slavery, regardless of color, in order to favor his views, invented the phrase, “State equality,” and now the President, in his Message, adopts the Enquirer’s catch-phrase, telling us the people “have asserted the constitutional equality of each and all the States of the Union as States.” The President flatters himself that the new central idea is completely inaugurated; and so, indeed, it is, so far as the mere fact of a Presidential election can inaugurate it. To us it is left to know that the majority of the people have not yet declared for it, and to hope that they never will.
All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred thousand. But, in the late contest we were divided between Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come together, for the future. Let every one who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not, and shall not be, a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought best — let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus let bygones be bygones. Let past differences, as nothing be; and with steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old “Central ideas” of the Republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us— God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare, that “all States as States, are equal,” nor yet that “all citizens as citizens are equal,” but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that “all men are created equal.”
I think Ryan was referencing Lincoln’s observation that he who controls public opinion “can change the government” and that somehow he thought that was Lincoln’s “central ideas” of the Republic.
Perhaps Ryan took this tack because including Lincoln’s real central idea–that ALL men are created as equals–would contradict his road map for the continued survival of the richest and his very active glibertarian fantasy life. More than that Lincoln specifically attacks the notions of ‘States Rights’ and the theft of labor and liberty through the institution of slavery. It is hard to see anything in Lincoln’s record, words or deeds that would lend support to anything Ryan had to say or his extremely radical beliefs.
And yet, the idea of Lincoln was something he wanted to include and so he did–even as his word string had to take Lincoln’s words completely out of context and Ryan’s ideas are completely at odds with everything Lincoln ever stood for.
I found it to be the most jaw dropping moment of his performance piece.
Weird.
cheers
dengre
BGinCHI
This links up nicely with Bachmann’s crazy “the founders worked to end slavery” gibberish from the other day. They would both really, really like to substitute a strict constructionist, narrow version of the founders (with crucial updates) for Lincoln. For these historical retards, the old white privileged dudes are all the progress anyone should ever want, and Lincoln is famous and popular but oh so inconvenient.
It’s like a White Power move but with Founders instead of fascists.
Tom Hilton
Don’t recall the precise formulation off the top, but Lincoln also explicitly embraced ideas that Ryan would deride as ‘socialist’ and an unconstitutional expansion of federal power.
I’m convinced that the only reason they put Ryan out there is that they think Obama’s power lies in the size of his ears.
Tom Hilton
wtf w/the moderation bullshit? There aren’t even any goddamn links.
Davis X. Machina
The word ‘socia1st’ contains, when spelled normally, the name of an erectile dysfunction drug that features prominently in spam.
Joshua Norton
They quote everything like they’re quoting the bible. Grabbing pieces from here and there that give the impression of agreeing with them and hope no one who’s listening has the knowledge and the courage to call them on it.
srv
It is going to be fun watching Ryan try to out crazy Bachmann for the next two years.
BGinCHI
Didn’t get to see Bachmann’s speech.
How crazy was it?
Make up your own scale.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tom Hilton: soshulist has a letter stream that matches some boehner pills, triggers a spam setting
ETA: d’oh, didn’t see your post, Davis
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: On a scale of minnow to tuna, it was a sea lion.
RalfW
What creeps me out is that I just watched the Matthews-Russo takedown, and in the intro to the piece, Michele Bachmann is blathering about whether, after 21 generations, this will be the last.
So in that paranoid, millennialist, rapturite world, is Paul “day of reckoning” Ryan buying in too? Dog whistle, anyone?
sharl
Well, Dennis G., it has been a great day for learning new things about the history of this Glorious Republic: the Lincoln thing you mentioned; Bachmann’s news about our Founding Fathers fighting to end slavery (I’ll bet they fought Mothra too; the truth is likely being hidden from us); and from this very site, this from commenter hells littlest angel:
I’ve learned a lot of new stuff today.
jl
@BGinCHI:
“Make up your own scale.”
It would still be off the scale, IMVHO.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@BGinCHI: Just based on what I’ve read here on a scale of Q to 11 it was Pantaloons.
Dennis G.
@BGinCHI:
I missed it. Life is too short to spend time with second string carnies.
She is an accomplished grifter and I’ll give her that. And she plays up the ‘Crazy’ with great skill as it is how she appeals to the marks. But I don’t need to watch every grifter working the Midway to know they are there.
Cheers
The Dangerman
@BGinCHI:
Before I rate it, I’ll state that I thought Ryan’s response was reasonable.
Bachmann’s was Palinesque (not a word, but neither is refudiate). The ignorance oozed through the screen and puddled at my feet like a cheap Ed Wood movie.
jl
@RalfW: Bachmann has been talking about this 21 generations thing before. Like there is some alternative world where everyone has kids and is retired by ten or eleven.
Is that some kind of code for something? Is she sending secret signals, over the teevee?
Donut
@BGinCHI
It went to 11.
General Stuck
Well, if you are going to make a threat, best to quote Lincoln I would think. They mean to undo HCR, kill it deader than Julius Caesar. it is an existential threat to their worldview, but more importantly they fear it as a mortal electoral wound to the GOP, if it ever is fully implemented.
They are not entirely off the wall with this fear, and the vibes I get from them is a willingness to lay economic waste to it all, if it comes to that. And even if they are bluffing, these idiots could well accomplish that end by accident.
Dennis G.
@sharl:
The living history of wingnutopia. The theme park ride in crazy town should be excellent.
The Dangerman
@Dennis G.:
I want to ride the roller coaster where we had to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki to save lives.
Donut
And not because of what she said, necessarily. It was the whole presentation. Lighting, make up, the off-center placement of TelePrompTer that forced her to always be looking off to her right, never at camera, and topped off with cheesy graphs that looked like they were copied and pasted from an Excel file.
Total train wreck. Unforgettable.
rikyrah
You expect REALITY from a Republican?
and they say I am a dreamer.
The Dangerman
@Donut:
With background graphics that looks like they went for the low bidder (meaning, some poor schmuck isn’t getting his or her invoice paid; I’ve seen better work in High School reports).
BGinCHI
@Dennis G.: As an old friend of Richard Faucett, a big hello.
Former Athens dweller here. Been a while.
BGinCHI
Thanks for the descriptions of Bachmann’s “all cued up for SNL” speech. Fifty bucks Lorne Michaels hatched the idea and paid CNN to run it.
He needs the material.
In the sketch they should have her doing it while Palin (Tina Fey, natch) coaches her off-camera. That’s who she’s staring at.
This shit writes itself.
tkogrumpy
When appealing to the lizard brain single words are sufficient. Complex concept are out. So, it’s Lincoln, states rights,Liberty, freedom, blah, blah blah.
Dennis G.
@BGinCHI:
And a big hello back at you!
Cheers
GregB
Bachmann’s stage craft looked like it was organized by the same guy who did Saddam’s impromptu sets when he was rallying Iraqis as the bombs rained down on Baghdad.
srv
I think we have just run out of any rational understanding of Wingnut Physics. It’s like we need a new theory, Theory of Wingularity or something that is as alien to us as Einstein’s shit was to people in 1905.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rachel’s discussing Bachmann, with choreography. Oh, commercial, she’ll talk about it in a minute
Violet
@Donut:
You missed the weird peach colored chair plopped in front of the American flag for some reason. It added to the sense that this whole thing had just been thrown together. Made it look like maybe they were recording it in grandma’s living room. Seriously rinky dink feel.
Spaghetti Lee
Yes, the day of reckoning is indeed here, right around the corner. We must decide to make the tough decisions, and in the future we must be willing to act now. Freedom may not have a price, but it is something that all Americans must strive to protect in all forms.
Did I get the syntax about right?
Violet
@tkogrumpy:
You forgot “Iwoo Jemma”
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@jl: Maybe she’s measuring from Plymouth, 1620, when the Pilgrims got some help from the local Food Bank and Habitats for Humanity, social workers teaching the immigrants how to find food and build houses that don’t rot.
The Dangerman
My favorite was her talking over the picture over the flag raising at Iwo Jima; it didn’t match her bumbling words well (though Iwo Jima was certainly a better call than their clear desire to use a noose and a white sheet for their imagery).
FlipYrWhig
Doesn’t it just mean that Ryan is citing Lincoln for the idea that the country has a “central idea”? It doesn’t sound like he was trying to say that it was the same “central idea,” just that the country has an idea. I don’t know why you need Lincoln to do that, but I guess it makes you seem statesmanlike to quote Great Men Of History.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@General Stuck:
Well isn’t this what we expect to happen anyway? No matter who, or what (zombies), causes it?
jl
“in the future we must be willing to act now.”
That makes sense. I missed it, though. Was that in Ryan’s or Bachmann’s speech?
El Cid
The words of our Founders are not merely documents rigidly set in stone — they are living documents which allow us to change with them as our nation’s needs change.
Thus, Lincoln really did mean whatever the GOP said he meant.
jl
This is a test.
Flurven.
Gimmelbop.
Hammock.
Hellhammock of welfare state slavery and human devolution bondage evil.
Davis X. Machina
@jl: Yogi Berra’s. But then, predictions are tough, especially about the future.
MikeJ
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich: Many people don’t realise “Wampanoag” actually means “community organizer.”
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@El Cid:
Good point heh?
Constructionism has its price, an easy Straw Man.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: Isn’t that from Plan 9 From Outer Space?
jl
Huh, who woulda thunk. I tried to post a comment about the Daily Show’s Stockholm Syndrome segment that presciently explained, or foreshadowed if you will, the meaning and fell import of Ryan’s hammock metaphor to you sheeples and clueless doubters. But this miserable lefty blog ate my comment (part of a conspiracy, sure enough)
I thought flurven and gimmelbop were forbidden words.
Why didn’t Ryan invoke Sweden? That would have sealed the deal with the good people of the U.S.
Allan
@GregB: If Michele Bachmann’s husband Marcus had been asked to decorate the set, I’m sure it would have been fabulous.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Oh, the irony! Or, double irony! Or triple!
The new party of the “states’ rights”- which they won’t admit meant the right to perpetuate slavery- using the man most responsible for expanding the federal government at the expense of those “states’ rights”…BY MISQUOTING HIM!
The meta-ness is going to make my head explode.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@MikeJ: Too bad the local community organizers didn’t realize a tidal wave that would outnumber them 1000-1 was on its way. The tribes that administered the “final solution” had the right idea.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@FlipYrWhig: I dig your handle. That is one of my favorite albums. Its in the cd visor of my beater pickup. And there is no higher honor.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Goddammit! I hate it when postmodernists are right.
jl
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich: I got out my trusty calculator.
I think the traditional reckoning of a generation is 33 years, so
1789: 7 generations
1620: 12
1492: 16
If a generation is 30 to 33 years, then 21 of them gets back to the last half of the fourteenth century. She’s talking about the Plague?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_century
Now maybe she is weaving in her ideas about women’s rights, so let’s try 20 (they should all have kids by then and the wimmin should be in the kitchen, so they are set for life.)
1789: 11 generations
1620: 20
1492: 26
I guess a 20 year generation since Plymouth Rock, or Jamestown.
I rounded up the generations.
You people figure it out, it’s too many for me to grapple with anymore.
sharl
Some other historical material ol’ Crazee-Eyes could use, from Firesign Theatre’s I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus:
pointer
Lincoln’s central idea is that all men are created equal. Modern conservatism’s central idea is that the white man is the victim.
Quod erat demonstrandum, baby.
freelancer
@jl:
Wingnutitis ate your calculator. Same disease that turns 4,600,000,000 years into 6,000 years. It’s only off by an order of patriotude.
FlipYrWhig
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich: Hüsker! I just slipped in an h to make Whig. And stole the “Yr” from Sonic Youth.
NobodySpecial
Well, Bachmann’s speech gave me one very important piece of information: Now I know where all the Four Loko went.
goatchowder
Yes. The central idea of Ryan is that the corporations who control the media, the money, and the massive propaganda machine of the modern world, thereby control public opinion, and we and all government must properly bow to them.
Seriously. Ryan’s idea is Goebbel’s idea: the people always be brought to heel by massive propaganda.
And, if we ignore the propaganda, and defy the corporations who control public opinion, we are abandoning that “central idea”.
It is at quite a variance indeed from the point Lincoln was making.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@FlipYrWhig:
Dammit! I hadn’t been able to place your handle. I knew it was familiar. HD&SY are full of win. Must now listen to and share) something from Bad Moon Rising.
sharl
…continued…
source (in comments)
MikeJ
@goatchowder:
Uh oh. Jon Stewart will say you’re not being nice.
You know who else called people Nazis?
jl
Obama’s innovation and competition program is already kicking in. ‘Fill from the bottom’ two second beers at sports stadiums in Philadelphia. Just heard the news story.
Obamafascicommunism works!
goatchowder
Oh, and only one Founder that I know of worked to abolish slavery: http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/franklin/
It was the last time he spoke publicly before he died.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@jl:
The hell you say! That’s more Stalinist than when Jimmy Carter forced the move away from pull-tab cans! Prepare for war!
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@jl: Wasn’t about 14-25 the prime child-bearing years?
jl
@goatchowder: Alexander Hamilton too. He wanted to pressure the Southern states to abolish slavery during the Revolution. Washington quashed that idea.
Washington did free his slaves at his death, and his will set up a private education and vocational training program for them. That counts as a grass roots effort, I would guess.
xian
I love that crazy-eyes bachmann’s chart shows obama reining in the catastrophic bush employment collapse.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@FlipYrWhig: Sweet.
I still have Metal Circus on the original cassette, gathering dust in my shed somewhere. New Day Rising is on my iPod.
jl
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): And what kind of American sports fan are you?
I will explain it slowly to you:
They will be able to pour a beer in TWO SECONDS for you when you attend a professional sporting competition in Philly.
Oh, Brave New World!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@goatchowder:
I’m really surprised that this registration-free site doesn’t get trolled more by the idiots like those I came across two weekends ago at Crooks & Liars, who were trying to sell the idea that the 3/5 Clause was an act of abolitionism rather than a compromise to get the southern states to ratify the Constitution.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Oooo, I loved the full money guarantee on my hair products. When did u-tube start running ads?
freelancer
@goatchowder:
From what I’ve read, Paine was against slavery as well. That said, he wasn’t a Theist and he had no prominent place in early American government. Due to his criticism of Christianity, he only had six people attend his funeral in 1809. But I’ll be goddamned if the Wingnuts claim his mantle as one of the seminal Founding Fathers, yet ignore everything he ever wrote or stood for.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@jl: Community organizing?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@jl:
The kind who’s been on the wagon for almost 6 years now, and who tried to forgo the drinking at the stadium in favor of watching the game when I was a drinker?
And, seriously, those pull-tab cans sucked- too many rings separated from the tab.
MikeJ
@jl: This is one of man’s greatest inventions. You are a bastard for not providing a link.
Pity they’ll probably be serving piss at a stadium, although Safeco has decent beer available.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): It was kind of both no? The fact that slaves were over 50% human was the slippery slope that led to a full 5/5. Amiight?
jl
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich: I think it is 30 or 33 years in the Old Testament Bible. THE BIBLE! But I don’t have time to check now, because I am busy making silly comments.
Edit: crappo. Wikipedia says traditionally, in primitive societies around the world, it is the age at which most women become fertile: sweet 16. In 20th century, it has been lengthened to 25 years. But no citations in the Wiki article, so, not sure how reliable.
So, 1874, or 1485.
I better quit. I am getting an unhealthy obsession with what Bachmann is trying to say.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich:
Wait, WHAT? Wasn’t that Death Valley ’69? Fucking Vevo…
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@jl:
About goddamned time. If robots are going to take our jobs and information grinding will make me a marketing target, the least I want is a two-second fucking beer!
jl
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Oh, OK.
But I don’t drink at games either. It’s just the very idea of all that mass consumption! It has a kind of elegant spare beauty that leaves me in awe.
Anyway, won’t catch me at a game in Philly until they come up with an innovative crowd control program. God forbid this gets over to the Raiduhs. We will all be doomed.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@jl: Yeah, don’t do that. I was just trying to point our how truly confused she is, mistaking the “founding” of the Republic for the “foundering” of the London Virginia Company.
jl
@jl:
So, 1674 (not 1874), or 1485.
I am losing it. So will sleep now.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich:
Well, it was only in there for the census and the purpose of portioning out seats in the House, ya know, not like it gave slaves 60% of the rights of others. They didn’t get to vote.
The slave states wanted them to be counted on the 5/5 basis, which would have given the slave states even more power in the House and the Electoral College(in which a state gets a number of votes based on their seats in the House and Senate).
Villago Delenda Est
@freelancer:
They also pointedly ignore Thomas Jefferson’s outright rejection of the divinity of Jesus, which for these loons is heresy of the first order.
Mark S.
@jl:
No, no, keep going. Pretty soon Bachmann will start making sense.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@jl:
Heh. My dad almost got transferred there when I was 14 or 15 (’79-’80). There but for the grace of God go I.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): The video was right, and nice choice BTW, but I got a commercial first about hair care product.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich:
De nada and fucking Vevo…
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Sure, basic history. One of many tragic ironies there is that the Southern states acted against their interests by counting their slaves as “people”.
freelancer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well yes, I know well enough about the Jefferson Bible, but I was thinking about Founding Fathers that objected to slavery.
Bootlegger Bootleggerovich
Ok, gotta crash, late on the EST. ‘Nite.
Neil G
@RalfW: It seems to be their latest “Armeggedon” strategy. They depend on the knee-jerk reactions to a galvanizing statement so the Tucson fallout has put them in a bind. How do you fire up the patriots if you can’t call Dem’s Nazis and terrorists? How do you equate anyone who holds differing opinions to the nation’s enemies (or history’s worst nightmares) without seeming to call for their deaths? Well, here’s an idea; we’ll ask if this is the last generation for America. Most of their other galvanizing statements have worked so I wouldn’t be too dismissive of this one.
jurassicpork
Please help us. Time’s running out.
Loneoak
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich:
Your Grand Narratives, we eats them.
Restrung
nahh. Lincoln was a R, so there.
Or, Lincoln was good, or at least everybody thinks so, so if I say Lincoln, linkin linkin all the time, then I’m all cool too. And he was a Republican. Just Like Me, because I freed the slaves like Lincoln because I’m a Republican. so there. I seriously would have. because he did. except the Wal*Mart slaves. they don’t count.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Bootlegger Bootleggerovich:
Well, depends on how you look at it. The non-slave states had much greater populations. The interests of the slave states would have been subjected to the will of the more industrialized, more populated northern states. As it worked out, the southern states had far more power than they should have. Look at the percentage of southern Presidents in the antebellum compared to the percentage since the end of the Civil War. And without those extra votes, they couldn’t have forced the Missouri Compromise.
What shocks me is that when they still had so much power in Congress, the slave states didn’t write more anti-immigration legislature. It was all of that migration to the free soil states from Ireland, Germany and the Empire from, roughly, 1830 on that finally broke the slave states’ hold on Congress and forced the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Never forget that at the same time Lincoln and the GOP were being elected, Kansas was preparing to apply for statehood as a free state- which it received on 1/29/1861.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Loneoak:
Hey, who’s going to the Super Bowl?
:)
Villago Delenda Est
@freelancer:
Yeah, but the wingtards swear that they, with their intense desire for a vile Saudi style theocracy, are the true heirs to the Founders, not those crazy liberals.
Wile E. Quixote
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Dude, it totally was. You see, the 3/5ths compromise meant that the slaves were only 60 percent slaves, so do the McEstimation, being 60 percent of a slave is 40 percent better than being 100 percent of a slave. I mean duh.
Loneoak
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
It sure as hell ain’t Obama! ‘Cuz the Bears still suck!
Did you see Woodson shit talking Obama? Hilarious.
Anne Laurie
@goatchowder:
John Quincy Adams wasn’t exactly a Founding Father, but I think the kidnapped Africans on the Amistad had reason to be grateful his daddy had raised him right.
Anne Laurie
@jl:
Patriotic-ness broke her calculator!
(I refuse to use the respectable word ‘patriotism’ in connection to the Teabagger looniness.)
I suspect the 21-generation thing is some kind of Mormon prophecy filtered through Glenn Beck. Although it may just be the fullmetal batshite-right listening to DFH woo-woo about the ‘seventh generation’ and ramping it up to be, like, THREE TIMES MORE PROPHETIC ! ! !
Chuck Butcher
Considering the level of nonsense theater that is the SOTU the GOP and Dems sitting together and the Ryan and Bachman responses amount to about the same thing. I suppose that was a nice enough speech from the Pres but as far as having anything to do with how things go over the next year … well shoot – the House is what it is for the next two years.
freelancer
test post.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Loneoak:
Yeah, I caught some of it. :D
As I told someone else on Sunday: You can’t trust Obama’s NFL picks. Growing up in Hawaii, the closest thing to pro football that he would have experienced was the Pro Bowl.
Chris
@Tom Hilton:
“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.”
– Abe Lincoln
AxelFoley
@BGinCHI:
On a scale of 1 to 10, she dialed it up to 11.
AxelFoley
@Donut:
Shit, beat me to it. I shoulda known somebody would.
agrippa
Well, the GOP is not about to cooperate with Democrats. The GOP does not have the ability to cooperate. That, to me, is the bottom line. The GOP will put out all sorts of empty rhetoric; but, at the end of the day, their main concern is: taxes.
Taxes are taxes the only political issue that really concerns them.
What really gets them into a conniption fit are cultural issues. There is too much of this ‘diversity’ business.
Barkley G
It doesn’t hurt to note, in a Jonah Goldberg fashion, that Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand who was a disciple of 19th Century Social Darwinist Thinking.
It is not surprising that Ryan is motivated about the survival of the fittest.
The Tragically Flip
@Barkley G:
Of course, that Lincoln was advocating for the very opposite of what Ryan and Rand believe is central to Ryan’s point.
Jay C
@ Dennis G.:
With all due respect, Mr. G: You’re just noticing this NOW?
Basic theory for rhetorical analysis in 2011: the accuracy of any historical citation from American history will vary in direct inverse proportion to the ideological bias of the citer.
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Interesting point re North/South and immigration policy: an off-the-guess is that Northern States (who depended in large part on a stream of [white] immigrants for their economic growth) would have simply outvoted the South in Congress to kill any restrictive policy. Although with assclowns like Buchanan in the Executive (who, if he’d gotten his way, would have admitted Kansas as a slave State), who knows what godawful policy might have been pushed through to “keep the peace”
drkrick
@jl:
Actually, his will freed them at Martha’s death. She freed them early when she figured out that living on a plantation surrounded by people who were going to be freed when you died wasn’t the safest possible situation.
debbie
“Word string.” What a great way to describe Ryan’s delivery. I watched his hour-long interview on Charlie Rose late last year, and he didn’t take a single breath. Even so, he wasn’t able to disguise the fact that his program was a scam job. Isn’t that the usual impression one takes from a fast talker?
Ryan put me in mind of the character Burt Lancaster played in The Rainmaker.
karen marie
@FlipYrWhig: You need Lincoln to prove Republicans aren’t racist.
FlipYrWhig
@karen marie: Good point.
JWL
HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, GEORGIA
September 12, 1864
JAMES M. CALHOUN, Mayor, E. E. PAWSON and S. C. WELLS, representing City Council of Atlanta.
GENTLEMEN: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace , not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose.
Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such thing at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.
You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.
We don’t want your negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and, if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it. You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, by the original compact of Government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, customhouses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve.
Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.
But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.
Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta.
Yours in haste,
W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General commanding.
Dennis G.
@JWL:
Back in the day, treason had consequences.
Uncle Billy could write a nice letter. I wonder if that is where the term ‘cracker’ came from…
Derek H
Thank you for bringing this up! It blew my mind last night. In fact, I’ve noticed quite a few “You know, Lincoln was a Republican” statements online in the past few weeks. I’m not sure WHY it blows my mind anymore; ten minutes with Glen Beck’s chalkboard is all one needs to see to understand we’re not dealing with rational people.
@JWL. Love the post. I’ve been revisiting Sherman’s bio these days myself.