I have not forgotten my promised posts on the whole American Civil War and related business. In fact I had post 1 almost complete when I accidentally deleted it. Like many people that spend a few hours on a post just to see it disappear. I uttered a cuss word and then said I am not touching this for a week.
However I hope to get that out this week. In fact I shall be engaging some interesting and controversial takes on the Civil WAR by a Columnist that is often Catholic Favorite . That is the Internet columnist published in Asia Times Online since January 2000 that writes under the under the pseudonym Spengler. Hopefully I will do that tonight because it brings up some disturbing questions related to our current environment.
I thought of these columns today as a saw a post at VOX NOVA called On Binary Distinctions And American Politics
Now of course I disagree with a good bit of this post. Political life in America as well as John McCain is far more complex than that post alludes too. (For instance on a current political level how does John McCain leading role in bringing normalization of relations with Vietnam fit into that caricature of him).
But there is truth mixed into there too and one must heed those warnings despite I think it being used in a misguided current political agenda sense here.
However it struck me that this same argument was used by many of a American Catholic to oppose the Union fighting the South during the Civil war. American Catholic views during the Civil War , like all many things related to that trying time, are full of myths and too many simplistic accounts. I hope to do a post examining all of that to finish off my Lincoln Bashing Civil War Myths.
However many good people compromised for the greater good over the issue of Slavery for such a period of time that it led to the most horrific war in American history. In fact before that it led to such things as the former FREE SLAVE area we know as TEXAS becoming a land of slavery.
Issues such as abortion, how to deal with radical Islam , and the current crisis with Georgia seem touch on this issue of when have to compromise with evil and when you must fight it. I am not sure that there is clear line. However there is at times a price to pay for compromising and not knowing when to draw a line in the sand.
In any event the argument that Morning Minion puts up to some extent is the one that factions of American Catholics put up during that time as to the Slavery issue. It should be noted that a great many Catholics made an argument that the Abolitionist were engaged in that same world view the Minion s talking about. Perhaps they were? Were they right?
Did too much compromising and too much looking out for the common good ( one might call that looking after our own hides and self interest at times ) bring on something more terrible?
Please ignore Obama vote for Infanticide because he is for national health care and raising the Minimum wage
versus
However I hope to get that out this week. In fact I shall be engaging some interesting and controversial takes on the Civil WAR by a Columnist that is often Catholic Favorite . That is the Internet columnist published in Asia Times Online since January 2000 that writes under the under the pseudonym Spengler. Hopefully I will do that tonight because it brings up some disturbing questions related to our current environment.
I thought of these columns today as a saw a post at VOX NOVA called On Binary Distinctions And American Politics
Now of course I disagree with a good bit of this post. Political life in America as well as John McCain is far more complex than that post alludes too. (For instance on a current political level how does John McCain leading role in bringing normalization of relations with Vietnam fit into that caricature of him).
But there is truth mixed into there too and one must heed those warnings despite I think it being used in a misguided current political agenda sense here.
However it struck me that this same argument was used by many of a American Catholic to oppose the Union fighting the South during the Civil war. American Catholic views during the Civil War , like all many things related to that trying time, are full of myths and too many simplistic accounts. I hope to do a post examining all of that to finish off my Lincoln Bashing Civil War Myths.
However many good people compromised for the greater good over the issue of Slavery for such a period of time that it led to the most horrific war in American history. In fact before that it led to such things as the former FREE SLAVE area we know as TEXAS becoming a land of slavery.
Issues such as abortion, how to deal with radical Islam , and the current crisis with Georgia seem touch on this issue of when have to compromise with evil and when you must fight it. I am not sure that there is clear line. However there is at times a price to pay for compromising and not knowing when to draw a line in the sand.
In any event the argument that Morning Minion puts up to some extent is the one that factions of American Catholics put up during that time as to the Slavery issue. It should be noted that a great many Catholics made an argument that the Abolitionist were engaged in that same world view the Minion s talking about. Perhaps they were? Were they right?
Did too much compromising and too much looking out for the common good ( one might call that looking after our own hides and self interest at times ) bring on something more terrible?
Please ignore Obama vote for Infanticide because he is for national health care and raising the Minimum wage
versus
lets ignore the issue of Africans Americans having Inherent rights so we can focus on the common good that is shown in the Democrat platform of President Buchanan.
Do devout Catholics need to choose Douglas Stephens or Lincoln in this election cycle of 2008? Lincoln himself was a compromiser but he knew Slavery was a cancer that a line in the sand must be drawn on.
Lets not so focus on this narrow religious view of slavery but make it more rare (This was not working to say the least)
Versus
Let us not focus on this issue of Abortion and the issue of legality and stoppings its spread through legisative action and other wedge issues but work to make it rare through other means (this too has had limited results)
Speaking of Lincoln and returning to Spengler, I was struck by his column Happy birthday, Abe - pass the blood in which I will be getting into tonight. This part is both inspiring and terrifying at the same time:
For those who do not know the Americans well, it is much easier to understand why the Southerners should have taken up arms in the pursuit of wealth and status than to understand why the North should have expended so much blood and treasure to stop them. What was the fate of an African slave in Cuba to a farm boy from Wisconsin? Yet Lincoln's Republicans found the prospect of a slave empire to the south sufficiently repugnant as to merit a terrible war. A cloud of myth protects Americans from the truth about bloody Abe Lincoln. His statue sits in a mock-Greek temple like the statue of Zeus at Olympus. Chiseled into the marble are Lincoln's words to the nation weeks before the war's end, an abiding source of horror for European tourists:
Do devout Catholics need to choose Douglas Stephens or Lincoln in this election cycle of 2008? Lincoln himself was a compromiser but he knew Slavery was a cancer that a line in the sand must be drawn on.
Lets not so focus on this narrow religious view of slavery but make it more rare (This was not working to say the least)
Versus
Let us not focus on this issue of Abortion and the issue of legality and stoppings its spread through legisative action and other wedge issues but work to make it rare through other means (this too has had limited results)
Speaking of Lincoln and returning to Spengler, I was struck by his column Happy birthday, Abe - pass the blood in which I will be getting into tonight. This part is both inspiring and terrifying at the same time:
For those who do not know the Americans well, it is much easier to understand why the Southerners should have taken up arms in the pursuit of wealth and status than to understand why the North should have expended so much blood and treasure to stop them. What was the fate of an African slave in Cuba to a farm boy from Wisconsin? Yet Lincoln's Republicans found the prospect of a slave empire to the south sufficiently repugnant as to merit a terrible war. A cloud of myth protects Americans from the truth about bloody Abe Lincoln. His statue sits in a mock-Greek temple like the statue of Zeus at Olympus. Chiseled into the marble are Lincoln's words to the nation weeks before the war's end, an abiding source of horror for European tourists:
"Fondly do we hope - fervently do we pray - that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
It sounds like a sort of religious fanaticism that would make the mild Methodist George W Bush hide under the bed-covers. Yet that is how the Northerners sang as off to war they marched: "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat/He is sifting out the souls of men before his judgment seat/O be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet!" A noteworthy conclusion is that America fought the bloodiest war in its history (and a bloodier war than any in Western Europe since 1648) in order to prevent an imperialist war, that is, out of fanatical religious principle. Americans find it too painful to think about; should they by some means re-establish the frame of mind of 1860, may God help their enemies.
There is tension between the post from Vox Nova and this Lincoln outlook to say the least. Both are correct but when one must cross that line from one to the another is a difficult issue indeed.
Was Slavery as practiced in the United States something that threatened a whole people that what was indeed a cancer that would be the whole house of cards now?
Is abortion now approaching justification for infanticide and bleeding over into so many other issues on a similar level?
Shall we vote Douglas and Buchanan and a those that compromised for the " common good" before them or shall we vote Lincoln in 2008?
I suppose that is that is the question and it is a question that goes into other such issues like the ones I cited above.
I am not saying McCain is a Lincoln reborn. However the way the culture is going I wonder if this election will be pivotal for American Catholics and how they vote from now on. I hope they take the more Lincoln alternative.
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