Who's your least favorite president from each party?

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Uh, no, it isn't. Because unless you've never heard of a war economy before, you'd know that tariffs and protectionism generally are entirely justifiable during a period of war: it guarantees business and stability to native industry, and therefore prevents them from selling arms and ammunition to the enemy. And so Lincoln's economic programme was formulated in the light of Southern secession; he was a free soiler capitalist otherwise. Not, of course, that I expect your primitive Southern brain to be able to wrap itself around this fine a point.

No, interventionism and protectionism are not justifiable regardless of whether you want to call it a "war economy."

But then again, in my bizarre version of libertarianism, wars of aggression aren't justifiable in the first place.

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Presumably it would have followed the general Western trend toward abolishing slavery, something accomplished without mass-bloodshed in just about every other country that did so.

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The very existence of a state with the power of coercive taxation makes all workers essentially into slaves.

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I don't see how your Soviet comparison could possibly work here.

 Europe abolished slavery without war; why is abolishing it with war better?

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Wow, quite an altruist that mythical Lincoln in your mind must be. We're talking here about the real Abe Lincoln, the white supremacist corporatist who would do anything to advance his own political ambitions.

[Hash]

My display name will remain to reflect my belief in individual liberty, something so despised by that warmongering tyrant Lincoln and his supporters. I would appreciate not being lectured about libertarianism by a non-libertarian such as yourself.

Your display name is also that of an epic failure.

[Badger]

Please, one day someone of the Lincoln dislikers could expalin me how the man who abolished slavery could be the worst president.

Yeah, I don't know how Americans could possibly not worship the man who on behalf of corporate interests started an unnecessary war that killed 500,000 of their countrymen, took upon himself dictatorial powers, oversaw war crimes, put the U.S. Constitution through the shredder, completely destroyed the carefully balanced government system crafted by the Founding Fathers, and was an all-around self-serving two-faced dirtbag. What's not to love about old Dishonest Abe?

I really don't understand why self-proclaimed 'libertarians' perpetuate this ancient canard. One of the central credos of classical liberal theory, first promulgated by John Locke, is that all men are possessed of the innate right of self-ownership. If one man owns another human being, he is contravening that basic right and, therefore, subjecting him to tyranny. Lincoln may have done some morally questionable things in pursuit of winning the war, but was, on the whole, fighting for a righteous cause.

I believe this is simply a side-effect of that decaying fusionist philosophy that will hopefully fall away completely when that particular ideological superstructure totally buckles.

Oh yes,  I forgot all about the fact that Lincoln sent a half-a-million men to their deaths for the "righteous cause" of forcing tariffs upon the South to enable his industrialist corporate clients to monopolize the market under a wall of favoritism and protectionism.

What was it you were rambling on about?

So Lincon was a slave to corporate industrialists, but Harding and Coolidge who you listed as your favorite presidents weren't...

Awesome. I can't understand why libertarians can't win a single state house seat nationwide.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Please, one day someone of the Lincoln dislikers could expalin me how the man who abolished slavery could be the worst president.

Yeah, I don't know how Americans could possibly not worship the man who on behalf of corporate interests started an unnecessary war that killed 500,000 of their countrymen, took upon himself dictatorial powers, oversaw war crimes, put the U.S. Constitution through the shredder, completely destroyed the carefully balanced government system crafted by the Founding Fathers, and was an all-around self-serving two-faced dirtbag. What's not to love about old Dishonest Abe?

I really don't understand why self-proclaimed 'libertarians' perpetuate this ancient canard. One of the central credos of classical liberal theory, first promulgated by John Locke, is that all men are possessed of the innate right of self-ownership. If one man owns another human being, he is contravening that basic right and, therefore, subjecting him to tyranny. Lincoln may have done some morally questionable things in pursuit of winning the war, but was, on the whole, fighting for a righteous cause.

I believe this is simply a side-effect of that decaying fusionist philosophy that will hopefully fall away completely when that particular ideological superstructure totally buckles.

Oh yes,  I forgot all about the fact that Lincoln sent a half-a-million men to their deaths for the "righteous cause" of forcing tariffs upon the South to enable his industrialist corporate clients to monopolize the market under a wall of favoritism and protectionism.

What was it you were rambling on about?

So Lincon was a slave to corporate industrialists, but Harding and Coolidge who you listed as your favorite presidents weren't...

Awesome. I can't understand why libertarians can't win a single state house seat nationwide.

Your bizarre attempt at making a point is absurd considering neither Harding nor Coolidge started a war on behalf of corporate interests, nor did they seize dictatorial powers and throw out constitutional rights. In fact Harding restored constitutional rights and liberties lost during the tyranny of Woodrow Wilson, pardoning political prisoner Eugene Debs and calming the Red Scare created by Wilson, as well as bringing a formal end to U.S. involvement in World War I by signing the Knox-Porter Resolution.

[??????????]

Wow, Libertas is a mega FF. Keep up the good work! Glad to see someone is finally 150% correct around here. That's almost to the "t" my platform!

[Scam of God]

No, interventionism and protectionism are not justifiable regardless of whether you want to call it a "war economy."

Oh, right. So, I suppose then that you'd not take any issue with Lockheed-Martin selling the latest scramjet technology to the Taliban?

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I see. You will, naturally then, condemn the rebel attack on Fort Sumter as the initiation of a War of Southern Secession in the pursuit of the preservation of a socialist economic system, won't you? 

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Oh, of course. I'd forgotten that there were no other wars fought against slavery. How stupid I was to forget that the American Civil War was the only such one.

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Don't try to change the subject, white trash. Do you or do you not deny that the antebellum slave system in the American South was a form of socialism? And do you therefore deny that your gap-toothed inbred ancestors were in fact fighting against modernizing capitalism and in favor of a backwards agrarian socialism?

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Wow, Libertas is a mega FF. Keep up the good work! Glad to see someone is finally 150% correct around here. That's almost to the "t" my platform!

Thank you, glad there is someone else here with a sense of historical reality.

Just was trying to have a civil discussion but right away the Lincolnites drag the whole debate down into mud-slinging and childish insults.

[Scam of God]

Wow, Libertas is a mega FF. Keep up the good work! Glad to see someone is finally 150% correct around here. That's almost to the "t" my platform!

Thank you, glad there is someone else here with a sense of historical reality.

Just was trying to have a civil discussion but right away the Lincolnites drag the whole debate down into mud-slinging and childish insults.

Does it make you feel like any more of a man knowing that your ancestors were too lazy to work the land themselves, unlike mine, who were some of the first sodbusters in the region? Are you any more "proud of your heritage" when you realize that these lazy peckerwoods - quite in contrast to the industrious and individualistic laborers in the North - enslaved the "means of production" for collective use, like good, uneducated proletariat?

[??????????]

Certainly the poor Irish working 14 hours a day had loads of liberty in the great industrial north. I love how you just assume everything about Libertas w/out even knowing the first thing about him. Many very credible historians agree with a lot of the positions he has posted here.

[Scam of God]

Certainly the poor Irish working 14 hours a day had loads of liberty in the great industrial north. I love how you just assume everything about Libertas w/out even knowing the first thing about him. Many very credible historians agree with a lot of the positions he has posted here.

And? They did it themselves, honestly. My ancestors understood that labor, and labor alone, produces anything of worth; and, in order to honestly earn what they valued, they produced it themselves. His ancestors, to the contrary, skirted honest work whenever feasible, and enslaved an entire people to avoid it.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Oh, right. So, I suppose then that you'd not take any issue with Lockheed-Martin selling the latest scramjet technology to the Taliban?

No, I can't say that I would, nor can I see how that relates to the issue of mid-19th century protectionism. 

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The state of South Carolina had declared its independence from the United States, and the C.S.A. had attempted to negotiate the purchase of U.S. federal property on its territory. It was Lincoln's refusal to negotiate that made war inevitable.

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You are seriously comparing Caribbean slave revolts to Lincoln's war on the South?  Wow.

How many lame and ridiculous comparisons are you going to make before you realize that you're in way over your head?

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I don't think your white supremacist hero Lincoln would like that remark.

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Slavery was an inhumane evil, but to call it 'socialism' would I think be a bit of a stretch.

[Scam of God]

No, I can't say that I would,

Of course not. Because to feel otherwise would blemish your otherwise impeccable moron credentials.

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Because Lincoln's economic policies were exactly that, designed specifically to prevent American companies and American allies (chiefly Britain) from exporting goods to the Confederacy, and not, by any means, a long-term economic programme for peacetime? Ah, but realizing this would require subtlety on your part - something that inbreds are not, at all, known for.

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Wrong, jackass. Fort Sumter was attacked in the middle of negotiations, naturally bringing them to a stand-still. Lincoln's only mistake was in believing that the agrarian socialists would hold true to their word long enough for a compromise to be reached.

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Yes, I am, because you categorically claimed that

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I proved you wrong. Traitors seem least of all to like the truth, because they are in fact traitors to truth.

*snip puerile revanchism*

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Uh, yes, it's socialism in every way possible.

What is socialism? Mass control over the means of production. What were the 'means of production' in the antebellum, agrarian South? Slaves. Who had control over them? Whites. Hence, Southern slavery was agrarian socialism, and you are a collectivist and anti-individualist for supporting an economic system that rejects the right of self-ownership of the individual man over his own being.

[JJones]

Federalist
John Adams

Democratic-Republican
James Monroe

Whigs
Milliard Fillmore

Democrat
Lyndon B. Johnson

Republican
Benjamin Harrison

[SPC]

No, I can't say that I would,

Of course not. Because to feel otherwise would blemish your otherwise impeccable moron credentials.

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Because Lincoln's economic policies were exactly that, designed specifically to prevent American companies and American allies (chiefly Britain) from exporting goods to the Confederacy, and not, by any means, a long-term economic programme for peacetime? Ah, but realizing this would require subtlety on your part - something that inbreds are not, at all, known for.

So, statist policies are okay during wartime? That's sounds very neo-connish to me.

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Wrong, jackass. Fort Sumter was attacked in the middle of negotiations, naturally bringing them to a stand-still. Lincoln's only mistake was in believing that the agrarian socialists would hold true to their word long enough for a compromise to be reached. [/quote]

What negotiations? If a state says they've seceded, they're independent. End of discussion. No "negotions" are necessary.

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Yes, I am, because you categorically claimed that

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I proved you wrong. Traitors seem least of all to like the truth, because they are in fact traitors to truth.

*snip puerile revanchism*[/quote]

So, the death of thousands of Southern civilians is justified because a minority of them did evil things? Very collectivist.

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Uh, yes, it's socialism in every way possible.

What is socialism? Mass control over the means of production. What were the 'means of production' in the antebellum, agrarian South? Slaves. Who had control over them? Whites. Hence, Southern slavery was agrarian socialism, and you are a collectivist and anti-individualist for supporting an economic system that rejects the right of self-ownership of the individual man over his own being.
[/quote]

That is collectivist of you to assume that all Southern Whites took part in slavery, when only a minority of them held slaves. And I don't believe Libertas ever voiced support for slavery. You, on the other hand, have justified the killing of innocents in the name of "ending slavery".

[SPC]

Wow, Libertas is a mega FF. Keep up the good work! Glad to see someone is finally 150% correct around here. That's almost to the "t" my platform!

Thank you, glad there is someone else here with a sense of historical reality.

Just was trying to have a civil discussion but right away the Lincolnites drag the whole debate down into mud-slinging and childish insults.

Does it make you feel like any more of a man knowing that your ancestors were too lazy to work the land themselves, unlike mine, who were some of the first sodbusters in the region? Are you any more "proud of your heritage" when you realize that these lazy peckerwoods - quite in contrast to the industrious and individualistic laborers in the North - enslaved the "means of production" for collective use, like good, uneducated proletariat?

Wow, so now one's ancestry is relevant to political debate? Very racist and collectivist.

[Scam of God]

So, statist policies are okay during wartime? That's sounds very neo-connish to me.

Presuming you want to, you know, win a war? Most certainly. That's why idiot paleocons like yourself would prove hilariously inept running any sort of military campaign, and ought to be kept away at all costs from such a position.

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Sumter was still the property of the United States government, dumbass. Would you like to justify to me the ethical validity of attacking your neighbor's property if it exists on your land?

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Just like the death of millions of Soviet citizens would have been justified had it come to it, most certainly.

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I understand that paleoconservatives like yourself are unthinking, unblinking, mindless drones designed to propagate whatever sort of rubbish Lew Rockwell vomits in your general direction, but you do yourself a disservice by refusing to at least think for yourself. No economic system that denies the right of self-ownership to any man is morally justifiable, and all of them are enemies of the capitalist state of affairs. By even attempting to justify slavery, you pave the way for socialism.

[Scam of God]

Wow, Libertas is a mega FF. Keep up the good work! Glad to see someone is finally 150% correct around here. That's almost to the "t" my platform!

Thank you, glad there is someone else here with a sense of historical reality.

Just was trying to have a civil discussion but right away the Lincolnites drag the whole debate down into mud-slinging and childish insults.

Does it make you feel like any more of a man knowing that your ancestors were too lazy to work the land themselves, unlike mine, who were some of the first sodbusters in the region? Are you any more "proud of your heritage" when you realize that these lazy peckerwoods - quite in contrast to the industrious and individualistic laborers in the North - enslaved the "means of production" for collective use, like good, uneducated proletariat?

Wow, so now one's ancestry is relevant to political debate? Very racist and collectivist.

Most certainly so. I am convinced that the world-historical laziness and lack of competence of Southerners is heritable, the result of a genetic bottleneck.

[SPC]

No, interventionism and protectionism are not justifiable regardless of whether you want to call it a "war economy."

Oh, right. So, I suppose then that you'd not take any issue with Lockheed-Martin selling the latest scramjet technology to the Taliban?

I thought you were a "non-interventionist"?

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I see. You will, naturally then, condemn the rebel attack on Fort Sumter as the initiation of a War of Southern Secession in the pursuit of the preservation of a socialist economic system, won't you?  [/quote]

How is it an attack when the Union provoked the attack by having a military base of another sovereign country?

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Oh, of course. I'd forgotten that there were no other wars fought against slavery. How stupid I was to forget that the American Civil War was the only such one. [/quote]

So now starting wars is justified when you want to force your economic system on another people. Sounds pretty Trotskyist to me.

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Don't try to change the subject, white trash. Do you or do you not deny that the antebellum slave system in the American South was a form of socialism? And do you therefore deny that your gap-toothed inbred ancestors were in fact fighting against modernizing capitalism and in favor of a backwards agrarian socialism?
[/quote]

The economic system their country had is irrelevent. Was the invasion of Iraq justified because the Baath Party had socialist policies?  How about U.S. intervention in Vietnam, to provent Indochina from becoming "socialist"? And I can't help but notice that despite not having ever seen or known Libertas, you immediately assume that he is "white trash", "gap-toothed", and "inbred".

[Scam of God]

I thought you were a "non-interventionist"?

If someone tries to burn my property - even if it's on theirs - they can expect a full intervention of buckshot. Likewise--

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Because Fort Sumter was bought and paid for by the Federal government, constructed using its monies, on land that it owned at the time of construction? I understand that pissant communists like yourself, because you reject property rights, feel free to attack the property of another; I am slightly more reserved than you are, in that I believe the Southerners had no right whatsoever to lay a finger on Federal property, regardless of whose land it was claimed to be on.

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If they attack my property in the name of their socialist economic system? Most certainly.

*snip socialist revanchism*

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

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Because Lincoln's economic policies were exactly that, designed specifically to prevent American companies and American allies (chiefly Britain) from exporting goods to the Confederacy, and not, by any means, a long-term economic programme for peacetime? Ah, but realizing this would require subtlety on your part - something that inbreds are not, at all, known for.

Um, protectionism had to do with tariffs and trade restrictions to make domestically-produced goods more competitive with foreign (primarily European) imports, and it went on long before the Confederacy and the war came into existence. Like other Northern Republicans, Lincoln would have advocated such an economic policy because it was politically advantageous to do so.

"Protectionism" had nothing to do with stopping U.S. goods from being exported to a country they were at war with. That you would be mistaken about the meaning of a basic economic policy is laughable and betrays your total lack of knowledge beneath that thin veneer of arrogance.

And a primary purpose of the war was to ensure Northern manufacturers would indeed have access to sell their goods competitively in Southern markets.  

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Making things up now? Lincoln's stubborn policy from day one was to refuse to acknowledge the existence of the C.S.A. in his fanatical devotion to the mythical "Union."

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You proved me wrong by comparing slave revolts on Caribbean islands to a civil war initiated by the President of the United States whose initial goal was to simply preserve the union at all costs?

If you have an example of Britain or any other European slave-owning power being engulfed in a civil war in order to end slavery, do let me know. There, I've told you exactly what you need to do to make your case, don't embarrass yourself with another ridiculous non sequitur of a comparison.

[SPC]

So, statist policies are okay during wartime? That's sounds very neo-connish to me.

Presuming you want to, you know, win a war? Most certainly. That's why idiot paleocons like yourself would prove hilariously inept running any sort of military campaign, and ought to be kept away at all costs from such a position.

So I'm a pro-choice, pro-immigration, pro-free trade paleocon?
And, as a libertarian, I care far more about the liberties of people than winning any military campaign. And military campaigns would be rare if you were peaceful with all nations, regardless of their domestic policies.

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Sumter was still the property of the United States government, dumbass. Would you like to justify to me the ethical validity of attacking your neighbor's property if it exists on your land? [/quote]

And how is it justified to have a military base on another sovereign nation's soil without its consent? Especially when that nation is intent on attacking your nation for tariff revenues?

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Just like the death of millions of Soviet citizens would have been justified had it come to it, most certainly. [/quote]

That is awful! You would be willing to kill millions of innocent people just so you could have "regime change" in Russia?! And why exactly do you bitch about neocons who do that same thing in Iraq?

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Again, to call me a paleoconservative is ridiculous, given my positions on social issues.

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And what is the point of the ad hominem attack?

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I disagree with Lew Rockwell on abortion and immigration, but he had good positions on most other things. Just because I agree with him most of the times doesn't mean I "propogate" what he says.

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By the way, have you stopped beating your wife?

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And where have I justified slavery?

[SPC]

I thought you were a "non-interventionist"?

If someone tries to burn my property - even if it's on theirs - they can expect a full intervention of buckshot. Likewise--

Even if I accept all of your bullsh**t about the Civil War, wouldn't the appropriate response be to recover the lost property, rather than killing hundreds of thousands of people that had nothing to do with the incident?

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Because Fort Sumter was bought and paid for by the Federal government, constructed using its monies, on land that it owned at the time of construction? I understand that pissant communists like yourself, because you reject property rights, feel free to attack the property of another; I am slightly more reserved than you are, in that I believe the Southerners had no right whatsoever to lay a finger on Federal property, regardless of whose land it was claimed to be on.[/quote]

And, assuming that you are correct, the Federal government "bought and paid" for Fort Sumter with money stolen from taxpayers. Thus, the "puchase" was illegitimate. And I am as far from a communist as you can get. I would question whether you are a communist, since you believe that the State has the right to own property.

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If they attack my property in the name of their socialist economic system? Most certainly.

*snip socialist revanchism*
[/quote]

So would Saddam Hussein have been justified in imposing a Baathist dictatorship in America because we 'attacked "his" property', if he were capable?

[Alexander Hamilton]

Federalist- John Adams
Democrat-Republican- James Madison (come on folks, if the British have set fire to Washington D.C. on your watch, you've failed.)
Whigs- Zachary Taylor
Democratic- Grover Cleveland
Republican- Calvin Coolidge

!!!!!!!!!!

[Scam of God]

Um, protectionism had to do with tariffs and trade restrictions to make domestically-produced goods more competitive with foreign (primarily European) imports, and it went on long before the Confederacy and the war came into existence. Like other Northern Republicans, Lincoln would have advocated such an economic policy because it was politically advantageous to do so.

Wow. This... wow. What are they teaching you in the schools down there?

Lincoln's economic plan is well known. It entailed the temporary nationalization of industries related to the war effort (once more, to ensure that they did not supply the Confederacy with weapons or ammunition and to ensure the Federal government's monopoly over the same), along with plans to restructure the Southern economy towards an industrial focus, eventually integrating the Freedmen into the free-market structure.

On the whole, this is a remarkably non-statist economic platform for the time; in comparison, Brazil's conservatives completely nationalized all industries during its own civil war.

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See above. It's becoming increasingly apparent that you have no real knowledge of the issues involved whatsoever.

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Uh, no. Lincoln received Southern emissaries prior to the Battle of Fort Sumter; he quite simply refused to recognize their independence, and justifiably so. Therefore the Southerners launched a war of aggression against the North.  

*snip socialist revanchism*

[SPC]

Wow, Libertas is a mega FF. Keep up the good work! Glad to see someone is finally 150% correct around here. That's almost to the "t" my platform!

Thank you, glad there is someone else here with a sense of historical reality.

Just was trying to have a civil discussion but right away the Lincolnites drag the whole debate down into mud-slinging and childish insults.

Does it make you feel like any more of a man knowing that your ancestors were too lazy to work the land themselves, unlike mine, who were some of the first sodbusters in the region? Are you any more "proud of your heritage" when you realize that these lazy peckerwoods - quite in contrast to the industrious and individualistic laborers in the North - enslaved the "means of production" for collective use, like good, uneducated proletariat?

Wow, so now one's ancestry is relevant to political debate? Very racist and collectivist.

Most certainly so. I am convinced that the world-historical laziness and lack of competence of Southerners is heritable, the result of a genetic bottleneck.

That is so racist it doesn't even warrant a response. If you said that same thing about my (Jewish) race, nobody would hesitate to call you a neo-Nazi.