he had an indian as a vice president. Wilson is still the most racist president evar.

3/27/2007 6:31:34 PM

I'm very inclined to agree with you on Wilson.

However, its hard to compare the racism of presidents during the modern era and those during the antebellum days.

3/27/2007 6:43:09 PM

1910 =/= antebellum

3/27/2007 6:48:50 PM

anteGreatWar

3/27/2007 6:50:03 PM

yeah, 1910 isnt antebellum era

but Wilson did grow up in the antebellum period

[Edited on March 27, 2007 at 6:51 PM. Reason : ,]

3/27/2007 6:50:50 PM

I was counting 1910 as the modern era, not as antebellum.

My point was that its difficult to call him the most racist president when there were clearly ones in the antebellum period that supported slavery. Its all about political period.

3/27/2007 6:53:25 PM

This Lincoln-hating is adorable.

Every discussion involving the Civil War The War of Northern Aggression is like a little wacko petri dish



[Edited on March 27, 2007 at 6:57 PM. Reason : .]

3/27/2007 6:55:15 PM

You mean the War of Northern Aggression.

durrrrrrrrrr

3/27/2007 6:56:09 PM

This is neat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_rankings#Liberal_and_conservative_raters

3/27/2007 6:58:44 PM

Quote :

"Like when they fired on Union forces first?"

....In response to the first act of war, stationing troops on foreign soil and refusing to draw them back. The South had great patience with this, and allowed the North plenty of time and opportunity to leave....with more than sufficient warning.

Quote :

"And god forbid lincoln actually defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic."

The constitution is, ultimately, a treatise on limited and self-government (or at least it was then).

Lincoln openly fought against both of these constitutional pillars.

3/27/2007 8:18:05 PM

whoever killed JFK

the world completely changed after that

3/27/2007 8:53:31 PM

the south was never a foriegn nation

3/27/2007 9:00:19 PM

Quote :

"The constitution is, ultimately, a treatise on limited and self-government (or at least it was then)."

Thats the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution.

Give the southern boy shit a rest and open a book.

3/27/2007 9:27:33 PM

Quote :

" ....In response to the first act of war, stationing troops on foreign soil and refusing to draw them back. The South had great patience with this, and allowed the North plenty of time and opportunity to leave....with more than sufficient warning."

you mean land that belonged to the federal government?

Should spain start firing on the rock of gibraltar because it is closer to spain than mainland britain?

and name me one country that recognized the confederacy as its own country. the fact remains that lincoln had every right to quell the insurrection based upon the supremacy clause and the oath to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

why don't you open a history book and learn something instead of repeating the same shit your racist grandfather fed you as a kid.

3/27/2007 9:30:32 PM

the fathers of the confederacy are probably rolling in their grave over the severe abuse of the federal gov't on states rights

3/27/2007 10:50:22 PM

^^But they even wrote their own little constitution

[Edited on March 27, 2007 at 10:51 PM. Reason : .]

3/27/2007 10:50:55 PM

was jefferson davis buried in a dress or did he just wear one while taking long walks in the wood?

3/27/2007 10:51:36 PM

I nominate Jefferson Davis as the worst American.

For being such a cupcake.

3/27/2007 10:56:59 PM

lol

3/27/2007 11:00:22 PM

He should have at least shaved his beard off ffs

3/27/2007 11:44:51 PM

Quote :

"the fact remains that lincoln had every right to quell the insurrection based upon the supremacy clause and the oath to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic."

And to hell with six hundred thousand people who died, right? Small price to pay for upholding Lincoln's interpretation of a little piece of paper.

3/28/2007 9:00:02 AM

wer fightin fur r rats.

.........what

wer fightin fur r rats!

.......wtf get out of here.

3/28/2007 9:33:14 AM

Quote :

"A union held together by force and blood is no union at all."

by that rationale, the war for independence was not legit either?

what are you? Gandhi?

Quote :

"you mean land that belonged to the federal government? ... the fact remains that lincoln had every right to quell the insurrection based upon the supremacy clause and the oath to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic."

basically.

you threatened the union, you married your sister, you were basically un-American, you got owned. oh yeah, and a few black folk were freed along the way.

3/28/2007 9:43:02 AM

Lincoln led the country through a bloody civil war. Why? Because it was neccesary, and if you looked at his views and writings both before and during the war, it wasn't because he wanted to expand federal powers or abuse states' rights. He was one of the last casualties of the civil war, and ironically, probably the one that cost the south the most in the ensuing years.

I think there are plenty of better candidates for this position than Lincoln. How about Jane Fonda?

3/28/2007 9:59:36 AM

Quote :

"you threatened the union, you married your sister, you were basically un-American, you got owned. oh yeah, and a few black folk were freed along the way."

And over 600,000 people died.

In war, unlike on a message board, being "owned" costs more than pride and e-p33n length.

3/28/2007 2:19:26 PM

^ people die in war?!?!?!

thanks for the observation, GoldenViper!!!

3/28/2007 2:30:14 PM

Worst person, hmm. Probably one of those serial killers.

Worst Presidents/politicians? It'd be tie between Lyndon Johnson and Nixon.

3/28/2007 3:37:14 PM

Quote :

"Lincoln led the country through a bloody civil war. Why? Because it was neccesary, and if you looked at his views and writings both before and during the war, it wasn't because he wanted to expand federal powers or abuse states' rights."

Wait, Lincoln was a mercantilist. It was his philosophy that tariffs should be raised to protect domestic industries from "ruinous" competition from British manufacturers. This, of course, immediately shifted the balance of trade and threatened the livelihoods of southern cotton farmers, hence the tax riots. Or do I again need to explain how the international balance of trade works? If Americans do not import British goods due to high tariffs then Englishmen cannot import American goods such as cotton. The drop in demand from Britain leads to an immediate drop in the price of cotton in the South driving down costs for Northern manufacturers which, BTW, freed from British competition raise their own prices (all of this is in the short-run).

So, thanks to Lincoln's tariffs the south gets fucked economically both coming and going: it gets less for what it sells and pays more for what it buys. Brilliant, no wonder northerners loved the policy: they get to pay less for what they buy and paid more for what they sell.

Of course, I have no respect for how the south managed this little spat with the Federal Government. History would have worked out much better had southern governments declared the offending taxes passed by congress as unconstitutional and simply barred their enforcement.

Now, this act would be patently illegal, and defending such laws before southern supreme courts would be dicey, but it would have bought the south time to drain away northern political support for such taxes, or at least allow a more gradual adjustment of the balance of trade.

So, the travesty is not that the south lost the war, but that the war was fought. It was unnecessary, wasteful, a crime against humanity, unnecessary, and a crime against humanity.

Oh, but what about slavery? Well, as it is, slavery did not end in the south after the civil war. So, in a sense the civil war did not fix the problem at all, it just changed how the battle was raged: it was now blacks in collusion with the Federal Government against white southerners and State Governments. It seemed to me that southern hatred of blacks was somewhat bolstered by southern hatred of the Federal Government. Had the civil war not happened such correlations would not have developed and southern states would have eliminated slavery democratically in their own time, as every other democratic nation had done by the end of the 19th century. And then instead of it being viewed as a foreign idea being inflicted upon the people by an alien outsider (the federal government), it would have instead been viewed (and accepted) as the will of the people.

3/28/2007 11:00:26 PM

I'm still waiting for TULIPlovrs response.

3/30/2007 12:28:07 PM

I love how people don't find it the least bit ironic that the government "of the people, by the people, for the people" has to be forced on the people at the point of a bayonet.

3/30/2007 12:38:41 PM

Quote :

"So, thanks to Lincoln's tariffs the south gets fucked economically both coming and going: it gets less for what it sells and pays more for what it buys. Brilliant, no wonder northerners loved the policy: they get to pay less for what they buy and paid more for what they sell. "

the south left before lincoln was sworn in as president

^tell that to the people in north carolina who were forced to fight for the south even though they lived in predominantly unionist areas. Tell that to the people in Tennessee, virginia who didn't want anything to do with the confederacy. I swear, many of you have such a myopic view of the world and history.

I'm fighting for my ritz.

fuck you and your little edible plates.

[Edited on March 30, 2007 at 2:50 PM. Reason : .]

3/30/2007 2:49:31 PM

The tariffs did not start with Lincoln. In fact, the previous president even managed to get the tariffs lowered (bankrupting the federal government, but we digress). Lincoln had sworn to raise the tariffs even higher than they had been. Oh, and at the same time, he was a threat to slavery.

Only one of these threatened to ruin the financial conditions of southerns immediately.

As such, when Lincoln won the election, it became obvious to the south that their grievances were going to be ignored.

[Edited on March 30, 2007 at 3:15 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/30/2007 3:07:36 PM

Quote :

"I love how people don't find it the least bit ironic that the government "of the people, by the people, for the people" has to be forced on the people at the point of a bayonet."

you're right, lets take weapons away from the police and military

3/30/2007 3:59:52 PM

what about that cia guy who was selling shit to the russians. wasn't it robert hanssen or something

3/30/2007 4:01:47 PM

Quote :

"Oh, but what about slavery? Well, as it is, slavery did not end in the south after the civil war. So, in a sense the civil war did not fix the problem at all, it just changed how the battle was raged: it was now blacks in collusion with the Federal Government against white southerners and State Governments. It seemed to me that southern hatred of blacks was somewhat bolstered by southern hatred of the Federal Government. Had the civil war not happened such correlations would not have developed and southern states would have eliminated slavery democratically in their own time, as every other democratic nation had done by the end of the 19th century. And then instead of it being viewed as a foreign idea being inflicted upon the people by an alien outsider (the federal government), it would have instead been viewed (and accepted) as the will of the people."

if that isn't wishful thinking, i don't know what is

3/30/2007 4:02:22 PM

^ Really? No western nation on Earth retained slavery past the 19th century. Why do you think southern states would buck this historical tendency?

3/30/2007 4:08:50 PM

good point.

but the fact that they started the war over their "states rights" makes me think they would sacrifice life and limb to preserve their lifestyle.

3/30/2007 4:13:54 PM

I bet the south would still have Jim Crow laws if they were a separate country.

3/30/2007 4:14:10 PM

it would be called apartheid.

and the evil commie Euro-UN-new world humanist order would have to exert pressure a lot of pressure to end it.

3/30/2007 4:18:04 PM

fuck the argument that slavery could have been waited on. people were being deprived of their god given rights. You don't wait to make an ethical move 20 years down the line, you do it then.

3/30/2007 4:29:21 PM

But in order to secure those rights you needed to violate other rights.

How do you rate one right against another?

It seems to me the only valid course of action is not to yourself become a rights abuser, but to heckle, argue, and shame the existing abusers to stop.

3/30/2007 4:40:22 PM

thanks for setting me straight Gandhi

3/30/2007 4:46:17 PM

ill have to say either herbert hoover or richard nixon


...and im republican

3/30/2007 4:51:40 PM

Quote :

"But in order to secure those rights you needed to violate other rights. How do you rate one right against another? It seems to me the only valid course of action is not to yourself become a rights abuser, but to heckle, argue, and shame the existing abusers to stop."

i put someone's right to not live in bondage over someone's right to own other people.

3/30/2007 5:00:59 PM

That is not the right I am talking about.

The constitution plainly states that such things as slavery are a states rights issue. So, in order to ban slavery you would need to amend the constitution, as was done after the civil war. Otherwise you are violating the right of self determination to the people of the state(s) in question.

But until reaching that point, what you need to do is draft an army, violating the rights of citizens to liberty, etc. etc.

Think of it this way: would you invade a foreign country for the sole purpose of eliminating slavery in that country?

3/30/2007 8:00:31 PM

Or building a democracy?

3/30/2007 9:39:55 PM

^^ we did it for less a few years ago.

3/30/2007 11:13:07 PM

doesn't make it right, just makes our leaders wrong.

3/31/2007 1:59:11 AM

Quote :

"The constitution plainly states that such things as slavery are a states rights issue. So, in order to ban slavery you would need to amend the constitution, as was done after the civil war. Otherwise you are violating the right of self determination to the people of the state(s) in question. "

they just chose to not fullly address it. fuck your right to self-determination if you are holding people in bondage. And yes, I would support this government going into another country militarily to stop them from practicing slavery.

anyway you cut it, you are immoral.

3/31/2007 9:17:13 AM

I more or less argree with Snarkie, oddly enough, but you have to remember that Southern leaders were extremely racist. If I recall correctly, their main argument when looking for support was a racial one. I'm not so sure slavery would have ended so quickly without the Civil War. Look how long apartheid lasted in South Africa.

3/31/2007 11:34:03 AM