How America Dropped The Baton

McCarthy was stopped before he got to the big names.

ETA: Those types of comittees also got names like Lester B Pearson revealed for passing secrets during WW2 to Soviet agents.

“We can’t expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism.”

This says it all.

Using the founders to defend a witch-hunt committee? Incredible.

In any even, the '60s hippies weren't responsible for most of the mess today. Medicare, Medicaid, SS, Fannie Mae/other FM, and central banking all came to America years to decades beforehand.

Twas Mr. Lincoln who started the death knell of the UNITED States. His power grab and shameless use of an issue he couldn't give a rats behind about so he could force the south to give raw materials cheaply to the factories to the north. His over reaching and consolidation of powers from the individual state to the federal grabberment. The man was one of the biggest traitors of the USA's founding fathers in history.

Americans could easily get out of their current financial crisis if the got over their fear of taxation. They revolted over taxes in the first place because their assemblies wouldn't fund their protection by their army that protected them in the French Indian War. They wanted representation which they won in the revolution.

They are now represented but they still do not want to pay the piper. A dose of luxury taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, and gasoline would go a long way to mitigate their current dilemma. Maybe even a VAT would be useful.

The Tea Party is off base right now.

A tax on tea these days would not be usful in the U.S. How about a tax on coffee!

Tea Hee

Lib: McCarthy wasn't after the witches, he was after the sons-of-witches.

After the allies built up all that momentum defeating the nazis, they should have just kept moving east.

Hoarfost: Fear of taxation? WTH? Highest corp tax in the world already.
Regardless, revenue's not the problem. Pissing away trillions pointlessly and throttling revenue producers with insane regulations are the problems.

The headline says: "How America Dropped The Baton"

Problem is, does any one in the U.S., under the age of 30, even care anymore whether they had a baton, let alone drop it?

It's a crying shame that we are witnessing the decline of the greatest nation on earth.

The surprise is that it is happening so fast.

an uninformed electorate, which is more interested in their own "pleasures" than in who is running the place is a large part of the problem

this article was written by one of these uninformed people, Hoover was one of trhose who was part of the problem, not one to be praised as to identifying the problem, as, organized crime has also played a large part in the decline, and Hoover, a gay "black" man was being blackmailed by these very players

The Grey Lady: utter drivel from you. The institution of slavery was incompatible with a free society under the Constitution of the United States. Are you advocating a return of slavery?

And for the rest of you trying to defend McCarthy's Committee on Un-American Activities, kindly make a distinction if you can between this and the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church. Both organizations existed to suppress free speech, and both relied on fear and intimidation to do so. It appears not to have occurred to Miele or to some of you that the very tactics McCarthy used served to discredit the values that the lot of you claim to uphold.

You seem to have become nothing more than progressives wanting free speech only for those who happen to share your opinion. Your homework is to go back and read Voltaire. Again.

cough,

I never said slavery was a good thing I said Lincoln didn't give a rats behind about the slave issue. He used it as a wedge to get the Mamma's to release their sons for the north to fight the south. The south knew what it was about, states rights,Lincoln had no interest in abolishing slavery in the beginning. There was a time that he would have happily allowed the south to keep their slaves he just didn't want it to spread across the country.

A little reading material for your education.

http://www.amazon.com/Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Agenda-Unnecessary/dp/0761536418

Quotes from the lovely Lincoln.

"I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man."

"I am not, nor have ever been in favor of...equality"

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

It was not about slavery cough, it was about power and money.

Grey Lady, I don't give a rat's ass about the political polemics of a minor economics academic from Maryland. He's nothing more than a propagandist for southern secession in the US, and I take none of his work seriously.

The fact is that Lincoln's presidency ended slavery, a fact you cannot deny. Without Lincoln and his determination to maintain the Union, that disgusting institution would have continued. You and Di Lorenzo make much of Lincoln's supposed motivations. Even if Di Lorenzo's drivel had any grain of truth, people's motives don't matter; only the consequences of their actions.

Grey Lady, there's a bit more to the quotation. It goes on: "I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."

I think he had some questions about whether he had the authority under the Constitution to eliminate slavery from the States that had entered the Union as slave-holding states.

cough writes:

people's motives don't matter; only the consequences of their actions.

That is the utter drivel of a very closed minded narcissist

Saying the death of 100s of thousands of US citizens to feed Lincoln's thirst for power because he lied and used slavery is like saying that Doctor Mengele was right, correct, to be revered for his experiments on helpless Jews because he got valuable medical information from his cruel experiments that saved many many lives. And no goodwin does not apply here..

Slavery would have ended regardless, it did not need Lincoln to do it.

Those quotes are real, he said those words, the man was a racist, white supremacist and an opportunist who was responsible for the death of 100's of thousands of his citizens, closed over 300 newspapers and declared martial law, pended all civil liberties, suspended habeas corpus. All to preserve his precious UNION as he saw it.

Just because he "ended" official slavery it does not excuse what he did to his country.

The poison in the chalice was placed in the founding documents. "Pursuit of happiness" of necessity brought down the house when it became code for hedonism.

Defending against all forms of the collective ideologies like socialism, nazism, communism or marxism can actually convert you into one.

Rita:

The Emancipation Proclamation, which is supposed be a document that freed the slaves, proclaimed them free only in rebel-held territories, the south and exempted Northern States and the areas held by the Union Army. It was recognized at the time as being nothing more than a political maneuver.

This was engineered by the Frankfurt school after WW1.
cultural marxism...google it!

I'm in general agreement with The Grey Lady.
That said, I think that the issue of Lincoln and the Civil War are only part of what has caused American decline, especially the accelerating rate we see today.

Fear of taxation? WTH? Highest corp tax in the world already.

..and one of the lowest personal tax rates. THAT's why Americans i.e. 'the voters' are afraid of being taxed at higher rates like most of the rest of the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

America gets most of it's tax revenue from the wealthiest 25% and the corporations they own. About half of the US 'taxpayers' pay no income tax at all.

This strategy of taxing the wealthy to keep voters complacent works fine as long as the wealthy are making lots of money in America. The wealthy took their 'bailout' 'tax refund' and spent it overseas for cheaper labor. Working class Americans saw very little of the 'bailouts'. That's why unemployment is increasing while corporations post higher profits.

Americans did this to themselves when they 'fell in love' with cheap import disposables, instead purchasing good-quality long-lasting products made by their fellow Americans and Canadians.

Now their neighbors are out of work, their kids run with gangs, and the municipality can't afford to police property crime since they're too busy with the 'war on drugs'. WTH? more like WTF?

I would advise all those who resolutely subscribe to the notion that McCarth and J Edgar Hiiver were crazy anti-communist crack-pots seeing "reds under the beds", to read "The Verona Files"...these are the KGB files released after ther fall of the USSR. Much was at first redacted to prevent embarrassment/prosecution of living politions/officials in the West.

There really were REDS UNDER THE BEDS....

At one time the KGB's most prominent agent in Canada was none other than Lester B. Pearson....not an unwitting dupe but a genuine agent.

Nazi's and Bolsheviks/communists are both just different flavours of totalitarian, collectivist, leftism.....anything else is at best sophistry.

Oh no not this neo-confederate crap. Lincoln did commit sins in his presidency but the fact remains he ended slavery. The Confederacy's leaders were very explicit-they wanted to preserve slavery and that's that. It was NOT about tariffs, which were actually pretty low. Slavery was not on a fixed path to extinction. The British had to fight the Boer war to end it in their sphere.

Grey Lady - you are correct about Lincoln and his actions. He was a hell bent on central power in Washington; he believed in big gument - he was a lawyer, after all. cough and smarty pants libertarian you have not studied much American History; if you had, you would know that Grey Lady has all valid points: most important being that Honest Abe did not have any intention of outlawing slavery before he was elected President. All Grey Lady's quotes are documented facts. Slavery was on it's way out in the south because most of the people who owned slaves did not want the responsibility for the welfare of so many souls and deep down most hated the institution because they knew it was against the laws of God. Economically, the invention of the Cotton Gin had sounded the end of that egregious institution prior to the Civil War.

The Northern Industrialists had a different type of slavery - wage slaves and indentured servants. Mostly Irish. The Civil War was the worst disaster that could have happened in the USA. It could have been prevented - and the people saw this too late- the states could have allowed slave owners to sell the slaves that they owned to the state or the Feds and the Feds could have then freed the slaves. 95% of the soldiers who fought for the South did not own slaves - about the same proportion as the soldiers from the North who did not own slaves.

The war was over money and power - the South was exercising their states rights to send their cotton to England to be milled into cotton; big N. industrialists wanted the cotton sent to their mills and they wanted a discount.

I do think that slavery caused the hell that was the Civil War; the very existence of such a institution should make people sick. USSR treated the slaves in the gulags much worse than any slave owner in the USA but it still does not take away the evil that slavery was once a recognized institution in the miracle that is America - land of the Free, home of the brave.

Brazil, in 1888, was the last nation, on this side of the water, to officially outlaw slavery. Long after the Civil War had crippled USA.

Grey Lady, you really have no idea what you are talking about, do you? The Mengele example you cite is irrelevant. The consequence of Mengele's actions is that thousands died. It was an act of pure evil that no benefit can overcome. The institution of slavery however meant that conflict between North and South was inevitable, both because of the institution, because of economics and because of the geography of western expansion.

You accuse me of narcissism. Dolt. You are making excuses for the continuation of a disgusting institution, and are beneath contempt.

No, Jema, the Civil War could not have been prevented. The economic and social differences between the North and the South and the pressures brought on by Western expansion made it inevitable. Hence the rest of your post is irrelevant as well.

It's truly astonishing how so many here want to re-write history and pretend that choices existed where they did not.

Very interesting and informative discussions going on in here .

Thank you.

I really need to read some american history books ...But thank you all none the less!!

Wikipedia: During Pearson's time as Prime Minister, his minority government introduced universal health care, student loans, the Canada Pension Plan, the Order of Canada, and the current Canadian flag. During his tenure, Prime Minister Pearson also convened the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. With these accomplishments, together with his groundbreaking work at the United Nations and in international diplomacy, Pearson is generally considered among the most influential Canadians of the 20th century.

You want to peg Canada's downfall? L.Pearson.

Pearson also started a number of Royal Commissions, including one on the status of women and another on bilingualism. They instituted changes that helped create legal equality for women, and brought official bilingualism into being. After Pearson, French was made an official language, and the Canadian government would provide services in both. Pearson himself had hoped that he would be the last unilingual Prime Minister of Canada and, indeed, fluency in both English and French became an unofficial requirement for Prime Ministerial candidates after Pearson left office.

His government endured significant controversy in Canada's military services throughout the mid-1960s, following the tabling of the White Paper on Defence in March 1964. This document laid out a plan to merge the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Canadian Army to form a single service called the Canadian Armed Forces. Military unification took effect on 1 February 1968, when The Canadian Forces Reorganization Act received Royal Assent.

Jaime 54 "Economically, the invention of the Cotton Gin had sounded the end of that egregious institution prior to the Civil War."

Ironically, the invention of the cotton gin did not sound the death knell of slavery. While it could process cotton faster, it meant that more had to be picked--and there was no machine for that.

But I too need to read more history to comment on the general topic. The article presented seems too simplistic but I'm basing that observation on the fact that there are few straight lines in history unless someone with an agenda draws them.

Grey Lady (The Emancipation Proclamation, which is supposed be a document that freed the slaves, proclaimed them free only in rebel-held territories, the south and exempted Northern States and the areas held by the Union Army. It was recognized at the time as being nothing more than a political maneuver.)

It would be very hard to find any action undertaken by a politician that could not be described as a "political maneuver". Emancipation and the abolition of slavery seem to have been evolving as the war went on. I don't believe it was the primary goal initially, but it played better as the war went on. I think emancipation was a personal preference of Mr. Lincoln, but it had to be worked in as the war went on. He was pragmatic (what helps the cause...etc.) I'm glad I'm not a politician because to accomplish even the most worthy goals, you have to maintain power and that's not always a pretty process. (Harper proroguing Parliament, for example.) And yes, the proclamation excluded some. I suppose Lincoln had to consider retaining the support of those states that were currently on his side and so refrained for interfering in their governance. As the union soldiers won, emancipation advanced.

The Thirteenth Amendment cleaned up many of the loose ends but even so, it took time for all the then states to ratify it.

It's an immensely complicated subject but to either demonize or deify Lincoln doesn't do it justice.

Rita,

my initial post was Lincoln sounded the death knell of the USA.

His power grab for a strong controlling central government is the first step to lack of freedoms and towards socialism.

I do not demonize him per se,but one can argue that he was the President that took the first steps on the road to where they are today. Ignoring many of the democratically elected wishes of the people of States and imposing regulation and taxes without regard.

Grey Lady, you really have no idea what you are talking about, do you?

Yes actually I do, but if it makes you feel secure in your world veiw carry on.

"The Mengele example you cite is irrelevant."

No it is not.

"The consequence of Mengele's actions is that thousands died."

Really and what of the 100's of thousands that died in the civil war? Also irrelevant I guess?

"It was an act of pure evil that no benefit can overcome."

Thank you for echoing my point so perfectly for me!

"You are making excuses for the continuation of a disgusting institution, and are beneath contempt."

No actually I was not I was merely stating a fact that Lincoln used this, couldn't have given a rats behind about slaves, but used it as an excuse to start a war to get the states to bend to his will.

I will take your uneducated, closed minded, lack of ability to understand that a point about a politician is not an endorsement of a disgusting practice, can't separate facts from a visceral emotional reaction, as a badge of honour thank you very much. :O)

Actually Rita the European endentured servant was fast replacing the slave population in the south as the plantation owners had much less responsibility to them then they had to slaves.

'No, Jema, the Civil War could not have been prevented. The economic and social differences between the North and the South and the pressures brought on by Western expansion made it inevitable.' posted by cgh

Please tell us why Mr. cgh

Well said The Grey Lady @ 10:48.

Yeah, no setback for freedom quite so large as ending slavery. Can't make this stuff up.

No, slavery is a cultural institution not just economic. It takes a war to stamp that out. If the Southerners were turning against it, why did their leaders love it so?

Yeah, no setback for freedom quite so large as ending slavery. Can't make this stuff up.

Posted by: libertariansaresmarter at July 18, 2011 2:06 PM

Again most folks can separate the fact that he "freed some slaves" from the fact that he enslaved the states to the union, started the Big Central Government, imposed laws that states did not want and forced them to stay, at a literal gun point, in a supposed voluntary union.

You need to review your moniker.

Britain managed to outlaw slavery with out a war, how did that happen I wonder?

"But when in the 1950s and 1960s, America began to surrender its own absolute certainty in its self-worth and substituted a form of re-education that might just as well have come from Mao’s China, we were on the path to collapse "

Indeed - some things bear repeating loudly and often. Like the success of the Cultural Marxists from the Frankfurt School who single handedly subverted the free American republic into the simpering soft communism of its current state of kleptocratic Federal collectivism. - all without a shot being fired. They relied on greed, self interest and power lust to destroy the principles of a constitutionally limited republic - they just convinced the unwitting subverters that their America hatred was social responsibility and their sedition and subversion were 'principled activism' in building a new American politically corrected utopia.

Somewhere through the torment of hell's fires, Adorno and Marcuse smile contentedly thinking of the evil they had unleashed on a once free people.

Some really good discusion on this thread.
I think most folks hee forgot that Lincoln was assinated before he could reconstruct the South. Instead the people who took power after hated the South with a passion. They are also responsible for the laws that broke State power.

Lincoln did not hate the South like a Sherman.

Reconstruction Plan

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASplan.htm

The causes for the war are many. One was a planter culture, the other an industrial state.
Both had traditions that where incompatable. Its like the Canadian West & Central Canada. Western Canada is inevatably moving away from a power that rules 3000 miles away.

Tangable differences set the stage for bitterness to overcome sense. As did economic factors.
Slavery was maybe the biggest cultural block, but not the least by a mile.

History is written by the winners. In the US the North won and their explanation of of the civil war was the emancipation of the slaves. Ask any Southerner and they will tell you that the real cause of the civil war was a power grab by the Federal government. The warring views are known as a Federation vs a Confederation. The victory of the Federalists over the Confederates during the civil war meant that the US became a Federation. Here in Canada thanks to Quebec we have remained a Confederation despite Trudeau's best efforts.

Revnant Dream (The causes for the war are many. One was a planter culture, the other an industrial state. Both had traditions that where incompatable.) As far as it is possible to nail such a complex subject in a couple of sentences, I believe you have done it.

Grey Lady (Actually Rita the European endentured servant was fast replacing the slave population in the south as the plantation owners had much less responsibility to them then they had to slaves.) I had not compared the two before--only vaguely aware that they co-existed. It's possible. However, the little bit I could find in a quick search suggests that the slave replaced the indentured servant (rather than the other way around). The servant would eventually have to be paid off and set free--assuming any contract was honored. Also, considering there were 4 million slaves in 1860, there would have had to be a lot of replacement. In the meantime, children were still being born to slaves and the progeny of slaves were also owned so these would not have vanished--unless perhaps there was a way to turn them into indentured servants rather than slaves with the eventual prospect of being freed.

(Lincoln ... couldn't have given a rats behind about slaves...) That comment might be worth re-examining. When the Emancipation Proclamation was passed, the North and South were at war. However, he then proceeded to have the 13th Amendment proposed (later ratified by all the then states, though some initially resisted). Otherwise, he worried that the Proclamation could have been considered a war measures act which might not have had any force in peace time. No-one's motives are ever black and white but I believe that he did care about the abolition of slavery.

The South struck the first blow (perhaps pre-emptive against what they saw as an encroachment on their way of life and economy. As far as whether Lincoln was right to force the seceding states back into the union is another interesting question. I'd have to read a lot more on the Constitution to begin to understand.

I find it interesting how this site is often accused of consisting of knuckle-draggers and troglodytes, that such discussion is possible and illuminating. I not only have a long list of books to investigate (from an earlier thread), I'm being invited to examine all sorts of questions on topics such as this one.

Thanks everyone.

rita - the South paid most of the Fed taxes in the 1850's, the North liked that part of the Southern culture - and some Northers were willing to go to war to keep the South in the Union, paying taxes. After the war the Union charged Southerners who owned land with back taxes for the years that they had been out of the Union and not paying taxes...the South was broke, most people lost their land, most of the returning soldiers did not own slaves. Carpetbaggers with US script bought land in the South, dirt cheap, often for just paying the back taxes.

The Civil War was the very worst event in the history of America, IMO.

Ah Rita,

I agree nothing is really black and white. I also enjoy the level of debate, insight and knowledge of the commenters on this blog. Many times I find myself re-evaluate what I think I know. Tis a good thing I think.

Jema 54

Thank you for your support, relevant facts and thoughts, sometimes it is hard to take asensitive issue, give an unpopular opinion (and have it twisted to mean something else,) no matter how factual it may be.

I seem to recall the patriots tarred and feathered the Tories and forced them to move to Canada, Bermuda, Jamaica, and England (to name a few exiles)

One should also note that treason, sedition, and military desertion have almost disappeared as a crime. I invite alternative viewpoints, but I won't accept hatred of my country nor support of our enemies.

Not all antiwar protestors were criminals, but many of them were.

Proposing changes to the Constitution is valid. Taking action in violation of it is a crime.

You are welcome The Grey Lady. You have made some valid points and the loss of State's Rights is important at this time in the history of the USA. Slavery is terrifying and to avoid ever allowing oneself to be a slave should be the mission of all people in every nation. The Russian people did not ever imagine that they would kill each other to enable a pack of Bolshevik thugs to control every facet of their lives and to work and starve them to death, at will, in and out of gulags.

The road to Freedom, as Dr. Martin Luther King well knew, is not bloodshed: it is a firm refusal to compromise the Rights endowed on Human Beings by the Lord God. The Constitution clearly states these rights, people must never yield to anyone or any institution who intimidates or seduces. All nations and all people have been slaves at different times in history: it is the worst condition that could ever happen to a person. I believe that all people who have rejected slavery in any form (including dependence on a state) deserve the greatest respect that can be given.