At 10:35 PM 6/22/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Technotranscendence wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Lincoln, I'm hoping no one here sees him as a proto-Extropian. I see
him
>> as a proto-fascist, and, at the very least, a champion of strong central
>> government, militarism, and stamping out freedom.
>>
>
>Ugh. I've been lurking for a while, but I'm sorry, I have to pipe
>up about this. Lincoln is decidedly one of my heroes -- a deep,
>passionate thinker who was dedicated to doing the moral thing.
>I'd suggest you read "The Political Thought of Abraham Lincoln" to
>get a feel for how tortured he was. I, for one, feel that most of
>his choices were correct.
I, like the original poster, also hold Lincoln in a very negative light.
Unfortunately, history has once again been written by the victor. Abraham Lincoln was one of the first major steps away from the Jeffersonian ideal that the American government was founded on. His history exists as more of a cultural myth than anything else.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com