Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Lincoln, Churchill and Obama

This recent post by Edward Cline "Obama contra Churchill" talks about President Barack Obama's removal from the White House Oval Office of the bust of Winston Churchill and replacing it in that same spot with one of Abraham Lincoln. Ed comments about Obama's misplaced preference. There are some very revealing passages from one of the Lincoln's speech (quite an eye-opener) and this is what Ed has to say:
Lincoln’s chief motivation for prosecuting the Civil War was to preserve the Union, not to free the slaves. The obvious evil of slavery is not the subject here. We have little to thank Lincoln for. He endorsed the country’s first income tax and the first military draft, and suspended habeas corpus. These were precedent-setting exercises of government power to confiscate wealth and life, in pursuit of a “noble cause,” emulated later by his successors in office and certainly countenanced by Congress in pursuit of causes arguably less “noble.”
Ed also quotes from Churchill's speeches where England's greatest Prime Minister displayed a remarkable understanding of the psyche of the fascist dictators.
Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armory of potent and indestructible knowledge?
Ed discusses the Churchill's comments on Lenin and his hatred of private property and the destruction of Russian currency by printing it non-stop. He talks of Obama treading the same path and the damage he and Democrats are likely to inflict even if they are voted out of power. Ed Cline who is the author of the acclaimed Sparrowhawk series of books of historical fiction has written a great post (the best I have read in recent times). Read the whole article here.

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