Sigh...
It's axiomatic that whatever one calls themselves is exactly what they were, all the time, right? (sarcasm font)
Putting aside the hucksterism be for a minute, though, can we really say Lincoln was a "conservative" by today's standards? /1
It's axiomatic that whatever one calls themselves is exactly what they were, all the time, right? (sarcasm font)
Putting aside the hucksterism be for a minute, though, can we really say Lincoln was a "conservative" by today's standards? /1
It's important to realize today's "liberal" vs "conservative" dichotomy is not reflective of what those things would have meant in the 1800s. But we've also seen Dinesh has difficulty understanding historical change. Maybe someone can help him with the big words, though. /2
To argue Lincoln would be part of today's conservative movement, you'd have to pretend he didn't say this in defense of labor rights: /3 
Or pretend that he didn't condemn unchecked corporate power: /4
Or ignore his understanding that sometimes "big government" is exactly what the country needs, since we don't live in some libertarian Utopia where there aren't any disadvantaged people or power imbalances: /5
Of course, we could do this all day. But the larger point here is that people like D'Souza are trying to fit square historical pegs into round presentist holes. And it's a futile exercise. Lincoln was not the Platonic ideal of progressivism. But he surely wasn't a Reaganite. /6
Would someone like Lincoln, who decried accumulation of corporate power, advocated for the emancipation of labor, helped topple the largest property-rights regime of his day, hated xenophobia, and preached civil and political rights, be welcomed by today's conservatives? /7
The moral of the story, then, is that we can't assume that someone's self-description is an accurate, or even useful, way to see them historically.
After all, D'Souza describes himself as an 'academic' and a 'scholar,' and we see how that's working. /fin
After all, D'Souza describes himself as an 'academic' and a 'scholar,' and we see how that's working. /fin
Mea Culpa: this letter is a forgery, and I'll own my error. My source was a Populist pamphlet from the 1896 presidential election, which manufactured the quote to try and connect the Bryan campaign to Lincoln's memory. I should've checked for it in the Lincoln letters.
And I didn't do that cross check, so that's on me. It's worth pointing out that Lincoln did criticize the accumulation of wealth vis a vis slavery and the power of slaveholders over S politics. But I'll correct my mistake here, with apologies for my haste.
It's embarrassing, yeah, because I took the 1890s quote at face value, when we normally check for corroborating sources.
I still stand by my larger points in this thread though
I still stand by my larger points in this thread though
