Ron Paul Segment of Fox news just ended

[Charles Wilson]

Lets all concentrate on defeating the real enemy while we still can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_and_paleoconservatism

 

[braumstr]

I think the overall point is that slavery COULD have been abolished had there been reasonable people on BOTH sides. This was not the case though.

Lincoln broke the law and justified it by saying he did it to preserve the Union, or in his words "a house divided cannot stand". You can be critical of him, but I would first have to walk a mile in his shoes before I had anything critical to say. Thats just not possible.

Had either side known the horror that was to come perhaps the whole thing could have been averted, perhaps not.

Either way, to try and rehash the debate and play Monday morning QB on this issue is not only foolish, in the world of 20 second sound bytes it may prove to be worse than a mine field. Granted Russert brought this up but it is bound to be a controversial issue and one that cannot be resolved.

Ron Paul's campaign, and us as a community are better to let the issue alone, or to simply address by saying the civil war was horrific and any peaceful means possible to end slavery would have been preferable and perhaps would not have resulted in 100 years of hate, but we must now look to the future.

 

[mkiv808]

I think Paul needs to be more restrained in his speaking. I can appreciate his honesty, but it's more important that he become President than be completely outspoken right now.

His honesty can be turned around by the media, which unfortunately - like it or not - has a tremendous impact on who becomes president.

He needs to be more neutral or "political" in some of his responses right now. His positive messages are out there, don't give the media anything to lambaste him on.

Also, I don't agree with his comment on slavery and the Civil War - anyone who has studied the Civil War in detail knows that slavery was only a small part of the equation. That, and slavery drove their economy - a one-time purchase of the slaves would not have worked. I love Dr. Paul, but he came off as being ignorant on the Civil War.

 

[KingTheoden]

Also, I don't agree with his comment on slavery and the Civil War - anyone who has studied the Civil War in detail knows that slavery was only a small part of the equation. That, and slavery drove their economy - a one-time purchase of the slaves would not have worked. I love Dr. Paul, but he came off as being ignorant on the Civil War.

You are right that the War Between the States was primarily an economic and societal conflict (the North wanted central banks and corporations while taxing the South to death). Slavery was a branch on the tree of conflict. I think we have to remember that Ron Paul has literally milliseconds to formulate a response to really, really stupid questions so his answers are going to be 'dumbed down.' He refuted Russert's false inference (that if the war were never fought, the slaves would never have gained freedom) by proposing a reasonable hypothetical (well, Tim, why not just do what other nations did and buy freedom for slaves?)

It was a stupid question and even more shallow of Fox News to dissect it. However, this ploy will probably only earn Ron Paul more votes.

 

[Northwoods]

I think Paul needs to be more restrained in his speaking. I can appreciate his honesty, but it's more important that he become President than be completely outspoken right now.

His honesty can be turned around by the media, which unfortunately - like it or not - has a tremendous impact on who becomes president.

He needs to be more neutral or "political" in some of his responses right now. His positive messages are out there, don't give the media anything to lambaste him on.

Also, I don't agree with his comment on slavery and the Civil War - anyone who has studied the Civil War in detail knows that slavery was only a small part of the equation. That, and slavery drove their economy - a one-time purchase of the slaves would not have worked. I love Dr. Paul, but he came off as being ignorant on the Civil War.

+1.

For a candidate that is already having problems being seens as a racist to come out against the civil war and the civil rights act in one interview is pretty rough.

I am a big RP fan, but this Meet the Press interview went very poorly in this area. I am sure at the end of the day, Dr. Paul has some reasonable arguements for his position, but he knows he is only going to get 20 seconds to respond. Something along the lines of, "I support the intentions of these acts, I just wish they could of been handled peacefully or with less government intervetion" would work. We need to pick our battles, I think Dr. Paul should of walked away from this one.

 

[jmdrake]

The extreme arguments in this thread help to illustrate the "false choice" theory of debating. The false choice in this case is either you have to believe that Lincoln was a "saint" that "freed all of the slaves with the emancipation proclamation" or that Lincoln was "Satan incarnate" who's only goal was to "destroy southerners". The other false choice is that either the civil war was "only about slavery" or that "slavery had nothing to do with the civil war".

All such arguments are really complete bunk. The southern states declared that slavery was a major issue for them. It's just the the declaration of independence declared that taxation without representation was a major issue for the colonies. But taxes weren't the only issue in 1776 and slavery (or tarriffs) was not the only issue in 1861.

Lincoln broke the law? What law? The unwritten law that states that the federal government can't act to preserve the union? Well then I guess George Washington was a law breaker too for putting down the whiskey rebellion. And what about Andrew Jackson? He threatened to have John Calhoun hung as a traitor for pushing secession! But you don't here southerners trying to tear down "Old Hickory" now do you?

The fact is that Lincoln stayed within the law on the slavery question an that's precisely why his position seems so murky. Like Lincoln said in his first inaugural address he couldn't free the slaves either by executive order or legislative action. That left a constitutional amendment which is why he wanted to restrict the expansion of slavery. The civil war did NOT lessen the need for a constitutional amendment to end slavery. But the argument could be made that since the states that seceded were no longer "part of the union" the constitutional protections for slavery technically no longer existed. So this is what the E.P. actually accomplished. Prior to it if northern forces came across an escaped slave while marching through confederate territory they were bound by law to return him. Now the opposite was true. While going through confederate territory union officers now had the power to free whatever slaves they came across. But of course this didn't apply to states like Kentucky that didn't secede. Those slaves were still "bound" by the constitution. So while the E.P. itself didn't "free a single slave" there were certainly slaves that were freed early because of the E.P.

Was Lincoln perfect? No. Not by a long shot. Was the north more "moral" than the south? No. Just look at their treatment of African Americans free and slave at Ft. Negley for a reference. Was Lincoln primarily interested in preserving the union? Yes. Just like Andrew Jackson. Did he want to end slavery? Yes....eventually.

As for Ron Paul's proposal? I'd heard it before. As with all things "the devil is in the details". I've never seen any evidence to suggest the south was ready to accept it. And who was going to pay for it? The big difference between the U.S. experience and most other countries in the world that abolished slavery is that (as far as I know) the U.S. is the only country where slavery was a regional issue. Maybe if Lincoln had said "Hey, we'll buy all of your slaves from you" the south wouldn't have seceded. But if that's what would have kept the south from seceding then doesn't that in itself undercut the argument that the south was primarily concerned about issues OTHER than slavery?

Anyway, I'm happy to agree to disagree with folks on this. But I do hope people will stay away from phony arguments. Ultimately it's 2007 and not 1861. This is really just a historical footnote. If it gets Paul some more southern votes without alienating black voters who are disgruntled with this elections democratic choices than that's good.

Regards,

John M. Drake

 

[jmdrake]

You are right that the War Between the States was primarily an economic and societal conflict (the North wanted central banks and corporations while taxing the South to death). Slavery was a branch on the tree of conflict. I think we have to remember that Ron Paul has literally milliseconds to formulate a response to really, really stupid questions so his answers are going to be 'dumbed down.' He refuted Russert's false inference (that if the war were never fought, the slaves would never have gained freedom) by proposing a reasonable hypothetical (well, Tim, why not just do what other nations did and buy freedom for slaves?)

It was a stupid question and even more shallow of Fox News to dissect it. However, this ploy will probably only earn Ron Paul more votes.

Good point about Russert's false inference. I didn't think about it that way. But clearly Russert was wrong. If the south hadn't seceded and slavery was kept from expanding to the new territories eventually slavery would have ended by constitutional amendment. And the "buy the slaves" proposition might have worked. We don't know. Lot's of "what ifs".

At this point though the campaign needs to be anticipating questions like this. The "civil rights act" question had been bugging me for some time now. And of course I've seen the "entitlements" argument thrown around quite a bit. Really the only questionsuots toally took Dr. Paul off guard were the quotes about Reagan and the "abolishing public schools". Methinks those were "How long have you been beating your wife" type questions.

Regards,

John M. Drake