The Mythical Lincoln

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by orange
A right to a fair and open trial is something we should always strive to uphold. Which of Lincoln's actions is similar to depriving civil liberties?

LOL! ROFLMAO!

Lincoln striving to uphold fair and open trials? So which part of suspending habeus corpus, and relying mostly on military tribunals in secret does that?

[KrazyHorse]

It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

It was more forgivable then, though, because the Union faced a greater threat to its existence (by orders of magnitude) than it does now.

[Goingonit]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


No...nobody "has" to follow any rules, but disobeying them comes with a price. If I'm in a situation where I need to break the law, then I better be prepared to pay that price.

EDIT: The law keeps us in check; I have a healthy respect for what it means to live in a civil society, but I always reserve the right to break the rules of this society if it's necessary.

But what if the punishment is death? Now you're boxed in. I thought of saying that you have to pay the price, but that doesn't work in extreme cases.

I concude that the only way to live in a decent society is that we make sure the laws are good. Civil disobedience only works when the lawmakers don't want to kill you.

[KrazyHorse]

Goingonit, I don't understand.

I'm saying exactly that: that if the laws of this civil society were wrong to the extent that bloodshed became preferable to living under their aegis, and if my intervention would change something, then I would feel a positive moral obligation to break the law. Currently, this isn't true, and I therefore live by the rules, even if some of them are IMO unjust.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

Well duh... but don't say one is right and the other wrong, as it seems orange is doing.

[Goingonit]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Goingonit, I don't understand.

I'm saying exactly that: that if the laws of this civil society were wrong to the extent that bloodshed became preferable to living under their aegis, and if my intervention would change something, then I would feel a positive moral obligation to break the law. Currently, this isn't true, and I therefore live by the rules, even if some of them are IMO unjust.

But it doesn't change your condition at all. Think Nazis. It doesn't matter if the Jews disobeyed all the rules, they'd still have ended up dead This is why the principle "break the law, but prepare to suffer the consequences" doesn't always work. Because if the consequences result in your death, you must try to evade the consequences.

[KrazyHorse]

Imran

Do you also agree with my second statement in that post?

[orange]

Imran - I'm not doing that at all

LOL! ROFLMAO!

Lincoln striving to uphold fair and open trials? So which part of suspending habeus corpus, and relying mostly on military tribunals in secret does that?

I'm sorry, could you direct me to the section of this thread where we discussed habeus corpus and military tribunals in relation to Lincoln? I must have missed it...

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Goingonit


But it doesn't change your condition at all. Think Nazis. It doesn't matter if the Jews disobeyed all the rules, they'd still have ended up dead This is why the principle "break the law, but prepare to suffer the consequences" doesn't always work. Because if the consequences result in your death, you must try to evade the consequences.

Oh, certainly; I didn't mean that disobedience must be followed by turning yourself over, since I wasn't discussing civil disobedience.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Wrong.
The South had more than enough provocation to fire on Ft. Sumter, including the presence of armed foreign troops illegally within the borders of South Carolina and the invasion of the waterways of the South in an attempt to resupply the fort.

The forts were federal property.

[KrazyHorse]

According to MtG they hadn't been turned over to the fed. gov't, and were, in fact, still owned by the states in question.

[Goingonit]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Oh, certainly; I didn't mean that disobedience must be followed by turning yourself over, since I wasn't discussing civil disobedience.

But you are assuming that breaking the law 'morally' implies a willingness to face the consequences.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


The forts were federal property.

Thar's odd, because most of them were built by the federal government. If they were state forts what were Federal troops doing in them?

[KrazyHorse]

Fellow Canuck

No, I'm not. I'm implying that if you feel it necessary to commit multiple murder to gain your ends then you had better be realistically prepared to face the consequences, like the police dogging your steps.

[Ramo]

I'm sorry, could you direct me to the section of this thread where we discussed habeus corpus and military tribunals in relation to Lincoln? I must have missed it...

It was in the article. It, like the other major faults of Lincoln's rule mentioned, seems to have been ignored so his detractors could more easily be dismissed as right-wing nutjobs.