--- Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "Our task should not be to invoke religion and the > name of God by claiming > God's blessing and endorsement for all our national > policies and practices - > saying, in effect, that God is on our side. Rather, > we should pray and worry > earnestly whether we are on God's side." --Abraham > Lincoln > > Nick
A quote entirely stripped of its moral and historical context - remarkably so, in fact. Lincoln is the historical figure you can _least_ enlist in your cause, Nick, because he is one whom most people agree is the paragon of the modern statesman who _also_ chose to fight an optional war far more terrible than any other his nation has ever fought, before or since. The Lincoln whom you quote approvingly _chose_ to unleash total war in a way that the West had not seen in centuries and the United States had never seen. He did this despite the opposition of most of the rest of the world (Britain and France, for example, _both_ supported mediation of the conflict and, de facto, the split of the United States into separate countries). There is just no possible way to take his example and use it to argue that we must not go to war in the face of great evil. That's precisely what he did. You are twisting his statement into an excuse for inaction - we do not know God's will, so we must do nothing. That's exactly wrong. What Lincoln was saying is exactly the opposite of that point - he was saying, we cannot know God's will, so we must do the best we can given what we _do_ know. Lincoln's last great speech, and the one that seems to have best expressed his intentions, says it best - "With malice towards none, with charity for all, _with firmess in the right as God gives us to see the right_, let us strive on to finish the work we are in..." With firmness in the right. Because he did believe in that, he authorized (for example) the complete destruction of the civilian infrastructure of Georgia and South Carolina. That's not peaceful change. But it was a man doing the best he could in an uncertain world, and knowing that sometimes the best he could meant warfare of unimaginable horror. Lincoln contained multitudes, but none of those multitudes can plausibly be enlisted in an argument that we should sit on our hands in the face of great evil. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
