?The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.?
-Herman Goering at the Nuremberg Trial
Lots of good stuff over at Liberal Slant.
The difference, of course, is that America is morally right. Right? I’m sure the Germans felt the same way.
Something like, ‘Both may be wrong, but one must be wrong’ was how Abe Lincoln put it when talking about how the North and South were both confident in God backing their cause. I like that he admitted he might have been wrong.
I also love the fact that Lincoln was studiously uninterested in the particulars of war, preferring to entrust that to the hands of more capable men.
Also interesting is the fact that Lincoln was wildly unpopular during the Civil War, and that support in the North for the abolition of slavery was almost nil. He took some ugly, unpopular things upon himself, which is more than I can say for our current administration.
Actually, Lincoln entrusted it to the hands of a lot of incapable men, until he finally found a few (Grant for one) who could do the job.
Lincoln was quite unpopular in some areas during the war. He also suspended civil rights (habeas corpus), which is a lot more drastic an act than anything the current Admin. is accused of.
I’m not sure that taking “ugly, unpopular things upon” onesself is, per se, a sign of virtue. When it’s done by those you admire, of course, it’s seen as leadership. When it’s done by someone you despise, it’s seen as a betrayal of the will of the American people.
I’d say the main reason I admire the willingness to be unpopular is that it tends to shine a bright, revealing light on the character of the unpopular person. For instance, President Bush might be seen as popular, but the manner in which he flouts international opinion and the dissenting voices in his own country (i.e., his negative comments about the EPA report he himself asked for, his lack of interest in the Kyoto accord, his willingness to go to war against Iraq unilaterally) tells me a lot about who he is.
Clinton, while principled, was far more of a consensus-builder, which is why so many conservatives disliked him: he did not enjoy being unpopular. Gays in the military and his own impeachment proceedings offered him chances to be confrontational and unyielding in his beliefs — chances which he squandered.
Boo-laa, boo-laa, boo-laa.