Andrew Napolitano agrees that Lincoln did not engage in war to end slavery but to bring back the seceding confederacy, as the clip Stewart clip shows. He also shows a clip, presented without context of Napolitano talking about the war being unnecessary to free the slaves. That is addressing those many who believe the war was fought to free the slaves. Napolitano in the original interview is addressing both camps: those who think the war was about slavery and those who think it was about tariffs or something else to indicate either way, it was unnecessary. Watch Napolitano's statements on Lincoln in full, not taken with zero context like Stewart does, and you will see that even if he thinks the war was about something other than slavery, he says that. Even if it had been about slavery as many people, namely Lincoln fans, and even historian have argued, even still, it was an unnecessary "murderous" war. There is no contradiction there. If you think it was about slavery, then still it was the wrong approach to it. And more likely it was not even about slavery. So his comments are meant for someone who thinks it was about slavery. Stewart just edited out the context, as he typically does. The context being that he is addressing the persistent idea that the war for Lincoln was or became about slavery.

Maybe it needs more simplification. Napolitano's point:

Some believe the civil war was necessary to liberate slaves. But if Lincoln had wanted to free the slaves, there were a number of options to pursue. Instead, he 'set out on the most murderous war in American history'. Because the intention was not to free the slaves to begin with.

What about that makes no sense? If anything, the "debate" on this point is what "makes no sense."

BTW, among those who believe the war was not about taxes is Jon Stewart.

"Whether or not Lincoln could have bought all the slaves is entirely irrelevant."

Irrelevant to what? Jon Stewart's comment?

"That is not why the Civil War was fought."

And?

"Buying the slaves wasn't an option."

It was not an option because that would not have prevented confederate secession. As you say, Lincoln did not care about freeing the slaves only about preserving the union no matter how many were killed or maimed in the process. It is totally relevant to Judge Andrew Napolitano saying that if Lincoln had wanted to free the slaves, the Civil War would have been unnecessary. But as you say (and he would agree), freeing the slaves were not Lincoln's concern.

So you are right, totally correct. For someone who did not want the South to secede and for whom it did not matter if the slaves were freed or not (in his own words), as long as the South would keep paying its tariffs, paying to free the slaves and avoiding bloodshed was not an option. Avoiding bloodshed was not his primary concern. Preventing secession was.

From his first inaugural:
"[T]here needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national authority."

Basically, obey the "national authority" or suffer bloodshed and violence.

Which they did.

While the "bloodshed and violence" were unnecessary to free the slaves, had that been the goal, at least it would have been a worthy goal even if the means were monstrous. But "bloodshed and violence" to "preserve the union" or to collect taxes, that's beyond the pale.

Far be it for me to defend Trump in any way, but he never said not to do business with China. His campaign against China is all about how the US is getting on tariffs, import/export duties, and trade treaties. I have seen his rants about China on talk shows previously and it is always the same - China negotiates deals with us very shrewdly and the US rolls over to their slightest demands.

@jimnms

I'll address by paragraphs:

(1)

The reason I suggested that you are implying that the US is more violent by nature is because statistically it is far more murderous than a country of its socio-economic development should be. Have a look at Nationmaster tables of GDP/capita and compare than to murders/capita in terms of where the US sits.

If we take the view that you are suggesting that we should simply reduce violence globally then that is a laudable goal but it would suggest that the US is abysmally failing at this currently. I happen to believe this reason is gun availability. I see no reason to believe this abysmal failure comes from gross police incompetence or any other plausible factor, rather the gun ownership and availability that sticks out like a sore thumb when you compared to other countries such as those in the G8.

(2)

I think that we would be both agree that there are more gun enthusiasts in rural areas. Many of those would also own collections of guns for recreation rather than merely what self protection would require. The article below cites a study from 2007 by Harvard that says 20% own 65% of the nation's guns.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/19/tragedy-stresses-multiple-gun-ownership-trend-in-us/1781285/

There is no reason to suspect that these people are any more violent than your non gun-owning folk. The issue is not so much ownership levels, but the availability that feeds a would-be criminal's capacity to carry out a crime.

While actual ownership levels might be lower, guns can no doubt be purchased for cheaper and within a closer proximity in densely populated cities. This availability feeds the likelihood of them being employed as a tool to facilitate a crime.

This is also incidentally a key misunderstanding of the whole gun debate. No one is (or should be at least) implying that recreational gun owners are the problem. It is the necessity for guns to be freely available to gun enthusiasts among others for them to enjoy this hobby that causes the problems.

(3)

Building on my above point above, gun control shouldn't be seen as a punishment. There is no vidictiveness to it, merely a matter of weighing up the results of two courses of action. On the one hand there is diminished enjoyment of legal and responsible gun owners. On the other hand there is the high murder rate I discussed earlier, which really can't be explained away any other way than gun availability.

Let's do a back of the envelope calculation. Australia and the US are culturally relatively similar Anglo-Saxon societies. Let's assume for the sake of argument that my suggestion is true. Referencing wiki here:

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

The homicide rate in Australia is 1.0/10K/year and 4.8/10K/year. Let's say that gun availability explains 2/3rds of the difference. So we're talking about a 2.5/10K/year increase. Taking this against the US's 310M population this represents 7,500 more deaths.

Now to me, the issue is clear cut. The lives lost outweight gun enthusiast enjoyment.

And it's not just to me. There is a very clear reason that the vast majority of developed countries have made gun ownership incredibly difficult. I can guarantee, at some point they have done this back of the envelope calculation for their own country.

(4)

You raise the comparison to cars. See my workings above. With cars, they obviously provide a fundamentally invaluable benefit to society. The choice every society has made is to instead heavily regulate them. The reason there is no outcry to impose heavy restrictions on them is because there already are.

- Being required to pass license tests.
- Strict driving rules to follow.
- Speeding cameras everywhere.
- Random police checks for alcohol.

Can you think of any further regulations plausibly worth trying with cars that could reduce the accident death rate? I struggle to think of anything else effective that hasn't already been implemented.

With guns there are dozens of options not yet tried.

- Rigorous background checks.
- No gun show exemption.
- Assault weapon restrictions.
- Restrictions of ammo such as cost tariffs.

The list goes on. Imagine if we lacked the regulations we do on cars and there was a NCA (National Car Association) that was equating requiring to pass a driving test to tyranny.

(5)

I don't think there's much irrationality here. The US is clearly more murderous than other G8/OECD countries. To me, Occam's Razor explains why.

As for the comment on focussing on tragedies than the large issue, see my previous comment. You're missing the point that it's not just the gun sprees that are the problem, it's the steadily high murder rate. Mass shooting are just blips in this.

(6)

I will have a read through this.

To add anecdotal evidence. Chinese love american cars. You can see them all over Beijing being driven by the well-to-do. Some women lose their minds over them (in the end of the vid, you can hear the guy give in ("I'll buy it!!") and hand the guy his credit card to stop his girlfriend's tantrum): >> ^blackoreb:

You are out of date with your stereotypes - it has been a while since American cars have sucked. Quality has improved dramatically of late. And improved quality is a contributing factor in the slow-down of the industry. Americans replace their cars less frequently than in the past (a trend that predates 2008).
GM consistently outsells Ford, so your vote-with-our-wallets argument does not work.
Ford would have gone bankrupt in 2006 if it hadn't gotten a $23.5 billion government loan. Since it was a loan Ford now has more debt than its peers. Ford was not in a position financially to "grow to fill the gap".
The domestic automotive business accounts for nearly a million jobs, concentrated in just 3 states. Losing those jobs, even for a year or two while the economy adapted, would have sucked so so bad.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
...But I still would have preferred we let these companies fail, or they pick themselves up and turn things around like Ford did.
American cars have sucked for 20+ years now. They couldn't compete on a level playing field so we put tariffs on foreign cars to artificially raise their prices. On a slanted playing field, American cars still can't compete. Why? Because, overall, they're garbage; that's why.
We already voted to let them go out of business by not buying their cars...

You are out of date with your stereotypes - it has been a while since American cars have sucked. Quality has improved dramatically of late. And improved quality is a contributing factor in the slow-down of the industry. Americans replace their cars less frequently than in the past (a trend that predates 2008).

GM consistently outsells Ford, so your vote-with-our-wallets argument does not work.

Ford would have gone bankrupt in 2006 if it hadn't gotten a $23.5 billion government loan. Since it was a loan Ford now has more debt than its peers. Ford was not in a position financially to "grow to fill the gap".

The domestic automotive business accounts for nearly a million jobs, concentrated in just 3 states. Losing those jobs, even for a year or two while the economy adapted, would have sucked so so bad.


>> ^xxovercastxx:

...But I still would have preferred we let these companies fail, or they pick themselves up and turn things around like Ford did.
American cars have sucked for 20+ years now. They couldn't compete on a level playing field so we put tariffs on foreign cars to artificially raise their prices. On a slanted playing field, American cars still can't compete. Why? Because, overall, they're garbage; that's why.
We already voted to let them go out of business by not buying their cars...

Since the bailouts did happen, I'm glad they worked, because the worst case scenario obviously would have been that we dumped millions of dollars into these companies and they still tanked.

But I still would have preferred we let these companies fail, or they pick themselves up and turn things around like Ford did.

American cars have sucked for 20+ years now. They couldn't compete on a level playing field so we put tariffs on foreign cars to artificially raise their prices. On a slanted playing field, American cars still can't compete. Why? Because, overall, they're garbage; that's why.

We already voted to let them go out of business by not buying their cars. Anyone who steps in and says, "No, I'm sure you all really want the exact opposite of what you said, so we're going to loan them your money." is totally out of line. No means no.

Would it have hurt the job market to let them die? Yes, unquestionably. But the demand for cars does not decrease because companies go out of business. If GM and Chrysler sank, it would have been a huge opportunity for Ford to grow to fill the gap. Toyota, Honda, Kia, Mazda, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, and Nissan all have American plants as well, so jobs lost to foreign manufacturers aren't necessarily lost to foreign workers.

Oh yeah, Hoover, acting like a liberal, paved the way for FDR. You might agree that without Hoover's antics clearing a path, there would've been no New Deal.

FDR is a sacred cow of the left. You here would have a better chance of convincing shinyblurry there is no God than me convincing you FDR was clueless, and overrode the the original power-limiting intent and meaning of the Constitution.


>> ^crotchflame:

>> ^quantumushroom:
"High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."


Jesus. Neither of those could be attributed to FDR. The tariffs were under Hoover and massive government spending under the new deal is anything but deflationary.
I mean, go ahead and say the New Deal did not work and all that vague nonsense. You would be wrong but at least it would look like a sensible statement.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot." --Henry Morgenthau, Jr., U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt

The myth of FDR is the edifice on which the modern welfare state wobbles.




>> ^Yogi:

>> ^quantumushroom:
So what did FDR do, exactly? If big biz (that old reliable satan of the left) really "controlled" government then all FDR did was make government bigger and more tyrannical, and to this day the left claims big biz still runs it.
FDR's antics extended the Depression. "High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."
Obama's cut from the same fictive cloth, a dragon pretending to be dragonslayer.

These statements are from a reputable historian or economist I take it?

You must be new here.>> ^crotchflame:

>> ^quantumushroom:
"High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."


Jesus. Neither of those could be attributed to FDR. The tariffs were under Hoover and massive government spending under the new deal is anything but deflationary.
I mean, go ahead and say the New Deal did not work and all that vague nonsense. You would be wrong but at least it would look like a sensible statement.

>> ^quantumushroom:

So what did FDR do, exactly? If big biz (that old reliable satan of the left) really "controlled" government then all FDR did was make government bigger and more tyrannical, and to this day the left claims big biz still runs it.
FDR's antics extended the Depression. "High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."
Obama's cut from the same fictive cloth, a dragon pretending to be dragonslayer.


These statements are from a reputable historian or economist I take it?

>> ^quantumushroom:

"High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."



Jesus. Neither of those could be attributed to FDR. The tariffs were under Hoover and massive government spending under the new deal is anything but deflationary.

I mean, go ahead and say the New Deal did not work and all that vague nonsense. You would be wrong but at least it would look like a sensible statement.

So what did FDR do, exactly? If big biz (that old reliable satan of the left) really "controlled" government then all FDR did was make government bigger and more tyrannical, and to this day the left claims big biz still runs it.

FDR's antics extended the Depression. "High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."

Obama's cut from the same fictive cloth, a dragon pretending to be dragonslayer.

I guess that ends our argument.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^MonkeySpank:
Why?
He wants to outlaw lobbying at the Federal level. If corporations really loved him, then you'd see that in his political contributions, instead they are backing Mitt Romney:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286
It's easier to call the man crazy, but I still don't see why he is crazy for limiting federal involvement. I voted for Obama, but I fail to see why Ron Paul is such a big pill for people to swallow. If the Bush (real crazy) administration had less control over the 50 states, we wouldn't be in the mess in the first place.
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^MonkeySpank:
I love Noam Chomsky; I quote him regularly, many times on videosift, but I disagree with him here. I think Noam Chomsky is confusing libertarian with anarchist. Ron Paul, by definition knows his limits as a POTUS. His constitutional ethics cannot force his rule, or the Fed's rule, onto a state. This is where Noam gaffed.
Ron Paul doesn't dictate what a state should do, with regards to health care, EPA, or anything, but he does have the power to limit the federal government involvement; that's a huge difference from what Noam is saying.
For example, I live in the state of California, and we strongly believe in an environment protection/regulation agency, because we saw how bad it got over here, and we are trying to back out of our mess - think of it as a cancer patient starting to eat healthy all of a sudden. What California wants should not apply to Montana for example, but California can still enforce tariffs on products from other states that infringe on its own policies, outside federal protocols. That's the Tenth Amendment, and that's how it should be.

Yes but he's saying that Ron Paul would cut out federal restrictions. California isn't more powerful than the companies that own it they would have to bow down to them immediately.
Sorry but Chomsky is right as usual. Ron Paul is fucking crazy, what he believe would create a world in which corporations would enslave us completely.


Ok let me put it this way. Noam Chomsky is smarter than you and he's right. Go argue with someone who cares.

>> ^MonkeySpank:

Why?
He wants to outlaw lobbying at the Federal level. If corporations really loved him, then you'd see that in his political contributions, instead they are backing Mitt Romney:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286
It's easier to call the man crazy, but I still don't see why he is crazy for limiting federal involvement. I voted for Obama, but I fail to see why Ron Paul is such a big pill for people to swallow. If the Bush (real crazy) administration had less control over the 50 states, we wouldn't be in the mess in the first place.
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^MonkeySpank:
I love Noam Chomsky; I quote him regularly, many times on videosift, but I disagree with him here. I think Noam Chomsky is confusing libertarian with anarchist. Ron Paul, by definition knows his limits as a POTUS. His constitutional ethics cannot force his rule, or the Fed's rule, onto a state. This is where Noam gaffed.
Ron Paul doesn't dictate what a state should do, with regards to health care, EPA, or anything, but he does have the power to limit the federal government involvement; that's a huge difference from what Noam is saying.
For example, I live in the state of California, and we strongly believe in an environment protection/regulation agency, because we saw how bad it got over here, and we are trying to back out of our mess - think of it as a cancer patient starting to eat healthy all of a sudden. What California wants should not apply to Montana for example, but California can still enforce tariffs on products from other states that infringe on its own policies, outside federal protocols. That's the Tenth Amendment, and that's how it should be.

Yes but he's saying that Ron Paul would cut out federal restrictions. California isn't more powerful than the companies that own it they would have to bow down to them immediately.
Sorry but Chomsky is right as usual. Ron Paul is fucking crazy, what he believe would create a world in which corporations would enslave us completely.



Ok let me put it this way. Noam Chomsky is smarter than you and he's right. Go argue with someone who cares.