"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.

Incorrect. The "founding fathers" wrote into the Constitution that only non-slaves, land owning males could vote. That's what they wanted. It was Andrew Jackson who had the idea to enfranchise all men (but still not blacks or women though).

In any case, I still think voting is misguided at best.

I love Andrew Bird, he's a very creative and talented musician. I'll play his song "Way Out West" 5 times in a row when the mood strikes me.

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Capitalism didn't write the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Government did. And it was Andrew Jackson who signed it into law, and he was the first Democratic president who believed in the power of popular votes. Also a huge racist. But if you want to blame capitalism for the ills of majority rule and statism, knock yourself out.

And I do find it amusing that you can mention Stalin in one sentence and then claim statism has done far more good than harm. I believe a basic knowledge of human government through history would easily disprove that assertion.

I think what's more apt is that statism tries to reform its past failings. Marriage shouldn't even be a government issue, in my opinion, gay or otherwise. I don't know you well enough, but I assume when the forty-year war on drugs finally ends in the US you'd chock that up to "See? In the long run government works!"

Even though it causes the very problems the people beg it to fix. Government is a sick cult.

This sounds like something Andrew WK would compose.

I don't think they'll let the U.S. default now, nor do I think they will not raise the debt ceiling (But, again, who knows?). If they do, however, raise the ceiling, it will be another indication that there is no more capping the debt, it will grow and grow until the country has no choice but to default.

Interesting to remember, back at the beginning of the Reagan years, fiscal conservatives were "crying" about the debt being $1 trillion. That's nothing compared to what it is today. And it was Reagan (by way of his "Reaganomics") who decided that there was no problem with increasing the debt.
Writes Murray Rothbard (in 1981), in an article about how the U.S. should just default on the debt:

"Perhaps the most absurd argument of Reaganomists was that we should not worry about growing public debt because it is being matched on the federal balance sheet by an expansion of public 'assets'."

(I wonder what he would make of today's $16 trillion+ in U.S. debt?)

Predictably, as soon as Reagan went on a spending spree, fiscal "conservatives" stopped being so (not unlike the 'leftists' who stopped being anti-war as soon as Obama was elected).

It should also serve us to remember that it was the Democratic party that first considered itself the party of fiscal responsibility, at least with regards to Jefferson, Jackson, and Van Buren who all had a conscious plan to defund government but eventually failed for various historical reasons.

"It is for all these reasons that the Jeffersonians and Jacksonians (who, contrary to the myths of historians, were extraordinarily knowledgeable in economic and monetary theory) hated and reviled the public debt. Indeed, the national debt was paid off twice in American history, the first time by Thomas Jefferson and the second, and undoubtedly the last time, by Andrew Jackson."

A complete list available if you turn on annotations:

Adele
Cher
Judy Garland
Patti Lupone
Kristin Chenoweth
Edith Piaf
Bette Midler
Julie Andrews
Liza Minelli
Bernadette Peters
Gwen Stefani
Zooey Deschanel
Britney Spears
Shakira
Alanis Morisette
Norah jones
Christina Aguilera
Celine Dion
Barbra Streisand

I'm not sure which one you refer to was winking but I think it might be Patti Lupone. My fave was Edith Piaf.

A partial list:

Adele
Cher
Edith Piaf
Bette Midler
Julie Andrews
Bernadette Peters
Gwen Stefani
Zooey Deschanel
Britney Spears
Shakira
Alanis Morisette
Joni Mitchell (?)
Christina Aguilera
Celine Dion
Selena (?)
Barbra Streisand

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Ok wait a minute-Did I miss the damn criteria-Greatest movie/TV president ever?

Hands Down, Dan Hedaya as Tricky-Dick in Andrew Fleming's, "Dick (1999)"
Never get tired of that flick, so much comedy-

oh wait, president Merkin Muffley (P. Sellers, Dr Strangeglove)

Dawkins shits me these days. He's a man almost entirely devoid of humour and does not have the temperament to face people with opposing viewpoints to himself.

I recently watched him be interviewed by Australia's own Andrew Denton, and my god did Dawkins come across as a humourless dick.

I hate that he is so much the face of atheism these days, because he doesn't show the humanity of it well at all. I MUCH prefer Neil deGrasse Tyson, because he is a man of humour, of wit, of charm. All of which I think Dawkins lacks.

He just makes me cringe now.

C'est magnifique!

Love these daguerrotypes of a young Abraham Lincoln and old Andrew Jackson:

Thanks for sounding off on this, WD! A really great book that touches on much of the *controversy surrounding the "curing" of "disabilities" (deafness, dwarfism, autism, etc.) is andrew solomon's "Far From the Tree." Really eye opening.

Whoa-Can't tell if it's the French or the the time making my head ache..Julie Andrews was too damn cute..