How foreigners view the President

ben,

Tell that to the families of the 3300+ American soldiers who have died and the tens of thousands wounded -- http://antiwar.com/casualties -- the vast majority of whom would have died were it not for recent advances in medical care.

And if you think this thing's anywhere near over, then I've got 14 "enduring" military bases for you to tour -- http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040...>

"a ruinous war of aggression . . ."

I don't agree with the war, but the one thing it is not is ruinous for the US. Costly and ruinous are not the same thing.

Whether GWB is the worst President in US history I do not know. Presumably the future will judge him as either an incredibly far sighted leader who could see what neither his military or intelligence chiefs, his allies and most of his voters couldn't see. Or incredibly inept. What many Americans apparently do not understand is just how low the US has now sunk in the opinion of other nations. This can hardly be explained as "anti-Americanism" as it has not always been this bad. Even those nations culturally and politically closest to the US are impacted. The damage is quite great. Thanks to Bush administration policies, if in the event of "another 9-11", it is unlikely a similar wave of sympathy would be generated for the US. It is arguable that it is better for a nation to be feared than to be loved. This however doesn't strike me as a course American voters would support. Also it would seem to me that counter-terrorist intelligence relies on some level of goodwill from people in other countries. Why the Bush administration has apparently chosen to degrade America's assets in this way and at this time is beyond rational explanation.

Tim,

I have no doubt that GWB will go down as the worst president in American history, but it's going to take a lot more than replacing him to "rectify this sad situation":

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1350/81

"We lived with segregation for another 100 years after the war."

Slavery ended in Brazil in 1888. The Confederate refugees in Brazil ended their practice by 1875.

"Facts are facts. The Civil War ended slavery."

Fact is that slavery in Canada ended in 1833. Safe to say that slavery would have ended sooner and with less bloodshed had the colonists remained under the British crown.

Foreigners today have a much lower opinion of GWB than foreigners back in the day had of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was able rally foreign opinion to the Union cause, via the anti-slavery issue. The anti-slavery cause had widespread popular support among working class and middle class people in Britain and France, then the most influential foreign nations. Lincoln by appealing to this group was thus indirectly able to influence the major European powers from intervening in the US internal war. The confederate government vainly hoped that "King Cotton" would buy them stratgeic leverage. Bush and the US are now in the radically opposite position. The US president and government have, fairly or unfairly..it doesn't matter, have lost popular support world wide. This is so not only in the islamic and third world, but in the west, in Europe, and even in closely allied countries like Australia and the UK. Bush's unilateral policies and his "nudge nudge wink wink" support for torture have radically undermined American credibility at the "grassroots" level. In WW1 and WW2 the US benefited enormously from this international regard and good will, almost all of which came from the common man, not necessarily foreign power elites. This asset has now been completely squandered by the Bush administration in an enormous "own goal" in the war on terror. Nothing short of Bush's replacement will likely rectify this sad situation. Americans are fooling themselves if they think otherwise.

Here's Jeffrey Rogers Hummel's classic "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the Civil War":

http://www.amazon.com/Emancipating-Slaves-Enslaving-Free-Men/dp/0812693124/ref=dp_return_1/102-3844944-1790569?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

hummbumm,

Yes, we're the lucky ones, at least for now. Not so for all those who have lost everthing, along with being tortured and imprisoned, in the name of "national security." Indeed, since decades of military intervention in foreign lands are the root cause of 9/11, it is not too much to say that a mugger, having incited others to want to kill you, puts a gun to your head and says, "I will protect you from them, and here's what it's gonna cost. Out of the kindness of my heart, however, I'll give you until April 16 to fork it over."

You're welcome to do so willingly, but if you think your overlords respect you for it, be assured that they're laughing all the way to the bank.

"Also comparing American emancipation [with]that in other nations is difficult because in nearly all of the other countries a change in government accompanied the freedom of the slaves. (See: Simon Bolivar)"

[Adam Malone, earlier]

In Brazil, 42% of the slaves were manumitted under the colonial regime. Similarly, emancipation came to the West Indies with the planters still in power.

Hey David, when someone walks up to your house takes it from you, takes all your possessions, takes your children, and sleeps with and then sells your wife on, and then on pain of corporal punishment requires you to work 7 days a week for nothing on whatever task he deems appropriate, limits where and with whom you can talk to etc... then we can start drawing parallels. Excuse me if I don't see a progressive tax code or frankly any tax code enacted by a government which I and other citizens both voted and from whom i derive benefits from as the same. You clearly have no concept of what slavery is, or frankly of democracy. anyways clearly pointless to have this discussion.

hummbumm,

". . . then having ALL your labor and the labor of your children and their children in a perpetual cycle confiscated and directed by the state with no hope of redress or any benefit from, which would be the equivalent of slavery."

A nearly $10 trillion national debt, another $50-70 trillion in unfunded liabilities, a ruinous war of aggression . . . all as a result of the complete corruption of money and its attendant plunder through inflation.

Slavery under the banner of "freedom and democracy," that's all.

Oh please there is an ever so slight (sarcasm intended) difference between paying income taxes on some of your labor in a career of your choice to an institution that you participate in the process of for services that you benefit from and yes of course there is a lot of waste, but protection of property rights is the foundation of the rule of law, and some taxes would have to be raised for that, then having ALL your labor and the labor of your children and their children in a perpetual cycle confiscated and directed by the state with no hope of redress or any benefit from, which would be the equivalent of slavery. And lets not get into the forced family break ups, the physical and sexual abuse and all the other unsavoury aspects of slavery. To equate the two is so ridiculous. That IRS guy should have moved to the Soviet Union to see what a totalitarian state is really like. These parallels are just as inane as the Bush=Hitler tropes. If you really think you are enslaved for paying income taxes, I pity your lack of imagination. We can all argue about the size and scope of government and the level and means of taxation, but a basic system of governance would still be required and the means to pay for it.

hummbumm,

I'll let Goerthe respond:

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

Hint: Try not paying your income taxes, about which a certain -in-the-kinow official had this to say:

"I don't like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of 'from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs.' That's socialism. It's written in the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him." -- T. Coleman Andrews, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, U.S. News & World Report, May 25, 1956

To Scott Clark, you obviously have no conception of what slavery is. To equate the sway of the federal government of post civil war america (by the way up to FDR fedral gov.t spending was only 3% of GDP) and its impact on citizens to slavery is so ridiculous.

CardinalXimenes, southerners who owned large numbers of slaves were exempt from military service, so it was not "those who profited" form slavery that died for it. I don't understand how we can call the mass slaughter of mountain men and immigrants who may well have never seen a slave in their lives "justice", nor can I see how anyone can compare the manner in which all other civilized countries that had slavery eliminated it with the way the U.S did and feel the sense of pride in that period of this country's history and feel the sense of pride invested in it by so many.

How did Lincoln make slaves of free men?

Lincoln was a protectionist, a mercantilist. He and his party were in the pocket of industrial interests, the railroads. He came to Washington explicitly promising to enforce the Morrill tariff, and the South could not abide by that. Lincoln had to issue the emancipation proclamation to keep the British from coming in on the side of the South. He needed to make it about a moral issue, rather than a political one. Lincoln wanted to have a strong executive with a big tax base to grant favors and accumulate power. Secession was the last check on an abusive federal government. Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but he made slaves of free men.

CX,

Your question strikes at the very heart of the social enterprise, as the individual is either the locus of human action -- http://www.mises.org/humanaction.asp -- or he is not. And if not, then what collection of individuals is, and on what basis does this collective derive its power?

What is ultimately at issue here is the very notion of the state, a true understanding of which is where the debate regarding secession should properly begin. And THAT begins with understanding the crucial distinction between "the economic means" and "the political means":

http://www.franz-oppenheimer.de/state1.htm

The original post had nothing to do with economics thus this train of comments is perfectly appropriate. Mr Roberts suggests that Lincoln was being deceptive in talking about democracy and a new birth of freedom in the gettysburg address. As i mentioned before, the emancipation proclamation had taken place by the address, so yes Lincoln could easily talk about a new birth of freedom, and could easily talk about a rededication to the founding principle of this country namely that "all men are created equal". The goalposts shift when war starts, at the battle of lexington and bunker hill, we had not yet declared independence, and the stated aim at the beginning of the revolution was not independence but that was the logical outcome once conflict began, ditto with the civil war, once the fight began , if the union won slavery would in fact be abolished, a return to the status quo would be impossible.

Then at what level does divisibility reside? At the state level? County? City? Individual? If you're going to argue that sovereignty correctly resided at the state level in 1860, then you have to explain why Virginia had the right to take its western end with it when it seceded, despite the west end's rejection of the proposal.

The argument that the South had the right to secede hangs in a peculiar space which insists that sovereignty existed neither above it, in the Union, nor below it, in its slaves, nor around it, in the internal regions that voted against secession. When a state declares that there is tyranny in the prospect of being made to give up its slaves, I have no pity for its fate or interest in its wellbeing. If seven hundred thousand Americans died in extirpating slavery within our borders, we can only count it a peculiar note of justice that among those who bled were many who had profited by slavery or had formerly tolerated it within the Union. It's uncommon in history that a sin is paid for mostly by those who've committed it.

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is NOT either to save or to destroy slavery."

-Abe Lincoln

Kent,

I'm obviously with you. And I would ask everyone to reflect on the fact that as a direct consequence of the Civil War -- http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm -- generations of Americans have been brainwashed into pledging allegiance to an "indivisible" nation the was founded on the exact opposite principle.

1-My Google entry into Cafe Hayek says social, political, and economic.

2-It is striking that one can think that killing hundreds of thousands of people will make the union stronger.

3-If Scotland can leave the United Kingdom, the South may yet leave the Union.

The South was perfectly content with the Union so long as it dominated the government and saw no risk to its favored policies. Only when the game turned against it did it find union intolerably burdensome. To allow the South to leave the Union under those terms would have been an open invitation for the secession not only of the Southern states, but _all_ states. How long until a rump faction, North or South, saw their ox being gored by some new policy? And if states could gain their sovereignty so bloodlessly, why not counties, or cities? A New York legislator counseled that the city secede from both North and South and set up as a free city.

Of course, there's the venerable argument that the South had the innate right to secede, and that it was a great wickedness for the North to compel them to remain in the Union. Those that favor this point tend to be somewhat vague as to the appropriate level at which sovereignty might correctly reside, so I will be pleased if they could inform me how many slaves must be united in wishing freedom before they can correctly be thought to be sovereign from their masters. When they can illustrate the South's cheerful willingness to extend this principle of self-determination to its own constituent parts, I will perhaps believe the South was more sinned-against than sinning.

Hummbumm and cohorts:

A grave problem in most of these discussions is that people seem to be forgetting that what we have here at Cafe Hayek is a place to discuss ECONOMICS. Oddly enough, economics have been left out of most of the discussion...

Time of the Cross by Fogel & Engermen is probably one the most complete studies of the ECONOMICS involved in the Civil War. One of the many outstanding conclusions that they arrive at has to deal with the necessity of the war. The North could have paid every master the worth of their slaves and given forty acres of land and a mule to every slave, and spent less than the war cost.

Comparing the Civil War to the Revolutionary War is economically problematic:

1. The "Patriots" had no pool of resources (like a federal coffer) to offer payment like that available to Lincoln and the North.


2. The forced monopolies of the Crown were inherently unstable. And even worse, the companies that enjoyed monopoly the powers were often in control (de facto and/or de jure) of the British military. They had a vested interest in promoting military force.

Also comparing American emancipation that that in other nations is difficult because in nearly all of the other countries a change in government accompanied the freedom of the slaves. (See: Simon Bolivar)

Bartman, Hummbumm,

Excellent points.

The revolutionary war freed 1.5 million over-taxed, under-represented colonials.

The civil war freed 3.5 million slaves from outright bondage.

I also completely agree with Bartman that saying Lincoln fought the war is misleading. The south was militant and belligerent. They mobilized first. They moved on federal forts and fired the first shots. They ignored all attempts at reconciliation and diplomacy. The revisionists would still have it that *Lincoln* was the aggressor??

every argument that is made against the need for the civil war is even stronger against the need for a war of independence. At least the civil war ended the repugnant system of slavery. It is funny that some of the same people who take, in my view, revisionist pot shots at Lincoln, are the first to decry revisionist historians take on the founding fathers, namely Washington and jefferson. If one argues that slavery could have ended without a war in the US, well of course the US did not need conflict to gain independence from Britain, after all Canada, AUS, NZ etc. did so without a war. If the principles behind the war of independence were worth fighting for, and were worth the establishment of a continental army, then the civil war was worth fighting as well. If one thinks that slavery should have been ended through negotiation even if it took longer, then clearly independence should have been negotiated with Britain a la Canada.

I heartily recommend that anyone who truly wants to understand the Civil War begin and its consequences begin here:

http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/16_2/16_2_4.pdf

Then read one or both of the following:

http://www.amazon.com/When-Course-Human-Events-Secession/dp/0847697231/ref=sr_1_1/002-3298700-4953662?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176398933&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Agenda-Unnecessary/dp/0761526463/ref=sr_1_1/002-3298700-4953662?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176398996&sr=1-1

(The first book devotes an entire chapter to deconstructing The Gettysburg Address.)

Good question, there may well have been an alternative way of ridding the US of slavery. the broader point is however is that it takes two to tango, and the onus of the comments seem to be that it was Lincoln and the North that was hellbent on conflict whereas the reality is that South was at least equally if not more so to blame for the outbreak of hostilities and for the lack of compromise on this issue. So why a war in the US, maybe precisely because of the federal nature of government we had regional elites who could not reach a compromise, we also did not have an external colonial force to unify against like a Brazil vs. Portugal possibly? or maybe slavery in Brazil ( i know that there was/is much less angst about interracial mingling in Brazil) was seen purely in economic terms whereas in the South it had aquired some very race based (blacks are inferior etc..) rationales which led to continued segregation etc..... so I am not sure why the US alone had to fight a war, but fight a war it did, and i am very glad that the union won and slavery was ended.

1. "the costs of freeing slaves in Brazil were too high" [earlier comment by Eric.]

By the early 19th century in Brazil, some 42% of the slaves had been manumitted. In the 1872 census, 73% were returned as free. Complete emancipation without compensation occurred in 1888 (Boris Fausto, A Concise History of Brazil, CUP pp. 129, 132.)

2. "other...nations did not have slavery so ensconced on their home territory" [another earlier comment.]

In the early 19th century, around 2/3 of the Brazilian population were black. In 1872, this proportion was 58% (op. cit. p. 132.) But manumission rates were very high (above.)

3. The question still remains: Why did the US _alone_ have to fight a civil war to free its slaves?

Lincoln did seriously evaluate economic approaches to avert the Civil War. It is interesting to recall that Lincoln in 1861 attempted to offer compensation to the border states for the emancipation of slaves in their states – federal buy-outs as it were. It has been estimated that “slave capital represented 44 percent of all wealth in the cotton-growing states in 1859.” (See http://www.economics.ucr.edu/papers/papers03/03...). This experimental offer was rejected by Delaware. Later in 1864, according to notes from his contemporary – Pennsylvanian Alexander McClure – Lincoln contemplated paying the South $400 million compensation to rejoin the Union and accept Emancipation, noting that “one hundred days of war would cost us the $400 million.” but supposedly concluded that both he and emancipation would be defeated by such an offer. (see Alexander K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War-Times, p. 126-127).

The civil war is a real quandary because it is not as simple as ending slavery. Slavery ended all over the world, often at a lesser cost, often with less 'Jim Crowe' like legacies. But perhaps the US civil war was needed precisely because America treated its slaves much better than in South America where the mortality rates were much higher. That is, when you have as few as in Canada the costs of freeing slave are low, but in Brazil the benefits are too high. In America, it was just right for there to be a battle, especially because slaves were concentrated geographically in the export-led south.

Bartman wrote: "jp: read the declarations of secession of several of the southern states. It isn't hard to decipher what was on their minds."

Government utterances such as the declarations of secession are only small pieces of a huge puzzle. Millions of people endured tremendous hardships and hundreds of thousands fought passionately, if not ferociously, for each side. Where that drive came from and where *they* thought it came from are difficult questions that cannot be answered by looking only at official justifications.

Yes, Dave Z, but the other western nations did not have slavery so ensconced on their home territory. I am therefore much less sanguine about that proposition, my opinion is that conflict was the only way the slavery would have been eradicated in the US at that point, and waiting a few more generations would have been a grave injustice. Remember that the south ws planning to secede for fear that new states would be non-slave and they would eventually be outvoted, so then the question is let them secede? Obviously from where i stand perserving the union and ending slavery looks like the right outcome and was worth the war... I am as libertarian as the next guy but when i hear the argument that the civil war was bad because it expanded the scope of the central government and it infringed on states rights etc... makes me cringe and does the libertarian movement no good in today's world. I mean I am not a big war guy but if there is one conflict i feel was worth fighting it would be to end slavery and preserve the cohesiveness of the nation. That trumps WW2 and certainly trumps any other conflict the US has ever been engaged in. By the way one need only read lincoln's second inaugural address as well, to see the man's genius with words. Any comparison to our current president is laughable

"But for the issue of slavery, the war was a travesty."

And if it weren't for the terrible heat and lack of water, the Sahara would be a wonderful place to live.

Facts are facts. The Civil War ended slavery. How many of the freed slaves do you think thought the war was a waste? Who among us would be willing to go back in time and submit to slavery if it would mean the war wouldn't happen? This whole argument is as silly as building a garden in the Sahara.

"... how long slavery might have endured?"

We lived with segregation for another 100 years after the war. I'm glad we didn't have to answer that question. That alone makes Lincoln worthy of praise.

"only one issue that the south deemed so important that they were willing to secede from the union. "

And the North - not permitting them to secede - exploded the myth that what government we had was a government by consent. Integral to any consensual relationship is unilateral termination.

Please do not take this as a defense of the institution of chattel slavery, it's not. And I'll admit that the South's motive was base. But America is pretty much the only civilized, western country which failed to eradicate slavery through diplomacy.

Agree completely with Nick, whatever your views on the deeper causes of the civil war, to dismiss the gettysburg address is silly. Whatever it is , it is a masterful piece of writing, written by Lincoln. Now on to the civil war, let us be clear, the was only one issue where compromise was not possible, only one issue that the south deemed so important that they were willing to secede from the union. Slavery, and the expansion of slavery to the west. Yes Lincoln did not start off intending to free the slaves, because he did not start off wanting conflict, secession was put into play upon his election to office, not on policy implementation. Preserving the union was a worthy goal, i am all for state's rights but a divided continent would have ushered in European involvement, and we could well have ended up more like Mexico than our present day USA. By the way by November 1863 emancipation proclamation had happened so yes they were fighting for freedom

I think you're confusing people Dr. Roberts. I'm pretty sure you aren't really talking about Lincoln, but I'm not sure everybody's really tracking. I can't resist a bad pun here, I hope you'll forgive me: Perhaps you could learn something about economy from Mr. Lincoln (less than 300 words and expressing several rather complex ideas quite clearly), because for an economist you're far less economical (365 words and expressing no idea very well).....

But now that I know a little bit more about the Civil War and how many people died and what they thought they were dying for, my opinion comes closer to the Trib's.

Well, that seems an odd thing to say -- whatever one thinks about whether or not the Civil War was worth it, characterizing the Gettysburg Address as "silly, flat and dishwatery" is absurd.

"I find the undercurrent of Confederacy-romance in libertarian circles very disturbing."

But for the issue of slavery, the war was a travesty. The northern states should have seceded from the southern ones.

I thought the war started when the South attacked the Feds in order to maintain the institution of slavery. Thus, using phrases like "Lincoln fought the war..." are, at best, extremely misleading. I find the undercurrent of Confederacy-romance in libertarian circles very disturbing.

jp: read the declarations of secession of several of the southern states. It isn't hard to decipher what was on their minds.

I'm not a Civil War expert by any means, but I have read a fair amount about it in an effort to understand what the many participants might have been thinking. The more I look into that, the more I despair of ever really grasping what was on their minds.

At the same time, I've come far from the unexamined northern chauvinism and Lincoln-worship that I grew up with (in a suburb of NYC). Whether the war was "worth it" is certainly a valid area of inquiry, even if nothing like a complete answer can ever be arrived at.

"A new birth of freedom? Democracy? That isn't the cause those soldiers fought and died for. They fought to preserve the Union."

But what did the Union mean to them?

Would you say the same of the Patriots during the revolutionary war? That they didn't fight for freedom, but for nationalism?

Yea, that's all well and good to say now, but the State merely forbade what it first permitted.