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When Obama
went before the United Nations on September 12, 2012 to declare
that the Syrian regime "must end" and threatened U.S.
military intervention to achieve that end he did not cite the U.S.
Constitution as his authority. No American president ever does when
threatening military intervention. Instead, he invoked the rhetoric
of Abraham Lincoln or what the late Professor Mel Bradford called
"the rhetoric of continuing revolution." More specifically,
in his U.N. speech he paraphrased Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to
say that U.S. military intervention is warranted because "government
of the people, by the people, and for the people is more likely
to bring about the stability, prosperity, and individual opportunity
that serve as a basis for peace in the world."
Obama repeated
this hoary theme - that Lincoln's rhetoric "justifies"
or "legitimizes" endless American military interventionism
all over the world - in his first inaugural address. "What
makes us exceptional," he shouted, "is our allegiance
to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries
ago . . ." This "idea" was not, of course, the Constitution
and not even the Declaration of Independence, but a few words from
the Declaration taken out of historical context. The words are the
"all men are created equal" phrase.
Nothing could
be further from the truth than Lincoln's notion that America was
founded on the idea of egalitarianism. The essential principles
of the Constitution were based on the freedom of individuals from
governmental control of their lives, not "equality" however
it may be defined. If government is to have a role in society, said
the founders, it is to protect lives, liberty and property, not
to promote "equality" (which Lincoln unequivocally did
not believe in in any case).
It is this
"rhetoric of continuing revolution" that the American
state has invoked for more than a century now to "legitimize"
all of its powers, especially its endless aggressive wars. It is
the opponents of endless military interventionism, men like
Ron Paul, who alternatively invoke the Constitution as defining
the legitimate role of government in society. The myths, legends,
and superstitions surrounding the story of Abraham Lincoln ("Father
Abraham," as the neocons are fond of calling him) are what
are used to legitimize the power of the American warfare/welfare
state, not the Constitution.
This fact explains
the odd but perfectly predictable occurrence of recent hysteria
among the neocons, especially one Rich Lowry of National Review
magazine, over criticisms of the Lincoln dictatorship by yours truly
and many others. They have become strangely unglued and freaked
out over the fact that many young Americans, especially, no longer
buy into the standard propaganda line that is always invoked to
"justify" more war, more killing, more debt, taxes, inflation,
spying, and other attacks on civil liberties. The neocons are still
punch drunk, in other words, from how the Ron Paul phenomenon, during
the congressman's two attempts at securing the Republican Party
presidential nomination, captured the imaginations of millions of
young people and continues to do so.
One of the
clearest examples of the importance the neocons assign to the Lincoln
legend in supporting never-ending war is a small book by an American
Enterprise Institute neocon named Walter Berns. His book is entitled
Making
Patriots. In an important chapter on Lincoln mythology Berns
bemoans the fact that too many of today's youth are too hesitant
to join in the neocons' crusades to overthrow governments in place
like Syria, Lebanon, Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere. They are
too selfish and self-centered, says Berns, being so preoccupied
with their own education, careers, and families. They must be mesmerized
into the fascist/neocon militaristic mindset by some kind of "national
poet," says Walter Berns. "Fortunately," he says,
we already have such a "poet" in the political rhetoric
of Abraham Lincoln. "Making Cannon Fodder" would thus
be a more appropriate title for Berns' book.
In his essay
on "The Nature of the State" Murray Rothbard pointed out
that all states, no matter how tyrannical they may be, rely crucially
on inculcating in the minds of the public the alleged grandiosity
of the state and the alleged failures of private enterprise and
the civil society. That's why the state and its court historians
and other apologists (such as the neocon magazine writers, talking
heads, and court intellectuals) spends so much time and effort trying
to dominate the educational system and the domain of "acceptable"
public discourse.
Such propaganda
is essential to statism, said Rothbard, because it is essentially
an economical way to get the public to acquiesce in being enslaved
by the state. It is much cheaper and less risky than other historical
means, such as terrorizing and mass murdering one's own citizens,
thereby risking a violent revolution (See Death
by Government by R.J. Rummel). Lincoln mythology is the
propagandistic cornerstone of American statism and has been for
generations. It is why politicians like Obama always fall back on
the rhetoric of "American exceptionalism" to "justify"
their endless wars and military adventurism.
The neocons
are becoming unglued and freaked out because they no longer control
the culture of ideas among "conservatives" as they did
when the former CIA employee William F. Buckley, Jr. was at the
helm of their flagship magazine. No longer can the ideas of a Frank
Meyer, one of the founders of National Review who was a harsh
critic of Lincoln, be thrown down the memory hole. There are too
many independent scholars who are more interested in pursuing the
truth than in "spinning" 150-year-old political rhetoric
to "justify" the scheming plans of the military/industrial/congressional
complex. Young people especially are concerned about the erosion
of civil liberties and have become highly suspicious of tired old,
belligerent neocons like Harry Jaffa and his followers (like Rich
Lowry) who assure them that NSA spying, warrantless wiretaps, state
snooping on all financial transactions, censorship of the internet,
and intimidation of the media is all kosher because, after all,
"Father Abraham" suspended Habeas Corpus, censored telegraph
communications, and shut down opposition newspapers.
A prerequisite
for the final collapse of the Soviet Union was the widespread disbelief
in all the lies, myths and superstitions about socialism that the
people of the Soviet empire had been brainwashed into accepting.
Once no one any longer believed in socialism, the system was doomed
despite all of its military might and all of the willingness of
communist politicians to brutalize their own people.
As Rothbard
said, all state power ultimately rests on a body of ideas that occupy
the minds of the citizens. That is what so terrifies the neocons
like Rich Lowry: They know how absurd it sounds to America's youth
to hear Obama invoke THEIR rhetoric about the Declaration, government
of the people, by the people, etc., and "American exceptionalism"
to make his case for yet another war in yet another Middle
East country that poses no threat whatsoever to them. More and more
young Americans have come to understand that it is the warfare state,
propped up by the neocon propaganda apparatus, that is the biggest
threat to themselves and their futures.
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