Gyroscopic Investing

It is no surprise that a political party only refers to that part of the story that supports their arguments.

The Republicans constantly like to refer to themselves as the party of Lincon -- the party that freed the slaves. As an example of how enlightened they were back then (and, by some logic, are still therefore that same enlightened party).

On the hand ... they are constantly preaching small government and that more power should reside with the states and less with the federal government.

Somehow they overlook this part of the "party of Lincoln".


"Both the loan bill and the banking bill expanded the horizons of the federal government and the Treasury secretary in particular. Ideologically, they conformed to a pair of non-economic bills enacted in a similar federalizing spirit. Congress (also on March 3) approved a military draft, subjecting every male citizen aged twenty to forty-five to conscription, for the first time.[*] Congress also gave the President authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus—as Lincoln, of course, had already done. Under this policy, hundreds of suspected Rebel sympathizers were summarily arrested. The collective effect of such measures was to augment federal power. Centralism had begun as a necessity of war, but it was now Republican doctrine. Even John Sherman sounded awed, and a tad circumspect. With Congress recessed, he wrote his brother William, “The laws passed at the last session will be a monument of evil or of good. They cover such vast sums, delegate and regulate such vast powers, and are so far-reaching in their effects, that generations will be affected well or ill by them.”"

It is no surprise that a political party only refers to that part of the story that supports their arguments...

Not sure what the issue is with a party picking the best parts of its past to perpetuate (abolition of slavery/state rights over federal rights...), and dropping parts that have proven, with time, to not work (big government).

I think we are all grateful for democrats dropping their support of slavery from their platforms.

In any event, when I think of this period of history, it is not so much as 'No surprise!' as much as 'We will never know.'.

We will never know if President Lincoln would have been able to rollback big government and 'bind up our nation's wounds', if he wasn't murdered.

Given his 'political capital' and leadership skills, you can certainly make a case that he had a chance.

MarketIfTouched wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 8:42 pm

It is no surprise that a political party only refers to that part of the story that supports their arguments...

Not sure what the issue is with a party picking the best parts of its past to perpetuate (abolition of slavery/state rights over federal rights...), and dropping parts that have proven, with time, to not work (big government).

I think we are all grateful for democrats dropping their support of slavery from their platforms.

In any event, when I think of this period of history, it is not so much as 'No surprise!' as much as 'We will never know.'.

We will never know if President Lincoln would have been able to rollback big government and 'bind up our nation's wounds', if he wasn't murdered.

Given his 'political capital' and leadership skills, you can certainly make a case that he had a chance.

Except as the above I put shows ..... the Republicans were the ones who DEEMPHASIZED states rights and greatly favored federal rights.

Regarding Lincoln and the possibilities of if he lived? This is how he was viewed less than two years prior to him being assassinated:

"By the fall of 1863, two-term presidencies seemed a relic of the past. No president had won reelection in over thirty years; remarkably, none of the previous seven had even been renominated.[*] Many thought Lincoln would follow in this pattern. The war’s unexpected duration had led to a great despondency among the people. The President’s trademark patience, given the terrible hardships of the war, had also led to criticism in Congress and to a common misunderstanding of his character. People thought him waffling or weak. Despite the Union’s many advantages, he did not seem able to finish the job. None of his commanders had been able to corral Lee, whose army remained formidable. The frustration extended to the western theater, where William Rosecrans—one of a string of generals Lincoln had anointed—lost a major battle at Chickamauga, Tennessee. Such defeats inspired criticism of the President as inept and slow-footed, an opinion pervasive among the party Radicals. And the sole terrain where the Union was proving its advantage, the public finances, was precisely the domain of Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s putative rival."


I think that Lincoln along with Kennedy were far better treated by history by virtue of being assassinated. All their failings were minimized while anything they accomplished were worshiped.

Reread the quote above. In less than two years somehow Lincoln went from that to qualifying for Mount Rushmore. Just imagine what Trump would have been saying about Lincoln if Trump has been challenging him for the Presidency in 1864!!!


And, more on how it was Republicans who created the first "New Deal":

"The government was also enlarged, shed of its Jeffersonian confines. It was subsidizing a railroad to the Pacific, processing thousands of claims for homesteads, deeding the acreage for public colleges. The changes were sufficiently profound for an editor in North Carolina to dub the Lincoln government a “New Deal,” a lexical coincidence that accurately foreshadowed the welfare state of the twentieth century. In general, the changes both responded to the emergency and expanded the mission of government that, previously, had been distinguished by its limitations. From Jefferson to Buchanan, the government had been bound to the principle of limited federal power. The Republicans reversed this bedrock dogma.

It was now, as it had not been before, the federal government’s business to help educate farmers, to preserve natural lands, to fix the standard railway gauge, to nurture the sciences, to operate an expanded postal service, to regulate banks, to encourage immigration. Even abolition, on the surface a stand-alone event, was enabled by the new ideology of centralism."

More on the Republicans creating big government (and were the first to create a national income tax!):

"For all that, there was no turning back on Lincoln’s larger state. The federal government, previously a collection of custom houses and postal carriers, was entrusted with vast new responsibilities. The Lincoln administration bequeathed to the country a permanent bureau (which morphed into the Internal Revenue Service) for tax collection and a cadre of banking and currency supervisors. Its growth continued after the war. By the early 1870s, the government was allocating $30 million annually to public works, and a swiftly escalating sum to war pensioners. Federal budgets in the 1870s hovered around $250 million, four times as large as those in the 1850s. By 1890, with the United States at peace and the frontier officially closed, the federal budget topped $350 million. To pay for this expanded state, internal and external taxes remained multiples higher than before the Civil War.

I'm not sure comparing either party to their current versions is useful. They essentially began switching political spectrum sides in the 1890s and were fully "switched" by the time WW2 started.

Our modern parties were created by and large between Kennedy and Reagan.

This stuff isn't static and I wouldn't be surprised to find out in hindsight that we aren't going through another transition.

Kbg wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:59 pm
I'm not sure comparing either party to their current versions is useful. They essentially began switching political spectrum sides in the 1890s and were fully "switched" by the time WW2 started.

Our modern parties were created by and large between Kennedy and Reagan.

This stuff isn't static and I wouldn't be surprised to find out in hindsight that we aren't going through another transition.

I concur with all you have to say. I was merely pointing out how as not to be unexpected each political party does not give us the whole story.

Comparing either party's history to their current versions is more than not useful, it's downright misleading. Whenever I hear someone refer to the GOP as the party of Lincoln, I think of Khalil Gibran, who wrote:

Upon a day Beauty and Ugliness met on the shore of a sea. And they said to one another, "Let us bathe in the sea."
Then they disrobed and swam in the waters. And after a while Ugliness came back to shore and garmented himself with the garments of Beauty and walked away.
And Beauty too came out of the sea, and found not her raiment, and she was too shy to be naked, therefore she dressed herself with the raiment of Ugliness. And Beauty walked her way.

And to this very day men and women mistake the one for the other.

Hell, neither party resembles it's former selves of the Vietnam War era let alone the Civil War era.
Barry Goldwater would be a left leaning RINO today.
Republicanism of the 70's and 80's was pretty consistent, reflective of the William F Buckley brand of conservatism IMO. But other than that, both parties are shape shifting monsters.

glennds wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 4:36 pm
Comparing either party's history to their current versions is more than not useful, it's downright misleading. Whenever I hear someone refer to the GOP as the party of Lincoln, I think of Khalil Gibran, who wrote:

Upon a day Beauty and Ugliness met on the shore of a sea. And they said to one another, "Let us bathe in the sea."
Then they disrobed and swam in the waters. And after a while Ugliness came back to shore and garmented himself with the garments of Beauty and walked away.
And Beauty too came out of the sea, and found not her raiment, and she was too shy to be naked, therefore she dressed herself with the raiment of Ugliness. And Beauty walked her way.

And to this very day men and women mistake the one for the other.

Hell, neither party resembles it's former selves of the Vietnam War era let alone the Civil War era.
Barry Goldwater would be a left leaning RINO today.
Republicanism of the 70's and 80's was pretty consistent, reflective of the William F Buckley brand of conservatism IMO. But other than that, both parties are shape shifting monsters.

I don't think I've ever detected in this forum that anyone is a major fan of either party? Mostly everyone seems to dislike the other party a lot more?

I'm an equal opportunity party disliker. I still vote exclusively R, but I'll throw away my vote to a write in candidate in a nano-second if my R choice is someone I consider to be part of the crazy faction. I'd actually consider D candidates now which is a change for me. I'd likely not vote for any D at the national level because the D party platform has much in it I flat out oppose.

The thing that really befuddles me is what is going on such that for the last two elections both parties have offered up old fart crap sandwiches as candidates?

Kbg wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:27 am
I'm an equal opportunity party disliker. I still vote exclusively R, but I'll throw away my vote to a write in candidate in a nano-second if my R choice is someone I consider to be part of the crazy faction. I'd actually consider D candidates now which is a change for me. I'd likely not vote for any D at the national level because the D party platform has much in it I flat out oppose.

The thing that really befuddles me is what is going on such that for the last two elections both parties have offered up old fart crap sandwiches as candidates?

This is part of my tagline for my political emails:

"Another independent moderate who voted for a Republican, a Green/Rainbow, an Independent, and two Democrats in the November 2004 elections."

But starting in 2006 I was so fed up with how horrible Obama's predecessor was that I voted straight Democrat to repudiate the Republicans for having supported him.

I did that for awhile but have now gone back to a more varied vote. I've voted for our Republican governor.