Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. In celebration you ought to re-read one or two of his speeches. The Gettysburg Address will do, as will the Fragment on the Constitution and Union, or the Second Inaugural. I remind you of Charnwood’s statement about the latter: "The Second Inaugural is one of the few speeches by a great man at the crisis of his fate on the sort of occasion which a tragedian telling his story would have devised for him." Needless to say, the speech is not unrelated to the God and politics discussions below.
In the Gettysburg address Lincoln claimed that his hideous war was fought to ensure government "by the people" -- when he had just DENIED self-givernment to the South. It was a "big lie" that Dr. Goebbels would have been proud of.
Regarding John Ray’s comment on Lincoln/Goebbels: I no longer respond to comments this weird. While Lincoln was just a man and while reasonable people can disagree about his character or policies, I see no reason to get into a conversion with someone whose axiom is so wrong. Nothing we can say to one another would be persuasive; we would learn nothing from one another. It would not be worth my time, or the time of John Ray. Let us each then go and live in our own country.