Martin Luther King Jr Day and Lincoln's Birthday

[nonconformist]

It's very like "The Telegraph", isn't it ? "We're not racist but..."

Yeah, but this Shmuck's past threads have included "The Jews lied about the Holocaust" and "It's morally less wrong to kill a black person than a white person".

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I'm not basing this on racism, but just by facts that I noticed upon reading this:

[With sarcasm that is spewing all over the place] "Equal rights is far, far, far more important than being freed from slavery and becoming a citizen."

I also agree with the thoughts that you have on those other threads.

 

[nonconformist]

[With sarcasm that is spewing all over the place] "Equal rights is far, far, far more important than being freed from slavery and becoming a citizen."

Lincoln, I think, was far from doing it willingly, as such, and was just as racist as anyone else during the era.
To accord him a status like a William Wilberforce type character would be wrong, both technically and morally.
King, however, I don't see any problem with giving him his own day. After all,. let it be remembered that the united states has only held blacks on equal terms for the last fourty years!
To think racism would die sout over a couple of generations, let alone fourty years, is naively optimistic, and we need to remember.

 

[Ethics]

Booker T Washington is far more important that MLK is, in terms of creating a future for blacks in America. I look at the Civil Rights movement as much more vested in blacks getting a larger piece of the pie (from bus seats to farm subsidies)... I think MLK advocated a dream quite beautiful, but I dont believe the black community fully supported or embraced it beyond a bigger piece of the pie.

One of the difficulties of understanding the *VAST IMPORTANCE OF LINCOLN* is that he somehow finessed the issue of blacks and slavery as he watched over several years, hundreds of thousands Americans dying in a senseless Civil War... of course his first and primary concern was the preservation of the union... but he was doing something with the concept of slavery and blacks in the North.

I agree that he went into the office not advocating the slave of being on equal footing (although keep in mind that even the most ardent abolitionists at the time were more interested in abolishing slavery or removing themselves from the practice then any concept of the black slave as an equal or integrated member), but as the war raged on he slowly moved the North to taking a stance on complete abolition and some greater recognition of blacks in American society (keeping in mind he was attempting to preserve the Union while keeping several slave holding border states content). I personally think we would have seen something greater from Lincoln had he not been assassinated. The country changed over the course of that war, and I think it is somewhat biased to only look at Lincoln from what we know before the war as he fundamentally took steps to change the national concept of what the black man was during the war.

As for Lincoln costing many lives in the war... had Bouregard just waited his sorry butt one more day, the forces at Fort Sumpter would have left due to lack of food and Lincoln would never have had the political clout to wage any war with the South. The Southerners asked for violence, and they sure as hell got it.

 

[Aramazd]

I agree that Lincoln helped blacks a lot. But that was not his job and it also wasn't his goal:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo49.html

If you don't believe what the article says you can always read Lincoln's own words. They match the article.

I believe you and I have already known about this for a while. I doubt that even in the 1800's that would have been possible. In fact, I don't even think Lincoln is rascist for saying that. He believed (accurately I might add) that white people wouldn't accept the integration blacks into their communities. Had Lincoln ran on the platform of equal rights for blacks he would have lost the presidency to Douglas IHMO. Had blacks been deported I doubt that life would have been better for blacks, but Liberia was an experiment.

Lincoln had some good ideas but plunging the nation into civil war costing more casualties than all other wars combined was not one of them (unless you are someone who thinks the welfare of a small portion of the population is more important than the lives of all those lost in the war ... even though the war wasn't about slavery in the first place but assuming it was for the sake of argument)

The lives lost in the war were caused mainly by the South, although Lincoln definately played a part. I believe that Lincoln promised he would not abolish slavery only stop its expansion. In fact the Democrats were seen as the main cause of the Civil War (I believe it's true, but this isn't the point of the debate), which is why there was never a southern Democrat for president until a decade past the turn of the century.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

According to wikipedia Lincoln's Birthday was never an official federal holiday but it is was widely a state holiday for many states. These states all apparently after the federal govt decided to make MLKJ a federal holiday chose to rescind their state holiday for Lincoln.

Isn't it ironic that the imposition of MLK day would displace for many states the Lincoln holiday?

Can any liberal or for that matter any conservative playing devil's advocate, reconcile all this?

Nothing to reconcile.

Washington's birthday is Feb 22, and Lincoln's is Feb 12. When I was a kid, both were celebrated and we'd get lots of days off from school in February. But there was confusion over when these holidays fell because of the difference between "observed" and actual. So finally, they just merged both into "Presidents Day."

 

[Perfection]

Tell that to Italy.

Italians are silly.

Fine, you have to work either Christmas Day or New Year's Day, the rest of us will stay silly.

That's a break season, I get all the days off in between.

 

[wit>trope]

Nothing to reconcile.

Washington's birthday is Feb 22, and Lincoln's is Feb 12. When I was a kid, both were celebrated and we'd get lots of days off from school in February. But there was confusion over when these holidays fell because of the difference between "observed" and actual. So finally, they just merged both into "Presidents Day."

But in merging them, one is still displaced as I explained above.

Furthermore according to WIKIPEDIA, Presidents Day is just a popular name for Washington's Birthday and Presidents Day -- according to WIKIPEDIA -- does NOT officially celebrate Lincoln even though in the POPULAR mind it does.

 

[Irish Caesar]

according to WIKIPEDIA

Because placing it in caps assures us that all of the information it contains is sound.

Bottom line: there is no net loss in Federal holidays.

 

[Aramazd]

Furthermore according to WIKIPEDIA, Presidents Day is just a popular name for Washington's Birthday and Presidents Day -- according to WIKIPEDIA -- does NOT officially celebrate Lincoln even though in the POPULAR mind it does.

It doesn't, but most people observe Lincoln's birthday on President's Day