Conservatives ar the TRUE American patriots

During my afternoon readings I came across James McPherson's article, "Lincoln Off His Pedestal." it appeared in the September 24 issue of THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS. I found the following excerpt, in which McPherson quotes Lincoln, especially interesting:

"'The central idea pervading this struggle,' he said in May 1861 after the Confederacy had begun the war by firing on American troops and the American flag at Fort Sumter, 'is the necessity that is upon us, of proving that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.'"

Those individuals who are constantly denigrating the U.S. government and its elected officials with lies about their acts and slurs against their characters would do well to remember these words of Lincoln. As I recall, the confederates tried to paint themselves as the true patriots during the civil war who upheld the standards of the founders against the encroachments of the central government in Washington, D.C. in fact they were upholding a society and economy based upon slave labor.

Individuals who constantly accuse the obama administration and its supporters of racism need to measure their words and state explicitly when and where any of them have done so. asserting that any Google search will document such an assertion is intellectually indolent and without merit.

I have no problem with people expressing genuine disagreement with Obama on domestic and foreign issues. but when they accuse the president of vile acts, and associate him with vile personalities like Hitler and Stalin, they remind me of the confederate ideologues. They are the ones who painted Lincoln as a despot and the Washington government as a tyranny.

After John Wilkes shot Lincoln, he shout; "sic semper tyrannis!" the real question who was the tyrant--Lincoln who brought the political end of slavery, or Wilkes who robbed the United States of one of its great men?

I likewise pose the question to the most obdurate opponents of president Obama. who obstructs civil discourse and reasonable discussion of legislation in our republic--is it president Obama who has consistently sought conciliation with the republicans, or is it Sen Grassley, Rep. Joe Wilson, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity who have said that he supports death panels and called him a liar and a communist?

Ibelieve that the extreme conservatives' denunciations against obama are as hollow as were those of the confederates against lincoln.