Election 2018

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-28-2018, 11:45 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: FDR did not offer unity to the Nazis.
Lincoln did not offer unity to the confederates.
Washington did not offer unity to the King.
William did not offer unity to the Stewarts and Louis XIV
Elizabeth I did not offer unity to the Spanish or the Catholics.
Henry VII did not offer unity to Richard III.

One side won, the other lost. After that, a greater degree of unity was able to be created.

Most of the above people are clearly Industrial Age.  Thus, using violence as a solution would be expected.  FDR is the cusp figure, who faced a double crisis.  He indeed used violence against Hitler and company, and was likely correct that this was the only solution.  He did not use violence against the pending communist revolution of the Great Depression, but rather presided over a compromise between progressives and conservatives that was settled by Congress.

I have also looked at Europe of Lincoln's time for similar compromises.  Victoria and Bismarck were fairly conservative figures, but even they saw the point of giving the people more of the benefits of the Industrial Revolution to avoid the disruption of a communist revolution.  This was a win, actually, for the lords and robber barons, who got to retain their considerable power.  Slavery was also abandoned in Europe with far less violence.  A great deal of this was an ability to listen to the new morals and compromise.  A good many lives were saved.  A good deal of violence and autocratic rule was avoided.

While you can certainly call the civil rights movement, the way the US government handled the domino theory and the feminist movement not crisis movements as they did nor occur in a crisis, they might be something unusual in that they caused a crisis sized values shift in the 2T and relatively quickly.  None of the classic declaring the new ideals in the 2T, but waiting for the 4T to see the values shifted by violence.  Major civilization changing bills were passed by Congress right away.  I anticipate that this is the wave of the future, that 2Ts will continue to show great changes and 4Ts will not.  Nukes and a faith that democracy can cause large shifts may have changed things.

It is too soon to be sure of the new age.  I have to limit myself to saying maybe my observations will hold for a while.  But at least the old Industrial Age patterns are failing.

And, oh yes, Lincoln did offer unity to the confederates... at gunpoint.  That was a major point, to preserve the Union.  Individual equality was another major point.  The man, and the times, were complicated.  Given time he would have offered unity, the equivalent of the Marshall Plan.  Instead, in the wake of his death, we saw the sort of hatred and intolerance you are advocating.

Hmm.  Come to think of it, FDR and his heirs did offer unity to the former Nazis in the form of the Marshall Plan and NATO.  Pursuing the sort of hatred you advocate would have invited disaster.  How did Churchill put it?

Winston Churchill Wrote:In War: Resolution,
In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will.

And Elizabeth I did allow considerable religious freedom, at least much more that occurred in the religiously intolerant immediate past.  Retaining sovereignty was another point.  Then again, the woman, and the times, were complicated.

But maybe Churchill had a point.  Well, we can't all be grey champions.  Maybe a few haters are necessary.