[eesmith]

How can you tell? Perhaps he's using the language because he really thinks it's meaningful?

How do you know there isn't only one group of extremist trolls?

If two groups disagree, they don't have to be balanced yin and yang.

If two groups disagree, the real answer doesn't have to lie in the middle.

In the 1850s US, there were pro-slavers and anti-slavers. Who was in the middle, and were they right?

But hey, I watch Democracy Now, 'cause I think the the real problems are corporate owned media and media centralization. At the very least, DN doesn't dominate the media.

[metaphorm]

> In the 1850s US, there were pro-slavers and anti-slavers. Who was in the middle, and were they right?

Abraham Lincoln

[krisdol]

So the middle between "pro-slaver" and "anti-slaver" is "anti-slaver". Got it

[eesmith]

And was he right? Because he seems to have changed his mind.

[metaphorm]

was he right? he's one of the most historically examined leaders of all time and we still don't know. In the present we have the benefit of hindsight and can more easily see that war was inevitable and we might even think Lincoln was foolish to initially pursue a policy that sought to avoid war. Was that so obvious in his own time though?

Lincoln did change his mind but he seems to have changed it not because he had an epiphany about the evil of slavery, but because he became convinced during the war that it would be a total war and not a containable skirmish. once that logic was in play the Emancipation Proclamation made sense to issue. It also bolstered his support with abolitionists.

Today we have no ambiguity about the evil of slavery and view it as one of the greatest moral failings in our history and a legacy we are continuing to face down and one which has caused huge misery for millions of African-Americans. Even with this modern perspective, it's hard to view Lincoln as anything other than a conflicted man trying to weigh very heavy decisions indeed. So I dunno if he was right. I don't think Lincoln knew in his own time and I don't think we will ever be able to adequately judge. We know what happened but we don't know what else could have or should have happened instead.