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YOU introduced a Ron Paul Manifesto in its entirety...I responded with a blanket appraisal of Ron Paul - which includes issues that he would rather overlook.

I introduced a quote whose attribution can be found six lines down in the center of the page. (It was by Ben Franklin if you didn't make it that far).

YOU introduced the phrase "Lincoln and his bloody war," and in that context, the issue of slavery becomes a strawman. How convenient. YOU introduced slavery as a dismissal of the Founding Fathers -- Franklin I presume -- before I ever brought up Lincoln.

YOU introduced a supporting work that I consider flawed, and responded in kind. I introduced a source for the posted excerpt from the foreword by Walter Williams that encapsulates the Lincoln opposition sentiment. You've failed to raise any doubts regarding Lincoln's authoritarianism.

Any opportunity to introduce a plug for Ron Paul - sounds like an agenda to me. I quoted Ben Franklin and I quoted Walter Williams quoting John C. Calhoun. YOU are the one with the apparent agenda attempting to discredit the Founding Fathers, Ron Paul and Thomas DiLorenzo rather than entertain my claim that Lincoln was an authoritarian and as a consequence made the United States more so.

NOW you can get back to the topic at hand. Our so-called free country has a grotesque authoritarian past. Caught in a fit of manifest destiny nationalism, an unscrupulous authoritarian murderously imposed his will upon a peaceful secessionist group irrevocably undermining and destroying the founding principles and willfully defying our founding documents. This act was so successful in concentrating state power that Hitler saw it as a model for his own authoritative power centralization aspirations.

In a grand geopolitical faustian bargain, the federal political apparatus has ensured its own relevance and power by relying on both real and imagined authoritarian boogymen abroad to justify its insatiable appetite for expanding authority and control. The New Age of Authoritarianism is shaping up to be a boon for domestic power hungry statists, their privileged corporate financiers, and their war loving military industry.

As an aid from Wikipedia:

Theodore M. Vestal of Oklahoma State University has written that authoritarianism is characterized by:

"Highly concentrated and centralized power structures," in which political power is generated and maintained by a "repressive system that excludes potential challengers" and uses political parties and mass organizations to "mobilize people around the goals of the government";

• The following principles:
  1. rule of men, not rule of law;
  2. rigged elections;
  3. all important political decisions made by unelected officials behind closed doors;
  4. a bureaucracy operated quite independently of rules, the supervision of elected officials, or concerns of the constituencies they purportedly serve;
  5. the informal and unregulated exercise of political power";
• Leadership that is "self-appointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors";
• No guarantee of civil liberties or tolerance for meaningful opposition;
• Weakening of civil society: "No freedom to create a broad range of groups, organizations, and political parties to compete for power or question the decisions of rulers," with instead an "attempt to impose controls on virtually all elements of society";
• Political stability maintained by:
  1. control over and support of the military to provide security to the system and control of society;
  2. a pervasive bureaucracy staffed by the regime;
  3. control of internal opposition and dissent;
  4. creation of allegiance through various means of socialization."