Heartland Debate

We went to the Heartland Institute's Anniversary Dinner last night. Rather than polling you about what you wanted for dinner, they gave you a plate with beef AND fish AND lots of vegetables. It was a one-like plate smorgasbord.

The rhetorical centerpiece of the evening was a debate about Abraham Lincoln. Was he a friend of liberty, or a foe?

A celebrated Lincoln-basher was flown in to paint him as a slavery-favoring tyrant. But Illinois is the "Land of Lincoln", and it's really hard to get a crowd worked up into a pro-secession mood here. So Joe Morris, who took the "Abe was great" side of the debate, did a bit better with the crowd.

Lincoln had his flaws
And pushed some ugly laws,
But still I'll give him raves
For freeing the slaves.