At all times, vigilance is the price of liberty.
... The measure of our society over
history is our fidelity to our principles. We must
remind our government and our people to remain faithful
to those principles or otherwise our society, like
so many in the past will be swept on the ash heap of
history.

Jay,

If Napoleon and Hitler were so clever, how come they both contrived to have their invading troops in Russia in the depths of winter?....pretty dumb by my reckoning.

Dear Poirot,

So glad to finally read a post that puts things into their
proper perspective. ;-)

People making comments - about Hitler
such as we've seen recently on this thread - obviously
have not spend any time in Europe between
1939 and 1945 as many of the 1950s migrants to Australia
(including my parents), did.
Reading - Albert Speer's, "Inside The
Third Reich" might help.

Jay's raves about the alleged feminisation of western politics, reminds me of Ghandi's quote:

"What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea.”

What do I think about the feminisation of politics? I think it would be a very good idea.

I imagine Jay would have been against the American civil war on the grounds that our boys were being sacrificed in the name of black rights.

Lexi,

Talking of the aptitude of despots et al: -Francis Bacon put it most succinctly when he said, "Nothing hurts more in a state than that cunning men pass for wise."

I believe that applies to men like Hitler and Napoleon.

(incidentally, an ancestor of mine was the chief medical officer on St Helena when Napoleon was there. He almost certainly did his autopsy - although I'm not sure that it says much about his medical skills : )

Cossomby,
And again, you need to understand history, Lincoln was unconcerned with "Black Rights", runaway slaves were not permitted to stay in Union states for more than 30 days, he did not free slaves in the north and he planned to deport all Africans to Liberia.
The proper context of the War between the states is the culture clash between the old Indo European Aristocracy of the Confederacy and the Militant Anglo Saxon Protestant "Reformers".
We need a new term to illustrate Totalitarian Humanism, Progressive Aggression would suffice, let's say the civil War was more the result of radical WASP Progressive Aggression against the old Indo European Aristocratic model.

To the others, yeah damn right this is female aggression and warmongering to serve Feminist goals, are we all still in love with Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Oprah Winfrey and all the other "Empowered women" baying for the blood of Middle Eastern men in the liberation of their women?