Snapshot of the State

Jim Booth drives a French draft horse with a caisson carrying the casket of Sgt. Andrew Creighton, who died in Afghanistan while serving in the U.S. Army, at the Houston National Cemetery in Houston. Creighton's brother Spc. Allen Creighton, last in a black barrette, served as pallbearer.

Back where it all began………

When seeing this photo I thought how appropriate to have a participant dressed in the clown suit of Lincoln’s Yankee Army as part of a modern military funeral caisson. It was Lincoln who forcibly branded upon the American collective psyche the idea of the indivisible, American nation state, united forever, evangelizing the democratic theology of heaven on earth. It was Lincoln and his disciples who championed the Hamiltonian advocacy of military adventurism in pursuit of "imperial glory."

Since Lincoln’s reign and his murderous war against secession, we’ve repeatedly witnessed this crazed nationalism fueling imperialistic crusades of conquest around the world. The Neo-cons and the Obamatrons are the latest collectivist kooks to further the cause. As Tom DiLorenzo points out:

“This is yet another dire consequence of the war: Americans came to believe in Alexander Hamilton’s notion that the ‘prestige’ of the state through its pursuit of ‘imperial glory’ was a legitimate function of government. Limiting the role of government to the protection of God-given natural rights to life, liberty, and property became one of Lincoln’s ‘dogmas of the quiet past.’”

So the blood keeps flowing and the tyranny keeps going- all in the name of national glorification.

Glory, glory Hallelujah!