Last night I saw this film - again because the wife wanted to. It was what I expected; filled with odes to the Lincoln mythology. The villain of the film is a Southerner, a descendant of General Albert Pike. (creative huh).
It is not worth discussing the film other than to comment on a couple of points. First, there are several points where the characters state something to the effect, "imagine if the Confederates had got their hands on all that gold".
Imagine what? Would it really have been so terrible for a new nation to gain its freedom because that is what the people of that nation wanted? I failed to get it each time one of the characters in the movie made such a silly statement. I guess secession got in the way of manifest destiny and all that.
The plot of the film revolves around the fabled city of gold. It ends up being located in the Black Hills, almost under Mt. Rushmore (Six Grandfathers before the Federal Government took it over). Apparently the entire Rushmore project was conceived (according to the story) to hide the city of gold. At one point the dialogue in the movie talks about finding this piece of Indian culture (the use the non-preferred "native american" term).
It is interesting to note that once they find it I did not notice one single Indian there cataloguing and collecting all of the treasure. I suppose it was all headed off to the Smithsonian for "safe-keeping". All of that gold sure would set up the Lakotah Nation up nicely don't you think?
Which of course brings us to sic semper tyranus, the idea that tyrants always should get the (knife, gun, bomb etc.) the only problem with that is that killing a tyrant only allows a worse tyrant to replace them. Killing Lincoln (clearly a tyrant by any real definition) simply allowed the most radical Republicans to implement their policies. Killing tyrant did not even work in Rome, they tried it, over and over and simply kept finding new tyrants ready and wiling to fill the job.
*Lincoln deserved to die, he should have been impeached, tied and hanged for prosecuting unjust war, suppressing Constitutional rights and subverting due process - that is the fate tyrants should face; not to be revered on coins and monuments.
The real problem in the acceptance of the precepts of tyranny. It is those concepts that must be killed to actually "kill" tyrants, i.e. keep them in their place.
''We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? —Is he in hell? That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.''
I lasted for about half an hour. I could not sit through this horrible movie. The first one was entertaining.
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