Wow man that's so wrong.. that's crazy... "at the end"... I would say "at half" is way more humane... can't have people die trying..

I think you're stating Lincolns ideas on race in a way to cast them in the worst possible light. Yes the emancipation as it was implemented was essentially a piece of political cleverness, but his actions before that point all pointed towards him being in favour of emancipation anyway.

And Augustus Caesar may have brought about the end of the Roman Republic but he brought about the Pax Romana and the golden age of Rome. He was without doubt a great leader.

Also suspending habeus corpus was an extraordinary action taken in an extraordinary time and was completely constitutional - "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

How should Political Party leaders be elected?

Like we do in my state, New Hampshire.  In the PRIMARY election, ONLY registered voters can vote among the SAME PARTY candidates. For instance, registered Republicans can only vote amongst those candidates that are registered Republicans,  the same goes for the Democrat candidates in the same primary. 

Independent votes must declare they are Repub. or Demo for that day,  in order to recieve that particular ballot, however, after voting they can revert back to being an Indy voter.

However, in the GENERAL election - the one held for President (or Governor) there is only ONE ballot available and it is furnished to all voters.

If that was the case, the Supreme court wouldn't of ruled against Lincoln.

Habeus Corpus can be suspended, but ONLY by congress... and even then it should only be suspended for the places in rebellion.

Which is why he wanted to arrest the Chief of the Supreme court.

As for his views on race... That was his actual plan, to send everyone from africa back to africa.  Lincoln's views on slavery consistantly showed that he didn't believe african americans were capable of functioning in "civilized" society.

You seem to be missing the point.

There are people who don't want to lead, but feel compelled to lead because the people who are leading are complete jackasses.

You see people like that step up all the time when the people leading are acting like complete jackasses.

However they want to, but make sure parties do not have an entrenched position like the US Democrats/Republicans. Even if a third party was popular it wouldn't be able to get much out of the current system.

Then people can vote for a party they like the leader-selection system of the most, if they care about it.

Oh and for Augustus Caeser... his career may look good from the distance of history, but when you look at the specifics, he was nothing more then a brutal dictator who slaughtered anyone who disagreed with his dictatorship, including a 17 year old and essentially forced his viewpoint by suppressing all other opposing viewpoints... which up until then, the nobles at least were aloud to express.

If you judge a man only by his results and not his actions, sure he and Lincoln are great men. So are some people who most would consider among history's monsters.

Ghengis Khan for example stopped all the fighting among the various mongol tribes, just like Augustus and Rome, except the mongols were even more fractured. He also led to the golden age of the Mongol Empire. Unlike the romans he took a people that basically had nothing and thrust them into prominence. His put into place a set of laws that were equal to everybody and never went against them. (for example he always spared villiages who surrendered and would demote anyone who went against his orders, even his son in law.) Heck, he was for freedom of religion, was open to letting other people from different races join the mongols. Like the Romans he had infrastructure built despite the mongols being nomad's himself, the mongols even had welfare for the poor during times of Crisis!

Race didn't matter either, anyone who was talented and trusted could place high in mongol society. And they had the largest continuous empire ever.

Yet Genghis Khan still sacked the crap out of cities they opposed him.  Really Ghengis Khan and Augustus Caeser were a LOT more alike in outcome and action then you'd think.

WOW, did not know all those itneresting facts about Ghengis Khan. Guees the Mongols weren't as barbaric as they were made out to be. BTW, I don't remember the Romans being that opposed to religious freedom.

All those you see step up want to lead. If they didn't they would see no reason to step up. They want to bring about change and to impact the world around them. They have ambitions and a view of how the country should run and how they could do a better job then the current leader. Either way you look at it, they want the job.

I was refering to individuals who actually don't want to lead. As you suggested, I have never heard of a leader who lead more then say 6-8 months who actually did not want to lead. Fact is people who enter politics and such want to be leaders they want to impact the world they want to change the way our countries work. You don't enter politics not wanting to change or impact things, you want to have an impact and to do so you know you need to lead. Thus wanting to lead, you want followers (Voters) you want supporters (Donations) you want to get elected (Lead).

I don't think you could name a single leader who didn't actually want to lead. Also every politician pretty much including the ones we deem as bad, they all wanted to change and step up against those they thought were acting like complete Jackasses. In fact Hitler himself wanted to lead because he saw the German Government as acting like cowardess jack asses and thought that things needed to change.

I personally believe about 80% of politicians enter politics to change the world for the greater good, at least that is how they think. I will change things, I will get rid of the jack asses. I will be different!

Untrue.  Most politicians want to lead because they want to be someones boss.

Time and time again it's shown that when 99% of politicians have the choice between getting elected and getting their policys done they will choose getting reelected every time.

They don't want to change the world to put in things that they think will run it better.   They just want to change the world.

I'd note the first American President.  George Washington.   George Washington did not want to president.  The war had left him exhausted, weak and wanting nothing more but to enjoy his retirement.  However, he was essentially forced to be president as he was seen as by far the consensus choice, and he sacrificed to become president.

A good leader realizes that being head of state ISN'T a fun job, they don't look at it excitidly, anyone who sees the before and after pictures of US presidents should be able to figure this out.  Being president is a sacrifice.  Or at least being a good president is.

Most who enter politics essentially do so before they even have a set ideology... because there are TONS of landfalls that can kill a candidate before he even gets a chance to run a campaign.

That's why most of the time, when you see unconventional candidates, they lose.

They weren't expecting to be a politician since way back in highschool before their political belifs solidfied.