November 4, 2008
Abraham Lincoln To Barack Obama - Not
Election day morning and by all accounts it looks like Obama will win. Here are a few words for him and his liberal friends from the Great Emancipator, brought to my attention by my good friend, Rob, in Fredicksburg, Va. And it now seems that Rob’s sources for the quotes below weren’t from Abe Lincoln, our President, but from Abe Lincoln, a guy who ran a shoe store at 12th & Broadway in New York.
Sorry for the confusion. Like Janet Reno, I take full responsibility for the mistaken attribution, but agree with all the sentiments.
==>”You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
==>You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
==>You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
==>You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.
==>You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
==>You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
==>You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do
for themselves.”
Since I don’t think President-elect Obama in his governance will take any of the above to heart, my advice is to sit down, kick back and wait for the government to start sending you and your kids all the checks and handouts they need.
Welcome to the USRA. The United Socialist Republic of America.
I love how people like you sit back and say nothing while billions of taxpayer dollars go to line the pockets of the billionaires who caused this fiscal crisis, but scream like banshees when working people get some much needed tax relief.
Your hypocrisy is matched only by your ignorance, your ugliness only by your stupidity.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, unemployment insurance, the buying of Freddie and Fannie, the bailing out of banks and insurance companies so they don’t go bankrupt and bailout on the public. Possibly helping the automobile companies so they don’t have to put hundrends of thousdands of their workers out in the street And all of the above caused by bad management from the current administration.
Why are you so worried about Obama causing socialism. We are already a socialist country.
Howard …
You’re right. It started with FDR, then JFK and Lyndon and we can’t turn back that clock. I’m not fond of the bailouts — I hate them, but we are powerless to do anything about them, aren’t we!
That doesn’t mean we can’t continue to fight against recurring instances of these government “salvations.” Do we shut up? I know you wouldn’t want that.
What I believe has kept the country afloat is that despite all the “socialist” programs of the past, the economy has grown enough to sustain it. Economic times are changing and I don’t know whether we can sustain the kind of program Obama says he wants.
Atherton …
You’re probably a Tiersky clone and I’ll be deleting you in future because you strike me as a schmuck.
But first, what is the causality between hypocrisy and saying nothing about “bailouts?” I choose to write about what I choose to write about, not to be comprehensive. There are plenty of your types out there who’ll handle those issues. I choose not to.
By the way, my offer for you to write something for the blog is still open. Scroll down a few posts and you’ll see it there. I’ll be waiting. But only for a little while longer. Here’s the link: http://www.bonilogue.com/2008/09/07/william-a-iii
See, my feeling is that people like you, and Tiersky, have nothing to say, only something to criticize. Let’s see what you can do.
Atherton … I’ve just deleted you. You add nothing to any conversation or discussion. Bye.
Hi, your attack on Obama seems unreasonable.
First Lincoln did not say these things, http://www.cincinnatiskeptics.org/blurbs/lincoln-cannots.html
(It comes with sources, isn’t that nice?)
You complained about the media not doing its job and not checking on Obama in another article. You couldn’t go as far as doing a search online about this quote.
Let us deal with the supposed arguments against Obama’s supposed beliefs.
“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.”
Bush encouraged people to spend money after September 11. Obama says to change bulb and fill up tires. The amount of times I have heard him use the words “personal responsibility” is larger than any other modern politician.
“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”
Strengthening the strong the last 8 years hasn’t helped. Has it? Your correlation that strengthening the weak means weakening the strong doesn’t add up. Industrial nations have a richer middle and lower class but also a strong rich class. In poorer countries, the divide is greater.
“You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.”
Maybe they shouldn’t pay them at all. That sounds like a democracy right? Please note the sarcasm. A wage earner, also known as a worker works to make a decent wage to provide for him/her and his/her family not to add another Ferrari to the wage payer’s driveway.
“You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.”
Ha. Obama is preaching hatred? to the rich class?
“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do
for themselves.”
Who is doing this? Not Obama. I mean this guy has lived that very dream. Why would he not want the same for someone else?
It amazes me when people choose their foggy ideals such as free markets over solving actual problems for people that are suffering. Sometimes they have been given the short end and at times they have made mistakes (not unlike failing corporations). Personal glory over common sense goodness.
Ajit,
I get your points.
You’re right in that I didn’t check the sources of those quotes and took them at face value from a friend who sent them to me. My fault.
We can talk about the ideas expressed when we meet, but they hold true in my opinion whoever said them.
It’s not Obama himself, it’s the philosophy he and the leftist liberals represent. There are flaws in any system, and unfairness and injustice. Trying to have government solve them is the surest way to disaster.
Socialism will destroy this country. Obama’s leanings, and the leanings of the Democrats, point towards that. Of course Obama has lived that dream, but it has led him to believe that the government can provide it.
Keep the government out of our lives. Short term gains, maybe, long term losses.
John,
My question would be: do you think the last 8 years have been good to this country economically?
The government is designed to do something rather than nothing. No one, liberals, democrats, Obama want Socialism. Don’t you think that it is kind of deceitful for you to accuse them of this? If we are really interested in doing right by this country, don’t you think we need to get away from name calling?
I have browsed your blog, I don’t see any policy ideas or even endorsements of conservative ideas, why is that the case? The best ideas should win in public discussion and not the best name caller. And sadly, this is what I generally feel about the conservatives currently (excluding people like Andrew Sullivan), they are the best name callers. They have no interest in doing what is best for people.
They are situations when governments are problems but they can also be a solution, I think we can agree on that. At the heart of this economic meltdown is the lack of trust in the credit industry (and not some poor family that can’t pay bills which people seem more inclined to point to). The lack of trust stems from the lack of transparency in the market. Who will be able to solve this? The corporations? How? By forming an independent organization. How can they enforce when laws are broken? I am talking in basic language here because I feel like conservatives are missing this picture. The government, along with other duties, is an enforcer. They need to act in this case to provide trust to the lenders. Almost every respectable economist says so. I mean Greenspan said he was wrong about this.