Shenanigans

So, let me just start out by saying that I think you should put whatever the hell you want on your Facebook, Twitter, etc. personal media account.  I have friends who read the Huffington Post, and seem to repost every single thing on that paper.  Fine.  I have friends who read the Drudge Report and can't shut the hell up about it.  Okay.  Do what you have to do.  It's your social media account. 

But I just have to say, that when you’re busy reposting stories and sending out “inspirational quotes” that your dumbass friends forwarded, you might just want to take a moment and find out where that stuff really came from.

Take for instance a recent "inspirational quote" that has made its way around the internets:

• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.
• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
• You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
• You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
• You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves

  --Abraham Lincoln

Here’s the problem: Lincoln never said this.  The moment I saw the first line, I called shenanigans (because you HAVE to call it) and quickly typed into my trusty Google search engine, “You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.” First thing that came up?  “Things Abraham Lincoln never said.”  The statement above was written in 1942 by William J.H. Boetchker, a minister and motivational speaker.  According to Wikipedia, Boetchker was, basically, the Tony Robbins of the 1940’s (my blog has been very educational today.  You’re welcome.)  There’s a big difference between a travelling preacher and the man who kept this country from fracturing into a million pieces.  And excuse me if I’m getting pissy here, but it is shitty enough to misquote someone.  It is one thousand times worse to misquote someone in order to forward an agenda that is opposed to what that person believed in. 

Abraham Lincoln was a man of the people (he was also a vampire hunter, but that's a different story).  If you asked ten people what kind of person Lincoln most strongly identified with, I’m guessing that a good number of those people would say, “slaves” or “soldiers.”  Read the Gettysburg Address.  Just read it – it’s three paragraphs long.  It will bring tears to your eyes (if you love your country.  Otherwise, you should probably go live in Canada.)  Lincoln was not a man who wrote about the equality of all humanity, and then turned around and said, “Now that that’s settled, let’s make sure the rich are amply taken care of!”  In his second inaugural speech, the poor doomed man said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”  Again, does that sound like a man who was more interested in caring for the winners than the losers? 

And I guess this is the bottom line: if you think the most important work that you can do here on this earth is make sure that RICH PEOPLE GET A FAIR SHOT, then you do your thing.  I happen to disagree with your life choice, but whatever.  There’s no need, however, to attribute these thoughts to people who never said them to try to make them more legitimate.  When it comes down to it, the Bible tells us over and over again to HELP THE GODDAMN POOR (that’s a direct quote from the Bible).  It constantly amazes me, however, that so many Christians, instead of actually setting off and doing that work, instead work their asses off to find a loophole.   

But, enough of that.  I’m getting too worked up over this, and, as Abraham Lincoln may have said, “If you cannot beat them, then you should join them.”  So, in the spirit of making up shit to suit your own personal agenda, I leave you all with this quote from another one of our great former Presidents:

“People on ludes should not drive.” 
-- Ronald Reagan