Obama the Smart Guy
Who purposefully gets Abraham Lincoln wrong:
On Wednesday during a speech in Parma, Ohio, President Obama decided to quote a former President to help justify his policy initiatives:
“But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I also believe that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves”.
I assume he was paraphrasing this actual quote from President Lincoln, but unfortunately he left out the most important part:
“The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.”
Obama doesn’t get it. And he clearly doesn’t get Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. President, while we’re all encouraged that you look to President Lincoln for guidance, let me share with you some other words of wisdom from our 16th President:
“You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence.”
“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”
“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.”
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.”
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”