PRESIDENT’S DAY
A REFLECTION ON PRESIDENT’S DAY
Today I thought about it a lot and reflected upon the very day we are celebrating. I think of our great Presidents and their contributions to our Nation. But I can’t avoid thinking about the ones who were not so great, those who actually rendered harm upon our country and did so fully aware of their misdeeds.
Among the great ones, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy we can rest assured that their legacies will live on to maintain their lofty place in history. Such is not the case with the likes of Buchanan, Hoover and Bush 43. They will take their place in the halls of dishonor and there is nothing they can do to alter that. As much as the Republicans are trying to re-write the dismal failures of the former President they are not going to succeed.
When I think of what the Republican Party was, the party of Abraham Lincoln, the principles and the ethics, the philosophy and fairness, the whole idea of Constitutionality and equality for all men and I see what the Republican Party is today I can’t help but ask WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?
What once was the party of Lincoln, and his vehement insistence on the equality for all men, as opposed to what the Republicans are today, hell bent on bringing about a very unsavory tyranny of the very wealthy and the Corporations I am still at a loss for an explanation.
Why is the anti-slavery philosophy been replaced with racism and xenophobia? Why is the Republican Party the home of the homophobes and the racists?
How did Republicans managed to be hijacked by these ideologies and false premises and it is now on the brink of being taken over by even more extremist and tyrannical forces, namely the Tea Baggers?
Let us remember Lincoln by citing some of his quotes:
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
--December 1, 1862 Message to Congress
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
--July 1, 1854 [?] Fragment on Government
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
--ca. August 1, 1858 Fragment on Democracy
Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father's.
--August 31, 1864 Speech to 148th Ohio Regiment
When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
--From the August 24, 1855 Letter to Joshua Speed
I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.
--July 10, 1858 Speech at Chicago, Illinois
I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.
--August 11, 1846 Letter to Allen N. Ford
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