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"My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth."

- Abraham Lincoln

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That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence built.

- Abraham Lincoln

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"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

- Abraham Lincoln

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"You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was."

- Abraham Lincoln

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“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

- Abraham Lincoln

I'm Pretty Sure This is the Takeaway Kamala Harris Wanted From Her Example:

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I say, in the way our fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. I say when this Government was first established, it was the policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new Territories of the United States, where it had not existed.

-Abraham Lincoln, third Lincoln-Douglas debate, September 15, 1858, Jonesboro, Illinois

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“I have never had a feel­ing politically that did not spring from the sen­ti­ments em­bod­ied in the Declaration of Independence.”

— Abraham Lincoln

You Want Fries With That?

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"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."

-Abraham Lincoln

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I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down.

― Abraham Lincoln

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I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

—Abraham Lincoln

Abe Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Melania Trump Walk into a Bar...

...the bar of high standards. What do these three have in common? Together, I believe they illustrate the difference between plagiarism and allusion. With Melania, the Jayson Blair of presidential candidate's wives, it was clearly plagiarism. Not that it was that big of a deal. No one expected the equivalent of the Gettysburg Address from her. Many people think the unforced error of the kerfluffle which came when the plagiarism came out, with the initial denials from the Trump camp, were largely due to Trump being too cheap to hire a decent speechwriter for her, and the attempt at cover up was just pure Trump.

But I read something by Mike Rowe, of "Dirty Jobs" fame, and former opera singer:

I remember, in the wake of the Challenger disaster, Ronald Reagan gave a truly extraordinary speech. Every sentence was brilliant, but this part was unforgettable.

“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning, as they prepared for their journey, waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”

I was 22 at the time, and I literally cried when I heard those words. I was truly touched. Later, I learned those words had been written for Reagan by Peggy Noonan. After that, I learned Peggy Noonan had lifted those words from a poem called “High Flight,” written by an airman who died in WWII named John McGee.

Did Ronald Reagan plagiarize Peggy Noonan? Did Peggy Noonan plagiarize John McGee?

Now I'm a little bit older than Mr. Rowe, I predate the 24 hour news cycle. In fact, I not only predate 24 hour news, but I predate 24 hour TV!

Back in the olden days, when there were only three networks, and cable was what you used to suspend bridges, TV stations didn't broadcast 24/7. Typically they ended their "broadcast day" around one or two in the morning. And typically, the station just before signing off the air, would play the National Anthem and a short video of a jet fighter flying, while a narrator recited the poem "High Flight". Having on more than one occasion stayed up past the end of the broadcast day, and because there was literally "nothing else on", people would watch and listen to the stirring words of Airman John McGee. For those of Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan and my generation (heady company!), the words of High Flight were totally familiar and totally appropriate for Reagan to allude to. Whippersnappers like Mike Rowe may not have known where the words came from, but there was no attempt at plagiarism there, or anything like it.

But people often attribute a quote to the person they heard it from first. Many people attribute the line to Robert Kennedy that he quoted from George Bernard Shaw:

You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”

A more famous attribution of a literary allusion to the wrong source comes from the aforementioned Gettysburg Address. It concludes:

...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln was alluding to John Wycliffe's prologue to his Bible translation of 1384:

This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.

Lincoln knew the source of the quote, as, no doubt, did the majority of those who heard it. No one rose up to yell that Lincoln had cribbed part of his speech. But his allusion to it immortalized those words, and today, people who never heard of Wycliffe (that's okay. Today's government schools the kids don't hear about anybody!), have heard his words echo through the years.

So we have one plagiarist, small potatoes in comparison to the plagiarisms of Teddy Kennedy, Joe Biden and even President Obama, and two well read presidents, able to make allusions to words well said by others. If we were to stack every literary or cultural allusion in the same boat as plagiarism, we need to get a bigger boat!*

You may quote me.



* Jaws (1975)


Art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

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Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.

-Abraham Lincoln

Happy Lincoln's Birthday!

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“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”

― Abraham Lincoln

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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

-Abraham Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address

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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.

- Abraham Lincoln

The Lifelong Bliss of Abraham Lincoln?

I saw this on a billboard a couple weeks ago, and it struck me how little the copywriter must know of American history to use Honest Abe as his example of "lifelong bliss". I searched the photo. Apparently it comes from a stock photo of some couple's happy nuptials, sans the head of our sixteenth president. But, what did Abe Lincoln know of "lifelong bliss"?

There's a list floating around the 'Net about Lincoln's failures prior to becoming president. But whether or not some of these "failures" were exaggerated, we know that three of his four children died young, his wife was committed to a mental health asylum and he himself suffered from what many believe to be clinical depression. He presided over the war which claimed the lives of more Americans than any other war in our history. And, oh, and someone shot him in the head over a political disagreement.

Lifelong bliss? Hardly. Maybe there's a reason the pig has a hole in his head, too?

Political Indoctrination in Public Schools

Over at the Scott Carp Dream blog, I saw this picture, which appears to have been taken in a school classroom. Public school, I would imagine, since the message has a decidedly propagandistic bent, at least at the end.

Rosa sat... so that Martin could walk.
Martin walked...so Obama could run.
Obama ran…so our children could fly.

Once you've finished gagging or taking your insulin, ask yourself: When was the last time a public school teacher told you that anyone had become a politician or had taken a political office so that your children "could fly"? Maybe a coupon entitling them to a free TSA pat down, but, given the economic blunders of the last five years, our children will be lucky if they can find a bus going where they need to go, much less fly!

So, not being the propagandist as our "purveyors of pap in lieu of learning" in our public schools, and recognizing that the battle for civil rights began long before Ms. Parks took her courageous stand, I thought I'd take a shot at it myself:

Abe stood...so that Rosa could sit.
Rosa sat... so that Martin could walk.
Martin walked...so Obama could run.
Obama ran…so your new masters* can get cheap Chinese chains.

*What??? That's not any worse than Tail Gunner Joe Biden's remarks about chains, is it? In fact, it is less racist than Joe's because I believe that our new masters will not discriminate on account of race. All races will face the same misery equally.


Update: When you think of Obama enabling your children "to fly", just remember that one of his first acts as president was to eliminate funding for a voucher system that enabled poor black children in Washington D.C. to escape the decaying public school system and attend private schools, much like Obama's own daughters, only far less pricey, and actually receive a proper education. This was, of course, payback to Obama's friends and political supporters in the teachers' unions.

Wonder how high those kids tossed back into crummy public schools are flying today?