The Voice of Experience

Honest Hussein

 

Our new president, King Hussein Obama I, seems to fancy himself another Abraham Lincoln.  While currently the King thinks nothing of cranking out greenhouse gases to fly around the country in Air Force One, prior to his inauguration, he took a train to Washington, D.C. because Lincoln did so years ago.  As he was stammering through the simple presidential oath, his hand rested on the same Bible that Lincoln's did in 1861.  Dinners that evening were served using dishes with the same imprinted designs used by Lincoln containing foods from the same menus.  Obama and his worthless staffers pushed so many of these types of reminders of Lincoln down our throats that I was half expecting him to mount the steps of the Capital to take the oath sporting a beard and wearing a stove pipe hat.

 

Now if I was into amateur psychology I would wonder about the psyche of a man who dares to compare himself to one of the greatest president's this nation has produced.  I might wonder if these comparisons were a sign of an outrageous ego or simply a mask to cover some deep-seeded lack of confidence.  But I'm not an amateur psychologist and to be fair to the King, he does share some common characteristics with Lincoln.  Both are transplanted residents of Illinois, Lincoln being born in Kentucky and Obama being born in either Hawaii or Kenya depending on who you talk to.  And both men are very slender.  So, like all slender residents of the state of Illinois, both past and present, who were not in fact born in that state, Lincoln and Obama share a common bond.  Other than that…

 

Abraham Lincoln was reputedly not a very attractive man and often poked fun at himself on this point.  Once Lincoln replied to a heckler, who accused him of being two-faced, that if he had two faces why would he wear his current one in public.  King Hussein Obama I on the other hand, big ears and all, is supposedly so attractive that New York Times reporters, otherwise, we're told, objective and non-partisan purveyors of the truth, fantasize about having sex with him.  And unlike Lincoln, Obama won his race for the Senate seat from Illinois although maybe if Lincoln had had the political pull and/or nerve to have his opponent's divorce records unsealed, he might have won too. 

 

Though we disagree with the King on so many points, it would be churlish to not recognize his abilities as a public speaker, even though most of what he says is just bull-shit.  With his smooth voice and flawless timing, Obama is truly one the great orators of our age.  His admirers love to point this skill out as one he shares with Lincoln but they are mistaken.  Lincoln was a brilliant writer and some of the speeches, which being a simpler time, he wrote himself, are regarded as masterpieces of American political thought.  But Lincoln was not a great deliverer, if you will, of these words.  The Gettysburg Address, for example, was reported to be delivered in Lincoln's characteristic high shrill voice and not loud enough for most of the crowd of over 15,000 to even hear.  Contemporary reports called the speech a failure.

 

In short, Lincoln, though a poor speaker, wrote brilliant speeches that have survived for generations.  King Obama, on the other hand, delivers speeches brilliantly which consist of absolute crap that most people are lucky to remember even moments after they heard it.  On this point the two couldn't be more different.

 

But since the Obama-Lincoln comparisons seem to be all the rage these days, I'd like to point out one of my own.  Being a good Marxist, King Hussein Obama I believes in all of his subjects sharing their wealth.  These ideas were conveyed to Joe the Plumber before the election and are dutifully being carried out today as Obama takes money from taxpayers and redistributes it to the beneficiaries of his stimulus program, his expansion of the SHIPS program, and now, the mortgage relief program.  Each program enacted or to be enacted will basically take money from the wealthier people in the country and pass it down to the unemployed and the working poor.  Lincoln also had an opportunity to present his views on wealth distribution and it's worth looking into if for no other reason than the King himself thinks Lincoln is worth emulating.

 

In 1864, a group of trade unions in New York banded together to form the Workingmen's Democratic-Republican Association of New York.  The purpose of the association was to organize both Republican and Democratic union members to support pro-Union political candidates and to educate their members on the fundamental issues of the war.  On March 21, 1864, a representative committee from this association called upon President Lincoln to voice their support and offer him an honorary membership in the Association.  Lincoln gracious accepted this membership and went on to quote at length a passage from his first State of Union address, sent to, but not verbally delivered to the Congress, as was the tradition at that time.

 

In this address, Lincoln noted that the Confederate leaders espoused a government completely dedicated to serving the interests of southern capitalists.  He went further to note that the Confederates believed that once a man was a laborer; he was forever stuck in that position.  Lincoln called this assumption false and dangerous to the rights of the working man.  He noted that "Capital is only the fruit of labor, and never could have existed if labor had not first existed," and then expanded on this point.

 

As has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life.  Many independent men everywhere in these States, a few years back in their lives, were hired laborers.  The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or lands for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him.  This is the just, and generous, and prosperous system which opens the way to all – gives hope to all, and consequent energy, and progress, and improvement to all.  No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty – none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned..  Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.

 

Unlike Obama, who only sees a static world of haves and have-nots, Lincoln saw further, a fluid world with individuals moving from labor to capitalists, or vice versa, based on their own merits.  As Lincoln said, "Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits."

 

Once Lincoln had finished quoting from his earlier works, he reiterated the point that the members of the Association had more at stake in the war than any other class and urged them to resist the "prejudices working disunion and hostility among themselves.", i.e. the anti-war Copperheads who helped fan the flames of the draft riots in New York City a year earlier.  Furthermore, in light of the destruction of these riots and to reinforce his earlier point Lincoln cautioned them to beware of the sentiments of those who might urge them to a war on property.

 

Property is the fruit of labor, property is desirable, is a positive good in the world.  That some should be rich, shows that other 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 when built.

 

It's too bad that one of those aides who found the design on the plates for Obama to copy at his inauguration couldn't have found this quote for King Hussein Obama I to read on his way to Denver to sign that massive, pork-barrel, waste of money called the "Stimulus Bill."  It could have been worth about a trillion bucks to our country.