Rand

Lincoln

These are interesting times for those who have appreciation for the history and achievements made possible by our wonderful, but not perfect Republic.   It is my opinion that since our founding we have slowly but steadily traveled in the right direction with respect to human rights, reduction of racism and the economic prosperity the American people.

As an amateur student of history and a believer of the idea that those who do not learn the mistakes of history are likely to repeat them, I present to you the quotes of two great Americans.  The former is Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States.  The latter is a Russian-born author and philosopher Ayn Rand.  Consider these words of history.

Abraham Lincoln addressed the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838.  The title of his speech was “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”

“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”

In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged Francisco d Anconia says the following regarding how looters affect any society.

“When a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law, men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims, then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.”