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Mon 21 Sep, 2009 08:08 pm
Where did this quote come from:
"You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
and that's Reagan, I guess. Lincoln said similar axioms.
@sullyfish6,
Any good presidential quotes advocating compassion & a fair go for the poor, anyone?
@wench,
According to
Wikipedia, this is from Adrian Rogers circa 1996 from "Ten Secrets for a Successful Family".
1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. 2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. 3. You cannot help small men up by tearing big men down. 4. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. 5. You cannot lift the wage-earner up by pulling the wage-payer down. 6. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. 7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. 8. You cannot establish sound social security on borrowed money. 9. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a mans initiative and independence. 10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
attributed to A. Lincoln
Interesting thread, but what exactly is wrong with that quote??? I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment...
@slkshock7,
Probably (without know you at all) because it reflects your own political beliefs.
@msolga,
Whoops. I meant to say: Probably (without know
ing you at all) because it reflects your own political beliefs.
(It's rather late.)
@sullyfish6,
Quote:"Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not."
"There is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all."
"Judge Douglas, and whoever like him teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going back to the era of our liberty and independence"
"It is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I have said, to assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other slave State shall emancipate her slaves. I have proposed no such thing."
".It does not follow that social and political equality between whites and blacks, must be incorporated, because slavery must not."
I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists, because the constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so.
"My paramount object in this struggle, is to save the Union and it not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it..."
"I have no purpose directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of
slavery where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
souce
Lincoln, a good president though he was, seemed to have been a product of his times, hopefully we have evolved from those unenlightened years.
John F. Kennedy
Quote:If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
source
Yawn.
Politics runs on money. It doesn't take much courage for a politician to stand up for rich people.
@ebrown p,
Nor does it take much courage to stand up for poor people...the typical politician won't honor either position for long.
@slkshock7,
The position since thatcher came to power in britain has been that the rich should get it all and the working classes should get nothing and this has been true now for the last 30 years. (even though we have had a labour government for the last twelve years)
Our politicians have honoured the position that the rich must get richer whilst the workers get nothing if they are lucky.
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/593/8033
@ebrown p,
ebrown p wrote:
Yawn.
Politics runs on money. It doesn't take much courage for a politician to stand up for rich people.
Which doesn't in any way refute or even address the content of the thread opening post.
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