"You Can't Fool All of the People All the Time"

"You Can't Fool All of the People All the Time"
Of All the Fools He Could Be, Bush is Mostly His Own
By Dr. Gerry Lower
Dec 20, 2005, 17:20

You may fool all the people some of the time,
you can even fool some of the people all of the time,
but you cannot fool all of the people all the time."

- Abraham Lincoln


In considering Lincoln's presidency, who in the history of the United States did more than Abraham Lincoln in implementing the values of Democracy as set forth in Jefferson's Declaration? In his famous insight on fools, i.e., those people who fool with the truth and those people who abide the fooling, Abe was providing a warning to dishonest politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen guilty of coercion, incompetence and lies.

Here Lincoln is saying that the fools who do the fooling will be found out, that they will be caught with their pants down. They will, like the fools they are, argue that their pants are half up and not half down, and it will make no difference to the people, because they know the fool's pants are down.

Given the pathetic condition of democracy under George W. Bush's religious capitalism, Lincoln's characterization of people and their propensity to being fools and to being fooled is as useful today as during Lincoln's time. It serves the people to ask who these fools are and why they are still with us in the 3rd millennium.

"You May Fool All the People Some of the Time, ( e.g., Old Testament "Christians")

Here Lincoln is speaking of those good people who haven't the time or the inclination to keep track of what capitalism or their government is doing, those who actively support government, those who give government the benefit of the doubt, those who think their views don't matter anyway and those who think having a mind of one's own is a sure way into trouble with a self-righteous socioeconomic system that knows no values outside of self-preservation.

These are the people who seldom ask why violence was perpetrated against them. They only respond to violence with an Old Testament vengeance, no knowledgeable inquiry required, no hesitation allowed, no compassion tolerated, no holds barred. "Vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord; no Christ in mind, no Christ in sight. The Christ is merely held aloft as justification for their vengeance and self-righteousness.

More