Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 09/26/2009 2:45:33 PM PDT by HokieMom
LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Americans must pay attention to challenges to democracy today just as Abraham Lincoln did by fiercely opposing slavery, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a conference on the 16th president's legacy Friday night.
"We are part of something far greater than ourselves," Thomas told more than 300 people at Washington and Lee University.
Many in Lincoln's time didn't realize the threat that slavery posed to the principles on which the nation was founded, Thomas said.
"What a miserable job he had. He wasn't popular," Thomas said, "but he did what was right."
Thomas received a standing ovation from the audience in Lee Chapel, where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is buried.
He told conference participants he isn't a Lincoln scholar, but admires him greatly.
"My interest in him has been deeply personal and long-standing," said Thomas, who grew up in segregated rural Georgia in the 1950s and 1960s. "We thought of him then as the great emancipator."
The 61-year-old Thomas is the Supreme Court's second black justice. The first was Thurgood Marshall, whom he replaced in 1991.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
http://www.wlu.edu/x35445.xml
Waiting for the Lost Cause Brigade to arrive.
The thought if not for President Lincoln, half the nation would be speaking French. That is a legacy all it’s own.
Of all the presidents I would emulate Lincoln would not be one of them.
Are you locked and loaded?
Always. It's been a long time since we had a good one.
Huh?
No... but maybe deporting the Obama "civilian security forces" to Liberia (or whatever it's now called) is worth considering.
Be sure to e-mail Wlat. I'd hate for him to miss it.
They beat you in by nine seconds.
Lincoln Never!!
Can you agree that Justice Thomas has legitimate reasons for a sentimental fondness for Lincoln?
At least he was born in America?
He is correct. God bless Justice Thomas. He’s a good man.
I haven't seen his long form birth certificate. Have you?
I’m watching the Virginia Tech football game and haven’t listened to Justice Thomas’ speech yet. I’m sure he makes a better case for his point of view than the AP would include in their coverage which is basically soundbites.
I greatly admire Justice Thomas. I understand his sentiments. Lincoln, however, and the myth that surrounds his persona, hide a deeply flawed man with a deeply flawed ideology.
He was not, as many claim, such an advocate of abolition, and only resorted to emancipation when the Union became desparate to defeat the Confederacy. And then he only freed the slaves in confederate States where the Union Army had already invaded and conquered.
Lincoln’s great legacy is seen in an ever-growing, all powerful central, federal government in Washington DC, not the states. In short, Lincoln “freed the slaves” by “enslaving [all] free men.”
No, Lincoln wasn’t the devil as some Southern Partisan’s might charge, but he was far from the virtuous, apolitical idealist he is often portrayed as in popular history and culture...
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