Abe

Enough of this President's Day nonsense. Today is Abe Lincoln's birthday. Only Abe's. Not George's. I admire Abe more than just about any other human being. Here is one thing he said:

The true rule, in determining to embrace or reject any thing, is not whether it has any evil in it; but whether it has more of evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost every thing is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.

I think about this every time I accidentally stumble upon some professional media agitator or politician fulminating on the horrors of our modern times, wherein some socialistic furriner will set up death camps and make us all wear "666" stamps on our foreheads before we are systematically executed. Or something. Abe's thinking suggests that such binary moralism is misplaced. But it is what currently drives American politics. I suspect Abe would look around and be shocked, and saddened. Since he's not here, I'll try to do it for him.