If They Can Do It, Then So Can I

"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desireable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when

built." President Abraham Lincoln, March 21,

1864, as quoted by Mark Levin in his book of 2009 titled Liberty & Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, in Levin's discussion of the free market in America.

Know this for certain: each and every man and woman is the arbiter of their own destiny. And each and every man and woman, without regard to circumstances which God or any other supernatural force may impose upon them, must and shall be the ultimate decider and doer of that which brings success or failure, survival or demise, safety or peril, freedom or subjugation.

And further know this: Lincoln uses the very example of the successful man, he who has labored, he who has toiled, he who has suffered, he who has been sought upon by poverty, famine, and war, to rise to any level upon which he sets his efforts; and that he himself, a poor man from no rich or easy circumstance, rose to build a house of freedom for all Americans.

Know this as well: it is the fruit of your labor that will stand before you. It is the very sweat of your brow and back that will build your house. It is the grind of the day, the heat of the sun, the chill of the wind, the sting of the rain, the pain in your bones; these are the scars of labor that will shelter you from the sun, block the howling wind, hold you high and dry, and give you safe comfort while you rest your weary bones.

Know that as you allow jealousy to invade your heart as you gaze upon the house of another, while you were idle and envious, the neighbor was laborious. Know that as you complained, the neighbor labored. Know that as you wallowed in self-pity, the neighbor was immersed in labor.

And know finally that he who labored also needed your help in order to provide the very house that you live in. It was the freedom of the free market that inspired the neighbor to labor, and allowed the fruit of his labor to provide the house you have.