Styx, Babe
I remember singing this as a kid.
(Hey - that might explain why I didn't have a girlfriend....)
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Styx, Babe
I remember singing this as a kid.
(Hey - that might explain why I didn't have a girlfriend....)
March 11, 2024
When the weather turned briefly cooler a while back, Anne and I did a taste-test of the Beyond Meat chicken tenders versus Impossible Foods’ chicken nuggets. I blogged about this and posted the blog on social media. (Excerpt from blog: On Beyond's package, they loudly say “NO GMO’s.” I remember listening to multiple interviews with Beyond’s Ethan Brown, who said, “People tell us they don’t want GMOs.” I have to say, with all due respect, you are talking to the wrong people, Mr. Brown. What people want is cheap meat. Full stop.)
The picture that came along with those social posts was a bag of the Impossible Foods nuggets, winner of the taste test. (Anne still prefers Gardein’s.) That picture prompted some vegans to think that the best use of their time was to angrily comment about how Impossible’s products AREN’T VEGAN! This is because their plant-derived heme – the ingredient Impossible uses to give their beef products that slight “metallic,” bloody taste – had been tested on animals so it could be approved by the FDA.
So: Animal killing that is somehow connected to a company at any point = all their products are NOT VEGAN!
But of course, harvesting “vegan” food kills many animals. Rodent control programs on farms growing vegan food and in facilities producing vegan food kill many animals. Trucks transporting products kill many animals. And so on.
I briefly tried to reply constructively. (“I understand that you’re upset about this. But I don’t care if something is vegan. I only care about what can actually help a lot of animals.”) As is always the case, engaging enrages them further.
Of course, NOT VEGAN Impossible Foods has helped many animals by producing products chosen by people who would otherwise eat animal meat. But it sure hasn’t made them popular with (many) vegans. (“The Impossible Burger Debate Was A Test For Vegans, And We Failed.”)
“Vegans or animals” is what ended my career. “Vegans or animals” was the driving force behind our current very non-vegan organization, One Step for Animals. I’ve seen this dynamic for the 35 years since I first stopped eating animals. It took me quite a while to recognize it, being in the vegan bubble myself. But if looked at objectively and without personal ego invested or identity involved (which is not easy) the reality is clear:
Veganism has been terminally poisoned by people obsessed with protecting their vegan identity.
For this very vocal and visible minority – and yes, it is only a minority of vegans – veganism is only about them and defending their strict rules of being “vegan.” (Or “Vegan,” as some write it.)
At least this is true in the United States. From my time in Germany, for example, it doesn’t seem to be the case there. While editing this chapter, I came across Kenny Torrella’s “How Germany is kicking its meat habit” at Vox. But Deutschland shows the “unintended consequences” of focusing on meat instead of animals: Although per-capita meat consumption is down there, each German is consuming one more factory-farmed animal than ten years ago [2022]. That means that despite a large drop in meat consumption, many millions more animals are suffering on factory farms. Not cool.
Another perfect example of (some) vegans caring about themselves über alles:
One: Publicly refuse to eat animals – live vegan
Two: Publicly refuse to sit where people are eating animals
Three: Encourage others to take the pledge
–The Liberation Pledge
Doesn’t that say it all? “Publicly refuse to sit where people are eating animals.” So it isn’t just about the purity of what you consume, but also the purity of anything you see.
Of course, this removes opportunities to actually help animals, because the only way to actually help animals is by being with non-vegans and persuading them to take animals into consideration.
The Liberation Pledge is only one example. My pal Ken recently suggested I listen to an interview with a “vegan advocate” he thought I’d like. In the interview, it was all “advocating veganism,” “promoting veganism,” “making veganism mainstream,” “repeating the case for veganism over and over.” The advocate went on to say his new book was going to be the comprehensive and irrefutable case for veganism.
If only someone had thought of that before.
I wonder how many vegan advocates actually listen to what they are saying. It is all about promoting their diet, their lifestyle, their beliefs. Not actually about animals.
Back in 2016, I was excommunicated from the national animal rights conference and fired from my full-time job. My sin? Quoting, with source, what celebrity chef Anthony Bordain said about vegans. With all the suffering in the world, and all the many people allowing and even perpetuating this cruelty, it was a founder of One Step for Animals who became the bête noire for Gary and his fellow fanatics.
In case it isn’t clear: I did not say anything bad about vegans. I was merely noting what a famous celebrity said about vegans. And for that, I was banned.
That is truly some insecure theocratic bullshit.
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How to win friends and influence people. |
Paul and I have a saying: The biggest impediment to the spread of veganism is vegans. While I was writing this today, he sent me yet another news story to prove it: A vegan saying drinking pee as the key to longevity. (There was once a table at Vegetarian Summerfest promoting this.)
Don’t get me started.
Over a quarter century ago, our Best Man Mark said, “I grow weary of the term ‘vegan.’ It has just become a label for moral superiority.” And he said this after being a founding board member of our national vegan group.
You might wonder why I’m so strident in my attack on the vegan fanatics, especially since I’m on good drugs and supposedly so mindful.
It is because I helped create them.
Of course, even before Jayne went on her crusade, some vegans have hated me. Eventually, even my long-time best pal turned on me for annoying the Vegan Police. But despite all my efforts to make the focus actually helping animals, I did spend two decades working every day to build up a “vegan” group.
Oops.
It would be one thing if “vegan first, vegan only” was actually helping animals. But if promoting veganism worked – if the next leaflet, book, video, movie, website was really going to make a difference – we would have seen it by now.
How do I know? Because I did the projections.
Decades ago, I calculated what would happen if every vegan converted just one other person every five years. Have we seen anything like that? No. When Animal Charity Evaluators did the most thorough metastudy of surveys about vegetarianism and veganism, they found: “Around 1% of adults both self-identify as vegetarians and report never consuming meat. [This is important because many people call themselves “vegetarian” but still eat meat.] It seems that this percentage has not changed substantially since the mid-1990s.” [The mid-1990s being when we started our vegan group.]
What I didn’t realize when I built those projections was that the vast majority of people who “go vegan” subsequently quit veganism. Unbiased surveys show that over 80% revert. (And then, of course, spend the rest of their lives badmouthing veganism.)
Why? One survey of former vegans found that the top reason for quitting was that they couldn’t take the pressure to maintain the level of purity demanded by other vegans. Again, vegans are “the greatest impediment” to the growth of veganism.
But really, vegans don’t matter. It is irrelevant how many vegans there are.
The only thing that matters is how much suffering there is.
Think about it. If you were to promote a position that would lead to more suffering than an alternative, would you do so? There might be strange edge cases, but choosing to create more suffering than an available alternative strikes me as pretty much the very definition of immoral.
And on that measure, the world has gotten way worse for non-human animals since Anne and I stopped eating animals and co-founded a group promoting veganism. On average, every person in the United States eats more animals today than ever before in history. This is true globally as well. Those are the simple, bottom-line facts, the facts that all vegan advocates have to answer for.
Everything I’ve learned indicates the United States would be a better place for animals if we ended veganism.
Not that you should eat animal products. (You can, as we’ll get to. [Later in the book.]) But we should never utter or use the word “vegan” again.
Still think we need to promote “vegan”? A 2017 survey found that vegans are viewed more negatively than atheists, immigrants, homosexuals, and asexuals. The only group viewed more negatively than vegans is drug addicts. Another 2017 survey found, “Meat-eaters are being put off going veggie because of certain aggressive vegans.” In 2018 – the year I stopped collecting these stories – researchers found that “vegan” is the single worst word you can possibly use to describe a product – worse than “diet,” “sugar-free,” or “low-calorie.”
As a long-time reader noted:
“I’ve become almost embarrassed to say I’m vegan ... not because of what it stands for, but because of the negative impression people have been left with due to other vegans and their negative behavior and words.”
I talk about this more, with many documenting links and graphs, in my 2017 post, “How Vegans Hurt Animals.” In that blog, I go into more about why vegans are so unpopular. (Tl;dr: It is because they are [justifiably] rage-filled and just can’t get past that.) It is my second-most-popular post of all time, having been hate-linked by many vegans in their ongoing campaigns against me.
Think about it this way: If we want to help animals, why would we use – let alone promote – a word that has such negative baggage? A word that makes people think of pee drinkers, screamers in restaurants, and terrorists. (The latter is what Anthony Bourdain called them.)
What reason could there be to use that word? What possible reason, other than an unwillingness to put helping animals first?
So what is the alternative?
We could and should put the focus entirely and always on the others who need our help.
I certainly don’t think it would hurt if we were all “animal advocates” instead of “vegans” or “vegan advocates.” Never talk about ourselves, never talk about our diet, never talk about our rules or dogma.
It should never be about us.
And of course, I say this as a person who cofounded Animal Liberation Action but allowed the name to be changed to be about veganism instead.
Sorry.
PS: Since it is unlikely everyone will take my advice above, a variety of admirable people are working to support current vegans, in part to lower the recidivism rate and also change the public’s view of vegans. World of Vegan is the prime exemplar of this.
PPS: In case it isn’t clear, I’m not “Vegan.” I’ll outsource this to Vincent, the head of One Step for Animals, Australia, who blogs at theanimalist.medium.com:
“Even if all vegans were nice and friendly, the point of my article is that veganism in itself as a movement is not something I want to be a part of. A broader, more inclusive approach focusing more on the animals and less on every detail of an individual’s current lifestyle is more effective. Either way, [veganism] remains nothing but a tool amongst many that can be used against speciesism, for animal rights. It isn’t a goal, and it shouldn’t be a dogma (a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true).
“I have called myself a vegan and worked at changing veganism, but I have come to the conclusion that veganism is what it is and that it is a closed club, which is detrimental when it turns it into a rigid dogmatic venture based on personal purity and exclusion. Veganism as a movement to fight speciesism is not something I embrace or even condone any more.
“I still don’t consume sentient animals and their by-products and I still want to encourage others to do likewise, in a friendly and pragmatic manner. Promoting an animal-friendly lifestyle is a tool, not an end.”
Or, as Margaret Atwood put it on Ezra Klein’s podcast:
Is it about how virtuous you are?
Or is it about actually trying to better conditions?
Find the rest of the book at LosingMyReligions.net
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The desert in bloom |
This is Not Normal (really incredible - although he notes things can be better)
9 actually good things that happened in 2024
Your brain is lying to you about the “good old days”
from 2023 The doomers are wrong about humanity’s future — and its past
I'm not following the news, but things leak through. ("I'm glad my faith in humanity is not alive to see this."*)
As someone in my family noted, one of the only two** goals of one side is to piss off the other side. "Drink liberal tears." They want us despondent. They want us to despair. They want us to be filled with rage.
Don't help them achieve their goals.
Living well is the best revenge.
*If you've read it, you know I've never had faith in humanity.
**Obv, the other goal is to further enrich themselves. Also, for more on why we act the way we do, this interview with Robert Sapolsky is very good.
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Dancing Saguaro. |
November 25, 2024 (thought this one would be higher)
Relevant portions of the full exchange. A message to One Step:
I am currently doing a research fellowship ....
We are currently evaluating the promise of a new organisation running Veganuary campaigns. However, I suspect one explicitly focussed on decreasing the consumption of poultry birds may be more cost-effective. Do you know the cost-effectiveness of One Step for Animals in terms of kg of chicken consumption reduced per $?
From their reply:
I agree [more suffering despite advocacy] is a concern. Veganuary started in the UK in 2014, and I noted the production of broilers per person in the UK in January increased 4.27 times as fast from 2014 to 2024 as from 1994 to 2013.
Learn more about how you can help animals efficiently
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If you would like to support work driven by these facts, please click here. Note: Open Philanthropy is not a supporter of One Step, but Lewis is. 👍 |
This is an amazing song, musically and the punch line of the lyrics.
30 years after that video was recorded, they released an album about a mission to Mars!
Was listening to a podcast about human progress, and someone defended the "let's piss off the public" antics of "Extinction Rebellion," I couldn't help but remember this from p. 450 here:
But if your first, second, and third priorities aren’t winning elections, then you are wasting your time.
If looking for a silver lining in the failures of last November, you might like this from The Breakthrough Institute: Nominee Chris Wright Offers Much-Needed Reset on Climate Politics
OTOH (and obviously this is just one of dozens of examples), I have to say "Bravo" to all the Climate Doomers and other Lefties who spent their time pissing people off instead of working to actually, you know, win:
[H]e's directing kind of the whole of his government, the the agencies, you know, energy energy department, interior department, the environmental regulators, to kind of come up with ways that they can accelerate the build out of largely fossil fuel energy and energy sources and energy processing. So that's pipelines, refineries, new oil and gas projects, and stuff like that. He's really trying to try to put the whole weight of government behind this kind of energy expansion based on fossil fuels.
January 16, 2024
For many decades, blogger and journalist Kevin Drum has sought out data to counter the latest feeling- and anecdote-driven narrative. Many of his readers are pretty thoughtful, but now, like much of the internet, the comment section is often overwhelmed with misinformation based on anger and despair.
Recently, Kevin had a series of posts based on actual data that met with sadly predictable negative reactions. For example:
Unemployment is the lowest it has been in most people’s lifetime.
They’re all shit jobs!
(Republicans: Inflation is high because workers are too greedy.)
Even adjusted for inflation, wages are up.
We’ll never own a home!
Last year was great for the economy.
Cage free laws are making eggs even more expensive!
(That is not a joke – a real comment.)
We live in the richest country ever.
Climate change (robots / disease) will kill us all!
I tried to figure out what news, if actually true, might possibly be seen as unequivocally good. But then I could hear the nattering nabobs of negativity responding:
Last year, more people found true love than ever before.
Love is the opiate of the masses!
How can anyone love when the world is going to hell?
Then, a few hours after I ran that thought experiment, I came across this in John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed:
I can't find a point of falling in love, which is just a desperate attempt to stave off the loneliness that you can never truly solve for, because you are always alone.
John wrote that as an example of his thinking when suffering from severe clinical depression.
That is what we’ve become.
I honestly believe those of us very online – liberals and conservatives alike – are driving ourselves mad with negativity and fear. [Not me anymore.] The world is far from perfect, but human life is, on average, better than ever, especially for someone who has the time and resources to be online quite a bit.
More Drum:
There's always something. But here in the real world, GDP is up, employment is strong, wages are up, inflation is over, the abortion rate is down, teen pregnancy is down, crime is down, cigarette smoking is down, racism is down, teen bullying is down, the divorce rate is down, education is in good shape, homeownership is higher than in the 1980s, US universities are the best in the world, America owns the global software market, the US military is by far the world's strongest, and American workers are among the best paid in the world.
Please:
"The world is bad. The world was much worse. The world can be much better."
But we have to actually want to make it better and work to make it better.
Constant complaints don't make things better. They make things worse.
We can each make a stand for positive facts and hopeful reality, and by doing so make the world better. Otherwise, the negativity will become even more entrenched and a self-fulfilling prophecy.
More, including a modification to the maternal mortality section of TBTSNBN, as well as a graphical representation of the increasing negativity in the news, plus actual data about housing expenses. See here for an actual good comment section (and a focus on Winning Elections [ruh-roh]).
Please feel free to share this.
This shows just how impossible it is to "beat the market." The two main charts:
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The past decade. |
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First decade of this century. Note that Large Caps, the best performing in the last decade, were down nearly 10% in 2000, nearly 12% in 2001, and down over 20% in 2002! Can't get enough? Here is why you should just buy an index fund. |
If you find this interesting, please share it. TY.
Try to imagine the unimaginable. You wake up tomorrow and the electrical grid is not down, but entirely gone. You have no running water. Your shelter is rickety. Your bank accounts have been emptied. You have no access to medical services. Your children can't go to school. Your life expectancy has plummeted.
You would have to think the Apocolypse has come for you. You would be right.
This is reality for many people today, right now.
Over 700 million people (twice the entire population of the United States) live in extreme poverty. Half of the global population (billions of people) lives on less than US$6.85 per person per day.
If we care about anything*, this has to be it.
And please don't tell me that your pet cause is more important because it will impact the world's poor in the future. They are already impacted.
It is not moral or logical to scream for policies that would harm the global poor because you care about the future poor.
Please keep in mind: things were much worse in the past. Rational, practical people working diligently have made incredible progress on lifting people from poverty:
It is fully possible to make more progress if we actually choose to make progress, rather than actively desiring to impoverish billions.
Don't be swayed by the Doom Cult. Be a part of the solution. Focus on what we can do to help.
* As discussed many places (including the conclusion of "Biting the Philosophical Bullet" from Losing) my focus is on chickens. (That's not going so great.) But humans care most about those closest to them, which, in addition to the reasons I lay out in "Biting," is why I say if there is just one thing to have someone care about, it would be acute human suffering.
Of course, no one should cause active suffering, even if they don't care about chickens or humans.
Pre-script: Tonight is the 4th anniversary of the worst few seconds to ever happen to my family*. On the bright side, I have not been taken to the emergency room since that night - the longest ER-free stretch since I met Anne.
*I say family because the whole thing was really bad for both Anne and EK. 😢
And also regarding terrible events: a reminder that I'm ignoring all political news. It remains hard, and I still miss Colbert. TY.
After receiving yesterday's blog, a friend asked, "What do you think it would take for you to have 'malice toward none and charity toward all?'" I half-jokingly sent this link as my flippant reply. But the below, which is part 2 of 3, is my actual answer. I'm working on it.
In Why Buddhism Is True, Robert Wright quotes a teacher saying that you shouldn’t try to intellectually understand the Buddhist concept of emptiness, because if you make the attempt, your head would explode.
I disagree.
Recognizing Our Simplicity
We humans have proven ourselves capable of incredible illusions. From believing in god speaking to us and transubstantiation to suffering the delusion that we are living in the end times and the Dunning-Kruger effect, our brains do not see the world clearly. We can’t even comprehend how bad it is. (Doubt that?)
Although we can’t be sure we aren’t living in a simulation, all testable evidence indicates that the universe is simply matter and energy following (a certain set of) the laws of physics. (“A certain set of” because there could be other universes where the laws are different.)
We don’t understand how the chemical interactions of our brain’s ~1.4 x 10^26 atoms give rise to conscious, subjective experience. But we do know that we can manipulate consciousness in specific ways by manipulating the brain’s atoms' interactions. This gives every reason to believe that consciousness is an emergent property of specific arrangements of matter and energy, but still subject to the laws of physics (and the emergent rules of chemistry, biology, physiology).
Everything we think, everything we feel, everything we do – all of it is, at the core, the interactions of atoms. Nothing more.
Recognizing this undermines the illusion of free will. But this insight isn’t (entirely) a loss, just as it isn’t (entirely) a loss to give up religion, or to understand the evolutionary basis of love, sex, and reproduction. Realizing the materialist, reductionist nature of the universe is yet another gain – a clearer understanding of reality. And that better understanding can help us lead a better life.
The First Gain: Freedom (of a sort)
The first insight is into ourselves. Since everything is chemical reactions, we can’t be the driver of our thoughts and feelings. Consciousness is along for the ride. Our bodies feel emotions – hunger, fear, desire – as a way to understand the world and motivate “appropriate” behavior. Many things are going on in our body / brain to keep us alive; consciousness shines the spotlight of attention on one part of our otherwise unconscious thoughts and feelings to allow us to “think” more on that topic. We don’t “choose” what to think about.
This is the great insight from mindfulness meditation – recognizing that our minds don’t actually work the way we assume they do. Thoughts think themselves.
But we don’t have to be the feeling or the thought. Once we realize thoughts think themselves and feelings are messages, we don’t have to identify with them if we don’t want to. That is: these insights and mindfulness can reprogram our brains to recognize thoughts and feelings for what they are. Thoughts and feelings are not who we are.
More concretely: we don’t have to be “angry.” We don’t have to "be" anything.
Anger can arise, we can recognize it, and then “choose” to let it go. "I recognize I am experiencing anger" vs "I am angry."
Conversely, we can recognize good fortune, experience gratitude, and “choose” to embrace the experience of that feeling.
As Sam Harris notes:
“Losing a belief in free will has not made me a fatalist – in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. … Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one’s thoughts and feelings can paradoxically allow for greater creative control over one's life. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings.”
The Second Gain: Emptiness toward Enlightenment
The second insight is the first applied to the broader world.
Everything in the universe is simply matter and energy following the laws of physics. There is no “good” or “bad.” Everything is empty of meaning, value, and emotional valence, except what our consciousness assigns to it.
And with enough understanding, training, and reprogramming, we can “choose” not to assign anything to anything, except what makes our lives better.
It goes without saying: this is difficult. But the reality is that the rude cashier is just a collection of atoms constrained by the laws of physics. Ted Cruz is just following his genetic and societal programming. The chicken farmer, the person picking their toes on the train, the driver revving his unmuffled car – at the core, just collections of atoms, empty of any inherent meaning.
So instead of reacting with disdain, hatred, or mockery, we don’t have to react at all. Or we can “choose” to react with joy that we aren’t that person. Or we can “choose” compassion. Or we can “choose” to try to figure out actions that may help change a situation that is causing suffering in others – and we can make this choice without allowing ourselves to suffer.
(And of course, when I say “choose,” I mean “use insights from others and our experiences to reprogram our neural net so we react differently in the future.”)
Simply Another Way of Interacting with the World
We don’t start out knowing how to type, use a cellphone, or speak a language. We don’t simply “decide” to have those and other skills. But if something in our lives leads to the knowledge and training necessary, we can interact with the world in a new way.
Learning a new language is perhaps the best example. People can speak German to me and I am unable to react in any positive, constructive way (unless they get a laugh from my idiotic grin). But because of an external factor (an excellent teacher in college) Anne “chose” to put in the time to learn and practice German, and now she has a new way of interacting with the world.
If you are reading this, it is likely that you have a similar ability – the ability to gain the knowledge and do the training necessary to achieve something closer to “enlightenment.” Put simply:
By recognizing the illusion of free will and pursuing the right training / reprogramming, we can develop something much more like free will than we have now. We can take hold of one of the strings that currently makes our life worse than it needs to be. We can stop simply reacting and instead interact, with more control over our feelings.
In short: giving up free will and embracing emptiness can make life much better.
Sending you love and kindness today. -m
Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865
At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of this great contest which is of primary concern to the nation as a whole, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.
It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged.
The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.