The Obama-Generated Hissy Fit

There are a few factors that have brought us to the point of having a presidential election that has both parties seriously considering candidates that are out of their depth running for the position, or just not close to what we need to lead the country going forward. The decentralization of our funding system and of our press has actually enabled candidates to endure the election path longer without the restrictions of the limited structure we previously had in place. But that both parties are so seriously courting outsiders for this position is part and parcel of the disarray in which our current president has left our country.

While searching for a clear definition of what Obama has done, I found it in a piece written by Phil Gramm, former Senator and one of those guys smarter than the rest of us, who wrote this in a column in the Wall Street Journal:

Many may say we want a check-up on our system, but do they really mean that? What has made this country great is that we have stability. We also have grown the largest middle-class in the world. The fact the middle class is being strained comes more from the economic policies in place during the term of President Obama, who has focused more on his political agenda, than the everyday needs of Americans. Sure he gave some people health insurance, but that does not mean they get health care if no one is there to accept the insurance.

Thus, in the face of a stumbling, unappealing, anointed candidate, the Democrats in droves are turning to Bernie Sanders. Let’s get real here. This country is not electing a 75-year-old, Jewish socialist as our president. God bless people for looking seriously at considering a Jew for president and not even blinking, but the man is a socialist. The party has shifted to the left, but I don’t believe they understand where Sanders is heading or would want the country to go.

We were at a family wedding recently and a long-time friend of the family was there. He launched into a conversation about the election and stated he supported Sanders and that he was a socialist. This is a man who had his own company and became very wealthy, but is now retired. How convenient that he is a socialist now that he took all of his chips off the table and is hording them for himself. It reminds me of the long-time friend that we ran into at a very exclusive hotel in Los Angeles who was staying there while his house was being remodeled. He told us he had become a Buddhist. I guess he skipped the part in his studies about abandoning material wealth.

There is a real grownup in the Democrat’s race, but former Senator Jim Webb receives little attention and seemingly less money.

Then there is The Donald. Do we really want another egotistical know-it-all who has a messianic complex running our country? The one we have now is not enough? This one has the bad habit of saying everybody who even hints at disagreeing with him is a stupid person who can’t even buy a pair of pants. How presidential! Sure he is smart, (not as good looking as he tells us he is), and says some things that are good comments, but let’s face it -- we would not care what he said if he did not have all that dough. You want an outsider? Carly is ten times the candidate Trump is, but we are in the middle of a hissy fit.

Trump’s current whipping boy is the Chinese. We have heard this song before and the tune was the Japanese and we all know how that turned out. The Chinese are so outsmarting us? I have been there and I found most of the country a disaster – environmentally and culturally. This is a country that will not let Google or Facebook have access to its population. We are supposed to be afraid of a country afraid of Google and Facebook? Give me a break. Certainly our current Administration is a weak negotiator (see Iran Deal), but I don’t for a minute believe this country run by misfits will overtake our country in the next century.

Nobody likes straight talkers more than I, but I prefer ones that actually say things that are factual.

All this disarray is because Obama broke all of the rules of being a president. He did it because he is a blind ideologue interested only in what he believes to be right. This is why his administration has been sued so frequently and lost. He is borderline lawless.

What we need is to elect a president that reverses this and returns our country to stability and a focus on building the middle class. In 1976, I voted for President Ford because he brought stability back to the country after the disruption of the Nixon resignation. The country went another way with Carter and look what happened. We don’t need another leader moving us toward more disruption. Thanks for all this to our misfit president.

The one major point the writer misses in his assessment of the current elected President is that Obama simply is the fulfillment of the goals of the "liberal"/"progressive" movement which began even before the 100th Anniversary of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, with its emphasis on Creator-endowed life, liberty, and individual liberty, and likewise "self-evident" laws to protect that liberty. The Founders described that law, as did Blackstone, as "Creator's law."

The fight to displace and replace that philosophy was well into place at the time of the Centennial celebration of that world-changing event which changed the world.

Obama, with his massive ego, his preparation for the role, and his clever and utter disregard for the parameters of the Constitution by which he is permitted to hold office, has advanced the "progressive" cause far beyond the goals stated in the following amazing summary provided by a remarkable Black A.M.E. Minister and Ohio State Legislator.

The so-called "progressive" agenda has, for decades, sought to replace the founding concept of Creator-endowed individual rights, liberty and laws to protect that liberty with their own false concept of imperfect persons in government assuming the role of the "Supreme Being."

The electorate must become educated to these competing ideas and rediscover America's Founding principles, which can enable them to recognize which are true ideas of liberty, and which are counterfeit ideas of tyranny. That is not easy.

In 2008, Michael Ledeen, on another subject altogether, wrote of the degree to which Americans have been "dumbed down" on some basic ideas underlying our freedom:

Ledeen said, "Our educational system has long since banished religion from its texts, and an amazing number of Americans are intellectually unprepared for a discussion in which religion is the central organizing principle."

In the Pope's speech in Germany a few years ago, he observed:

"A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures."

Ledeen put his finger on a problem that stifles meaningful dialogue and debate in America on a number of subjects--as is now exhibited in the discussion on the causes and solutions to acts of violence such as that in recent news stories in America. Censors [disguised as "protectors" (the Radical Left's ACLU, NEA, education bureaucracies, etc., etc.)] have imposed their limited understanding of liberty upon generations of school children.

From America's founding to the 1950's, ideas derived from religious literature were included in textbooks, through the poetry and prose used to teach children to read and to identify with their world and their country.

Suddenly, those ideas began to disappear from textbooks, until now, faceless, mindless copy editors sit in cubicles in the nation's textbook publishing companies, instructed by their supervisors to remove mere words that refer to family, to the Divine, and to any of the ancient ideas that have sustained intelligent discourse for centuries.

Now, it is the ACLU and "progressives" who accuse middle Americans of "censorship" if they object to books, films, etc., that offend their sensibilities and undermine the character training of their young. Sadly, many of those books and films are themselves products of the minds that have been robbed of exposure to wisdom literature in the nation's schools and universities.

Back in 1876, a Black Minister and Ohio State Legislator, Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, delivered the "Centennial Thanksgiving Sermon," celebrating the Declaration of Independence, at St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Urbana, Ohio. The Sermon, which examined the nature of governments, and the history of nations, can be read online IN ITS ENTIRETY at the American Memory Section of the Library of Congress, in the African-American Collection. Below is a relatively small excerpt from that Sermon's conclusion. In it, Rev. Arnett warned about a movement among "liberals" to remove the ideas underlying America's founding documents. See if you don't recognize those ideas in what you have observed in recent years:

"The Danger to our Country.
"Now that our national glory and grandeur is principally derived from the position the fathers took on the great questions of right and wrong, and the career of this nation has been unparalleled in the history of the past, now there are those who are demanding the tearing down the strength of our national fabric. They may not intend to tear it down, but just as sure as they have their way, just that sure will they undermine our superstructure and cause the greatest calamity of the age. What are the demands of this party of men? Just look at it and examine it for yourselves, and see if you are willing that they shall have their way; or will you still assist in keeping the ship of state in the hands of the same crew and run her by the old gospel chart! But ye men who think there is no danger listen to the demands of the Liberals as they choose to call themselves:
"'Organize! Liberals of America! The hour for action has arrived. The cause of freedom calls upon us to combine our strength, our zeal, our efforts. These are The Demands of Liberalism:
"'1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall no longer be exempt from just taxation.
"'2. We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in State Legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other institutions supported by public money, shall be discontinued.
"'3. We demand that all public appropriations for sectarian educational and charitable institutions shall cease.
"'4. We demand that all religious services now sustained by the government shall be abolished; and especially that the use of the Bible in the public schools, whether ostensibly as a text-book or avowedly as a book of religious worship, shall be prohibited.
"'5. We demand that the appointment, by the President of the United States or by the Governors of the various States, of all religious festivals and fasts shall wholly cease.
"'6. We demand that the judicial oath in the courts and in all other departments of the government shall be abolished, and that simple affirmation under the pains and penalties of perjury shall be established in its stead.
"'7. We demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed.
"'8. We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of “Christian” morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty.
"'9. We demand that not only in the Constitution of the United States and of the several States, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privilege or advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis; and that whatever changes shall prove necessary to this end shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and promptly made.'
"'Let us boldly and with high purpose meet the duty of the hour.'
"Now we must not think that we have nothing to do in this great work, for the men who are at the head of this movement are men of culture and intelligence, and many of them are men of influence. They are led by that thinker and scholar, F. E. Abbott, than whom I know but few men who has a smoother pen, or who is his equal on the battle-field of thought. He says in an address on the duty of his leagues:
"'My answer may be a negative one to all who see nothing positive in the idea of liberty. The conviction I refer to is this: that, regarded as a theological system, Christianity is Superstition, and, regarded as an organized institution, Christianity is Slavery. The purpose I refer to is this: that, whether regarded as theological system, Christianity shall wholly cease to exercise influence in political matters. Although the national Constitution is strictly secular and non-Christian, there are many things in the practical administration of the government which violate its spirit, and constitute a virtual recognition of Christianity as the national religion. These violations are very dangerous; they are on the increase; they more and more give Christianity a practical hold upon the government; they directly tend to strengthen the influence of Christianity over the people, and to fortify it both as a theology and a church; and they are therefore justly viewed with growing indignation by liberals. Not unreasonably are they looked upon as paving the way to a formidable effort to carry the Christian Amendment to the Constitution; and the liberals are beginning to see that they must extinguish the conflagration in its commencement. I believe all this myself, with more intense conviction every day; and therefore I appeal frankly to the people to begin now to lay the foundations of a great National Party of Freedom. It is not a moment too soon. If the liberals are wise, they will see the facts as they are, and act accordingly. Not with hostility, bitterness, defiance, or anger but rather with love to all men and high faith in the beneficence of consistently republican institutions, do I urge them most earnestly to begin the work at once.'

"He acknowledges that this is a religious nation and wants all men to assist him in eliminating the grand old granite principles from the framework of our national union. Will you do it freeman; will we sell the temple reared at the cost of so much precious blood and treasure? These men would have us turn back the hands on the clock of our national progress, and stay the shadow on the dial plate of our christian civilization; they would have us call a retreat to the soldiers in the army of Christ; the banner of the cross they would have us haul down, and reverse the engines of war against sin and crime; the songs of Zion they would turn into discord, and for the harmony and the melody of the sons of God, they would give us general confusion; they would have us chain the forces of virtue and unloose the elements of vice; they would have the nation loose its moorings from the Lord of truth and experience and commit interest, morally, socially; religiously and politically to the unsafe and unreliable human reason; they would discharge God and his crew and run the ship of State by the light of reason, which has always been but a dim taper in the world, and all the foot-prints it has left are marked with the blood of men, women and children. No nation is safe when left alone with reason.
"But we have no notion of giving up the contest without a struggle or a battle. We are aware that there is a great commotion in the world of thought. Religion and science are at arms length contending with all their forces for the mastery. Faith and unbelief are fighting their old battles over again, everything that can be shaken is shaking. The foundations of belief are assaulted by the army of science and men are changing their opinions. New and starting theories are promulgated to the world; old truths are putting on new garbs. Error is dressing in the latest style, wrong is secured by the unholy alliances, changes in men and things, revolution in church and state, Empires are crumbling, Kingdoms tottering; everywhere the change is seen. In the social circle, in the school house, in the pulpit and in the pews. But amid all the changes and revolutions there are some things that are unchangeable, unmovable and enduring. The forces that underline the vital power of Christianity are the same yesterday, to-day, to-morrow and forever more. They are like their God, who is omnipotent, immovable and eternal, and everywhere truth has marched it has left its moccasin tracks.
"The Conclusion of the Whole Matter.We have patiently tried to examine the record of the nations of antiquity and learn the cause of their decay and decline, their fall, why their early death; and why so many implements of destruction around and about their tombs, and everywhere, in the silent streets, mouldering ruins, tottering columns, mouldy and moist rooms, and the united voice from the sepulcher of the dead past is, "sin is a reproach to any people." We see it written on the tombs of the Kings, and engraven on the pages of time, "sin is a reproach to any people." These are the principles of governments, Right and wrong; and the people who are the advocates of Right have bound themselves together and by their united effort they have brought light out of darkness and forced strength out of weakness.
"We as a nation have a grand and glorious future before us. The sun of our nation is just arising above the horizon and is now sending his golden rays of peace from one end of the land to the other. The utmost extremities of the members of the body politic are warm and in motion by the commercial and financial activities of the land. Her face is destined to blush with beauty when peace and justice shall be enthroned. The grand march of progress shall mark her in her onward advancement in moral strength, intellectual brilliancy, and political power. Then we can say that we give to every man, woman and child the benefit of our free institutions, giving all the benefits of our common school and the freedom to worship God under their own vine and fig tree. Then will we see written, on the banner of our free, redeemed and disenthralled country, the sublime words written, not in the blood of men, but in the sun-light of truth, that "Righteousness exalteth a nation." It will fall like the morning dew on the lowly; it will descend like the showers of May on the poor; and like the sun it will shine on the good and bad, dispensing from the hand of plenty the blessings of a government founded on the principle of justice and equality.
"Standing on the threshold of the second century of the nation's life, with the experience of the past lying at our feet, we are saluted by the shout of triumph from the millions who left their homes and business and attended the Great Exposition of the skill and genius of the world, collected at Philadelphia. We were permitted to receive the greetings from the oldest to the youngest nation of the earth. Egypt and the United States clasped hands over the waste of 5,000 years, and lay their treasures at the feet of our civilization. The material, intellectual and mechanical deterioration of the one, and the unprecedented progress of the other, stand in great contrast; in all that makes the nation great,—morally, religiously and socially, the young nation is ahead.
"Following the tracks of righteousness throughout the centuries and along the way of nations, we are prepared to recommend it to all and assert without a shadow of doubt, that "Righteousness exalted a nation"; but on the other hand following the foot-prints of sin amid the ruins of Empires and remains of cities, we will say that "sin is a reproach to any people." But we call on all American citizens to love their country, and look not on the sins of the past, but arming ourselves for the conflict of the future, girding ourselves in the habiliments of Righteousness, march forth with the courage of a Numidian lion and with the confidence of a Roman Gladiator, and meet the demands of the age, and satisfy the duties of the hour. Let us be encouraged in our work, for we have found the moccasin track of Righteousness all along the shore of the stream of life, constantly advancing, holding humanity with a firm hand. We have seen it “through” all the confusion of rising and falling States, of battle, siege and slaughter, of victory and defeat; through the varying fortunes and ultimate extinctions of Monarchies, Republics and Empires; through barbaric irruption and desolation, feudal isolation, spiritual supremacy, the heroic rush and conflict of the Cross and Crescent; amid the busy hum of industry, through the marts of trade and behind the gliding keels of commerce.”
"And in America, the battle-field of modern thought, we can trace the foot-prints of the one and the tracks of the other. So let us use all of our available forces, and especially our young men, and throw them into the conflict of the Right against the Wrong.
"Then let the grand Centennial Thanksgiving song be heard and sung in every house of God; and in every home may thanksgiving sounds be heard, for our race has been emancipated, enfranchised and are now educating, and have the gospel preached to them!
"Sons of freedom, sing the glad hymns of praise on the Western plains! Daughters of sorrow shout the joyful tidings amid the savannahs of the South-land! Proclaim it on the Atlantic's western stand and declare it on the slopes of the Pacific! Humble followers of the Son of Mary, chant the eternal truth in the temple of the Most High, that “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
"We invite every nation, kindred, tongue and people, to come to our land. Come from the bogs of Ireland; come from the dykes of Holland; come from the mountains of Switzerland; and from the sunny plains of Italy; and enjoy a government made for man! Come from the jungles of Africa or Egypt, the university of the infant world; come from Asia the cradle of humanity; come and bring your gifts from the Islands of the South Sea and spice land! Come ye men of every clime and race and see a nation founded in Righteousness, guarded by Justice, and supported by truth and equity, and defended by God!
"When thus united in one grand commonwealth of nationalities the universal prayer will be:
"Show us our Aaron, with his rod of flower!
Our Miriam, with her timbrel soul in tune!
And call some Joshua, in spirits power,
To praise our sun of strength at point of noon.
God of our fathers! over sand and sea,
Still keep our struggling footsteps close to thee." - (End of Excerpt from "Righteousness Exalteth a Nation, but Sin is a Reproach to Any People")

So said Rev. Benjamin Arnett in 1876. Where is the leader who will declare these things today? Arnett, the learned statesman and minister, chose as his theme, "Righteousness Exalteth a Nation, but Sin is a Reproach to Any People."

Might such outspoken thoughts enlighten the minds of Americans today as they discuss the topic of this thread?

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