Posted on 04/13/2008 7:24:30 PM PDT by joanie-f
I am a ‘small town Pennsylvanian’. There is no amount of explanation, or any claim of ‘mis-statement’ that can erase for me Barack Obama’s recent diagnosis of what ails small-town Americans.
I resent the fact that Barack Obama sees my faith, my belief in my right to keep and bear arms, and my negative opinion of those who have illegally invaded my country, as abnormal behavior, in need of remedy, and evidence of personal weakness and shortcomings on my part.
I suggest to Senator Obama that offering such unsolicited advice and diagnosis is evidence of deep arrogance and elitism the likes of which used to be unheard of in America’s ‘public servants’. Since when do those who ‘serve the public’ take it upon themselves the duty to mold that public into their own image ... and to define as abnormal those beliefs and characteristics that do not conform to that image?
Senator Obama, you possess some of the characteristics of one who envisions himself a god in human form. Such men must not attain positions of leadership in a free society. In serving as a United States senator, you have ascended far higher than your elitist mindset should allow. And I will do everything within my power to see to it that you ascend no further.
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the midwest, the jobs have been gone now for twenty-five years and nothing’s replaced them ... And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
I am not bitter. I am not frustrated. And for you to tell me that I am … and to offer a diagnosis for my non-existent symptoms … simply because I choose to place value on different things than you do, reveals volumes more about you than it does about me and my fellow small-town Americans.
A rough translation of your condescending statement above:
Americans who live in (Pennsylvania, and other) rural communities are turning to Christianity because they are experiencing difficult economic times. Their Christianity is a crutch and the scripture teaching, for where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst, has little to do with their reason for attending church with fellow believers.
Gathering on Sunday morning in the Lord’s house with others of like mind and purpose in order to worship the God who gave us breath … and to fellowship with others whose faith is focused on Him … is simply not a sufficient reason to ‘cling to religion’.
Instead, the fact that our all-powerful, omniscient government has somehow ‘let us down’ has transformed us into wretched creatures who have no alternative but to surround ourselves with other fellow wretches and ‘cling to religion’ as a foundation of last resort, since the God of Government has somehow failed to provide us jobs and economic security.
We treasure our right to keep and bear arms for the same reason. Our wretchedness causes us to cling to antiquated symbols of ‘worth’ and ‘power’. Our desire to own a gun has nothing whatsoever to do with a right bequeathed to us by our Founders, or to an increased awareness that our government is systematically stealing from us every freedom granted by God and secured by our Constitution. And our ‘fascination’ with guns has nothing to do with our educated awareness that the declaring of gun ownership as ‘criminal’ has preceded the imposition of total tyranny over countless numbers of oppressed people throughout the history of modern civilization.
No, we are simply weak, paranoid, redneck wretches who haven’t the wherewithal to obtain a sense of personal security or self-worth without having a weapon within arm’s reach.
The fact that we ‘small-town Americans’ resent the millions of criminal malcontents who have taken up illegal residence in our country is not due to the facts that:
The above considerations are, however, irrelevant. ‘Small-town Americans’ harbor a negative opinion of these criminals simply because they aren’t like us. They are of a different national origin, and we are closed-minded bigots. We are ‘taking out our frustrations’ on them simply because we are a small-minded people.
What Barack Obama would have us believe is that America is in dire need of a president who is capable of having us recognize the ‘faults’ listed above, and then declare as a national priority the eradication of those ‘faults’. Re-education camps might be in order. Or more gun control. Or more hate crime legislation. Perhaps we can even re-define ‘anti-illegal immigrant’ speech as a hate crime. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
Senator Obama, your brand of arrogance is a threat to every American, and every freedom-loving person on this planet.
I worship only one God, and I am suspect of any man who deems himself one. And any man who defines my devotion to my religion as the result of ‘bitterness’ and ‘frustration’ has stepped over the line of civility and humility.
That you are a front-runner for the office of the presidency, and that you could conceivably become the leader of the free world, is every freedom-loving American’s worst nightmare.
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
Great job! Nailed it good, joanie-f.
That you are a front-runner for the office of the presidency, and that you could conceivably become the leader of the free world, is every freedom-loving American’s worst nightmare.
Scary ain't it? I have not heard a great deal about the demographic of his groupies. Some passing comments re his appeal to the youthful electorate and the over-educated fools amongst us. If in fact he is pulling a large percentage of his following from the "yoots", it probably reveals more than we dare to guess about where our future lies. Sad to see it, but it's been in the wind for a couple of decades. I'm afraid our "yoot" are not being properly prepared as stewards of this once great nation. "God and Country" carry little meaning for them. "The long march through the institutions" seems to be working to near perfection.
I like it!
"How can this elitist be any where near the presidency?"
Many people think that the basis for Leftism is guilt. Not so, I've known them too well for too long. The underlying foundation of Leftism is elitist narcissism. People love him because they see themselves in him. I'm not kidding. Some of them are deceived, most are not.
Alarming, isn't it?
This is my opinion on the subject.
Thanks. :)
Haven't heard you in a while now that you mention it. FreepMail if you think of anything.
Point well taken. Although he directed his insults to small-town PA, they are an insult to all Americans who believe in the things he was degrading.
Thanks for the kind words. :)
I know, I can’t disagree with you, but the end result is that we end up propping up the genuinely dangerous whackjob on the left.
I completely agree, FGS. The dumbing-down and anti-American indoctrinating of our youth, and the continuing influx of illegal immigrants, are dramatically changing the fabric of our society. The uniquely American characteristics that made our republic the most moral and prosperous nation in the history of mankind are being diluted at an alarming rate. This election campaign is a frightening illustration of that awful state of affairs.
In regard to your post #91 on Obama’s 45-minute speech after his big victory om Feb. in Wisconsin:
Up to that point, I had, myself, viewed Obama rather benignly - but not after that arrogant and so-revealing rhythmical rant.
As you so well point out, his words and his intent behind them “might well have been lifted straight out of the teachings of Saul Alinsky or Karl Marx.”
I lived through the initial Castro-Cuba period in the early 1960’s - along with the later Daniel Ortega/Sandinista-Nicaragua period in the 1970’s and 80’s.
I am not prone to exaggeration; but there is definitely a WHIFF of Castro and Ortega in Obama.
And this came out in that post-Wisconsin speech.
There was the same arrogance and affinity for the doctrinaire Marxism that was manifest in the early Castro and Ortega - that so many people ignored, particularly the media.
I am not saying Obama is the reincarnation of Castro and Ortega.
I AM saying that the increasingly manifest nature of Obama’s CORE has many disturbing similarities to tyrants that have ultimately brought great grief to so many people.
This election cycle is the bearing of fruit for our nation.
Obama is the fruit of racism
Hillary is the fruit of feminism
McCain is the fruit of apathy
As someone who is very eloquent with words, you can probably come up with a better word than apathy for McCain.
What I am trying to say is that he is the fruit born from voters not paying attention AND being complacent to vote the lesser of two evils for way too long.
Well, HiramQuick said:
“I as a Conservative have no one to vote for”
Since Dr. Keyes is the only conservative I know, who is also running for President, I sugested him as someone HiramQuick could vote for.
Thank you. It took me looking at your essay to realize that it wasn’t just the “bitter” part that was being misrepresented as bothering us, but the “small town” part of his screed, too.
By the way, did you see the “bumper sticker” slogan Right Wing Assault and Scotswife worked up that I mentioned in post #158?
One could make the argument that the workers in the Houston headquarters had hung the flag without Obama's knowledge (and they probably did), but the facts you recite in your post, as well as others that we who have researched this man's beliefs have uncovered, make the existence of that flag in that office seem entirely appropriate.
I am not saying Obama is the reincarnation of Castro and Ortega.
I AM saying that the increasingly manifest nature of Obama’s CORE has many disturbing similarities to tyrants that have ultimately brought great grief to so many people.
I second your comments. Would that the useful idiots who don't genuinely comprehend the kind of 'change' this man is envisioning had the background and connect-the-dots ability that you do.
Thank you for sharing your insight and eloquence.
~ joanie
I don’t know..these days they’re more likely to get the FPS connotations than the historical one.
People only "cling to" those things that the user of that phrase is suggesting they could and should release. So Obama is suggesting that we should "release" the Second Amendment, or that we should abandon all religion.
Makes a person wonder what his purpose was in "clinging to" Rev. Wright's hate-filled church all these years(?)
BTTT
I live in Houston and I asked a guy I know who's a longtime Harris County (Houston) Democrat about it -- he's an Obama delegate to Denver and should know. He said the Obama office where the photo was taken was indeed a "volunteer" office set up by enthusiasts late last year, not an official Obama campaign organization office, and that the Lefties -- oops, volunteers -- had decorated to suit their own taste.
Houston has a fairly active Communist cadre around here who usually work in drag as the Socialist Workers Party, or the What You Got/Whatever Works Today Party. They were out demonstrating with old 60's-vintage slogans the day the very first bomb fell in Afghanistan in 2001, led by (among other Left organizers) a University of Houston professor named Robert Buzzanco who teaches -- I kid thee not -- a "history" course at U of H about how Ho Chi Minh beat America and why it was so inevitable, so historically significant, and how it clearly showed up all the weaknesses in American society that just happen to be the stock in trade of theoretical Marxism-Leninism and practical Soviet KGB Active Measures propaganda.
So the Obama campaign in Houston is tinted a fairly deep shade of red, because the local Reds jumped all over it and basically took over the initiative.
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