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
Very good.
bookmark
My forgetter works better than my rememberer these days .... I don't even remember the context of the situation back then. Research necessary ...
I will tell you that he stands head and shoulders ideologically above any of what we have before us.
Thanks for reminding me of him.
Excellent research.
Absolutely brilliant...Have you considered submitting it to your local paper?
Oh yeah ... people say if you don't vote for McCain our nation is screwed because of judge selection. Does ANYONE trust him after he and 13 others of the spineless RINO’s did there “nasty” during confirmation hearings??? Not this old farm boy.
But I digress ... it WOULD have to be a continual, massive mailing that was on point. Yes ... I could see it catching fire.
This is why precluding firearm sales to those considered mentally dangerous is a precarious step towards a total ban.
Current legislation states you must be declared mentally dangerous by an accredited doctor. But soften the language and all those people "clinging" to their guns could be rendered unable to purchase by judicial fiat.
This is liberalism and how it works. They diagnose you in order to control you.
You can’t have a gun if you are mentally dangerous.
If you want a gun, you are mentally dangerous.
Therefore, you can’t have a gun.
Only those who don’t want a gun can have a gun.
Orwell was right.
In reality it is something else. There is ungodly amounts of usurped power available in the doom and gloom message.
Unwavering Faith in my Creator and Provider, not even the slimmest doubt in my mind. But I MUST have faith that He works through people in our land ... this country has and is great because of the freedoms we have and have had to fight for.
I am a realist. We are on a downward slide. But I have faith that at somepoint soon enough of us will say “enuff’s enuff” and move from the status quo.
“Education” I'm a engineer/physicist/financial guy that volunteer teaches one day a week economics to H.S. seniors. 12 years doing that ... I see 5th grade abilities getting ready to graduate. Gubmint schools.
“Illegal Immigration” the largest source of unintended consequences relative to national debt we will ever see. More problematic is the resultant militancy of a group that does not want to be part of us. That scares the bejeebers out of me.
“Runaway Taxes” and with that comes the entitlement mentality. It is a vicious circle. But it exists and flourishes because there is ABSOLUTE power in that game.
“Property rights” .. the single fastest eroding issue we face. and it is coupled directly to taxes.
You are totally correct. The influence of the first 2 make the second two and multitude of subsequent issues very real.
7 trillion dollars on the war on poverty. Has it worked?
Detroit, Democrat run for as long as I remember ... it should be a golden, utopia.
And if Detroit is the golden utopia, New Orleans should be heaven with unlimited riches. Funny. I see neither in either place. what is the common denominator there? shhh ... it's not a trick question.
Joanie, we might be apart a bit in optimism, I don't believe that for a minute. You wouldn't take the time you do to write the way you do otherwise. (your secret is mine, I won't tell lol) I can't live without hope. neither can you. We share the same concerns and problems that face out nation today. That is clear.
There is a solution. Alway is. Hit it hard and do whatever it takes. Enjoy the day before us my friend
Woohooo ... good idea!!! I want those guys so sick of seeing tea bags that they have no other choice
IF THIS IDIOT IS NOT A COMMUNIST THEN WHO IS?
Herbal ...LoL ... as an old Iowa farm boy, I’d get the H. E. double hockeysticks beat out of me just for showing up with my favorite chamomile (oops secrets out)tea. We have manly standards up her doncha know. Actually, as a good solid Dutchman ... I like a nice cup of tea in the afternoon.
My problem is, I don’t think there is enough intellect up their among the arrogant to understand the significance. Did you listen to any of the bloviating at the last set of hearings on steroids in baseball? (no .. I won’t ask why) I heard people that love to hear themselves speak .... I didn’t encounter enough combined intellect to jumpstart a moron.
Memo from Virginia to the author of this article and all rural/small town Pennsulvanians: I salute you and you’ve pegged that elitist snot Obama and his remakes for exactly what they are!
Great job joanie-f. I agree with your assesment 100%. I think B Hussein O superglued his foot in his mouth with his statements, and now has to live with this.
and we all thought his wife and pastor would take him down......
Keep up the effort. While people might not quite understand the UCC, they understand “God Damn America.” Throw that in when you are explaining that Obama attends the “God Damn America” church with the UCC denomination. Make the link.
Carter wasn’t rhetorically gifted, though your point, sadly, is well taken.
I might have thought something pleasant as Obama passed. Something like - “And the horses ass your rode in on.”
I believe that Christians’ lack of ‘activism’ in this political climate is one of the saddest occurrences in our history, and I believe it springs from several sources.
The clergy in America have, for the most part, abandoned any efforts to make a real difference in stopping the decline of America. They, like so many of the rest of us, have swallowed the leftist 'separation of church and state' swill (an apparition, filched from another source, which asserts itself to be a part of the U.S. Constitution, but which appears there only in the minds of those who choose to see it), and they obediently refrain from calling upon their congregations to play an active role in seeing to it that Christians hold fast to those tenets which provided the cornerstone for our republic. Instead, most modern American clergy preach from the scripture as if the words contained therein were not meant to apply to life in America 2008 ... as if the words were written to be admired and held in awe, not unlike classic poetry. Yet many scriptural admonitions are precisely what the American public needs to hear and apply to what we see happening around us every day.
The majority of American clergy and their congregations have given in to the go along to get along mindset. The 'come out from among them and be ye separate' calling has given way to the desire to be accepted, to conform, to obey, to enjoy, to not rock the boat. In short, the modern American Christian is anything but. 'The pursuit of happiness' has taken precedence over the maintenance of life, and liberty, and integrity, and right and good.
One of the things the Lord asks of us is that we be good stewards of our money. Yet how many Christians faithfully attend church every Sunday, and do not expend the time or energy to find out how their collection/tithe money is spent? It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a Christian church denomination which is not affiliated with the National Council of Churches. Yet the NCC is one of the most loyal contributors to anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-liberty organizations in the world. That so many Christian churches would funnel the donations of their congregations into globalist/leftist programs, and that the members of those churches do not, for the most part, know that their well-intentioned offerings are being used to support such insidious agendas is evidence of lazy, poor financial stewardship, to say the least. An abomination in His eyes.
At a church that we used to attend I taught the adult Sunday school class. I tried, in a gentle way, to make it a point to bring into each lesson the state of American society, how the left has dragged us away from our Christian roots, and what that portends for the future. Opening up such subject matter invariably led to genuine interest and intelligent discussion that did not take place when the focus of a lesson was more narrowly defined so as to not take into account the state of our nation.
I think that kind of interest in and discussing of current events, at least on the fringes of church teachings, without becoming ‘partisan’, would receive wide audience throughout the country, and so much good could result in defining the future of our republic.
Although He encourages us to come to Him in prayer, I also believe that, if we have turned our lives over to Him, He also trusts us to follow our conscience on matters about which we feel the need to make personal commitment (while, of course, listening for His leadings along the way). If we spend all of our time seeking a neon sign (that says 'go this way -->') from Him, then we risk becoming people who live in a motionless, sedentary state, because we are always seeking prompting (and maybe not realizing that our desire to 'do,' if our heart is in the right place, has been planted there by none other than Him).
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
Thought-provoking and beautifully said.
~ joanie
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