I have a very dear friend in another country who lives very much alone except for his dog. He loves that dog very much. He also has diabetes.
Almost a year ago, his feet and legs began to swell to outlandish proportions. Nothing he did helped. He needed to be hospitalised, but there was no one to take care of his dog. He insisted it would be okay. I heard him say it a million times.
As time went by, his legs got worse and worse. His skin began cracking and bleeding. He was in constant pain, but no matter how much I begged him to go to the hospital, he would NOT leave his dog and he kept insisting he could not afford a kennel even for a few days.
Then a wound, literally a hole, opened up on his foot. He could not walk. He was living on painkillers, taking more and more as his pain got worse. But he STILL would not leave his dog.
His wound began turning black. He was vomiting constantly. He could not sit up and he could not lay down. He still would not leave his dog.
Finally, after almost a year, his sister who lives hundreds of miles away, paid him a surprise visit. When she saw what was happening, she went into action and got him the best care she could manage.
For the past two months, daily visits from home nurses have managed, with great care and patience, to medicate and clean out the infection and dead tissue in his foot. The wound remains open as we speak.
He was (fingersnap,)this close to not only losing his foot, AND his dog, but quite possibly, his life.
His loyalty to his dog, while admirable on the surface, was an excuse to DO NOTHING to help himself. He has neighbors who could have cared for the dog, but he didn't want her left outside. He had found a kennel close by, but then said he couldn't find any transportation to get the dog there. He made arrangements twice to enter the hospital, but his dog developed a wart or something on her foot that needed removed, so he put off the hospital.
Had his sister NOT shown up when she did, I am absolutely sure both he AND the dog would be dead now.
To make a long story short, THIS is the republican party as it exists today. We have waited and waited thinking that doing the same things over and over would heal it even as it got worse and worse before our eyes. Even as it filled up with dead tissue and became gangrenous. Loyalty to our "dog" has nearly cost us its life. Everyone was saying, (and believing,) that Conservatism was dead, including mister newt. Even Rush, bless him, could not rouse us.
Then along came Sarah, the sister from hundreds of miles away to pay us a surprise visit. And she has supplied the common sense medicine we needed as no one has for decades.
Say what you will, whether she runs, whether she doesn't, she brought us a different way of looking at things. She took on her own party giants and like David, she whupped Goliath in front of GOD and everyone. She didn't back down. She said no more of this crap and corruption. She is still saying it, and WE are saying it too.
WE are saying it loud and clear. The dead tissue that corrupts the body MUST be exised lest the body die, and with it, everything that this country has ever stood for. Even the worst Sarah basher on the planet recognises what she has done, and make no mistake, it WAS her, and her alone, who brought this thing to a head.
Now they say she engenders fear within the party, but I say it isn't JUST Sarah they fear. It's US and we ARE the "party." See, Sarah was alone when she came, but she is not alone anymore. Not by a long shot. All she did was say out loud what we all knew but did not have the guts to act upon.
Well, it's all different now. And we will NOT back down.
