Sleeping Nation Awakened

I received this article from a friend. It appeared in the Aspen Times Weekly on February 28, 2010.
This article represents the feelings of  Tea Party attendees whom I met at many events since April 15, 2009. The only thing I disagree with is the opening sentence. Even though the author’s premise makes sense, Obama is the worst thing that has happened to the USA, in the history of the country.
 
Barack Obama has awakened a sleeping nation
Gary Hubbell
Aspen Times Weekly

 
Barack Obama is the best thing that has happened to America in the last 100 years. Truly, he is the savior of America’s future. He is the best thing ever.

Despite the fact that he has some of the lowest approval ratings among recent presidents, history will see Barack Obama as the source of America’s resurrection. Barack Obama has plunged the country into levels of debt that we could not have previously imagined; his efforts to nationalize health care have been met with fierce resistance nationwide; TARP bailouts and stimulus spending have shown little positive effect on the national economy; unemployment is unacceptably high and looks to remain that way for most of a decade; legacy entitlement programs have ballooned to unsustainable levels, and there is a seething anger in the populace.

That’s why Barack Obama is such a good thing for America.

Obama is the symbol of a creeping liberalism that has infected our society like a cancer for the last 100 years. Just as Hitler is the face of fascism, Obama will go down in history as the face of unchecked liberalism. The cancer metastasized to the point where it could no longer be ignored.

Average Americans who have quietly gone about their lives, earning a paycheck, contributing to their favorite charities, going to high school football games on Friday night, spending their weekends at the beach or on hunting trips — they’ve gotten off the fence. They’ve woken up. There is a level of political activism in this country that we haven’t seen since the American Revolution, and Barack Obama has been the catalyst that has sparked a restructuring of the American political and social consciousness.

Think of the crap we’ve slowly learned to tolerate over the past 50 years as liberalism sought to re-structure the America that was the symbol of freedom and liberty to all the people of the world. Immigration laws were ignored on the basis of compassion. Welfare policies encouraged irresponsibility, the fracturing of families, and a cycle of generations of dependency. Debt was regarded as a tonic to lubricate the economy. Our children left school having been taught that they are exceptional and special, while great numbers of them cannot perform basic functions of mathematics and literacy. Legislators decided that people could not be trusted to defend their own homes, and stripped citizens of their rights to own firearms. Productive members of society have been penalized with a heavy burden of taxes in order to support legions of do-nothings who loll around, reveling in their addictions, obesity, indolence, ignorance and “disabilities.” Criminals have been arrested and re-arrested, coddled and set free to pillage the citizenry yet again. Lawyers routinely extort fortunes from doctors, contractors and business people with dubious torts.

We slowly learned to tolerate these outrages, shaking our heads in disbelief, and we went on with our lives.

But Barack Obama has ripped the lid off a seething cauldron of dissatisfaction and unrest.

In the time of Barack Obama, Black Panther members stand outside polling places in black commando uniforms, slapping truncheons into their palms. ACORN — a taxpayer-supported organization — is given a role in taking the census, even after its members were caught on tape offering advice to set up child prostitution rings. A former Communist is given a paid government position in the White House as an advisor to the president. Auto companies are taken over by the government, and the auto workers’ union — whose contracts are completely insupportable in any economic sense — is rewarded with a stake in the company. Government bails out Wall Street investment bankers and insurance companies, who pay their executives outrageous bonuses as thanks for the public support. Terrorists are read their Miranda rights and given free lawyers. And, despite overwhelming public disapproval, Barack Obama has pushed forward with a health care plan that would re-structure one-sixth of the American economy.

I don’t know about you, but the other day I was at the courthouse doing some business, and I stepped into the court clerk’s office and changed my voter affiliation from “Independent” to “Republican.” I am under no illusion that the Republican party is perfect, but at least they’re starting to awaken to the fact that we cannot sustain massive levels of debt; we cannot afford to hand out billions of dollars in corporate subsidies; we have to somehow trim our massive entitlement programs; we can no longer be the world’s policeman and dole out billions in aid to countries whose citizens seek to harm us.

Literally millions of Americans have had enough. They’re organizing, they’re studying the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, they’re reading history and case law, they’re showing up at rallies and meetings, and a slew of conservative candidates are throwing their hats into the ring. Is there a revolution brewing? Yes, in the sense that there is a keen awareness that our priorities and sensibilities must be radically re-structured. Will it be a violent revolution? No. It will be done through the interpretation of the original document that has guided us for 220 years — the Constitution. Just as the pendulum swung to embrace political correctness and liberalism, there will be a backlash, a complete repudiation of a hundred years of nonsense. A hundred years from now, history will perceive the year 2010 as the time when America got back on the right track. And for that, we can thank Barack Hussein Obama.
 
Gary Hubbell is a hunter, rancher, and former hunting and fly-fishing guide. Gary works as a Colorado ranch real estate broker. He can be reached through his website,aspenranchrealestate.com.

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20100228/ASPENWEEKLY/100229854/

Nice Kitty

     CATS! People either hate ’em or love ’em. They are probably the most mis-understood animal on earth. I happen to be a middle of the roader cat person. I love to kid Peggy about what I would do to her cats if she were not looking, but in reality, I wouldn’t hurt a single allergy inciting strand of  fur on their bodies. They are the most popular pet in the country.

     Just for fun, I Googled “cat phrases,” I was shocked. There is a cat phrase for every thing in the book.  Phrases are listed under the following categories: lolcat, funny cat, cat chat, cat quotes, cat sayings, cat idioms, cat poem, and cat proverbs.  I finally found the one I wanted which is “fat cat,”  under idioms. President Obama used that phrase to refer to certain Bankers who he forced to take TARP money. It seems the President is upset with the amount of money these bankers awarded themselves in bonuses.

     There is one bank, however, located in Chicago, that has the President’s favor. Why? It seems the CEO is a big Obama fund raiser. It was my belief that this kind of behaviour would be revised under the guise of “change, and hopium.” Some things never change.

New Year Prayer

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

. . . Rhinehold Niebuhr

Happy New Year!

Which Will It Be? Human Potential, Or Human Destruction?

Abraham Maslow created a theory which is presented graphically with the pyramid shown at the left in the cartoon below.  His theory is broadly taught in classes about human potential and motivation. I for one, strongly agree with his analysis. When a person is hungry, and cold without food or shelter, it is very hard for him to think about finding himself. All he thinks about is where the next meal is coming from. My life has closely followed this pyramid of needs. I am first now, at age seventy-something working at self actualization. It wasn’t easy to get to this point in life, and now I see a threat to my actually reaching the top of the pyramid. The threat is the “Wedge of Destruction,” as shown in the right panel of the cartoon. It represents the complete opposite of the pyramid of needs. It is a reverse pyramid, balanced on its tip. It is bound to fail, but not without destroying the USA in the process. We are headed toward becoming a “banana republic” which is mediocrity at its best. Let’s continue to redistribute the wealth, lose  liberties, and allow the government to make us wards of the state by complete submission.

Maslow's Pyriamid Of Need vs Obama's Wedge of Destruction

How Much Am I Bid?

My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

How much money would you be willing to take for your right hand? If someone made an offer to buy your right hand, how much would you ask? Would you sell it?  Would you bid the number up to several million dollars, and think about selling? How about your heart? You probably wouldn’t sell your heart since you only have one, but we do have many doubles in our bodies, and we could stand to do without one of them. Hands, eyes, ears, feet, knees, hips, kidneys, lungs, all exist in duals.  I have heard that it is common to sell a kidney for fifteen thousand dollars. Would you?  Would you give up an eye, or your hearing  for money? Probably not, unless your life circumstances were so desperate as to make you sell.

I personally, would not sell an eye for all the money in China. I love to see. Currently, I’m losing my hearing and I don’t like it one bit. Most of us think the same way about our body parts. So why is it that we are reluctant to pay for the care and maintenance of that precious resource called the human body?  We seek work at companies that have insurance plans, we balk at paying premiums, and co-pays. We want the maintenance of  the most complicated biological system in the universe, our body, to be free.  If you don’t believe it is complex, try taking over the function for some organ that has stopped working.  Try controlling your blood sugar. Worse yet, see what happens if your kidneys stop functioning and you have to filter waste from your blood  via dialysis. You get the drift, the body is a precious biological  machine. In spite of that, we smoke, drink, take mind altering drugs, text while driving,  eat fatty foods, and lead  sedentary lives. We gamble that “the system” will cure us, but we don’t take financial responsibility for health maintenance and repair.    

The current national argument centers around free health care for everyone.  The government proposes to take over control of our body maintenance.  If we let them do that, will we also let them take over the ownership of our body parts as well?  Isn’ that slavery?  I envision a system that traffics in body parts.  Picture this: a huge white government clinic with healthy people waiting to get in at the front. One by one they come out the back missing a body part. On the east side, I see people coming in with various infirmaties. They leave the west side with new life.  No folks, I’m not on anything but my morning coffee. Quite a science fiction scenario isn’t it?

Is this the ‘change’ we voted for?