Allow me to explain.  One of the failings of the liberal press and its fellow travelers is that for them, history started this morning.  Those of us who have a memory longer than the last news cycle recall the creepy cult of personality that sprung up around Obama and continues largely undiminished among true believers.  Americans reared with more traditional notions of the relationship between citizen and nation recoil in horror at videos where celebrities pledge to serve the president.

The Obama campaign allowed or nurtured a messianic bubble around their candidate where all the hopes and dreams of the people in that inner circle of devotees were poured into the man.  Consider the online video where an Obama acolyte has people chanting “President Barack Obama” like a New Age mantra to the camera while Randy Rothwell’s “Sanctuary” plays as the soundtrack.  This song calls on God to prepare the heart of the believer to receive the Spirit of God.   It is almost impossible for me to adequately express how profoundly awful it is to see a worship song used in this fashion.  Blasphemy still fails to play in Peoria.

I do not necessarily blame the President for weirdness on the part of his supporters.  I do blame him for the weirdness of those on his payroll.  While the President’s speech may prove innocuous, the lesson plan fronted by the White House included such things as asking kids to meditate on how they could “help the President”.  Not their family, school, or community, but the President.  Coupled with an invitation to read the President’s books and other touchstones of “dear leader-ism” and you can see why we who have not yet drunk the Kool-Aid vigorously object.

Though now withdrawn, given that somewhere north of 90% of education establishment is part of Obama’s cult of personality I believe that many teachers and school administrators will indulge the administration in doing their part to chip away at what is left of individualism.  The very fact that someone in the White House read that lesson plan and saw that it was good tells me that they are paddling their canoe toward a place where leaders are venerated at the expense of the individual.

Bottom line, I don’t think that parents freaked out over an address by the President, it really was a freak out over an address by this President given the backdrop of his cultish campaign and the behavior in which his administration engages.  Not because he is a Democrat, but because the presidency seems to be all about him. Frankly I am encouraged that so many citizens objected.

Jacked-up creepy-freakin’ “Sanctuary” video:

Bizzarre, weird, pompous, self-important “Pledge to be a Servant” video:

Tweet This Post

Later, thousands gathered for a Tea Party rally in Kiener Plaza downtown easily filling up 75% of the area.  On July 4^th, hundreds gathered despite the deluge that soaked our corner of the Show-Me State.  August 22 saw hundreds more overwhelm the offices of our representatives demanding action.

The left does not know what to do with itself.  They are rocked back on their heels.  Like a bully who unexpectedly sees blood pouring from his nose after the scrawny kid finally punches back, I think they are trying to figure out what the hell just happened.  For now, all they can think of is to curse.

Unused to being a populist uprising we don’t know if the left have a glass jaw, or are we in for a bruising fight?  I don’t know, but I say once we are in a scrap we don’t quit until the opponent is in a deep, hot smoking crater.  We must not let up.  The American Left and their enablers among the “moderate” GOP have built the infrastructure of our enslavement, and we have learned that they mean to use it.

Marxist/Socialist/Fascist ideology is insatiable and knows no limits.  Its elite purveyors have no compunction.  They have scraped and clawed, grasping at power and aggregating to themselves more and more authority at the expense of the people who actually make the country work.

We normal folk who want nothing more than to live in peace and pursue happiness have indulged these appetites, many of us half believing the cynical appeals to our better angels. Help the poor, help the sick, shelter the homeless they say, even as their programs consume vast resources and make not so much as a dent in any of these problems they champion.

America is starting to hear the terrifying crackle of a civilization ablaze.  Many of us are responding to the claxon and joined with our neighbors to fling buckets upon the flames.  Tens of thousands have formed brigades to save their communities from power-hungry cynics.

Consider that hiss from leftist zealots in politics, media and the academy as proof that flames are being doused, but that does not mean the fire is out.  We have to redouble our efforts, to make Leftists accountable for the harm they have caused, and plan to cause.

Many of our neighbors who support this government are well-meaning.  To them we ought to be kind and patient.  On the other hand, the leftist elite have earned our full, tireless fury.  We must bring it to bear until Big Government, their infrastructure of tyranny, is utterly dismantled.

Tweet This Post

The president himself states that we are “partners with God” over these grave issues.  I would not say that I am God’s partner, but I am certainly His servant, and I am both humbled and delighted to serve.  Being a follower of Christ, among the general commands articulated by The Master himself are these:  Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless and visit those in prison.  Pure religion is that widows and orphans receive care and mercy.  Anything that I have done to the least of these His brethren, I have done for Him. 

This may seem alien to my secular readers, but the Judeo-Christian tradition of charity is obedience to God’s call on our lives.  Giving and mercy are both spiritual gifts that scripture teaches must be exercised to do the work of the Church, which is to glorify God and make him known in the world.   Charity is an act of worship, expected of the believer as an exercise of faith.

The point that I am spooling up to is this:  The power to tax is the power to send a man with handcuffs someone’s home and exact money.  How can I as a Christian demand that the tax man go to my non-believing neighbor and exact resources to do God’s work?  When I write a check to support a clinic, I am drawing upon the resources of the Most High, who gives me all things I need to do His work in this world.  The non-believer may not make this claim (though God may still provide).

Christians who agitate for government-funded charity like health care are well motivated, but whatever appeal to my conscience they are trying to make is on shaky ground.  Forcing a charitable enterprise upon the unredeemed upon pain of law is not materially different than sending a cop to drag a man to church.

The very foundation of the health care system we enjoy in the US was built out of the pockets of Christian and Jewish congregations uniting to bring mercy to their friends and neighbors without regard to their creed, and for the most part without regard to their ability to pay.  The faithful, and those inspired by the faithful did this voluntarily and found great joy in the work.

If my Christian brothers and sisters wish to provide clinics and hospitals for the poor over and above what is offered now, I encourage them to join with the charitable institutions already in place and help.  Christian Charity is rewarding and commanded. We can’t relieve ourselves of our obligation by subcontracting this work to a bureaucrat.  Perhaps that’s why it’s been such a dismal failure.

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post

I attended the Promise Keepers “Stand In The Gap” (or as I like to call it, the Million Mostly White Men March) back in the mid-nineties. Even though we were “Christianists” and voted overwhelmingly Republican, I distinctly recall spending a solid hour along with tens of thousands of other men PICKING UP THE &^%$#*&% TRASH.

Unlike hippies, we spend less time talking about how we love the environment and more time actually doing something about it.

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post

We were promised the Age of Aquarius when Obamessiah took office. The man hasn’t even been sworn in and the usual suspects are already trashing him in effigy.

For the record, this offends me. I think Obama is going to be a dreadful president because he is not a grown-up, and he is surrounded by non-grown-ups. Nevertheless, he is my President, and that’s my president they are walking on and trashing. It ought to piss us all off.

Tweet This Post

But Tim, you object, do you want the rich to be able to buy politicians without public accountability? Dude, they already do. No matter how smart John McCain and Russ Feingold think they are, George Soros is that much smarter. If comrade Soros wants to put 10 million clams into screwing with an election, he will. The difference is that comrade Soros can afford to protect himself against those who find his politics repellent. While I know many conservatives who loathe this odious troll, I doubt there are any who would do more to him than a pie in the face. Even that is really not our style.

Not so with the left. The left, for whatever reason, seems to think they are entitled to winning by any means necessary. If they lose, they feel entitled to engage in misbehavior from general boorishness to outright threats, intimidation and anarchy.

Proposition 8 in California is a textbook example of how otherwise decent people are placed into hazard. Prop 8 is a constitutional amendment stating that a legal marriage is between one man and one woman. Without debating the specific merits of the issue, it is clear that a majority of Californians are not yet ready to embrace the left’s view of marriage.

Fair enough, the nation is not yet ready to embrace my view on abortion, either. I don’t like Roe vs. Wade any more than those who support gay marriage like Prop 8 (though to be fair, at least Californians had a chance to vote). While I don’t like Roe vs. Wade, I believe the task before me is to persuade my fellow citizens to ask and expect change from the elected officials. A laborious task, inevitably frustrating, but democracy ought not be mob rule.

The left feels that such long, difficult struggle is beneath them. Instead, they have published this handy map giving the names and locations of people who made donations to get Proposition 8 on the ballot. The existence of this map has but one purpose, and that is to facilitate exacting a price from private citizens for offering their support on an issue where decent people can disagree.

In Barack Obama, the Left has their champion in charge. His support of “Card Check” union organizing shows contempt for democratic processes. We can expect a lot more like this, I fear.

Tweet This Post

Here’s a snippet from Reuters:

The little-known Shi’ite reporter, said to have harbored anger against Bush for the thousands of Iraqis who died after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, had previously made headlines only once, when he was briefly kidnapped by unknown gunmen in 2007.

I wonder if this guy had the guts to throw shoes at his captors? Where was his brave outrage when Saddam was grinding his fellow Shi’ite beneath his boots? Did he have his brave shoes then? More from Reuters:

Colleagues of Zaidi say he resented President Bush, blaming him for the bloodshed that ravaged Iraq after the invasion.

I wonder if he resents the foreign “fighters” who invaded his nation murdering innocents, or does he simply resent that fact that the Bush Administration underestimated how barbaric and foolish his countrymen could be? Does he so miss Saddam’s restraining fist?

If Iraq wants to make a go of it, they need to take a good hard look at their philosophical imports. Scratch that reporter, and you will find a thick undercoat of the American leftist academy. I predict that he went to college in America and has his full load of progressive notions which imparts heroism to those who insult people disinclined to make them pay a price. He is, undoubtedly, cut from the same cloth as those in our own nation like the Code Pinkers and 911 Truthers who busy themselves “bravely” denouncing everything Bush does, right down to breathing. Calling Bush “Hitler”, “Dog” or pitching your footware at him is as safe as eating pancakes.

Most people live under the thumb of varying degrees of oppression. Throwing off tyrants is hard, dangerous work. Insulting civilized people with cream pies, shoes or blog posts written in CAPITAL LETTERS is easy and safe, plus you get accolades from the world’s endless supply of fools.

The right to report on your nations leaders and insult their allies is a freedom paid for through dear blood and sacrifice. I would appreciate it if they just said “thank you” and moved on (to quote Colonel Jessup) or at least engaged in the heavy lifting of keeping civilization together.

To the credit of the Iraqi press pool, some reporters apologized for the incident, though Zaidi’s TV station is running pictures of their number one ungrateful dipstick with patriotic music in the background.

You can secure for people a measure of freedom, but teaching them responsibility, self-reliance and class is an entirely different job.

Tweet This Post