An Open Letter To Senator John McCain

Dear Senator McCain:

First of all, thank you for your long service to your country.  Your heroism in war and your career as a leader distinguish you in the hearts of your fellow citizens. 

However, none of those things guarantee that anything done in the present will automatically be the right choice.  Surely you must be aware that many, if not most, American conservatives have strong reservations about much of your political record, especially some of your most recent legislation and the manner in which you campaigned for president last year.

Your failed presidential campaign resulted in the election of Barack Obama, who in just over half a year has drastically altered the shape and scope of our government, by already spending more than every other president combined, by nominating a host of radicals to positions without real accountability, and by seizing the reigns of such fundamental areas of private life as commerce and health care. 

Despite such scary changes, you have continued in “town hall” appearances over the summer to compliment and even cheer this president, just as you often did–to the consternation of your party’s base–during last year’s campaign.  That irresponsibly inappropriate friendliness was just one of many, many things so critically wrong with your campaign that it was a foregone conclusion long before November that you would lose.  And yet you continued on in this manner, ignoring the chorus of voices urging you to fight, to represent the desperate cries for help you heard along the campaign trail.

In short, your stubborn cluelessness as a presidential candidate enabled Barack Obama to win. 

That’s why, Senator McCain, I am asking you to apologize to the American people for running for president.

Obama’s Education Speech Gets An A+

I’m no fan of Barack Obama’s platforms or policies, and I admit that I had reservations about his plan to address American school children live, but his speech was a flawless home run.  I don’t say this as a teacher or as a parent, but as a conservative.

I did not show the speech in my class–I had a lesson to teach and the students had work to do–but I hope they looked up the text later on in the day, like I did.

Listening to the radio yesterday afternoon and checking out a few news sites just made me sick that so many on the right would indulge in such petty vitriol over the speech after the fact.  Bottom line, a Republican could have given that speech and it still would have been great.  Be willing to give credit where it’s due. 

One complaint that surprised me yesterday is that the speech will do no good.  Well, maybe not.  But Barrack Obama is the world’s biggest celebrity, a bona fide pop icon, and if he wants to use his status to try to sell kids on hard work, responsibility, and good old fashioned duty, then I say, more power to him. 

Barackracy

A “car czar.”  Inevitable new cabinet departments.  Added powers for existing positions.  The new administration has already started expanding the size and authority of the federal government at an alarming rate. 

Here’s a new term for our political lexicon: Barack Obama + bureaucracy = Barackracy: the massive, intrusive, nanny-state infrastructure created or strengthened by our 44th president.  Coming soon to every area of your life.

Education Today

It’s time for teachers to submit our third quarter grades, and I have to wonder: if a teacher is to be expected to “bump up” a kid’s grade from a D to a C if he gets, say, 69.5% (as many parents and others will expect), then why can’t I also just bump a kid down from a C to a D if the grade is 70.5%?  Why can’t unethical subjectivity run both ways?

Also, looking over a recent quiz given to my sophomores after reading Julius Caesar, I see the most popular answer to the question, “Which of the leaders in Julius Caesar would make the best leader for America today, and why?”, was “Obama.”  Perhaps the question was confusing.  I also notice that none of the students who put Obama answered the second part of the question and explained why he’s the most qualified.  Perhaps they thought that was implied, or sacrilegious.

The Use and Abuse of Barack Obama

Which argument is better?

A) The world is round because, you know, it just like totally is and everybody knows it.

B) The world is flat because, if perception is reality, then we must acknowledge that most aspects of our lives are based on an understanding of the world being flat: we don’t see the curvature of the Earth with any regularity, so we are comfortable with two dimensional maps and measure the fastest travel routes over land, not through the ground. 

While the premise of argument A is true, argument B is superior.  Ideally, we want arguments that are both true and intelligently defended, but that is neither here nor there.  My point is that too many people today are comfortable with the first kind of thinking, and such logical sloppiness can only lead to trouble. 

Sadly, this is the case with the election of Barack Obama. 

I don’t have anything against President Obama personally, nor do I wish ill for him or his administration.  I hope he turns out to be the greatest president we’ve ever had, because that would be good for the country.  This is not a criticism of him, but it is absolutely a criticism of many who voted for him.  I don’t fault anyone for voting their conscience, and anyone who voted for him because they considered and prefered his politics has my respect, but just as I cannot respect someone who says the Earth is round because “it just like totally is,” I cannot respect the vote of someone who elected a man for the wrong reason.

Barack Obama became president of the United States not because of his experience, policies, or vision, nor even his character.  Barack Obama won the election because he’s black.  Besides the fact that fully 96% of black voters opted for Obama, the race factor is baldly advertised with such blatantly racist posturing as Tom Brokaw trumpeting Obama’s election as a slap in the face to “bigots and rednecks,” Joseph Lowery’s scathing indictment of white people during a prayer at the inauguration when he yearned for a time “when white will embrace the right,” and even hinted at when Obama himself pronounced in his inauguration speech that his election was a victory of “hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”  (Does this mean that a vote for McCain was a vote for fear?  How so?  And how tactless is that to say?)

Repeat: Ask The Founders

In the wake of yesterday’s nationwide socialist revolution (Nevada, long a conservative bastion [check here for proof], is now officially a blue state at almost all levels of government–thanks to everybody who moved here from California!), my thoughts turn again to what America is supposed to be. 

Yes, supposed to be.  There are things that America is designed to be, and things that it is not.  The best thing I can think of to say on the subject now is to reprint this piece which originally ran on July 1. 

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The Federalist Papers are a collected series of essays that originally appeared in New York newspapers during the period of debate and ratification for the new Constitution.  In them, the series’ three authors–Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay–very clearly explain the nature of the Constitution and how it was to implemented. 

Their authority is, of course, unimpeachable.  Hamilton would become the first Secretary of the Treasury.  Jay would become the first Chief Justice of the United States.  And Madison, the primary architect of the Constitution itself, would go on the become our 4th president.

Here are some of our most auspicious Founders’ answers to the pressing issues of the present day:

• Is America a multicultural society, or a basically homogeneous Christian nation?

Answered by John Jay: “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs…”  -Federalist #2

• Should American government be more Democratic (populist) or Republican (representative) in nature?

Answered by James Madison: “A pure Democracy, by which I mean, a Society, consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischief of faction.  A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole….A Republic, by which I mean a Government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking.”  -Federalist #10

“In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.  A democracy consequently will be confined to a small spot.  A republic may be extended over a large region.”  -Federalist #14

• Can America ensure that its citizens have equal success and comfort?

Answered by James Madison:

All I’ll Say About The Election For Now

An Old Man Looks Back On The Obama Administration

“Grandpa, tell me again about the Hard Times.”

“Oh, Jimmy, I love telling you stories, but I just told you that one yesterday!”

“I know, Gramps, but that was just the same stuff they tell us at the new school–the constant experimenting, the violence, the confusion and chaos–but you were there.  Tell me what it was really like, please.”

Grandpa sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair as he sank into his comfortable chair by the window.  “The Hard Times?  You know, nobody thought of calling it that until it had been around for years.  The name first popped up on the underground web sites of traditionalists–’the haters,’ most people called them at the time; people who ‘hated’ subversion, hedonism, socialism, who wouldn’t ‘tolerate’ the demands of others for radical, unprecedented change in the name of ‘fairness.’  The government took a cue from China and shut down most of those sites just as quickly as they shut down the talk radio shows those rebels started out on, but still, the resistance lingered.

“I was never a part of that resistance.  It wasn’t that I was too young to join in, but that I was too young to know that I should join in.  Especially when so many of my elders sanctioned that radicalism with their zealous endorsements, also all in the name of ‘progress.’  I was taken in by the idea of generations, centuries, of wrongdoing about to be undone by an earth-shattering revolutionary who would finally get everyone what they had been taught by the media their whole lives they deserved.  It was exciting, it felt righteous, it was this mass mob mentality that you just can’t understand unless you were part of it–totally convinced that the more you taunted and censored the ones you labelled the ‘enemy,’ the more just you were.  It was like a contest to see who could be coolest by being the most extreme.”

Grandpa paused for breath and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, seeming to search for words to give his thoughts form.  His face looked lost.  “Good grief, how did we get so far that the majority of a country could fall for such a childish scheme and think we were saving the world?”

He leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees, and when he didn’t speak for a minute, Jimmy tried to get him to continue with a question: “So President Obama was evil?”

Grandpa’s face instantly looked up.  “Evil?  Heavens, no.  Not ‘evil,’ just very, very wrong.  He genuinely thought he was doing the right things, there’s no doubt that he sincerely wanted to do the most good for the most people, with no ulterior motives for his own aggrandizement…but they say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  No, Obama wasn’t evil…but his policies had that effect.  And some of the people around him…yes, some of them were evil.

“They haven’t taught you in school yet about the law of unintended consequences.  That’s one of the very best reasons to be cautious when people want to change what has obviously worked for hundreds of years.  You never know what all the effects of a new action will be.  But in retrospect, I think we should have seen what would happen.  Yes, the chess pieces were all moved into place by 2008.  When the last of our defenses was removed, endgame was ready.

“As soon as Obama was elected, the marginalized anti-social goons came out of the woodwork.  Up until then, there were restraints on public conduct; the leftist fetishists almost reveled in being underdogs.  But the minute they sensed that, after forty years of seeping into the American consciousness, the reigns of power were theirs, what with the Unholy Trinity of Obama-Reid-Pelosi in power, they sprung the trap.

“By the end of the first year, bills fast tracked through the legislative and executive branches mandating that we would never fight another war for any reason, because all violence is always a tool of corporations to exploit peace lovers, that nobody would ever be able to be excluded from anything–especially marriage or citizenship–for any reason, because setting any criteria for anything is discrimination, and that’s an ugly word and always bad, and that everybody would always be able to call on the government to have the exact same quality of life that the most well off Americans could conceivably enjoy, because, again, anything less was clearly evidence of some kind of discrimination, and if ‘all men are created equal,’ then nobody should have to suffer anything that everybody doesn’t have to suffer.

Cognitive Dissonance In Bumper Stickers

On the rear bumper of a car parked at the Rainbow Library this afternoon, a sticker on the left side said, “Don’t steal.  The IRS hates competition.”  On the right side, this sticker: “Obama/Biden.” 

Are you kidding me?

Perhaps the resolution to this apparent incongruity lies in a third sticker, this one posted dead center in the rear window: the red logo for the band Insane Clown Posse.  Now it all makes sense…

Spontaneous Election Metaphor

Yesterday one of my classes was brainstorming ideas for cartoon captions as a brief warm up.  One student came up with an especially funny line, and everybody else started copying it down on their own papers. 

“Oh, look at that!” I said.  “Your good work got recognized and envied, so it just became community property.”  I sighed, making a connection.  “Just like all our money after the election.” 

A handful of kids in the front row heard that muttered remark and, I’m glad to say, gave a knowing laugh.  Good to know there’s some sense out there.

Ringing Endorsements

Seen on the cover of a student’s binder today: “¡Me gusta Obama!”  It was written over a photo of her and two friends in bikinis flashing gang signs at the camera and a flier advertising a street racing party. 

Overheard defensive comment a student made after I made a disparaging remark about Paris Hilton: “She’s pretty, she’s just a little slutty.”

Finally: My Two Cents On Obama Vs. Clinton

Last Spring, when the street fight between the two major Democratic contenders was really getting dirty, I had just started this blog and wanted to opine on it.  As an outsider looking in on that fiasco, I wanted to point out Clinton’s obvious superiority, but after Obama became the unofficial nominee, I thought it might come off as tacky.

But as the Democrats’ convention winds down, I can’t help but think of it again.

Why in the world would any liberal support Obama over Clinton?  What does he have to offer that she doesn’t?  She has experience and success in her work; Obama is the poster boy for satire: a figurehead model who spouts vague platitudes and wows the masses with a smarmy charm that poorly covers his lack of depth.  His campaign is so vapid that it’s frankly beyond satire.  No conservative, trying to invent an exaggerated campaign of shallow nonsense to caricature American politics, could ever have imagined anything as silly as Obama.  I’ve seen high school class elections with more substance.  He might as well just make his slogan, “Vote for me and all of your wildest dreams will come true.”

Obama “Air” Conspiracy Revealed!

So a lot of conservatives have been making fun of Obama’s pre-Presidential directive requesting Americans to save gas by checking that their tires are properly inflated.  This may seem funny at first, but have we thought about the sinister motives behind this?

How does Obama stand to profit from telling us to use more air? 

“But air is free!” one might scoff.  Yes, but those air pumps at the gas station aren’t.  In fact, the little place down the road where I’ve filled my tires for years used to have a machine that charged a quarter.  Today, that place and most others like it charge a whole dollar.  That’s an inflation rate of 400%, people! 

Somebody’s getting fat off of the air dollars of struggling, working class Americans. 

Then, of course, there’s the ancillary equipment related to this endeavor: those air pressure gauges.  RNC operatives in Washington are giving those away as gags right now, but when the Obama administration jacks them up to fifty bucks a pop, you know who will be laughing then?

Big Air.  That’s right, America.  No more worries about Big Tobacco or Big Oil; Big Air is about to bankrupt us all as it makes Obama’s corrupt cronies in Washington even richer.  You don’t think he has connections that have some vested interest in the success of air?  They all breathe it, you know–him and his whole inner circle of good old boys!

And what about the increase in tire rotations this action will create?  Tire rotations are no walk in the park, friends; all automotive work is dangerous, and people will get hurt doing this dirty work.  How can Obama sleep at night knowing that he plans to send people’s cute little babies into the trenches to do the grunt work that will lubricate his plan, all while he kicks back in the White House dining room, quaffing his brandy and passing around the cigars?  No blood for air, Mr. Obama!

Hey, don’t call this baseless fear-mongering for political purposes.  I know, you liberals have never indulged in snide, sleazy smears about leaders making policy decisions for the benefit of shadowy sweetheart deals that have never been shown to have any merit even as theory, but just because you guys refuse to lower yourselves to such tactics because superficial coincidences in extended relationships present you with an opportunity to take cheap shots, doesn’t mean I won’t. 

More to come as we find documentation that will bust this libelous speculation wide open.

Obama t-shirt

 

After the scathing revelations that have come to light about Obama’s long relationship with virulent hatemonger Jeremiah Wright (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/17/opinion/main3944215.shtml), may I humbly suggest this t-shirt design to further the campaign’s apparent goals?