Arrested Development

Promises, promises– another four years of Obama.

I’ve waited two weeks to write this.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because I just don’t know what to make of the fact that half of my fellow Americans decided that as bad as things were getting—they just need to get worse before we REALLY  bottom out.  They were willing to take that chance, so instead of taking a road that might be difficult with sacrifice and adult issues to tackle, they decided to collectively press the “snooze” button…and rolled over to go back to sleep.  They decided to “whip the bird”, if you’ll pardon the expression, to the children of America and to those not yet born.  Like Scarlet O’Hara, they said loud and clear:  “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

Since when did our nation become a nation of citizens content to pass along the mistakes of one generation onto the next?  Have we really become a nation dominated by people who just want something for nothing, or who are just looking for their “fair share”?  After all, that whole class warfare thing and pitting various groups against each other is really all Barack Obama had to run on– and it worked!

The American Experiment, even before we became the United States of America, was led by people that were brave, independent, resourceful and strong.  It was never a nation of wimps, pansies and babies who needed to be told what to do every day for their entire lives.

The Pilgrims were not bland, pious people as they’re usually portrayed in old oil paintings of the first Thanksgiving.  They were people of faith that had a vision to live out that faith in a place where they wouldn’t be oppressed for doing so.  After years of having to hide their worship in Europe, they went across the ocean to a wilderness inhabited by a people they didn’t know and they weren’t sure how anything would work out…but they came anyway because their faith in God drove them on.

That same pioneering spirit and perseverance was evident in the women who struggled to keep farms and businesses afloat while their sons and husbands were fighting for independence.  It was in the men who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, knowing they were committing treason.  It was in those rugged individuals and families who traveled west to settle the frontier.

And what would the world have done if the American population of the Greatest Generation were full of apathy as is so evident now?

Millions of Americans didn’t even bother to vote in this election.  Many of those who did didn’t know basic information about the candidates that they were being asked to decide between, as these Howard Stern man-on-the-street interviews indicate.  A dumbed-down electorate is a statist’s dream…and a patriots’ nightmare.

Ignorance of the past, of our history and traditions, is bringing the nation down the wrong path.  When you don’t know where you’ve been or how you got there, you won’t know where you’re going, and you’ll be bound to make the same mistakes again and again.  You also make yourself easy prey for all kinds of falsehoods and twisted history that’s based not on what really happened, but on what some ideologue somewhere says happened.

Our heritage as Americans is one of bravery, freedom, responsibility, hard work and being able to dream big.  If these are things of the past that are being discarded by those who educate our children, how will they ever know to defend these values when they come under assault?  Pop culture demeans and ridicules them and the political class brushes them aside because such values interfere with their power.

For at least the next four years, Obama’s statist/ progressive/socialist train will continue to roar through our economy bringing whatever will come.  Just going by what his policies have already brought, I suppose we can expect more redistribution, more food stamps, more meager economic growth and more jobs lost.  Not to mention the full-force of Obamacare (there was a reason they waited until after he faced the voters to roll it out in its entirety).

If there happens to be any improvement in the job picture or in the economy, it will be in spite of the Obama administration’s policies and regulations, not because of them.  The entrepreneurial spirit and creativity that built the nation will hopefully rise up again amid the apathy and eternal adolescence that prevails at the moment.

**NOTE:  Speaking of American history, a very well-done story of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving comes from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts characters:  This is America, Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers will air tomorrow night, Thanksgiving Eve on ABC (or it can also be found on You Tube)