History in the making

Now we know what outspending your opponent 3:1 and having the media in your pocket buys. If you’re Barack Obama, the answer is only about six million more voters than the other one. And now we get to listen to weeks bragging, talk of payback and mandates, and pundits theorizing about the whys and the hows and what nexts, and the pendulum continues to swing. I’m pretty sure I’ll make out like a bandit for the next four years. I looked at my four-year-old to thank for her financing the welfare we’d be receiving, and she shot me a perfect ‘no, wait, what?’-look.

A friend sent me a text celebrating a good day for Democrats and a good day for America. I told her she was half right. Change in inevitable. Growth is option. And as the renowned economist John Maynard Keyes said, in the long run, we’re all dead. Time will tell just how far left the country will head under an Obama White House and a Pelosi/Reid Congress. I really hope he’s better than I think he is and half as good some people think he is, but I stand by everything I’ve said and written. The extreme left wing of the Democratic Party now has unfettered control of the direction of the country. And they’ve made their agenda pretty clear; from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

Yes, we can… but should we? Should government provide all the needs the community has? How much welfare can a person receive before their self esteem is diminished? How many entitlements can we afford before we run out of money? How much regulation and taxation can our economy stand before it just doesn’t make any sense to do business? How much appeasement can we extend before we appear weak and someone takes a shot at us? How much greater good is worth our personal freedoms?

Make no mistake about it. America needs a change, but the change isn’t in Washington. It isn’t in the White House or the halls of Congress. It’s not in Wall Street or the universities or the court rooms. The change we need lies in the hearts of every person who loves the principles that founded the United States of America. We take for granted the liberties we enjoy. Apathy creeps in and promises of an easier, wider path tantalize our tastes and our passions. America requires advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad! Because there will always be someone working to take it away. There will always be someone leading you to believe that if you just help them out, they will help you out. You’ll never have to worry about putting gas in your car again. You’ll never have to worry about paying your mortgage again. But damn it, you should worry about those things! As Oprah has espoused, fear can keep you alive. Fear keeps you from stepping out in front of a bus! Responsibilities are what keeps us getting up in the morning, pullin’ up our pants and going out to kill something and drag it back to the cave. Contributing is not optional.

The change America needs starts with you and me and everyone else. We need to move away from greed and selfishness. We need to take our hands out of each other’s pockets. We need to care again and appreciate what we have and fight for it. We own house needs to be in order first before we can start helping others. Our answers are not external. We must value industry and work for what we have and what we want. We have no further but the ends of our noses if we want to find the source of our situation.

Barack Obama can’t provide the type of change we need. He represents a political machine with an agenda that worked very successfully to put him there to advance that agenda. That lobby now has a very modest check on its power.

Obama has timing on his side. The economic benefits we’ll receive in the next three years will be part of the normal business cycle, not his executive brilliance. The results we see in Iraq will be the results of a hard decision to stay the course and help the country find itself, and now we have turned over 13 of 17 provinces and set a complete pull out date. No thanks to Obama or Biden. Health care, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will not be solved by more government health care. Immigration will not be benefited by amnesty or by looking the other way. Homeland security will not be helped by being nice to the rest of the rest of the world. The middle class will not be strengthened by Obama/Biden. They will continue to disappear as the habits are repeated.

I can only think of one other time in my life when I’ve wanted to be wrong more than I do right now. Change is coming. I hope we don’t regret it.