NOTE TO MY READERS, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2011: This post has been SIGNIFICANTLY updated since it first went up a couple of days ago. If you haven’t been here it since it first went up, it’s expanded dramatically since a Democrat friend of mine read it & dismissed it out of hand. It’s also been the most popular post I’ve ever written by a factor of about 2, having had nearly 500 hits nationwide – exponentially huge for my microscopic spot of cyberspace. THANK YOU!
Yet another unintended consequence of liberal polemics.
Obama’s voice comes over the car radio saying that Republicans want dirty air, disabled children abandoned, and – if they have means – are stingy, not wanting to do their ‘fair share. (Democrats, please see *+*+ NOTE below UPDATE I at bottom)
My children (15, 13, 13) are listening and know that I vote Republican. As do their Dad & grandparents. (Be aware: I said ‘vote’ not ‘am’ Republican – The GOP, as a Party, is in the doghouse, as far as I am concerned, but that’s the closest to home we can get, if you know what I mean.)
So we vote Republican. Strike one.
We have a nickel or two. Not mansions or anything, but some comfort in life.
‘Fat cats.’ Strike two.
I blow it off and it might be 3 strikes and you’re out in a kid’s mind – a kid who has been taught to respect & revere the Office of the the President of the United States – the Office, not the man, but still. I blow it off, without remark, and my 3 kids might think I, and their entire family, really are ‘palling around with terrorists.’ (Democrats have called us terrorists, too, remember? They know mom & dad have gone to Tea Party gatherings. Add Obama’s other phrase, ‘punish our enemies’ in and we’re the moral equivalent of jihadis flyin’ planes into buildings) To a kid, we’re sounding like a bunch of bloodless pr*cks. The President just said so.
Did it ever occur to the Class-Warrior-in-Chief that children are listening to him? Children with parents who vote Republican? Nearly half the damned country is Republican for crying out loud. I can’t be the only parent this has happened to.
Did you ever think you’d live in an America where you, as a parent, would seriously consider that listening to the President might have to be restricted as an over 18 activity?
He puts me, a stay-at-home-Mom in the very awkward position of having defend myself, my husband and my parents against the allegations of their President!
I mean, Jeezuz! Think like a kid! One of us is ‘lying’ right? Either we’re mean & selfish or the President is lying about us being mean & selfish. Of course, my kids have the benefit of their own eyes & hearts and can see who we are, but good God.
So, how do I handle this? What do I say? Their President is lying? Or I am? I said neither, giving a mini-class on critical thinking – how to make a distinction between criticizing a person, vs. the opinions a person holds about a subject, vs. the merits of the subject itself, and that the President was simply careless, and it has provided another tool for us to think critically about everything, advertising claims, etc., so it was valuable, but at what cost?
His rhetoric also put me in the position of having to ‘out’ my father’s quiet philanthropy. My Dad has given big, big, BIG money in hundreds of ways over many decades but he’ done it quietly.
But now I’ve told them about some of it because I don’t want them to think that Papa’s a pr*ck! I don’t want them to think that just because Papa’s made a bunch of money he did it being mean or is now, a big meanie.
That p*ssed me off having to do that because I’ve tried to teach my children to give because it feels good to give, not because we seek accolades or approval or feel we have to defend our success somehow. I’ve taught them, through my example, to give anonymously, leave things at night, without anyone seeing, or in other quiet ways we do not discuss with others, because it’s the right thing to do, in part, because we are so fortunate, so we should share our good fortune.
But not because the Class Warrior in Chief is looking over their shoulder.
He’s diminished himself by engaging in this rhetoric, changed the narrative between me and my children – a sacred relationship he has no business mucking with – and most grievously, cheapened the majesty of the Office he holds.
I can’t wait until we have a President who likes us again – and doesn’t make me feel I have to defend myself to my children.
UPDATE I: I wasn’t going to include this, but upon further reflection, I will, because it p*sses me off.
Obama named autistic children in particular as among those Republicans don’t give a sh*t about.
I am the mother of an autistic. She’s very literal. She hears ‘Republicans’ are bad and in her mind, since she knows that her family votes Republican, this could present a very real problem for her. A less aware parent might not have anticipated this. A less aware parent might not have explained, in reassuring terms, what she heard the President say. Now, we made a joke about it, and it wasn’t even close to being a deal, big, or otherwise. But she might have internalized that her family wants to abandon her. These are very deep waters we are dealing with here. An autistic’s heart is a deep, mysterious place. I hear about stuff from her that happened years ago that I thought was done, forgotten about, or was never an issue and then boom! There it is.
Look, I handled this. I got it. It’s fixed. And I don’t care if it sounds like I’m braggin’ on myself for being a good parent. I am, g*ddammit. So there. But that’s not the point. I realize this type of episode is anecdotal, and rare, but it really doesn’t matter in the larger scheme of things. What the hell is an American president doing demonizing people rather than arguing issues on their merits? What the hell is he doing pitting American against American?
The world is full of tin-pot dictators. We don’t need one in the Oval.
*+*+NOTE: The President – who is supposed to be a uniter & a statesman – did NOT say ‘If Republican policy is implemented, harm might result, but surely, no-one wants that to happen. We simply disagree on policy.’
The President has made declarative sentences, assigning bad intent that ‘If this – then that.’ He has made it personal – repeatedly. That Republicans, to a man, want bad things to happen to you personally. Got it? That’s the difference.
UPDATE II, Friday morning, 10.28.2011: I had a very smart Democrat friend utterly blind to this distinction this morning and it really surprised me.
I was hurt that she didn’t leap to my defense, as my friend, as a fellow mom, as a person of principle. I thought she’d be offended right along with me that her President was trash-talking her friend and say that’s not the Democratic party she knows. Just like I know she’s not like the OWS pigs pooping & committing felonies and would leap to her defense if someone in my party cast such dispersions on her personal character or party as a whole.
I’ve not yet heard that, despite the official sanction of OWS from the DCCC which makes it perfectly within our rights to condemn Democrats as a class of pooping anarchists. But no. We’ve not done it.
What I’ve heard from GOP Congressmen & Senators is generalized support for 1st amendment rights and caution. NOT ONE GOP elected official has made a sweeping statement condemning the Democrat party as a whole because of them, despite, nationwide reports of over 2,000+ arrests, shocking anti-Semitism, flyers on how/when to shoot a cop, suspected rapes, certain theft, certain acts of public defecation on private property, public masturbation, signs advocating physical harm to those with wealth, felonious assault on police officers, a-c-t-u-a-l spitting at a female member of the Coast Guard… I mean… Should I go on?
Despite ALL of this… I KNOW THAT’S NOT MY FRIEND. And NOBODY in the Republican party has made ANYTHING, even REMOTELY close to a DECLARATIVE statement that THOSE ACTIONS CONSTITUTE THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AS A WHOLE…
But ONE protestor ‘shouts juicy’ at Representative Cleaver and that’s SPITTING and THAT CONSTITUTES THE WHOLE GODDAMNED TEA PARTY as VIOLENT, HATEFUL, RACIST TERRORISTS?
The Tea Party, WHO HAS NEVER BEEN ARRESTED FOR ANYTHING, CLEANED UP AFTER THEMSELVES EVERYWHERE THEY HAVE WENT, NEVER INTIMIDATED ANYONE, HURT ANYTHING, OR ANYONE… EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s okay for the PRESIDENT to tell my children I WANT disabled children abandoned? It’s okay for the PRESIDENT to say I WANT dirty air? Again… I could go on…
No… She said ‘both sides’ are ‘trashing the country.’
I told her to find me another ipso-facto declarative sentence assigning bad intent from the mouths of Republicans about Democrats as a class – i.e. ‘If they get elected, you’re children will gasp on dirty air. They want dirty air.’ – and I would apologize to her on behalf of the Republican party without hesitation. (Parenthetically, it was RIchard Nixon – yes – Richard stinking Nixon who, by executive fiat, created the E.P.A. He started it with good intentions, but where do good intentions often lead? Yes. Straight to hell.. And yes, we do want to abolish it, but not because we’re evil. We just have this quaint notion that LEGISLATORS are hired to make law, not a bunch of on-the-take lobbyists masquerading as do-gooders making ‘rules’ with the same effect as law. Same thing with the Department of Education. Hello? It’s local? LOCAL taxes pay for education? And after 40 years and billions of dollars fattening up the teachers’ unions it’s moved educational attainment zero. ZERO. But liberals never check the actual goddamned data on the agency’s own website.
E.P.A. and D.O.E. are nothing but conduits for dirty money laundering for liberal pet projects and anybody with a shred of integrity knows it. They’re ‘social justice’ funders, plain and simple. It might not have started that way, but that’s where this good-intention road-to-hell has led us, and here we are.
In one of the Federalist papers, I forget which one, one of them said the ratio of state to federal civil servants should be something on the order of 30 to 1. It wasn’t an exact number but that was the take-away. That for every 30 state officials there should be 1 on the federal level in number, consistent with Original Intent, that D.C. deal with national defense & little else. That those powers not delegated to the Feds be tended to on the local level, the states, up close & personal where it makes the most goddamned sense. You know what it is now? It’s 10x bigger than that. The ratio is now 3:1. 3 state-level civic servants for every 1 on the federal level. The Federal government is 10x bigger than the Founders intended. I actually researched that myself so I could find out when I read that section of Papers because I wanted to know. You know why the Founders recommended this? Liberals may posit it’s because the country is so big they had no choice: they didn’t have internet to make it smaller, but now that that we do, it’s more ‘efficient’ I suppose to have it ‘streamlined’ & centralized.
BULLCR*P.
They structured it such because if your neighbor is a state official and he makes a stupid rule and you run into him at the grocery store, he’ll get an earful. Local is better and the Founders knew it. It was part of the underpinning of their checks & balances matrix. Think any coal miners have run into Lisa Jackson at the Piggly-Wiggly? Yeah. Thank you. I just made my point, didn’t I. Our way really does keep the power with the people, but that seems too big a concept for too many liberals. Sigh. Sorry. I ranted…)
But, okay… Let’s just suspend debate on that and take it on it’s face. How does ‘both sides are doing it’ prevent her from saying ‘Yeah. Obama’s rhetoric is un-statesmanlike and as President, he ought know better. I’m sorry he put you in that position. That’s not the Democrat party I’m proud of.’
Because I would do that on this side in a heartbeat. There’s no moral equivalence to be made here. Wrong is wrong.
She knows my family well. How could she know my autistic daughter so well and not be personally offended for her friend that the President insinuated such evil to her mother?
