By Doug Patton
Do forty percent of Americans really hate their country, or are they just too self-absorbed, apathetic and/or obtuse to recognize the loathing Barack Obama displays for the United States of America? Forty seems to be the percentage of people, give or take a few, who still express their approval of this president and his policies, in spite of the disdain he shows both for them and their country.
Perhaps American voters have become so cynical they can't hear what their leaders are clearly saying to them. Consider that just prior to the 2008 presidential election, Obama said, "We are just five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." What did he mean by that? How many interpretations could there be for that statement?
Were the voters so starved for leadership that they craved the attention of a community organizer who had never accomplished anything, simply because he told them that they could have things they had never earned, paid for by people they had never met? Or is it possible that Obama's rhetoric was so meaningless that when he said "fundamental transformation," all they heard was "hope and change."
Since that time, we have witnessed hyperbole, gross exaggeration and outright lies from this man on a scale that would make most politicians blush. But every once in a while, as he did in that speech in 2008, Obama shows us who he really is and what he really believes — if we are listening.
Such a moment of startling honesty came recently when Obama delivered what the mainstream media laughingly described as a "response" to Rep. Paul Ryan's common sense budget. What the speech really amounted to, of course, was simply a tired partisan kick-off of his 2012 re-election campaign. In it, Obama again stated his contempt for the nation that has given him so much. Consider this excerpt:
"Part of this American belief that we're all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security and dignity. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff may strike any one of us. 'There but for the grace of God go I,' we say to ourselves. And so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, those with disabilities. We're a better country because of these commitments. I'll go further. We would not be a great country without those commitments."
Really, Mr. Obama? When Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence and risked his life signing it along with the other Founders, were we not a great country? When George Washington led his troops in the freezing cold at Valley Forge, were we not a great country? When James Madison became the father of the U.S. Constitution, were we not a great country? When Abraham Lincoln agonized over the salvation of the Union and the abolition of slavery, were we not a great country?
For the first 189 years of our nation's existence we were not a great country? Is that what you are saying Mr. Obama? Until Franklin Roosevelt pushed through the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security in 1935 and Lyndon Johnson compounded the shell game with Medicare in 1965, we were — what? A mediocre country? An average country? Or perhaps, as your wife expressed during the campaign, we were "a downright mean country." Is that what you really believe about the United States of America? Obviously, it is.
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© 2011 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton describes himself as a recovering political speechwriter who agrees with himself much more often than not. Now working as a freelance writer, his weekly columns of sage political analysis are published the world over by legions of discerning bloggers, courageous webmasters and open-minded newspaper editors.
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