All opinions are those of The Republican Gazette and its editor, Gary Abernathy, except letters or commentary signed by others, and do not reflect the views of anyone else, including clients of Abernathy Strategies.
Think you're too inexperienced to be president? Think again
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BARACK OBAMA
* Chicago, Ill.
* 2 years United States Senator.
* Former member of the Illinois State Legislature.
* Media comparing him to John F. Kennedy.
* Modestly compares himself to Abraham Lincoln.
* Wants to be the first black president, says his inexperience could work for him, wants to heal the nation, withdraw from Iraq, yada, yada, yada.
If Barack Obama can do it, why on earth can't you?
U.S. Senator Barack Obama has announced he's running for President of the United States, and the Democrat media outlets -- NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC -- are very excited.
But why should Barack have all the fun? The Republican Gazette has identified three other aspirants right off the bat, all with about the same qualifications as Senator Obama.
LOLA LOLLIPOP
* San Diego, Calif.
* 2 years president of San Diego Community Theatre.
* Compares herself to Lucille Ball.
* Wants to be the first redheaded woman president. Says America would be safer if everyone wore hats. Running on a platform of requiring all Americans to serve two years performing sidewalk pantomime. Supports price caps on marijuana.
HERB JOHNSON
* Inez, Ky.
* 2 years president of Patricia Arquette Fan Club.
* Compares himself to TV psychic John Edwards.
* Amateur astrologist, believes all major decisions should be made by calling the Psychic Hotline, with the Magic 8 Ball for backup. Was once arrested for holding himself hostage, but case was dismissed when he refused to testify.
JIMMY CASSIDY
* Seattle, Wash.
* 2 years president of Neighborhood Watch.
* Compares himself to Columbo, Matlock, Monk, and actor Basil Rathbone.
* Computer geek, wants to increase surveillance using new technology, including sidewalk cameras on every corner, and phone tapping of every American. Straight A student, owns a pet snake named Sherlock.
So far Wild & Wonderful a hit
So far, "Wild & Wonderful" is far and away the most popular slogan in The Republican Gazette poll, which came about only because the Manchin administration says doing an online poll takes time to prepare.
A society willing to lie down and let things happen
"For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics) he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavoring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him."
--author George Orwell (1903-1950)
Gov. Joe Manchin wants to make children eat healthier through a number of government initiatives.
Delegate Bonnie Brown wants to prevent cervical cancer by requiring 6th grade girls to get the HPV vaccine.
Many lawmakers want to institute universal healthcare, at least for our nation's children.
Some legislators want to make children healthier by criminalizing smoking in a car carrying a minor.
Why is it that some people view government primarily as a tool for achieving social change, or engaging in behavioral modification?
Government exists to do only a few things -- provide for the common defense, maintain the national infrastructure (highways, etc.) and one or two other mundane items.
Ronald Reagan once said, "I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves." He also joked that the nine most frightening words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Government should quit trying to help, and the well-meaning souls who think that's its job -- and I believe all those named above are probably well-meaning -- don't seem to recognize the obvious parallels between an ever-intrusive government and the ultimate totalitarian society that will result.
In this age of terrorism and the legitimate encroaching on our freedoms that obviously must result in order to combat it, you would think that most leaders would not look for even more ways to impose government mandates onto our lives.
Take the smoking issue, for example. Those of us who argued that the widely accepted ban on smoking in bars and restaurants was only the first step in a slipperly slope did not have to wait long to be proven right, when a few West Virginia do-gooders decided the next step should be the banning of smoking in cars. For now, they say they only want to stop adults from smoking in cars if children are in the vehicle, but the children angle is just a necessary step to convince the rest of us to lie down and let things happen. In reality, they simply want to criminalize smoking, children or no children.
But invoking the health and safety of children has long been used to justify a number of intrusive laws. Manchin wants to redirect how we eat to create a healthier generation of children. But if children were somehow magically immune from smoke or obesity, there would be another reason presented to achieve the ultimate goals.
Here's a concept that every American should be anxious to fight for: How we raise our children is not any of the government's damn business. Short of actual abuse -- physical or sexual -- the government should stay out of whether we
smoke around our children, feed them nothing but Big Macs, let them ride bikes without a helmet, or, frankly, even send them to school or not. Raising our kids is not the government's job.
But, in point of fact, we as a society have let it become government's job, making it ever more difficult to fight that notion even when Uncle Sam finally treads across a line that even the anti-smoking, health-food eating, child advocating abdicators of parental rights think is a step too far. Once the dam is broken, all the water eventually pours through.
The difference between pro-Big Brother types and the rest of us is that some people truly believe government is the vehicle by which we attain social perfection -- perfection defined as a completely sterile, perfectly nutritioned, zero crime-infested world.
The rest of us understand that there is no such world, nor should there be, especially at the cost of government legislating it, which it can only do via the cost to each individual of his or her personal freedoms.
Freedom brings with it imperfections. The freedom to smoke inhibits someone else's freedom to breathe clean air. The freedom to eat fatty foods brings with it the costs to the health care industry to treat the heart disease and diabetes associated with such a diet. The freedom of parents to decide how safe or unsafe to make their children can sometimes lead to injury or even death.
But that is the price we pay for our freedoms. Children are not born into the care of their government. They are born into the care of their parents. Some parents are lousy parents. But in the big picture, a society with some lousy parents and the resulting suffering, in various degrees, by the children of those parents is still preferable to a society which has surrendered its freedoms to the government in the name of safety, security or good health. Such a society may lead to less immediate suffering on the part of children, but the trade-off is that children will certainly not be as free as their parents or grandparents were, which is an even worse fate.
Even Jesus conceded that the poor will always be with us -- meaning also, of course, that poor children would also always be with us, along with all the attendant social and health problems associated with being poor. But there are Big Brother types who disagree and think they can prove Jesus wrong, and who want the government to redistribute the wealth of those who have it to eliminate the poverty of those who don't. Universal healthcare for children is the latest excuse for that reasoning.
Put simply, we need the government to quit worrying so much about children, as blasphemous as that may sound to some. It's not the government's job, and in reality, the government only professes to worry about children in order to gain the public assent necessary to attain a broader control of society in general.
Until we put a stop to it, government leaders will continue to invoke the safety of children, because they have found that doing so encourages Americans to, as Orwell said, simply lie down and let things happen.
