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The freedom to choose
dependency
That’s My Opinion
By Bob Robinson
It’s been what… three years since I retired from the Advocate? People
are still coming up to me on the street, in the store…
“Sure do miss you at the Advocate, Bob.”
I thank them for giving me my “thumbs up” for the day, then ask if they
have a computer? Most of them are my generation… not always interested
in this new fangled stuff. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If yes, I hand
them a CNO card.
But I also warn them that I’ve gotten older. I’m not nearly as nasty as
I used to be… you know, the “furiner and snake in the grass” syndrome?
“You weren’t nasty,” one gentleman said Friday. “You were right on!”
It makes my day when that happens. I’m human just like everyone else
and I enjoy hearing that I was appreciated.
While I may not be as nasty as I once was, I can still throw a few
punches. And I can’t think of any more deserving a recipient than Pres.
Barack Obama.
For years – decades – I’ve watched the state of our nation and our
people with a deepening sense of sadness.
I don’t believe I’ve ever publicly addressed this, but just in case a
few readers still wonder, I’m going to do it now.
Barack Obama scared the living hell out of me when he was campaigning.
On that fateful evening in November nearly four years ago, I did NOT
want to believe he would soon be our president.
While as Advocate editor I “called” the race for Diane Delaplane when
she was elected Darke County’s first woman commissioner, I was reticent
about “calling” who was pretty obviously going to be our next
president. I don’t call national elections, never have, and at press
time no national organization had done so. It wasn’t 15 minutes after
that that Obama was given the nod by the networks.
My refusal to break tradition had absolutely nothing to do with skin
color as a few have suggested… but possibly, at least in part, due to
his ideology. A white Pres. Obama would have scared me just as much. It
was his vision of the future.
Regrettably, that “vision” has had its predictable devastating impact.
Three and a half years later our economy is still in the tank and we’re
trillions of dollars deeper in debt. The concept of “spreading the
wealth” is legalized theft. No economy can survive that.
More important though, is watching our freedoms disappear faster than I
can keep track of them. Washington has slowly eroded them over the
years, regardless of who was at the helm. We’ve been asleep at the
wheel. We’ve allowed politicians and jurists with agendas to chip away
at the foundation of our freedom… the Constitution that so many have
fought and died for.
We took a big hit on those freedoms after Sept. 11, but the nation
accepted it. We were at war. It took Obama’s “hatchet” on the
Constitution to wake us up! Sadly, Obama told us exactly what he would
do when he was campaigning. And the voters elected him anyway.
We now have a majority of Americans dependent on handouts of one kind
or another. Obama has more czars – bureaucrats who control our lives
yet are not elected – than you can shake a stick at. The EPA, FDA, NLRB
– to name just a few of his “henchmen” – are creating regulations and
passing down edicts that are killing our economic growth left and right.
He has embarrassed us on the world front and filed suit against a state
trying to enforce federal immigration laws that he refuses to enforce.
Unemployment benefits are becoming perpetual. This has hurt the
employers who want to get Americans back into the work force. Others
are scared to hire because they have no idea what regulations or taxes
might be coming down the pike from Washington.
Obamacare is still unpopular with the majority of voters, and thousands
of companies and organizations have been given “passes” on their
requirement to participate. Many of them are the same organizations
that endorsed or helped elect our president.
Surprised? I’m not. The list of other ‘crimes’ against the Constitution
is almost as plentiful as his unelected Czars.
Yet, Obama still has a chance to be re-elected because Republicans are
too busy pummeling each other to concentrate on what this person has
done to our country. While Obama’s favorability is under 50 percent, he
is still preferred over anyone the Republicans might currently throw at
him in November.
I’m reminded of a song from the 1970’s. “Freedom is just another word
for nothin’ left to lose…” From “Me and Bobby McGee,” Janice Joplin,
1971.
Freedom is “nothin’ left to lose?” I can remember when freedom meant
opportunity… the freedom to excel, succeed and become the best you can
be. That doesn’t seem to be the case today. Those qualities are now
degraded. Freedom today seems to mean the ability to get as much out of
Uncle Sam as possible. And keep the cash flow coming.
Freedom today seems to be the freedom to choose dependency.
Just like Greece, Great Britain and other countries on the flip side of
the world, we will end up paying the price. Given the popularity of the
Occupy Crowd, I’m wondering if the first salvoes haven’t already been
fired.
That’s my opinion. What’s yours?
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