The following is a composite conversation based on several post-Election Day discussions with friends and acquaintances up here in the Granite State of New Hampshire. The Great Stone Face, The Old Man on the Mountain, was once a symbol of our fierce independence: Live Free or Die! We were a rock island of red sanity in a sea of blue madness. Now with our deficits, spending, new laws and liberal leaders, we are no longer unique; we are well on our way to becoming Massachusetts North, if we’re not there already. It seems we ‘lost face’ and our identity the past four years since our great symbol, the Stone Face, fell off the mountain.
Hearts of stone and heads of granite: O Lord may you take them from us and give us hearts of flesh and minds which no longer take life for granted.
“Isn’t this just great? The first black man has been elected President! What a great day! You can celebrate, right? You’re happy, right? ”
“No, I’m sorry, I’m not happy. I’m glad we broke the barrier, but, for me, this day is a like a tragedy.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, I’m pro-life.”
“What’s that? Oh yeah, that has to do with being against abortion, right?
Yes, somebody actually said that. I found out that some people voted for Obama without knowing some bare basics about what he believed about this and other things.
“You mean Obama’s not ‘pro-life’? I figured he was. He seems like such a nice guy.”
“He’s an utter catastrophe for anyone like me.”
“In what way?”
“For one thing, do you know what bill he plans to sign first? Guess,”
“No idea, what?”
“Obama said, ‘the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act’ and Pelosi has said the same thing, so it’ll almost certainly be done.”
“What’s that, ‘Freedom of Choice Act’?”
“It’s a law that will get rid of any and all restrictions on abortion. ALL laws wiped off the books. There’ll be no more parental notification or anything and YOUR taxes and MINE will now be used to pay for abortions.”
“Whoa, I don’t agree with that, even if I’m not sure I totally agree on abortion. Why didn’t we hear about that?”
“Are you kidding me? You expected the press that was so in the tank for Obama to report anything?? Don’t you know how much they covered over for him?”
“Yeah, I know they were all in the tank for him.”
When I brought up the press coverage, people hung their head in guilty recognition. Several things I mentioned, like the Fairness Doctrine, the Mandatory Service Plan, the 2001 Share the Wealth Tape, and a host of others, they either hadn’t heard of at all or they knew little about it. They looked truly shocked.
“Well, I DO think we should stop that bill anyway.”
“It’s too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you figure you can call your Senator to ask them not to vote for it?”
“Yeah, right.”
“Who’re you going to call, Shaheen, who we just elected?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“She’s a former board member for Planned Parenthood that makes hundreds of millions from abortion. Do you think she’s going to stop it?”
“Well, aren’t there others?”
“Yesterday was our chance. Now it’s TOO LATE! What’s going to stop them NOW? NOTHING! The pro-abortion people now control it all and there is NOTHING left to stop them. And you want me to be happy?!”
“I didn’t know that about Obama, but he’s good on other things. He’ll be better on the economy, won’t he?”
“It’s too much like socialism to me.”
“I’m not quite sure, what’s socialism again?”
“Never mind.”
“He’s better than Bush. He’ll get us out of our wars…”
Most people spouted anti-Bush platitudes or comments on personality, symbolism and appearances or how great it will look to the world. The euphoria from the acceptance speech the night before was what was driving most of them.
“Listen, we’re friends, and I sincerely wish I could really be happy with you today. But, with everything I know, I can only feel really upset and scared for my country.”
“You’re just mad because you lost. Isn’t he your President now? Shouldn’t you support him?”
“He is going to be my President and ours and I will pray for him every day. I won’t be disrespectful. But I’m not going to be quiet anymore; if he does the wrong thing I’m not going to pretend it’s just great and say nothing. And I’m not going to ACCEPT things like the Freedom of Choice Act or other things that could mean the ruin of our country. I won’t go along and say it’s OK.”
“Wow, you really threw a wet blanket on my day.”
“I’m really sorry. You know I respect you and you’re important to me and this shouldn’t get in the way of our friendship.”
“The feeling is mutual. Well, gotta get to work. See ya.”
Every single one of the people I talked to remain my good friends or working acquaintances. I think my honest reactions gave them pause for thought. Now we’ll all have to wait and see what happens over the coming days. I don’t think these Granite State friends will ever take the life issue for granted again.
We turn away to face the cold, enduring chill
As the day begs the night for mercy love
The sun so bright, it leaves no shadows
Only scars carved into stone on the face of it
The moon is up over One Tree Hill
We see the sun go down in your eyes….
I’ll see you again when the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red over One Tree Hill
– U2, “One Tree Hill”
You’ve hit on the one thing I’ve been saying repeatedly about this entire election. Not ONE Obama supporter that I’ve spoken to (this number is over 30) was able to tell me any specifics about Obama’s policies. NOT ONE. They knew he wanted to cut taxes but has no idea by how much and the fact that he was not going to lower the rate but simply give a tax rebate lower than Bush’s rebate. They also had no idea that he plans to let Bush’s tax cuts expire in 2010 which will mean a tax increase for virtually the entire middle class (i.e. the REAL middle class and not that B.S. under $30K/year middle class)
To me this entire election was about the “informed” versus the “uninformed.”
We all know who won.
Like they say, large voter turnout favors the dems. Translation: The utterly clueless vote for dems.
The 8 years of the left screaming Bush is evil, the world hates us, etc. worked. This is why we need to get more Conservatives into the media. It will take time, but be worth it in the end.
George Soros +foriegn $+unethical media+ acorn+a D behind your name (or a C?) guaranteed a win. The GOP will not win again until they learn how to fight corruption. I firmly believe that BHO could have been a felon and he would still have won.
I’ve read numerous posts here on Flooping Aces and other sites where people are talking about patriotic, and not so patriotic, opposition to the new administration and taking back conservatism.
Few understand how this could have happened. It’s really quite simple. Out education system has turned our students against things that conservatives believe in like self-reliance, personal responsibility, competition, free enterprise, and capitalism.
The educators are so far left many of them make Karl Marx seem libertarian.
If you want your country back first you must take back the education system.
Where is Newt when we need him most?
I soo wish I could remember where I read this…..
Hitler knew he could take France, not because he studied their military history after WWI…..
Hitler knew he could take France because he studied their social history and knew that after WWI their school systems took a left turn and whole generation(s) had been schooled by left wing pacifists.
So…who let those assholes start teaching in their schools ?…maybe it was a slow infiltration…..Hmm…sounds familiar, unfortunately.
This has already been happening here…for how long ?
This shit needs to stop.
Do 18, 19 year olds and 20-somethings even KNOW who Hitler was ?
Please go to Grassfire.org and sign their petition re: Obama’s secret plan to give orders to stop drilling for oil ASAP after taking office.
Grassfire is trying to collect 1 million signatures by Jan. 20th to stop this nonsense before it gets off the ground.
Please forward the link to others !
http://www.grassfire.org/111/petition.asp?PID=18712815&NID=1
Oddly enuf, I caught Jonah Goldberg’s column today in the NY Post that very much relates to this post. The topic? How voting has become “in vogue”, and less a somber, deliberated act by mature constituents.
I agree that it’s our Constitutional right to vote. But I also think it is our moral responsibility to case an informed vote. But now, we have volume… sorta… but not quality input. I have no answer to the dilemma.. but it’s seriousness weighs heavily on my mind.
This is what we’ll hear in some Obama circles….
1. WHAT, you mean that the Bush policies on fighting Terrorism (intell, prosecution, air strikes) are STAYING THE SAME????
2. The government is taking OVER my 401k??? WTF?!?!?!?!
3. What do you mean that I can’t vote for a union in SECRET?
4. Cap and trade is putting me out of business!!!!
5. What NO MORE COAL???
I think that working people who pays income taxes should be the only ones aloud to vote, not students and not people on welfare or the ones who do not pay income taxes. After all, the government money is the taxpayer’s money. So you should be the only ones to have a word to say on how they intend to spend your money. You present yourself at the polls with your income tax report. It assures that you are a legal citizen, it eliminates voter fraud and it prevents ignorant people to make bad choices. It is radical maybe, but it is logical.
Craig
The problem with you idea is that a lot of people don’t pay income taxes. When you don’t have enough income you don’t file income taxes. Some have a lot of children and/or medical bills or something else. And seniors who have paid taxes all their lives mostly do not pay income tax. Should they be eliminated from voting? I would kick and scream about that. The truth is that we cannot tell anyone they can’t vote if they are a citizen.
What we really need to do is have a national ID voting card just for voting identification nothing else. This would eliminate people being registered everywhere they lived and failed to notify that registry office. It wold also eleiminate duplicate voters. We need to make it a law people have to register 30 days before an election and have to come to the registry office to sign up. No more man on the street registering the same people multiple times. That ID card should be sent through a machine to show that person has already voted. That should eliminate dead voters and illegal voters and duplicate voters. But the democrats are against every one of these ideas. They are the ones who enacted ACORN, no IDs. They did this because it causes confusion and graft and voter crime so they can win.
Doesn’t work that way, Craig. I know you see some logic in your “only those who pay taxes” get to vote theory. But income taxes are not the only taxes in the US, just as they aren’t in your neck of the woods.
And one who doesn’t pay taxes this year, may next year depending on his income…. and vice versa. See what I mean?
Mata and Barbara,
Okay! There was a flaw. But then it still could be for people who filed an income tax report, whether they pay taxes or not. At least they are working and bying stuff and paying taxes on what they buy. That would be much better. It would only eliminate students and welfare people.
How about property tax? Sales tax? Car registrations and licensing fees? Gas taxes?
Even if someone doesn’t hit the threshold of paying income tax, with current law, that doesn’t mean they aren’t subject to some for of taxes.
Remember our colonial battle cry… “No taxation without representation!”
I don’t know Mata. All these taxes that you are talking about, people who pay them usually file in an income tax report at the end of the year, no?
Anyways, lets forget it, it will never happen. Let the ignorant idiots vote. But as the ignorant crowd gets bigger, something one day will have to be done, otherwise, you will be stuck with stupid ignorant leftist democrats till the end of times.
Nope, Craig. The only thing that is on an income annual filing is how much they earned that year from various reported sources, and what deductions they take. The IRS then scans the “deductions”, or looks for really odd stand outs to audit randomly. i.e. your deductions all of the sudden went way up. Or your deductions in a particular category (entertainment, medical, office supplies, etal) skyrocketed out of your normal previous behavior.
The other taxes? You pay the gas tax at the gas pump. You pay sales tax at the stores. You pay property taxes to your appropriate city/county. Licensing fees for vehicles are paid at the DMV. You can deduct the property taxes on your IRS filing (at least for now…. that could change and would be a tacit “tax increase”.)
But if you did, and it brought you into a category where you didn’t make enough to pay income tax to Uncle Sam (after allowable deductions), that doesn’t mean you didn’t pay taxes and shouldn’t be allow to have representation for your taxation.
And every citizen (and actually illegal alien) pays sales tax… depending on their state… and gas tax. Even if they are living in the shadows.
So you see, everyone who functions within our borders is actually taxed in some way.
On uninformed voters I place a good portion of the blame directly on the media. The news media used to give you information on Candidates in Federal, State, and local elections. Now the only thing we hear is endless sound bites, gossip, etc. It is damn near impossible to research the real backgrounds and experience of any candidates.
Craig,
I am also curious about the idea that the one who pays tax (specifically the income tax) is the one allowed to vote in the election. I somehow agree about this because if a citizen is really determined to play his part to the society, then he will do his obligation to pay tax. No one will evade income tax payments. Then, tax evasion crime will be reduced. Another is that a large portion of the government fund came from income taxes. So the income tax payers is more concerned about where their money goes.
The problem is what about the citizens who do not have the sufficient income but are willing to take active part in our society. Do they have to stay mute about their opinions and idealism?
reply please