Update: And Atlas is doing more than writing Letters – Atlas Shrugging, Atlas Fighting, and here are some Protesting! Kansas just saw HUNDREDS converging on their Congresscritter to protest his voting for the Porkulus (aka, the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Generational Theft Act) bill. Earl’s got pictures!
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"My husband and I always discuss, ‘Why do we try to better ourselves, when it seems if you do nothing, you get all the help in the world?’”
Filed under Appreciation – actually, this is a post where the Appreciation for what Americans are and do is not being honored by our President, his aides, or the legislators that are enabling his behavior and aim to "transform" America. In fact, the first month has been nothing less than a blitzkrieg in attempting to overwhelm tradition American values – work hard, take care of your family, act responsibly, respecting others, and live within your means; values that the VAST majority of Americans actually use in living their lives.
Victor Davis Hanson pens a letter a letter to President Obama from Mr. & Mrs American (emphasis mine):
I am meeting a few battered Americans these days. There are not many left, but those that are seem to sound alike. Yes, I think I am beginning to understand Mr. Battered American, and he sounds tired and a bit like this.
“I’m sorry Mr. President, but we are just not dictatorial in the Middle East. You said the Saudis, not America, showed courage over there. But, Mr. President, the Saudis, they live under Sharia law! And my God!—they once engineered crippling oil boycotts against our nation. And wasn’t it they who produced 15 of the 19 killers on 9/11? So no, Mr. President, those Saudis—they simply are not courageous. Now Mr. Biden, there is no reason to set the reset button on foreign policy, as you promised all those Europeans. None at all. Tell that resetting stuff instead to Ahmadinejad, Chavez, that Korean nut, Putin, and all the other thugs who kill and cause misery, but not to our America that saves and feeds and helps.
Mrs. Clinton..stop apologizing for America’s recent behavior—unless you think the world would be a better place with the Taliban, and Saddam and his two boys in power. Or maybe Europe should have Schroeder and Chirac back, or Libya with nuclear weapons, or Khalid Sheik Mohammed freed from Guantanamo. Or maybe America shouldn’t have given that $15 billion for AIDs relief in Africa, or helped with earthquakes in Pakistan and tsunamis in Indonesia…
As he thinks about this apology business, the battered American always gets a little angrier, “…Mr. Holder, I’ve never said or done a racist thing in my life, not one. Always supported equal opportunity, always will. So don’t call me a “coward” or my countrymen “cowards,” not when you’re my Attorney General…
…I think this battered American would also say, “Mr. President, I passed on buying that bigger house. …I never missed a mortgage payment;…don’t tell me that the 93% of us that played by our grandfathers’ rules are obligated to come to the rescue of the 7%, who did the exact opposite…
…“Just a bit for tuition and such. But when I did, my kids no longer qualified for loans, and scholarships and federal help….
“And Mr. President,” the battered American would add, “When I add up my federal income tax, my state income tax, my Medicare, and my Social Security taxes, I am paying half my income to the government. Wait— far more than half my income, when I figure in my sales and property and car taxes. And, oh, Mr. President I am so tired of all those taxes, so tired, but I am so lawful as well. And so I pay the bill, all of it….
…“I played by the rules, and put a little away in my 401(k)… And I lost 30% of it. I will live by that too. But please, don’t tell me I must pay for AIG, and the state of California, and all those who charged too much on their VISAs. …please, no more lectures that I have to, that I must, that I am obligated to. And no more of your team’s lecturing me about being patriotic in paying my taxes, and unpatriotic in not wanting to borrow more trillions that my kids’ kids will have to pay back.”
Like I said, most (heck, the VAST majority of Americans) are decent people. Obama and his crew, I believe with this Stimulus bill and the utterances of him and those around him, have stirred the pot and it is now coming to a boil. For years we’ve taken the guff, we’ve been hammered for the lack of sensitivity to accusations of political incorrectness. And now, that patience may well be wearing thin as we see our kids, our grandkids, and great grandkids futures clouded by the cost now being incurred (as well as the "social justice") to bail out those that haven’t "played the game" straight as we have – politicians on the other side of the country, local governments everywhere but here (ok, my state of NH has not behaved well at all!), and citizens who make bad decisions that now have now claim on my money just because Obama says so.
We’ve no problem in helping others – at times, I have needed that help, and have offered such help to others. Sometimes, even to those that neither deserved it nor (in our estimation) would take such to benefit themselves (e.g., a wasted effort).
What you are starting to hear is the beginnings of Atlast Shrugging in some cases, and in others, Atlas starting to fight back. CNBC’s reporter, Rick Santelli, got it right – helping is one thing but after a while, why should we continually bail out parasites and layabouts that refuse to work hard and play it straight themselves.
That’s the problem with socialism – socialized costs of bad decisions mean no consequences for those that make them and no one is responsible except for those that end up actually paying for it. The problem is that it then becomes far too easy to just shrug and say "why should I keep on penalizing me and my family when others are getting stuff for free?". No, it is not helping others are Obama would have have us believe – it is aiding and enabling bad behavior.
And that is wrong.
Just as it is wrong to continually tell the vast majority of Americans that we are bad people (as the President’s own Press Secretary castigated Rick Santelli for publicly saying what the rest of us feel).
We’re not. And we will remember that we and our country were called that in 2010 and 2012.
(H/T: Instapundit)
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