An Attempt To Explain Myself to My Kids

Dear Rachel and Adam,

I'm afraid that distance and differences are conspiring to drive us apart. I don't want that to happen and will do anything and everything I can to avoid it. After my last, ridiculous dust-up with Rocky, and for the life of me I don't know why that happened, Pat suggested that I write a letter to both of you and try to explain where I'm 'coming from'.. She has a good mind and makes good suggestions and, certainly, the old fashioned letter offers the opportunity to discuss things without the danger of going off half-cocked. Hence, please consider this my attempt to open a civilized, adult dialogue with two people I love very much. More than love, even, I have great pride and respect for the people you have both grown into. Believe me, when I listen to so many of my friends talk about their kid's problems, and their problems with their kids, it is clear to me just how great you both are.

 Since politics is the scab that keeps getting picked-at:       

 "Patriot":  A person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion."

How un-cool, old fashioned and corny that, from Webster's, sounds, today.

I admit that I have always tended to have patriotic leanings. You can probably chalk-up a lot of that to the boy scout in me. Hmm, "The Boy Scouts". There's another term that sounds square and out-of-date, today. Nevertheless, even though I've always thought of myself as a patriot, it wasn't until the last ten or twelve years that I would have accepted "devotion" as part of the definition. Driving a school bus, however, means that you have a lot of time to kill, and I kill it by always having a good book along for the ride. It's great and it's allowed me to learn a lot of the stuff I should have learned in school. American History, for instance. Maybe you can't have 'devotion' for something until you know something about it.         

 But the devotion I feel, today, is not blind devotion to anything other than the ideas upon which our country was founded. That, and the small group of learned men who were not only capable of thinking about ideas but, also, capable of using those ideas to form a government upon. Until The Founding Fathers came along, no government in human history had ever been formed that was based on philosophical ideas. Ideas like: rule-by-law rather than by man, individual sovereignty, personal responsibility, private property rights, the freedom to think and speak your mind, etc. Before The Founders, it had always been raw power that was used to create governments. And man, instead of being sovereign, was never anything more than a serf, a slave, or a subject. Certainly, never The Sovereign.  

In my eyes, nothing is more precious than freedom. It's a commodity that is, and always has been, very rare, and always threatened with extinction. Hmmm? Maybe that's why man created the idea of Heaven? If I had lived my life without the freedom that I've enjoyed, maybe I, too, would want to have a place like Heaven to believe in. Who knows?

 

Since Mr. Obama seems to be "A Bridge Too Far" for us to discuss, here are a few of my thoughts about the man.

I considered voting for Obama because I didn't care for John McCain. A hero, yes, but a lousy candidate for president. Before the election, I read "Dreams From My Father". Actually, I read about half of it. At that point I'd had enough. I mean, what do you call a person who's written two auto biographies by the time he's forty? 'Narcissist' is a good bet. My god, Abraham Lincoln never did write an auto biography, and just think about what that man accomplished.

When Obama won the election I sincerely hoped my fears about him would be proven wrong. I really did hope for the best. However, when I heard him say, more than once, "We are the one we have been waiting for." ... I can't explain my reaction other than to say that a shiver ran up my spine. Few people have focused on that line but I will never forget it. Or my reaction to it.

Suffice to say, I feel, now, that all my fears about the man have been proven to be true. I consider him an enemy to everything I hold dear. Everything I have "devotion" for. To me, he perjured himself when he took the oath of office, when he swore to "defend and protect the Constitution of The United States". His own words, from when he was in the Illinois Legislature, and his actions since taking office, have proven to me that he never intended to make good on that oath. In my eyes, he has no value or respect for the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. He has done, and will do, everything in his power to destroy those incredibly precious documents that were written to guarantee our freedom. I don't want to live in Obama's fantasy world, nor do I want your children, my grand children, to grow up in the country he wants to create!

Since the beginning of human history there has been an endless string of utopian, masterminds who have delighted in concocting ideas-of-misery for their fellow man to live under. From Plato's Republic, to Thomas More's Utopia, to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, to Woodrow Wilsons Progressive Movement, to FDR's New Deal, to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, to Obama's Hope and Change, all of their great plans have lead to the same thing - Tyranny.  And, when Mr. Obama declared that "We are the one we have been waiting for", what I heard was - I am the One who will pound the last nail in freedom's coffin.  Am I being overly dramatic? Maybe, but I think not.

I love and admire both of you and the way you live your lives makes me very proud. The only thing I'd change, were it in my power, is that we could, occasionally, venture beyond talk about Things, Doings and Stuff and adventure on to things like Feelings, Ideas and Dreams. Yes, those can be scary terrain to travel, but the roles I played that always ended up being the most rewarding to me were those that scared the hell out of me, beforehand. If at all possible, let's opt for adventure every now and then.     

 

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