By Mike Adams
Monday, October 08, 2012
Note: The author would like to thank the Psalmist,
Switchfoot, and Samwise for inspiring this column.
Back in May of 1999, I made a decision to leave the
Democratic Party. It was an easy decision. I had been a Democrat for 11 years.
I voted for Dukakis when I was a committed leftist. But, later, when I became a
pro-life conservative, there was no room for me in the party. So I became a
Republican and also joined the NRA. I've been a straight shooter ever since.
Excuse me if that last line sounded heterosexist. I’m a work in regress.
As a committed conservative - one who many people think
should be committed - I place ideology above party loyalty. It is true that I
will not vote for any Democrat under any circumstances, not even if they seek
my vote for local dog catcher. The image of Florida Democrats interpreting
"chads" is burned in my memory forever. Mike Adams clings to a grudge
longer than Al Sharpton clings to a discredited rape victim. But that doesn't
mean I will always vote Republican. Each candidate has to work to earn my vote.
That is especially true if I view him as a member of the establishment, rather
than a product of a grass roots movement.
Mitt Romney is not nearly as conservative as I would like
him to be. So I did not feel comfortable supporting him going into the Denver
presidential debate. I'm sorry to talk about my feelings. I know I'm a member
of the NRA but I still have feelings. Just ask Ingrid Newkirk of PETA. I send
her Christmas cards every year - although I know she does not appreciate that
they are home-made and feature pictures of the deer I kill during the holiday
season.
Sorry to digress. Now, let’s get back to my feelings.
Some people will say that the Denver debate changed their
vote from Obama to Romney. But I am not among them. My vote was changed from
going-to-sit-this-one-out to Romney. But it did not take a 90-minute debate to
do it. It only took one line. He didn't have me at "hello." He got me
when he scolded a boyish eye-contact-avoiding president for over-spending.
Specifically, he got me when he looked right at Obama and characterized the
current spending problem as “immoral.”
It was a home run. And it cut right to the heart of the
nature of our spending problem. It is more than just a spending problem. It is
a moral problem. To fail to grasp the depth of the moral deficit that makes
possible our fiscal deficit is to misjudge the American political landscape altogether.
It is to misapprehend the nature of the American constitutional experiment
altogether.
Our nation is rooted in a deep tradition of respect for
property rights. It is a tradition that was well understood until the Greatest
Generation gave birth to the Gratest Generation (mis-spelling intentional) - a
generation that now controls our nation's purse strings. That generation has
turned its back on core principles expressed by our Founders. In the process,
it has jeopardized the existence of the republic.
Our Founders knew that our rights had a necessary moral
component - a necessary moral dimension. In saying they were given by our
Creator, they implied as much. But they implied much more than that. The most
obvious implication is that God-given rights may not be taken from us by man.
But that idea is lost on the current political class. And
they need to rediscover it.
Our Founders would have been shocked to see a budget
devised by promise-breakers who knowingly lie to future generations in order to
attain the power necessary to fund their deception. The promise-breakers know
the collapse is inevitable. But they expect to be gone before it actually
happens. Much has been said about a generation that has killed millions of its
own offspring. More must be said about the millions it has robbed in order to
ensure perpetual comfort and to avoid financial sacrifice.
In Denver, Romney spoke harshly to the current leader of
that generation. His words echoed over the mountain tops and traveled through
the valley in the shadow of debt. They reminded some of us that the shadow
proves the sunshine. And that means there is some good left in this world and
that it is still worth fighting for.
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