Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The brink of hate

   Man! There are people who really hate President Obama. Really, really, REALLY hate him.
   They hats him so much that they shut down the federal government for more than two weeks, making life hard for millions  employed by the government and who assist them (restaurants near offices, hotels outside national parks, etc.) and inconvenient for countless others. They hate him so much that they very nearly didn’t allow the federal debt ceiling to be raised on time, which would have caused widespread panic in the U.S (people not getting their Social Security checks, etc.) and probably a global economic meltdown. They hate him so much that, in doing both of these things, they were willing to hurt America’s reputation in the eyes of the world.
   Evidently, insisting over and over and in the face of facts that Obama isn’t an U.S citizen and therefore not eligible to be president isn’t enough. If they can’t destroy Obama, then, damn it, they will destroy America. That’s how much they hate him.
   Sure, these people - conservative tea party types like Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican senator behind the latest maneuvering - don’t hate just Obama. At least at first, they were standing in the way of passing the annual federal budget and raising the debt ceiling, because they wanted to block or delay the new healthcare insurance law. Never mind that the law was passed by Congress and enacted by Obama several years ago, validated by the Supreme Court and approved by voters re-electing Obama and that it will make life easier for millions of people (at least once the not unusual glitches are worked out). They call Obamacare socialistic and communistic (as if that’s bad), but it’s not making life easier that’s the problem, especially since many people decrying the new law are poor and really could use it. What’s really going on is that they can’t stand people - especially others - getting something for nothing. To them, America means the freedom to work hard and to do one’s best in a hard life. (The only reason they don’t gripe about the disabled getting help - although they try to cut that back - is that would be just too unseemly.)
   Here’s where these folks’ hatred of Obama comes in. They can’t stand it that a black man got into the White House - and the fact that he did it not only once but twice drives them even crazier. It doesn’t matter whether or not Obama got ahead with affirmative action and was on welfare. He looks like someone who did. He looks like someone who got something for nothing. And the final kick in the pants is that Obama will get credit for a program that will give a lot of people, a lot of others, something for nothing and that very likely will end up being very good and popular.
   They rather take down America with them than to let that happen.

1 comment:

  1. Playing politics and using the system to leverage the agenda. When we finally get a little progressive (change) happening in America, we have the divided Congress, Senate and disrupted House with teapartiers causing the brunt of the hate, as well as political suicide to the American way of life. Flat out , not for the people , but for their own skins, to stay in office, and value the districts they represent. The only change if gridlock is not in the future, is the mid term elections, which may lose the Senate to the Conservatives, but to lose the house at this point does not seem conceivable since like I said, the tea party constituents are as unlikely to change their votes as the hatred they have for the welfare of the country.

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