A great piece from Mary Grabar at Pajamas Media today [1]. Here’s a bit of it:
But those streets, once havens for displaced persons [2], soon were destroyed by the utopian plans of collectivists and their agitators who urged the mobs to violence. The neighbors of my working-class neighborhood in Rochester, New York, complained from their front porches of increasing taxes, as they watched their property values deteriorate from the urban “renewal” and social decay of Johnson’s Great Society program. While a job at Kodak or a stint at the community college was the aspiration for the graduates of Benjamin Franklin High School in the mid-seventies, we believed that nonetheless it was possible for someone of talent to make it big. Like the Partridge Family [3], they could take to the road, or at least enjoy owning a Camaro or Firebird — before the burdens of suburban family life took precedence.
We are seeing even those small marks of personal pride and independence — the freedom to rev up the engine on a Friday night — taken away. The muscle cars, under the diktat of the president and head of General Motors, are simply being eliminated and replaced by Yugo-style cars. The common retort to my lament is that such a boost to the male ego is silly in light of global warming and the greater good. What I find alarming, though, is that today’s generation submits to such authority.
And what about those from the upper-middle classes who had dreams of becoming doctors, executives, or entrepreneurs? As our president defies history and the Constitution by firing executives, citizens applaud.
Perhaps the most disturbing sight for me during the campaign — even more than Obama before the mobs in Berlin [4] — was the corn-fed Midwestern couple starring on one of Obama’s commercials. Those were the people that I grew up with — salt of the earth. But I winced as I heard them tell Obama about their personal problems with bills and health care while soft music played in the background creepily.
They wanted him to take care of them. True to form, while North Korea conducted nuclear tests [5], Obama hailed his credit card reform [6] — as if we are incapable of reading the fine print or making a phone call on our own. While young protesters [7] longing for fair elections died in the streets of Tehran, Obama signed a bill [8] to protect us from cigarettes. Now Obama wants to tell us what medical procedures we should have, how much we should earn, and what kinds of cars we should drive.
What are the responses to complaints about such violations of our “unalienable right” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Frequent proclamations by the White House press secretary [9], by the secretary of state, and by the president [10] himself of “we won.” And during his June 23 press conference, when presented with criticisms about his response to Iranian protests, Obama royally proclaimed [11] twice, “I’m president.” So much for “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Now it’s only the “people” who voted for Obama.
Here’s someone who knows what’s what. Go and read. [1]