“THE WORLD HAS BEEN TURNED UPSIDE DOWN”
by Don Fredrick, ©2013, blogging at The Obama Timeline
(Dec. 13, 2013) — Along with Obama’s “funeral selfie,” two other items were widely reported by the news media this week. One story was about a six-year-old boy whose school charged him with “sexual harassment” for kissing the hand of a little girl in his classroom. Another was about a teenager who avoided jail time even though he had killed four people in a drunk driving incident.
CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante defended Obama’s outlandish funeral behavior, saying he “might have caused a diplomatic incident if he had declined the invitation to be in a photo with two long-time allies.” Yeah, right. With our troops still tied up in Afghanistan, the United States could hardly defend itself against an attack from Denmark’s dreaded armed forces. (We’d better get John McCain and Lindsey Graham on that right away.) NBC’s Savannah “I felt the raised seal!” Guthrie said, “I think some people thought it’s not appropriate because it’s a funeral. On the other hand, it wasn’t a funeral, it was a memorial service.” Oh, okay…it was only a memorial service. (Guthrie apparently thinks not in terms of “How would Grace Kelly act?” but “How would a Valley Girl act?”)
A first-grader kissed the hand of a little girl—Oh, the humanity! How can we permit such an incident to go unpunished? But a mere sexual harassment charge in his permanent file? Why is the National Organization for Women not demanding that he be branded for life with a giant “H” tattoo on his forehead? After all, everyone knows that six-year-olds should not expend their energies on crushes on defenseless female classmates. No, they should be practicing “Joy to the World, Obama Reigns!” for the annual school Christmas …oops, excuse me, holiday program.
That poor six-year-old is not entirely to blame, however. Word has it that he was aroused by the little girl’s rehearsal of her twerking moves for that same holiday program. (Well, they had to replace the manger scene with something.) He simply couldn’t help himself—especially since her figure was far more developed than Miley Cyrus’s. And how was he to know that kissing the hand of a little girl is a far worse crime than blowing two or three times over the legal blood alcohol limit and plowing into four innocent people who were at the side of the road dealing with a car problem? The 16-year-old driver, of course, was excused for “not knowing any better” because he suffered from “affluenza”—that dreaded disease in which wealth and privilege lead one to act irresponsibly and without consequence. (For the sake of Lindsay Lohan and NBA and NFL players, let’s hope that ObamaCare covers intensive inpatient treatment for that.)
Speaking of ObamaCare, the other day the granite-faced Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told a House committee, “A lot of individuals who received [health insurance] cancellation notices are thrilled with the choices that are now available to them.” The last I checked, millions of Americans were distraught over losing their insurance, but Sebelius thinks they are thrilled with the choices they now face? They have gone from a choice of hundreds of pre-ObamaCare plans to a mere four: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum—all of which are overpriced and have higher deductibles and out-of-pocket limits than most Americans find tolerable. (Note to Sebelius and her boss: I suspect that quite a few Democrats in the House and the Senate who voted for ObamaCare might not be “thrilled with the choices” they face after November 4, 2014.)
Something is very wrong here. The world has been turned upside down. Sophomoric behavior at a memorial service is “avoiding a diplomatic incident,” but negotiating a deal in which Iran gets everything it wants is brilliant. A little boy kissing a little girl is a “sexual harasser,” but rap “singers” who beat women and call them “hos” and “b*****” deserve awards. A drunken teenager who kills four people goes unpunished, but a homeowner using a gun to protect himself from a burglar gets a jail sentence. A six-year-old should know better, but not a 16-year-old with a driver’s license. “If you like your plan you can keep it… period,” is somehow not a lie, but properly labeling it a lie is somehow “racist.” A “grandfather clause” regulation intentionally added to ObamaCare to make it more difficult for individuals to keep their insurance plans is defended as having been designed to protect people, but losing your insurance leaves you “thrilled with the choices” you must then face.
Walter Williams recently noted, “Geophysicists estimate that just three volcanic eruptions, Indonesia (1883), Alaska (1912) and Iceland (1947), spewed more carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than all of mankind’s activities in our entire history [italics added].” Yet Obama and his comrades are eager to implement massive “carbon taxes” that will lower the standard of living of all Americans. For what? So that we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we emit—and then see all our efforts reversed with one volcanic eruption? Again, the world has been turned upside down.
This topsy-turvy nonsense is continuing and spreading. The federal government is imposing its politically correct “Common Core” program on schools across the country, with math questions such as: “Juanita wants to give bags of stickers to her friends. She wants to give the same number of stickers to each friend. She’s not sure if she needs 4 bags or 6 bags of stickers. How many stickers could she buy so there are no stickers left over?” I like to think of myself as relatively intelligent, but that question has me stumped! (Perhaps if I were smart enough to solve that riddle I could someday become Secretary of Health and Human Services.) But, not to worry, even though the Common Core criteria may be a bit math-challenged, it eagerly de-emphasizes the significance of Christianity and Judaism in the history of the United States, while making sure that students are well-versed in the many ways Islam has shaped the United States. (I will admit that Islam did re-shape the skyline of New York City.)
Nonsense has been replacing common sense at an alarming rate. Common sense is defined as “good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.” But over the years, common sense has become surprisingly uncommon. ObamaCare requires that companies with 50 or more full-time employees provide those employees with health insurance. Common sense tells you that no company with 49 employees will hire number 50, and that companies with 50 or 51 may lay off one or two to get down to 49. ObamaCare defines full-time employees as those who work 30 or more hours per week. Common sense tells you that an awful lot of Americans will see their hours reduced to 29 or fewer. If the minimum wage is raised to $10 per hour, common sense tells you that a company with three minimum-wage janitors may fire one of them and have the remaining two work harder to justify their higher wages. If the minimum wage is raised to $15 per hour, common sense tells you that fast-food restaurant workers will be replaced by touch-screen computer menus. If a family is forced to spend $400 more per month on health insurance premiums, common sense tells you that it will have $400 less to spend on everything else—and that means job losses for the workers who used to provide that “something else.”
Common sense tells you that printing money and borrowing it from China, rather than balancing the federal budget, will eventually lead to economic disaster. Some will argue that such an economic disaster is far into the future. They may be correct… but they may also be dead wrong. The specific date of such an economic disaster cannot be predicted with certainty, any more can the date of a volcanic eruption. But that is not a reason to believe neither will happen—especially when common sense says they will.
The nation is at a turning point. We can no longer afford the nonsense that is being forced down our throats, taught in our schools, preached by the politicians, and regurgitated by members of the mainstream media. We know better, yet we do not resist. It is high time that we brought out the pitchforks, tar, and feathers. It is high time that we started resisting the nonsense, the political correctness, the lies, the fraud, the decadence, and the deceit. We cannot rely on Democrats to right the wrongs. We cannot rely on Republicans. We cannot even rely on the Tea Party. We must rely on common sense. When you know in your gut that something is amiss, when common sense tells you not to believe what you are being told, resist the urge to fall in line with the followers of the nonsense. Do not be afraid to express your outrage… it is probably justified.