‘Bitter’? ‘Clinging to Guns’? No, ‘Dumb as a Box of Rocks’

In San Francisco last week, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat candidate for President, made a certain statement about people who live in small towns in Pennsylvania. He is about to undergo a primary in that state against Senator Hillary Clinton, the other remaining Democrat candidate for President.

Why should a comment made by a candidate in San Francisco about people who live in Pennsylvania be of the slightest interest to the people who live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina? Simple. Almost half of the people here, in the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina, also live in small towns, and have experienced some of the same losses as the folks in the small towns of Pennsylvania.

Depending on the outcomes in Pennsylvania and then in North Carolina, the Democrat primary for President may shortly be over, not mathematically over, but over for all intents and purposes, as my sainted mother used to say. So, these remarks should be considered here, in the mountains of North Carolina.

These are Senator Obama’s words, as posted on Jonathan Martin’s popular blog on politics, Politico on 11 April:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

SOME of the jobs have gone from these communities. At worst, factories have been closed, the equipment has been shipped overseas, and the final indignity was to pay old employees to train their replacements, before firing them. But the people hereabout are smarter than to sit and wait for the government to bail them out. Communities have banded together to seek different opportunities in different fields.

The greatest errors in this high-fallutin dismissal of small town folks is in the rest of this arrogant quote. Most people here are not bitter. Bitter is for people who have given up. We have not given up.

No one here “clings” to his religion. Those who hold religion important, believe in their religion and try to live by it. I pity Obama if all he has is a religion he can “cling” to. No one here “clings” to his guns. Most of us grew up with guns. We respect them, know how to use them, and most households and more than a few vehicles contain guns.

Shootings of people are very uncommon in these parts. Perhaps Obama hasn’t read his Robert Heinlein. “An armed society is a polite society.” He probably hasn’t read his Constitution carefully, either. The Supreme Court will shortly issue a decision that will educate him, tell him that the Second Amendment provides a personal right “to keep and bear arms.”

Obama thinks we have antipathy to those who are not like us. There are few greater differences than between the Scots-Irish who came to these mountains and the Cherokee who were here when they arrived. It’s taken some centuries, but we got it sorted out.

We are not “anti-immigrant.” Most of us are immigrants, both recent and centuries ago. We do think, however, that everyone should play by the rules. So, we are against “illegal immigrants.” And we are careful with our words. These are no more “undocumented workers” than a bank robber is an “undocumented borrower.”

Far from being “anti-trade,” we have been in favor of international trade since we produced goods and products that were sold in Europe from these colonies. But we are in favor of fair trade, where the benefits flow both ways. We don’t like to get ripped off in an unfair deal.

We can reach one conclusion from Senator Obama’s remarks. Whatever else he is, or knows in different contexts, when it comes to understanding the people who live in America’s small towns, he is dumb as a box of rocks. But then, what do I know? I just fell off the turnip truck in a small town in North Carolina.

About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He is running for the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina.

Absolutely the highlight of the week. Very well written, very entertaining and humorous, but most importantly, you nailed Obama perfectly. Great article, thanks. I sincerely hope you win your congressional race, your constituency will be blessed to have you, good luck!

Interestingly, I received a great letter today from the Patriot Post. I'll post a portion of it below.....combined with your article, it paints a perfect picture of Obama, as well as liberals in general.

If some aren't familiar with Patriot Post, it's a great newsletter, and again, this is an excerpt their newsletter, which can be found at:

www.patriotpost.com

"Barack Hussein Obama is an archetypal liberal case study. Obama, William Jefferson Clinton, Albert Arnold Gore, John F. Kerry and, of course, Edward “Chappaquiddick” Kennedy, all share a common ailment—what I have aptly described in some detail as the Pathology of the Left.

Leftists are uniformly defined by their hypocrisy and dissociation from reality. They speak of unity, but they foment division, appealing to the worst in human nature by separating Americans into dependent constituencies. They support freedom of thought, unless those thoughts don’t comport with theirs. They feign tolerance while practicing intolerance. They resist open discussion and debate of their views, yet seek to silence dissenters. They protest for natural order while advocating for homosexuality and abortion. They assert their First Amendment rights, except, of course, when it comes to religion, whence they impose the doctrines of secular atheism on everyone else. They decry SUVs, except those that they own. They advocate mass transit but commute on private jets. They believe trial lawyers save lives and doctors kill people. They believe the solution to racism is to treat people differently on the basis of the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. They deride moral clarity because they can’t survive its scrutiny.

Ad infinitum...

Why do most liberals believe what they believe—and act the way they act?

Psychopathology dictates and frames worldview, and worldview manifests in such things as political affiliation.

Leftists politicos tend to be chronic overachievers because they have suffered significant loss—often the result of the disconnect with their earthly fathers. They subscribe to rigid doctrines and “nanny state” regimes to satiate their persistent insecurity, the result of low self-esteem and arrested emotional development associated, predominantly, with fatherless households or critically dysfunctional families in which they were not adequately affirmed.

Obama manifests all of these characteristics, and clinically speaking, there is a diagnosis. Leftists are pathological case studies of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the standard reference used for psychiatric evaluation.

Of course, there are many conservatives who were raised by a single parent or in critically dysfunctional or impoverished homes. However, somewhere along the way, they were lifted out of their misery by the grace of God—often in the form of a significant mentor who modeled individual responsibility and character. As a result, they have the courage to internalize their locus of responsibility.

Leftists, on the other hand, externalize responsibility for problems and solutions by holding others (read: conservatives) to blame for their ills, and by bestowing upon the state the duty for arbitrating proper conduct—even proper thought.

A footnote: It’s no coincidence that conservative political bases tend to be suburban or rural, while liberal political bases tend to be urban. The social, cultural and economic blight in many urban settings are Leftist breeding grounds for legions of the disenfranchised, those who are largely dependent on the state for all manner of their welfare, protection and sustenance.

These legions identify with Barack Obama. That is the substance, the essence of Obama.

To be sure, all good-hearted Americans should feel a degree of compassion for Barack Obama, whose formative years were marked by complete familial disintegration. But that is not a reason to elect him president."

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