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Victor Davis Hanson: Our Battered American [gets angrier - Must Read Rant]
pajamasmedia.com ^ | February 20, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 02/20/2009 11:07:45 AM PST by Tolik

I am meeting a few battered Americans these days. There are not many left, but those that are seem to sound alike. Yes, I think I am beginning to understand Mr. Battered American, and he sounds tired and a bit like this.

“I’m sorry Mr. President, but we are just not dictatorial in the Middle East. You said the Saudis, not America, showed courage over there. But, Mr. President, the Saudis, they live under Sharia law! And my God!—they once engineered crippling oil boycotts against our nation. And wasn’t it they who produced 15 of the 19 killers on 9/11? So no, Mr. President, those Saudis—they simply are not courageous. Now Mr. Biden, there is no reason to set the reset button on foreign policy, as you promised all those Europeans. None at all. Tell that resetting stuff instead to Ahmadinejad, Chavez, that Korean nut, Putin, and all the other thugs who kill and cause misery, but not to our America that saves and feeds and helps. Mrs. Clinton, it’s now your turn. We are not impulsive as you told the world. So you can stop apologizing for America’s recent behavior—unless you think the world would be a better place with the Taliban, and Saddam and his two boys in power. Or maybe Europe should have Schroeder and Chirac back, or Libya with nuclear weapons, or Khalid Sheik Mohammed freed from Guantanamo. Or maybe America shouldn’t have given that $15 billion for AIDs relief in Africa, or helped with earthquakes in Pakistan and tsunamis in Indonesia. Now all that was sorta impulsive.”

As he thinks about this apology business, the battered American always gets a little angrier,

“And another thing. Mr. Holder, I’ve never said or done a racist thing in my life, not one. Always supported equal opportunity, always will. So don’t call me a “coward” or my countrymen “cowards,” not when you’re my Attorney General. You are The Attorney General of the United States of America, so please, no more playing Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, leveling the latest shake-down charge on television. That’s not really in your job description to call your own countrymen “cowards.” When I was in high school I was taught that name-calling like that might be what they said was “projection.” So maybe, just maybe, you have been cowardly—and arrogant too—but not those whom you accused of all that. At least if someone asked me to help pardon a fugitive on the FBI’s most wanted list, I would have said “no.” Always, no exceptions, period! Anything else? That would be cowardly.”

Our battered American I noticed gets even more riled up and would say to our new energy secretary,

“And another thing Mr. Chu, California isn’t going anywhere. What’s this dry up and blow away nonsense? You’re our Energy Secretary, not Jimmy Carter in his cardigan sweater or Al Gore doing interviews on that private jet. So Americans aren’t going to “vanish” in rural California. We’re proud that we created, by blood, and hard work, and suffering, the richest agricultural valleys in the world. They won’t disappear soon—at least not if you allow us to have the water that our great-grandfathers tapped and brought down from the Sierra, instead of letting it run full blast into the sea so that Speaker Pelosi’s mice can live more nicely in the bay than we do on our farms.”

I think this battered American would also say,

“Mr. President, I passed on buying that bigger house. When I wanted to refinance and put in that extra room, I also backed out, since I couldn’t meet that additional $400 a month on the debt. I never flipped a house; I never missed a mortgage payment; and I never took out a second, third, or fourth mortgage either. I didn’t even know there were such crazy things. So please don’t tell me that the 93% of us that played by our grandfathers’ rules are obligated to come to the rescue of the 7%, who did the exact opposite. At one of your town meetings, just one, instead of pandering to those who defaulted, ask one of us to stand up for paying our debts and then say to the crowd, “Give a hand to Mrs. Battered American. She pays her mortgage, so the rest of us don’t have to!” Try that just once.”

Mrs. Battered American would go on,

“I have two credit cards, and only use one, and it is not maxed out. And when I hear the radio blaring to renegotiate my mortgage, to renounce my credit card debt, or stick it to the IRS, I turn it off. I was raised to pay what I owe—or not to borrow the money in the first place. I never thought what I make today I would necessarily always make tomorrow, and so I did not go into debt on the chance that our government—other Americans—should pay off what I charged.”

“I tried to put away a little away for college, Mr. President. Just a bit for tuition and such. But when I did, my kids no longer qualified for loans, and scholarships and federal help. So, yes, I want more education. But we are in debt for over a trillion dollars this year, and maybe, just once, you might advise us to pass on that big-screen television, that digital camera, and instead put a tiny bit away for our girls’ tuition, or our boys’ books, so others won’t have to.”

“And Mr. President,” the battered American would add,

 “When I add up my federal income tax, my state income tax, my Medicare, and my Social Security taxes, I am paying half my income to the government. Wait— far more than half my income, when I figure in my sales and property and car taxes. My accountant, when I can afford one, tells me to pay, not dodge, what I owe. And, oh, Mr. President I am so tired of all those taxes, so tired, but I am so lawful as well. And so I pay the bill, all of it. Every dime. Unlike your Treasury Secretary, who runs the IRS, I never cheat. I don’t write off my kid’s camp as a business expense—hell, I don’t even send him to camp in the first place. And unlike your cabinet nominee Mr. Daschle, I don’t have a limousine. And if I got a free one, I would think someone had to pay for it. If used it every day, why shouldn’t I pay taxes on it? And unlike your Labor Secretary nominee, I have no liens on my property, Mr. President. But if I did, I’d pay them off before you nominated me—or bow out if I didn’t.”

This battered American would remember all that—I’ve seen it happen—and get angrier,

 “Mr. President, I have never been nominated for much, but when I did serve someone or something, I never bowed out like Mr. Richardson, because the government was never investigating whether or not I was a crook. Sorry, never happened.”

Finally, Mr. Battered American would snap back to Mr. President:

“I played by the rules, and put a little away in my 401(k). I knew the risks, not because the broker, the bank, or the firm told me all the risks, but because I never shook hands with any of them or even knew those who took my money and promised it was safe—and so I was never sure it really was. And I lost 30% of it. I will live by that too. But please, don’t tell me I must pay for AIG, and the state of California, and all those who charged too much on their VISAs. Just take more of my money in taxes to do all that—but, again, please, no more lectures that I have to, that I must, that I am obligated to. And no more of your team’s lecturing me about being patriotic in paying my taxes, and unpatriotic in not wanting to borrow more trillions that my kids’ kids will have to pay back.”



TOPICS: Editorial; Front Page News
KEYWORDS: obama; porkulus; socialism; stimulus; taxes; vdh; victordavishanson
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To: AuntB

We need more that are cut from the same cloth of VDH!!!


41 posted on 02/20/2009 2:03:04 PM PST by JDoutrider
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To: AuntB

Me too!!


42 posted on 02/20/2009 2:11:09 PM PST by blackie (Be Well~Be Armed~Be Safe~Molon Labe!)
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To: Tolik

Isn’t what they want?

$$$$$

No. Dollars and control of people are what they want.

Consider this — the government taxes cigarettes higher every time a new group of people become ex-smokers, because govt budgets have written in a certain income stream from cigarette taxes.

The same thing with highway taxes. Politicians defer to the greenies by insisting that Detroit auto-makers stop making their profitable lines - the big engine vehicles - and then raise taxes on all the people who are buying less gasoline for their smaller engined foreign sedans.

In one of the southern states, water restrictions were put in place due to drought conditions, so revenues to the state from water bills went down. That state raised the rate that householders had to pay for water, just so the budget entry would continue to be the same amount of dollars.


43 posted on 02/20/2009 2:12:53 PM PST by maica (Barack Obama is a Communist Party Project.)
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To: Tolik

bump


44 posted on 02/20/2009 2:20:53 PM PST by CPT Clay (Drill ANWR, Personal Accounts NOW ,)
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To: maica

You are right, of course. Logic and common sense are casualties of their thirst for power.


45 posted on 02/20/2009 2:31:05 PM PST by Tolik
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To: Tolik

I still cannot really comprehend how they believe they will be immune to the destruction of our country after their policies and actions have destroyed it.

They really are missing the logic synapses of their brains.


46 posted on 02/20/2009 2:51:58 PM PST by maica (Barack Obama is a Communist Party Project.)
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To: oldbill
Be careful. Rabid McCain Derangement Syndrome, months after the election can be dangerous to your mental health
47 posted on 02/20/2009 3:17:49 PM PST by Jacquerie (Hayek is the antidote to Alinsky.)
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To: Tolik

Please add me to the list. Thx


48 posted on 02/20/2009 4:32:32 PM PST by newbie 10-21-00
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To: Tolik

Aye, battered American here too.


49 posted on 02/20/2009 4:42:18 PM PST by dforest
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To: Tolik

Go, Victor!

It’s going to be a race between how fast the left wingers can fraudulently pad the voter rolls, financed with taxpayer money to Acorn, and how fast the not totally brain dead voters in the middle figure out how corrupt and how simply wrong about most everything this administration is.


50 posted on 02/20/2009 5:08:40 PM PST by patriciaruth (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1993905/posts)
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To: Tolik

I won’t be happy until I start seeing Democrat politician/crooks hanging from lampposts on a daily basis.


51 posted on 02/20/2009 5:14:52 PM PST by Newtoidaho (Liberals to America: "Drop dead!")
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To: PetroniusMaximus
We have no one to blame but ourselves.

I disagree. We were working for a living, and these weasels were plotting this, and executing this on our dime.

It seems “live and let live” is no longer a viable political philosophy.

I agree. They hate us, and want us dead.

Which explains the weasel plotting, and executing...

52 posted on 02/20/2009 10:10:58 PM PST by an amused spectator (Obama: Beware of geeks bearing grifts)
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To: CaptainAmiigaf

Didn’t he have a terminal reaction to P-38s? ;-)


53 posted on 02/20/2009 10:20:26 PM PST by an amused spectator (Obama: Beware of geeks bearing grifts)
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To: Tolik

The silent majority needs to shout this out.


54 posted on 02/21/2009 4:11:18 AM PST by NonValueAdded (May God save America from its government; this is no time for Obamateurs)
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To: an amused spectator

Not necessarily - coulda been the sudden stop.


55 posted on 02/21/2009 11:00:59 AM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: patriciaruth
It’s going to be a race between how fast the left wingers can fraudulently pad the voter rolls, financed with taxpayer money to Acorn, and how fast the not totally brain dead voters in the middle figure out how corrupt and how simply wrong about most everything this administration is.

Needs repetition

56 posted on 02/21/2009 2:01:13 PM PST by litehaus (A memory tooooo long)
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To: Tolik

bttt


57 posted on 02/21/2009 2:02:18 PM PST by petercooper (1/20/13 - Change I can believe in.)
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To: Tolik

Good post, my friend. I’m not a coward either ........... FRegards


58 posted on 02/22/2009 10:07:59 PM PST by gonzo ("Harley-vous Francais = Can you ride a French Motorcycle?" buy ammo .................. FRegards)
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To: newbie 10-21-00

Added to the VDH ping list. Thanks.


59 posted on 02/23/2009 5:39:58 AM PST by Tolik
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To: maica
Yes, its one of my pet peeves. They - The Left - believe that their vision of what America should be is so superior that any means justify the goal of them taking (re-taking) the power. This attitude produced the demonization of Bush, that hurt not just his image here and overseas, but the whole American effort to accomplish things; this attitude brought cynically honest assessment from a #2 Democrat in Congress back in the fall of 2007 - that the surge success will be bad for Democrat party. MSM did let it slide of course - but it was amazingly honest - if its good for Bush its bad for Dems - what is good for America is irrelevant. Irrelevant, because when they take power - everything will be A OK.

In the real world it does not work that way. The damage they can do is real and maybe irreversible (or long lasting).

Another example: When the Left alligns with the most virulent strand of Islam it hurts the efforts of all the forces opposing it, including more moderate and fence sitters within Islam (and don't tell me there is none - look at Iraq - who are they? Jews? or Muslims?). And if Sharia wins in any country of Western Europe - how The Left can be immune to that? Where are the rights of women, gays, etc, etc are going to be?

So, yes, as you say "They really are missing the logic synapses of their brains"

60 posted on 02/23/2009 6:02:31 AM PST by Tolik
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