Response to Steve Buttry

This is my response to an Editorial in the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008711099940

I agree that our founding fathers did begin a tradition of country first.

Country first is a duty and a calling that I take seriously, more seriously today than I have ever had to do before.

My loyalty, my patriotism is to my country first, and not to any one man. Barack Obama was elected president, but his philosophy, his ideology, his policies and even his promises are counterintuitive to what this country needs and has stood for all through its history.

The vast majority of those who voted for Obama were not voting Country First. Many voted Race First, because he was the first black candidate, blacks to see a black president, whites to purge inappropriate "white guilt" over past racism. Many voted "Me First" because the things he promised to do, though not in the interests of the entire population, would give them things they would then be excused from striving for.

The writer is correct in saying that opposition to Obama was not all about race. In fact, opposition to Obama was much less about race than support of Obama was. I have said several times over the past week and I will continue to say, that in this election there were those who voted on the basis of colour of skin, and those who voted based on content of character.

The Content of Character Contingent was outvoted, and the Colour of Skin component won.

My patriotism now demands that I serve my country by being part of a conscious effort to oppose the dangerous policies he has threatened to enact, by informing and inspiring others to join in that effort, too. Not in some sort of vigilante action, but in using the avenues provided within the constructs of the system for citizens to preserve their rights against a leader with a sinister agenda.

I might point out that this editorial is not unpartisan itself, given the cheap and invalid shot at the current President, in the third to last paragraph, and that Obama can - and left to his own devices almost certainly will - do spectacularly worse than President Bush, who may have had his failings but never any motive but to do what he thought best for this country - a motive I am afraid cannot be attributed to Obama.

Obama has given us a clear indication through his campaign rhetoric of how he intends to address the challenges he will face. Of the wars, he would choose defeat as his victory strategy, leaving the world more dangerous than ever before, and us less protected against it. Of the financial markets in turmoil - well, the markets themselves gave us a preview the day after the election - and no, it was no coincidence that so many stocks were sold off after the election results were known. His punish-success approach to taxes will send the markets plummeting much farther over the next year.

Of the national debt? His proposed spending on new and existing programs isn't going to bring us into the black any time soon.

International dilemmas? Look for those to get worse and more numerous. Think the world was cheering at Obama's win because they were happy for us? Nope. They cheered because they knew in their jealous hearts that this was the pushoff event on a downhill slide that they have wanted us to experience for a long time. They were cheering with the gusto of a pack of street kids who just found out the candy store is wide open and the only person minding it is a narcoleptic senior citizen who walks with two canes.

Climate change? What's he going to do about that, reinforce the duct tape over the mouths of the myriad brilliant respected scientists who doubt the influence of man on planet temperature? Impose carbon taxes and other foolish policies designed to fight a problem that is less urgent than preparing for an army of killer hamsters to attack the White House? Take away citizens' Right to Choose their own home lighting options, forcing everyone to buy CFL lightbulbs that endanger their health and well-being?

His plans for the health care system are on track to have people on multi-year waiting lists for lifesaving surgery, and people waiting in hospital hallways for available beds, no matter how he tries to spin them.

Are we to believe he is going to embark on the only immediately practical solution to our dependence on foreign oil, drilling for our own sources here? (And please spare me the 10-year-wait talking point, since it's bogus and usually comes from the same mouths that tell us we have to sacrifice the quality of our lives today to prepare for environmental disasters that might come around in 100 years or so.) Because he has been against it so far. And even he can't power more than 100 windmills per speech or blow air into more than 800 tires a day with his mouth.

And seeing as how he'll be dipping into Social Security to give "tax breaks" to people who don't pay any, I'm as eager as anybody to see how he's going to fix that.

There is nothing to celebrate about this. I do not see it as a legitimate milestone. Had Hillary Clinton secured her party's nomination and the White House, I as a woman would not have celebrated a milestone, because I would not feel that her election was the best thing for the country.

Country first. That is my priority. Country first. Not race first. Not gender first.

If the writer believes, as he wants us to think by the opening lines of this article, that patriotism is about a tradition of "country first," then why does he advocate my celebrating an event that I believe is a bad thing for the country under the guise of patriotism?

I don't happen to think that Barack Obama is the best presidential material the black community has to offer. I happen to feel it's a gross insult to blacks everywhere to act as though the ill-advised election of a second-rate, unqualified, ungenuine man is a triumph for them all.

When you think of it, what this amounts to is the biggest example of affirmative action hiring America has ever seen. If I were black I would feel insulted, condescended-to, ill-represented.