Posted by
Kevin Condon on Tuesday, April 07, 2009 10:46:24 PM
On the night of our Presidential election in November, someone burned down our back fence. No one reported it that night. Our daughter asked us the next day who burned our fence. Our next door neighbor's garage, to which the fence is attached, was not burned. The fire department was called and came the next day. We wondered aloud to the fireman if it was burned because of our prominent yard signs for McCain-Palin and Bob Schaeffer. He thought not, yet we wonder...
We were the only visually identifiable Republican on our block. Everyone else is a Democrat or Obama-voter. Two other houses on the block did have McCain signs, which we had provided them. My wife was the only poll worker for the Republican Party at the Hiawatha Davis center and the only non-black poll worker there as well. She was constantly confronted at the polls argumentatively by Democrat votes in prominent Obama t-shirts and buttons who were in violation of electioneering regulations and limitations. She is not a confrontational person. Since our family is mixed racially (our children and grandchildren are black), this was quite distressing to her. Neighbors told her that Democrats were just nicer than Republicans. The signs on neighboring yards have often been deliberately insulting to Republicans in our block. We've been here long enough to have seen the last Bush victory. Then the signs were especially vicious. Bush lied, people died. That kind.
Now we see that as of this date, Gallup says that the Obama administration is the most polarized in recent American history. There has yet to be any "reaching across the aisle", with important legislation voting following party lines. Meanwhile, President Obama continues to attack the Bush administration on his overseas campaigning with critical language about the character of our country.
As Christians, we wonder whether we are safe in this environment much longer. Although President Obama spoke a lot about religion, his pro-abortion and embryonic stem cell views and actions show that he is unaware of any moral argument against these practices. He has yet to go to church since his election, which may give weight to his claim not to have heard the Jeremiah Wright anti-American sermons that were part of his family's church in Chicago. Maybe he was outside smoking during these sermons and actually didn't hear them.
So, what will 2009 bring? The tone is scary. President Obama is attempting to run businesses in major US industries though he has never had a job outside government. His policy makers are all academics with no business experience who are tax scofflaws. He has abdicated responsibility for all legislation to congressional leaders Pelosi and Reid, signing huge porkbarrel spending bills to "stimulate" the economy. He has thrown billions of dollars at the weak, old-line car companies and the weakest, largest banks. He is popular, but seems to have no substance. It may be necessary to go elsewhere to find freedom of religion, since government control of hospitals and orphanages is driving Catholic institutions out of their traditional niches to avoid persecution for disallowing adoption by gays and disallowing doctors and nurses to deny abortion to any women who want it. Where are we going? Will we be a statist economy, run by and for the state? Will the congressmen who forced weak lending practices on the banks that started the collapse in our financial sector be held accountable for anything they created? Especially since the worst offenders, Dodd and Frank, have been put in charge of congressional investigations into their behavior.
We're worried at my house. May God protect our country in this difficult time. Are we safe in Park Hill since we are considered undesirables by our neighbors? Will we be burned again, in a more destructive fire?