There is a certain number of Americans who feel any criticism of the Obama administration’s policies are actually a personal affront upon the President himself. Their claim is often that such disapproval is, at its best, merely partisan or, at its worst, racist. Last September, former President Carter said as much, saying that “an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man…”
From time to time, pundits and pontificators suggest the same of other critical thinking Americans, from the Tea Party to the Grand Old Party. Nevermind that a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll last week indicated that 60% of Americans believe that the country is off on the wrong track. Or that only 17% of Americans approve of how lawmakers in the Democrat controlled Congress are doing their jobs. Or that 50% of Americans would vote to defeat every single member of Congress, including their own representative.
So, with all that pushed aside, and for all of those Americans who believe that criticism of this administration reveals some psychological deficiency, within the rest of us, let’s try illustrating how you can be quite disagreeable with someone’s actions, even if you don’t know their political party, race, or even gender.
Let’s take the apolitical and mun-dane kitchen trashcan for illustration purposes. From time to time, this trashcan in the break room overflows. And instead of some folks simply emptying the trashcan, they seem content to just stack their garbage upon the already piled high garbage; like they are playing a rancid game of Jenga.
And if your trashcan has one of those pivoting top lids, this adds a whole other level of complexity to the matter. Folks come by and shove empty pizza boxes, their 64 oz. foam drink cups, and their to-go box of seven-day old kung pow chow chicken into the already filled trashcan, wedging it all into the little remaining space beneath the pivoting top lid. And when these folks decide that they cannot continue building the tower of trash to stretch any taller to the ceiling, these same folks will begin placing more trash around the trashcan; almost as if they are paying homage to the trashcan.
At this point you wonder why someone just didn’t empty this overflowing trashcan, instead of just jamming more trash into it. It’s unsightly, and sometimes smells. This illustrates the point that any opposition to this unsanitary condition has nothing to do with the personality of the person who contributed to it. It does, however, have everything to do with their position on cleanliness, which according to an ancient Hebrew proverb, is next to godliness.
Now, you may simply not be in favor of participating as a bystander to this mess and want to clean it up yourself. You may speak out, post a memo in the breakroom, or send out an e-mail to everyone in the company. In fact, Americans are responding the same way to the direction our country is moving, but not because of the personality, color, or political party of our President…it’s about the effect of his policies on our country’s future.
You see, I am opposed to the effect of Obama’s policy initiatives, not Obama’s personal characteristics. Just like I am opposed to the policy some folks have of not emptying an overflowing trashcan. I guess folks view emptying an overflowing trashcan as someone else’s responsibility). They seem unconcerned how their obliviousness will affect the next guy who comes along. This is like Obama’s 2010 budget that, over the next decade, would raise taxes on all Americans by nearly $3 trillion and increase each American household’s share of the publicly held debt an additional $74,000.
And I guess folks may simply not have the time to properly dispose of their trash, like the members of Congress who were too busy last year to read the details of the $789 billion stimulus bill (before voting for it). Perhaps your co-workers intended to return and fix the mess that they left behind. The problem is, like Congress’ intentions to fix this, or that, tomorrow never comes, does it? This year, Social Security will pay out $29 billion more than it takes in. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office reported last week that Social Security will now be in the “red” in perpetuity. But we’re still expanding government.
You see, despite those who say criticism of the White House is rooted in racism, or animosity towards the President, they're wrong. The particulars of anyone who won’t take the time to empty an overflowing trashcan is insignificant, but it’s not about their personality, skin color, party affiliation, etc… It's about the effect that the actions of a few will have on the many. And if we can have such fundamental differences regarding a relatively insignificant matter as the breakroom trashcan, then for goodness’ sake, we can have the same fundamental differences on important policy initiatives set forth by this administration…and without being labeled or admonished for having them.
Louis R. Avallone is a Louisiana contractor and attorney. He is also a former aide to U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery and editor of The Caddo Republican. Follow Louis on Facebook, on Twitter @ louisravallone, or by e-mail at louisavallone@mac.com.
If you pay close attention to the current political, economic, and social metamorphosis that is well underway in our country, you must feel confused or disoriented, at times. Our surroundings are seemingly changing instantaneously, as if by time-lapse photography. The sights and sounds of our democratic union, emanating from the “mainstream” media, resemble more of a disconnected chain of incoherent and illogical thoughts and ideas. It’s as if we are dreaming at times, and our brain is merely separating the ridiculous from the reasonable, just before we wake up to the relief of knowing we were only dreaming.
But we are not dreaming. There’s record unemployment, a failing economy, mounting federal debt, rising taxes, terrorism, nationalized healthcare, nuclear proliferation, illegal immigration, and a federal government more concerned with apologizing for America, instead of champion our exceptional accomplishments.
As if that wasn’t enough to consider, now there is this New York City mosque matter. The proposed 13-story building would house a bookstore, auditorium, basketball court, and mosque. The source of contention for opponents is that this proposed mosque is only two blocks from the site of the worst attack on U.S. soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
According to the imam organizing the $100 million development, the project seeks to develop “an Islamic approach that allows for harmony and understanding among all religions and other ideas.” Opponents explain that the project will extol the glories of Islam, while overlooking the site where 3,000 people were killed by radical Islamists, in a horrific act of hatred.
Of course, not all Muslims are terrorists and Islam should not be condemned. Our country reveres its protection of religious liberty. But this is not an issue of religious tolerance. New York City has more than 100 mosques.
It’s a matter of respect, or mere common courtesy, in that just because you have the right to do it, doesn’t mean you should it. And 71% of New York state voters believe likewise. Because of the opposition of Ground Zero relatives, these voters feel that “the Muslim group should voluntarily build the mosque somewhere else.”
Sure, as Americans, we can all make the “it’s-a-free-country-and-I-can-do-what-I-want” speech. But while we have such unalienable rights, we likewise must demonstrate great responsibility (and sometimes restraint) in the exercise of those rights.
For example, you have the liberty to exercise your freedom of expression, however, you do not have the liberty to falsely shout “fire” in a crowded theater and cause a panic. You have the liberty to practice your religion, but not the liberty to perform human sacrifice in the exercise of that religion. In other words, your liberty ends where mine begins. It is virtue, however, that ensures that the boundary between us is respected.
And what is virtue? “The quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong.”
What if Japenese-Americans wanted to build a memorial at Pearl Harbor, honoring the Kamikaze pilots who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, resulting in the deaths of 2,402 military personnel? While they may have the liberty to do so, the virtuousness of such an endeavor would seem quite hollow.
Most of us get this, though. Obviously, not everyone. They have the liberty part down pat, just not the responsibility part. And despite the objections of the families of the 9/11 victims, the imam leading the “Ground Zero” mosque has even blamed the U.S. for 9/11 by saying, “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”
And if this wasn’t enough to wake you up, now we have news that our own State Department paid $16,000 to this same imam to travel to the Qater, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates last month. Why? According to the State Department, his visit is part of a program where “we send people from Muslim communities here in this country around the world to help people overseas to understand our society and the role of religion within our society.”
Let me get this straight, we can’t have prayer in schools, or before high school football games, all while we are frantically scrubbing spirituality from every city hall, courthouse, outhouse, and henhouse here at home, and our President ignores his own country’s National Day of Prayer, but our State Department is sponsoring Middle East tours to explain the role of religion in our society?
This proposed mosque at Ground Zero isn’t about religious liberty. Nor about Constitutional rights. It has nothing to do with statutes, zoning regulations, or prejudice. This is about virtue. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should do it. Just because you can build a mosque at Ground Zero doesn’t mean your liberty to do so is exercised in a vacuum. And if most Americans don’t see the virtue in that, then we may have much more serious challenges ahead for our country. In the words of John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Louis R. Avallone is a Louisiana contractor and attorney and editor of The Caddo Republican. Follow Louis on Facebook, on Twitter @ louisravallone, or by e-mail at louisavallone@mac.com.
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