by Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.
Last night President Obama delivered the annual State of the Union Address. The reality is this has become mostly theater however, there was some substance in his address. If we were to be technical, once he said, “the state of our Union is strong,” he could have ended his speech, dropped the mic and walked off the stage. Of course, that’s not how we roll. So, allow me to hit some of the highlights.
The Way Forward – SOTU 2013
SOTU – 2013
President Obama did a masterful job of laying out where we’d been and how far we’ve come. Yes, we’ve got a long way to go. However, we can see daylight in the distance. After a decade of war, we will be leaving Afghanistan within the next year. We’ve created 6 million jobs, we’re using less foreign oil than at any other time in the past 20 years, Corporate profits are at an all time high, we’ve cut our deficit by 2.5 trillion dollars, we’re producing more domestic oil than we have in the past 15 years and nearly half of all new energy production has come from wind power.
The future has the potential to be bright indeed. Tempering this outlook for peace, love and happiness, was acknowledgement of an extremely truculent Republican Party who to date has shown little inclination to do anything other than obstruct the President’s agenda while shooting themselves in the foot… repeatedly!
The Way Forward
How can any sane person oppose the VAWA?
President Obama laid out a host of programs that the Republicans have opposed. Many of them are what could be considered, “no brainers!” VAWA – The Violence Against Women Act – there shouldn’t even be a discussion on passing this. Politically, women are over half of the electorate. They’ve voted for and passed it in the past, why not now? The “Fix It First” program, we can see our infrastructure crumbling all around us. Whom in their right mind wouldn’t want our bridges and roads repaired? How many bridge collapses do we have to have before the Republicans come to their senses?
If we don’t fix our infrastructure, we will become a 3rd world nation.
If you were sitting in your home with a leaking roof, and it was pouring down rain, you wouldn’t sit there for long trying to catch the water in buckets. You’d take the next opportunity – go into debt if you had to – to secure and fix your house. The United States is where we live. It is our home and we need to fix it.
Immigration Reform
Take America Back??? From whom?
Immigration reform. Again another no brainer. The fact is, we’re down to almost zero illegal immigration across our southern border. The problem is, we’ve got people who were brought here as children through no fault of their own. They don’t have any ties or connections with Mexico to speak of. Some don’t even speak Spanish. All they’ve known is the United States and some did not even know they were here illegally until they went to apply for a job after college. What do we do about them? We’ve educated them. They’ve been paying taxes and working along side us to build a better country. Send them home? This is the only home they’ve ever known. Some have even served and some have died in our military. Fixing immigration is long overdue.
Again, do the Republicans think they can survive alienating the growing Hispanic population? Their anti-immigration posture is lunacy writ large. Mitch McConnell said, “President Obama is out to destroy the Republican Party.” If that were his intent, he’d have to do nothing but simply get out of their way. They’re doing a fine job of destroying themselves.
Minimum Wage
Raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour? Again another no brainer! If you think tax cuts will stimulate this economy, raising the minimum wage will do it better and quicker. Here’s a dirty little secret. When you give rich people money, they save it. When you give poor people money, they spend it. Who do they spend it with? They spend it at all the businesses ironically owned by rich people. It is just common sense that anyone who works a full 40 hour week, shouldn’t be living below the poverty level. If you cannot make enough to live by working, what exactly is the point of having a job? Think of the crime, raising the minimum wage would cut down on. People will do whatever it takes to live… up to and including robbing you.
Gun Violence
Paul Revere’s Ride
This has been both the foil and the bane of the Democratic Party. My personal opinion is that they should treat it like the 3rd rail and leave it alone. Here’s why, our culture is based on gun ownership. Going all the way back to the Revolutionary War, Paul Revere wasn’t riding through towns to alert the military. He was calling up the militia. Who were the militia? The militia was defined as all males between the ages of 16 and 45. These were common ordinary citizens who came with their own personal firearms, ammunition and supplies. In the army, your weapons and equipment is supplied. You’re given a uniform. Think about that word “uniform.” Uniform means that everyone, everything is the same. Everyone is issued similar weapons, similar ammunition, given similar training and is dressed similarly.
In the Militia, you come as you are and you bring what you’ve got. Had it not been for individual gun ownership, we would still be a colony of Great Britain and our national anthem would be “God Save the Queen.” So ingrained was this lesson in our early history, the importance of personal firearms ownership was codified into our Constitution. This is what the 2nd Amendment was about.
Understanding The 2nd Amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Let’s take the first clause. This seems to cause people some problems. In order to regulate the Militia, the Militia must first exist. You cannot regulate what does not exist. When the armed citizenry come together as a group, they form the Militia. Then they can be regulated. They can be organized into groups. Given assignments, taught tactics what have you.
Why would you do this? You would do this because they are necessary to the security of a free State. Now remember whom the Militia is. All males between the ages of 16 and 45. They have to have their own firearms because the State or the Federal Government isn’t burdened with having to issue these citizens arms or supplies. This brings us to the latter clause. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Our Gun Culture
Clint Eastwood – The Man With No Name Trilogy
Guns in the hands of our citizens have been critical to not only our survival as a nation, but to our expansion into the west to fulfil our “Manifest Destiny.” Firearms were used to feed us and protect us on the frontier. The heroes in the old “Dime Store Novels” were the likes of Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hitchcock, Wyatt Earp and “Doc” Halliday.
When the motion picture industry came into being, the quick gun shootin, rooty toot tootin, Cowboy became and American icon. Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and a host of others became our heroes. They all solved their problems with fast and accurate shooting. We played with cap guns in plastic holsters.
As we matured, guns and their use matured with us. The wise cracking, fast shooting Cop shows of the 80’s like “Miami Vice” introduced us to shoulder holsters and ankle holsters. Do I need to mention James Bond with is Walther PPK?
The Duke
Thanks to movie ratings, we never saw the reality of the aftermath of a shooting. No pools of blood. No gray matter and brain tissue splattering the walls and the floors. No mothers falling out and weeping. It was all neat clean and tidy. Only lately have they begun to show limited realism in the CSI type shows.
Is it any wonder that our relationship with firearms seems so excessive to other cultures? You simply cannot undo over 200 years of our culture by passing a few laws. If you could wave a magic wand and remove all 300 million firearms from these United States, all you would succeed in doing is creating the worlds largest “Black Market” for guns. We can’t even keep drugs out of the country. Guns? I don’t think you can train “gun sniffing dogs.”
With these facts in mind, pursuing the tools of gun violence – the gun – will only serve to alienate – remember our culture – those who might otherwise stand with you on all the other issues. I fully understand the raw emotion of the issue when it comes to parents and family members who have lost a child to gun violence. I understand because my oldest son was murdered by a thug with a gun. So, I’ve been there. This isn’t theory for me, I’ve lived it. The gun didn’t murder my son. The piece of excrement who pulled the trigger did.
The Republican Response
The official Republican response to the State of the Union was delivered by Marco Rubio, the junior Senator from Florida. It was a colossal train wreck! First of all, his response was clearly written before he had the opportunity to hear the President’s address. You could determine this because he was rebutting statements and points that the President never made.
Marco Rubio’s Water Bottle Moment
He basically rehashed – in some cases nearly word for word – old speeches by Mitt Romney. Then there was the water bottle fiasco. Evidently towards the end of his speech, his mouth got dry. I suppose nerves will do that to you. He leans way off camera to grab a water bottle and it was so inartfully done, the effect was hilarious! I don’t know why they bother. At some point they came to the conclusion that in order to deliver a proper rebuttal, staging was everything. Thus, they’ve tried everything to give their responses more gravitas by attempting to make the staging look as officious as possible.
We’ve had them deliver their response in a State House stacked with phony audience members clapping on cue. We’ve had the disastrous marionette like walk out of Bobby Jindal and now Marco Rubio stands in front of a set designed to appear as though he’s standing in the “Oval Office” with a window behind him. Far be it from me to give them advice when they’re doing so well, but perhaps a bit less attention to form and a little more attention to substance would do them well.
The Complete State Of The Union Speech
