America has an avowed policy against negotiating with terrorists, particularly when those terrorists are holding hostages. Or at least that’s what we’re told.
It certainly makes sense politically and militarily. If your enemy knows that all he needs to do is take something of value that you possess, then wait until you give in to his demands, the enemy has won without firing a shot; He owns you.
Why then do the Republicans continue to “reach across the aisle” and negotiate with Democrats while the American public is being held hostage to high unemployment, high gas prices and high taxes? What is it about the mainstream media that makes the Republicans like Charlie Brown agreeing to let Lucy hold the football?
For the last several days Rush Limbaugh has been talking about how the GOP gave into the Democrats on a new continuing resolution, rather than live up to their promise to the American voters to cut $100 billion from the federal budget and further control government spending. Limbaugh, however, has been arguing that the mess America is in hasn’t happened overnight and won’t be cured by a single victory by the Republicans.
Whatever! That’s not the point.
The point, and I’ve been waiting for Rush to articulate this, is that the American taxpayer is being held hostage by Democrats, the media and their shared policies. These terrorists learned back in 1995 that their most successful weapon isn’t one that blows things up or tears flesh, but a boogeyman called “government shutdown.” You could hear it in House Speaker John Boehner’s voice when he promised that he would not shut down the government because the GOP and Democrats could not agree on a new continuing resolution to fund the government for another week or so.
Never mind the fact that when the Democrats controlled all three branches of the government that they never put forth an annual budget for the country; never mind the fact that Americans in large numbers told the Democrats last November to pound sand, never mind the fact that Obama promised to halve the national deficit within his first term, but has instead increased it more in two years than the total deficit amassed in the previous 200-plus years of American history!
This government shutdown boogeyman really has two faces. The other face is the one the GOP wants to believe will smile favorably upon them if they just say the right things. It’s sort of like Charlie Brown agreeing for the umpteenth time to let Lucy hold the football while he tries to kick it. Lucy will never let Charlie Brown kick the football and the media will never truthfully report that Democrat policies are the very reason why America’s actually unemployment is well over 10% and that Obama’s policies are why gasoline prices have surpassed $4 and are likely on their way to $6 by the end of the year.
Like the foreign terrorists who hold American citizens hostage, the media and the Democrats hold the American taxpayer hostage via our elected representatives, who we believed when they said prior to the November 2010 election would seriously cut federal government spending and the overall size of government. When the GOP leadership agreed the other day to avoid a government shutdown by cutting a paltry $38 billion from government spending, some of which had already been agreed to in previous negotiations, it was sort of like the American family deciding that while their expenses are way out of line with their income and the credit cards are all maxed out, to skip Starbucks once a week when the real solution to their overspending will require much more drastic cuts and a serious attitude adjustment.
Every year touches me a little more. I don’t know why; I know no one who made the ultimate sacrifice in war.
