I was in India one time and was dismayed at mid-morning to see dirty, half naked, half starved, and obviously extremely poor little children foraging for firewood and filling a five gallon bucket with water from a very unsanitary looking open well. I knew that India was a country in which the government paid for education for its citizens all of the way through the college level, and I asked my host why these little kids weren’t in school.
He answered that they came from the lower “caste”. Yes much of India is still on a caste system and their belief is that in order to elevate one’s status to the next caste, one has to live a good life, and then die and be reincarnated into the next caste up, (there are seven of them). This process repeats itself and each individual progresses right up through the ranks until one reaches the top level which is akin to becoming a god. These kids don’t get an education because they are relegated to living a life of extreme poverty in the bottom caste all of their lives due to their religious belief system.
I have a friend who climbs mountains as a hobby. He climbed Mt. McKinley and sent me a photo of himself and he was standing on the summit of this mega mountain with big chunks of ice in his frozen beard. He was standing on the snow capped summit smiling like a mule eating briars. I sometimes question his sanity, but admit I admire his courage and wish that I could experience the thrill of standing on that summit and looking out over the beautiful world below.
My buddy told me that he trained for months conditioning his body to climb that mountain, but even with all the training it was still an agonizing, excruciating, climb and he was often exhausted as never before, but he continued on his mission undaunted by the challenges that he faced every step of the way. It was not without dangerous risk and sure enough along the way another climber actually died in his quest to reach the summit. At that point it would have been easy for my friend to quit and gracefully end his odyssey and no one would have questioned him for doing so, but he didn’t give up and instead continued to trudge on up the mountain until he reached the summit.
Our president seems obsessed with classifying people. He refers to us as the: “elite”; “rich”; “middle”; “poor”; and the “very poor” classes. The United States is not India and we don’t need a caste system of classifying our citizens. I like to think of the people in our country in terms of climbing a mountain. Some are at the base of the mountain looking up; others are at the peak of the mountain gazing down; and still others are located at various points from base to peak.
Unlike India and the hopelessness of its caste system, the important thing in this country is that we all have an opportunity to advance up the mountain. Instead of being envious and merely “wishing” that I could experience the thrill that my friend enjoyed, I could actually do it, provided that I was willing to endure all that went into it, including the hard strenuous work of conditioning my old body, and mustering up the courage, ambition, and perseverance that it takes to get to the top. Alas I’m too lazy, but the good news is that if someone desires it enough and is determined, it is there for the taking…
That is how the United States of America is. I can say that because I started out in my “quest for success” being homeless, penniless, beset with horrendous personal problems of every description, mired in a quagmire located below the base of the mountain. I worked extremely hard, took horrendous risk, trusted God and didn’t give up when beset with huge problem after problem, and I climbed, and I climbed, and I continued to climb, right on up to my peak like a determined old shaggy mountain goat.
Now I’m being labeled by our president as being one of those elite rich “one per cent” class scums with no idea of what the “working class” goes through. He seems to desire for me to be despised by the “99 percent” class.
Huh?
Several weeks ago I lost several subscribers and received angry letters when I endorsed Mitt Romney for president. I stand by my endorsement, because I believe that he is a decent person and can solve the serious economic problems of our country better than any other candidate. He has already climbed several mountains and has achieved tremendous success. He took the risk, he worked hard, he encountered and solved huge problems, and he reached the summit. Now he is being labeled all sorts of things, but not many have referred to him as what he really is and that is someone who has fulfilled the American dream; (if you must assign a class, call him a winner and a success).
Someone sent me an article about him the other day. I’m always suspicious of Internet tales, so I verified it on “Snopes” and suggest you do as well, (not just for verification, but to read the additional information that I don’t have room to include here).
“Sometimes, this facet of Romney’s personality isn’t so subtle. In July 1996, the 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner at Bain Capital, had disappeared. She had attended a rave party in New York City and gotten high on ecstasy. Three days later, her distraught father had no idea where she was. Romney took immediate action. He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to help find Gay’s daughter. Romney set up a command center at the LaGuardia Marriott and hired a private detective firm to assist with the search. He established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with the NYPD, and went through his Rolodex and called everyone Bain did business with in New York, and asked them to help find his friend’s missing daughter. Romney’s accountants at Price Waterhouse Cooper put up posters on street poles, while cashiers at a pharmacy owned by Bain put fliers in the bag of every shopper. Romney and the other Bain employees scoured every part of New York and talked with everyone they could – prostitutes, drug addicts – anyone.
That day, their hunt made the evening news, which featured photos of the girl and the Bain employees searching for her. As a result, a teenage boy phoned in, asked if there was a reward, and then hung up abruptly. The NYPD traced the call to a home in New Jersey, where they found the girl in the basement, shivering and experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a massive ecstasy dose. Doctors later said the girl might not have survived another day. Romney’s former partner credits Mitt Romney with saving his daughter’s life, saying, “It was the most amazing thing, and I’ll never forget this to the day I die.”
So, here’s my epiphany: Mitt Romney simply can’t help himself. He sees a problem, and his mind immediately sets to work solving it, sometimes consciously, and sometimes not-so-consciously. He doesn’t do it for self-aggrandizement, or for personal gain. He does it because that’s just how he’s wired.
Many people are unaware of the fact that when Romney was asked by his old employer, Bill Bain, to come back to Bain & Company as CEO to rescue the firm from bankruptcy, Romney left Bain Capital to work at Bain & Company for an annual salary of one dollar.
When Romney went to the rescue of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, he accepted no salary for three years, and wouldn’t use an expense account.
He also accepted no salary as Governor of Massachusetts.
Bain insisted that this was their major accomplishment of the year in 1996.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/romney/search.asp
I sent this to a friend the other day that is no Romney fan and has sent derogatory poisonous political garbage to me about him. After reading it she wrote me back and said that she would vote for Romney before Obama, but for now she just can’t get past this “Mormon thing”.
ARGHHH!
More labels.
Okay let’s go for a theocracy. Jerry Falwell can be our Supreme Ayatollah. Hmmm…That can’t work because her candidate, Newt, is now a converted Catholic; how about the Pope?
We can get some priests for our mullahs. Oh heck let’s be fair about it. Newt used to be a Baptist so let’s throw in a couple of the good deacons at First Baptist Church, we need lots of Mullahs…
Oops, I almost forgot we’ll need a few clerics too, how about we get that bishop from New York and in the interest of fairness we’ll throw in Dobson and Jimmy Swaggart; nope he solicited a prostitute…
Ummmm…
Oh you just decide will you?
This is America. We are the UNITED States. We don’t need labels. We are one nation under God. We have serious problems and we need for our country to return to our God and this election might be our last chance. Don’t allow Obama to divide this nation. Let’s choose a President that can solve the difficult problems facing us. I’m old enough to remember when John Kennedy was running for office. He was a Catholic and everyone was speculating that if he got elected the Pope would be running the country. It didn’t happen and if Romney is elected, you can bet that the Whitehouse won’t move to Salt Lake.
Mitt will make a fine president. He is a decent guy. I’ve met him personally and in fact had breakfast with him and personally grilled him along with six other people for 30 minutes. I can attest that he is not in favor of abortion, thinks marriage should be between a woman and man, does not want gun control, or Obama Care, and doesn’t need a teleprompter. He is genuine and is in my estimation with his vast business experience is best equipped to fix our economic and education problems. I believe he is a righteous decent person and will make an excellent replacement over what we have now.
So go ahead and unsubscribe if you want. Classify me as being too liberal, moderate, not conservative enough, or not a pure Reaganite, but I can assure you I don’t give a flip. I’ll stand by my beliefs alone if necessary and if no one reads this column but me, I’ll read it to my little dog Cooper and I guarantee he’ll wag his tail which is good enough for me…
Have a great weekend and go to church this Sunday!
Proverbs 25:5
Remove the wicked from the king’s presence, and his throne will be established through righteousness.