'Bitter'? 'Clinging to Guns'? No, 'Dumb as a Box of Rocks'

‘Bitter’? ‘Clinging to Guns’? No, ‘Dumb as a Box of Rocks’
Special to FreeRepublic ^
12 April 2008 John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

Posted on Friday, April 11, 2008 9:22:14 PM by Congressman Billybob

In San Francisco last week, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat candidate for President, made a certain statement about people who live in small towns in Pennsylvania. He is about to undergo a primary in that state against Senator Hillary Clinton, the other remaining Democrat candidate for President.

Why should a comment made by a candidate in San Francisco about people who live in Pennsylvania be of the slightest interest to the people who live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina? Simple. Almost half of the people here, in the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina, also live in small towns, and have experienced some of the same losses as the folks in the small towns of Pennsylvania.

Depending on the outcomes in Pennsylvania and then in North Carolina, the Democrat primary for President may shortly be over, not mathematically over, but over for all intents and purposes, as my sainted mother used to say. So, these remarks should be considered here, in the mountains of North Carolina.

These are Senator Obama’s words, as posted on Jonathan Martin’s popular blog on politics, Politico on 11 April:
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

SOME of the jobs have gone from these communities. At worst, factories have been closed, the equipment has been shipped overseas, and the final indignity was to pay old employees to train their replacements, before firing them. But the people hereabout are smarter than to sit and wait for the government to bail them out. Communities have banded together to seek different opportunities in different fields.

The greatest errors in this high-fallutin dismissal of small town folks is in the rest of this arrogant quote. Most people here are not bitter. Bitter is for people who have given up. We have not given up.

No one here “clings” to his religion. Those who hold religion important, believe in their religion and try to live by it. I pity Obama if all he has is a religion he can “cling” to. No one here “clings” to his guns. Most of us grew up with guns. We respect them, know how to use them, and most households and more than a few vehicles contain guns.

Shootings of people are very uncommon in these parts. Perhaps Obama hasn’t read his Robert Heinlein. “An armed society is a polite society.” He probably hasn’t read his Constitution carefully, either. The Supreme Court will shortly issue a decision that will educate him, tell him that the Second Amendment provides a personal right “to keep and bear arms.”

Obama thinks we have antipathy to those who are not like us. There are few greater differences than between the Scots-Irish who came to these mountains and the Cherokee who were here when they arrived. It’s taken some centuries, but we got it sorted out.

We are not “anti-immigrant.” Most of us are immigrants, both recent and centuries ago. We do think, however, that everyone should play by the rules. So, we are against “illegal immigrants.” And we are careful with our words. These are no more “undocumented workers” than a bank robber is an “undocumented borrower.”

Far from being “anti-trade,” we have been in favor of international trade since we produced goods and products that were sold in Europe from these colonies. But we are in favor of fair trade, where the benefits flow both ways. We don’t like to get ripped off in an unfair deal.
We can reach one conclusion from Senator Obama’s remarks. Whatever else he is, or knows in different contexts, when it comes to understanding the people who live in America’s small towns, he is dumb as a box of rocks. But then, what do I know? I just fell off the turnip truck in a small town in North Carolina.
About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He is running for the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina.
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His recent words just lost him the presidency of the USA and sadly he may never know why.