Joe The Plumber's Audacity To Hope
By Christopher Adamo (10/30/08)
It is a safe bet that Barack Obama will never again engage "Joe the Plumber"or anyone like him in a discussion of policy without "preconditions." Some things are just too dangerous to the future of liberal America to be left to chance.
On October 12 Joe, a real American with legitimate concerns for his future and his country, questioned Obama as to why the Democrat Presidential wannabe would see fit to punish Joe for establishing a successful business. Since then Democrat political attack dogs and their media minions have not stopped delving into any and every aspect of Joe’s life, in a desperate effort to cloud and eventually erase the real significance of Joe’s encounter with Obama from the minds of the American people, hopefully before it influences their voting decisions.
Adding to all of the distractions and diversions from their brief exchange, it turns out that “Joe the Plumber” (In reality, Samuel Joe Wurzelbacher of Toledo Ohio) is an extremely well versed and articulate speaker, who regularly offers very profound observations on every topic from America’s current economic crisis to the War in Iraq. Some enthusiastic onlookers are even postulating as to his worthiness to run for Congress in 2010.
So it is not surprising that the Democrat/media axis has focused an enormous amount of attention on any perceived flaws in Joe’s past life. Among other transgressions, it turns out that he is not a certified plumber. But despite the inordinate hype that the monolithic cabal of liberals made of Joe’s lack of official certification, the matter is wholly irrelevant to the critically important point that resulted from his meeting with Obama.
Likewise, for all of his verbal proficiency and appeal, Joe’s driving political philosophy is not the issue of primary concern. Even the very question he asked of Barack Obama is itself a secondary matter. Of singular importance is the repugnant nature of Obama’s answer to Joe. Claiming that he did not want to “punish” anyone, Obama went on to voice his belief that life in America would be improved if he and his class were able to “spread the wealth” on behalf of others who might not be doing as well as Joe aspired to do.
The rare simplicity and direct candor of Obama’s answer is singularly telling, and leaves no room for “reinterpretation.” It cannot be claimed, as the Obama campaign has so often done, that the narcissistic Illinois Senator was “taken out of context.” He believes in socialism and the forced confiscation and redistribution of wealth, under government direction, from the “haves” to the “have nots.” Thus, the event serves as a damning indictment of Obama’s contempt for the freedom and opportunity that for over two centuries has underwritten this nation’s prosperity and greatness.
As such, immediate damage control from the left was in order. On one “news” program after another, Joe was demeaned and belittled. Joy Behar, offering her typically vapid commentary on the ABC program “The View,” mocked Joe as “engaging in fantasy” for hoping to eventually buy the plumbing business where he is presently employed. Vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden (D.-DE) similarly demeaned him for worrying about the possibility of eventually earning the $250,000 that at least on that date (The number has predictably dropped to $150,000 in Obama’s more recent speeches.), qualified him to be a target of Obama’s fiscal fairness police.
Perhaps most reprehensible of all is the grim revelation that Helen Jones-Kelley the Director of Ohio’s “Department of Job and Family Services,” suddenly decided to do a thorough background check on Joe. Of course she denies any connection between this vindictive move and her having made the maximum legally allowable donation to the Obama campaign.
Such a colossal attack by virtually the entire Democrat political assassination squad, directed at a person of Joe’s average social status may strike some naive liberals as completely out of character for the party that so proudly declares itself to be the advocate of “the little guy.” Yet, considering the ugly realities of liberalism, the situation makes perfect sense.
In truth, Democrats and liberals have always had a vested interest in keeping the “little guy” in a downtrodden and disadvantaged state. A preponderance of such vulnerable and feeble individuals represents their greatest hold on political power. Consequently, anyone who strives to elevate himself out of needy circumstances to a position of autonomy and self-determination represents the greatest of all threats to the liberal agenda. Obama is certainly no exception. “Community Organizers” need, above all else, an exploitable community to empower them.
Ambitious and self-motivated, “Joe the Plumber” does not fit that mold. In the end, the visceral loathing exhibited towards Joe by the left was merely a dark glimpse of its regard for any American who might spurn the promise of subsistence at the hands of the “nanny state” and exchange its insipidness for the risks and rewards of good old-fashioned liberty.
In this manner can be explained all of the seeming contradictions of liberalism that have baffled many who might presume liberal intentions to be inherently good. Among the best examples is that of liberal culpability over the failure of public education. While claiming heartfelt concern for disadvantaged youth, liberals fiercely and determinedly oppose any efforts to let inner city children be set free from the educational wastelands of urban government schools.
Obama’s own involvement with the Annenberg Foundation (originally established to fund education), along with fellow radical and domestic terrorist William Ayers, stands as further proof. Clearly, their mutual goal was not to boost the traditional academic atmosphere for Chicago’s inner-city youth. Doing so would only open the doors of true American opportunity to those impressionable young people, allowing them to break free of the liberal snare in which they would otherwise remain in perpetuity.
Fifty million dollars later, another entire generation of Chicago’s urban population is almost universally steeped in venomous liberal social/political philosophies that hang on their wrists and necks like shackles, barring them from ever rising above the squalor of their current existence. Yet in that state, their helplessness translates to the maximum benefit of Ayers, Obama, and the others who hold a firm grip on those shackles.
In contrast, “Joe the Plumber” personifies the spirit of those Americans who once chose to abandon the comparative safety and stability of the plantation, and instead risked the hazards and uncertainties of Harriet Tubman’s “Underground Railroad” in hopes of finding freedom, who overcame the hardships and deprivations of the Oregon trail in pursuit of a land of opportunity, and who steadfastly refused to accept their lot as members of soup lines, opting instead to strike out on their own for a better life.
As such, he and his kind are a mortal threat to the liberal paradigm, and must be stopped at any cost. And as such, every “Joe the Plumber” across America must stand resolute in the face of the ongoing propaganda onslaught from the leftists, and flatly tell them “No! Real America will not go quietly into the night!”
(Printer friendly version) Email: Christopher Adamo
