OPINION: Playing in the mud

Typical of these comments is the following posted by someone who identifies himself as ronnierayjenkins who was responding to a story about growing anger among Americans: “So, the Republicans are mad as hell. Where was their anger when GWB and Dick Cheney set out to destroy America?”

There are two major flaws with this argument. First, many, if not a majority of the people showing up at the Tea Party protests are independents who have never before taken part in political activities. To make a blanket statement that all these people are Republicans is simply wrong.

Secondly, the suggestion that Republicans did it first does not justify political abuses by Democrats. They sound like a bunch of kids who were caught playing in the mud.

“What happened to you Harry,” asks his mother. “You are all covered with mud.”

“It’s not my fault,” little Harry answered. “Nancy fell in the mud first, and I tripped over her.”

“Why were you and she running through the mud to start with?” his mother asked.

“Well, George and Richard were wading in the mud hole and we were running to get ahead of them,” he answered.

“What was so important about getting ahead of George and Richard?” she asked.

“Barry was standing on the curb telling us to run faster. So we were running as fast as we could until Nancy fell in the mud and I tripped over her. So, you see, it was George and Richard’s fault that I got so muddy.”

“Did Barry get muddy as well,” asks his mother.

“No,” Harry answered. “He just stayed on the curb telling us to outrun George and Richard.”

People like myself have been protesting the government’s power grab for many years now. We protested Republican overspending well before the Democrats took power and dramatically increased the abuses. The problem is that too few people took notice. Now that the present government’s radical spending programs are too obvious to be ignored, people are finally speaking up.

People in America have become angry about government over spending. They are concerned for the future of their children who will have to pay these bills in one form or another. And it is not just Southern “white rednecks.” People of all races, economic levels and regions of this nation are realizing that the current crop of politicians is leading us all into the swamp and if we all get mired up in the quicksand, there will be no one left to pull us out.

So I say to all of the “blame-Bush” crowd: You are doing nothing more that blindfolding yourself with this argument. And we all know what happens when the blind lead the blind.

Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frank@frankgillispie.com. His website can be accessed at http://www.frankgillispie.com/gillispieonline.