What Was That You Say? I Cannot Have Green Eggs and Ham!

Recently, I was taken aback by a comment made by democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. While speaking to a record crowd in Portland, Oregon, Obama quipped,

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."

The context of this message, as delivered to an environmentally conscious voter, was supposed to be a call for the United States to lead by example on such platforms as global warming and the development of alternative energy sources. His comment, however politically charged it was, delved deeper into the sentiment that many people feel towards the United States in the final days of the Bush Presidency.

Regardless of the context of Obama’s comment to his record setting crowd in Portland, his candor strongly suggests that the United States cannot have their proverbial cake and eat it too. Simply stated, Americans cannot enjoy success in the modern world if other nations are envious of American achievements.

His comments are not just in advocacy of eco-conservation but in view of how the world sees the United States when Americans succeed. Americans, in Obama’s view, cannot possess signs of great fortune when outsiders do not have the same great fortune. We cannot have the cars we want, the food we like, or the comfortableness we enjoy because a member of another country will see this behavior as greedy, unjustified, or, for lack of a better word, conspicuous.

Unfortunately, this view of the United States has leached into the minds of domestic thinkers as well. As with any negative ideal, if given long enough pause, it will root like a cancer, destroying all cognitive thought and any common sense one may have had prior. The shear absurdity of ruing your country because of her successes is tantamount to ruing your family for the size house you inhabit. Yet many dwell on this principle and suggest that the United States is a lesser country because we do not live like third world denizens intent on carrying buckets upon our heads and wearing loin cloths to the office.

Global warming may be the marker for heightened political correctness in America but it is simply a justification, a virtual pin-the-tail on the donkey game of anti-national sentiment being played in America today. Many believe with certainty that humans are capable of climate change through carbon emissions while others debate the veracity of these beliefs. Whether or not global warming exists in the realm of modern day politicking is irrelevant when using it in juxtaposition with the assertion that all other counties detest the United States because we consume the most natural resources and create the largest carbon footprints. Come on people. Surly you aren’t that gullible. Foreigners loathe the United States because of our successes, plain and simple.

The tide in America today is turning toward inner loathing because we have been brain-washed to believe we should feel guilty for succeeding. I venture a guess that this premise is not taught at any business school anywhere, foreign or domestic. We have citizens who believe that America is vile, her principles are corrupt, and her efforts are heartless. These values are taught every evening from six thirty to seven o’clock by most news people coast to cost; a self-fulfilling prophesy wreaking havoc on weak-minded thinkers incapable of fighting back with logical, counterintuitive arguments of their own.

Barack Obama’s comments to his Portland crowd are nothing more than a politician pandering to a crowd of people. All politicians engage in this behavior. His comments were intended to resonate with the overwhelming sentiment felt through out the crowd, and they presumably did. I cannot fault him for his message anymore than I can fault John McCain for any of his messages. But I can say this. Obama’s comments indicate he too has been brain-washed by the same contingency attempting to brain-wash all Americans with the message that if you succeed, you are a greedy and mean-spirited American hell-bent on destroying the world and all her natural resources through a debatable and scientifically unproven process called global warming. Think about it, and then respond. Our country just may depend upon it.