BY CARL MUMPOWER

Hope and change didn’t work out for the Obama gang, so they’ve now hitched their wagon to a new sales pitch.  “Fairness” is their new hook for the masses.  It’s hard to argue against fairnes —  it sounds so, well, fair.  Unfortunately, Obama’s concept of fairness is corrupt.  He’s selling fairness as a free pass from accountability —  not equal opportunity.  Heck, we’ve come as close to perfecting equal opportunity as any country and culture in the world and at any time in history.  Pretty much anything a person is willing to work and sacrifice for, they can achieve in America.  A fair America creates opportunity —  not a promised outcome.  That’s what Obama is promising, or better said, pretending to offer.  Yes that will buy votes, just like the hollow promise of unfulfilled hope and change bought votes.  It will not buy a free pass from reality.  Americans and America will continue to get no better than we earn.  That’s real fair.

Measuring decline

History repeatedly demonstrates cultures in decline do three things – swap responsibility for entitlement, focus on trivia, and replace contribution with pleasure. America evidences all three. The left’s persistently devoted to entitlement over responsibility and that message successfully elected an unprepared personality as President. In terms of trivia, look no further than our enthusiasm for sports.  For time-out from reality, what better place to go? Challenging our sports devotion is sacrilege, but our culture’s dedication to games as a distraction remains a dangerous trivial pursuit. There’s very little difference in Rome’s coliseums and our own. Aborting 50 million children reveals convenience overruling conscience and an action to feel good versus one to do something good. Can we reverse our decline?  Sure.  Will we? Probably not.  Certainly not with growing majority’s devotion to entitlement, trivia, and pleasure.   

Liberalism as a religion

North Carolina’s conservatives had a major recent success.  Their citizens affirmed a Constitutional amendment supporting marriage as between a man and a women.  Ironically the left has responded in what could only be described as a very divisive, hateful, and bigoted manner.  Those citizens supporting the amendment for religious reasons have been especially singled out.  First the left pretended the Bible is not clear about homosexuality as a sin and marriage as being between a man and a woman.  Sorry Mr. and Mrs. Liberal, you don’t have to buy what the Bible says, but don’t try to deceive us about what it does say.  Another tactic was condemning spiritually guided voters for bringing religion to the poll.  Who is the left kidding?  They do it all the time.  Liberalism is a religion as surely as Christianity – they just elect to invest their leap of faith in big government instead of God.  Time will tell who’s chosen most wisely. 

Conservatism lite

Political opportunists do two things well – reading voters and practicing the art of pleasing and appeasing.  Like the guy he’s running against, Mitt Romney is a political opportunist.  He’s demonstrated a willingness to cuddle up to a dead possum if it will help him get where he wants to go.  Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani, oblivious to what he was saying, actually endorsed Mitt’s opportunistic flip-flopping as prudent and necessary to seduce voters.  Rudi should be embarrassed.  No matter what title a politician embraces, he or she is defined by walk, not talk.  Well, OK, we’ve got a Republican Presidential candidate with spotty conservative credentials.  What else is new?  He’s still so infinitely more experienced, capable, and mature than Obama that celebration remains in order.  Anyway, the real work will begins once he wins – that’s when we must press for a match between talk and walk.

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Carl Mumpower, a former member of Asheville City Council, may be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it