Michael Oberndorf
Groundhog Day fantasy
By Michael Oberndorf
Only a few more shopping days 'til Groundhog Day, folks. How time slips away, each day gone leaving every one of us one day closer to the last day of our lives. This is the corollary to the old hippie idea that, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." It could equally be the "last day of the rest of your life." The point here, whichever way you choose to approach today, is that it's an opportunity, an opportunity to do the right thing, an opportunity for greatness, and perhaps, an opportunity that may never come again.
In the movie "Groundhog Day," time keeps repeating itself until the hero finally finds love. What a wonderful fantasy. We keep getting life Mulligans, do-overs until we get it right. The operative word here is "fantasy."
The left in America and all over the world, has, over the past 102 years since the Russian Revolution, pushed the fantasy of an achievable socialist utopia, where all the people's needs are fulfilled by a benevolent, loving, all-encompassing, all-powerful government, resulting in a perfect collectivist society – no hunger, no pain, no crime or violence, just gentle, loving, creative, enlightened beings, floating about with flowers in their hair. Right.
To anyone with average intelligence or above, this fantasy is just that. It totally goes against the reality of human nature. Totally. As with almost everything the left espouses, it ignores facts, history, and behavior that can be observed around us, every minute of every day, in every culture, in every nation around the world.
The left in America, personified by the likes of Pelosi, Schumer, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, A. Ocasio-Cortez, and so on and so on, ad nauseam, and supported 110 percent by the so-called "mainstream" media, have once more ignored facts, history, and demonstrated human behavior, and are pushing the same old fantasy as if there is no tomorrow. This, in spite of the fact, repeat: FACT, that every time the Great Marxist Fantasy, aka, communism, has been tried, it has failed miserably, and so far has resulted in the deaths of around 100,000,000 (that's one hundred million, for those of you who were taught math in government schools) innocent people, most of whom never even got flowers on their graves, much less in their hair. Somehow, these lockstep leftists are caught in their own Groundhog Day time loop, doomed to repeat the same disastrous acts for eternity.
This is not really surprising. The other day, I went back and read a few of my columns from the Obama years. It was clear that all I would need to do is change a few names and update events, and the columns would be as relevant today as they were back then. In other words, little has changed. President Trump has done an incredible job rolling back a lot of the Obama totalitarianism, but he has had almost no support from the Republicans in Congress or the party, itself. They appear, like the leftist Democrats, to be caught in the Groundhog Day time loop. They, too, are pushing a cynical fantasy, one in which We, the American People, want amnesty for millions of criminal invaders, many, if not most of whom are uneducated, unskilled, know nothing of our Constitution, and cannot read, write, or even speak our language.
So. Here we are at the beginning of another day. However, it need not be just a re-run of all our previous yesterdays. We can, if we so choose, see today as an opportunity for greatness, a chance to break out of the repetition of past complacency, despondency, inactivity, and mistakes of the past, to escape the Groundhog Day time loop and change the future for the better.
Too many of us have forgotten that the price of freedom is not simply eternal vigilance, that it requires commitment and sacrifice on the part of those who want it. We have been lulled into the proverbial false sense of security by the Good Life we have lived in America these past 70 years since the end of WWII. Many think that it's OK to spend their time indulging in leisure activities, ignoring what used to be taught in schools was our "civic duty," i.e., to vote, to get involved in our local, state, and federal governments. The price for this is the dangerous mess, the cultural disaster, the corruption, the criminal and political violence that we see everywhere around us.
We need to get active, now. With the rise of the Tea Parties, we saw the true "power of the People." We need to revive that spirit and perhaps the Tea Parties, too, since the establishment political parties have time and again betrayed us. If we must repeat the past, let us look to April 18th, 1775 for our inspiration. Happy Groundhog Day.
© Michael Oberndorf
January 29, 2019
Only a few more shopping days 'til Groundhog Day, folks. How time slips away, each day gone leaving every one of us one day closer to the last day of our lives. This is the corollary to the old hippie idea that, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." It could equally be the "last day of the rest of your life." The point here, whichever way you choose to approach today, is that it's an opportunity, an opportunity to do the right thing, an opportunity for greatness, and perhaps, an opportunity that may never come again.
In the movie "Groundhog Day," time keeps repeating itself until the hero finally finds love. What a wonderful fantasy. We keep getting life Mulligans, do-overs until we get it right. The operative word here is "fantasy."
The left in America and all over the world, has, over the past 102 years since the Russian Revolution, pushed the fantasy of an achievable socialist utopia, where all the people's needs are fulfilled by a benevolent, loving, all-encompassing, all-powerful government, resulting in a perfect collectivist society – no hunger, no pain, no crime or violence, just gentle, loving, creative, enlightened beings, floating about with flowers in their hair. Right.
To anyone with average intelligence or above, this fantasy is just that. It totally goes against the reality of human nature. Totally. As with almost everything the left espouses, it ignores facts, history, and behavior that can be observed around us, every minute of every day, in every culture, in every nation around the world.
The left in America, personified by the likes of Pelosi, Schumer, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, A. Ocasio-Cortez, and so on and so on, ad nauseam, and supported 110 percent by the so-called "mainstream" media, have once more ignored facts, history, and demonstrated human behavior, and are pushing the same old fantasy as if there is no tomorrow. This, in spite of the fact, repeat: FACT, that every time the Great Marxist Fantasy, aka, communism, has been tried, it has failed miserably, and so far has resulted in the deaths of around 100,000,000 (that's one hundred million, for those of you who were taught math in government schools) innocent people, most of whom never even got flowers on their graves, much less in their hair. Somehow, these lockstep leftists are caught in their own Groundhog Day time loop, doomed to repeat the same disastrous acts for eternity.
This is not really surprising. The other day, I went back and read a few of my columns from the Obama years. It was clear that all I would need to do is change a few names and update events, and the columns would be as relevant today as they were back then. In other words, little has changed. President Trump has done an incredible job rolling back a lot of the Obama totalitarianism, but he has had almost no support from the Republicans in Congress or the party, itself. They appear, like the leftist Democrats, to be caught in the Groundhog Day time loop. They, too, are pushing a cynical fantasy, one in which We, the American People, want amnesty for millions of criminal invaders, many, if not most of whom are uneducated, unskilled, know nothing of our Constitution, and cannot read, write, or even speak our language.
So. Here we are at the beginning of another day. However, it need not be just a re-run of all our previous yesterdays. We can, if we so choose, see today as an opportunity for greatness, a chance to break out of the repetition of past complacency, despondency, inactivity, and mistakes of the past, to escape the Groundhog Day time loop and change the future for the better.
Too many of us have forgotten that the price of freedom is not simply eternal vigilance, that it requires commitment and sacrifice on the part of those who want it. We have been lulled into the proverbial false sense of security by the Good Life we have lived in America these past 70 years since the end of WWII. Many think that it's OK to spend their time indulging in leisure activities, ignoring what used to be taught in schools was our "civic duty," i.e., to vote, to get involved in our local, state, and federal governments. The price for this is the dangerous mess, the cultural disaster, the corruption, the criminal and political violence that we see everywhere around us.
We need to get active, now. With the rise of the Tea Parties, we saw the true "power of the People." We need to revive that spirit and perhaps the Tea Parties, too, since the establishment political parties have time and again betrayed us. If we must repeat the past, let us look to April 18th, 1775 for our inspiration. Happy Groundhog Day.
© Michael Oberndorf
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