The Great Divide

A lot of money is spent on Super Bowl ads.  Like $4 million for each 30 second spot.  This year's Super Bowl had the usual assortment of dumb and dumber ads featuring beer drinkers, fast cars, fast food and talking babies.

There was one exception, however.   In the fourth quarter,  Dodge RAM ran an ad called "So God Made a Farmer" featuring photographs of rural America set to a narration of a speech given by radio broadcaster Paul Harvey at a 1978 Future Farmers of America convention.

 

This ad focused my attention on a growing divide, between two very different cultures: those wanting security, and those wanting freedom.  It's a culture divide that highlights what's happening to our country.  Half of our country voted for Obama last November.  Nearly an equal number voted against him.  Political debate -- which includes everything from race, religion, guns and education -- has never been more divided.

On one side you have those who favor security.  It is defined by racial equality, sensitivity training at work, removal of God from our public schools, and classes that stress diversity, public health and community service.  Unions are the enforcers of this ideology, especially when it comes to labor and education.  On the other side are those who believe the strength of our country can be found in the writings of our founding fathers.  The Constitution and related documents are to be held above reproach and should be defended -- even by death.  Private enterprise, conservative educators like Hillsdale College,  and our military (for the most part) stand guard against those who would take away our freedoms.

This distinction has been discussed on many levels, including books, radio and television.  I heard the latest discussion on the Dennis Miller radio show.  Is America headed toward the same fate as most of Europe?  The answer, according to Miller's guest, is not known yet because there remains a fight between two opposing views.  There has never been a country like America, which was founded on an individual's right to freedom and prosperity.  In that regard, we stand alone.

It has been 237 years since we declared our independence from Great Britain.  During those years, immigrants left Europe and other countries to find freedom and to chase their American dream. Where we go from here depends on which ideology wins the fight.

Look at Europe (or any socialist country) that has fully embraced the philosophy that says you can't do it without government help.  You can see it in workers reluctance to give up any of their benefits.  Several major trade unions have staged strikes, demonstrations and rallies across the United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Spain and France.  These countries have bought into the need for labor rights, to the extent that they can no longer exist any other way.

For example, Bernadette Segol, the European Trade Union General Secretary recently said, "Enough is enough!  The future of Europe cannot be based on  austerity, insecurity and social regression.  Europe needs a radical change of course... (our) leaders must stop bowing to whatever the financial markets dictate."

In other words, we don't want the banks telling us what to do.  We like our benefits  --  to hell with reality. We don't care if our country is broke, causing the Euro to sink beyond repair.  We want the security of government programs so our workers can have jobs, get paid and be taken care of if disabled or retired.

Once started, this reliance on government leads to other attachments like social medicine, state welfare and free education.   Europe has been "on the other side" for much longer than the United States.  But like anything that advances, once something starts, it incrementally picks up speed.

Look at how quickly things have changed under Obama:  $16 trillion in debt spending leading to 44 million people on food stamps, 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, welfare without work requirements, and Obama Care.  The Occupy movement and asking the rich to "pay their fair share" are clear indicators that security is finding a home in America.

Now contrast it with Paul Harvey's comments in the Super Bowl ad I mentioned earlier.  The farmer in this ad represents the other side of America's great divide -- freedom.  While it may have been a bit nostalgic, the ad nonetheless featured a slice of early Americana:  self reliance, selflessness, a love of something greater than themselves, and asking nothing in return for a hard days work.

Compare the feelings this ad stirs in you with the over-zealouness of Beyonce's performance during halftime at the Super Bowl, or Alica Keys' addition of "Obama's on fire!" during the Public Inaugural Ball in Washington D.C..

This ad -- and what it represents -- is our last chance to fight back against those who would make America another Europe.

Paul Harvey:

And on the 8th day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, I need a caretaker.  

So God made a farmer. 

He said I need somebody to get up before dawn and milk cows and work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.

So God made a farmer.

I need someone with strong arms.  Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild.  Somebody that can shape an ex handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe craps.  And ...who, at planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon.  Then, pain'n from "tractor back," put in another seventy-two hours.  

So God made a farmer.

It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight... and not cut corners.  Somebody to seed and weed, feed and breed... and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk.  Somebody to replenish the self feeder and then finish a hard days work with a five mile drive to church.  

Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who'd laugh and then sigh... and then respond with smiling eyes, when his son says he want to spend his life "doing what dad does."

So God made a farmer.

The message in this ad inspires reflection on the history of this country's original pioneers.  Early Americans didn't wait for the government to build roads and railroads.  We didn't expect someone to pay us to farm the land or raise our family.  We went to bed tired, and sometimes hungry, but always free. 

If we are to keep America from becoming another socialist failure, its citizens must reject Obama and his handouts. Government must be reduced from its current state of provider, and return to what it does best.  A defender of freedom and democracy.

Let's hope that the upcoming sequestration cuts can be made.  These are cuts to increases, so the budget will still increase, just not as much.  And why are firefighters, police officers and military personnel always the first to lose their jobs when we discuss these cuts?  Why aren't we discussing cuts to Congressional benefits like pay and benefits?  Make them pay the price for their stupidity, and we may finally get somewhere.

Yes, our job is big.  The obstacles in front of us are huge.  Government will continue to entice a willing population into thinking that security is better than freedom.  This message is spreading its vile roots beneath our very feet -- in our schools, our courtrooms, our churches, our city governments and even in our homes.

We need to ask our children what they will chose for America's future.  And then set an example of working hard, honoring tradition, defeating political correctness and keeping religion in our lives.

Freedom must win for us to remain God's farmer.

Just Turn It Off

In the Broadway production of The Book of Mormon there is a song that contains the following verses-

"When you start to get confused
Because of thoughts in your head
Don't feel those feelings, hold them in instead"

"Turn it off like a light switch
Just go, click
It's a cool little Mormon trick
We do it all the time"

"When you're feeling certain feelings 
That just don't seem right
Treat those pesky feelings like a reading light"

"And turn 'em off, like a light switch
Just go back
Really, what's so hard about that
Turn it off, turn it off"

About half an hour into the musical production, I found myself wishing I could just turn The Book of Mormon off.  Unfortunately, I couldn't.  I was in Des Moines, Iowa watching it as part of a group outing held by my employer.

The song, "Turn It Off" is a catchy tune that highlights the struggle faced by Mormon missionaries, urging them to banish thoughts about being gay by simply turning them off.

Apparently, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of The Book of Mormon, think Mormons are consumed by conflicting messages.  Belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints requires you to deal with difficult issues like being gay, suffering from AIDS or being abused at home by simply "turning those bad thoughts off."

And therein lies the problem with the play:  if you believe in a greater power, you are living a lie.

Its message is that religion is fake --  it doesn't solve any of our problems, doesn't fill empty stomachs or save the destitute, doesn't prevent cancer or help our football team to win the Super Bowl.  But, if it makes people feel happy, then who cares if it sounds ridiculous?  In the eyes of Parker and Stone (who are also responsible for TV's South Park,) religion  is overbearing and torturous for young people (in this case it's young male missionaries assigned to Africa).  It conflicts with today's "modern world" where people are accepting of gays, adulterers and sexually transmitted diseases.

The play's religious blasphemy is front and center, with an appalling emphasis on shocking the audience through song and story.

Examples include a song featuring characters sticking up their middle fingers to God while singing "hasa diga eebowai!" (f-ck you, God), performing the act of Holy Baptism as a sexual encounter between two virgins ("We just went all the way!  I'm wet with salvation!  I performed like a champ, praise be to God!"), and performing a pageant to "honor" the story of the Mormon's founder ("Joseph Smith, American Moses") by showing him having sex with Africans and frogs to cure his AIDS and dysentery.  If that's not bad enough, there is an extended dream sequence showing Hitler enjoying oral sex with the devil, and a blown-up x-ray of a rectal blockage cause by the Book of Mormon text.

The New York Times, Washington Times and Rolling Stone (all left-wing rags) called it "courageous and fearless," "shrewd, remarkably well-crafted and wholly hilarious," and not surprisingly, "a feast of sweetness."  It makes me wonder if they saw the same play that I did.

To its credit, the play does address some very difficult issues facing a small African village -- living in appalling conditions of famine, poverty and AIDS while being threatened by a repressive, murderous warlord obsessed with female circumcision and mutilation.

And it's a very well done production.  It has fine acting and correctly captures the culture, terminology and idiosyncrasies of the Mormon church.  It won Best Musical in 2011, Best Director and seven other Tony awards, including 2012 Best Musical Theater Album.  It won, despite some stiff competition from War Horse, Catch Me If You Can and Scottsboro Boys.

Much to the dismay of a friend of mine, the play does have some redeeming aspects to it -- if you can get past the blasphemy (and I know that's not possible for some).  I read a review that compared it to The Music Man, a great Broadway musical from 1957 starring Robert Preston.  In the play, a stranger comes to town to sell a fake idea, but in the end the idea is real and it works.  It changes people's lives and buoys their spirits.  The same could be said for The Book of Mormon.

As offensive as the play is, it would be easy to ignore it if it failed miserably as nothing more than the ramblings of two sick comedians.  The trouble is -- it's drawing huge crowds on its national tour to Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis and even Des Moines.  The show that I attended was sold out, as it has been everywhere it goes.  I don't understand how we could have moved from a society that used God in forming the Declarations of Independence and the Constitution to one where we now laugh hysterically at an actor portraying Jesus while wearing a dildo and screwing the natives.  What has happened to us?  Do we have no shame?

I think we're all familiar with the attempts the left is making to remove religion from public places and everyday life.  It's on full display in Hollywood movies, broadcast television and now Broadway.  Religious exhibits, prayer and even the Christmas holiday are regularly challenged -- and defeated -- in court under the auspices of "separation of church and state."

 

What gripes me the most though is the praise piled onto anyone attacking religion as though it's courageous and groundbreaking.  Parker and Miller's South Park is well known for lampooning Scientology, Mormonism, the Pope, Moses and the Virgin Mary.   Whether it's for the shock value or viewership, these guys have been practicing their brand of anti-religious pioneering for many years.

It's interesting to note that while claiming to lampoon all religions, South Park has pretty much stayed away from Islam.   In particular, they avoid saying the name of Muhammad or even showing him in character.  When challenged by radical Islamic groups during a special 200th reunion episode, they self-censored themselves by bleeping out his name and showing a black box with the word "censored" on it whenever he appeared.

To be truly "courageous", South Park should practice what they preach. And The Book of Mormon should have put a character on stage, representing Muhammad.  Throw in a few radical suicide bombers, lop off a few heads, and you might have something.  As it stands though, that could never happen, because these people aren't really courageous.  They're just opportunistic hacks, purveyors of anti-establishment and anti-morality.  Throw in Jesus with Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, Genghis Khan and Johnnie Cochran and you have a funny play.  The prophet Muhammad?  Not so much.

After the play, a group of us went out to eat at a local restaurant, which allowed us to talk about what we had just seen.  Reactions were mixed at best.  Mike, my boss from a few years ago, asked if I was offended.

"Yes!" I said.  "How could I not be?"

The look on his face was one of shock and surprise.  "Seriously?" he asked.  It was like I had just told him I voted for Obama.  

"Yes, I was offended.  What's funny about telling God to f-ck off?"

"Well...."

Mike and I have had a number of political discussions over the years, so I wasn't shocked to hear the surprise in his voice.  What is disappointing is how he can be so strongly opposed to my way of thinking on abortion, gun control and welfare, but he can't understand my opposition to religious blasphemy. I guess it's the left's way of thinking that they are always intellectually superior to us, including any belief in a greater power.  It must be beneath their pay scale, because they just don't get it.

There is a chorus line at the end of another song called "Making Things Up Again," sung by Arnold (one of the Mormon missionaries) which may someday haunt the writers of The Book of Mormon.  It goes,

"You're making things up again, Arnold 
(We're learning the truth!)
You're taking the holy word and adding fiction!  
(the truth about God.)
Be careful how you proceed, Arnold.
When you fib, there's a price.  
(We're going to paradise.)"

Whether that price is ever paid by Parker or Miller in hell, remains to be seen.  But their play has certainly added to the continuing decay of human society.  My Christian faith reminds me to forgive and forget, but sitting through this play has put it to the test.  Based on the reaction our group had with The Book of Mormon, I think that a fair number wished they had been given a chance to "turn it off." At a minimum it made some question if they should applaud a song, or stand at the end to acknowledge the musical's finish.

If the play (in the words of Matt Stone) is an "atheist's love letter to religion," then it's my opinion that it never should have been opened.