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.