Posted by
Marked in Pgh on Thursday, January 29, 2009 6:58:03 PM
I was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan even as a child and was the only kid in my elementary school who had a Steelers lunch box. I got the snot beat out of me, several times; by groups of other kids who followed "Public Opinion" and thought the Steelers were lousy. The Steelers were lousy during their first forty years. But the Steelers were my hometown team and had potential. So I defended the team and myself well enough and forcefully enough so the promoters of public opinion gave up on us. I never surrendered to the tyranny of public opinion. Then, after the Steelers became the Super Steelers, these same schmucks became their biggest fans, until the team started faltering after the last of their four Super Bowl wins. Most fans, however, never gave up on them in the lean years, as the team slugged it out in the league. Our loyalty became legend. I have the same loyalty for the hapless Pittsburgh Pirates and the Stanley Cup winning Penguins.
Now it seems most people, at least in Washington, are following public opinion, as crafted by the News Media, and are rallying around Barack Insane Obama. To be truthful, Obama looks like he was beaten up a lot as a kid because of the goofy look on his face and his big ears. He should have learned to stand his ground against the mass hysteria of public opinion he now wheels against any opposition. His thin skinned response to the slightest criticism confirms he is not someone to be counted on to stand by his convictions, if he had any he would admit to, without consideration of their value in his own political calculus.
This week he was desperate to drag any of the Republicans in the House into supporting his 800 billion dollar plus Pork-a-Matic Economic Strangulation Bill. None of the Republicans crossed party lines to vote for the scam and were joined by eleven Democrats in true bi-partisanship, for a total of 188 in dissent. Now Obama and the lockstep Dems in the House will have to face decreasing support for the economically destructive features of the legislation as the people see what a bill of socialist goods it is. He won't be able to drag the House Republicans down with him on this one to cover for himself and his allies. We can only hope the Senate Rinos won't cross over, again, and provide the liberal Dems with some coverage in the future in the name of Democrat bi-partisanship. Obama will need them if he doesn't want to get his Dumbo ears boxed.
In the Obama Nation, I detect more of a short term, changeable group "me too" mentality wanting to embrace the newest fad of change, while delving and devolving into a cult of personality. They have no staying power, or they will become wagon jumpers to the next fad. That is why I am a Steelers fan and not a follower of the newest political expediency trumped up as public opinion. Public opinion be damned, you stay with what lasts, what works and wins against the ebb and flow of life. The success of the Steelers Nation stands in contrast to the economic Diaspora that spread Pittsburghers around the country during the same time period as a result of the actions of local, county, state and Federal level Democrat politicians wrapped up in the dementia of liberal socialist policies, which never work. More on the mania of taxing ourselves into prosperity later.