Look, I'm not one of those guys that throws the baby out with the bathwater. I come from a working class background. My parents did whatever it took to get me to white collar land and you can take the boy out of the working class but you can't take the working class out of the boy. Where I'm from we believe in a word that I haven't heard in years in this country and I certainly haven't used it in years. When I realized I hadn't said this word in years yesterday it really made me sad. That word is loyalty.
Where I'm from you don't forget a favor. You don't forget your neighbor who lent you a cup of milk when there were two days until payday and you needed a little something to tide you over. You don't forget the shop owner around the block who extended you twenty dollars credit so you could buy some things for your family when you really needed them. You don't forget the co-worker who called you up early in the morning when your car wasn't working right and asked you if you needed a ride to work and continued to call you until you got your car fixed. And you always tried to say thank you but none of your neighbors would hear it. Because they weren't your neighbors anymore. They were your family. And you don't have to thank family because they're family. The way you say thank you is to do it for somebody else as soon as you see a need. And never mention it or think about a thank you. Those are the invisible ties that bind us together.
I'm mad at Barack Obama right now. I'm mad at him because we as a nation elected him because he wasn't George W. Bush. He said he'd set things right with the country. Then Edward Snowden, an American Patriot, a man who sacrificed himself and put himself into exile from everyone he knows and loves in order to tell the American people something they needed to know, revealed some revelations. The revelations need to be mentioned.
That the US government was spying on the American people in mass. That they were collecting every single telephone call of every citizen in the entire country. That they were accessing every email, credit card transaction, Internet search, or anything of any type in perpetuity.
I'm mad because basically our President that promised "Change" has rendered the 4th Amendment completely null and void. For a Constitutional law professor to do that while campaigning for "Change" and lying to my face on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is a sin and a shame. And furthermore it takes me for a fool. I do not take kindly to that at all. Thus for the moment he has lost my trust on this major major issue.
At the same time there's a thing called loyalty. I've had plenty of friends that did wrong. I let them know we were still friends but our relationship cooled. I kept them at arms length until they recognized what they did was wrong and admitted their error and changed their ways. Then I embraced them again, hugging them, telling them I knew they'd get it right, and laughing over beers about what were they thinking.
I remember when this President took over this country. It was literally falling apart. Two wars running wild, an economy about to collapse, no trust in government, a nation completely on the brink ... anxiety ... fear. Not imagined fear, real fear, the type of fear you get when you're looking down the barrel of a gun: blank myopic fear. This President took the reigns and pulled this country back from the brink. And he did it in the face of a unified opposition.
I don't throw people away because they make mistakes or they have scars. I will keep this President at arms distance. I will look at him askance. But I look forward to the day when I can embrace him again, when I can hug him, when I can tell my friends I knew he'd get it right, when I can talk to my neighbors and laugh over beers about what was he thinking. Because, while right now I don't trust him, and I will keep him at arms length, I don't throw people away because they make some mistakes or they have some scars. That's the lesson I learned growing up. And that lesson was, and is, loyalty.
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