the happy conservative

Perhaps you’ve heard this Irving Berlin song?

Unpredictable, irresponsible
Unbelievable, unreliable
Ever since the world began
Are Cupid and the weather man

Obama’s latest little bout with reality has left him bruised, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to through my substantial weight on him as well.

Much has been made of his assumption that Midwesterners are bitter. This goes contrary to my experience, but then again perhaps my hometown has missed the economic hardships that have apparently ravaged rural Pennsylvania. I also have to admit to a pathetically small sample size, especially compared to Obama’s rural experience. So I’ll just leave that comment to the experts.

But I certainly take issue with the fact that the fact that rural Americans seek religion to deal with government issues that they, as rural bumpkins, cannot possibly understand. What pride on the part of the distinguished Senator! He assumes that he and his colleagues are so powerful and important that we in the sticks created an entire religion to compensate for what we couldn’t understand! I had no idea that the Hon. Barack Obama was so powerful. I am chastened.

However, I’m going to presume to give the Senator a quick lesson in rural ideology.

Even the best prepared of us faces some risk of partial or complete catastrophe every single day. A school bus could hit you in a cross walk. You might wake up with cancer. A freak hail storm in July could strip your corn crop and blow all the stalks over just to spite you.

Farmers and those in farming communities bear an even larger burden of risk, because their very livelihood depends almost exclusively on something completely beyond their control.

Ten thousand years ago, all watched the skies worrying about cold, heat, snow, pestilence. Today, Senators worry about their golf game. Farmers worry about cold, heat, snow, and pestilence. My dad calls the local airport five times a day to check on the windspeed. He can’t do anything about it, of course. There’s no scheduler or secretary, no page, and certainly no intern bowing to his whim.

There’s only the wind and rain and grasshoppers, and those are things about which the Bible gives strict instructions.

We turn to God out of humility, Senator, not out of stupidity.