Bite The Hand That Feeds You

Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?

As I listened to this song over and over this weekend while blocking out a part of my book so that it flowed like I wanted and this song ran through my head as I originally wrote it, I realized, that as conservatives, as Objectivists, we are asking quite a bit of the ballot cattle that have been kept poor, ignorant, and inured. Which means, literally "to accustom to accept something undesirable".

We are asking them to abjure everything they have lived with. We ask them to question the very pillars of their existence and turn from those who have been holding them down as they swear they are trying to raise them up.

We are asking them, perhaps, too much.

I do not jest. Because I had someone question what I believe simply because they cannot conceive of a person so sure of themselves that they don't need the approbation of another living being to validate their opinion. Bringing these ballot cattle out of their pasture and into the world of the self-sufficient will not be an over night thing. It took them years to get them into the Projects of Despair and inured to welfare, food stamps and cradle to grave welfare. It's very hard to let go of that hand and stand on your own.

What I am saying is that we cannot just turn our backs on the people we've convinced to listen to us after November 2nd. We must show them that it is possible to make your own way in this world, and not just get by, but thrive. Self-respect comes from that and self-respect keeps you from ever going back to being ballot cattle.

I sometimes I feel like Zack de la Rocha of RATM screaming "WAKE UP!" at the sheople. I've been doing it for nearly 30 years, and yes, sometimes I resent the living hell out of the Conservative Come Latelys. There have been times I have literally wanted to shake people out of their stupor. However, I've always known that I could not. It has got to be very frightening to people who thought they knew what the world was about to suddenly realize that their entire belief in the world and themselves was nothing more than a game of Three Card Monte in the Progressive Liberal attempt to think for us.

November is just the beginning. We must live our convictions. For myself that is no big deal, I've always thought this way, lived this way, so for me it entails nothing more than staying my course and remembering, daily, that I can be anything I chose, because I chose it. All I have to do is be smart enough, and learn every day.

There are so many who are like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (which our entire country has become, BTW). He is surprised to find out, at the end, that he's always been able to think and always had a brain, he just needed a challenge to use it. There are going to be many Doctors of Thinkology after November. We just need to make sure they are challenged enough to keep exercising their brains.

However, we must NEVER, EVER hold them by the hand and lead them where they need to be. We may encourage, coach, and teach, but we cannot drag them there, nor can we hope to keep them in the light if we don't let them learn the truth of it, feel it in their bones, know it in their minds and speak it to others. We don't want them returning to their knees in supplication to the liberals who would tell them what to think, if at all. We want them to be intellectually and physically free.

Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?