I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as “The Boneless Wonder.” My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralizing and revolting for my youthful eye, and I have waited fifty years to see The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench. − Winston Churchill, describing Prime Minister MacDonald
Churchill was a great leader and a great wordsmith. His comment on a weak politician is priceless. Regrettably, we lack a Churchill to voice to our aspirations. But we do have boneless wonders – quite a few, in fact. Some of them are Republicans, but more are Democrats.
In their recent debates, Democratic presidential hopefuls tried to outdo one another for the boneless wonder title. To the best of my recollection, not one said a word about our war on international terrorism, though they went on at length about their conflict with President Trump. The words “Islamism,” or “expansionist Islam,” or “extremist Muslims” did not pass their lips. The candidates seemed unaware that we are in a war. Winning a war is difficult at best. Winning a war our leader is not aware of is impossible.
When children spill milk, often they will say, “The milk spilled,” not “I spilled it.” We try to teach children to take responsibility for their actions. We call important jobs “positions of responsibility.” Yet we tolerate candidates who fob off their responsibility onto others – or worse yet, deny that the responsibility even exists.
The candidates talked about amnesty for illegal immigrants, but said nothing about border security. First no borders, next no culture, then no language, and finally what – no nation? When demonstrators chanted, “No borders, no wall, no USA at all,” were they speaking for a small minority of leftist activists, or for many leftist Democrats who may be reluctant to say so, but who share this destructive belief?
A realist might say that the candidates live in a fantasy world. A cynic might say that it is one they construct for themselves daily. You will not find our Democratic hopefuls in “Profiles in Courage.” They are more likely to be listed in “Invertebrate Zoology.”
Of course, all this shows how utterly unsuited ordinary people like us are to be president:
● We lack the subtlety to see how “complicated” these matters really are.
● We are simple-minded enough to believe that if you deliberately murder an innocent human being – not to mention thousands – you forfeit your right to remain alive.
● We get our values from the Bible, not from left-wing professors who preach the gospel of Karl (Marx, that is).
● We base our approach to life on experience in the real world, not on theories concocted during years of living off taxpayers’ money in the rarefied atmosphere of Washington.
● Unlike politicians and actors, we earn our living by actually doing something, not by posturing and pretending to do it.
● We have the unsophisticated notion that murderous enemies of our country deserve to die.
● We live in the present, not the past – where Marxism is a novel idea worth trying, where international terrorism is not a problem, and where the New York skyline is topped by two huge towers.
● We go so far as to use the terms “Islamic extremism” or “Islamo-fascism” or “extremist Muslims” when discussing the world situation – unlike any of the candidates.
● We have the naive idea that the president is the commander-in-chief of our armed forces, not our social-worker-in-chief.
● We have the primitive belief that the first duty of a leader is to protect the lives and well-being of his own people, not to please people in other nations at our expense.
● We have the simple-minded idea that our president should make potential enemies afraid to attack us, not make his own people afraid of confiscatory taxation and oppressive regulations.
● We have the Neanderthal notion that our political and religious leaders should have more sympathy for Cpl. Ronil Singh and Deputy Brian Ishmael, California law-enforcement officers who were murdered in 2019 by illegal immigrants, and less sympathy for those who murdered them.
In short, we believe that the most important qualification for the office of president is that the individual be a vertebrate, not a boneless wonder.
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Contact: dstol@prodigy.net. You are welcome to publish or post these articles, provided that you cite the author and website.