Dear Friends,
I wanted to write and tell you about an experience that I had in
Maryland on Highway Route 40 today. I had been to visit my parents in
Delaware and was driving home to Arlington. Often I avoid the heavy
traffic on I-95 and take Route 40 to Baltimore. I was stopped at a
traffic light, about to turn right to jog over to join 95 and take the
tunnel under the harbor, when a dark sedan pulled up alongside me,
beeped, and the driver motioned for me to roll down my window. It was
not an isolated place and in broad daylight with lots of other cars
around. I thought the person wanted to ask directions or something so I
put down the window. The driver was a normal-looking young white man,
maybe 35 or so, with short sandy hair. He leaned forward from his open
window and said to me “Did you vote for Obama?”
I should say here that I have two bumper stickers on my back
fender. One says “Peace is Patriotic.” The other is a round circle that
says Obama-Biden. I answered "I sure did." Then he got loud and excited
in a sneering sort of way and asked something like, "Are you happy now
with the way things are going?" I thought “uh-oh” but I answered again,
"I sure am." Then the guy went off his rocker and started verbally
accosting me saying something like, "I hope to God someone shoots you
dead, you liberal Pig..." Sophie started barking and I said "Oh that’s
nice" as I rolled up my window. He lurched forward, cutting me off in
the lane and beeping his horn and I made my right turn, glad to get away
from him.
I had time to think about this during the rest of the drive home.
I could not find anger in my heart toward this person, but rather a deep
sadness took over me. Is this what our country is coming to? I’ll bet
this person thinks he is a Christian. I thought about how oppression,
violence and intolerance have characterized human history, and it makes
me sad that we have made so little progress. I feel that our Country is
in deep trouble, threatened by people who claim they want to “Take our
Country Back” – from whom? Take it back where? What Constitution are
they reading? What Bible are they reading?
I am thinking of Nazi Germany before World War II when ordinary
German citizens felt vaguely uncomfortable about what was going on but
did not speak up because it did not impact them directly, and then
afterward because they were afraid. It is a wake-up call to
Progressives, Liberals, Moderates, and Independents who do believe in
the values that this country was founded upon, among them freedom from
persecution because of your beliefs and because of your religion. If we
want our streets to be safe to drive on, we need to find a way to defuse
these people without being wimps and just giving in. We cannot let these
people take over our Government!
Please, if you are not paying attention to your local elections
this fall, now is the time to get involved. If you voted for Obama and
are now disappointed because he is not Left enough, think what it will
be like when they try to undo what he has managed to accomplish. If you
voted for Obama and are now disappointed because he is too Liberal for
you, do you really want to go back to the Wild West days when people
wore guns in holsters on their hip? Do you approve of people trying to
threaten and intimidate others just because they voted for a Black man
for President? Did you all really think that we could turn around 8
years of war and decline in just 18 months? Do you really want to hand
over the reins of government to the people who drove us into the ditch
and who have stubbornly refused to be part of any solution to pull us
out? These people would rather see Obama fail, and the middle class
suffer, and the country pulled apart by strife and conflict than do
anything to make things better. This is not putting country first. Don’t
let this kind of cynicism succeed!
Please folks, don’t sit this one out. If we fail to participate,
and the other side wins for lack of enthusiasm on our part, then truly
Fear will triumph over Hope. We just can’t let that happen! Don’t let
the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to pass this on.
Still a Hope Monger,
Maureen
http://tinyurl.com/2epj9sd