And Rightly So… » Blog Archive » Welcome to OBAMAWORLD!

Welcome to OBAMAWORLD!

Posted by Duncan on March 6th, 2009

Where you can’t afford to pay for a meal and are probably therefore homeless as well (but you can afford a cell phone, which begs the question, where do they send the bills?).

Simply BREATHTAKING!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 11:09 am and is filed under American Business, Duncan, Elections have Consequences, Nanny Statism, Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

5 Responses to “Welcome to OBAMAWORLD!”

rich b Says:
March 6th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Ooohhh that photo pisses me off. I’m making do with an eight year old Nokia and this so-called homeless guy has a photo/cell phone. So much for the late-great middle-class working folks such as me.

The food they were serving at this food bank also was suspicious. Some kind of Mushroom Quiche or some crap like that. WTF! This photo is all over the web now. Just another photo-op to show what a couple of “everyday people” the Obamas are. More fake but real bullshit from the Democreeps.
civil truth Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 3:29 am
Sorry Duncan, but I’m going to penalize you 15 yards on this play for a personal foul (Obama Derangement Syndrome) compounded by plain pettiness.

I have no problem criticizing President Obama when he fails to exhibit leadership, such as his disrespect for and inhospitable treatment of the British Prime Minister. Or when he turns up the White House heat while he lectures about energy conservation, or his failure to slap down Congressional gluttons for pork.

But Michelle is doing what a First Lady should be doing, which is leading by example. Not that this makes her a candidate for sainthood, but she is doing the right thing and doesn’t deserve to be the target of mud throwing – that just sullies the mud thrower and comes across as ungracious partisan ugliness. We’re commanded not to be respecter of persons: and if she does right, then don’t try to twist into something to be attacked just because we have sharp disagreements with her politics. Let her have her photo-op – and perhaps someone else will be inspired to perform a private, voluntary act of charity, like the people supporting this soup kitchen.

Let us not descent into the gutter of ugly, mindless hatred that our partisans of the left have engaged in over the past eight years, which we rightly decried when our ox was getting gored.

And no, the cell phone and the menu bother me not one whit. As multiple people commented in the linked articles, cells phones are a lifeline for the homeless in terms of keeping in touch with family and prospective employers. And there are many prepaid plans out there. Who are we to micromanage their life decisions, so long as they are not engaging in fraud or criminal activity.

As for the menu, who are we to begrudge how others wish to extend charity. If they want to serve mushroom risotto, that’s wonderful. Various outside groups prepare meals for our church’s weekly dinner for the homeless, and I would never think to despise their menu choices. Indeed, it’s always wonderful when people get to exhibit grace.

rich b, have you ever interacted with the homeless at a soup kitchen? If your did, you would discover that they’re not subhumans – indeed they’re a quite heterogeneous group of people with a whole range of life stories, but they’re people just like you and me trying to navigate the challenges of living like we all do. As the old saying goes, “there but for the grace of God go I”. To be sure, some are antisocial and prone to violence, some are mentally disabled and/or substance abusers, some just can’t seem to “get it together”, while others just regular people down on their luck. They are responsible for their choices and actions, but they are still children of God like everyone else and not to be disrespected for whom they are.

So I’d protest, they don’t deserve as a group to be treated like shit just because they’re homeless. Nor should we expect them to be fed slop just because they’re homeless. If volunteers want to honor them and show them dignity by giving them a more upscale dinner, more power to them. That’s great. That’s what voluntary community action is all about, which is a core value of being a conservative.

Indeed, it’s when the government steps in and takes charge that the homeless get treated like subhumans and stripped of their remaining dignity and pride, while would-be helpers are castrated by dehumanizing bureaucracy and mindless regulations.

So for folks from our side of the political divide go mocking and making snide comments about this photo discredits our dissent and demeans the alternative that we are trying to present to the American public as conservatives who would stand up and defend the traditional values that have made our country a “light unto the nations”.
Raven Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 6:21 am
Well CT, I have to take issue here with what I see…Mrs. Obama is indeed setting a good example here. But she needs to do this more often in order to make it **real** and not just another feels- good, see what-a-wonderful-person-I-am photo op. As someone who has spent thousands of hours volunteering in **real** soup kitchens- doing the so called work of God- this picture represents the exploitation of a very real and hard and difficult problem for a lot of people. Mrs. Obama’s snarky smile says much. It’s like a slap in the face to those of us who have truly sacrificed our own time and effort to help people.

Since my kids were very little, my family has spent many many many (thousands) of nights cooking soup, casseroles and veggies; we’ve chopped salad ingredients, and poured milk into cups at the kitchens and shelters for homeless in the two larger NH cities as well as our own town. Right up til three weeks ago. Never, ever, ever ever have we seen cell phones. Esp camera phones…the MEAL choices are basic because the food is bought with federal money and it can’t be wasted – in fact we are limited as to what we CAN buy.

Most homeless people could CARE LESS what they are served; they are just grateful for a plate of food. Menu? WTF? I’ve never seen a menu at a soup kitchen or a shelter. In cold words, beggars are not choosers. I’ve rarely-no-never- seen a beggar ask for French cuisine! If anything, Mrs. Obama is now going to create a demand for more costly, more complicated and yes, more regulated meal-service programs designed for the homeless.

As for the cell/camera phones…WE should be concerned about this. Prepaid or not, they cost money and THAT money SHOULD be used to buy food before phone service! Priorities need to be set. We cannot govern how these people think- we cannot tell them they cannot own cell phones. But we can tell them that the phone service could buy them a weeks’ worth of food and most importantly– serve a weeks worth of food to someone else who is turned away because there isn’t enough to go around.

Upscale dinners sound all good and dignified; but it’s really not important in the big picture. I guess this is now a class issue. High end homeless soup kitchens? Let’s not go there.
LomaAlta Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Well, I might not fully understand the economy of homeless people.
But i am entitled to have an opinion and I would guess: 1) the person in the photo is not really homeless, 2) if homeless, then the phone was probably paid for by the taxpayers or stolen, and 3) if someone can afford a cell phone they most likely don’t need taxpayer’s money, or charity provided for the ones who truly need it.
Duncan Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
CT,

I don’t begrudge Mrs. Obama for her charity work or going to the soup kitchen. These are photo ops and the First Lady going about doing charity just like every other first lady.

I just find it somewhat backwards that our “poor” and “hungry” masses can afford cell phones yet need to go find free food and shelter. I look at the starving masses in other countries and they are truly that, starving masses who would sale the cell phone for the food they don’t have. We’re living in some kind of bizarro world is where I was coming from, I only changed the name from bizarro to Obama.

So you can pick up the flag and wave it off as I am not attacking the charity but the irony of the poor and hungry who can’t afford food but can afford a pre-paid/billed cell phone.