Go beyond hope: Flight for America

Stephen Ontko

Today’s election is about more than selecting a presidential ticket. It’s a selection of the ideals America should embody.

Many of the ideals America may come to represent are noted in the character of the candidates themselves, apart from their policies.

No 2008 presidential candidate has had his devotion to his country tested more than Sen. John McCain.

On Oct. 26, 1967, in Truc Bach Lake, Vietnam, McCain was shot down in his A-4 Skyhawk bomber by a surface-to-air missile and seized by North Vietnamese, as NPR reported in a Sept. 4 story on Vietnamese support for the nominee.

A POW for five-and-a-half years, McCain turned down an early release after the North Vietnamese learned of his father’s high rank in the Navy. This prevented the communists from having an opportunity for propaganda. Yet former Democratic President Jimmy Carter feels McCain has performed a “gross injustice” by “milking” his service in Vietnam, USA Today reported Sept. 4. Perhaps this is merely an injustice in Carter’s eyes because McCain’s service overshadows Obama’s record.

Sen. Barack Obama has had associations with characters who have fought against rather than for America.

According to a Sept. 23 Wall Street Journal column by Stanley Kurtz, Obama was a top board member of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an education organization founded by Bill Ayers, an unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist, to radicalize the youth to Ayers’ liking. Obama led the foundation from 1995 to 1999, worked with Ayers to craft its bylaws, began his State Senate race in Bill Ayers’ residence and led training seminars for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The Los Angeles Times reported Oct. 17 of FBI investigations into several states concerning a coordinated effort of national voter fraud by ACORN.

Obama’s other nefarious associations include radicals Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger and racist Louis Farrakhan. It’s ridiculous to even consider Obama easing this country’s tensions when his former church of 20 years uses Christianity as a tool to further racism against whites. Pfleger claimed white supremacy is still a matter needing to be exposed in the United States, The Washington Post reported June 1. Pfleger is a pastor of a largely black congregation, identifies with black liberation theology, and is considered “a key source of spiritual guidance” for Obama, according to another column by Stanley Kurtz in the National Review on March 20.

The L.A. Times reported April 29 that Wright spoke admiringly of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. One of Farrakhan’s comments was that “white people are potential humans – they haven’t evolved yet,” according to The Guardian July 31, 2001.

What is also greatly deplorable about Obama is his record against life. The New York Sun reported Aug. 18 that Obama voted against the Infant Born Alive Protection Act, which would have given babies who had botched abortions the right to life. Obama essentially said at the Saddleback forum concerning the candidates’ policy stances over the summer that defending life is too much for an Obama presidency.

Also at issue concerning the direction in which Obama would take this country is the economic system we enjoy. Obama told “Joe the Plumber” that he intends to “spread the wealth around.” This socialistic thinking would completely erase the principles that have made this country a great land. Distributing wealth to those who have not earned it does not create wealth, it merely means those who have worked hard and earned their keep are being struck down. Immigrants didn’t flock to the United States to tear hard workers down. They came to this country to work hard themselves so that they too may improve their lives.

One must have a rather undeveloped conscience to be Catholic, or religious at all for that matter, and still vote for Obama, knowing full well his views on infanticide, his background of attending a racist church and being against the fabric of American opportunity that has made our nation one of the greatest the world has ever seen.

McCain, on the other hand, promotes creating wealth, fighting for America, even if it isn’t politically expedient to do so. He won’t speak with our enemies on their terms and has demonstrated that criticisms of racism would be more appropriately directed at Obama’s involvement in Trinity United Church, because that’s the real place where racism has reared its ugly head during this campaign.

McCain has shown the principles we as Americans should fight for, so I plead that Americans support John McCain, and heed his words to, “Stand up and fight. America is worth fighting for. Nothing is inevitable here. We never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.”

Stephen Ontko is a senior economics major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].