I’ve watched the movie Sixteen Candles many times. One of the lasting memories is the scene after the big party at (the popular senior) Jake’s house, when he’s surveying the damage. Beer cans are everywhere. The uninvited guests have managed to break thru the top of his dad’s wine cellar. There’s a pizza on the turntable – and even one freshman trapped under the glass table. It’s a mess. And, of course, the freeloader guests have hit the door a long time ago and are nowhere to help clean up. Parents, if you’ve found yourself in the same situation, then you won’t feel too unaccustomed to the situation we’re in on the morning of November 7th, 2012. The party’s over, and now the adults are left to deal with the mess.
The Obama administration is led by the most popular kid in school. He can jam with the best bands. Movie stars love to be seen with him. He even plays pick up ball with NBA stars. And – like most popular guys – every girl wants to hang out with his girl and talk about her designer clothes and ask her questions about how tough it is to be so admired by everyone. Afterwards, the girls leave and trash her behind her back, “cuz she’s such a bi___.”
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So, they threw a party in our house. The invited the popular guy and his gal. They told their fawning minions that they should be elected King and Queen. And so they were.
Then one day, the King said that if you’re sick, you shouldn’t have to pay a doctor so much. And if you’re going to have a baby, you shouldn’t be saddled with such a burden. And if your moms and dads own companies, they’re doing bad things to people because they didn’t pay those people very much, and so now they need to pay for the sick people to get well and to take away the burden the girls got saddled with.
Someone asked the King, “won’t this cost a lot of money?” And the King replied, “Yes, but the people who own the companies have lot’s MORE money, so they can pay for it. After all,” the King replied, “if you don’t have much money, and the owner of the company has a
All the kids agreed and were very happy! Now it didn’t matter what they did. They didn’t have to save money for a rainy day like Mom & Dad told them to, because the King would give them whatever they needed! If they wanted to go to college, the King would pay for it. If they didn’t have a place to live, the King would pay for that, too. And they never had to be hungry again, because the King said they could go to school and get breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yea, King! Yea, Queen!
Then one day, a bad man came to the Kings big white house. The bad man pounded on the door and said “let me in!”
“Why should I?” the King asked.
“Because I want to live there!”
“You can’t live here,” the King retorted, “because only the King can live here, and I am the King. The people have declared it!”
But the bad man would NOT give up. He pounded on the door again and challenged the King to a duel. “If the people really want you to be King, let them say so!”
The King thought for a moment as he summoned his pride and replied, “Very well, then. We shall go out amongst the people and talk to them. We will each convince them in our own way as to why they should choose you as the new king, or shall keep me as their one and only King.”
So they set out to talk to the people, and to convince each of them to choose their king. The bad man asked each of them “how are you doing? Is your life better with the King than it was before he was King?” Some answered yes, and a few said no. Then they asked the bad man what he would do to make their lives better. “Will you give us free homes? Will you give us free school? Will you keep us well and get rid of our burdens for us?”
The bad man told them that he would NOT give them free things. “Instead,” he told them, “you must pay for those things yourself.”
“Pay for them? How?” the indignant people demanded.
“You must get jobs and work at those jobs very hard. When you do, the people who own the companies will PAY you to work.”
“Work?" they shouted. “Those people who own the companies have money! Lots and LOTS of money. The King says they should just pay for our things and then we’ll have everything we need, and we won’t have to work” they insisted.
The bad man was very distraught, for he had always worked and made money and paid for what he needed. He couldn’t understand how the people wanted nothing to do with working for the things they needed and wanted.
So the people went back to the King and told him what the bad man had said. After hearing their complaints, he smiled his biggest smile and said “Why would you want to let the bad man come live in my house and take away all the things I’ve given you, and make you carry your burdens the rest of your lives, and let you get sick and die?”
The people began to talk amongst themselves. Then they asked the King, “the bad man will make us do all of those things?”
“Yes,” said the King. “And your moms and dads and brothers and sisters?” he continued, “…he’ll make them do the same things, too.”
“My mom is old and my dad can’t see very well” one said. Another asked, “What about my brother? He can’t walk. How is he supposed to work? He CAN’T work, so he won’t make any money and then he’ll have nothing to eat.” A third was teary-eyed when she spoke up and said, “my grandmother can’t even get out of bed, because her heart doesn’t work very well. I wonder what would happen to her?”
The King knew how scared they were of the bad man. He began to assure them one-by-one, “Your mom who is old and dad who is blind will be taken to a special place where they can spend the rest of their days not having to worry about ANYTHING. And your brother who can’t walk will be given a FREE trip to a wonderful place where he can be with others who can’t walk or run, so he’ll always be with people who are just like him. And they won’t ever have to work again.” Finally, he turned to the teary-eyed one whose grandmother had a bad heart.
She timidly asked, “What will you do for my grandmother’s bad heart?”
Gently, the King reassured her, “I will take SPECIAL care of your grandmother. She is going to get magic pills that will make her very happy.”
“Magic pills?” the girl beamed. “What will the magic pills do – make her heart all better?”
“No,” the King answered, “only a doctor can do that. And you know that there are no more doctors to make her heart better. So she gets magic pills that will help her sleep and dream. Do you like to have good dreams?”
“Yes!” answered the girl.”
“Then I will give her the best pills ever made so that she can dream for a long, long time” the King said.
The people were now convinced. There would be NO WAY they would ever let the bad man live in the King’s house and make them work and go hungry and live with a bad heart. So they went back to the bad man, and said “No! We do not want you to replace our King. For he will give us all that we need, and we’ll never have to do work for it.”
And the bad man dropped his head, turned around, and walked away forever.
His name was Freedom.
