What they really fear Obama is not you.
I was speaking to someone in a foreign country who told me they didn’t have access to something online because the government blocks the site. It made me think about Obama and how the big opposition to him and all the hullabaloo about whether or not he is a Muslim is not personal, it really stems from a fear of government.
Reading an article by Maureen Dowd in Saudia Arabia, my stomach clenches at the thought of being under a government that has that much control over its people. I was reading about someone who went to Argentina to farm and the government took control of his land. The reality is governments have interfered with our lives whether we wanted them to or not. Those who live(d) under socialist, communist, dictatorship rule give over a certain amount of freedom to gain a certain amount of support – but the average American abhors government controls, rule, and support.
I remember those cold dream wars just like most people of my age, where the Russians were going to come and take control of our country, our lives, our destiny. You wake up sweating and your heart racing. I can tell you now that I still bristle when I hear something like a government blocking a website. It sounds, well, foreign. I can remember being in China with a typhoon headed our way and most of the information being blocked on the web.
I don’t want to subscribe to fear but I do understand where it comes from, so Obama don’t take it personally. In an ideal world the government would step in and regulate the excesses on Wall Street, banking and corporate America in general, but the fear that the government might slip into regulating my body, my gender, my personal life is always a greater fear indeed.