Robert G. Yetman, Jr.

Is “Arrogant Twit” an Acceptable Form of Address, Senator Boxer?

We’re all familiar by now with the recent brouhaha stemming from Sen. Barbara Boxer’s single-minded insistence on making a complete jackass of herself.  With that goal firmly in focus, the senator dressed down U.S. Army Brigadier General Michael Walsh during last week’s hearing about the progress of restoration along the Louisiana coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  As we’ve all heard, Boxer, exuding great irritation, took issue with the general’s repeated reference to her as “ma’am,” a perfectly respectful and appropriate form of address given the forum and principals involved, and asked to instead be referred to as “senator,” because, as she put it, it’s a title for which she worked very hard.

Let’s set aside that Boxer is herself both supremely arrogant and a pathetic blowhard.  The real issue here is the highly insulting presumption on the part of our elected officials that they are better than the rest of us, demonstrated here by Boxer through her silly demand and associated lecturing tone.  Let me ask…is the entitlement mentality to which elected officials seem privileged something that’s instilled in all who go to Washington, or do you have to have some of it already before you seek office?  Any ideas?

The verbal exchange itself was admittedly minor, but its significance isn’t.  This is but one more piece of evidence that shows we must endeavor to bring an end to the “service” of any elected official who, quite despicably, goes through life convinced that he/she/it is better than the rest of us.

 

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Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor-At-Large  www.ChristianMoney.com

Where Are Uncle Dave’s Jokes About Malia Obama?

I will confess that David Letterman, he of TV’s late-night, oft-times thoughtless joke crowd has evoked a chuckle or two from me in the past.  I’m not a regular watcher of his show, for a variety of reasons, but he is a comedian by trade, and those who carve out a pretty good living at making the masses laugh can and do probably make even the most staid among us grin once in a while. 

You’ve undoubtedly heard about Uncle Dave’s most recent pummeling of Sarah Palin, ostensibly in the name of humor, wherein he essentially referred to her as a slut and joked about her 14-year-old daughter getting “knocked up” by Yankee baseball player Alex Rodriguez.  Now, this might get me in a little hot water with some of my good friends and associates at Christian Money.com, but the part of this “bit” to which I object really isn’t what Letterman said.  It was crude, to be sure, but this is late-night comedy in 2009 America; this stuff is usually in poor taste, and it’s precisely what you hear when you’re surfing the channels around midnight; spare me the fits of apoplexy, turn off the TV, and leave the wee hours for the animals. 

No, the part of this that stirs me up is the liberal Hollywood hypocrisy.  I thought all of these empathetic, civil rights-minded entertainers were sensitive to women’s issues.  I guess they are…as long as the women are leftists with destructive agendas.  Where were Dave’s vicious jokes when video surfaced showing Ashley Biden, daughter of VP Joe Biden, snorting lines of cocaine?  Certainly he could tell some pretty vile jokes about President Obama’s daughters, could he not?

Of course he could.  But he won’t.  And that’s the real obscenity here. 

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Robert G. Yetman, Jr.  Editor-At-Large www.ChristianMoney.com

Tags: david+letterman+sarah+palin,+robert+g.+yetman,+james+l.+paris,+christian+political+opinion

What Do We Do with Jerome Ersland?

Jerome Ersland is an Oklahoma City pharmacist who’s become the latest lightning rod in the ever-present debate about armed self-defense.  Ersland, a 52-year-old disabled vet, was held up by two men and responded by pulling a gun of his own.  He proceeded to shoot one of the bad guys in the head, and then, once the other had fled, went back behind the counter to retrieve another gun which he then used to pump five more bullets into the already-wounded assailant, killing him.  As it turns out, his act of “insurance shooting” was caught on tape.

Ersland is now facing first-degree murder charges, but he has a lot of supporters who feel that while he may have crossed a line in again shooting a man who was no longer an imminent threat, it’s a line at which he wouldn’t have been staring had these upstanding citizens not decided to rob him at gunpoint; I am one of those supporters.

Fatigue leads to indifference, and that’s what is at play here.  Good people are tired; we’re just plain tired.  We’re tired of having to constantly look over our shoulders to keep an eye on that segment of society that has chosen to live their lives as brutal, shameless predators.  Mr. Ersland disposed of a predator; that he may have technically violated some standard within the realm of lawful self-defense in order to do so doesn’t mean as much to me as perhaps it should, but the responsibility for that rests squarely at the feet of the misguided citizens, politicians and judicial system that let the predators gain all of this ground in the first place.  

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Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor-At-Large www.ChristianMoney.com

 

Tags: jerome+ersland,+robert+yetman,+self+defense

The Death of George Tiller

The weekend murder of late-term abortion doctor George Tiller has thrown many in the pro-life community into the same mental quandary in which we always find ourselves when a radical in the movement harms an abortion provider.  What to do?   What to think?  Publicly, we all say that we condemn the lawless execution of Tiller.  Privately?  We think the same thing, but also feel free to wonder aloud if the doctor might not still be alive had he chosen to indeed adhere to that part of his oath that instructs to “do no harm.” 

Tiller was a late-term abortionist, which is like being a real-life slasher-movie sadist.  To many of us, only a thin legal line distinguishes late-term abortion from out-and-out infanticide.  In the end, the kind of lawlessness that robbed Tiller of his own life diminishes us all, but Tiller was in the state-sanctioned business of slaughtering babies, and, legal or not, that’s a very risky profession to choose.  Even ardent pro-abortionists, in their most honest moments, understand the emotional reactions that are evoked by someone who makes his living this way.  As for the late-term abortion doctors who remain among us, I fear that their insistence to continue doing that which is unspeakable risks dangerously upsetting another whose regard for the unborn (or in the case of late-termers, almost born) stands greater than his regard for the laws of man.

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Robert G. Yetman, Jr.  Editor-At-Large www.ChristianMoney.com

 

Tags: George+Tiller,+robert+yetman