Kool-Aid Drinker

As a poor kid who grew up in South OKC in the mid 1950′s, we could not afford to drink Cokes. In fact, I was around 13 years old before I drank my first Coke. Instead of Cokes, we drank Kool- Aid. I have to admit, I still drink Kool Aid and I’m darn proud of it. I was reading Charlie Meadows’ email this week and he refers to people that support Congressman Tom Cole as Kool Aid drinkers.

I am conservative and Congressman Tom Cole is a conservative. All one has to do is look at Tom Cole’s lifetime voting record on economic issues and on social issues and you will see that Tom is ranked extremely high.

My friend Charlie Meadows does write humoristic articles each week. What I find most interesting is that Charlie, a registered Republican, is always finding things wrong with Republicans. I hardly ever hear him attack the Democrats. For some reason, Charlie believes he has a lock on conservative issues and if you do not share his views, then you do not believe in the Constitution.

If Charlie is not attacking Native Americans, he is after Republicans. Basically, Charlie believes everyone in the party is out of step with his idea of a “Constitutional Conservative Republican”.
I happen to appreciate Tom Cole and his conservative record. Do I agree with the way he votes on every issue? No! No candidate votes 100% with me.The fact of the matter is, The Constitution grants the “power of the purse” to Congress in Article 1, Section 8 “The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States…”. I think Tom made it clear in his argument that he believed this humanitarian effort would provide good will, thus assisting to promote a more stable Africa. As I’m sure my “enlightened” friend Charlie knows, central Africa is a hotbed for terrorist activities that threaten the U.S. If our world existed the way Mr. Meadows seems to believe it should be,  some of the amendments that provide for freedoms of many of our fellow Americans wouldn’t exist. For example, the right for women to vote, the right for non-landowners to vote and possibly even the abolishment of slavery! After all, those rights were not originally provided by our Founding Fathers.

But, what do I know — I’m just one proud conservative Native American Oklahoman that drinks the Kool-Aid and likes it.

Bob

Below is part of Charley’s comments concerning Tom Cole.

“My questions went something like this: Congressman Cole, I along with others are a little angry over what many political experts believe was
the big spending ways of the Republicans during the first 6 years of the Bush administration which has led us to the place where President
Obama and the Democrats in Congress are now in control.

If I were to ask the people in this room if they wanted to have their taxes raised by $50 billion dollars or have the federal government
borrow $50 billion to send to Africa to fight AIDS, few if any would favor that effort. So my question is, why did you vote to send $50
billion dollars to Africa to fight AIDS and do you believe you violated your oath to uphold the Constitution when you voted for such?

Without the blink of an eye, without a deep breath, without even an
expression on his face other than his standard smile, He responded,
“no I didn’t violate my oath to the Constitution” and he went on to say he voted for the bill out of humanitarian reasons and the value we
get in terms of security from Africa being a more stable place.

I should never have asked if he thought he had violated his oath to the Constitution, of course he wouldn’t admit to that. I should have
held up one of the pocket Constitutions his staff was passing out and asked him to point out the article and section in the Constitution where he had the authority to vote to send $50 billion to Africa,
especially for humanitarian reasons.

Here is an idea, I will give $50 to the first person who can find the authority in the Constitution to send $50 billion to Africa to fight
AIDs. I will make it $100 if it is Congressman Cole or one of his staffers!

Kenneth Rice asked him where he found the Constitutional authority to fund $700 billion for the TARP bailout? After beating around the bush
for a while about what a tough decision it was for him, he pointed back to the difficult times Oklahoma went through following the oil bust of the 1980s. Congressman Cole talked about the large number of
banks in Oklahoma that closed and that we led the nationin
bankruptcies and foreclosures. He said the tough times lasted severalyears and he just didn’t want to see the nation have to go through something like that.

Now folks that all sounds good and reasonable. What he said it true,
it was tough times in Oklahoma. However, we made it through those tough times and I believe we are better off for it. One of the reasons
our banks in Oklahoma aren’t in trouble today and one ofthe reasons we didn’t see the run away rise in property increases in Oklahoma is
because of some of the lessons we learned through those tough times.

I say they are lessons that our nation as a whole needs to learn.
Before the economic decline our federal government and many businesses as well as people had become intoxicated on a runaway borrow and spend
craze. In natural economic law, excesses always call for corrections.
Rather than allow for those corrections to take place, Congressman
Cole and other central planners and economy manipulators are simple doing more of the same which got us into this problem in the first place.

Congressman Cole was a big spender under President Bush and to take him as seriously concerned about the big spending ways of the Democrats is rather foolish in my mind. Cole may have several Republican challengers in 2010. R.J. Harris of Norman has already
announced and Kenneth Rice from Lawton may do so in the future.
Republicans should really evaluate these other candidates and support
them if they are more conservative and be willing to uphold rather than ignore the Constitution . Of course there will always be the
Republican Kool-aide drinkers who will blindly support Cole because they think he is wonderful. Sadly, he is actually so slick as to convince many he is a conservative when he is not.”