Hopefully, you saw the announcement on YouTube(tm) by Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory that he was changing political party affiliation. On May 31, speaking from the rear of the Louisiana State Senate, Mr. Guillory announced that he was no longer a Democrat and that he was switching to the Republican Party. In doing so, he became the first Republican African American State Senator in Louisiana since Reconstruction.
The video of Senator Guillory’s announcement has now been viewed by more than 500,000 Americans. In case you missed it, this is what he said...
“Hello, my name is Elbert Lee Guillory, and I’m the senator for the twenty-fourth district right here in beautiful Louisiana. Recently I made what many are referring to as a ‘bold decision’ to switch my party affiliation to the Republican Party. I wanted to take a moment to explain why I became a Republican, and also to explain why I don’t think it was a bold decision at all. It is the right decision - not only for me - but for all my brothers and sisters in the black community.
“You see, in recent history the Democrat Party has created the illusion that their agenda and their policies are what’s best for black people. Somehow it’s been forgotten that the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an abolitionist movement with one simple creed: that slavery is a violation of the rights of man.
“Frederick Douglass called Republicans the ‘Party of freedom and progress,’ and the first Republican president was Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was the Republicans in Congress who authored the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments giving former slaves citizenship, voting rights, and due process of law.
“The Democrats on the other hand were the Party of Jim Crow. It was Democrats who defended the rights of slave owners. It was the Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who championed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, but it was Democrats in the Senate who filibustered the bill.
“You see, at the heart of liberalism is the idea that only a great and powerful big government can be the benefactor of social justice for all Americans. But the left is only concerned with one thing - control. And they disguise this control as charity. Programs such as welfare, food stamps, these programs aren’t designed to lift black Americans out of poverty, they were always intended as a mechanism for politicians to control the black community.
“The idea that blacks, or anyone for that matter, need the government to get ahead in life is despicable. And even more important, this idea is a failure. Our communities are just as poor as they’ve always been. Our schools continue to fail children. Our prisons are filled with young black men who should be at home being fathers. Our self-initiative and our self-reliance have been sacrificed in exchange for allegiance to our overseers who control us by making us dependent on them.
“Sometimes I wonder if the word freedom is tossed around so frequently in our society that it has become a cliché.
“The idea of freedom is complex and it is all-encompassing. It’s the idea that the economy must remain free of government persuasion. It’s the idea that the press must operate without government intrusion. And it’s the idea that the emails and phone records of Americans should remain free from government search and seizure. It’s the idea that parents must be the decision makers in regards to their children’s education - not some government bureaucrat.
“But most importantly, it is the idea that the individual must be free to pursue his or her own happiness free from government dependence and free from government control. Because to be truly free is to be reliant on no one other than the Author of our destiny. These are the ideas at the core of the Republican Party, and it is why I am a Republican.
“So my brothers and sisters of the American community, please join with me today in abandoning the government plantation and the Party of disappointment. So that we may all echo the words of one Republican leader who famously said, ‘free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’”
This is just the beginning, the trickle, that will turn into a steady stream and then an unstoppable flood of black Americans leaving the Democratic Party. They are beginning to realize that they have few things in common with the Democratic Party. It is a Party that advocates redefining marriage, refuses to provide quality education to poor Americans, passes laws and regulations driving up the cost of fuel, seeks to drive God out of the Public Square, encourages abortion, creates barriers that inhibit Black entrepreneurs, passes job killing laws, and denies African Americans the right to defend themselves from violent criminals. Elbert Guillory has it right. The Democratic Party is no friend of the poor and down trodden. The political bosses have nothing to gain by making it possible for poor blacks, poor Hispanics, and poor whites to become upwardly mobile. Their goal is manipulation and control, not help up the ladder of economic success.
The big lie of conservative racism succeeds today only because the left leaning news media perpetuates it. However, as more and more black conservatives are elected to city councils, county councils, state legislatures, and to Congress it will become obvious that the charge of racism is nothing but a slur and a lie. Today more than 1,000 black conservatives hold public office, tomorrow many multiples of that number will join them.
Elbert Guillory is a very interesting fellow. He is an avid mountain climber. He has climbed Mount Rainier in Washington State and his namesake mountain in Colorado, Mt. Elbert. Some speculate that he plans to run statewide in Louisiana for Lieutenant Governor. Nevertheless, he is the genuine article, a man with a perspective on the foundations of freedom and the path to individual self-reliance.
What a contrast Elbert Guillory is with our President, Barack Obama. Both came from broken homes, but unlike Barack Obama, Sr., Elbert Guillory’s father played a big role in his life. And, whereas Barack Obama does not have blood in the soil (as African Americans often describe their slave ancestry), Elbert Guillory personally experienced Jim Crow, and the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement. He is a descendent of slaves. On the other hand, Barack Obama, Jr. lived a privileged life, attending private schools in Hawaii and then attending Harvard Law. But Elbert Guillory came up the hard way, accumulating common sense as he worked his way through college and in successive jobs. Guillory is a military veteran who served in the
United States Navy, while Obama has low regard for the military and never served.
Guillory learned about life from experiencing it and he learned it from both his father and his mother. From them he grew to appreciate the virtues of hard work, honesty, character, and perseverance. He also came to appreciate that America is an exceptional nation in spite of all its flaws and blemishes. He believed in the promise of America as the land of opportunity and justice for all. It wasn’t always easy to see and it wasn’t always evident, but like Frederick Douglass, he saw in the US Constitution the foundation of freedom and justice for all Americans.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, was, with the encouragement of his white grandfather, tutored by Frank Marshall Davis, a card carrying member of the Communist Party USA (a photo static copy of Davis’ membership card is reprinted in the book The Communist, by Grove City College Professor Paul Kengor). Frank Davis was a sad case. He suffered from discrimination, and bias, but instead of seeing the promise of America as the former slave, Frederick Douglass, did, Davis became bitter and angry. That reaction may be understandable, but it leads nowhere.
It’s pretty obvious from reading Kengor’s well-documented book that Frank Marshall Davis played a huge role in shaping the views of our President. In fact, Obama mentions Davis in his book as being a very influential person in his life. He makes it clear that he looked up to Davis and respected him. Perhaps that is why our President is so intoxicated with the Marxist outlook on economics. Perhaps that is why our President does not see America as an exceptional nation. Perhaps that is why he often seems angry and aloof.
Otherwise, why would he take the class warfare approach of dividing Americans? Like a far left radical, he runs a permanent campaign. He never governs, he continues to portray himself as an outsider, never accepts responsibility for anything that goes wrong, and is less than forthright in explaining his role in the ever growing list of scandals. And, although he was never a part of the civil rights movement, he wears the mantle of victimhood.
As a candidate and as President, instead of working to unite Americans, he divides them...black from white, brown from white, job creators from job seekers, women from men, young from old, blue collar from white collar, etc. More of a community organizer that endeavors to intimidate his opponents than a statesman, Barack Obama is a sad case.
His knowledge of economics is limited to what he has been told by those on the far left who educated him. He has never held a real job in the marketplace that produces goods and services. He has no personal or first-hand knowledge of how the economy works on the ground level. His lack of economic understanding borders on embarrassing. He simply has no understanding whatsoever of how a free market works or that socialism is incompatible with individual freedom. His is an ideology built on what the world should be like, not what the world is like. He has no understanding of human nature, and low regard for the principles upon which our Founders created this great nation. He doesn’t want to build up America, he wants to transform it into something alien and incompatible with a free society.
I wish it was otherwise. I really do. It is sad to see a young man of ability and intelligence so entangled in a rigid ideology that simply does not work and which is a very real threat to the foundational principles of freedom, justice, and opportunity set forth by our Founders.
The gap between the wisdom expressed by Elbert Guillory in his short speech and the understanding of our President is a vast chasm. Elbert Guillory may be many years older than Barack Obama, but he is the future, and our President is the past. That’s the way I see it.
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