Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Does anyone else feel that they’ve fallen down a rabbit hole into a land where nothing makes sense anymore, or is it just me? Every time I turn around, it seems that right is now left, black is white and up is down. Reason has been discarded in favor of the trial of the Tart Thief and a world filled with White Rabbits and Mad Hatters. Here are just a few of many observations of the absurd which have led me to this conclusion.

1. Sally Quinn, a self-avowed atheist, writes the “On Faith” column for washingtonpost.com. Normally, we’d expect material from such main-stream media outlets to be written by subject-matter experts. But a column on faith written by someone who has none is like an article on the economy by someone who’s never studied economics. It’s like an article on sewing by someone who’s never sewed a stitch. Incredible!

2. A TV ad for Symbicort, an asthma medicine, proclaims that “Symbicort contains formoterol, and medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death from asthma problems.” This was so unbelievable, I had to replay it from the DVR to make sure I had heard what I heard. In a sane world, we’d expect pain medicine taken as prescribed to take away pain without the threat of death. And we’d expect asthma medicine to improve our asthma, not increase it to the point that it could kill us. Can someone explain this to me?!!

3. Our federal government believes that spending more is a means to fix our financial problems. Raise your hand if you’ve ever said: “Honey, we’re going through some bad financial times, and our income is not covering the bills. Let’s try borrowing more and spending more to ‘stimulate’ our finances.” Apparently, both political parties believe this lie. George Bush, near the end of his last term, said this: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.” Does anyone remember "The Twilight Zone"?

4. All major massacres with guns happen in “gun-free” zones. The Luby’s, Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Ft. Hood massacres all happened in areas where our Second-Amendment rights were denied. This is but four of an endless list. Gun-free zones ignore the obvious conclusion that one who would kill another is extremely unlikely to be deterred by a law against having a gun. Coupled with the fact that most law-abiding citizens will honor the law and disarm, we create areas where it is guaranteed that bad things will happen - where the evil ones among us are armed and the law-abiding aren’t And statistics bear out that mass murder in particular and crimes in general are more likely in gun-free zones and municipalities.

5. Voters thought that electing a president with arguably the weakest resume in the history of the country would be good for the country. If I want to get a bathroom remodeled, I interview and get estimates from at least three contractors. I say “Show me examples of your work”. I check their rating on the BBB. I get references and contact them. This is just prudent. It establishes that they know how to do the job they propose to do, that they’ve got a track record, and that they have happy customers. In the case of Obama, he had never managed anything, not even a small business. He had the most liberal voting record in Congress. He promised hope and change, and his associations hinted at what “hope and change” meant. Yet voters elected him anyway. Amazing!

6. Courts have ruled that government may designate when and where we can exercise our First Amendment rights. Thus “free-speech” zones are designated on some college campuses and around public gatherings. I must have missed this provision of the First Amendment.

7. Democrats don’t understand the backlash over Obama-care in the face of popular opinion opposing it by somewhere between 55 and 70 percent. What were Democrats thinking!! Like Alice’s talking rabbit, it just doesn’t make any sense.

I really feel like I’m living in a crazy, irrational, mixed-up world. Maybe everyone else is sane, and I’m the crazy one. But just as Alice emerged from a bad dream, my prayer is that we do the same.

As a counterpoint to the above examples in absurdity, here’s one refreshing case for the logical. President Obama has done more for the conservative and libertarian movements than perhaps any president ever. For that, I thank him. There is hope.