Last week, when the Obama administration tried to force Roman Catholic institutions to violate their conscience by funding birth control, a lot of us who were not Catholic realized that we were in spirit. We were Catholic in the sense that Obama and his minions were attempting to force something contrary to one's religious beliefs down the throats of the American people and abrogate the First Amendment in the process. We didn't like it and we wouldn't accept it. Sharon and I were looking for a movie to watch last night and we settled on on of our all-time favorites. In beautiful color, when we used to watch it as kids on regular TV, we thought it was black & white. It was the first pre-recorded movie we acquired back in the early days -- we learned it was color! -- and, when we got into DVDs, it was a must acquisition. I'm talking about one of the best action films ever made, beautifully photographed, with one of the truly finest film scores ever written (Erich Wolfgang Korngold). Directed by Michael Curtiz, it stars Errol Flynn, Olivia DeHavilland, Basil Rathbone and Claude Raines, with a superb supporting cast . The film is "The Adventures of Robin Hood." from 1938. It takes a great deal of liberty with history, as most tales of Robin Hood do. One constant, however, is that while King Richard was off at the Crusades, dark machinations were taking place back home in England, the Normans who had conquered England in 1066 very seriously interested in taxing those not on some protected list or another into the ground. Robin Hood did not rob from the rich to give to the poor. He was not some proto-Communist trying to re-distribute wealth, like many of the Democrats want to do. He robbed the people who collected illegal taxes, the people who found every excuse to gouge money from the real producers in the English economy. Most of the exploited and downtrodden were the Saxons, the losing side of the Norman Conquest. But, England was a country of more than just Normans and Saxons. There were other ethnic groups as well. In the Robin Hood legends, Robin stands up for the oppressed and, in a way, if you were oppressed, whether you were Angle, Saxon, Jute or even a Norman who'd fallen out of favor, in the cause that Robin championed they were all Saxons.
Our government needs to stop finding ways of creating new taxes and playing class warfare games in the process. People who have earned really big bucks shouldn't be punished for their efforts and their success. The government needs to lower taxes, not raise taxes. The government needs to stop spending money it doesn't have. The Norman conquerors knew that to control the capital confered the real power. The Democrats know that, too, which is why they want to take money from those who have earned it and generously gift it to those who have not. Now, there are probably some good Democrats and there are lots of worthwhile Independents and there are Libertarians who don't have to follow their tenets into territory where to do so is positively silly. We are all Saxons! When Election Day comes, remember and spread the word: "Robin in Sherwood at the Gallows Oak!" Which means, get out the vote and expel the Norman interlopers from office! We are all Saxons!
Jerry