Responding to the Call to Arms

Responding to the Call to Arms
by Eleanor Ankrom

March 1, 2003

Conservatives are in a tizzy about recent comments made by Hollywood celebrities. Scads of columns, talk-shows, and news briefs discuss stars and starlets from A to Z, concerning every anti-war, anti-Bush remark made by Hollywood's finest. How do many pro-President, anti-Saddam Americans respond to this barrage of political rhetoric? Among other things there is a pledge being circulated on the Internet. The pledge encourages its signers to vow to refrain from spending their money on the films of the implicated celebrities.

The list of entertainers to be boycotted includes Martin Sheen, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Janeane Garofalo, Madonna, Jane Fonda, among others. We could list celebrities deserving of a boycott until the day Saddam converts to the Baptist faith. A better idea -- with a more concise list -- would be to name the people on whom we will spend our money. Unfortunately, such a pledge would probably consist of about five people, most of whom are in various states of inactivity ranging from dead to older than Methuselah.

Better still, what about a pledge promising that we will refuse to pay taxes until our money is no longer pumped into the faltering public education system, cable TV for state prisons, congressmen's big fat wallets and their mistresses' jewelry collections?

Americans paid $150,000 for Senator Robert Byrd's new office space. Republican Representative Thomas A. Davis took $500,000 of Virginians' money to spruce up a ball park. Northwestern University has a government grant to study women's responses to homoerotic pornography. Fifty-thousand dollars went to the Liberty Tattoo Program in California. This program helps people remove their tattoos and deal with society's prejudice against tattoos. If these are not noble enough causes, take heart, because public funds were also used by the University of Pittsburgh Women's Studies Program to show their documentary entitled "Live Nude Girls Unite." This piece of high art deals with the oh-so-relevant issue of the unionization of strippers.

Are American citizens truly to believe these guys are worried about the deficit?

Call me crazy, but it appears that a lot more of our money goes into political pork projects than goes toward a ticket for the latest Susan Sarandon film.

Why are people more bothered by what actors are saying than are bothered by the fact that Socialism has taken over our country? Liberals have been saying the exact same things for decades -- this is nothing new. If Americans withheld their money from everyone in the U.S. whose opinions are contrary to common conservative philosophy, we wouldn't be able to function.

There are dozens of op-eds on what George Clooney said about Charlton Heston. Everyone has been showered with columns recording every jot and tittle of Martin Sheen's latest asinine comment, but worse things have been said, and by much more powerful people.

Consider the following two quotes, both of which are profoundly more disturbing than anything Sheryl Crow might have said by virtue of their content and also their source.

1. "We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what's best for society."

2. "The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the . . . concept of the individual . . . and to substitute for them the . . . community. . . .?

There is only one difference between those two quotations, and it is that the first quote is from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton while the second is from Adolf Hitler.

Each of these two people have expressed the exact same sentiment.

Americans may decide for themselves which is more disquieting: Cher calling Bush "stupid" or a prominent U.S. Senator paraphrasing Hitler.

Tax money pays for Senator Clinton's clothing, house(s), car(s), and more, and has since the days when she was a governor's wife in Arkansas. American individuals have supported this woman for decades--a woman who shares a philosophy with one of the most anti-individual, amoral, despotic men in history. Moreover, there are dozens just like her in various offices all over America.

World and American history have been re-written by Marxist intellectuals and these "new and improved" versions are being taught to your children.

Spike Lee doesn't like the NRA? He's a writer and a director. Al Gore, however, who almost made it into the White House, wants to abolish the internal combustion engine and annihilate our second amendment rights.

Janeane Garofalo doesn't think Iraq poses a threat to America? She's a stand-up comedienne and a mediocre actress. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) praised Osama bin Laden for making the lives of Afghanis "better." She went on to say "The U.S. has not done that." Garofalo makes movies; senators make national policy.

The U.S. recently gave $320 million in aid to Afghanistan, not to mention a few American lives during the hunt for that great humanitarian Osama. Now we'll be handing billions over to Turkey so we can use their military bases to go after an insane dictator. How much have we given to other countries in just the last decade? The amounts are astronomical.

Americans used to risk charges of treason by dumping tea off the side of a boat because of a trifling amount of tax tacked onto it. The same kind of Americans wrote the Declaration of Independence. Nowadays a new kind of American votes for the likes of Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi.

In the beginning, Americans pledged, "Our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." These days Americans pledge to courageously avoid the movie theater.