There’s a troubling trend I’ve been noticing in the last few days. Well… to be honest, it’s not new, and not that many are troubled by it. Maybe that’s what I find so irritating. I just watched a clip of “King Loofa”, otherwise known as Bill O’Reilly, once again pontificating on television while slathered in what looks like oompa-loompah make up.  His grand, arrogant oration to a member of the opposition to nationalized healthcare made me want to spit out my Kroger-brand coffee. 

  His (paraphrased)  point was this: ” Hey, you guys know you’re not going to win this de-fund Obamacare thing…. you know it’s a fight you can’t win…. so why are you fighting it? What’s wrong with you guys? You must be stupid or crazy or both.” Well why don’t we change Bill’s name to Bill Oh Really? I thought this nation was founded on the very notion that some fights are worth fighting. Even when it’s against all odds, even when everyone says it can’t be done. Defeat the most powerful empire on earth? Nah.. Create a republic of free men and women that takes the power from an Aristocracy and gives it to ordinary folks? Nah…. Impossible. So why try? 

  It brings to mind just a few examples of people who spit in the face of Bill Oh Really’s “wisdom”.  I’ve already mentioned the founding of our country, so let’s start there. Do you think that George Washington had confidence in his ability to defeat the armies of the British Crown?  Well I don’t think he did. In fact, if not for the outcome achieved, and with the exception of the Battle of Trenton, Washington kinda sucked at winning any engagement with the British.  His crowning achievement was probably not getting shot right out of his saddle every time he lined the Colonials up for the slaughter.  To me it seems that it surely must have been Providence that we came out on top of the struggle for Independence.

  Let’s make a stab at another individual that made the impossible possible.  Take a look around you wherever you are right now.  Are the lights on? Can you read at night without dripping wax all over you? Let’s forget the whole flourescent bulb fiasco for a second, as that’s the subject for another day.  Electric light has changed the world in a way that almost nothing else has.  Mankind finally did what was thought to be a pipe dream. Bring light to darkness, safety to lurking danger, with the flip of a switch.  Thomas Edison tried hundreds of time to invent the lightbulb. and I’m sure the Oh Really’s of the world told him, “hey, it’s not going to work, it’s a fight you can’t win…. so cut it out already will you?”.  Well I’m glad the Sultan of Shower Scrubbers wasn’t there to, pardon the pun, illuminate him on the futility of his endeavor. 

And finally, I wonder what Mr. Bill would say to Martin Luther King jr. and other civil rights activists of the sixties? Surely they were also told, “Hey…. what you’re doing is impossible. You’re just making a stink for something that you know will never happen.” I guess he’d line up with guys like Democrat Senator Strom Thurmond or Klan member Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, who personally stood at the podium for over 14 hours to try to block the Civil Rights Act. Or guys like George Wallace, and yes he’s another Democrat , who stood in multiple schoolhouse doors to block innocent children from going to school.

I was under the impression that I was fortunately born somewhere where the impossible is made possible. I thought this was the Nation of Underdogs. I thought this was perhaps the only place on the face of the earth where if you could dream it, you could do it. Because sometimes you fight because it’s the right thing to do, no matter the odds, no matter the cost. History is made by men and women who looked poo-pooers like Bill O’ Reilly in the face and said, “Impossible, huh? We’ll see about that.”