Most of us have heard the fairy tale Stone Soup. This children’s story in its many versions gives an account of a hungry traveler in a time of economic hardship who enters a village with nothing more than a cooking pot and a stone. Through creative manipulation, the villagers are made to believe that a simple stone can produce a wonderful soup. Little by little, the villagers add vegetables and other tasty tidbits to the stone soup until finally, and almost magically, they have a bountiful, scrumptious pot of soup to eat.

Now, many that tell this story attempt to dig up a positive moral to what transpired around the bubbling pot. Some say that the people came together and shared resources and that this story shows that by ourselves, we may be able to nibble on a single vegetable, but working together, we can enjoy tasty soup. However, the truth is much darker and speaks of manipulation and trickery.

Think about it for a moment. If we are to find a fundamental truth in the story Stone Soup, it is that there is a sucker born every day. Yes, the people of the village were tricked, duped, hoodwinked, bamboozled. Taking this story to its truthful conclusion, the shyster of this story was probably wanted in several counties for soup fraud and conspiracy to market false condiments. The deeper lesson from this story is that deception has almost no limits, or places that it cannot flourish, if it is crafted well.

Liberal democrats are about to hit some very hard political times. I have a feeling that votes are going to be about as hard to find in many political races as food was in this story. So, as was the case with the trickster that worked to fill a pot with the labors and fruits of others, the American people are going to be offered bowl after bowl of good liberal cooking all the way to the mid-term elections in 2010.

This dish starts with the rejection of the current reality that democrats will most certainly lose their majority in the House and many seats in the Senate. From USA Today on down the line, liberals are attempting to slice and dice the historic loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts by saying that Scott Brown has a liberal aroma which mitigates the national implications of the democrats’ defeat in one of the bluest of the blue states. This crushing defeat becomes part of a series of losses including elections in New Jersey and Virginia that democrats said were nothing more than local discontent. I can hear the falsehoods clanking at the bottom of the pot, and soon you will be asked to submit your contribution.

The largest of these salt-covered lies will be that Americans have given the President a mandate to do whatever he wants with this country and will not hold him or supporting members of congress accountable at the polls for the atrocious actions that have been heaped upon this nation from Washington. The President’s State of the Union address in all its arrogance and condescension has more than filled the nostrils of the nation with the truth of the distasteful dishes this president still wishes to place on our plates. Only the “Stone Soupers” fail to smell what the “Barack” is cooking at this stage of the game. The question is whether people are going to order something better for this country or simply lie back and leave it to the cooks that are currently in the kitchen. If voters decide to go with the latter, they had better be prepared to relinquish everything they hold precious into the bottomless bubbling pot of a new American reality.

Paul A. Ibbetson is a former Chief of Police of Cherryvale, Kansas, and member of the Montgomery County Drug Task Force. Paul received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Criminal Justice at Wichita State University, and is currently completing his PhD. in sociology at Kansas State University. Paul is the author of the books Living Under The Patriot Act: Educating A Society and Feeding Lions: Sharing The Conservative Philosophy In A Politically Hostile World. Paul is also the radio host of the Kansas Broadcasting Association’s 2008 and 2009 Entertainment Program of the Year, Conscience of Kansas airing on KSDB Manhattan 91.9 f.m. www.ibbetsonusa.com. For interviews or questions, please contact ibbetson91.9@gmail.com

America, where is your character, your pluck, your grit? If that question seems overly harsh and needlessly aggressive, then you are staring directly at the problem. This nation sits at the precipice of a fundamental, irreversible transformation that will make all too visible a new country that is incontrovertibly “one nation under a spineless, politically correct, brow-beaten, emasculated bunch of sheep.” Is that too harsh? If you believe my words are too offensive, that I should tone it down, possibly give contemplation to all opposing views from every potential angle, if not every position within the cosmos, then, you’re actually staring at the real problem.

At a time when the country is faced with an administration that wishes to transform this country into a completely socialistic nation, Americans appear to be dangerously low on grit. Some would counter the statements I have posited, as to the lack of American character in an obvious time of need, with the examples of the growing number of Americans that are participating in town halls, and the growing TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Parties. I applaud and participate in these events with great spirit and enthusiasm; however, they will not be the final weapon to defeat the forces that truly wish to destroy this nation.

I am not idealistic, nor need I be to understand the predicament this country is in and the chasm that divides where we have been as a nation, from where we are now. It is true that there have always been those within this great nation that carry within their heart desires that run counter to the betterment of the nation. We know them as the socialist, the communist, the anarchist, and all others that share similar desires that run counter to the best laid plans of our country and its founding fathers.

The presence (if not the appearance today) of these jackals within the echelons of power and influence is not a product of a sudden massive influx of anti-American cohorts, but of the effect of a slow, yet progressive, erosion of our true national character. The growing masses that make up the groups of opposition fighting for the survival of the nation today in the TEA Parties, among others, could double – if not triple – in time, and may ultimately be victorious against the current threat of the Barack Obama socialist machine. While you and I work and pray for this to come to reality, the matter of American character will still lie before us, as does our ultimate destiny.

In this struggle for the short term survival of the nation, as well as our place within history, I must admit a more than ample amount of animosity at the predicament we find ourselves in as a nation, including the timidity by many to provoke our enemies to anger – even while we are battling with these same foes for the future of all we hold dear. Has the quest for individual character, moral value and spiritual salvation been permanently replaced with the need to acquiesce to moral relativism, atheism, and the will of the group collective? I pray that this is not so, while knowing full well that if we as a nation were in proper form, there would be little concern about the few who would be offended by a nation that quests for the divine while denying the alternative, socialist bonds.

I submit to you that as surely as an administration as unbelievably atrocious as that of Barack Obama could never have come to fruition in a country that carried the same national grit of the past, that we are equally destined to repeat the same calamitous scenario in the future – if we do not find this country’s true American character – and firmly hold on to it.

Paul A. Ibbetson is a former Chief of Police of Cherryvale, Kansas, and member of the Montgomery County Drug Task Force. Paul received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Criminal Justice at Wichita State University, and is currently completing his PhD. in sociology at Kansas State University. Paul is the author of the books Living Under The Patriot Act: Educating A Society and Feeding Lions: Sharing The Conservative Philosophy In A Politically Hostile World. Paul is also the radio host of the Kansas Broadcasting Association’s 2008 and 2009 Entertainment Program of the Year, Conscience of Kansas airing on KSDB Manhattan 91.9 f.m. www.ibbetsonusa.com. For interviews or questions, please contact ibbetson91.9@gmail.com