Obama’s doing God’s work

These are excerpts from private correspondence between a Florida businessman and others. It is part of an exchange of e-mails discussing how to respond to Barack Obama’s election. Here is what a correspondent had e-mailed him earlier:

As one of my Republican friends said...she has to hope and believe that maybe this is a sign from God that Obama can help some of those people who really need help and see this as something that they really need right now. Maybe this is what our country needs right now. I don't know if I believe that. But it is the only way that I can think about this.

What follows is his levelheaded response. I was so struck by it that I asked him for permission to circulate it, which he granted. I have chosen to leave out the identities of the correspondents because I don’t want to subject them to the kind of uninvited responses I receive from the radical left.

I like the thought. However, I don’t see much desire to do God’s will coming from any politicians. What I see looks more like self will run riot. The desire to tax not to balance budgets, but to address fairness looks more like a desire to play God, than the humble desire to do His will.

I employ the middle class. I have the high privilege of being boss, steward, friend, creditor. How can Washington employ the masses? Can they redistribute enough to substitute for a job? Can the masses go to their congressmen and ask if they can have an advance to put a down payment on a car? Why isn’t anyone talking about jobs? Where did all the manufacturing jobs go? Why did no American firms even bid on the Dubai Ports deal? What effect does wetland impact fees have on jobs? What effect will cap and trade have on jobs? All we hear about is climate change, what is the other side of the balance sheet? What is the effect of our right-minded legislation? I see the effects. I don’t think they can see them from Washington.

I am hopeful that the American spirit, freedom, free enterprise, ingenuity, hard work will not be snuffed out in a tsunami of taxes and regulation that is sure to come. God Bless us all.

Here’s another, earlier view from the same businessman:

The current financial crisis should not be underestimated now that the market has stopped its precipitous slide. We employed 185 people at one time, we currently employ 80. Our company is one of the fortunate ones to have some work. Those 105 workers were not assimilated into the employment rolls of other construction companies. Many of them are still unemployed. I have never seen an environment that was so difficult to maneuver in. If the government has not taxed us into oblivion, they have regulated us into stagnation. I see it firsthand. It is not to be taken lightly. Now we have asked those who created the problem to fix the problem. Government has never been the solution. The worst fact of all is that we have succumbed to the illusion that they are.

Eloquent words from a man who makes his living by literally getting his hands dirty—something that you don’t get sitting at a keyboard hailing our “transformation” into wherever Obama wants to take us when he says, "We can get there."