Craig Bieber

I grew up in a small ranching town in western South Dakota. My consciousness has been impacted by what I was when. It is postulated that most of your life values are formed when you are around nine years old.

I was nine years old in the 1950s, and it was a simple and positive time in a small mid-western town, with optimism building on the heels of the patriotism that existed after the end of World War II. We read and we imagined, and when we finally had access to a black and white television, we marveled at the grainy action in front of us. In my little cowboy town, westerns were the favorites, and in those days, the good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys wore black hats…making them easily identifiable.

In the conflicted world we live in today, there are no black hats and no white hats. Had the race zealots who prowl the world today lived in the 1950s, they would have assigned some imagined prejudice based upon skin color to the simple theatrical practice, and it would have gone away much more quickly than it did.

While I miss the white hats and the black hats, I realize there is no practical way to use them now. Today, some dark characters in movies and television are portrayed darkly and some white knights are portrayed accordingly, but the practice is more nuanced.

So…what to do? In my case, I have my own personal mental stable, with the good guys wearing white hats and the bad guys wearing black hats. In these unsteady times, the stable is chocked full. There are dishonest politicians, including a team of them from the state I have lived in for the last thirty-eight years, and greedy Wall Street tycoons who have helped to sling-shot big holes in my IRAs. There are bad CEOs, who run good companies into the ground, and then flee to sunny beaches with obscene amounts of bonus money in their pockets. In the category of How Can You Be So Stupid? there are spoiled, rich athletes who blow it all on ridiculous or illegal excesses…while I lament the fact that as a dedicated amateur athlete, I would have felt blessed to have one day of what they’ve thrown away.

There are white hats in my stable too, although the black hats far outnumber the white hats. And, there are some of my black hats who I’ve moved across the aisle, including my latest move. I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. It had nothing to do with the color of his skin. I didn’t trust him. I thought he arrived too fast, and that he was too charismatic to be real. I was inundated with so much information from my Republican friends that questioned his background, his sources of money, his religion, and his true agenda that I convinced myself that I didn’t like him.

I have moved Barack Obama across the aisle in my mental stable. I am a patriot who believes in our Constitution. I believe that any person who has the drive, the intelligence, and the charisma to rally enough Americans around them to make them the President of the United States deserves our support. It is what being an American should be about. Since the election, I have made it a point to listen to him and to watch him, and I have allowed myself to appreciate his intelligence, while making the common sense evaluation that he has a great responsibility coming, and he has a lot to learn.

If any of my many Republican friends read this, I am sure they will be appalled at my admission. I want them to know that I haven’t completely bailed on them. George Bush is in my white hat stable too. He has been blamed for too much, and been given credit for too little. For all of you who don’t like him, and there are a bunch of you, consider the following:

What do you think would have happened if Al (The Sky is Falling!) Gore had been president on 9/11? Have you thought about being the president when this unprecedented attack reached into the heart of our country? Have you thought about the fact that you have been safe from attack in your own country since 9/11/2001…almost the entire George Bush presidency? Believe what you want, but there are legions of fanatics out there who are dying to bring us down.

Hurricane Katrina? An event so catastrophic and so unexpected that no president before George Bush would have been prepared for it.

World financial disaster? The seeds for our current problems were planted before George Bush became president. He certainly has some complicity, but the current crisis was also exacerbated by two years with a Democratic congress. Most importantly, greedy money mongers from all around the world built a house of cards that had to fall.

Without making a political value judgment, the bottom line for me is that I don’t like sore losers. No matter which side you are on, step up like a man or a woman, and support your country. If your candidate lost, suck it up and support the winner…your country will be better off in the long run.

Personally, I’m a registered Independent. I probably lean more to the right than to the left, but I have heroes on both sides of the fence. I loved JFK, and had tremendous respect and admiration for Ronald Reagan. I didn’t vote for Bill Clinton the first time, but I did vote for him the second time…and then he failed me and everybody else by allowing his presidency and his legacy to be blown away in a White House hallway. I registered as an Independent to allow me to support my favorite mainstream politicians, not because I wanted to waste a vote on people like Ralph Nader.

That is my introduction to Just One Opinion. I am the guy who is just a little off-center from the other contributors, and I appreciate this opportunity to state my opinions. I am also from the great state of Alaska…yes, Sarah Palin country, and I have my opinions about her, global warming, the environment, government regulations, the oil industry, and Santa Claus.

This article was originally published on December 9, 2008 at the news and commentary website JustOneOpinion.com.  I’ve submitted other articles for that website and plan to contribute more in the future.  There are some interesting points of view being shared there and I invite you to check it out for yourself.