A Fourth Grader’s Response to President Obama

by Gabriel Grossman

Hi there! my name is Li’l Chaim Jones-Zimmerstein and I am currently a fourth grader at Horace Mann Elementary School in Dustysuck, Montana. I’m writing today in response to President Obama’s address to me, and the nation’s schoolchildren in all the Dustysucks of this great nation.

Before I start, I want to say that my mommy and daddy didn’t want me to go to school today, but I told them I wanted to. “Why, Li’l Chaim?” they asked, and “You want Barack Hussein Arugula Buttface Commie Obama to indocternate you?” No, but I wanted to see what the president was going to tell me. When else would the president talk straight to me? I was willing to risk indoctrination to hear what the president would tell me! “Mama, Papa,” I said, “Being indocternated sounds right frightful, but this is a very important occasion. Imagine—I could be the next first African-American president of the United States of America!” To which my parents responded curtly, “You could, Li’l Chaim, but not by listenin’ to Suck McMarxface over there.” (Just kidding, they didn’t say that. They are intelligent people, and would never associate you with arugula. Just kidding again, they probably would, but they wouldn’t say that stuff, because they’re not inbred pieces of trash who spew diarrhea from their mouths in the hope of inciting fire.)

You see, I was (or, I guess, am currently in the process of being) raised in a very conservative household. I’m not talking neoconservative Evangelical Christian. What I mean when I say conservative is Liberal. Now, I know, this can be a little confusing, but see if you can follow me. You see what I did there, with that “L”? I capitalized it. Apparently, or so my parents tell me, a capitalized-L Liberal implies “Classical Liberal” of the Free Market-loving, laissez-faire­-preaching, Adam Smith-worshipping sort. I need to make that distinction because too honest these days, my parents tell me, conservatives of the George Bush II variety screw up conservatism and like to spend lots of money on lots of nothing, at least that’s what I remember from when my parents used to read me The Economist before going to bed.

Mr President, before my parents very rudely (and hypothetically, of course) called you the above names, they read me something I thought was pretty cool. It’s from a book my parents used to read me called Atlas Shrugged. It’s by some Russian lady, so I’m sure you probably can’t read it because then people will call you fascist. Anyway, in Atlas Shrugged, there’s this lady, and she’s this owner of this railroad company, and everyone around her starts to disappear, or starts working with the government. But mostly they disappear and it’s scary. So she meets this guy, and he’s just really awesome. When I say really awesome, I mean in the original sense of the word: he is the quintessential American badass. His name is John Galt and there’s this one part of the book where he just talks. Straight at you. For seventy pages. Seventy Pages. Could you possibly imagine my excitement when my parents were reading this to me? They’d start, “In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.” He’s a better speaker than Jesus! He’s up there with you, Mr President!

Now, Mr President, this is really what I wanted to talk about: Atlas Shrugged, Objectivism, and your speech to my fellow students and me.

Thanks. I was really worried for a second or so there that you’d start quoting the Communist Manifesto, at least that’s what I’d been led to believe by many of my teachers who call you communist and socialist, and  and elitist and all that stuff. I’m pretty sure they don’t know what these words mean, because otherwise they wouldn’t throw them around like that. (Honestly: it’s like that time my ex-girlfriend Li’l Deborah Goldbergstein told me she loved me and then told me she wanted a break. Who throws words around like that? It’s idiotic and insulting to Karl Marx, whose basic tenets I may not agree with, but whom I can at least acknowledge was one of the most influential, smartest, and most important political thinkers of FOREVER! DUH!)

But I know what they mean. For all ten years of my short existence, my parents have made it their duty to educate me on the economic philosophies of the world, so that I will be better prepared to deal with the realities of life in the 21^st century.

Look at me: going on an on about my life and my times and my education. Who wants to hear a youngin like me blabberin’ about? I just wanted to say, once more, Thanks Mr President, for not trying to indoctrinate us. I appreciate the very American, can-do spirit of your speech, and your emphasis on the faith that you place in us, the future of this country. It was refreshing to hear your speech after a week of blabbermouthed idiots ranting and raving about indoctrination and communism and like-minded, ill-reasoned bullshit, if you don’t mind my French.

Best of luck, Mr President, know that someone in Dustysuck is rooting for you, even if that person is only in fourth grade like me.

Best wishes,

Li’l Chaim Jones-Zimmerstein

P.S. Have you read that new book The Rise and Fall of Communism? Check it out, it’s pretty awesome!