The Democrats and mainstream media have demagogued the idea that the "rich" in America need to pay their "fair share" of taxes. They have never defined or quantified what that "fair share" is (and they never will because they do not know). According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2009 (the latest figures available), the top 1 percent paid 22 percent of federal taxes while earning just 13.4 percent of household income. The top 5 percent paid 40 percent of all federal taxes, despite earning only 26 percent of all income (this takes into account all forms of income).
So, what is their "fair share"?
It's really an easy question to answer. The rich's "fair share" is enough to keep buying Democrats votes and elections, and transfer enough wealth to keep a substantial number of people--hopefully a majority--in dependency. It is not in government's interest for people to become self-reliant and responsible; for, if that happens, government is no longer needed.
Freedom and government are enemies. Our Founding Fathers knew it well; so does the modern Democratic Party.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
One Reason Why Twinkie Died....
From Thomas Sowell's recent article, "Killing the Goose":
"The work rules imposed in union contracts required the company that makes Twinkies, which also makes Wonder Bread, to deliver these two products to stores in separate trucks. Moreover, truck drivers were not allowed to load either of these products into their trucks. And the people who did load Twinkies into trucks were not allowed to load Wonder Bread, and vice versa."
Unions...
"The work rules imposed in union contracts required the company that makes Twinkies, which also makes Wonder Bread, to deliver these two products to stores in separate trucks. Moreover, truck drivers were not allowed to load either of these products into their trucks. And the people who did load Twinkies into trucks were not allowed to load Wonder Bread, and vice versa."
Unions...
Sunday, November 18, 2012
This Is What America Has Become
Here is a recent statement from a New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial aimed at Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, a perfect illustration of what the United States has become: "With every decision Jindal makes, the message becomes clearer to hundreds of thousands of Louisiana residents who are uninsured: The state has no interest in helping you." There is nothing here about self-reliance, about individual responsibility, about the fact that people should take care of themselves. No, the whole theme of the "intelligentsia" in America today is: the government will--should--take care of you and any politician who thinks otherwise is unfeeling, uncaring, and uncompassionate. You have the right to live off somebody else's hard work and money.
And it appears, given the recent election, that the majority of Americans now believe that. That it is the government's responsibility to provide "entitlements" to Americans, not Americans' responsiblity to go out and earn them. With Karl Marx--and this is pure Marxism--"progressive intellectuals" believe that the rich have become rich by robbing the poor, and that it is the obligation of the government to right that wrong--to take away what the rich have and redistribute it back to the poor, who had it stolen from them in the first place. Barack Obama, of course, accepts that totally--or at least, that is the direction of his policies. America, not learning from the failures of 20th century Marxist states, has itself become a Marxist country. Massive numbers of people in the United States soak that up. Mitt Romney was exactly right: Barack Obama bought the election with promises of free gifts to enough people. May I refer the reader again to Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler's quote of over 200 years ago? (Click on the following link: "Who Is Going To Win?") This is no surprise to anyone who knows history.
No, folks, the American government is not 16+trillion dollars in debt because "the rich" don't pay enough taxes. America is in debt because too many people have lost the virtues of hard work and individual responsibility, too many Americans want something for nothing and believe they are entitled to it, too many Americans want the government to provide them near cradle-to-grave benefits, but they aren't willing to pay for it themselves through their own higher taxes. They want somebody else to pay for it. And they have been demogogued that such is their "right." That is the religious dogma of the left, and it controls the country. But even if Obama took every dime from every person making over a million dollars in America, he still wouldn't have enough to pay for what his sycophants crave; and, of course, he would utterly destroy the American economy, and nobody would have anything. That may be what he wants. That--i.e., nothing--is what everybody in the Soviet Union and Maoist China had--everybody but the party nomenkletura, i.e., Stalin, Mao, and their cronies.
The tide cannot be held back much longer. When us "old white guys" finally die off...when the men, like my father, who built America with the sweat of their brow, conquered a continent and brought it untold spiritual and material blessings (even for those they conquered!), gave their lives in wars for their countrymen, who sacrificed for their families, communities, and country, men who had a strength of character, virtue, duty, and responsibility that Obama's Americans have absolutely no clue about....and when the women, like my mother, who stood behind those men, raising strong families, teaching their children moral values, civilizing the next generation of Americans like God intended mothers to do, women who knew they were women and not men, and were proud to be so and to do their duty to their husbands, children, churches, and society...when those people finally die off, America will be a patsy for any rogue state with a water pistol. No, our forefathers were not perfect, of course; perfection, as I've said many times before, lies on the other side of the grave, not this one. America's Founding Fathers knew that, too, but today's leftist secularists don't. Regardless of their faults, the virtues of our fathers far outweighed their vices, and that's why America succeeded. Today, it is all too obvious, that, for the mass of Americans, the scale has tipped in the other direction--vice trumps virtue, and so the editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune can write what would have been absolutely unthinkable in the earlier, great America--literally, unthinkable. Nobody would have thought of it.
Until Marx. Until Franklin Roosevelt. Until Lyndon Johnson. Until Barack Obama.
And it appears, given the recent election, that the majority of Americans now believe that. That it is the government's responsibility to provide "entitlements" to Americans, not Americans' responsiblity to go out and earn them. With Karl Marx--and this is pure Marxism--"progressive intellectuals" believe that the rich have become rich by robbing the poor, and that it is the obligation of the government to right that wrong--to take away what the rich have and redistribute it back to the poor, who had it stolen from them in the first place. Barack Obama, of course, accepts that totally--or at least, that is the direction of his policies. America, not learning from the failures of 20th century Marxist states, has itself become a Marxist country. Massive numbers of people in the United States soak that up. Mitt Romney was exactly right: Barack Obama bought the election with promises of free gifts to enough people. May I refer the reader again to Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler's quote of over 200 years ago? (Click on the following link: "Who Is Going To Win?") This is no surprise to anyone who knows history.
No, folks, the American government is not 16+trillion dollars in debt because "the rich" don't pay enough taxes. America is in debt because too many people have lost the virtues of hard work and individual responsibility, too many Americans want something for nothing and believe they are entitled to it, too many Americans want the government to provide them near cradle-to-grave benefits, but they aren't willing to pay for it themselves through their own higher taxes. They want somebody else to pay for it. And they have been demogogued that such is their "right." That is the religious dogma of the left, and it controls the country. But even if Obama took every dime from every person making over a million dollars in America, he still wouldn't have enough to pay for what his sycophants crave; and, of course, he would utterly destroy the American economy, and nobody would have anything. That may be what he wants. That--i.e., nothing--is what everybody in the Soviet Union and Maoist China had--everybody but the party nomenkletura, i.e., Stalin, Mao, and their cronies.
The tide cannot be held back much longer. When us "old white guys" finally die off...when the men, like my father, who built America with the sweat of their brow, conquered a continent and brought it untold spiritual and material blessings (even for those they conquered!), gave their lives in wars for their countrymen, who sacrificed for their families, communities, and country, men who had a strength of character, virtue, duty, and responsibility that Obama's Americans have absolutely no clue about....and when the women, like my mother, who stood behind those men, raising strong families, teaching their children moral values, civilizing the next generation of Americans like God intended mothers to do, women who knew they were women and not men, and were proud to be so and to do their duty to their husbands, children, churches, and society...when those people finally die off, America will be a patsy for any rogue state with a water pistol. No, our forefathers were not perfect, of course; perfection, as I've said many times before, lies on the other side of the grave, not this one. America's Founding Fathers knew that, too, but today's leftist secularists don't. Regardless of their faults, the virtues of our fathers far outweighed their vices, and that's why America succeeded. Today, it is all too obvious, that, for the mass of Americans, the scale has tipped in the other direction--vice trumps virtue, and so the editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune can write what would have been absolutely unthinkable in the earlier, great America--literally, unthinkable. Nobody would have thought of it.
Until Marx. Until Franklin Roosevelt. Until Lyndon Johnson. Until Barack Obama.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Yes, Let's Have More "Progressivism" and Less Christianity
The sordid affair of General David Petraeus is simply symptomatic of a greater disease in America, i.e., the increasing cultural rot euphemistically known as "progressivism." "Progressive" "freedom’ is nothing more than sexual licentiousness; it is designed, largely, to protect two things—homosexuality and abortion. We should not be surprised, with such a philosophy so rampant in our society, that it filters into the highest, most powerful corridors of the country.
James Madison said, "I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom." What a laugh, at least as it has come to pass in Barack Obama's America. Madison’s statement presupposes what John Adams so perceptively noted: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." Of course, except in structural matters (elections, branches of government, etc.), the United States government today pays absolutely no attention to the Constitution—or the principles that underlay it. And the latter is the real key.
Incidentally, none of these recent disasters—Petraeus or Benghazi—will touch Barack Obama. Did Obama know about the Petraeus affair before the election? Almost certainly he did, but ordered his people to sit on it until after the election. Anybody who thinks it is a mere coincidence that this broke just a few days after the election is naïve to the highest degree. Nor will we ever know the entire truth about the Benghazi affair. If what has dribbled out is even close to the truth, then Obama is supremely culpable in the deaths of four Americans. If nothing else, his apologizing foreign policy is. But, again, we’ll probably never know the truth, for sure. Evil is in the ascendancy right now in America, folks. For the foreseeable future, evil is going to win. Just accept that as the way things are, until God finally gets sick of it and does something. The Democrats, most major media outlets, and academia are going to protect Obama, come what may. They are not going to let anything happen to him. So anybody who believes that any of this stink will rub off on the President is…naïve to the highest degree.
Yes, what America needs is more "progressivism" and less Christianity (and pardon my sarcasm). We certainly do not want a country where there is more love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. What we all want is a nation full of adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like….Any virtue that "progressivism" does promote has been taught by the Bible for 1,000s of years and is rooted in the eternal nature of God. So why do we need "progressivism" when Christianity gives us the good without the rot?
**********
The secession movement is actually kind of funny. The latest information I’ve been able to obtain is that petitions for secession have been filed in all 50 states and that 7 of them have garnered sufficient signatures to warrant the White House analyzing and responding to them. Of course, nothing will come of this right now. But it is a start. Perhaps some day, in the not-too-distant future, the country will do the right thing—something that should have happened in the 1860s—and there will be a (hopefully) peaceful parting of the ways. The United States is more divided now than it was in 1860; it’s worse now, because it is an ideological, in effect, a religious, split, not an economic one, as in 1860. The "left" and the "right", in America, will never agree, and the feelings are bitter. Liberals hate George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Republicans, Jesus and anything to do with Christianity, and liberal arrogance, elitism, and moral degeneracy tries the patience and tolerance of even the most devoted child of God. So, let the liberals have everything north of the Mason-Dixon line, plus the west coast, and let conservatives have the South and West. Spend some of that "stimulus" money to subsidize people moving to whatever part of the country they want to live in. I'm even willing to contribute to that.
And then build a wall on the Ohio River to keep the liberals from moving south again when they realize, as they will in a very short time, that their country looks like Detroit, Chicago, and California--three places where liberalism, not God, Christ, and conservatism, has ruled for a long time.
**********
A prediction on the "fiscal cliff" matter: there will be a deal reached before the end of the year, and the Republicans will cave. You don’t need to be a prophet or an historian to see that. The Republicans will give Obama the higher taxes on the rich that he wants (or most of them). In return, Obama will "promise" some government spending cuts, none of which will ever happen, except those to the military, which the Democrats want to gut. You will be able to tell how bad the agreement is by how loudly and long the "mainstream" media praises it. When they trumpet how "reasonable" Republicans have been in the deal, that is nothing more than a code word for Republicans giving in. "Compromise", to the Democrats, means the Republicans surrendering. And that is what will happen. You read it here first.
**********
Plato said, ""Ignorance is the root and the stem of every evil." Somebody wiser than Plato (God) proclaimed, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6), and "my people have gone into bondage because they have no knowledge" (Isaiah 5:13). Read the Alexander Tytler quote again in my November 5 post "Who's Going to Win?" And also remember the Theodore Roosevelt statement: "A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education." A PhD from Harvard is useless for the well-being of mankind if the owner of it doesn’t know and understand moral, eternal law. The Obama administration and the Democratic Party are full of such people. And it is why America is in the sad, tragic state that it is in.
Keep in mind, folks--never forget this: government wants evil, shiftless, lazy, debauched people in a society because that gives government something to do. Virtuous, hard-working, self-reliant, self-disciplined people don't need government, they take care of themselves, and that is exactly why liberalism and the Democratic Party encourages and promotes every kind of deviant, disorderly behavior they can. Without evil, the Democratic Party ceases to exist. The closer people get to Christianity, the less government needed. Ergo, liberalism and Democrats hate Christianity with a passion exceeded only by their narcissism.
That, and Christianity condemns their sexual licentiousness.
James Madison said, "I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom." What a laugh, at least as it has come to pass in Barack Obama's America. Madison’s statement presupposes what John Adams so perceptively noted: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." Of course, except in structural matters (elections, branches of government, etc.), the United States government today pays absolutely no attention to the Constitution—or the principles that underlay it. And the latter is the real key.
Incidentally, none of these recent disasters—Petraeus or Benghazi—will touch Barack Obama. Did Obama know about the Petraeus affair before the election? Almost certainly he did, but ordered his people to sit on it until after the election. Anybody who thinks it is a mere coincidence that this broke just a few days after the election is naïve to the highest degree. Nor will we ever know the entire truth about the Benghazi affair. If what has dribbled out is even close to the truth, then Obama is supremely culpable in the deaths of four Americans. If nothing else, his apologizing foreign policy is. But, again, we’ll probably never know the truth, for sure. Evil is in the ascendancy right now in America, folks. For the foreseeable future, evil is going to win. Just accept that as the way things are, until God finally gets sick of it and does something. The Democrats, most major media outlets, and academia are going to protect Obama, come what may. They are not going to let anything happen to him. So anybody who believes that any of this stink will rub off on the President is…naïve to the highest degree.
Yes, what America needs is more "progressivism" and less Christianity (and pardon my sarcasm). We certainly do not want a country where there is more love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. What we all want is a nation full of adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like….Any virtue that "progressivism" does promote has been taught by the Bible for 1,000s of years and is rooted in the eternal nature of God. So why do we need "progressivism" when Christianity gives us the good without the rot?
**********
The secession movement is actually kind of funny. The latest information I’ve been able to obtain is that petitions for secession have been filed in all 50 states and that 7 of them have garnered sufficient signatures to warrant the White House analyzing and responding to them. Of course, nothing will come of this right now. But it is a start. Perhaps some day, in the not-too-distant future, the country will do the right thing—something that should have happened in the 1860s—and there will be a (hopefully) peaceful parting of the ways. The United States is more divided now than it was in 1860; it’s worse now, because it is an ideological, in effect, a religious, split, not an economic one, as in 1860. The "left" and the "right", in America, will never agree, and the feelings are bitter. Liberals hate George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Republicans, Jesus and anything to do with Christianity, and liberal arrogance, elitism, and moral degeneracy tries the patience and tolerance of even the most devoted child of God. So, let the liberals have everything north of the Mason-Dixon line, plus the west coast, and let conservatives have the South and West. Spend some of that "stimulus" money to subsidize people moving to whatever part of the country they want to live in. I'm even willing to contribute to that.
And then build a wall on the Ohio River to keep the liberals from moving south again when they realize, as they will in a very short time, that their country looks like Detroit, Chicago, and California--three places where liberalism, not God, Christ, and conservatism, has ruled for a long time.
**********
A prediction on the "fiscal cliff" matter: there will be a deal reached before the end of the year, and the Republicans will cave. You don’t need to be a prophet or an historian to see that. The Republicans will give Obama the higher taxes on the rich that he wants (or most of them). In return, Obama will "promise" some government spending cuts, none of which will ever happen, except those to the military, which the Democrats want to gut. You will be able to tell how bad the agreement is by how loudly and long the "mainstream" media praises it. When they trumpet how "reasonable" Republicans have been in the deal, that is nothing more than a code word for Republicans giving in. "Compromise", to the Democrats, means the Republicans surrendering. And that is what will happen. You read it here first.
**********
Plato said, ""Ignorance is the root and the stem of every evil." Somebody wiser than Plato (God) proclaimed, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6), and "my people have gone into bondage because they have no knowledge" (Isaiah 5:13). Read the Alexander Tytler quote again in my November 5 post "Who's Going to Win?" And also remember the Theodore Roosevelt statement: "A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education." A PhD from Harvard is useless for the well-being of mankind if the owner of it doesn’t know and understand moral, eternal law. The Obama administration and the Democratic Party are full of such people. And it is why America is in the sad, tragic state that it is in.
Keep in mind, folks--never forget this: government wants evil, shiftless, lazy, debauched people in a society because that gives government something to do. Virtuous, hard-working, self-reliant, self-disciplined people don't need government, they take care of themselves, and that is exactly why liberalism and the Democratic Party encourages and promotes every kind of deviant, disorderly behavior they can. Without evil, the Democratic Party ceases to exist. The closer people get to Christianity, the less government needed. Ergo, liberalism and Democrats hate Christianity with a passion exceeded only by their narcissism.
That, and Christianity condemns their sexual licentiousness.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
What Should the Republicans Do?
In the Old West, when your horse stepped in a gopher hole and broke his leg, the merciful thing to do was to put your gun to his head and pull the trigger. The poor beast was in agony and wasn't going to live. Rather than prolong its suffering, you surrendered to the inevitable and put him out of his misery. Nobody disagreed with that approach, as sad and difficult as it must have been.
The United States is country that has stepped in a gopher hole and severely broken its leg. It isn't going to live, at least not in the form that it was founded, and it has no chance of rising to greatness again, given its current leadership and the direction they are wanting to take the nation. The best thing that could happen to America is for somebody to put a gun to its head and pull the trigger. Rather than prolonging the agony of death, get it over with, and--here our analogy with the horse breaks down a bit--start the rebuilding process again as soon as possible.
The Republican Party should recognize this (but, of course, there is absolutely no way that it will). What the Republicans should do is simply get out of Obama's way, give him everything he wants, because the sooner the Democratic Party destroys the country, reducing it to moral, spiritual, and economic rubble, the sooner the nation can start to heal and rebuild. If the Republicans fight, all they will do is prolong the agony of the inevitable. Let Obama finish the job he and the Democrats intend to do, and then, hopefully, the Democratic Party will, in its current degenerate manifestation, disappear from the face of the earth and true progress can be made. Plus, under such a scenario, the Republicans could not be accused of "obstructionism." It would all be at the feet of the Democrats and no guilt could accrue to the Republican Party.
The Republicans, naturally, aren't going to follow this scenario. They are going to fight--and lose most of the battles, because they are fighting against the tide of history. The majority of Americans, as evidenced by the recent election, simply cannot see the cancer that has infested the country, and it has now spread too far, too wide, and too deep for any hope of recovery. There is nothing the doctors can do; this patient is going to die. The sooner, the better. But because we are talking about a nation and not an individual, a remnant can survive, and from a remnant, the Lord can construct a mighty kingdom. Get out of the way, Republicans. Let the unavoidable happen as quickly as possible. And then let America turn back to God and the Bible and restore true greatness and progress.
The United States is country that has stepped in a gopher hole and severely broken its leg. It isn't going to live, at least not in the form that it was founded, and it has no chance of rising to greatness again, given its current leadership and the direction they are wanting to take the nation. The best thing that could happen to America is for somebody to put a gun to its head and pull the trigger. Rather than prolonging the agony of death, get it over with, and--here our analogy with the horse breaks down a bit--start the rebuilding process again as soon as possible.
The Republican Party should recognize this (but, of course, there is absolutely no way that it will). What the Republicans should do is simply get out of Obama's way, give him everything he wants, because the sooner the Democratic Party destroys the country, reducing it to moral, spiritual, and economic rubble, the sooner the nation can start to heal and rebuild. If the Republicans fight, all they will do is prolong the agony of the inevitable. Let Obama finish the job he and the Democrats intend to do, and then, hopefully, the Democratic Party will, in its current degenerate manifestation, disappear from the face of the earth and true progress can be made. Plus, under such a scenario, the Republicans could not be accused of "obstructionism." It would all be at the feet of the Democrats and no guilt could accrue to the Republican Party.
The Republicans, naturally, aren't going to follow this scenario. They are going to fight--and lose most of the battles, because they are fighting against the tide of history. The majority of Americans, as evidenced by the recent election, simply cannot see the cancer that has infested the country, and it has now spread too far, too wide, and too deep for any hope of recovery. There is nothing the doctors can do; this patient is going to die. The sooner, the better. But because we are talking about a nation and not an individual, a remnant can survive, and from a remnant, the Lord can construct a mighty kingdom. Get out of the way, Republicans. Let the unavoidable happen as quickly as possible. And then let America turn back to God and the Bible and restore true greatness and progress.
Go, Texas!
Over 25,000 people in the state of Texas have signed a petition and sent it to the White House asking for permission to peacefully secede from the United States (other states are also raising petitions for the same purpose). I say, Go, Texas! If the people of that state want to secede from America, more power to them. To deny their right to do so is to deny the very principles upon which the United States was founded, for what did George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, et al do except secede from England?
For those who say Texas does not have a right to secede, perhaps you can explain to us why Texas had a right to secede from Mexico in 1836 but cannot do so from America. Or perhaps Texas didn’t have a right to secede from Mexico and thus, rightfully, should belong to that country. A country, of course, which, in 1821, seceded from Spain…
The wisdom of secession might be debated, but the right is denied only by tyrants. Government, to be legitimate, must be by "the consent of the governed", and when a people no longer consent to that government, it is their right to be governed by those whom they desire. Otherwise, there is government by tyranny and slavery. Of course, Texas will not be allowed to secede; that war was fought, and lost, in the 1860s (Texas won its secession war in 1836 as did America in the 1770s). And that is the greatest tragedy in American history—the defeat of the South in their war for independence—for it destroyed the country as established by its founders and paved the way for the tyrannical, out-of-control monster that now exists in Washington, D.C.
Those who argue for secession are not traitors, not if the government has broken the contract with its people and gone beyond its constitutionally authorized limitations. Again, only a tyrant or an ignoramus would argue that the federal government of the United States remains within the boundaries of the powers given to it in the Constitution. It is the government, not the people, who has broken the contract. That frees the people to form a contract with another government, if they so desire.
As I said, secession is not going to happen (a majority of Texans might not even want it; they could lose their free Obamaphone, Obamacare, and food stamps!), but there is little doubt that, if Texas did secede, some other states would follow. And probably a lot of Yankees would be happy to see Texas (and other states) go. Indeed, New York might even join Texas; after all, when the Southern states seceded in 1861, the mayor of New York City wanted to secede with them because his city had become the largest, richest port in the country shipping slave-grown Southern cotton to the rest of the world. The North finally decided that, financially, it wouldn't be a good idea to let the South go ("Where then would we get our revenue?" Abraham Lincoln asked, since the southern states were paying over 80% of federal taxes with about 30% of the population). Money was the reason for the Civil War, not slavery. And money will be the reason no state will secede today.
Secession is only a last option—but it must be an option for a people, or there is no way to prevent a government from becoming tyrannical and destroying the rights of a free citizenry. Voting won't do it because, as we saw in this latest election, government politicians can buy enough votes to win an election and destroy foundation principles. "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty (emphasis added), to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security." That is from America’s Declaration of Independence, in case the reader doesn’t recognize it. I suspect about 99% of Americans today would not recognize it.
But then, America’s founders wouldn’t recognize their government today, either.
Go, Texas!
Thursday, November 8, 2012
So Now We Know
This
election wasn’t even close.
Furthermore, the Republican Party will have to concoct a strategy to out-give the Democratic Party; just to be brutally honest, creating dependency and promoting moral debauchery is what the Democrats are all about. There is nothing spiritually positive about their digressive message. It is all about taking from the hard-working, productive sectors of the society (which discourages such behavior, of course), distributing it to those who have no shame in accepting what they have not earned (encouraging that kind of behavior), and egging on as much lewd moral behavior as possible, which also creates reliance upon government to rescue such people from the consequences of their own conduct. Such behavior has been in the ascendancy for a few decades now, and since it is now clearly in the majority, how can the Republicans ever hope to win a national election again without appealing to it and further encouraging it? Oh, they can win in local areas where there still exist pockets of freedom and decency. But national elections will be increasingly problematic. It will be interesting to see what strategy the Republicans adopt. How can they appeal to Hispanics and blacks? Those two groups, huge minorities and growing, trust in dependency; it’s all they have ever known. As a whole, neither of those ethnic groups believes in hard work and individual initiative and personal responsibility. I don’t mean to be slandering those people and it has nothing to do with race; at the risk of being nauseatingly redundant, it’s history! The culture Hispanics came out of, from colonial Spain to the Latin American countries, is a culture of one-man rule and dependency. As a whole, they have not assimilated into America, indeed, they demand America change to accommodate them. The Republican Party offers them everything that, historically, they don’t understand and, yes, fled from, but not knowing—or being taught—anything else, they will surely revert to the patterns they are accustomed to—government submission and dependence.
Those
who believe in the founding principles America—God, hard work, individual
initiative, virtue, responsible freedom--have become the minority in the
country. A clear, distinct minority. And those who believe in government
dependency, group identification, and “every man does that which is right in
his own eyes” have become a decided majority.
It happens, every time, in the history of peoples. It was inevitable in America, and it has
occurred. America has reached the point
of no return.
It
is possible, I suppose, for the Republicans to elect another President in the
future. But at the moment, it is hard to
see how. It appears the Republicans would
have to nominate a pop star, someone deeply rooted in the cultural rot that now
infests the country, someone more at home on David Letterman’s show and “The
View” than a serious, respectful, dignified man who will talk to the American
people as adults, not adolescents. It
will be difficult for the Republicans to find a candidate like that.
Furthermore, the Republican Party will have to concoct a strategy to out-give the Democratic Party; just to be brutally honest, creating dependency and promoting moral debauchery is what the Democrats are all about. There is nothing spiritually positive about their digressive message. It is all about taking from the hard-working, productive sectors of the society (which discourages such behavior, of course), distributing it to those who have no shame in accepting what they have not earned (encouraging that kind of behavior), and egging on as much lewd moral behavior as possible, which also creates reliance upon government to rescue such people from the consequences of their own conduct. Such behavior has been in the ascendancy for a few decades now, and since it is now clearly in the majority, how can the Republicans ever hope to win a national election again without appealing to it and further encouraging it? Oh, they can win in local areas where there still exist pockets of freedom and decency. But national elections will be increasingly problematic. It will be interesting to see what strategy the Republicans adopt. How can they appeal to Hispanics and blacks? Those two groups, huge minorities and growing, trust in dependency; it’s all they have ever known. As a whole, neither of those ethnic groups believes in hard work and individual initiative and personal responsibility. I don’t mean to be slandering those people and it has nothing to do with race; at the risk of being nauseatingly redundant, it’s history! The culture Hispanics came out of, from colonial Spain to the Latin American countries, is a culture of one-man rule and dependency. As a whole, they have not assimilated into America, indeed, they demand America change to accommodate them. The Republican Party offers them everything that, historically, they don’t understand and, yes, fled from, but not knowing—or being taught—anything else, they will surely revert to the patterns they are accustomed to—government submission and dependence.
Blacks
are the same way. Africans—on that
continent—obviously have no history of a wealth creating economy, and with
Southern slavery, and now welfare slavery, huge numbers of American blacks
still understand nothing about the process.
The Democratic Party keeps them in slavery today—reliance upon
government. It’s not called slavery, of
course, but that’s basically what it is.
Blacks could leave it, but they won’t.
Why should they? They can have
everything they want, given to them by the Democratic Party, without having to
work for it. Blacks aren’t going to vote
against the hand that feeds them. That
liberalism has basically destroyed the black family and greatly degraded them
as a people is something that, tragically, black Americans cannot see. As a whole, they have not been able to break
away from their addiction to government; it has been no easier for them to do
so than for a drug addict to sever his dependency. What can the Republicans put forward to
counter it? Responsible freedom is no
longer popular in the United States.
The
“Tea Party”—the Romney supporters, the people who built America, the people who
make it work—are now the minority. An
increasing number of Anglos are even turning against the founding principles,
and there just aren’t enough left any more to elect someone of those
beliefs. Perhaps the next four years
will be such a disaster for the country that there will be a backlash in 2016
and a Republican can win the presidency again.
But the last four years have been horrible, too, and Obama won re-election
easily. The understanding of moral and
economic law is virtually nil in the majority of Americans today. They can be easily demogogued and the
Democrats are much better at that than the Republicans are. There is at least a little bit of honesty
left in the Republican Party (though not much).
The Democrats have no morals at all, except when expediency demands
it. And, increasingly in America, as
this current election shows, expediency is not
demanding it.
Ultimately,
as I’ve said before, America’s problem is not economic or political, America’s
problem is moral and spiritual; it’s not an imbalance on the bottom line of a
budget, but a rot deep in the hearts of too many people. It doesn’t matter what kind of government a
country has, if it has lousy people, it’s going to be a lousy country, and it
will elect lousy leaders—a reflection of that populous. A nation can exist, for a while, on the
moral, spiritual capital of preceding generations; Rome did it for a rather
long time. An old building can stand for
an extended period if it has a strong foundation. Hosea announced Israel’s unavoidable doom at
least 40 or 50 years before it happened (Hosea 1). So there’s no timetable here, only an
inevitability.
There
is no perfection, of course, in either political party or in any human
being. Mitt Romney was a better option
than Barack Obama, but the Republican candidate wasn’t ideal, either. Perfection exists only on the other side of
the grave. We can point the way, but we
cannot force humans to believe it. And,
if we are wise—which very few people are—we will study the Bible and history to
learn its lessons. Since so few people
do that, nations decline and fall—the predictable outcome of ignoring God and
His will.
Now
it is America’s turn. It was, frankly, ultimately
inescapable from the beginning of the nation because Americans really aren’t
special, they are humans, too, and subject to all the inexorable laws of God
and the consequences of rejecting them.
We are the lucky ones who get to watch it.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
A 1980 Repeat?
The old adage "history repeats itself" has some merit, but needs some qualification. Exact events are not repetitious, of course, but the eternal principles and truths that actuate those events are repeatable, and that's why we can study history and learn from it. Nothing is absolute from the standpoint that God has allowed flexibility in the system He created. Thus, every general truth is just that--only general. "A soft answer turneth away wrath," Proverbs 15:1 reads, and while that is often true, it is not an absolute. And we humans can be very thankful that God is longsuffering for if He gave us what we deserved the first time we sinned, we would be doomed for eternity. Men take advantage of that longsuffering for their own gain (Ecclesiastes 8:11) and God's patience procrastinates their inevitable judgment.
Shakespeare understood it: "Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy." As a result, sin and wickedness abound, though eventually, no one escapes.
But, the point here is, history (and the Bible) teach us that, overall, things like thrift, hard work, and virtue are better for a country than profligacy, sloth, and debauchery. No country has ever had 100% of either, but the more virtue a people have, the longer they can survive. And you don't need the Bible to tell you that. The quote from Sir Alexander Fraser Tyler in my post yesterday is a good, brief summation. Righteousness exalts a nation, sin debases it; is there anyone, except a Democrat, who would say that profligacy, sloth, and debauchery are better for a country than thrift, hard work, and virtue? Again, it is important to emphasize that, because of the patience of God, the wicked sometimes prosper, individually and even collectively. Such prosperity, however, will not last forever. The longer a people maintain a higher rate of virtue than immorality there will be success and strength. But once the scales are tipped in favor of a rejection of the eternal moral principles of God, the decline and fall are unavoidable. If you keep jumping out a 3rd story window, you might be able to survive a few times. But eventually you are probably going to break your neck.
The question I have been asking myself in recent times is, has America reached that tipping point? It is virtually impossible to accurately pinpoint it; when did Rome reach it? The parallels between this presidential election and the one in 1980 are rather striking--a Democratic President had been elected in 1976 during a time of relative national malaise, but whose policies, because they were rooted in a philosophy that cannot succeed, made matters worse. The American people recognized that, and Jimmy Carter was soundly defeated by a Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan, though, up until the vote, the election looked very close. This year, we have largely the same circumstance. The 2008 election was in the midst of a recession. The American people, not listening to history (or Obama), elected a man whose policies were, like Carter's, destined to fail. Economic law is not as longsuffering as God, and, like Carter, Obama has been a dismal failure. Everything points to a 1980 repeat.
And it might happen. There are some who have suggested that Mitt Romney will win a decisive victory, though nothing in the neighborhood of Reagan's landslide. We are 32 years into the future from 1980, and while 32 years is not really a very long time historically, it can be long enough to allow for major changes. And that has been the question I have asked myself--have the last 32 years sounded the death knoll of America? The northeastern part of the country, which went for the conservative Reagan in both 1980 and 1984, is completely gone. It matters not how incompetent a President is (and how could any be more unqualified or incompetent than Barack Obama?), if the candidate is a Democrat, the Yankees are going to vote for him. Have enough of the demographics in the country changed, in the last 32 years, to push America past that tipping point from (mostly) virtue to (mostly) debauchery? The fact that people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama could get elected to the presidency in the first place is unequivocal evidence that the United States is heading in that direction. Has it gone over the edge? Perhaps it is the depression that I suffer from that leads me to conclude that, yes, it has, which is why, yesterday, I posted that I thought Obama would win. And he might.
However, I'm not sure that's going to happen. America will reach that point of no return; all democracies/republics eventually do. But I can't say I would be surprised if Romney wins. He looks presidential, he sounds presidential, he's a good, decent man, far from perfect and never my first choice. Put him side-by-side with Barack Obama, however, and it is man versus child, a responsible grown-up against a petulant, whining adolescent. The 7,000 who haven't bowed the knee to Baal might yet be enough to keep America alive for awhile longer. If Romney wins, though, even against a far, far inferior president--and person--than even Jimmy Carter, it will be a relatively close election (relative to 1980). That right there says the direction America has been going for the last three decades.
Incidentally, I am right where I was in 1980. I haven't changed because the Bible hasn't changed and history hasn't changed. Have you?
But, the point here is, history (and the Bible) teach us that, overall, things like thrift, hard work, and virtue are better for a country than profligacy, sloth, and debauchery. No country has ever had 100% of either, but the more virtue a people have, the longer they can survive. And you don't need the Bible to tell you that. The quote from Sir Alexander Fraser Tyler in my post yesterday is a good, brief summation. Righteousness exalts a nation, sin debases it; is there anyone, except a Democrat, who would say that profligacy, sloth, and debauchery are better for a country than thrift, hard work, and virtue? Again, it is important to emphasize that, because of the patience of God, the wicked sometimes prosper, individually and even collectively. Such prosperity, however, will not last forever. The longer a people maintain a higher rate of virtue than immorality there will be success and strength. But once the scales are tipped in favor of a rejection of the eternal moral principles of God, the decline and fall are unavoidable. If you keep jumping out a 3rd story window, you might be able to survive a few times. But eventually you are probably going to break your neck.
The question I have been asking myself in recent times is, has America reached that tipping point? It is virtually impossible to accurately pinpoint it; when did Rome reach it? The parallels between this presidential election and the one in 1980 are rather striking--a Democratic President had been elected in 1976 during a time of relative national malaise, but whose policies, because they were rooted in a philosophy that cannot succeed, made matters worse. The American people recognized that, and Jimmy Carter was soundly defeated by a Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan, though, up until the vote, the election looked very close. This year, we have largely the same circumstance. The 2008 election was in the midst of a recession. The American people, not listening to history (or Obama), elected a man whose policies were, like Carter's, destined to fail. Economic law is not as longsuffering as God, and, like Carter, Obama has been a dismal failure. Everything points to a 1980 repeat.
And it might happen. There are some who have suggested that Mitt Romney will win a decisive victory, though nothing in the neighborhood of Reagan's landslide. We are 32 years into the future from 1980, and while 32 years is not really a very long time historically, it can be long enough to allow for major changes. And that has been the question I have asked myself--have the last 32 years sounded the death knoll of America? The northeastern part of the country, which went for the conservative Reagan in both 1980 and 1984, is completely gone. It matters not how incompetent a President is (and how could any be more unqualified or incompetent than Barack Obama?), if the candidate is a Democrat, the Yankees are going to vote for him. Have enough of the demographics in the country changed, in the last 32 years, to push America past that tipping point from (mostly) virtue to (mostly) debauchery? The fact that people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama could get elected to the presidency in the first place is unequivocal evidence that the United States is heading in that direction. Has it gone over the edge? Perhaps it is the depression that I suffer from that leads me to conclude that, yes, it has, which is why, yesterday, I posted that I thought Obama would win. And he might.
However, I'm not sure that's going to happen. America will reach that point of no return; all democracies/republics eventually do. But I can't say I would be surprised if Romney wins. He looks presidential, he sounds presidential, he's a good, decent man, far from perfect and never my first choice. Put him side-by-side with Barack Obama, however, and it is man versus child, a responsible grown-up against a petulant, whining adolescent. The 7,000 who haven't bowed the knee to Baal might yet be enough to keep America alive for awhile longer. If Romney wins, though, even against a far, far inferior president--and person--than even Jimmy Carter, it will be a relatively close election (relative to 1980). That right there says the direction America has been going for the last three decades.
Incidentally, I am right where I was in 1980. I haven't changed because the Bible hasn't changed and history hasn't changed. Have you?
Monday, November 5, 2012
Who's Going to Win?
It is very, very difficult to tell, but it appears to me that Obama will, indeed, get a second term. Here is, historically, the best explanation for an Obama victory. It is (reputedly) Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler's quote of over 200 years ago:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence--
--From bondage to spiritual faith;
--From spiritual faith to great courage;
--From courage to liberty;
--From liberty to abundance;
--From abundance to selfishness;
--From selfishness to complacency;
--From complacency to apathy;
--From apathy to dependency;
--From dependency back into bondage."
An Obama victory would mean America has descended to the next-to-last stage in this process--dependency. For too long, decent people in America, lovers of truth and liberty, did not fight back (apathy) against the degenerate liberal philosophy that sapped individual initiative, personal responsibility, industry, morality, and faith. Evil can run around the world twice while truth is putting its shoes on. Hollywood was allowed to dictate the culture, pseudo-science (evolution) undermined faith in God, excellence and virtue were ridiculed, not exalted, and politicians were allowed to create, via the welfare state, a huge underclass of people who do not have the will or desire--or need--to work. Too late, it appears, many Americans have woken up to what their country has become--a depraved, dissolute, European copycat. Even should Mitt Romney win, the country is beyond salvation; the wound is incurable. A Romney victory would only delay the inevitable. The increasing Hispanicization of the United States guarantees ultimate bondage, i.e., dictatorship. That's all those people have ever known in their history, and they are bringing it with them to America. I'm not blaming them, that's simply the history of the cultures from which they come. They can only bring with them what they know--and that is what they know. Couple that with the countless millions of Americans who already look to government for their lifeblood and sustenance, and the conclusion--dependence and ultimate bondage--is foreseeable and unavoidable. Responsible freedom--which is the opposite of liberal licentiousness--never lasts long. It's too difficult for most people, and politicians certainly want nothing of the sort in the people they seek to control.
America is a classic case of Professor Tytler's analysis. Barack Obama has been an absolutely horrible President, easily one of the worst the country has ever had. There is virtually nothing to commend in his four years in office, and much to condemn. Unless...one...understands...history...it is amazing that a country that could produce George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Patrick Henry and a host of like-minded, brilliant persona, could descend to electing unqualified incompetents like Obama. In an earlier, positive stage in the country's history, Obama would never have been elected--not because of the color of his skin but because of the content of his character. But as America sags further below mediocrity and deeper into a quagmire of debauchery and depravity, people like Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama become the norm, and are exalted as heroes by the opinion-formers in society. And, because morality has been turned upside now (for the umpteenth time in history) excellence and exceptionalism almost disappear and are venomously denounced and reviled. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton certainly do not want to be compared to moral virtue and excellence! So destroy the good, and make evil and cultural rot the new "virtue". It's a shame, but it's history. It's no surprise to me at all.
A Romney victory would be an America still gasping for breath, but living on life support. An Obama victory will be USA, RIP. The latter is my prediction for Tuesday.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence--
--From bondage to spiritual faith;
--From spiritual faith to great courage;
--From courage to liberty;
--From liberty to abundance;
--From abundance to selfishness;
--From selfishness to complacency;
--From complacency to apathy;
--From apathy to dependency;
--From dependency back into bondage."
An Obama victory would mean America has descended to the next-to-last stage in this process--dependency. For too long, decent people in America, lovers of truth and liberty, did not fight back (apathy) against the degenerate liberal philosophy that sapped individual initiative, personal responsibility, industry, morality, and faith. Evil can run around the world twice while truth is putting its shoes on. Hollywood was allowed to dictate the culture, pseudo-science (evolution) undermined faith in God, excellence and virtue were ridiculed, not exalted, and politicians were allowed to create, via the welfare state, a huge underclass of people who do not have the will or desire--or need--to work. Too late, it appears, many Americans have woken up to what their country has become--a depraved, dissolute, European copycat. Even should Mitt Romney win, the country is beyond salvation; the wound is incurable. A Romney victory would only delay the inevitable. The increasing Hispanicization of the United States guarantees ultimate bondage, i.e., dictatorship. That's all those people have ever known in their history, and they are bringing it with them to America. I'm not blaming them, that's simply the history of the cultures from which they come. They can only bring with them what they know--and that is what they know. Couple that with the countless millions of Americans who already look to government for their lifeblood and sustenance, and the conclusion--dependence and ultimate bondage--is foreseeable and unavoidable. Responsible freedom--which is the opposite of liberal licentiousness--never lasts long. It's too difficult for most people, and politicians certainly want nothing of the sort in the people they seek to control.
America is a classic case of Professor Tytler's analysis. Barack Obama has been an absolutely horrible President, easily one of the worst the country has ever had. There is virtually nothing to commend in his four years in office, and much to condemn. Unless...one...understands...history...it is amazing that a country that could produce George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Patrick Henry and a host of like-minded, brilliant persona, could descend to electing unqualified incompetents like Obama. In an earlier, positive stage in the country's history, Obama would never have been elected--not because of the color of his skin but because of the content of his character. But as America sags further below mediocrity and deeper into a quagmire of debauchery and depravity, people like Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama become the norm, and are exalted as heroes by the opinion-formers in society. And, because morality has been turned upside now (for the umpteenth time in history) excellence and exceptionalism almost disappear and are venomously denounced and reviled. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton certainly do not want to be compared to moral virtue and excellence! So destroy the good, and make evil and cultural rot the new "virtue". It's a shame, but it's history. It's no surprise to me at all.
A Romney victory would be an America still gasping for breath, but living on life support. An Obama victory will be USA, RIP. The latter is my prediction for Tuesday.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Interesting Recent Headlines
Barack Obama: "Voting is the best revenge." For what? Who is he trying to get revenge on? He made this statement off-script, when, for a brief moment, he wasn't reading his teleprompter. One more instance of Obama's inability to do anything that basically isn't according to script. Where people got the idea he is intelligent, I do not know. Well, yes, I do. The American media said he was. That, in itself, is virtually a priori evidence against the assertion. Believe me, folks, having a degree from Harvard does NOT make one intelligent. Indeed, in my opinion, it is virtually a priori evidence against....
**********
"Black pastor receives death threats after reversing support." A black preacher in Sacramento, California, voted for Obama in 2008, but said he will not do so this time. He's not the only black clergyman who has announced that he will not support Obama this time, especially because of the President's support for homosexual "marriage". It is very nice to see that there are some black people whose religion is more important to them than their color. Unfortunately, that is not the case for many black people, and some have apparently threatened this preacher.
These threats are one more fine example of "tolerant" liberalism.
**********
"Obama supporters step up riot threats." There have been numerous cases of people posting on Twitter (and other social media) saying, if Obama loses, they will riot and/or assassinate Mr. Romney. Most of such posts are too profane to put on a decent blog. I haven't seen any examples of Tea Party people announcing that they are going to riot or kill Mr. Obama if he is victorious Tuesday. Perhaps they exist; I only say I have not seen them if they do.
**********
HBO Comedian Bill Maher, who is an avid Obama backer, speaking to Romney supporters: "If you're thinking about voting for Mitt Romney, I would like to make this one plea: black people know who you are and they will come after you".
I wonder what would happen if a conservative comedian had said to Obama supporters, "White people know who you are and they will come after you." Well, no, I don't wonder what would happen, I know what would happen--such a person would be fried alive in the media. Bill Maher will, naturally, keep his job.
I, for one, do not believe that any significant number of blacks will riot in the United States if Mr. Romney wins. I think most of them are far better people than that. I certainly hope they don't. Because, if they do, as Bill Maher suggests, know who Romney supporters are and go after them, they are liable to find out that many of those Romney supporters are also members of the NRA....
**********
"Black pastor receives death threats after reversing support." A black preacher in Sacramento, California, voted for Obama in 2008, but said he will not do so this time. He's not the only black clergyman who has announced that he will not support Obama this time, especially because of the President's support for homosexual "marriage". It is very nice to see that there are some black people whose religion is more important to them than their color. Unfortunately, that is not the case for many black people, and some have apparently threatened this preacher.
These threats are one more fine example of "tolerant" liberalism.
**********
"Obama supporters step up riot threats." There have been numerous cases of people posting on Twitter (and other social media) saying, if Obama loses, they will riot and/or assassinate Mr. Romney. Most of such posts are too profane to put on a decent blog. I haven't seen any examples of Tea Party people announcing that they are going to riot or kill Mr. Obama if he is victorious Tuesday. Perhaps they exist; I only say I have not seen them if they do.
**********
HBO Comedian Bill Maher, who is an avid Obama backer, speaking to Romney supporters: "If you're thinking about voting for Mitt Romney, I would like to make this one plea: black people know who you are and they will come after you".
I wonder what would happen if a conservative comedian had said to Obama supporters, "White people know who you are and they will come after you." Well, no, I don't wonder what would happen, I know what would happen--such a person would be fried alive in the media. Bill Maher will, naturally, keep his job.
I, for one, do not believe that any significant number of blacks will riot in the United States if Mr. Romney wins. I think most of them are far better people than that. I certainly hope they don't. Because, if they do, as Bill Maher suggests, know who Romney supporters are and go after them, they are liable to find out that many of those Romney supporters are also members of the NRA....
The Sandy Disaster
I've been looking at some of the pictures and scanning some of the stories about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in the northeast. President Obama showed up, had his picture taken with a concerned expression on his face, hugged a few people, then went off to try to win re-election. That's not intended as a criticism of Obama; that's what politicians do. In the face of natural disastars, it's about all they can do.
President Bush was crucified mercilessly for the governmental failures after Hurricane Katrina. The situation is just as bad, if not worse, with Sandy. The fact that government has been so inept is not Bush's or Obama's fault; government, by its very nature, is simply incapable of dealing with such matters. National government is the nationalization of force; as the American Founders well realized, government's sole purpose is the protection of individual rights (property rights). It is the only thing government can do well. It is simply not designed, inherently, to do benevolent work, redistribute income without creating dependence, "invest" in business, stop the rise of oceans, change the weather, etc. etc. etc. America's wise founders understood that, and deliberately omitted, from the Constitution, any power for government to do benevolent work. The only real failure of government in the Katrina--and now Sandy--disasters is in leading people to believe that government can effectively deal with these catastrophes and has a responsibility to do so. No, and no. History, reason, and common sense all oppose that. But, the American people do not study history any more, and tragically, reason and common sense are in short supply among nearly every class of citizen.
Neither political party has the personnel, on the national or local level, to solve this problem. My dear brother, thoroughly frustrated, told me he is going to vote for a third party candidate this year, and that is certainly his right to do so, more power to him. But that's not the answer, either. The problem is not the politicians, the problem is the people who elect them in the first place. And until there is a virtuous, self-disciplined revival among the mass of American people, until the citizens of the country start accepting responsibility for their own lives and actions, begin taking care of themselves, and stop asking government to do it for them--something government is wholly unequipped to do--the problem will never be solved. And that revival isn't going to happen because one of the major principles of liberalism (embodied by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in particular) is to prevent that very thing from happening.
President Bush was crucified mercilessly for the governmental failures after Hurricane Katrina. The situation is just as bad, if not worse, with Sandy. The fact that government has been so inept is not Bush's or Obama's fault; government, by its very nature, is simply incapable of dealing with such matters. National government is the nationalization of force; as the American Founders well realized, government's sole purpose is the protection of individual rights (property rights). It is the only thing government can do well. It is simply not designed, inherently, to do benevolent work, redistribute income without creating dependence, "invest" in business, stop the rise of oceans, change the weather, etc. etc. etc. America's wise founders understood that, and deliberately omitted, from the Constitution, any power for government to do benevolent work. The only real failure of government in the Katrina--and now Sandy--disasters is in leading people to believe that government can effectively deal with these catastrophes and has a responsibility to do so. No, and no. History, reason, and common sense all oppose that. But, the American people do not study history any more, and tragically, reason and common sense are in short supply among nearly every class of citizen.
Neither political party has the personnel, on the national or local level, to solve this problem. My dear brother, thoroughly frustrated, told me he is going to vote for a third party candidate this year, and that is certainly his right to do so, more power to him. But that's not the answer, either. The problem is not the politicians, the problem is the people who elect them in the first place. And until there is a virtuous, self-disciplined revival among the mass of American people, until the citizens of the country start accepting responsibility for their own lives and actions, begin taking care of themselves, and stop asking government to do it for them--something government is wholly unequipped to do--the problem will never be solved. And that revival isn't going to happen because one of the major principles of liberalism (embodied by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in particular) is to prevent that very thing from happening.
Friday, November 2, 2012
This is Progress?
Headline today: "40.7% of Babies Born to Unmarried Women"
No, this isn't progress. And it certainly isn't Christianity. It's modern liberalism, and it's the Democratic Party. When you defend sex outside of marriage under the false guise of "freedom" and "progress," you are compelled to accept the consequences of that doctrine.
This figure obviously does nothing to improve the moral, spiritual, or economic health of the country. And this is one thing that Mitt Romney--that no human being--can do anything about. Congress could pull the plug on the money that supports this (they won't); but that won't change the hearts of men and women who have been led by Hollywood, pop stars, and even many political leaders, to believe that a hedonistic lifestyle has no personal consequences that won't be paid for by somebody else.
Compassion is not condoning people when they do the wrong thing; compassion is teaching them not to do the wrong thing in the first place, and often, requiring them to face the consequences of their actions so they will learn from them.
No, this isn't progress. And it certainly isn't Christianity. It's modern liberalism, and it's the Democratic Party. When you defend sex outside of marriage under the false guise of "freedom" and "progress," you are compelled to accept the consequences of that doctrine.
This figure obviously does nothing to improve the moral, spiritual, or economic health of the country. And this is one thing that Mitt Romney--that no human being--can do anything about. Congress could pull the plug on the money that supports this (they won't); but that won't change the hearts of men and women who have been led by Hollywood, pop stars, and even many political leaders, to believe that a hedonistic lifestyle has no personal consequences that won't be paid for by somebody else.
Compassion is not condoning people when they do the wrong thing; compassion is teaching them not to do the wrong thing in the first place, and often, requiring them to face the consequences of their actions so they will learn from them.
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