The Obama administration, in its bewildering incompetence, has let the entire world know it plans military action against Syria, and even what the targets will be. As of this writing, that attack has not yet taken place. What is the purpose of it? Why kill some Syrians and risk the lives of Americans if there is no intention of punishing the man who is truly to blame for the tragedy in Syria? Once again Obama is a farce wrapped in an embarrassment surrounded by a disgrace.
This whole "military action" against Syria (if it occurs) is designed for one reason, and one reason only--to make Barack Obama look "tough," so he and his media boot-lickers can crow how "strong" a leader he is, willing to take "decisive" action when necessary. It also, of course, distracts from the failure of Obama's domestic policies and the increasing polarization and fracturing of American society, caused in large part, by Obama's policies. Make no mistake about it, this is not about Syria, it's all about Obama. Everything in his administration is about Obama and making this narcissistic bungler look good. That isn't unusual in American politics, but it does seem Obama takes it to an extreme, and in this case, to a dangerous and utterly unnecessary one.
Syria has done nothing to the United States; they provide us no resources we can't live without. That country does not threaten our national interests in the slightest. What is going on in Syria is, indeed, a tragedy, but anyone with a modicum of historical knowledge knows that that region of the world has been fighting for thousands of years and will continue to do so. America cannot change that. The Arab peoples rejected Christianity, the religion of peace and individual freedom, for Islam, a militant, hierarchical religion where war and one man rule is exalted. As long as that is the basis of Arabic society, those people are going to fight. It is sad, but people reap what they sow. And America cannot, and will never, change that.
Whether Obama understands that or not is irrelevant, because the only thing important to him is his own reputation. His sycophants in the media will praise him, whatever happens in Syria. And the civil war in that country will continue. But if Obama can look "tough"...then he has accomplished what he set out to do. It doesn't matter how many people lose their lives in the process or any residual hatred it brings to the United States or danger to its citizens around the world. Obama must look good! It is the only reason for his existence.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
America Has a People Problem
Once again, some savages, claiming they were "bored," used a gun to kill an innocent person, this time a teenager visiting from Australia. And, once again, the liberals mouths are screaming for more gun control. High profile gun killings get the same knee-jerk reactions from the left, and always will.
But America doesn't have a gun problem, America has a people problem. And this problem originated from the same philosophy that spawned these liberals who are accusing inanimate objects of being guilty of mass murder. It is much easier to blame the gun than to re-examine the heinous doctrine that is the actual culprit in these crimes.
You see, modern, 20th-21st century liberalism plants much of its roots in Darwinian mythology, a crass, God-denying hypothesis that teaches that man is nothing more than a descendant from lower forms of animals, hence, an animal himself. Having largely succeeded in grafting this horrifically degrading philosophy onto the minds of most Americans, and thus debasing the exalted spiritual nature of man that comes from a holy, eternal God, countless people today are...bored...or, to explain it another way, have meaningless lives, wandering, purposeless, looking for something, and not finding it because it only exists in realizing that humans are created in God's image with the ultimate purpose of being reunited with Him. But to Darwinists, man is nothing more than an animal.........That is supposed to elevate humanity to nobler, more excellent attributes and deeds? Are we really the fools these elitists think we are? Apparently plenty of people are. Liberals revel in this destruction of a God-founded society, because that gives them the power they crave to remake society in their own image. And, of course, their image, not surprisingly, is Detroit, Philadelphia, California, urban America, millions of abortions, etc. That's what man produces in his own wisdom, without God. That...and bored youths who kill for the fun of it.
Teaching that humans are nothing more than animals, liberals profess shock when those humans act like it. Maybe liberals are shocked when "bored" young people kill others. I'm not the least bit surprised, because even with God, too much of mankind has been brutal, tyrannical, cruel, and wretched. Without God, mankind is intolerable and without restraint. I.e., America 21st century.
But America doesn't have a gun problem, America has a people problem. And this problem originated from the same philosophy that spawned these liberals who are accusing inanimate objects of being guilty of mass murder. It is much easier to blame the gun than to re-examine the heinous doctrine that is the actual culprit in these crimes.
You see, modern, 20th-21st century liberalism plants much of its roots in Darwinian mythology, a crass, God-denying hypothesis that teaches that man is nothing more than a descendant from lower forms of animals, hence, an animal himself. Having largely succeeded in grafting this horrifically degrading philosophy onto the minds of most Americans, and thus debasing the exalted spiritual nature of man that comes from a holy, eternal God, countless people today are...bored...or, to explain it another way, have meaningless lives, wandering, purposeless, looking for something, and not finding it because it only exists in realizing that humans are created in God's image with the ultimate purpose of being reunited with Him. But to Darwinists, man is nothing more than an animal.........That is supposed to elevate humanity to nobler, more excellent attributes and deeds? Are we really the fools these elitists think we are? Apparently plenty of people are. Liberals revel in this destruction of a God-founded society, because that gives them the power they crave to remake society in their own image. And, of course, their image, not surprisingly, is Detroit, Philadelphia, California, urban America, millions of abortions, etc. That's what man produces in his own wisdom, without God. That...and bored youths who kill for the fun of it.
Teaching that humans are nothing more than animals, liberals profess shock when those humans act like it. Maybe liberals are shocked when "bored" young people kill others. I'm not the least bit surprised, because even with God, too much of mankind has been brutal, tyrannical, cruel, and wretched. Without God, mankind is intolerable and without restraint. I.e., America 21st century.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Let Them Be Heard Again-V
From Noah Webster (yes, of Webster's Dictionary fame), who lived in the late 18th-early 19th centuries:
"Education is useless without the Bible."
"God's Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct."
Government is to "discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, and religious duties."
"Select passages of [Scripture]...may be read in schools, to great advantage. In some countries the common people are not permitted to read the Bible at all. In ours, it is as common as a newspaper...My wish is not to see the Bible excluded from schools but to see it used as a system of religion and morality."
Obviously, Mr. Webster's enlightened wish has been dispensed with in America.
On the face of it, one wonders why America would eliminate Bible reading and teaching from school curriculum. To teach people not to kill, steal, commit adultery, lie, covet, be greedy, selfish, or self-centered; to teach them to "love thy neighbor," be responsible, patient, kind, longsuffering, gentle, virtuous, trustworthy, peaceful, disciplined, etc. etc. would seem to be something that all people would recognize as a great benefit to societal order. The Bible provides the highest moral standard in the world. It uplifts and elevates man whenever it is faithfully followed. Certainly, teaching our youth these magnificent moral precepts would help them, not just in body and mind, but in spirit and morality, and would be an exceedingly wise thing to do.
Wouldn't it?
There are two reasons why the Bible has been booted out of our public school system, and neither of them have anything to do with the First Amendment to the Constitution or because Scripture has been proven to be of human origin. The first reason, as Jesus so perceptively noted, "Men love darkness rather than light...everyone practicing evil hates the light" (John 3:19-20). People who want to sin don't want the Bible being applied to their lives, of course. As America has becoming increasingly corrupt morally, with fornication, adultery, homosexuality, abortion, sloth, covetousness, greed, lying, etc. rampant and rising, the last thing such miscreants want is their wickedness exposed. Jesus Himself, of course, was killed because He wouldn't shut up about exposing men's sins. When faced with their own wickedness, humans have two options: they can either repent, or they can try to silence the preacher. Most people, down through history, have chosen the latter option, and that is exactly what is happening in America today.
The second reason relates to modern leftism. The last thing liberals want is for the masses to obey the Bible. Virtuous people take care of themselves and have only minimal need for government. Indeed, as James Madison said, if all men were angels, we wouldn't need government at all. Government is only necessary when evil people infringe on the rights of others; government exists to control that abuse. So, the less evil, the less need for government. Or, to put it another way, the more people who obey the Bible, the less government needed to control the wicked.
That, of course, is exactly opposite what modern liberalism wants. Their power comes from government. They are, in their own minds, the elite who know better than the rest of us how to run our own lives--they certainly want no challenge on that score from God--and if we refuse, voluntarily, to heed them, then they will use the force of government to try to control our behavior. And they, of course, get to define what "proper" behavior is (more on that in a moment). Any institution, like the church or family, or any book (especially the Bible) which teaches self-dependence and taking care of ones' own, is the greatest enemy of modern liberalism. It is essential to understand modern liberalism that it requires as much deviant, base, immoral behavior as possible, because that is what makes government necessary. If we don't need government, we don't need busy-body liberals, do we.
So they have kicked the Bible out of America's schools and replaced it, morally, with their own liberal philosophy. That is also a pivotal, crucial point--the modern liberal defines morality for the rest of us! They tell us what is "right" and "wrong," a morality, much of which, obviously, is vile, squalid, and Biblically condemned--thus, the necessity for more government! And anybody who doesn't measure up to that "morality," who doesn't conform to it, or who opposes it, is subject to frequent, often severe, intimidation, attack, slander, abuse, or other manner of personal destruction. That's in America. When these people were in power in Revolutionary France, the Soviet Union, Mao's China, etc., they simply killed massive numbers of people who refused to go along with their ideology. They make the rules, there is no god but themselves, they determine who lives and who dies. Now, in the United States, except for unborn babies, they haven't been able to kill people (yet); maybe we should thank the National Rifle Association for that. But ideologically, philosophically, the historical tradition that produced Joseph Stalin is the same historical tradition that produced Barack Obama; they have emerged from the identical leftist philosophic convention. And while the American left has not (again, YET) gone to the extremes of Stalin's USSR or Mao's China (except in their murder of the unborn), the sympathy that America's left has for the former Soviet Union, Mao, Castro, Ho Chin Minh, and the other left-wing butchers is well documented. Oh, our "noble" leftists might bemoan the "extreme measures" taken by "Uncle Joe" Stalin, et al. But Ronald Reagan was the enemy, not Mikhail Gorbachev. And Reagan was the enemy because he stood for traditional America, an America where people believed, along with Noah Webster and other great early men, "education is useless without the Bible."
But the left controls the education system in America today, and has for over a generation now. The results of that control are obvious. Detroit. Hollywood rot. "Gay" marriage. Abortion. 75% black children born out of wedlock. Growing welfare state. "Obamacare." Feminism. Bill Clinton. Barney Frank. Barack Obama....the cancer is deep and too widespread now. There are very few healthy places left in the American body politic any more. And it is because of one thing, and one thing only. We didn't pay attention to Noah Webster when he said...."education is useless without the Bible."
Folks, that is the battle going on in America today. It's much deeper than "how much money the government is going to spend and on what." It's a battle between two very different, divergent, yea, totally opposite visions of the world. One view exalts God and His wisdom as He so graciously gave us in His holy book. The other exalts humanity, and it's "wisdom," above that which has been divinely revealed. To compromise--from both perspectives--is to compromise with evil. There can only be compromise if there exists a basic agreement of philosophy. Tolerance is ok, and necessary--to a point. But a point is reached where tolerance becomes indistinguishable from connivance. To compromise truth is to surrender to evil. And good men will simply not do that.
And, as is increasingly clear in America today, evil men won't do it, either. Hence, the battle lines are drawn, and, if history is our guide here, those lines will probably, eventually, be drawn to the point of blood.
"Education is useless without the Bible."
"God's Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct."
Government is to "discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, and religious duties."
"Select passages of [Scripture]...may be read in schools, to great advantage. In some countries the common people are not permitted to read the Bible at all. In ours, it is as common as a newspaper...My wish is not to see the Bible excluded from schools but to see it used as a system of religion and morality."
Obviously, Mr. Webster's enlightened wish has been dispensed with in America.
On the face of it, one wonders why America would eliminate Bible reading and teaching from school curriculum. To teach people not to kill, steal, commit adultery, lie, covet, be greedy, selfish, or self-centered; to teach them to "love thy neighbor," be responsible, patient, kind, longsuffering, gentle, virtuous, trustworthy, peaceful, disciplined, etc. etc. would seem to be something that all people would recognize as a great benefit to societal order. The Bible provides the highest moral standard in the world. It uplifts and elevates man whenever it is faithfully followed. Certainly, teaching our youth these magnificent moral precepts would help them, not just in body and mind, but in spirit and morality, and would be an exceedingly wise thing to do.
Wouldn't it?
There are two reasons why the Bible has been booted out of our public school system, and neither of them have anything to do with the First Amendment to the Constitution or because Scripture has been proven to be of human origin. The first reason, as Jesus so perceptively noted, "Men love darkness rather than light...everyone practicing evil hates the light" (John 3:19-20). People who want to sin don't want the Bible being applied to their lives, of course. As America has becoming increasingly corrupt morally, with fornication, adultery, homosexuality, abortion, sloth, covetousness, greed, lying, etc. rampant and rising, the last thing such miscreants want is their wickedness exposed. Jesus Himself, of course, was killed because He wouldn't shut up about exposing men's sins. When faced with their own wickedness, humans have two options: they can either repent, or they can try to silence the preacher. Most people, down through history, have chosen the latter option, and that is exactly what is happening in America today.
The second reason relates to modern leftism. The last thing liberals want is for the masses to obey the Bible. Virtuous people take care of themselves and have only minimal need for government. Indeed, as James Madison said, if all men were angels, we wouldn't need government at all. Government is only necessary when evil people infringe on the rights of others; government exists to control that abuse. So, the less evil, the less need for government. Or, to put it another way, the more people who obey the Bible, the less government needed to control the wicked.
That, of course, is exactly opposite what modern liberalism wants. Their power comes from government. They are, in their own minds, the elite who know better than the rest of us how to run our own lives--they certainly want no challenge on that score from God--and if we refuse, voluntarily, to heed them, then they will use the force of government to try to control our behavior. And they, of course, get to define what "proper" behavior is (more on that in a moment). Any institution, like the church or family, or any book (especially the Bible) which teaches self-dependence and taking care of ones' own, is the greatest enemy of modern liberalism. It is essential to understand modern liberalism that it requires as much deviant, base, immoral behavior as possible, because that is what makes government necessary. If we don't need government, we don't need busy-body liberals, do we.
So they have kicked the Bible out of America's schools and replaced it, morally, with their own liberal philosophy. That is also a pivotal, crucial point--the modern liberal defines morality for the rest of us! They tell us what is "right" and "wrong," a morality, much of which, obviously, is vile, squalid, and Biblically condemned--thus, the necessity for more government! And anybody who doesn't measure up to that "morality," who doesn't conform to it, or who opposes it, is subject to frequent, often severe, intimidation, attack, slander, abuse, or other manner of personal destruction. That's in America. When these people were in power in Revolutionary France, the Soviet Union, Mao's China, etc., they simply killed massive numbers of people who refused to go along with their ideology. They make the rules, there is no god but themselves, they determine who lives and who dies. Now, in the United States, except for unborn babies, they haven't been able to kill people (yet); maybe we should thank the National Rifle Association for that. But ideologically, philosophically, the historical tradition that produced Joseph Stalin is the same historical tradition that produced Barack Obama; they have emerged from the identical leftist philosophic convention. And while the American left has not (again, YET) gone to the extremes of Stalin's USSR or Mao's China (except in their murder of the unborn), the sympathy that America's left has for the former Soviet Union, Mao, Castro, Ho Chin Minh, and the other left-wing butchers is well documented. Oh, our "noble" leftists might bemoan the "extreme measures" taken by "Uncle Joe" Stalin, et al. But Ronald Reagan was the enemy, not Mikhail Gorbachev. And Reagan was the enemy because he stood for traditional America, an America where people believed, along with Noah Webster and other great early men, "education is useless without the Bible."
But the left controls the education system in America today, and has for over a generation now. The results of that control are obvious. Detroit. Hollywood rot. "Gay" marriage. Abortion. 75% black children born out of wedlock. Growing welfare state. "Obamacare." Feminism. Bill Clinton. Barney Frank. Barack Obama....the cancer is deep and too widespread now. There are very few healthy places left in the American body politic any more. And it is because of one thing, and one thing only. We didn't pay attention to Noah Webster when he said...."education is useless without the Bible."
Folks, that is the battle going on in America today. It's much deeper than "how much money the government is going to spend and on what." It's a battle between two very different, divergent, yea, totally opposite visions of the world. One view exalts God and His wisdom as He so graciously gave us in His holy book. The other exalts humanity, and it's "wisdom," above that which has been divinely revealed. To compromise--from both perspectives--is to compromise with evil. There can only be compromise if there exists a basic agreement of philosophy. Tolerance is ok, and necessary--to a point. But a point is reached where tolerance becomes indistinguishable from connivance. To compromise truth is to surrender to evil. And good men will simply not do that.
And, as is increasingly clear in America today, evil men won't do it, either. Hence, the battle lines are drawn, and, if history is our guide here, those lines will probably, eventually, be drawn to the point of blood.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Let Them Be Heard Again--IV
It has been awhile since I have posted an article in this series, but I have not forgotten it, and will, from time to time, make relevant additions.
Edmund Burke was not one of America's Founding Fathers, but he could have been. He was an English philosopher/politician who lived during the era of our Founders, authoring several books, including a brilliant one entitled Reflections on the Revolution in France. In this 1790 book, written a year after the French Revolution broke out, Burke correctly predicted the course of that revolution. For example, he accurately forecast the assassination of the king, the brutal Reign of Terror, the rise of dictatorship, and other significant events of the French Revolution. Burke could make these accurate predictions because he knew history, he knew men, and he knew what men would do without God directing them, which is the course the French Revolution took.
But, in this essay, I want to provide a quote from Burke, also prophetic, regarding liberty and the necessary elements of it. I will quote Burke, then make some germane comments on his thoughts.
"What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
What Burke is saying, of course, is that freedom must have limitations. "Freedom" does not mean that people can do anything they want. Freedom ultimately comes from God; everything does, and thus, men, to have true liberty, must respect God and His eternal decrees. Otherwise, they will not only violate the freedoms of others, but also destroy themselves by not curbing their own passions and desires. Let's look a little more closely as some of the things Burke said.
"What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?..." Freedom without wisdom--which comes from God and a knowledge of history--and without a virtuous people....is what?
''...the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint." Again, freedom does not mean we can do anything we want to do. This should be self-evident; we cannot allow murderers and rapists to have the "freedom" to murder and rape; such would obviously violate the freedom of others. Thus, there must be some restrictions put on liberty. Otherwise, people will end up committing all kinds of foolishness ("folly"), wickedness ("vice"), and incomparable stupidity because they put no restraints on what they think, either ("madness"). There must be some boundaries to freedom somewhere! Now, the question is, who draws those boundaries? Are we going to let men do it? Given the violent, corrupt, vile, tyrannical history of humanity, who would be foolish enough to say that man has the wisdom and good judgment to inerrantly direct his own steps? Have we indeed learned nothing from history? For if the pages of the past teach us anything, it is that man, left to himself, will descend into cruelty, barbarity, and every imaginable villainy and treachery. No, since God is the Author of all, the Eternal Creator of man, it is essential, for true human freedom, that we let Him put the restraints on that liberty. For pure wisdom and pure virtue are taught from above. And, yea, when we look at America today, an America that has rejected its god-fearing foundations, a "freedom" without God--we see...what? "Folly, vice, and madness, without restraint."
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites..." Men can be "free" only if they restrain themselves. Because, "Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere." Too much "freedom" is anarchy, not civilization. If people are allowed to do anything they want, then obviously civilization ceases, and barbarism results. And, again, the crucial question is, from whence should come the limits upon freedom? Well, "the less of it there is within"--the less people restrain themselves--"the more there must be without"--if people don't restrain themselves, government will step in and do it for them. (Indeed, history abundantly teaches that government is more than happy to do so.) Because there must be order in society for civilization to exist, men can either do the right thing from within--virtue--or they will be forced to do it by government--tyranny. And, Burke was right--"It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things"--a neat phrase for the eternal Will of God--"that men of intemperate minds (i.e., those who refuse to restrain themselves) cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." Since they refuse to live virtuously on their own, then some outside entity--and it can only be government--will step in and force them to do it. And, when people are forced to do something they would not do of their voluntary will, that's not freedom. Freedom and individual virtue go hand-in-hand, they are indispensable partners. Edmund Burke, and America's Founding Fathers, understood that. Barack Obama, and the modern leftist elite, do, too. But, because these leftists love power and control in their own hands, true freedom, based upon God's will, is the last thing they want. They want as much immorality--ungodly behavior--as possible, because immorality will ultimately demand government control.
The truly sad thing is, when the heavy hand of government steps in, as it must when people refuse to control themselves, then that government tyrannizes the bad and the good. Those who do live virtuously, who don't need government to control them, are punished and tyrannized because of the actions of the decadent miscreants who refuse to submit to the dictates of virtue on their own. Crying out for "freedom", these immoral degenerates create oppression for all. People want the "freedom" to commit fornication; but then they have babies out of wedlock, get on welfare, and decent, virtuous people are forced, by government, to pay taxes to support these depraved activities. Homosexuals want the "freedom" to practice their lewd, shameful behavior, but they spread their horrible diseases, and taxpayers are required to pay for them. Businessmen who buy politicians--crony capitalism--usually produce inferior products at unreasonable prices, or, as in the case of Solyndra, goods that the people don't want in the first place. So, once again, it is the virtuous who are hurt by having higher taxes extracted from them or having inferior products shoved upon them by a virtually uncontrollable despotism. When God's Will is ignored, everybody suffers. And even when fornicators or homosexuals escape any immediate consequences of their immoral actions, they create in themselves a mindset of rebellion against God--and a seamless passion that will eventually "forge their fetters." There is no escape from God.
As I have written many times in my blogs, it is of no surprise to anyone who knows history and the revealed will of God (the Bible)--and that number is very, very small--that, the farther America has gotten away from God and His Word, the larger and more intrusive government has become. The less people have controlled themselves, the more the outside force has had to intervene and do it. It is exactly what Edmund Burke said over 200 years ago. It is exactly what we should expect, given "the eternal constitution of things"--the will of God--and the lessons of history that such wisdom teaches. And men today have no excuse for not knowing these lessons.
Edmund Burke was not one of America's Founding Fathers, but he could have been. He was an English philosopher/politician who lived during the era of our Founders, authoring several books, including a brilliant one entitled Reflections on the Revolution in France. In this 1790 book, written a year after the French Revolution broke out, Burke correctly predicted the course of that revolution. For example, he accurately forecast the assassination of the king, the brutal Reign of Terror, the rise of dictatorship, and other significant events of the French Revolution. Burke could make these accurate predictions because he knew history, he knew men, and he knew what men would do without God directing them, which is the course the French Revolution took.
But, in this essay, I want to provide a quote from Burke, also prophetic, regarding liberty and the necessary elements of it. I will quote Burke, then make some germane comments on his thoughts.
"What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
What Burke is saying, of course, is that freedom must have limitations. "Freedom" does not mean that people can do anything they want. Freedom ultimately comes from God; everything does, and thus, men, to have true liberty, must respect God and His eternal decrees. Otherwise, they will not only violate the freedoms of others, but also destroy themselves by not curbing their own passions and desires. Let's look a little more closely as some of the things Burke said.
"What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?..." Freedom without wisdom--which comes from God and a knowledge of history--and without a virtuous people....is what?
''...the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint." Again, freedom does not mean we can do anything we want to do. This should be self-evident; we cannot allow murderers and rapists to have the "freedom" to murder and rape; such would obviously violate the freedom of others. Thus, there must be some restrictions put on liberty. Otherwise, people will end up committing all kinds of foolishness ("folly"), wickedness ("vice"), and incomparable stupidity because they put no restraints on what they think, either ("madness"). There must be some boundaries to freedom somewhere! Now, the question is, who draws those boundaries? Are we going to let men do it? Given the violent, corrupt, vile, tyrannical history of humanity, who would be foolish enough to say that man has the wisdom and good judgment to inerrantly direct his own steps? Have we indeed learned nothing from history? For if the pages of the past teach us anything, it is that man, left to himself, will descend into cruelty, barbarity, and every imaginable villainy and treachery. No, since God is the Author of all, the Eternal Creator of man, it is essential, for true human freedom, that we let Him put the restraints on that liberty. For pure wisdom and pure virtue are taught from above. And, yea, when we look at America today, an America that has rejected its god-fearing foundations, a "freedom" without God--we see...what? "Folly, vice, and madness, without restraint."
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites..." Men can be "free" only if they restrain themselves. Because, "Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere." Too much "freedom" is anarchy, not civilization. If people are allowed to do anything they want, then obviously civilization ceases, and barbarism results. And, again, the crucial question is, from whence should come the limits upon freedom? Well, "the less of it there is within"--the less people restrain themselves--"the more there must be without"--if people don't restrain themselves, government will step in and do it for them. (Indeed, history abundantly teaches that government is more than happy to do so.) Because there must be order in society for civilization to exist, men can either do the right thing from within--virtue--or they will be forced to do it by government--tyranny. And, Burke was right--"It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things"--a neat phrase for the eternal Will of God--"that men of intemperate minds (i.e., those who refuse to restrain themselves) cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." Since they refuse to live virtuously on their own, then some outside entity--and it can only be government--will step in and force them to do it. And, when people are forced to do something they would not do of their voluntary will, that's not freedom. Freedom and individual virtue go hand-in-hand, they are indispensable partners. Edmund Burke, and America's Founding Fathers, understood that. Barack Obama, and the modern leftist elite, do, too. But, because these leftists love power and control in their own hands, true freedom, based upon God's will, is the last thing they want. They want as much immorality--ungodly behavior--as possible, because immorality will ultimately demand government control.
The truly sad thing is, when the heavy hand of government steps in, as it must when people refuse to control themselves, then that government tyrannizes the bad and the good. Those who do live virtuously, who don't need government to control them, are punished and tyrannized because of the actions of the decadent miscreants who refuse to submit to the dictates of virtue on their own. Crying out for "freedom", these immoral degenerates create oppression for all. People want the "freedom" to commit fornication; but then they have babies out of wedlock, get on welfare, and decent, virtuous people are forced, by government, to pay taxes to support these depraved activities. Homosexuals want the "freedom" to practice their lewd, shameful behavior, but they spread their horrible diseases, and taxpayers are required to pay for them. Businessmen who buy politicians--crony capitalism--usually produce inferior products at unreasonable prices, or, as in the case of Solyndra, goods that the people don't want in the first place. So, once again, it is the virtuous who are hurt by having higher taxes extracted from them or having inferior products shoved upon them by a virtually uncontrollable despotism. When God's Will is ignored, everybody suffers. And even when fornicators or homosexuals escape any immediate consequences of their immoral actions, they create in themselves a mindset of rebellion against God--and a seamless passion that will eventually "forge their fetters." There is no escape from God.
As I have written many times in my blogs, it is of no surprise to anyone who knows history and the revealed will of God (the Bible)--and that number is very, very small--that, the farther America has gotten away from God and His Word, the larger and more intrusive government has become. The less people have controlled themselves, the more the outside force has had to intervene and do it. It is exactly what Edmund Burke said over 200 years ago. It is exactly what we should expect, given "the eternal constitution of things"--the will of God--and the lessons of history that such wisdom teaches. And men today have no excuse for not knowing these lessons.
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