Christian | Defining the Narrative

Recall Babylon

14 01 2017

A Great Catastrophe

Mrs. Obama said she had “no hope” now that Trump was elected. Millions of snowflakes are bereft that Hillary did not win the election. Many people are so lost in their grief they’ve had to get therapy, join “safe rooms” and drink hot chocolate while petting puppies to give them solace at the loss of the election. Many more are so angry they’re going to actively join in attempts to sabotage the new President, and a lot of these people represent around 90% of the media, many are in elected positions, many more are un-elected bureaucrats, and some are going to be causing havoc in the streets. Many on social media are lamenting they “no longer have a leader”, refuse to accept the new President as legitimate (failing to understand the electoral system which balances elective power), or simply refuse to accept him as President b/c Hillary lost.

I’ve seen talk of impeachment, even before Trump has been inaugurated. Good luck with that. But I would be perfectly happy with a true conservative, Mike Pence in the Oval Office anyway. You won’t like him. turris_babel_by_athanasius_kircher

For those who are so lost and anxious without a “leader/provider”, if the person in the Oval Office is where you find your confidence, your strength, your security and self worth or identity, you have appropriated your faith hope in a power/figure who can do nothing to make you a better person, improve your standing in your community or provide real sustenance for your children or make them better people when they grow up. The only person who can do that is you.

Maybe it’s time everyone started a little self reliance program and quit waiting for government to “fix it”.

When you place all your hopes and securities in one man, I don’t care who he is, you are following the crowds who empowered every dictator in history. If your happiness, your self esteem, your security in life, is dependent on that special someone in the White House, you are pathetic.

Time to get on with life. Definitely do not turn a blind eye to government, but face the facts, just like I and millions of fellow conservatives faced the fact that Obama won, not once, but twice. Confession: I flew my flag at half mast after Obama won the second time for 3 days. During that time I still went to work, did my job, and loved my family and friends. No, I didn’t curl up in a ball and cry, or start planning a rebellion, join a riot, organize a protest at the inauguration, threaten to move to Canada, or tell the world how ashamed I was that America had elected a Marxist.

Even after 4 years of proving that he was facilitating Muslim Brotherhood advancement in our own government, and abroad, had ceased indictments of co-conspirators in the largest Islamic terrorism trial in American history, and castrated our Counter Terrorism operations, I still wasn’t “hopeless”, as Mrs. Obama described herself to Oprah Winfrey.

My Hope is placed in the Christ. Not a man, not a political system. Not even in the American People. No greater mistake can be made than to place our great hope and trust in any single man/woman, all of whom are corrupt, sinful and whose “heart is deceitful and desperately wicked’. I actually heard Mr. Obama referred to during his campaign as “savior”, the great “Hope” (his own campaign poster), and supporters of his celebrating that the gas tank would be full, won’t have to worry about paying their bills, because Obama would take care of them.

Reality Check

We are witnessing the disintegration of America as we have known it. We’ve been divided and subdivided for ease of conquest. We are disunited, angry, and polarized like no time since prior to the Civil War. I believe it is the natural progression of any society who rejects truth, visa vi, Biblical Christianity. We are less educated than indoctrinated, less informed than misinformed, and less circumspect than disrespectful, except of those we find who agree with us.

We have been “Community Organized”. Read Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” to understand what that means. To quote Alinsky, the “community organizer is an agitator”, who takes advantage of divisions and differences among people to completely separate them from traditional views, beliefs, or practices which unify society in general, in order to remake that society. It’s Karl Marx with a hint of Vlad Lenin.

How has this happened? While visiting my daughter and her husband who now live in the Dallas Metro area, I made an observation, the truth of which I knew cerebrally, but now realized tangibly. Urbanization.

I grew up in a tiny rural Kansas town some cultures would call a village, of 161 people. That’s inside the city limits in 1976. (The surrounding farmers and ranchers also take part in the community) I knew the population count because my grandmother and I took the census from her dining table. We knew everyone who lived there. Yes, everyone knew your business, but everyone also knew when you needed help. It is still that way; a very strong community who takes care of its elders, celebrates their neighbors joys in life and mourns their sorrows, work together and for each other, and exercises individual liberties to the extent the law will allow, yet knows the true sense of “Community” where all hold dear that sense of responsibility for the common good, but the importance of individualism. It’s not heaven, but it’s closer than Dallas.

I think Fort Worth/Dallas is not unlike most other metropolitan areas, maybe just a little more modern than some I’ve been to, at least in the context I am considering. A combined population of over 2 million people who have no real sense of community. People who live in the city have fewer real friends, are active in far less community events, organizations, services or activities. They volunteer less, don’t know their neighbors, and thus are much less likely to participate in their own community. They have little interest in its success and are focused mostly on their own lives and businesses. There is little perceived responsibility to ones neighbor, block, subdivision or suburb/city. I don’t know if it’s always been this way, but I suspect so. (In my opinion this is why church is important as a focal point of “community”. My little hometown has two.)

Humans possess an innate desire to be part of something bigger than themselves. God placed this intrinsic need within us for our own survival, and more importantly to draw us to Him. Like all God given human desires, when perverted they become destructive, both physically and spiritually.

Where there is little or no sense of community, i.e. big cities, there is still that need to belong. You don’t see gangs roaming the streets of Podunk, USA. You don’t find Union halls in Smallville. Per capita fewer will belong to Kiwanis or Lions in Omaha than in North Platte.

That’s why racially driven revolutionary organizations do better in Houston than in Lubbock. “Community”, like many terms in our American lexicon, has been redefined to represent those who look like you, or hold the same ideology. The classic sense of community, although still thriving in those rural settings, has for the most part gone by the wayside.

Chicago,the stomping grounds of Mr. Alinsky, as every other major urban center, demands more and larger government providing more and more services, and when those are provided the populous demands more, or requires more. Chicago has not had a Republican Mayor since 1869. In fact, fewer than 25% of America’s largest 100 cities have Republican Mayors, and in the top 10 only 1, San Diego. The truth of statements made by our Founders and Statesmen centuries ago are being proved out today:

As Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop (1847) said, “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.”

This, I think, is the crux of the issue. We have thrown off our Judeo-Christian moorings, both individually and socially. It is a vicious cycle. I don’t have the answers, I am just making observations. Perhaps this is the natural evolution of society; a reflection of the spiritual condition of mankind which, when concentrated, reveals the true level of depravity.

Recall Babylon. Perhaps we should be prepared to be scattered.

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Categories : American Heritage/History, Campus Protests/Black Lives Matter, Homeland Security, Muslim Brotherhood, Political, Religious, Uncategorized

Euramerika: Part ll; The Matrix

14 03 2010

There have been, in the course of American History, different periods of development; an “evolution” or “progression” if you will, of our society. Today’s American citizenry would not recognize the Founders’ America any clearer than those American Founders would recognize today’s society. We exist on the same Continental soil, but beyond that, pitiful little have we in common.

Those periods of societal evolution can be traced, in large part, to a few historical events that had prodigious effects on American society, both politically and culturally. We shall explore only the most obvious of those in the next two installments for the sake of brevity.

Of course, to begin at the beginning, we must precede the beginning.

The Colonial Period: The Mayflower Compact was the first document in the New World which set forth and outlined the commitment to rule of law and self governance for the good of society, in the absence of a ruling power. (While they agreed to status of “loyal subjects of the King” of Britain, the Pilgrims were on their own, as there was no pre-existing structure of government and law enforcement.) Only the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” would be enforceable in this wilderness settlement for several years, until the Colony became established. Survival was the immediate goal; all else would become secondary. Self governance of the individual would become the key to the survival of the community.

This principle carried through the entire colonial period and served to galvanize the American culture as the frontier was settled. As the Colonies became more prosperous, the British Crown exacted more governance, the end of which was the eight year long American Revolutionary War and subsequent independence.

Post Revolution: The ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights emphasized those same principles of self governance, delineating the limitations of Federal government, and charging the Federal and State governments with protecting and preserving the rights of the individual. Continuing the American tradition of “Rule of Law”, the individual citizen continues to recognize the importance of self control and the intrinsic value of citizenship. Not “citizenship” as in simply “born in America” therefore due an equal portion, but citizenship as in exercising ones God given rights, not to mention ones duty, in civil matters as well as socially. The cooperation of responsible individuals makes for responsible communities. Likewise, the responsible community holds the individual accountable, and the personal accountability is rooted in belief and faith in a Supreme Deity which is the ultimate Judge and Lawgiver. In Western civilization, that faith foundation is and has been for Millennia, Judeo-Christian.

James Madison, Member of the 1^st Congress and 4^th President of the United States said this concerning self governance: “The future of America lies not in the Constitution, or anything but our ability to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” That sentiment is echoed in the words of former Speaker of the House (1847-1849) Robert Winthrop: “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

John Adams, the 2^nd President had this to say, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate to the governance of any other.” This was not an uncommon sentiment in early America. In fact, it had so saturated American culture that in 1838 the New York State Legislature issued this statement:

“With us it is wisely ordered that no one religion shall be established by law, but that all persons shall be left free in their choice and in their mode of worship. Still, this is a Christian nation. Ninety-nine hundredths, if not a larger proportion, of our whole population, believe in the general doctrines of the Christian religion. Our Government depends for its being on the virtue of the people, — on that virtue that has its foundation in the morality of the Christian religion; and that religion is the common and prevailing faith of the people. “[Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic, 1864, B.F. Morris]

Can you imagine any governing body today, let alone a state legislature, issuing such a statement?!

This was the period (early to mid-1800’s) known as the “Second Great Awakening”; when Christian Revival swept across the land. It lasted up into the Civil War years. (“The Great Awakening” was 100 years earlier, fostered by missionaries and itinerate preachers like Charles Finney and David Brainerd.)

The Civil War/War Between the States: The war that divided America was a particularly horrendous event, which if Europe had not been previously devastated by war itself, could very well have been used by European nations to regain the entire North American Continent. This time in American history has always been a point of fascination for me personally.

The technological advances of weaponry during the Civil War were so rapid that the antiquated tactics of massing forces to take a battlefield resulted in massive bloodshed. Casualties would mount into the tens of thousands during a single battle. Three days of fighting at Gettysburg in 100 degree July heat would result in 51,000 casualties; dead, wounded, or missing from both sides. “The Bloodiest Day” at Antietam Creek saw 26,000 Americans dead or wounded. Sometimes it took weeks to bury the dead.

This was the most horrendous 4 years in American history. Over 600,000 American soldiers, North and South, died during this time. That is more than all the subsequent wars fought since, combined.

The newest journalistic tool in 1862 was the camera. Matthew Brady exposed hundreds of plates burnishing the images of bloated dead American men, many where he found them on the field, into the minds of civilians who never heard a shot fired. These images haunt us yet today. Find them. Study them.

I once heard a historian say that the Civil War defined us as a people. I disagree. I believe this was a tragedy of such magnitude that America became shell shocked and never fully understood who she was afterward. This war was not fought on some remote field in another land; it happened on our front lawns, our corn fields, and in our living rooms. We witnessed it first hand; saw our sons butchered in muddy ditches that drained into creeks thickened with their blood. We picked up their severed body parts from among our dead livestock. Our brothers returned maimed for life, and many of our fathers and husbands simply never came home. Hunger and disease took its toll on civilians across the land. America never recovered from this emotional trauma. [Note: The Civil War was a politically complicated affair and had the Confederacy gained its independence as a sovereign nation, there would certainly have been another war (over western expansion) that could very well have been much worse than what was.]

The economic destruction from the war was no less debilitating if not crippling. Politically, a sea change had occurred as a result of the Civil War. A stronger and much more centralized Federal government sprang forth from the ashes and was fertilized by the stench of death. Perhaps most importantly, the spiritual breath had been knocked out of American society. The faith of the American people had been shaken; their resolve and purpose brought into question, and answers were in short supply.

As a result, for the next 3 decades, many Americans trying to put the war years behind them, turned westward. Whatever happened in Washington or the East was of little or no concern to a war weary population. Homestead land allotments offered many Americans their first taste of government subsidization. The taste was sweet. The promise of a new start was even sweeter in “your America”.