Faith and Politics

There are many who would argue that there is a legal requirement for the separation of church and state.  It’s is necessary to address that fallacy since they have gone so far as to ban prayer from high school graduations. There is no Constitutional requirement that faith cannot be a part of the fabric of America.  What is twisted to sanitize any mention of God is the in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

Our Founders wanted to make sure that we wouldn’t end up with the American equivalent to the Church of England where the king determined doctrine. The Federal government was specifically prohibited from creating a national religion. These were men of faith and never intended to remove God from our national character.

No matter how you edit history, nothing is going to change the fact that our nation has deep roots of Christianity. Our founding fathers formulated our form of government based on these Judeo-Christian values that We The People held in common. They assumed that while individuals may try a power-grab, the rest of society would flatly reject their efforts as inexcusable.

Everywhere you look these days unethical or illegal behavior is surrounding our political leaders.   Rod Blagojevich’s 17 guilty verdict’s, As those common values have faded, the self control, honor and good will towards others, that is necessary for our form of government to succeed fades as well.  Instead of being exceptional Americans at a time when our nation needs our leaders to pull together, we are being torn apart at the seams. We The People can no longer tell the donkeys from the elephants, there are so many progressives on both sides of the aisle pushing for the “fundamental transformation of America”, that they all begin to look the same…with no hope of being certain if any of them are trustworthy.

These demagogues have de-humanized the opposition so that they don’t have to bother their conscience with something so trivial is violating the trust of their constituents. Without being plagued by guilt for selling us all out, they happily join the political machinery that line the halls of Congress.

In the Federalist Papers,

Why Leadership is Tied to Freedom

On the 4^th of July, American’s will once again celebrate our nation’s birthday. The freedom we blindly take for granted today was the result of stand-on-the-edge-of-the-cliff, all-in, leadership. For these courageous men, failure was not an option. When they concluded the Declaration of Independence as shown below, they demonstrated that they understood and embraced the gravity of the path before them. Our founding fathers took the final leap with their eyes wide open believing their cause was worth everything…

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

~The Declaration of Independence

We are blessed with free speech, yet some would corrupt it and use it as a weapon of hate to shout down those who might not agree. We have fake news and bias so prevalent that it has become difficult to know who to trust in the media. We see hate that comes from leaders corrupting a cause and devolving their followers into a weapon of destruction. We know community organizers rally those who buy into a promise of something in it for them to the detriment of others.

Shared Judeo-Christian values brought us together to become a nation. These values were rooted in the 10 Commandments and interwoven throughout our judicial system. Respect for life, honesty, integrity, self-control and respecting the rights and property of others aren’t in opposition to other religions. Everyone has the freedom to worship as their conscience guides them. But, without the strong threads of common social values to bind us together, we’re at risk of tearing apart the fabric of our nation.

As leaders of our businesses, communities, churches, mosques and families, do we fully appreciate the precious gift of freedom that we were given? Freedom begins with equality under the law. However, beyond that there is a higher calling to do what’s morally right because these are the values that made us a great nation. It takes real leadership to stand up and consistently do the right thing, not only for yourself, but for your country.

Our nation’s leaders must also take this to heart. When they act without integrity, respect for others, violate the law, lie or fail to represent their constituency, they’re also tearing us apart. When we fail to hold them accountable, allow them to make some groups more equal than others or buy into the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) mindset, we accelerate the destruction of our national heritage and our freedom.

Today we once again stand on the edge of the cliff waiting to see if we can once again find common ground to bind us together. Every person that has the privilege to call themselves a citizen of our nation carries a responsibility to remember what brought us together in 1776 and exemplify our American values.

Would you pledge your life, your fortune and your sacred honor to uphold the values that make America work? If so, please share this article.

Related Articles:

• Responsibilities of Citizenship
• Ronald Reagan Still Speaks the Truth
• What does trust have to do with leadership?
• If You Can’t Win, Make Fun of Them

 

 

 

 

 

 

Responsibilities of Citizenship

” For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  (Matt 6:21 ESV)

Where is your treasure?  If we delight ourselves in the Lord, do we still want the same treasures the world values?  Do we not, instead, draw toward the riches found only in the kingdom of heaven?

“Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Ps 37:4 ESV)

If the Lord is our delight, would we not find deep satisfaction and, yes, even joy in doing the work He has set before us as Christians? Would we not turn away from the treasures of the world so completely that if Our Father in Heaven put worldly treasures in our hands, they would sift through our fingers like so much sand?

There is no formula, God sees the truth that lies deep within our hearts. So if you’re just going through the motions, there your heart is also. But if your heart is full and overflowing with the greatest treasure, the love of Jesus, could the treasures of this world hold any sway?

Now, as a citizen of The United States of America you have to ask, what sway does the lure of money and power have over the people we elect to represent us in Washington?  These men are pulled many directions by the other insiders, lobbyists and the pet cause de jour.  Many who hold these offices end up with connections to great wealth and opportunity that ordinary citizens don’t have access to.  The very people who sent them to Washington, entrusted with the future of this nation, are now relegated to We The little People.

There is no greater responsibility that We The People have as citizens than to exercise our right to vote with great care.  Men who are of this world don’t have the same moral compass that a man who delights in the Lord. If the lure of riches and power hold no value, We The People can trust them to exercise the power he holds with great care.

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Matt 6:24 ESV)

If an elected official serves God, he, like our Founding Fathers, will consider what’s best for our nation, not just what will get them re-elected.

God Bless America!

Further reading:

Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Founded on the Rock

The UnPatriot Act

It’s time to re-assert America’s fundamental principle to not to have their Constitutional right to privacy completely obliterated by forcing a real debate and vote on the re-authorization of the Patriot Act.

The Constitution guarantees:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” ~ 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

If the need to invade one’s privacy cannot stand up to the limitations and protections awarded by the Warrant process, perhaps it should not be invaded at all.  The Patriot Act was intended to protect Americans from the evil, faceless terrorists that threatened our peace and tranquility.  Because there is no accountability, it is difficult to believe that this broad power wasn’t abused and civil liberties abused needlessly.  My fear is that We The People descend quickly into the abyss of a totalitarian state, that this power granted for the purpose of keeping America secure will be used against We The People to secure the power of the political elite who seek to fundamentally change this country.

It’s important that pressure is applied to Congress to ensure that this unconstitutional bill is not re-authorized.  Fort Hood (TX) shows that even if they have the information, Americans aren’t any safer. At least if they have to go through the warrant process, there will be accountability if We The People are to be subjects of searches, surveillance or seizures.

CALL YOUR Representative immediately – a vote may get slipped in today.

God Bless America!

Related Posts:

Founded on the Rock

Don’t Shoot The Messenger

With growing momentum, the left has shouted the global warming message from the rooftops. While getting my bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, I had global warming spoon fed to me during a book report I had to do on Al Gore’s The Earth in the Balance. I rejected its message even before it was widely discussed.

That was then.  Since then we have heard the message morph into “Climate Change” and “Environmental Justice”, but it still has the same goal…to deprive American citizens of their freedom to think for themselves.  Written during WWII, F.A. Hayek, a member of the London School of Economics, saw this change in England, how much more do we see it now?

It is not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought.  But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced. ~F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

We see people belittled and ridiculed for the audacity of merely disagreeing that Climate Change is a result of America’s prosperity.  Climate change supporters are deniers of their own inconvenient truth. There are periods of warming and cooling throughout the history of our planet that pre-date the industrialization of our society.

It is now difficult to discern who speaks truthfully and who has an agenda.  Dr. Landsea, a hurricane researcher warned that the IPCC’s agenda had become politicized back in 2005 in his Open Letter to the Community.

It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming. ~ Dr. Landsea

I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. ~ Dr. Landsea

The Chicago Climate Exchange, set up in 2003, stood to benefit from global warming alarm and subsequent carbon dioxide emission regulation from the EPA.  The question is why???  Why would then 2008 Presidential candidate Obama tell the nation our energy prices would necessarily skyrocket? How is that good for We The People?

Hayek’s concerns from a different time and place are just as true today. The common thread is the underlying reason why…

…every act of the government, must become sacrosanct and exempt from criticism.  If the people are to support the common effort without hesitation, they must be convinced that not only the end aimed at but also the means chosen are the right ones. The official creed, to which adherence must be enforced, will therefore comprise all the views about facts on which the plan is based. Public criticism or even expression of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken public support. ~ F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

We The People must recognize that the continual erosion of our freedom as this fundamental transformation seeks to socialize this nation requires silence from the opposition.  Ridicule has been used to attempt to silence Americans who dare to disagree with the left.

Don’t lose hope.  Never be silent!

With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. ~Matthew 19:26 (ESV)

God Bless America!

Related Posts:

• Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (If you can’t win, make fun of them)
• Founded on The Rock
• Glenn Beck’s The Overton Window

If You Can’t Win, Make Fun of Them

(Originally posted 07/09/2009)

Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals has been the left’s master playbook.  It’s not hard to see that these are the tactics that were used on Sarah Palin.  Her ability to rise above the fray every time makes the left nuts.  The blue lines were examples that came immediately to mind.  I’m sure if one were to dig deeper, there would be plenty of examples for the rest.

Rules for Radicals:

1. Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your own people.
3. Whenever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy.  (Make them speechless).
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. (The hypocrisy play)
5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. (Humor is the ultimate weapon!)
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose. (Timing is everything).
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. A major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure on the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter side.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.  (Put up or shut up).
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it (example, George Bush as the personification of evil).

(From http://mcfan.org/rulesforradicals.aspx)

None of the attacks on Sarah from the left have been anything but an attempt to neutralize what they see as a very real threat.  When they couldn’t ridicule her into submission, they turned to unprecedented attacks using her family and the ethics bill she championed as weapons against her.  Before Sarah, G.W. Bush had the same treatment going into his last election cycle in order to neutralize and demoralize the GOP.  The left portrayed President Bush as not only an enemy of the world, they attacked him on the home front as well.  It was effective too.  For the GOP, the election was lost before it ever began.

The list above was taken from a post appropriately titled “Know Thy Enemy”.  If the grassroots conservative movement wants to have the stamina to beat back the socialist tide, we have to truly know thy enemy.  Understanding what their tactics are will help us not to buy into their game.  Instead, we need to engage them in a debate of our choosing.  No more compromise to get along in the true spirit of bipartisanship.  They have fully demonstrated with their grotesque display of power in Washington, the liberals have no intention of engaging the right.  Our own concept of fair play has been used as a weapon against us.

Now is the time for We The People to stop listening to the talking heads on TV and use our own God-given brains to decide what is best for America.  It’s time to stop being paralyzed in our apathy and stand up for the Freedom that was bought with the precious blood of our Founding Fathers.  If there was ever a time to pay attention, its right now as we watch our Constitutional rights evaporate before our very eyes.

There is NO person or government that deserves the fruits of your own labor more than you do.  As a free people, we have a responsibility to take care of our own needs and not to look to the government to take care of us.  There was a time in this country when if you didn’t work, you wouldn’t eat.

Related Articles:

• The Death of American Exceptionalism
• Founded on The Rock
• Socialist Attack on the Constitution

Cross-posted: DirtyRottenScoundrels (July 2009)

Founded On The Rock

The left and the right have different approaches to the question of what is our responsibility to the poor.  Both sides agree that sometimes we need to help our neighbors. What we can’t agree on how is that should be accomplished.

The left would create an ever-expanding welfare state that will help the poor and redistribute the wealth.  The right believes that charity should come from the individual.  In both cases, wealth changes hands, the difference lies in the freedom of choice in making that sacrifice.  Sacrifice only has moral value when we alone are free to make that choice.  So, if government takes and gives to the poor, the choice to honor God with our substance is limited more and more as taxes turn into theft as the tax rate steadily increases.

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. -Proverbs 19:17 (ESV)

When charity becomes an entitlement, the government not only enslaves the taxpayer through the wealth redistribution schemes, but also the recipient as they join others on the governmental plantation.

It is no wonder that America is steadily losing ground on the world stage. The welfare state dependent mentality sucks all creativity out of the community as it’s grip tightens to maintain control of the sheep.  We The Sheeple have been led down the road toward a collectivist state, waiting to be told what to think and what to do so that we don’t disturb the security bought through compliance.

We The People are so much more than sheep. We built this nation on a foundation of rock, not of sand.

46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. [3] 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” Luke 6:46-49 (ESV)

The ruin of the house that is America will indeed be great if We The People don’t heed the words of the Lord and of our Founders.  Our nation was built by men of great faith and principles. They honored God in their words and deeds.  They knew that it was only with the hand Divine Providence that would allow them to prevail against the odds.  We The People must turn again to Divine Providence for guidance to help us find our way back from the brink of self-destruction.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. – The Declaration of Independence

It’s time to return to our foundation on the rock and trust that Divine Providence can rebuild our unity so that once again we are un-hyphenated Americans joining together to repair that crumbling foundation lest it disintegrate into sand…

God Bless America!

Related Articles:

1. The Death of American Exceptionalism
2. Lower Taxes to Increase Revenue
3. Hey Dude, Where’s My Melting Pot?
4. The Overton Window

Ronald Reagan Still Speaks the Truth

Ronald Reagan’s words are still true today. We The People face the most important election in our lifetimes.

“Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) and the Republican Study Committee present to you a new video featuring President Ronald Reagan reminding us that the out-of-touch voices of the Democrat Party don’t speak for all Americans.” ~ Griffin Media Group

Get everyone you know out to to vote Nov. 2nd so we can turn our country back to its founding principles and preserve/restore the hard-won freedom our country has taken for granted for far too long.

Review: Popes and Bankers

Click to purchase from Amazon.com

Jack Cashill chronicles credit and debt throughout history in his book Popes and Bankers: A Cultural History of Credit & Debt, from Aristotle to AIG.  Cashill gives perspective to major worldwide financial events leading to our current financial crisis.  The author peppers this book with pertinent tales that bring the seemingly unrelated events of the past together that ultimately paved the road to ruin.

The author tackles usury from its religious perspectives amongst the Jewish people and culturally as told in the Merchant of Venice.  He shows us how consumers, who once disdained debt, were romanced into embracing credit as a way of life. Cashill also shows that when the moral constraints against credit default swaps, Ponzi schemes and usury evaporated culturally, nothing remained to prevent people from doing the things they could get away with in the name of profit.  America was led willingly by their individual greed closer to the financial cliff called economic collapse.   This book culminates in illuminating the significance of the past as it applies to Wall Street today.

It is a slow read, but the content is well worth it for those interested in finding the answer to how did we get to a place in America where companies are too big to fail and bailouts are  now commonplace.  His scholarly style doesn’t grab me the between the ears with the irresistible desire to turn the page.    However, the pace picks up as you approach the end when the snippets of financial history finally come together.  There are extensive references that support the history as told in these pages.  I will keep Popes and Bankers on my reference shelf and recommend it for students of history.

God Bless America!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Lower Taxes to Increase Revenue

Thomas Jefferson said:

I, however, place economy among the first and most important of Republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.

The state of our economy has not been improved by the massive stimulus spending…most of which will happen right before the mid-term election.  Our nation’s public debt is the greatest it has ever been.  Why do We The People sit, election after election and turn a blind eye to the destruction of our viability as a free nation.

Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty.

~Benjamin Franklin

The fact that we don’t know our nation’s history is causing us to relive it.  For instance, we’ve explored the benefits of lower taxes and the futility of raising taxes in the 1920’s.

A prime example of the benefit of lowering taxes can be found in A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror”>A Patriot’s History of the United States can be found by examining Andrew Mellon, President Warren G. Harding’s secretary of the Treasury,

Commissioned a study of why the wealthier classes had paid less and less in taxes as the government raised the tax rate on them repeatedly. The rich tended to invest abroad rather than build new factories and mills in the United States and then suffer from the 73 percent tax on any income from those investment.

After his study of falling tax revenues revealed that the amount of money gleaned from the upper classes had declined with each new rate increase, Mellon concluded that lowering the rates on everyone, especially the wealthiest classes would actually result in their paying more taxes.  From 1921 to 1926, Congress reduced taxes from 73 percent on top income earners and 4 percent on the lowest taxpayers to 25 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively, then down even further in 1929. Unexpectedly, to everyone except Mellon, the tax take from the wealthy almost tripled, but the poorer classes saw their share of taxes fall substantially.  The nation as a whole benefited as the national debt fell by one third (from $24 billion to $18 billion) in five years.

Mellon’s tax policies set the stage for the most amazing growth yet seen in America’s already impressive economy.

~ Larry Schweikart & Michael Allen

A Patriot’s History of the United States

 

During his presidency, Ronald Reagan proved again that lowering taxes helps to fuel the engine of the economy as demonstrated by great economic growth that extended beyond his years in office.  Andrew Mellon had already made the case that if you raise taxes on the rich, their money will move off shore and out of reach of the greedy hands of government.  Enough is enough.

Until We The People insist on the Constitution being the foundation of our nation again Congress will never cease their continual attack on our freedom.  Our Founding Fathers never intended for government to regulate every aspect of our lives.  They would have thought passing the national debt from one generation to the next sinful.  We The People cannot look to government for answers.  We The People need to be self-reliant, innovative and free to succeed or fail.

Each citizen has a duty to demand accountability from our representatives in every level of government.  We The People need to step up and solve problems rather than looking to government to do it for us.  Get involved in politics, because unless we are vigilant, our republic will be no more.

When asked what form of government they’d given us, Benjamin Franklin replied:

A republic, if you can keep it.

What are you going to do about it?

God Bless America!