Dis-Figures

of

American Speech

Paul G. Sandgren

Contents

1. Demise and Rebirth of Freedom

2. Class Warfare

3. Hate Speech

4. Privilege and Advantage

5. Power to the People

6. Exporting Democracy

7. Homeland Security

8. Freedom and Liberty

9. Church and State

10. Free Enterprise

Introduction

Language is an incredible thing. It can express the inexpressible, or confuse the plain. In a day when opposites express the identicals, e,g, cool jazz and hot jazz, or flammable and inflammable liquids, it is hard to take language seriously Never mind what he said. Find out what he meant. Add to this Political Correctness, double entendre, and other machinations and it can become quite confusing for the uninitiate. And yet it is all we have. Perhaps we can attempt to insert a bit of logic into the glossary of America today. There may be hundreds of these distortions, some purposeful, some accidental, some evolutionary. Languages change over time, everything does; thus the current squabble over the original intent interpretation of the Constitution of the United Sates of America. In thinking these ten things through, we might see the validity or maybe the nonsense of the expressions. It is dangerous to operate a society on accidents of verbage. Nonsense does not need to be written into law to affect change in society, and even if it were so written, it would still be nonsense. While age does not always validate an idea, yet sometimes it takes age to validate or invalidate it. If a system or statement has failed every time it has been tried, why should it work for us now? Disagree, if you will, but please try to defend your position with some regard for our nation's history.

1. The Demise and Rebirth of Freedom

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth . . With these solemn words, from humble and sincerely Christian hearts, an insignificant group of farmer-merchants began a process -- some have called it an experiment -- of selfgovernment based on their understanding of the principles of Holy Writ, which was to change the face and course of human history. The ancient doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings was being challenged by the newly discovered doctrine of the Divine Right of the individual to control his own life and destiny; and that the role of government was no more and no less than the citizen-bestowed obligation to maintain and defend that singular right. They contended that God had in fact spoken in the Bible, and had laid down principles and laws by which they were to govern their own lives; and that when those principles and laws came into conflict with the rules and mandates of men, their obligation was to obey God. Obedience to God and service to ones fellowmen was considered to be the highest virtue and good. Sometimes it seems that the world and all that is in it has conspired to bring to pass a series of occasions designed to wreak the destruction of all things good. A world at war with itself. Can it be that the founders of this blessed republic, having received from the Creator of all things both the inspiration and the understanding to establish this land, -- Is it reasonable that they intended, in declaring liberty and independence, to sever themselves from the anchoring restraints of God-given conscience, and good morals as well; to embark upon a voyage of carnality and vice? Was liberty of conscience meant to be liberty from conscience? Was independence from England to include independence from God? Let no one think it.

To those noble souls, liberty was not the right to do whatever their baser natures might have driven or enticed them to, but the ability and personal authority to do what was right; and that not in their own eyes, but in the eyes of Him who had led them here. Their belief in the reality of the absoluteness of right and wrong, and the controlling inner conviction of their responsibility to love and to do the right, and to abhor and to abstain from the wrong wrought in their society an order and tranquility that rendered human laws almost unnecessary. So deeply and strongly rooted was this moral sense that good government rose almost spontaneously from the consent of the governed. That which men who feared God knew by conviction needed not to be enforced by other men. It was enough to know that an answer would have to be made to their Creator. Moral sense, however, is not native to humanity, nor is goodness in the genes or chromosomes. It is an acquired characteristic, or taste, which must be inculcated in the young by those who have already acquired it. The teaching of it requires, first, agreement with the precepts and concepts, and then the discipline on the part of the teacher to be consistent for more than brief episodes; discipline both for himself and for his charges. The natural tendency of humans from conception is toward personal law, that is, to be a law unto themselves. One entire generation existing without this restraining moral discipline and teaching could disrupt the moral flow and chain. But of course there was no such one entire generation. This was not the work of a day or a year. It was the gradual, eroding decay of watchfulness and diligence, and the resulting gradual severance of God from government; not from civil government -- that came later -- but from selfgovernment. The laws which had been sufficient for our self-controlled Fathers were by their nature incapable of controlling natural rebels. Self-will naturally despises self-control, and resents any control imposed, or even attempted upon it. More laws seem to produce nothing but more lawbreakers, which weakens the will to enforce, or eventually even to pass moral laws. And the severance grows. In that severance there lay the seeds of disaster. The blessings of God, paradoxically, made God, in the thinking of too many, dispensable. As long as there was rain, there was no need to pray for or to be grateful for rain. The abundance of so many things was credited to human effort and ingenuity, and the humans gladly accepted that credit. They were not only intelligent, industrious, and wise; they were self-sufficient, and that became dangerous. Self-sufficiency acknowledges no need, and human pride can admit to nothing less than total self-sufficiency. No need for anyone else, except to feed their own insatiable demand for personal pleasure, status, possessions, and well-being. Any attempt to bridle this demand is met with fierce resistance. No need for anyone to tell them what is right or wrong. Their personal law becomes: If it is good for me it is right; if it is bad for me it is wrong. The inevitable result of this thinking showed up in Israels history when they had no king, and every man was left to do that which was right in his own eyes. The things described during that period of time were horrendous, but notice --THEY WERE RIGHT. The people had been told that their actions were wrong, but they were not convinced. They justified --made right -their actions according to need, circumstance, or simply desire. Such a large percentage of our citizens have adopted this mental process that it has gone beyond personal, and become societal. Only a few brave voices rise above the din to proclaim an ABSOLUTE TRUTH, or an unchanging standard of RIGHT and WRONG. But those rare citizens are drowned out by the irresistible and irrefutable logic of Who are you to judge us? Who, indeed?

Let us enter for few moments into the two major bastions of discipline for the majority of our youth: the school principles office and/or the juvenile court; the scenario is equally valid in both. A young person has been brought in for some breakage of the rules. He (for our purposes but just as well she) belligerently demands the reasons for this disruption of his life. A dialogue follows: Pr: You know the rules. Boy: What rules? Pr: The rules on this paper. Boy: We have our own rules. Pr: But our rules are better. Boy: Not where I live. Pr: You live in a jungle. Boy: Big dog eats little dog. Survival of the fittest; just like your world. Pr: We have a congress, and the opinions of the courts. Boy: We all have opinions. And your courts change the rules with every election. Pr: But ours are traditional from our forefathers. Boy: So are mine. My father and his father lived by the same rules I live by. Parenthetically, that boy might not even recognize his father if he saw him, but ask yourself, Would our forefathers recognize us? We condemn absentee fathers, while we ourselves are runaway children, awaiting checks from Daddy to sustain us in our rebellion, and to bail us out of its inevitable consequences.. But the debate goes on and on and on ad nauseum. Both are right in their own eyes. So who is to say which viewpoint is acceptable? Whose rules should rule? There is only One who has the qualifications to make and enforce laws for mankind, and that is the Creator of mankind; the laws of nature and of natures God. Our youth are taught from kindergarten on by state-approved instructors that they are nothing more or less than the accidental and mindless elevation of animals, and parents urge their children to learn their lessons well. Now when they act out their base instincts on the playground or the streets, we are to believe that they are simply reverting to type. That good behavior, (when not induced by mind-numbing chemicals in their brain), is only layer upon layer of civilized veneer, brought about largely by generations of religion. Ah yes, religion, that opiate of the people: not all of the people, of course; just the lower, more primitive and superstitious classes, under-educated and unsophisticated. But does not religion have a role in society? Of course it does. Religion takes up where mere mortal words must, for lack of authority, leave off. The strong will not listen to the weak, so, it is said, some enterprising individual invented an imaginary real superpower who told me to tell you what you must do or, not do, under penalty of retribution. Thus god was born, and in process of time, out from under the glory of his majestic robes there slithered The Clergy. Since god was not readily available to all, the pathway to him lay obviously through the clergy. To be fair, only in rare instances does The Clergy claim to be the way. But it does draw the map, and it does hold the key to the gate. And since, also, the way is as important as the destination, that way -- the Clergy -- demands more immediate kindly attention than does the goal -god. So we have a new tyranny: Religious tyranny! of a yoke of man-made laws upon the necks of the people which neither the makers thereof nor their fathers were able to bear. But please understand this. God, the real God, does not commit the eternal destiny of bliss or misery of sinful men into the hands of other sinful men. Men by nature are too capricious and vain, and ambitious of their own honor and power to be just. Rules and decisions and judgments must be made by Someone who is literally above the fray; Someone who will have no advantage or

disadvantage in the outcome, because He already has all power; Someone who cannot be bribed because the silver and gold of the world is already His; Someone who sees all men as equally created and equally loved. How do we put this SuperBeing in charge of this world? At this present time it is only by personal invitation: one open heart at a time. Each individual applying the battle cry of this Nations founders: No King but King Jesus. The surrender of Self to the lordship of Christ. Here we come face-to-face with our third tyranny: Self. That great hulking beast that lurks within the breast of every one of us; that thing which allows no unchallenged competition to its goals and desires; which recognizes no needs or wants but its own. Not just a simple third-grade me first attitude but an ultimate, if necessary, me only. A mindset condemned in Scripture. And yet, our school counselors and teachers are trained and required by the State to cultivate in our children a good self-image. Our prisons are already filled with people who believe they deserve the very best. Even our pastors, shamefully, who claim to represent God to us, contradict Him with a constant theme of self. Thou shall love the lord thy Self with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. Self love, self esteem, self actualization, self respect, self affirmation, self fulfillment, self acceptance. Happiness and money are the primary goals of which they speak. We do not need instruction in focus on self. We are born with it. In all of our seeking, what have we found? Soul-killing disappointment. We have gotten the opposite of what we sought: Self-loathing. Guilt, A death culture, Meaningless life, Hatred. Depression. And envy. A man always deserves a nicer, sweeter, prettier, younger(?) wife. Or a bigger, shinier, sportier, newer(?) car. And a woman deserves a more successful, considerate (translate: good to me) husband. Or a larger, more comfortable home. A higher standing in the social register. The list is almost infinite; which is fine, if it is earned, and not merely coveted. Where on that list is self-control or self- denial? Why not a brilliant, glaring contrast between selfishness and selflessness? Self sacrifice. Our young men and women in the Middle East are dying on an almost daily basis to gain nothing more than what they already had, and left behind, to preserve it for us Are they the super beings? No, but they are inspired by Him. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for His friends. But He who is their Example went even further, if possible. He laid down His life for His enemies! For ME! and for YOU! When we know, and apply, that truth, that truth will make us free. Three tyrannies. One rebirth able to assassinate all three. Full, thorough, deep-hearted repentance which requires a disdain for personal rights, and the acceptance of personal responsibility to God. If we as persons will accept that inspired concept of self-government embraced by our Fathers, we, like they, will be driven to reject, nay, to fight off all attempts of government, or church, or even our own passions, to control us. These are the travail agonies of the rebirth of freedom. With Thomas Jefferson, I, too, have sworn upon the altar of Almighty God eternal hostility toward every form of tyranny over the minds of men. Will you join us. This is how freedom must, of necessity, be painfully gloriously reborn, and, since self cannot give up self, once again our LORD will have to be the Father of it. It has become customary in political speeches, even by those who have no apparent connection to God, to close with God bless you, and God bless America. In closing here, I cannot in any expectant faith ask a holy God to bless this unholy nation, but I can, I must, ask a loving God: O LORD Jesus Christ, please, I beg you, be merciful to my beloved America. Amen.

2. Class Warfare

The recent discovery and implementation of the science of DNA (desoxyribonucleic acid) in the human molecular system has provided a great service edge in the field of criminology. The literal uniqueness (one of a kind) of each individual has been demonstrated. The chances of two people being found guilty of the same crime are less than one in a number larger than that of the entire population of the earth. That uniqueness, under purely rational investigation, is, in the science or mathematics of probability, impossible What would be the chance, the random chance, of there occurring six billion of anything with recognizably similar triplet structures, and yet with no duplication? And that six billion is only the current population of the earth. Given enough time, the evolutionist says, anything is possible. Perhaps, but we are not asking about ethereal possibility, but probability. Logically, it is probably impossible. It would take infinite designer powers of intellect to keep duplication out. And even then, the creator of such a thing most likely was designing something greater if DNA was just a building block. Finite logic inclines me to believe that intelligence of that magnitude and power would desire something with which it could communicate. Evidence of this idea is found in the amount of money we humans, with extremely limited intelligence, have expended, and what focus of the little power we have is given to search the universe for signs of life. We have sent signals into space hoping for a response: something that would indicate intelligent life. Whether we are alone or in company in the myriad universes is outside the scope of this present inquiry. The point is that we who are so similar, yet are infinitely diverse. I tell young people who are under tremendous peer pressure to conform to forget it. It took many generations of manipulating and juggling genes and chromosomes to come up with the exact combination of molecules that produced 'you' The same is true for all of us. There is nothing special about you. No. That is wrong. Everything is special about you. You are exactly what God intended you to be. We have set our own arbitrary and false values on the things we have. What are they? Eye color. Everyone has eye color. Hair color. Everyone has hair color. Skin color. Everyone has skin color; some shade of brown. Take a look at only a partial list, and continue the extrapolation: Height, weight, texture, intelligence, physical characteristics and size, etc. We all have all these things; some more, some less, some different. Now, since they all came to us by inheritance, what have we to be proud of, or ashamed of? The best, and most, we can do is slightly to modify them. But why? We can use what we have been given and develop it by use, or we can waste it by wishing it different. And that waste or use will make much more difference between us than the raw materials. God has told us that He made of one blood all nations of men (Acts 17:26) and one flesh of men. 1 Corinthians 15:39) One flesh; one blood. One race. Race or wealth are only incidental to class warfare. Egypt held Israel captive for over four hundred years. The Roman armies brought back slaves of various hues from almost every corner of the known world. Today in Sudan black non-Christians are selling black Christians to other black non-Christians. In Ireland Roman Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians are killing each other. It appears that all we need is an excuse to fight. But there is no excuse good enough to excuse this.

Classification based on any of the aforementioned gifts is not only false and arbitrary, but also downright harmful. To hold anyone at fault, or credit, or even responsible, for anything in which thy had neither part nor choice is unjust. It is wrong to say that a man who has not the God-given ability to earn a great fortune is inferior to another man who has that gift. It is just as wrong to part the first man from his fortune in order to equalize him to the second. But that, with a generous dose of pseudo-sympathy, is the basis of class warfare. That is not fair!, becomes the battle cry. And again the answer comes from Scripture, Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? (Romans 9:20) Forget Who said life is fair? What makes life fair is that we are all responsible to God only for the use we make of His gifts. What makes life seem unfair for some people is the mistaken concept that wealth is intrinsically good, and that things which wealth can accumulate lead inevitably to happiness. Are all wealthy people happy? Are all poor people unhappy? No, twice. Are any wealthy people unhappy, or poor people happy? Of course! So what determines the difference? Some theorists believe that a child is born as an empty slate, or vessel, or material mass; that what we become is determined by exterior forces; that our minds are developed along the lines of our level in the community, or our friends, neighbors, and schools, or by our national or cultural ancestry. Let us approach this argument from varied viewpoints of determinism: Economic, social, and hereditary. There may be others, but these will answer most of our questions. Children born of wealthy parents are more likely to succeed. . . in acquiring wealth. They are surrounded by it, both in things and people, and will learn methods and skills, and, most importantly, desire almost by osmosis. Will they be more successful in their marriages? They may have more educational opportunities. Will they be wiser in the use of them? Which, if any, of these possibilities is more conducive to happiness? Why would rich people ever commit suicide? Children born into inner city poverty may lack all of the above; money, education and example. Some have never been supported by legitimate work or means; never seen an honest rich man. Their schools fail them, not by failing grades, but by a failing system. The sink-hole seems almost bottomless, and struggle futile. Yet in that morass we find mothers and fathers who have beautiful, faithful marriages and families, and children who somehow rise above it all, and find within themselves all the reasons in the world to live and to thrive amidst the deafening chaos. Children are born in so-called Third-World countries where a person who owns a bicycle is considered both rich and lucky. People who by whatever means arrive in America, succeed in happiness and education and money where those of similar race or culture, who were born here, have chosen to fail. It would seem that if determinism of any sort were replaced by determination, much of our class structure would fade into oblivion. Contrary to the findings of Hitler's scientists, and all other atheistic evolutionists, the difference is not a matter of class, or race, or any other distinction. It is not a matter of rich-over-poor, color-over-color, elite-over-undistinguished. It is a matter of mindset. I have known people who lived in what to my teenage mind was unimaginable splendor. It seemed the children were normal, noisy, happy kids, except for their toys. . . until they grew up. Somehow those lives and relationships fell to indistinct shadows. The mother/wife complained that of the twelve Cadillacs in the long garage, none matched her gown for a planned evening; so, I was told, she got one that did. In a tiny, barren African village I watched a young teenaged boy chase field mice through the sparse grass clubbing them for that night's supper. He got one, picked it up and handed it to his little sister, and went for another. She took it by the tip of its tail between thumb and finger tip,

wrinkling her nose and squealing like any little white American girl would do. After the process was repeated, she took the mice to her mother who was holding a baby, and took the baby while the mother dressed the mice and placed them in a Chinese import enameled pan and put in on the stove, which consisted of triangle of stones on the ground, with a small fire under it. The house had neither floor nor windows, and the furniture was three rolled up grass sleeping mats. A larger mat constituted the living room. But they laughed and ate, and joked with each other just like rich folks. A mile and a half distant the governor's mansion could be seen. People, in reality, can be perhaps must be convinced that they are rich, or that they are poor; that they are one color, or another. They can also be convinced that it does not really matter. Those who do the convincing should be held to account for the results of their work. Children, I believe, come into this world completely blind, oblivious at least, to all of the distinctions we adults hold so dear. To make a career of defining those distinctions, and benefiting from the resulting warfare, should be considered by sane men to be the lowest of all occupations. The use of God's gifts for the destruction of His creatures is reprehensible. Tearing people down in the name of lifting them up, is worse than lying; it is close to cannibalism. In comparison, good old-fashioned American hypocrisy begins to looks almost virtuous. In the 1960's placards appeared preaching, Pornography is not obscene. WAR is obscene! There were no such sentiments expressed about Class Warfare. Truly, too many lives have been lost in military warfare. How many lives have been destroyed in class warfare? These good citizen-leaders incite first to failure by a series of fancied disadvantages, and then incite to violence and/or riot to right the supposed wrongs. In the end, who benefits, and who loses; who retreats into the shadows? Who comes out ahead, with the money, and the power? Is it the Leader or the followers? There is another aspect which deserves our attention. A war requires two combatants. Where are they to be found? Certainly not in the nursery. And, unless interfered with by adults, not on the playground. Historically in America this stupidity has been evidenced in newspaper ads which stated that No Irish need apply, No Chinee [sic] allowed, or most predominantly seen between black and white. But the two sides must be recruited. A friend told me of his friend who said where he was stationed in the Navy during World War II, the rant was (please excuse me) You ain't a man 'til you killed a nigger. I am a Scandinavian white man, and I cannot express to you how repulsive that sentiment is to me. Marian Anderson, marvelously voiced Metropolitan Opera star, was wrong when she sang You have to be taught to hate, before you are six or seven or eight. Two child psychologists at the University of Minnesota reported in their findings that, Any two-year-old would gladly kill any other two-year-old for possession of a red rubber ball, if only he knew how. But they stated clearly any other two-year-old. That is not race- or class- focused. And probably not learned behavior. All of the so-called personal sins, like lying, greed, envy, malice, jealousy, etc., the Bible states, are born into us. Thus, before he ever begins, the task of the purveyor of division among men is already half accomplished. This leaves to him only the focusing of those attitudes on his choice of victims. Whom to choose? And how to go about it? Since the purpose is put down one and raise the other, it might seem that opposite sides would be working against their counterparts, but that is not always true. Two aspects of this question come into view. In 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves. Those who had been for generations dependent on their white masters suddenly found

themselves alone, some without the knowledge to run a farm or a business. Some for good reasons, chose to remain on the plantation, not as slaves, but as employees. There came up a class of whites who preferred to keep the black man in his historical place, by making ordinary life so difficult, or complicated, that blacks could not make it alone, but had to depend on whites to survive, even though, technically, they were free. Nothing of reality had very much changed. Reprehensible as that is, still worse is the black man who spends his life telling other blacks that they are incapable of making a go of life without the aid of some form of government, federal or state. Children are taught this by parents or peers or Pastors, who, if they would read and preach the truths of the Scriptures, could raise them up to the level on which God has placed them. However harsh this may sound, such men need to be needed, and thus must perpetuate, even increase the neediness of the needy. On the other side, at least one white man was willing to kill a United States president to keep blacks in their place. This while thousands of other white men, side by side with black men, were dying to complete and establish black emancipation. Neither attitude has ever died, perhaps never will; but it is not a racial fault or inadequacy. It is a choice; and that is where recruitment becomes essential to either cause. Thomas Jefferson has received immensely deserved credit for his We hold these truths to be self-evident line, but it lacks authority, not because it is untrue, all men are created equal but because, to most men's minds, it comes out of a man-made document. It was Jefferson's opinion. If our school classroomwalls were decorated with In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and followed up with So God created man in his own image, it would change attitudes while change is still possible. So, how badly do we want to stop the struggle? I did not ask how to win the war. Neither side should win. Neither did I ask, which side is right? Both the sides and the war are all wrong. As long as we leave the situation in the hands of ego-centric, pride-filled, covetous, fallen men we are doomed to failure. We have neither the ability nor the authority to make others think right thoughts. Real change of mind comes only from genuine change of heart. For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. How difficult will this be? We can test it out quite simply and quickly. Are you willing to put God in his rightful place in your own life only you can before we try it as a society in everyone else's life? Seriously it will take a literal act of God to accomplish either, and that is why and how I write and speak. When we ourselves are no longer guilty, remove the beam in our own eye it becomes much easier to plead for the removal of motes of guilt elsewhere.

3. Hate Speech

There is a millenia-old adage which advises people to hate their enemies. It seems hardly necessary. It is part of human nature. Well, that is not exactly accurate. It may be very easy for us to hate, mainly, I suppose, because at some point our comfort zone has been invaded. We are welladjusted to our surroundings. We have been in them since birth. So we feel that those areas of life must be the right ones. A baby, passed from Mama's arms to he babysitter's, is immediately uncomfortable. It cries, and if no adjustment is made to the situation, it may develop a strong dislike for babysitters, or even for the Mama who failed in time of need. That, however, is too simple an example for our discussion. It can be extruded, can it not, by a repetition of the action over time. We have found children who after Mama's sixth or seventh attempt at marriage have a strong dislike and distrust of the term stepfather. This may grow into an irrational hatred for all those men who carry the title; hatred based only on their personal experience, not on any knowledge of the character of a particular individual. I think that fear can sometimes be irrational. I also think that fear is one of the main causes of hostility among humans. We adopt without any further investigation the opinions and reactions of others whom we have come to trust. Why do you hate strangers? Because someone said they are dangerous. Is that man dangerous? I don't know, but neither do I know that he is not. So, do I hate him? No, not really. True hatred, of course, needs to be focused to be effective, so we may find people who are constantly on the hunt for a viable victim, individual or class. Since there are no limits on differences in a melting-pot nation like America, there is no lack of races or classes from which to pick a victim. What don't you like? Skin color? Nationality? Culture? Status? Accent?21 Wealth? Poverty? Name it. They are all good. They are all also no good. In my Boy Scout days I asked the help of an old doctor, since I wanted to be one, to aid me in qualifying for the merit badges of Public Health and Personal Health. That time together grew into a friendship which lasted long past my school days. I was a preacher's kid; He was an atheist. I loved him, Dr. John Greenleaf Webb Havens and he loved me. He was an amateur astronomer with a good quality telescope looking out the front window of his top floor office on Main Street. I asked him, How can you look out at all that, and not see the hand of God? He replied, I don't have to look that far. Just look at an eye ball. He could not accept that a loving God would allow the kinds of suffering he had witnessed. Yet we accepted each other. At one time he told me, Paul, if you want to be good doctor, you will have to learn to hate disease, and finishing a large bandage he added, and injury. I thought about that for a long time. I had never been taught to hate anything, except sin. My inclination, once I got into it, was to begin also to hate whatever caused the disease or the injury. Strangely, I could not stop even there. What about the person who spread the disease or caused the injury? Disease and injury have been around a long time. Where do I start in my hatred? Or where end it? Then this preacher's kid thought about God. He hates injury and disease and sin in ways and depth I never could. And yet he loves the diseased, and injured, and sinful people who are taken with these things. That statement is so far out of reach of the ordinary citizen that it has become laughable. Think about Quasimodo. Was he the keeper of the bells at Notre Dame?No, He was The

Hunchback of Notre Dame., too ugly and ignorant to love. The only things crippled about FDR were his polio-stricken legs. We judge people by what they have or lack rather than by what they are. A medical doctor told my sister, age 21, that she had cancer and was going to die. Another doctor told my brother, age 54, that he had cancer and was going to die. Still another doctor told my wife, age 78, that she had cancer and was going to die. What is there about this group of people that drives them to such hateful actions and speeches? Are there minds poisoned in medical school? A person who does not believe in cancer or sickness would say, Yes. My friend, Dr. Havens, always treated the person to help in his treatment of the disease. He told them the truth in love. Dr. Lohmen worked diligently for nine months to save my sister. The same must be said for the others. Their honesty and candor was saying, I love you, and I don't want you to die. Inoperable cancer. Was that hate speech or love speech? Jesus Christ said , He that believeth not shall be damned, and then went to the cross to die for those very unbelievers to make sure their damnation did not have to happen. There are people who are being accused of Hate Speech who have by-passed fame, fortune, popularity, etc. while enduring ridicule because they believe what Jesus said. He was simply sounding an alarm. He knew what God had reserved in store for unrepentant sinners, so He warned them. People who warn others today are termed Hate Mongers. What group of any other religious belief, or other philosophical persuasion, would be ostracized for quoting the founder or leader of their group? The One who preached love, and taught His followers to practice love, even toward enemies, is the object of virulent, and soon violent, hatred. But Pilate's question is still hangs unanswered: Why? What evil hath He done? Andy Taylor of Mayberry was trying to teach his son, Opie, about obeying the law. If the sign says 'No Swimming you don't go swimming. But what if someone broke that law and went in and was drowning, do you obey that law and let him drown, or do you break the law and save him? Canadian law prohibits mention of certain activities from the pulpits. It will soon be so here. Doctors are forbidden to mention a certain disease because the victims, who are also spreaders of that disease, are protected by law. But who protects the partners of those victims who are about to become victims themselves? Shall the doctor sentence the wife to death because of a law? No: He should be punished for criminal neglect if he does not tell her. You can't yell 'Fire' in a crowded theater. That is understandable. But what do you do if there really is a fire? When seconds count? When death is imminent? Does it matter if the death is not immediate by trampling, but comes later from infected burns or from smoke inhalation? I would have lost my job as a lifeguard and been shamed out of town if I had not told people they were drowning. Were they insulted? Yes. Angry? Yes. Embarrassed? Yes, but they lived! Liberals in America have become so dedicated and cold hearted that they will sacrifice any number of unborn babies, or unwed mothers, or aids-carrying men and women on their altar of sexual freedom. A sign suggesting alternative lifestyles, like adoption or celibacy or monogamy, or heterosexual marriage is deemed unloving, hateful, and wrong. Which is the real life-style and which is the alternative? Shall a pastor silently watch a parishioner perish in sin because of a law? He will give account to God if he does not warn him. So many instances occur in which it would make no sense to apply the reasoning put out by the Liberal Left as they seek to protect so many of the breakers of Divine law. They owe it to Americans to explain whom it is they are trying to protect from what. And why?, and with what final result? They also need to reread the First Amendment of the Constitution. The Left is establishing in America a godless religion. Yes, the Supreme Court has considered the arguments and

established that atheism is a godless religion. That religion has not, however, been subjected to the rules and restrictions imposed upon the others, especially upon Christianity. Not only is Atheism taught in the classroom K 12, but it is taught exclusively, without fear of any real contradiction. The fear is on the other side: teachers may be relieved of their teaching duties and responsibilities for even believing in intelligent design in nature. They can forget about mentioning God. They may not so much as hint at His existence. A great American philanthropist, highly regarded and blessed throughout the world, sending relief and sharing love with people of all nations and faiths has, today, been disinvited from the Pentagon prayer breakfast because he believes that Jesus died for all men, including Moslems. How is that hate speech? Why is it not just as inflammatory to stand in whatever rostrum exists the mosque and declare, Allah has no Son!? They are both understandably quoting their Holy Books! Allow me to introduce at this point a few items that failed to make the news. Jesus was portrayed as a philandering womanizer in one movie; as a homosexual in another (He condemned both); His messengers as lunatics and crooks. These are all very offensive to Christians, but here is no outcry from the Left. In fact, these things win awards as great artistic ideas and presentations. Christ can be immersed in urine and the Virgin Mary smeared with human feces, and not a whimper of religious bigotry ever emerges The authors of the First Amendment protected free speech while seriously disagreeing with each other. I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend with my life your right to say it. Where has that sentiment gone? Are we so unsure of the truth or rightness or accuracy of our beliefs and opinions that we dare not let an opposite view be heard? The Bible is the only authority no longer allowed to be quoted in our courts today. The only Book no longer allowed in the public school classroom. Yet it has been allowed back into the state and federal prisons at the request of the prison officials. There is some good advice here: Never tell an expert how to run his business. Paradoxically, the haters of hate speech are the most virulent and violent people who gather in the streets to advocate for their positions and rights, and yet those rights are still intact; and will be as long as reasonable, peace-loving citizens prevail. When we are no longer allowed to voice differing ideas, we will be guided by an all wise government into a polytheism so extreme as to be almost atheism; a condition where no religious speech is allowed to differ from the guidelines. In other words, no religious speech. However, this may be exactly the result so ardently desired by those who are trying to protect everyone's freedom of speech. Or freedom from contradiction. Perhaps they understand some thing we have too long overlooked. The ruling principle in any successful endeavor is total commitment. The Bible principle concerning saving faith in the Old Testament for Judaism is nearly the same as that for saving faith in the New Testament for Christians. The Old is, Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart: The New is Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all thine heart. Of course, He and His disciples were killed for saying it. And whose side are we on? Halfhearted love is no real love at all. Halfhearted belief is likewise no real belief at all. So the job of the godless becomes to get everyone to believe in nothing with their whole heart. In the Bible it is a zero-sum game. Any love for any other God than the LORD necessarily deducts from the love due to Him, and is condemned and punished. Any amount of faith in anything or anyone other than Jesus must, in the mind of the individual, diminish the sufficiency of the death of Christ for salvation, and, is, therefore, enough to disqualify that person for salvation. Thus, in both cases, teaching someone to respect other gods or their religions is morally wrong. In Saudi Arabia it is illegal for a non-Muslim to set foot on Arab soil. In some places infidels may be killed on sight. Is that the example we want to follow?

If all religions are equal, it does not really matter whether they are all equally right or equally wrong, just so they are not truly believed. He who fears God fears no man, and that foils the aims and plans of the Progressives. In the days running up to the Protestant Reformation the men who were determined to translate the Scripture into the languages of the people German, English, Italian, French, etc. were hunted, tortured, killed, and their writings burned because the authorities knew that It is impossible to enslave a Bible-reading populace. Is that why the progressives are so determined? I understand why they hate God (even though there is no god to hate) First, Evolution has taught them that we humans are the top of the line, and they are humiliated to find anyone who holds Someone higher than themselves. Second, They would almost automatically become answerable to that Being, and that is both unthinkable and intolerable. So, under the guise of protecting everyone from religious harassment, they are harassing the religious, and with a vitreol which might be considered hateful. In Seminary debates we were taught that 'as the argument grows weaker the voice grows stronger.' Our God-consciousness is the one thing that distinguishes us from the animal realm. When will we all learn that an essentially religious human being cannot be forcibly divested of its religious character and remain human? That religious conviction can be neither wrought nor expunged by the sword? While entering the German extermination camps under signs reading Arbeit macht Frei, Labor makes free the condemned Jews chanted under their breath Die Gedanken sind frei the thoughts are free. Laws against speech will not change the minds; will not change hate to love. Nor intolerance to tolerance. If we punish thought, some will stop thinking. But those who refuse will one day reemerge, and make things right again.

4 Privilege and Advantage

Literature has given us a shining example of the nobility of the quest for equality among men. There have always been rich men; and there have always been poor men. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a method effective in keeping people from becoming either rich or poor. A fool is a fool. The same lottery that makes one person richer makes many others poorer. Experience has shown that many of the winners have soon reduced themselves again to poverty. Reckless spending reduces wealth while saving and investing reduces poverty. So, wisdom is wisdom, too. King Solomon, the man who was world renowned as both the wisest and the richest in history, said sadly, that everything he had he would leave to the man who would follow him, and who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? As it turned out, he was his son, and a fool. (Ecclesiastes 2:19) That, however, is not the literature suggested in the opening word. It was a fictional character given the name of Robert of Loxley, known to almost every child as that hero of the poor, and bane of the rich, Robin Hood. He made robbery a virtue. About the same time, another fictional character, Jean Valjean became the heart-wrenching victim of injustice at the hands of the law for a minor offense, if an offense at all. But Robin Hood stole from the rich, and gave to the poor. The motive becomes the act, and who can find fault with helping the poor? Are not all of the rich evil and unfeeling? And the poor virtuous and kind? The rich obviously do not deserve their riches, just as the poor do not deserve their poverty. What to do, what to do. A great deal of ink has been spread over the misty and mystical pronouncements of the horrors of Privileged and Underprivileged or Advantaged and Disadvantaged classes of citizens of America. Someone is trying to make it almost criminal claiming that it should be a cause and even source of shame to the country that these things exist. However, it is more often than not applied to the haves and the have-nots as though the two sets of terms are synonymous. Is this true? Are the haves privileged, and the have-nots underprivileged? In every discussion or debate, the first item in time and importance is to define the terms used in the proposition. Strangely the dictionary definition of Privilege is Advantage, and the definition of Advantage is, thats right, Privilege. I understand these terms to be synonymous only because they are equal in result, but not in means. To me, advantage is a better position one gains for himself, hopefully by legitimate means; whereas a privilege is granted him above that granted to others by someone in a position to aid him, whether deserved or not. This breaks the subject down into finer pieces. It may seem to be an artificial distinction; the two terms may be absolutely or nearly synonymous. But that does not help to answer the dilemma of Who decides the matter? Who receives which advantages and/or privileges? And why? Generally speaking, we claim advantage when one has a better starting position than another. A driver finished first in the preliminary race, and so was given the pole position in the final event. In a fair race any of all the drivers have an equal chance, as far as dissimilarities in cars and mechanics will allow, but only one could win. Contrast this with a case where the race supervisor has a 54-year-old veteran in the race, whom he wants very much to win just for old times sake. He gives the ol boy the pole position

for the final. This is unfair to all the other drivers, but after all, it is a privilege granted by someone in authority This privilege idea involves intention and favoritism. No one would contend that privilege or advantage always goes to the right people. To accuse blind chance of this sort of thing is ludicrous. To accuse God is worse. And yet politicians who cannot see beyond the next election have assumed the role of deity, and are Hellbent on solving the problem. In order to level the playing field they have to turn the world upside down. The two things (advantage and disadvantage, not God and government) seem very easily confused in the American mind. I say easily confused because sometimes both seem to be involved in the same case. If a very bright young person wishes to attend an elite university and is granted a scholarship he is considered lucky, one of the elite, and may land a better position upon graduation than one from a state school. Being highly intelligent is undoubtedly an advantage, and the university attendance a privilege, which gives another huge advantage in the otherwise competitive order of the world. However, the students intelligence is not something he worked for and gained on his own. It was given to him by whomever is charge of such things, and is therefore a privilege. So, I believe we must investigate our judgments on an almost individual basis. Is there such a thing as a privileged class? Of course not. There are too many privileges. In every field talented people rise to the top. Those talents are most often inherited from similarly talented parents Did those talented offspring choose, or create, those parents? Obviously not. The same logic may be applied to wealth as to music or athletics or anything else we prize highly. Usually the term is applied to the wealthy as a group, without regard for the source or even the amount of the wealth. They are rich, and that is all that counts. They have far more than the average people; far more than they need, certainly. Is that morally wrong? Are they to be punished, or fined, or robbed, or taxed (all of which, in this context, may be synonymous) because they have more? A seeming advantage may have its own built-in disadvantage. A tall basketball player has hands that are closer to the basket which should make the shot easier, but if he misses the shot a shorter, quicker player has the advantage of getting to the rebound sooner and thus also to the other end of the court for his own lay up shot. A man complained to another who was wearing 700 dollar shoes that it was wrong for him to do so. Do you work for a living? the shoe man asked. Sure, I put in my forty hours, was the terse reply. I put in over a hundred. was all the explanation the shoe man had to give. What was the incentive that drove one man to do something the other did not do? Was he just made that way? How do we account for differences in individuals that lead to such broad differences in outcomes in life? The man who inherits a fortune is lumped together with the selfmade millionaire. They both are suddenly advantaged and privileged. At the other end of the social scale are those who are physically or otherwise incapable of holding a position whereby great wealth may be acquired. They will never be able to rise above the bottom financial rung of society. And what of those who refuse to work, or who are satisfied with much less than average. Perhaps freedom and leisure are more important than status or possessions. Or service: A worker at a womens shelter is not considered disadvantaged, because she chose her field knowing her future. But she is below the poverty level. These low income people are smeared with the same prejudicial brush of underprivileged as the hard drinker who blows his entire paycheck on lottery tickets while his wife and children go to bed hungry. This inequality is observable in federal aid to students. On one hand a students loan is rejected because his parents have too much money in the bank. The neighbor kid in the same block

is eligible for the loan because his parents have no money in the bank. The first family worked hard and saved their money so their child go to a good school. The second family worked hard so Mom could have nice car and clothes and Dad could have a boat. So which one has needs and which does not? If the intangibles, the non-observable differences were factored in, a lot of our sympathetic responses might be overcome by reason, and a more real fairness emerge. But we have seen how incredibly complex the idea can become. And we have scarcely begun. The amount of money that will make monthly payments on a nice house in some areas of the country would be laughed at if offered as rent on a run-down apartment in another section. If we consider insurance rates on cars and homes in various places and for various uses, we build a very thick book. How many children? What are their needs? Are they supporting grandparents? The list is inexhaustible, and the problem insoluble. If all the money in the world were converted into US dollars and redistributed equally to each of the six billion or so inhabitants of this globe, what good would it do the people to have it. How would the world be improved by the new condition of the poor or the rich? And how long would it take for it all to gravitate back to where it is now? The means of high production have always been much more expensive than the average person can afford. They have found ways to pool resources for the mutual benefit of all. At times, they specialized into groups, such as food growers, and spinners, and tailors, and cobblers, and carpenters, and metal smiths so that no one person would have to buy all of the implements to create a good life; but could, by barter and trade, own more expertly-created goods at less expense than one might accomplish all himself. But all were not equally endowed with ideas, and skills, and, yes, motivation to compete for the highest quality, and receive the highest price and profit. In more modern times as manufacturing advanced, thousands of people pooled their money and each bought a part of the enterprise, a share in the company for gain or loss. Now that the ownership was no longer in one person, more people made money, and the leadership, deserving more made more. Still the share holders would choose their own leaders, so it seemed good all around. Not equal, but good. There is a gnawing in the back of the mind that keeps itself alive in this whole discussion. What is the cause of all these differences in people that determines who gets what out of life? Can we credit or blame a mindless, impersonal force that is totally and uncaringly disconnected from everything going on in the world? Who is responsible for these differences, and why do they exist? To whom do we apply for our grievances? Or to whom do we turn in gratitude for our benefits? We come to the point of our discourse. Who is it that hath made thee to differ? (1 Corinthians 4:7) Blind chance drives us to fatalism, which cannot be fought. Or to frustration over the seeming unfairness of it all. Or to unfocussed rebellion against the world in general or our choice of supposed oppressors. In any case we feel we cannot win. There is a senselessness to the whole of life. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. How hollow, how empty, how meaningless is life under such a philosophy. Four of the Seven Cardinal Sins are present here, along with the Golden Rule and the second greatest commandment There is no way for America to solve or cure the envy/jealousy syndrome by government action. The actors are too involved in a power struggle among themselves. If they could agree on a Fairness Bill, they are not honest enough or wise enough to administer it fairly. There is cure, hope, love, reality in the simple statements that have rung through the ages, and come at last to us: In the beginning God. . .made man in His own image. . .and so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.

Suddenly we know who we are, why we are here, and Whom to thank that we are not all the same. Envy and gratitude cannot dwell in the same mind. He made us, each as we are, so that we could participate in His unfailing plan for His world. Idealistic as it seems, it does remove the fears, hatreds, jealousies, roadblocks in relationships, etc. It can give us faith for a joyful outlook on this life and a joyous anticipation of the future eternal life.

5. Power To the People

It is the ultimate goal of mankind in general, and of men in particular, to regulate for themselves a life suited to their own individual aims, goals, aspirations, and such like things as are in keeping with their native likes and dislikes, ancestral customs, mores, etc. Quite frequently, however, their desires run contrary to the ideas of other men, and conflict erupts over the supremacy of the respective ideas. It is also in the nature of a man to espouse the superiority of his own ideas over those of another man; any other man; perhaps all other men. If that superiority is considered strongly enough by the author, to be of an actual, not simply imagined, higher quality, then it becomes incumbent upon that person to raise the level of response to his ideas on the part of the rest of humanity to the point of at least professed agreement. This is not easy. Every other man is prone toward a like opinion of his own thoughts. In this natural state, it is difficult for any man to step back and consider the possibility that the other man's goal of happiness or satisfaction may be better for that man than what the interloper might be able to develop for him. Pride creates out of a simple and necessary disagreement a personal attack and confrontation which, for honor, must result in the destruction of one or other of the involved parties, and with that person, the death of his ideas. The personal authority to determine one's own future, and the ways and means to advance toward that future is at stake here: power over his own life. Such a simple concept. But there always appears to be a "greater good:" the false idea that all men were intended by disinterested nature to be, not merely equal, but identical. The doctrine that no man has the right to more of anything than any other man has in the name of "fairness," is madness. Our children were taught in progressive education to develop "color-blindness," in a futile attempt to eradicate racism. Racism, which simply recognizes the God-created differences between them, is faulty only insofar as it degrades or robs another person of his freedom. Skin color is a small part of the progressive program. I strives to "get beyond" all distinctions: hair and eye color; intelligence; the desire to win, to exceed, to pass. To get ahead was good, as long as it meant to get ahead of oneself, of where we are, not ahead of someone else. There was to be no grading in class, no keeping score in the athletic arena. Nothing that might cause one to feel bad or inferior. "Disinterested nature," of course, is a myth, a chaotic, out-of-control monster that, having no personhood, can have no master. The authority over life is up for grabs, and the stronger always prevail over the weaker. The cry of the mobs of the 1960's and 70's was the only possible outcome of over a century of mindless teaching to mindless students of mindless evolution in a vacuum of anything else. But what they accepted was hollow and shallow. No one was allowed to ask the question: "WHAT POWER TO WHICH PEOPLE?" Earthly power has always been in the hands of people. It must be supposed that a certain group of "people" was in the collective mind of that present, chanting crowd, but how many of those individuals knew the leaders' goals, backgrounds, qualifications, or even names? "Government of the people by the people" sounded good when uttered by Abraham Lincoln at the grave sites. In less than fifty years, however, it had been corrupted to "government of the people by the Elite." So much money was required to run for public office that one had to wonder how it could be profitable to be, or to put someone else, in the position. Someone is getting

something for their money, and in that something must be included POWER. Wealth is power only because power can be bought. If it were not for sale, politics as it is now would cease to exist. Many of our Founding Fathers were men of wealth who lacked the incentives that drive our leaders. General Washington refused the position and title of "king." He preferred the quiet of farm life and family. His truly Christian character shone brightly in that act. He and the others no more wanted to rule than to be ruled, an attitude unknown to today's leaders. The motto "No king but King Jesus" did not die in the time of victory and peace. They were satisfied with their wealth, whether great or little, and understood that "contentment was great gain." They had no need for power over anyone but themselves They knew that men who would not be controlled from the inside would have to be controlled from the outside. The principle of personal humility, so well characterized by our first president, was taken from the Bible: "For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not [freely] receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" Those who believed in the Creator knew that the creation was composed of myriads of variations in every aspect of non-living, and living things, but especially in humanity. The "God who gave us life" gave us the physical and mental attributes necessary to a well-structured society, with each individual contributing to the whole. Every "vocation," [ >Lat, voco, to call] or calling was a gift from God, and none to be looked up to, nor down upon. Every man is created equal in the sight and purpose of God. Some of our political leaders are elected from among the common folk. It may be more correct to say "out from among" the common folks. Once they cross the Beltway and enter the real world of decision-making "for the people," they change. They seem to become one of those repugnant elitists which they so disdained back home, and are no longer "of the people." The idea of term limits merits more consideration and conversation than it receives. In the beginning congressmen and senators met for a few days and then went back to their occupations as citizens. They had no concept of career politics. This was good for good reasons. The people lived lives of freedom. Congress was not involved in the day-to-day workings of families, and schools, and businesses, and a dozen other areas of private life. There was not enough work for a politician to keep him busy all year. International affairs were at that time separate national affairs. Those men shunned treaties which bound us as a Christian nation in ways by which other non- Christians were not hampered. Our word was our bond to live up to those agreements, even when they turned out to be disadvantageous. There is grave temptation to forsake integrity when partnering with amoral people. The States each had their own constitutions and legislatures which handled their respective affairs. Counties, when they existed, and cities, and villages took care of their own business politics, crime, charity, improvements in means and ways of their own choosing. This, in its pure form, was the thing of which the President spoke at Gettysburg. This is that form of government which must "not perish from the earth." What, then, was the purpose or use of a professional federal legislature?. Basically, to raise an army to defend the United States, to coin and regulate money (which under the gold standard required little regulation), and to declare war. The highest requirement of qualification for that job would be a self-sacrificial love of country with the accompanying love of national and individual freedom. Such men need not to be recruited or enticed by fame or fortune. They would serve for the privilege, not the privileges, of serving; for the honor, not the honors, of the office. They would have to be drafted out of their private sphere into the public arena as men free from obligation to any but their near neighbors, and their country as a whole.. Plain people, serving not ruling other plain people; not seeking power, but almost trying to avoid it.

The cry of "power to the people" is made by those who are of the opposite ilk and ideology. The authority they seek is the power to throw down existing forms of government and to install the dictatorship of the proletariat (common people). But whether the victorious result be to the selfexalting, self-worshiping leader of the shouting mob, or to the anarchistic mob as a whole, the dismal end is the same: dictatorship. It is unreasonable to think that the crowd that would wrest control of power from one group would generously distribute that control any other person or group. If they have acted collectively to achieve power, they will act collectively to maintain, and probably to collectivize the entire social structure. The difference between the atheistic, Voltaire-inspired French Revolution and the Bible-inspired American War of Independence can be most clearly seen in the fate of the respective governments. The French ended in about ten years of almost constant beheadings of not only the king, and his family, but also of the real or suspected noble class. In America, the only deaths were of those soldiers "who fired first." Even of those British soldiers who survived the conflict, many were given back their weapons and horses upon the verbal promise that they would not use them against Americans again. In the history of mankind, this is an astonishing event. America has never kept a single person or a square foot of ground as the "spoils of war." Does this not speak volumes? Our Constitution gives us, as the common people of America, the means of setting up our own form of government and choosing our leaders, and, in the same document, the peaceful means of deposing them, or rather, of replacing them. Our ex-presidents and -legislators walk our streets, speak in our assemblies, receive pensions and respect because of, or in spite their beliefs or successes while in office. No blood. No terror. No vengeance. The world marvels every four years at the voluntary surrender of the "right to rule." There is only one power that is capable of producing this kind of peaceful transfer, and sad to say, that Power is the real source of displeasure for the benighted masses: "We will not have this Man to rule over us." And they are benighted by several generations of near-frantic desire to erase the name of the great Benefactor of our beloved nation, and to put Him to an open scorn. In the words of Pilate, His first judge, "Why? What evil hath He done?" We should "Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation." It is in our National Anthem, the second verse which is seldom by design? sung. Power to the people, is in reality also a gift from God. God gives us what we want (which may not be good for us) or what we deserve (which taken rightly will turn out to our benefit) "There is no power but of God. . . he [the ruler] is the minister [servant] of God," to be honored and respected as such. Also "He removeth kings and setteth up kings." Let us leave the final power where it is with God, and not take it into our own hands. If our leaders are to be removed, let it be done by God, and in accordance with our constitution, not trying to be little "gods," shouting to ourselves, "Power to the people." Even in America not all power resides in the people.

6. Exporting Democracy

Why do we desire, and how do we expect to export something we do not have and do not want? In our Pledge of Allegiance we say that our allegiance is to the Republic which is represented by Old Glory, our flag. We were given a republic, not a democracy. The Founders knew the difference. Those whom we have elected as representatives make the rules, not the majority. In fact, in a republic, no body rules; the majority has the simple duty to protect the rights of the minority. Our Founding Fathers had lived in peace and prosperity for a little over two hundred and fifty years before their King, Charles II, awakened to how much wealth he could extort from those Colonists. After untold and unimagined breaches of royal trust those colonists decided they had had enough taxes already: three pence on a pound of tea was the last straw. Imagine an Englishman without his tea! But if they were to revolt against the Crown, who would keep the peace? Who would hold down the marauding mobs? All the world's forms of government were well within view before them, and well understood. They could imitate and implement whichever they should choose. But likewise all the choices in the world were against them. Wherever they looked despotic rulers crushed the very life out of their citizens. But that was merely looking around. They had another alternative: They looked up. As individuals they were well conversant with what they believed to be the very Word of God: the Holy Bible. It had been the standard of personal conduct since Plymouth Rock was a wilderness, and it had worked fine. So what did It say about societal conduct? There was much said about kings, and governors, and about the respect due to them and their laws. But there was a great deal more about God, and and respect for His laws. Kings being human, they saw, are corrupt by nature, and great power made them only so much more corrupt. The antidote was found in Isaiah 33:22. For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us. It appeared to them that there were three distinct areas of government, which was good so long as God was the governor. But at that time in world history, most kings, even Charles, claimed to be religious; in fact, Defender of the Faith. But religiosity is not deity, nor was the faith which he defended Scriptural. His divine right of kingship meant to him that he could hold all three offices, and be Lawgiver, Judge, and Executioner. He was wrong, and he failed. Those offices are distinct, and the distinguishing characteristics are the very things that make them work so well together. A king can make a law. He can also make a mistake in the law, (a bad law). That law can be ignored or, more likely, reinterpreted by the judge. And a faulty judgment can be nullified by the king.. But who can nullify the king? A system of equality was needed and sought by our Fathers: more than the simple all men are created equal because, although they are equal in the eyes of their Creator they do not stay equal among men. Their Creator, in His wisdom dealt differently with each of them, without respect of persons. He made them different in mental, physical, even dispositional gifts. Men do not react identically to God's kind and wise bestowments. It is we humans who have deemed leadership as a superior trait. Obviously, someone must lead. But some capable people do not want the responsibility residing in a high position. And just as obviously, some must be followers. So,which is more important: the idea, or the fulfillment? What would Henry Ford have accomplished without workers?

The heads of the respective offices are not allowed to be petty dictators even in the their own sphere. The king should have only one vote in the council. The leader of the legislature should have only one vote on laws. The chief justice should have but one vote in the decision. In the multitude of counselors there is wisdom. (Proverbs 11:14) However, in human nature (and for the smooth operation of society) we find that someone will have the last word. To keep that last word out of the mouth of the most strident, or the most forceful of arms or of personality, each group elects its own leadership. This is, at the same time, the beauty and horror of Democracy. To say only that the majority rules makes the majority the ruler, which is precisely what the Founders sought to avoid. It was not that they desired no rules, or even no rulers. They wanted the rule to be as close to personal as would be consistent with a well-regulated, yet free and peaceful, society. Close to the individual, but not interfering with an independent, self-sustaining and self-responsible citizen of a united people. This, I believe, is where we find the greatest impediment to exporting democracy. I want to ask a few questions and then try to answer them. My questions are aimed at the common, the average, person, and not at the sometimes foreign-educated, well-to-do upper level who want their country free from the current despotism so they can install their own. Do the oppressed people we want to help know what is involved in true freedom? Do they want actual, real self-determination? Are they capable of maintaining what we export? The Ante-bellum Negroes in America (those who were slaves) took much of their comfort and culture from their scant knowledge of the Biblical account of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt: Let my people go. Go where? The Hebrews had never made a collective decision in their entire existence. The patriarch Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy food, not to learn civil activity and government. Then followed four hundred plus years of slavery. Spewed out into the wilderness, they were lost if left to themselves. Were it not for the personal intervention of Almighty God, they would have perished in a few days. Moses, who was chosen by God (and not by election), was in constant contact with God, or he would have given up the struggle and died with them. They did not have to set up a government complete with laws and culture: God did even that for them. And food: the manna. And protection: the fiery pillar. Who was going to do all of that for the freed slaves in rural America? They were not allowed reading, writing or any other education which might equip them for independence. They, like the Hebrews to whom they compared themselves, were not stupid, but they were, largely, ignorant. There was not one among them who had made an independent, individual decision by which he could govern his actions in his entire life. Under supervision they knew how to plant and reap, but what would they plant? And with what would they reap? Their timing had always been planned, and their equipment all provided. If the crop failed someone else was responsible, and bore the loss. If all this sounds like the gossip of an ignorant, prejudiced white European, I will plead guilty to the first and last. But whatever prejudice I have has almost always been for the underdog. I was in fourth grade when I saw my first non-Caucasian. He was 24 years old, from China, and joined our class to learn English. I admired him very much, and we all called him Mr. Wong. My first Black man, Mr. Cox, appeared sometime around my twelfth year. He was the baritone in The Mississippi Gospel Four, a male quartet that sang occasionally in my father's church for several years running. I tagged along closely after him until I was told by my father to give the poor man a break. Back to the export business. We have picked the unlikeliest places on earth as our targets, and at tremendous cost. In some we have been successful: notably Japan and Germany. In others

we have failed. In still others, our presence and failures have made things worse for the people: North Korea, Viet Nam. What made the difference? I have opinions, but I do not know that answer. Some peoples live in centuries-old conditions that appear appalling to us modern Americans, but they have never known anything else. A sort of acceptance and accommodation keeps their lives on an even keel. So, to them, what they know is at least as good as what they don't know. We, in our country, at least until recently, would never have stood for it. We have very different history. Remember, our continent was discovered by Christopher Columbus, a man whose stated purpose was the the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the inhabitants of the new continents. The pilgrims at Plymouth rock had the same inspired intention. To all who are conversant with the real history of America it is plain that they all had the same Lord Jesus Christ, though differing in their approach to Him. They could come together as believers, not having vowed to destroy the infidels on the other side. (We have given up that likeness, and now are in danger of losing our unity, and thus our entire way of life.) When we look to spread our way of life to others, we had better go there first with the Bible in our hands and Jesus on our lips. Our constitution was made for a religious and moral people and is totally unsuitable for any other kind. This sentiment from Samuel Adams was based upon the sincerely-held belief of George Washington that It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. (1752) In that context can there be any logical argument as to which God he meant? Perhaps our misplaced hope that democracy, which can quickly turn to anarchy and then, by necessity, to tyranny I say, dare we hope that democracy, coupled with some watered-down version of free-enterprise capitalism can be planted and flourish in soil barren of, and even poisonous to, these moral requisites? Perhaps this is merely an optimistic, rose-hued dream of those who see only goodness and purity of motive in human nature. That thinking goes against all history, experience, sense, and logic. The world is not that way. There is only one creed that teaches men to love their enemies, to do good those who hate them, to give to everyone that asks of them. These are the teachings of Jesus Christ, and only He can instill them into the proud, greedy, self-serving hearts and minds into the very nature of a human being. We do not imbibe this human rottenness with our mother's milk. Nor do we absorb it by osmosis from our surroundings. It is a part of us from conception, and must be trained and strained out of us. Thus it is with every child born to human parents. But by what means is this extraction to be accomplished? Every force from ancient Nebuchadnezzar through the Mongols and Moors, through the Crusades, and into the fascist, Nazi, and communist Twentieth Century had as their battle cry: Death to the infidels. Agree or die! There is much more than political difference between America and the rest of the world. We must consider what makes a Third-world country what it is? Dare we consider that the culture is the result of the religion? And, even in America, would we be so bold as to say so? Our recent presidents have stated their belief that the desire for freedom is universal in the human heart. Will those in other cultures die to promote and protect that same and equal freedom in every other person's heart and life? In truth, our own leaders have narrowed our liberty into liberties, and our freedom into freedoms. They know it is easier and less painful to remove one tooth at a time. This thing which we, by God's grace, have inherited is a special and extremely fragile organism, a glorious flowering plant that does not do well in all weathers or climes, and when pruned too closely will die. It thrived fairly well here for a hundred years or so, but the last century

has been a slowly smoldering catastrophe. By a continual redefinition of the terms of first, the Bible, and then, the Constitution, and a belittling and ignoring of both, they have isolated and attacked the basic precepts that compose our national soul. God has been humanized; man has been deified; the Bible mythologized, and the Constitution gutted by interpretation. The horrifying effect is that the crown jewel of the political treasury, that worshipfullyenvied star on the world stage, has been transformed into a tawdry third world country. We have more natural riches, and at the same time, more debt than ninety percent of the third-world's nations combined. But the world itself doesn't get it. They think it is the system we have, or the natural or human resources we possess, that have made us great. We have bragged on the point But as individuals we are not more intelligent, or industrious, or talented than they. We are simply people, governed by other people, working for the good of all people, with a firm reliance on God, and a reverent trust in His Son Jesus Christ. This, as admitted almost unanimously by our Fathers, is the foundation, the blue print to the success which we, until recently, enjoyed. If the envious people viewing us would look around them, and consider the state of affairs in those countries where a single religion or a single man or political party, is in control: in other words, where man's rules, and/or man's interpretation of their god's rules, control the lives of the people, they would see nothing to envy. WE ARE FREE BECAUSE GOD MADE US FREE. When we voluntarily revert to slavery to a system, no matter high-sounding or well-intentioned, we will lose our high position in the world, and become just one more nation like all the rest. Until now, that has never been the desire or goal of the American citizens' spirit. Under God we are different, and that difference has made us better and greater than any other nation in the world's history. Out from under God we become very un-special: we become like them. After World War II, General Douglas MacArthur requested America to send ten thousand Christian missionaries to Japan, because their god, Emperor Hiro Hito, had stepped down. Several of my friends, who had fought the Japanese, answered, and went to help Japan recover. Japan wanted to industrialize and build cars, etc., so we sent them steel, and technology. Look at Japan today. Are they a Christian nation? No, thankfully, and neither are they a feudal serfdom. Jesus said something that has been quoted myriads of times. It was, for a hundred and fifty years, true about America. Ye are the light of the world; a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. America certainly has not been hidden. Our light has broken the darkness of much of the world. This light of ours is going out, but not because of a fuel shortage. We need to drag the candle out from under the bushel, or in present vernacular, out of the closet, and put the light back on the lamp stand that it may give light to all that are in the house! Shall we attempt to plant an apple orchard in the Sahara, or a cactus in the Everglades? Can we not remember the soil and climate which brought forth our nation, and into which our Constitution was planted? This is the first and only nation ever founded by Bible-believing Christians on Biblical principles. It has become the pride and envy of the world. I believe that democracy would not have worked here at our founding. Quite possibly the raw majority would not have approved the Declaration of Independence, to say nothing of the Constitution. Would it not be wiser, in planting such a delicate crop, to attempt to cultivate and prepare the soil before laying in the seed? Do we still possess the know-how and perseverance for the task? As progressivism has advanced its agenda, America has cut loose its sacred moorings, and gone adrift into a sea of moral relativism and to nearly-official atheism. The result has been astonishing in its decline and rapidity. Look at how many Americans are willing to give up their freedom, albeit piecemeal, for financial or physical security? How many have traded God for

Government or, in mind, replaced God with government? Obviously, the average citizens have more faith in government than in God. So, how has it worked out? Are we going in the right direction? Are we better off? Or safer? Can a godless democracy defend itself? Perhaps, instead of extinguishing the flame of freedom at home, and exporting dying ideologies, we ought to reinstate the Author and Giver of freedom in our own place first, and then export Him to the WHOLE WORLD.

7. Homeland Security

The basic instinct for survival is common to all life. It can be witnessed in the fear exhibited toward us humans in almost every approach we make to lower forms that are not fairly well acquainted with us. We are created with more than intuitive intelligence, so we take all the more necessary precautions to avoid danger. We teach our children not to talk to strangers. We fence our yards. We lock our doors at night. We install alarm and safety monitoring systems in our homes, stores, and schools. We employ firemen, policemen, guards,and whatever else we believe will increase our sense of security. What we do for our own families and possessions, we want, as good neighbors to do, or at least help to do, for others. We have neighborhood watches to aid those who sometimes cannot be at home. It is good to have people whom we trust looking out for us, whether we pay them or not. Why do we do all this? It can become very expensive. It hardly seems worthwhile. Add to this our insurance policies, both house and homeowners, and life insurance to protect against future catastrophe. It is because bad things happen. Because there are bad people out there on the other side of the fence. People who do not like us; who are envious of our lifestyle or possessions; who disagree with the way we run our lives. People who do not like our skin color, or religion, or something. My father once told me, If there are twenty-one people in the church who don't like you, they may all disagree with, even dislike each other, but with all that, you still have twenty-one people who don't like you. Dr. Fred Schwartz illustrated the difference between Communist USSR and Communist China: If you are watching a crocodile and a leopard fight, remember they are fighting to see who gets to eat you. We seem to be a small encampment of civilized city-dwellers in a jungle. We have everything we need for survival and company: entertainment, sociability and comfort, and a cozy fire to keep us all warm. We have heard about the dangers of the forest, but we have done no harm to anything. And besides, aren't all those bad things supposed to be afraid of fire? What is the difference between our illustration and our reality? There is really not very much difference. Only twice in over 220 years has an enemy attacked us. We are still comfortable in our homes and habits. We have minded our own business. We have helped our neighbors. We have done good to what seems the whole world. Who wouldn't love someone like that? But perhaps, in some perverse way, all of those well-intentioned activities are the source of a great part of the animosity which we see directed toward the United States. There never has been a nation that has become so involved in foreign aid. We spent billions of dollars to aid the Japanese people in rebuilding their infrastructure, their commerce, even their governmental structure. Where was the victory parade down the main thoroughfare of Tokyo, or the rape of the whatever was left of the valuables of the country or its culture. No question that there was considerable hostility, even hatred toward the leadership of our enemies. And, shamefully, some of that attitude slopped over inside our own borders toward our fellow-citizens of Japanese descent. I say shamefully because Jesus instructed His followers to love their enemies. As a nation we did, because this is a Christian country. However, not every citizen is a Christian in the Scriptural sense.

Other billions of dollars were allotted to the similar rebuilding of Germany. What did it cost the individual taxpayer in America for the Marshall Plan air lift to keep the citizens of East Berlin from starvation a the hands of the Russian communists? Sure, some of us complained a little, but the complaining was more contrary to our nature than the giving. The Judeo-Christian foundation held us up in the face of a storm of horrific, mindless antagonism against us, and the retaliatory vengeance felt across our country. We overcame it all, but by only the grace of God shed abroad in our hearts. We are Christian in mind and attitude, even if not actual worship and personal experience. Today, however, things are different. We are different; the world is different. Our fathers not all, but almost all spoke of Jesus Christ in normal everyday conversation because He was a part of their everyday life. He was included in their letters of communication between spouses and friends. The Bible was the key textbook in the church and in the schools. They knew Him. He was central in the churches, especially in the pulpits, and it flowed down the aisles and into the pews. Christianity was not a Sunday religion of form ritual; it was a daily relationship between individual men and their one true God. We have changed. We have allowed our Lord and His Word to be removed from the public arena as a dam, and the flood of vice and corruption has engulfed us. The world in which we are required to live now sees us as a relic, an obsolete holdover from a bygone era: almost like Greece or Rome; admired but no longer relevant. Respect has turned to envy, then to hatred. We are rich; they are poor. No thought is given to why we are rich, or why they are poor. Both we and they being practical atheists, we all see only results and the unfairness of indifferent fate. We were literally one nation under God. No longer under God we are barely hanging on to One Nation. Our elected officials by and large, are acknowledged, and expected, by their voters to be liars. The nation is composed of scores of hyphenated groups all selfishly demanding their rights at the expense of others. They take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Ironically, and hypocritically, our enemies are both foreign and domestic. One man shouted in frustration, Am I supposed to shoot he Supreme Court? No, of course not. We are told to pray for them. But those who vow under oath to protect and defend our way of life should be impeached or recalled when they fail to do so. How secure can our homeland be when the thieves and criminals inside are secure in their positions of power? We began by describing the measures we take to protect our own private homes. We have standards by which we decide who will enter, and under whose approval. Those who own it certainly have access. And their children. And on occasion family friends. And that is pretty much the list. A well-identified salesman, or utility worker, maybe. But anyone else had better beware. We have the right to protect our persons and goods by any and all means necessary. It is our home. Are we not allowed, without feelings of guilt, to protect our Home Land? We are angrily accused by those who have mentally and emotionally left this Home that we are isolationist, uncooperative, out of touch nationalists, rather than world citizens. Do these people really believe what they say they believe? Are they at all consistent? Do they put ads in the newspaper or on television inviting everyone who has the desire to enter their homes whenever they wish? Do they have locks on their doors? Are there alarms systems in place. Do they perhaps even live in gated communities? Do they lock anything? Their cars, garages, even their toilets, or bedrooms. Will they give up heir privacy? Are they as eager give aid to their own neighbors when those neighbors are attacked, or those whom they know have needs? How often do they dip into their own pockets to pay medical bills for their own troubled townsfolk? Would they rob their own children's piggy banks to buy

lollipops for the entire neighborhood? Have they torn down their own fences, or given large portions of their landscaped yards to beautify the unkempt community? We must stop apologizing for being Americans. We are a great people who have built a great country. We have done it because we have been allowed by a God-inspired Constitution to exercise our God-given liberty and personal authority to become great. And we may justly demand the right to stay great and to become even greater. Our enemies, both foreign and domestic, do not see it this way, and they have the right to disagree. But that does not mean that we must invite them into every area of family life to partake of things they have not earned and do not deserve. Nor the right to choose the leader of a clan of which they are not a part, and which they do not support. One last thing. Jurisdiction, according to the dictionary, is a system of laws. Our enemies long ago redefined it to be a territorial entity. Our children did not become members of our families because they were born in our houses. There are requirements. And our Constitution has requirements for citizenship. Born under the jurisdiction of the United States does not mean born in the territorial United States It means under the system of laws of the United States. People who entered this country illegally, are by definition not under the laws of the country. Therefore whatever they do inside this country is all illegal. Working, driving, playing, schooling, marrying begetting and bearing children is illegal. All of it. A child born here illegally is not a citizen of The United States, and neither the child nor its parents are entitled the rights, privileges, and/or benefits of this country. One more last thing. Having discussed America and the deep contrasts between her and her contemporaries, it becomes incumbent to assess the true possibilities of self-defense and homeland security. In a country such as ours, rooted as it is in personal liberty and unheard of person freedom, it becomes imperative to ask, How do we restrict the activities of our enemies, both foreign and domestic, from the inside without restricting everyone's activities? If the protection is truly from the inside, the first thought must be to determine who is inside, why are they inside, and how did they get inside? In our homes we have a system: call the police. But a cowardly policeman is not conducive to a feeling of security. We investigate rapidly in our minds, when we see someone in our house whether that person is a family member or not, friend or stranger, welcome or undesirable. We do not call each other names when we try to determine these things. We join together and protect one another from outsiders. Is that morally wrong? Not for a real, loving family. Not to do it is morally wrong! Lawbreakers cannot be considered our friends If they do not respect our laws they do not respect us. It is a criminal offense to harbor a criminal. So why do we do it and allow it on such a grand scale? Have we become nation of criminals? YES. Well. Let's do something about it. Demand that our lawmakers close the gates, and then close the loopholes. We should defend our borders with the same diligence with which we defend our strategic defense areas. We should make violators at least as uncomfortable here as they were in their homeland. Asylum is loving. Open borders is insanity. Once we have removed the confessed illegals, we can begin working on those who have sneaked in under false colors. First, thoroughly screen all those who apply for a visa. But that would take so long. How long did it take to clean up Ground Zero? How much money and manpower? It is well worth the time and effort to avoid one attack. We have the ability and personnel and money to do this. We have no timetable or quotas to meet. America is a desirable enough place to wait their turn to get in. But it will not remain so if we continue to disrespect ourselves and disregard our own laws.

America is also a great enough place that people who are here should want to become an integral part of it. Let them retain as much of their heritage as is consistent with the laws of their new habitation A culture is deeply derived from and unified by its language. The confusion of tongues was God's way of breaking up the human race. We should learn from that. It has been the bane of many like peoples. A culture cannot be really understood without understanding of the language. A competent working knowledge of American English should be required for citizenship, and business, and commerce. Renowned archaeologist and anthropologist, Sir William Petrie said, We have never found a people group, no matter how primitive, that did not have a faith in a god. It is native to mankind. In fact, another said, It seems to have to be educated out of us. But it cannot be forced either into or out of us. Traditional Americans have no desire to control or define anyone else's belief system. To refer to and live by the proposition of so-called separation of church and state requires someone to give a definition of both church and state. Church might be identified as a religious group organized for the purpose of worship of a deity. State is much the same except for purpose. Any group combined and organized together by a common desire for, and laws tending toward, mutual safety and mutual benefit. Those definitions may be satisfactory to no one, but close enough for our discussion. Separation of these two entities cuts two ways. The Church has no controls over the State, and the State has no controls over the Church. It does not mean that neither can influence the other, only that it cannot enforce that influence. What, you ask, has all this to do with homeland security? And I answer. Security is the right to feel safe and undisturbed in one's person and property. Many things can impair the feeling of security. Just the suspicion of impending harm, or the lack of faith in those who are charged with that protection, police or government, can shatter security. If we have not confidence that our leaders are willing die or to abdicate their role in defense of our home, our land, we will not feel safe, and perhaps will not be safe. Our leaders appear to be willing to send our sons and daughters (God forgive us) to die in our stead, but they have not the courage to rise up in the safety of a mightily secured government building and stick up for us. How can the American people feel secure when they are not quite sure who is the enemy? Or how they can tell the difference? They turn their red, white, and blue coats inside out to become either red or blue,and then abandon their posts. Leaders, choose your side and stand boldly for it. But for God's sake, and ours, make it His,the right, side.

8. FREEDOMS AND LIBERTIES

Does it seem to you that almost every bill that reaches the floor of the House of Representatives, when examined closely, is seen to be a restriction of someones liberty, or someone elses freedom? Liberty is nothing more or less than the freedom to do what we ought to do, and freedom is the God-given right to do it without restrictions. I hope you noticed that those two words are in the singular. Our forefathers did not talk much about liberties or freedoms. In fact, the idea of saying, Give me liberties or give me death, would go contrary to the entire sentiment, and would appear to invite a reply of, Which ones would you like? If ever the monolith of liberty is allowed to be broken down, if the concept of liberty can be granulated, each segment being more and more precisely defined, the destruction will progress until it is complete. The ultimate goal will not be reached until we each have little more than a handful of crushed, perhaps even powdered rock; each handful being tailored by the whimsical temperament of the dictator. With the aid of his/her henchmen bureaucrats, the number of grains of dust in each palm can be blown away by the breath of government to leave only enough to meet the least need they can detect as allowable in the individual citizen. Who is going to take notice of so small and insignificant a loss ? As long as they can salve us over with some strictly limited permission -- Oh, yes, you can do that! -- we think we are free. And we are -- as free as the dog in the kennel. No chains. Regular feeding times. Daily exercise regimen. A friendly word now and then. What more could a pet want? A dog is a dog, which can be domesticated. But a wolf is a wolf, which thrives when free, and slowly dies in captivity. And neither has the mentality to do that which God gave us to do: to control our own lives without doing damage to someone elses. Of course there are exceptions to that rule. Not all humans have been given equal abilities for self-sustenance, but they are abnormalities, and God has made provision for them by the installation of the attributes of compassion and mercy in the hearts of other individuals to cause them to care for the weak. My first recollection of this separation of freedoms from the bedrock, main idea of freedom was President Franklin Roosevelts Four Freedoms speech, and his well-calculated reassurances that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. Most of us were so afraid we might lose the Big War that we forgot to watch his other hand. We indeed had something to fear, but we blissfully and ignorantly took no notice. While the people were busily and eagerly, and proudly, watching the progress of our governments constitutional duty and responsibility to protect the country, and absorbed in his comforting Saturday morning fireside chats the President was dismantling our entire constitutional government system. The war simply expedited the plan he had begun as a war on the Great Depression. Republican government folly had gotten us into the mess, he told us, so Democratic government would get us out of it. And, of course, the Federal Government had to grow to meet the needs of the new society. But I digress. The next dissection was performed by the so-called American Civil Liberties Union. Individuals who had a problem in common with other individuals formed a large enough group to warrant legal action in their behalf to solve that problem, designated as a liberty. That may be too gracious an account of the their origins. But with a name and goal like that who could doubt that they had only the purest motives in protecting the poor and down-trodden among us?

They donned the garb of compassion and mercy referred to above, and did enough good for enough people to allay any fears of what might be the real goal they had set. Vladimir Lenin had a playbook which, condensed down, told his followers around the world: 1. Find out what the people want; promise it to them; 2. Go to work to get it for them; they will promote you to leadership; 3. Get into positions of power over them; they will appreciate you so much; 4. You can take it away from them. While it may hurt to think about it, we can see the effectiveness of the plan in the New Deal, the Council on Foreign Relations, the ACLU, the unions, as well as hundreds of private foundations ( after the death of the founders), religious schools (e.g. Princeton, Harvard), social clubs, humanitarian enterprises (United Way, etc.), and almost everything supported by government, including the United Nations. The old illustration of boiling frogs by slowly raising the water temperature very well fits the situation in which we find ourselves. Incrementalism is the system, and time is the most valuable commodity. In the name of progress, and under the guise of caring, our freedoms and liberties have been removed from us one by one over time, so gradually that we think we still have some. Pay attention! Some is all we have left; and those few are dwindling fast. Let us look at how laws grow and multiply. In my state there is (1) a financial responsibility law that requires automobile drivers to have sufficient funds to cover any damage they might cause to other people or property. Most people do not have money of their own available to do that, so the state legislature passed (2) a law requiring drivers to carry at least liability insuring the other party. To assure compliance, a driver (3) is required to carry proof of insurance in his car at all times, so that in case of an accident, or if stopped for a suspected traffic violation, (4) he can, as required, show that card to the officer at the scene. Four laws contrived to make it so that a person can be charged with four crimes in connection with compliance with one law. The officer can also check to see if the seat belt is in correct position, and if acceptable footwear is worn. The stated reason for the initial requirement of financial responsibility is that the Legislature decided that if a person is hurt in an automobile accident by an uninsured, or underinsured driver, the State must pay for the healing and rehabilitation of the injured person. With what? Tax money, of course. This must be what our President meant by compulsory compassion. The frog has almost stopped kicking. A people that went to war over a three-pence nuisance tax on a pound of tea has now snuggled quite comfortably down in a fuzzy security blanket that is costing them over half of their earnings. To make matters worse, those citizens who wish to stop the steam roller at their front door must financially: support the public government school, and at the same time pay for their childrens homeeducational curriculum and supplies out of their own pockets; support those organizations which seek to hinder, or stop, or at least slow down the marauding liberal hordes as they gallop toward total power in the national and state capitols:

 support churches and other character-building institutions, clubs and groups who do what the original congress set up the public school to do: to support the families in reinforcing religious and moral ideals in the children. I dont know how anyone could calculate the price of a quiet and peaceable life. (St Pauls job description for government authorities) And that is only the price in money. But let us not too easily shrug off the price of money. For most of us, money is the medium of exchange for desired goods. However, we had to exchange something for that money: Time, skill, and effort. Time is the stuff of which life is composed. When we exchange time we exchange life. Money is replaceable; time is not. There is a time to be born, and a time to die, says the wise man in Scripture, and the years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds can be numbered. We could, if desirable, calculate the percentage of our life we spend for any given purpose. Then, perhaps, we would better evaluate the true worth of that object or endeavor. Skill is usually required to perform any contributive task. We are not born with skill, only with the innate, and very basic instincts necessary to survival, e.g. swallowing, vocalizing, etc. Everything else must be learned. So then if we add the time occupied in the education and experience required to equip us for the task, plus, again, the time required to earn the money to pay for the education, we find that most of our lifetime is spent in simply making a living. The effort expended on the job also has a price tag. The food we use as fuel to get our bodies to and from the job, and then expended on the work must be added to the list of costs, plus transportation to and from the workplace. That is the dollar the government takes. It excises a certain amount of a life and applies it to something not approved or even desired by the owner of that life. In what essential, material way does this differ from slavery? Lets see. Is it possible to vote yourself into slavery? Can slavery be voluntary? To avoid, if not already too late, the tedium of minute itemization, let us say that what we have chosen to exchange our piece of government largesse has made a significant dent in our ability to live the life we have earned for ourselves, and which we thereby richly deserve to live. Every tax dollar which is confiscated from the earner and redistributed to the non-earner, who did not invest the time, skill, and effort into his own life, has taken just that much of the life of the deserving earner and given it to some under-achieving person, so that he can live a life which he does not deserve to live. In every transaction of this kind the liberty of that earner has been curtailed. He could have been doing, accomplishing, building something else, of his own choosing, to meet his own needs, upgrade his own lifestyle, enhance his own freedom. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. His own life. His own liberty. His own happiness. In and on his own property. These rights are not only self-evident; they are indivisible, and inviolable, as a group and as individual ideals. Neither greed, nor envy, nor good intentions, nor superiority of station or wisdom, is reason enough to parse the language and split political hairs to deprive an American citizen of any part of his life, or his liberty, or his freedom. Whatever their stated purpose, whatever their good intentions, however beautifully they my craft their language, may God give us eyes that see through the fog and the smoke, and the faade, and penetrate into the hearts of our elected, and non-elected, leaders, that we might see them for what they are: our oppressors.

8 FREEDOMS AND LIBERTIES

Does it seem to you that almost every bill that comes to the floor of the House of Representatives, when examined closely, is seen to be a restriction of someones liberty, or someone elses freedom? Liberty is nothing more or less than the freedom to do what we ought to do, and freedom is the God-given right to do it without restrictions. I hope you noticed that those two words are in the singular. Our forefathers did not talk much about liberties or freedoms. In fact, the idea of saying Give me liberties or give me death, would go contrary to the entire sentiment, and would appear to invite a reply of, Which ones would you like? As soon as the monolith of liberty is broken down, the destruction is not complete until we each have little more than a handful of crushed rock; each handful being tailored by the temperament of the dictator, or his/her henchmen bureaucrats, to the least need they can detect as allowable in the individual citizen. As long as they can salve us over with some strictly limited permission -- Oh, yes, you can do that! - we think we are free. And we are -- as free as the dog in the kennel. No chains. Regular feeding times. Daily exercise regimen. A friendly word now and then. What more could a well-kept pet want? A dog is a dog, which over ime has been domesticated. But a wolf is a wolf, which thrives when free, and slowly dies in captivity. And neither has the mentality to do that which God gave us to do: to control our own lives without doing damage to someone elses. My first recollection of this separation of freedoms from the main idea of freedom was President Franklin Roosevelts Four Freedoms speech. and his well-calculated reassurances that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. Most of us were so afraid we might lose the Big War that we forgot to watch his other hand. While the people were busily and eagerly, and proudly watching the progress of our governments constitutional duty and responsibility to protect the country, the President was dismantling our entire constitutional government system. The war simply expedited the plan he had begun as a war on the Great Depression. Republican government folly had gotten us into the mess, so, he told us, Democratic government would get us out of it. And, of course, the Federal Government had to grow to meet the needs of the new society. But I digress. The next dissection was performed by the so-called American Civil Liberties Union. With a name like that who could doubt that they had only the purest motives in protecting the poor and down-trodden among us? They did enough good for enough people to allay any fears of what might be the real goal ahead. Vladimir Lenin had a playbook which, condensed down, told his followers around the world: 1. Find out what the people want; promise it to them; 2. Go to work to get it for them; they will promote you to leadership; 3. Get into positions of power over them; they will appreciate you so much; 4.You can take it away from them. While it may hurt to think about it, we can see the effectiveness of the plan in the New Deal, the Council on Foreign Relations, the ACLU, the unions, as well as hundreds of private foundations ( after the death of the founders), religious schools (e.g. Princeton, Harvard), social clubs, humanitarian enterprises (United Way, etc.), and almost everything supported by government.

The old illustration of boiling frogs by slowly raising the water temperature very well fits the situation in which we find ourselves. Incrementalism is the system, and time is the most valuable commodity. In the name of progress, our freedoms and liberties have been removed from us one by one over time, so gradually that we think we still have some. Pay attention! Some is all we have left; and those few are dwindling fast. The frog has almost stopped kicking. A people that went to war over a nuisance tax on tea has now snuggled quite comfortably down in a fuzzy security blanket that is costing them over half of their earnings, being taken by government of some sort. To make matters worse, those citizens who wish to stop the steam roller at their front door must financially: support the public government school, and at the same time pay for their children_s educational curriculum and supplies out of their own pockets; support those organizations which seek to hinder, or stop, or at least slow down the marauding hordes of lawmakers and/or lobbyists in the national and state capitols: support churches and other character-building institutions, clubs and groups who do what the original congress set up the public school to do: to support the families in reinforcing religious and moral ideals in the children. I dont know how anyone could calculate the price of a quiet and peaceable life. (St Pauls job description for government authorities) And that is only the price in money. But let us not too easily shrug off the price of money. For most of us, money is the medium of exchange for desired goods. However, we had to exchange something for that money: Time, skill, and effort. Time is the stuff of which life is composed. When we exchange time we exchange life. Money is replaceable; time is not. There is a time to be born, and a time to die, says the wise man in Scripture, and the years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds can be numbered. We could, if desirable, calculate the percentage of our life we spend for any given purpose. Then, perhaps, we would better evaluate the true worth of that object or endeavor. Skill is usually required to perform any contributive task. We are not born with skill, only with the innate, and very basic instincts necessary to survival, e.g. swallowing, vocalizing, etc. Everything else must be learned. So then if we add the time occupied in the education and experience required to equip us for the task, plus, again, the time required to earn the money to pay for the education, we find that most of our lifetime is spent in simply making a living. The effort expended on the job also has a price tag. The food we use as fuel to get to and from the job, and then expended on the work must be added to the list of costs. That is the dollar the government takes. It excises a certain amount of a life and applies it to something not approved or even desired by the owner of that life. In what essential, material way does this differ from slavery? Lets see. Is it possible to vote yourself into slavery? Can slavery be voluntary? To avoid, if not already too late, the tedium of minute itemization, let us say that what we have chosen in the name of government largesse has made a significant dent in our ability to live the life we have earned for ourselves, and which we thereby richly deserve to live. Every tax dollar which is confiscated from the earner and redistributed to the non-earner, who did not invest the time, skill, and effort into his own life, has taken just that much of the life of the deserving earner and given it to some under-achieving person, so that he can live a life which he does not deserve to live. In every transaction of this kind the liberty of that earner has been curtailed. He could have been doing, accomplishing, building something else, of his own choosing, to meet his own needs,

upgrade his own lifestyle, enhance his own freedom. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. His own life. His own liberty. His own happiness. In and on his own property. These rights are not only self-evident; they are indivisible, and inviolable, as a group and as individual ideals. Neither greed, nor envy, nor good intentions, nor superiority of station or wisdom, is reason enough to parse the language and split political hairs to deprive an American citizen of any part of his life, or his liberty, or his freedom. May God give us eyes that see through the fog and the smoke, and the faade, and penetrate into the hearts of our elected, and non-elected, leaders. that we might see them for what they are at their core: our oppressors. While this may sound harsh, especially in contrast with the stated aims of our current leaders, we must train ourselves and our children to look past the stated purposes and examine the actual results of the actions. With all the federal and state money spent on education --buildings, equipment, salaries, etc. -- why have SAT scores continually plummeted? We have several times reworked the scoring system, even the tests themselves, to guarantee higher scores for the students. Higher scores with less knowledge? We are sliding from the top to the bottom on the world scale of genuine literacy. The ability to reason through a problem or to develop an idea has been lost. The freedom to disagree with the professor or teacher has been curtailed. Thought has thus been limited to the government-approved line. Law school students confess difficulty in understanding what the New England farmers discussed over coffee of the Federalist Papers. The application of condoms has replaced application of the mind. How sad. Religion (the religion of Jesus Christ) was one of The Four Rs in colonial America. Self control was deemed more contributive to well being than self esteem. The ability and desire to do right was taught as the bedrock platform for successful living. Wealth and power were mere byproducts of goodness, believed to be the blessings of God upon righteous people. Even righteousness itself was esteemed as a requirement for public office. Inwardly righteous people needed few laws and very little governmental direction or aid. God was referred to as Providence: the provider or withholder of all things. When good was withheld they looked at themselves as the problem, and, therefore, as the solution. How different this is from blaming luck, or fate, or government. All of those are completely out of the control of the individual, who may be excused for feeling helpless and depressed. America was not founded or built by helpless and depressed people. The more areas of our lives that are subjugated to government control and regulation, the less freedom we have to fail or to succeed. And successful people agree that they have learned more from their failures than from their successes. Would a child ever learn to walk if Mommie never let go of his hand? Who has ever learned to ride a bicycle without daddy taking his hands off the seat? Children fall constantly, for a while, and bicycles crash inevitably. There is that danger, no doubt, but that is part of the process toward independence and maturity. Reasonable beings would rather fall than crawl. They would rather go faster than slower. The freedom to fall is integrally connected to the freedom to walk, as is speed connected to crash. The freedom to fail, as a concept, is anathema to a progressive Nanny-stater. People must be kept in an eternal state of protection from the hard realities of life. Pain must be eradicated; life and health must be more than insured; they must be guaranteed, embarrassment avoided; shame dissolved by awarding honors to all participants on all levels. No one is allowed to be left behind; the speedy must be hobbled Equal opportunity must yield equal result. In such a state no one can be allowed to excel, or exhibit superior mentality or aptitude or skill. Identity goes from individuality to sameness.

This, of course. leads to the bone-chilling, soul-killing death of achievement. When everyone deserves everything, in reality no one deserves anything, or gains anything, or owns anything. We become a nation of robotic paupers. We see the numb, expressionless faces in the photographs of the gulags, the labor camps, the bread lines, the welfare and unemployment offices - everywhere people who have been deliberately stripped of their God-granted right to be different wait to be cared for by an impersonal and uncaring government. Freedom as an unitemized idea is essential to a good and long life of accomplishment in areas for which God has individually created us: equal but not identical. Give me liberty, [total, not fragmented and piecemeal] or give me death. makes a lot of sense from a man who believed that life without liberty was a living death.

9. Church and State

If ever there has been a case of piracy of language it has occurred in the kidnapping of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The men who authored and examined, critiqued, argued, debated, voted on, and passed this amendment were intelligent, educated, and literate men They knew what they wanted to say. And they said it clearly, plainly, and without political wiggle- room. Congress shall make no law . . . The Constitution is explicit in its instructions as to how laws shall come into existence. It is to start as a Bill in the house of Representatives, the Peoples House, be debated and voted on there, and if passed, sent to the Senate for further discussion, another vote, and if passed, returned to the House for compromise of the House and Senate versions. More discussion and debate, another vote and if passed, sent to the President for his approval and signature. Not until now is it a law. The Congress is the Legislative Branch. The other two branches, The Executive and the Judicial, do not make laws. Every junior high school student should know this. Judges and courts do not make laws. Presidents do not make laws. The House of Representatives is known as the people's house because the office holders are elected most directly by the people in their district. There may be millions of citizen in their state, but only about one-hundred-and-sixty-thousand in. their district. They can be more well known and closely watched than the Senate. The federal judges are not elected at all. They are political appointees and not answerable to the people. At first look this sounds good. The people should get the laws they want, but there are weaknesses in the system because men are corrupt at heart. Two things happen to thwart the will of the people: The President has power of Executive Orders. He has authority to set policy without going through the congress. On the other side, the courts have the authority to declare a law unconstitutional, thus nullifying the action of the congress. This was not a problem for our Founding Fathers. They were answerabl to higher power than even the people. They knew they would have to answer to God for their actions for or against the people. As long as the people elected moral and just officials, there was no danger. But after a century or more of atheistic Progressivism in our schools, our government, even our churches we find that we have drifted far off from the course the Fathers set for the country. We expect our elected leaders to lie to get votes, to cheat to get advantages for their constituents, to forsake their consciences to make deals for self-exaltation and ambition. Knowing this, we still vote them into office. Why? Who else is there? Genuine Christians have been convinced that politics is a dirty business and they should not participate. They have abdicated, failed by default, left the whole job to the godless No, they are not all godless. But the good ones are so outnumbered as to be practically useless. This is tragic. This leaves the stage open for enemies of righteousness. The law makers and opinion molders now in charge are making the rules (not laws) for debate, for conversation, even for thought. We know it as politically correct. It is historically incorrect. Thomas Jefferson was mainly the author of the Declaration of Independence. He was a brilliant thinker and widely sought for advice and clarification on many of the subjects discussed by

the colonists of his era. One such occasion was brought about by the fears of a certain group of pastors. It is of importance that they were Baptist pastors. The colonies were dominated by Scottish Presbyterians and Anglicans. These denominations were formal and hierarchical. The Presbyterians could not baptize a baby or a convert or ordain a new pastor without the presence of a bishop schooled and ordained in Scotland. American church people were considered as not equal in mind and culture to the Mother Church. The Anglicans had much the same arrangement. The British Anglicans were considered to be far superior in every way to the colonial pastors. Having been on the wrong side of the state church for many generations, both here and at home, the Baptists, being not even Protestants but despised Non-conformists, not allowed to preach or even to worship in a state church, they justly feared the majority influence on the new constitution. They appealed to Jefferson for advocacy on their behalf. Jefferson's words of assurance settled like a mist in drought time over the Baptists: there was to be a wall of separation between church and state. So what was Mr. Jefferson's concept of his term Church There was The Anglican Church, the official church of England, and there was The Presbyterian Church, the national church of Scotland, each having its own hierarchical form of church government. The great fear was that if the Continental Congress brought federalism to the colonies, it wold be natural in that time that the religion would also be unified into a federally established church. That fear may be justified today. Take, for instance, the many United Churches of Christ, or United Protestant Churches established in some government settlements for government employees during World War II. Or this:. At one time in the Twentieth Century a plan was proposed to the federal government by the leadership of the National Council of Churches (a socially and theologically liberal organization) that the country be divided into sections, similar to the counties, in which the majority religion of the section would receive a government-built church edifice. Those who wished to worship would have only that edifice in which to do it. Who would pick the pastors for these congregations? Logically, the National Council leadership. There was, and is, no The Baptist Church. Baptists, by definition, were already autonomous (self-ruling). It was one of the ten Historic Scriptural Principles, which were fought over in the Reformation to become Church Principles. After being looked at by many Protestants, some of the ten were abandoned. Only the Baptists kept all ten. It was, they said, what distinguished them from the rest. Others had heads, superintendents, bishops, popes. But they held to the autonomy of the local congregation. The local pastor, chosen by vote of the local congregation was answerable only to the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ. This bit of history sheds light on the sentiment expressed by Mr. Jefferson in his letter. It is not in the Constitution. The misuse of Thomas Jefferson's statement is far beyond accidental, or even logical. It has been completely recast by the atheists and Progressives. Church has been retranslated to be religion, and even that reinterpreted to God. And State has been morphed into Government, and thence into Public. So now it reads, a wall of separation between God and public. But even the misuse is inconsistent. If the intent of the irreligious was to separate state from church, thy have failed miserably. But does anyone believe that was their aim? The Federal Government is very much interested in what goes on in the churches, primarily as to political activity (but mainly in white conservative churches) and hate speech. But how did the government involve itself in these areas of church activity? The simplest way possible: the federal courts. The A. C. L. U., or one of its friends would bring a lawsuit, and eventually appeal it to a federal court. That decision would be a federal decision with the same power and stature as a law, and without the aid, or the necessity of congress. Now it is broken down further yet. Congress is not involved, so how could it be a law? And therefore, what has this to do with the First Amendment? Congress has made no law. The

decisions of the courts, so far, have been to curtail the actions of religious people, in church or our of it. The churches have been forbidden to try to influence the government Further still, the churches have been threatened with loss of tax exemption if their leaders refer to certain subjects from the pulpit, namely political and social issues. Again a problem. How did those scriptural injunctions become merely social issues? By government edict? They were unofficially reclassified under pressure and threats of the vocal minority: the irreligious. Follow, if you can, the logic: There is no God. Therefore there can be no Word of God. So there can be no law of God, and thus no penalty involved ever. Then, those who believe in this nonexistent God must be mentally ill. And they must be restrained from infecting the rest of society, especially the vulnerable children, with their insanity. Thus all references to God must be kept away from the society at large. It will not be tolerated in public places, at public events, in public schools or parks or playgrounds or youth organizations. America must be sterilized, and secularized. Holidays have been renamed not all, only the Christian ones, so far! Hanuka and even Kwanza are on the list for extermination. No religion has ever been established in America, except in individual colonies or territories. Once they became states the concept faded. Regarding, or favorable to. The liberal-packed federal court decisions of recent days, while not strictly laws, have been highly unfavorable toward religion. They have not declared their war against the tenets of the various faith systems. That would be too obvious, and too big a bite. The people would never stand for it. But piece by piece they are limiting the expression of faith. Prayer in school is not against a law. It is only contrary to a court decision. But threats of unbearably expensive lawsuits have frightened school boards into acquiescence. Under the same pressure Bibles have been removed (maybe the only banned book in the system) from classrooms and libraries. The Ten Commandments have been stripped from the walls Far from establishing religion, the efforts are aimed at eliminating it. And all without any reference to the congress, which has neither helped nor hindered the process, and has the sole constitutional authority to make laws any laws. The result? A default prohibition of the free exercise thereof Congress has once again abdicated its equal place in the government, and they are loathe to give up any power. Not theoretical but practical atheism has become the nearly official religion of the country. It is taught exclusively in almost every public institution of learning from kindergarten through graduate school. God is not outlawed, simply outcast. Is it too much to say that by its inaction, and refusal to protect (it does not need to prohibit) the free exercise of religion, congress has lent its influence to prohibition of that free exercise? Preachers can preach, but not on political or moral subjects. People can gather in public places, but not for religious purposes. Songs can be sung in school concerts, but not songs about Jesus. Of course there must be some logic applied to this subject. And we must tread carefully here. Religion can take many forms We cannot allow children to be burned alive, or widows to be buried alive with their dead husbands, Or women to be mutilated, or virgins sacrificed, or children abused in the name of some religion. There has to be protection of religion, and at the same time protection of the people. In speaking with some of the antagonists in this arena I have come face to face with a fierce bias which is hard to overcome. The belief is that religion is detrimental to psychological wellbeing. The psychiatrist told the child welfare officials that I was the reason the girl was in the mental ward. Her deep feelings of guilt had driven her to attempt suicide. I had quoted Romans 3:23, All have sinned and come shot of the glory of God. He said if they could get rid of me, the girl and the world would be better off. To an atheist, anyone who talks to God and gets a response

is insane. Prosecuting attorneys have used this ploy to discredit the testimonies of witnesses in trial settings. It is effective when the judge, jury members,and attorneys for both sides are all practical atheists. They truly believe that religion is harmful to society. The followers of Vladimir Lenin likened Christians to livestock. If you detect hoof and mouth disease in the herd you isolate (put in re-education camps) the sick (religious), and if they cannot be cured (brainwashed) they must be destroyed (killed). Not, you must understand, because they are bad or hated, but simply to save the herd (for he greater good). It is the logically humane thing to do. Adolph Hitler thought it a wonderful idea for Jews. Such noises have been heard in America, from the extreme Left, not the black helicopter crowd. The constitution of the Soviet Union promised freedom of religion to its people. When asked about it, the Minister of Religion replied, Yes, they have freedom to practice their religion, and we have freedom to persecute it. Could it happen here? Do enough Americans care about religion to want this separation solidly in place? The church certainly does not control the state. Will the state soon control the church? We need people for whom God is essential to life; to whom church is more than a social club; to whom Jesus Christ is worth dying for. Why not? He died for us.

10. Free Enterprise

Advertisers have discovered, by considerable customer research that the term most effective in enticing customers to purchase their product is the word New. Next in line was Free. Nothing draws attention quite as earnestly as the prospect or offer of Free. People stream out of foreign countries and flow into America, not to own a home, or simply to get rich. Those things are not the American Dream. They come for the same reason the pilgrims and the puritans came. They were Yearning to be FREE. As in every conversation it will be wise here also to define the terms we use so often and so glibly. Come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price That is God's definition of freein Isaiah 55:1. Our God has no need of our money, nor could we ever meet His price. All of His gifts have to be free, or we would never have them. Another example is the concept of Free Will, a theological term suggesting that man's will is uninfluenced by any outside force. As I read the Genesis account of creation, I see man, fresh from the hand of the Creator being commanded to keep himself from a certain fruit. Then I see the adversary, the serpent, trying to countermand God's order. Both outside forces are influencing a human will. So much for that definition. A young man was arrested, brought to court, tried and convicted of a crime. As the judge was about to pronounce sentence against him, another young man entered the courtroom and addressed the judge. Your Honor, he didn't do this. I did. The attorneys for both sides questioned the intruder and satisfied the judge of his truthfulness. His Honor told the accused, Son, the court apologizes for all embarrassment and inconvenience you have suffered. This case is dismissed. You are free to go. No lecture. No conditions. The young man walked right past the officers who had brought him, past the opposing counsels, and as he approached the rear of the room another officer even opened the doors for him. That is free. No restrictions. No interference. No conditions. When that definition is applied to our subject matter we arrive at a different view of activity from that of our governmental bureaucrats. The term is applied very loosely to fit the current forms of either free enterprise or free market capitalism. What they propose as regulation turns out to be strangulation. The mountains of paperwork required to prove compliance with the Guidelines drains off ever- increasing amounts of time and energy which would be much better spent in production. The bureaucrats, by and large, however, have no knowledge based on experience of how an enterprise runs. How then can they guide the entrepreneur to success? The motive seems to be not that at all, but rather keeping the entrepreneur from success. They seem also to have no knowledge of the term enterprise. Too many of them settled into some form of political life right out of college. Many others found employment in pursuit of someone else's dream.. Farmers have an unique problem. When the government is not paying them not to raise crops or animals they must be expert in agriculture, mechanics, and the market. A brother partnership of farmers raised sugar beets. One year there was a glut of sugar beets, so the government stepped in and told these men they could not raise as many the next year. They were required to cut back the acreage planted in sugar beets. Could not these farmers from birth have figured that out for themselves? But they did figure out how to grow more beets per acre. The

Agriculture Department response? Put a tonnage limit on the crop. A wonderful solution, except for the sugar beet shortage that occurred a couple years later. There is disagreement in the business, manufacturing. farming, or retailing community as to whether this propensity on the part of government to control all things is based on pride or stupidity, or inexperience. None of these is good, but what else is there? Treachery: they want the economy to fail. We will give them whatever benefit can be given, but one of these is becoming frighteningly obvious. The original Constitution with the first ten amendments made no provision for federal government involvement in any personal or private or family business. It is too far removed from the scene of the action to be effective in oversight. But then, oversight is not needed. These farmers are not fledgeling amateurs in their fields and barns nor are the CEOs in their offices and plants. Either they will make it, learning from their mistakes, or they will not make it, and learn from that. In either case they will not die. They will find a niche better suited to their their talents and interests. This does bring up an uninviting, and seemingly discouraging axiom. Freedom to succeed necessarily involves the freedom to fail. Failure in itself is not fatal to the entrepreneur or the enterprise. It can be a first step in character building to strengthen a person for the endeavors yet to come. Thomas Edison ultimately succeeded because of ninety-six failures. Failure will test our resolve, our resiliency, our tenacity, our belief that our project is worthy of another try; maybe that we ourselves are worthy of success. How does anyone know what he is capable of before he fails. A high school track coach told his athletes, You will never know how high you can jump until you hit the bar. A cooing, sympathetic mother might hold her baby's hand all the way home from the track meet with condolences of the unfairness of life or the officials, but that will never improve the boy. It is possible in some cases that the mother does not want the boy to succeed. She probably needs him to need her. She may encourage him, not to fail (that would be awful), but to quit (the only true failure) This appears to many concerned citizens (those who will accuse the statists of thinking) to be the thinking of the proponents of the nanny-state. Helpers need someone to help. Saviors need someone to save. Their lives or their jobs depend on their dependents. A pastor told his people, If I could get you to read your Bibles, asking God for guidance in learning and obedience in applying it, you wouldn't need me He would literally work himself out of a job. That is the great fear of the majority of politicians. What would the Washington establishment do all year if it were not for the constant introduction and debate of ways to run or interfere in our lives. Congress would automatically have part-time jobs with part-time pay. Service terms would be limited by boredom. But it will never happen for several reasons. They think their constituents are not mentally equipped to handle the vicissitudes of life. Bluntly, we are too dumb to run a business or an organization, or to acquire and use an education without their help. We cannot read the fine print on contracts, or live up to a handshake bargain. They do not trust the people. The right to bear arms would result in mass murders everywhere. We would kill ourselves and each other without seat belt and helmet laws. They think we are too short-sighted to prepare for our own future, to save for a rainy day, and too selfish and greedy to to care for our neighbors' distress. Stupidity is a strong word. But which group is more likely to be afflicted with it. Consider this: Before we elected them, they were considered by their now peers to be just as dumb and reckless and greedy and irresponsible as we are. How did being elected transform them into the demi-gods they have become?

Many of them entered some form of political life right out of college, and have never worked in the private sector. Many others immediately found work in someones else's enterprise with no other responsibility than to show up and do their assigned ask. They have never had to meet a deadline, or a payroll, or a business crisis. So, how are they qualified to run a country like the United States of America? If an enterprise truly is an important, difficult, or dangerous undertaking (dictionary definition) it is not difficult to understand why there is such a small number of enterprisers, or entrepreneurs. Most of them, not just the successful ones, work ninety-six or more hours a week. It is a life. Starting, owning, and running a business has been described as similar to having a newborn baby in the family. It takes constant attention and care. It is not meant to dominate totally the rest of the family, but it obviously cannot take care of itself. Very soon so much energy and money have been poured into it that it is unreasonable to quit, so the only thing left to do is to put more of everything into it. When help is needed it must be hired from outside the immediate family. Any kind of hindrance must be eliminated; even grandparents. And this is precisely the point where the Nanny State shows up and becomes particularly obnoxious. Regulations, paperwork, over protection of the hired help, and confiscation of the always meager profits by taxes stifle the process and progress making it even more difficult for the baby business to survive. Businesses, like people, young or old, need a stable environment if they are to thrive. Owners need to be able to project sometimes years ahead for costs of doing business: supplies, materials, space, wages, shipping; things which those who have never been involved in business know nothing about. Government actions and controls, like minimum wage, health insurance, tax withholding, social security payments, and many others, ostensibly well meant to aid employees, can kill the business and leave the employees jobless. A company should not have to be Daddy anymore than government should be Nanny. A citizen of these United States does not require all the looking after that officialdom seems to believe they do Personal freedom requires personal responsibility. People should be made aware of that before they apply for membership in this republic. The terrible reality is that America is no longer the moral stronghold it once was. Multipage contracts have replaced the handshake. Collective bargaining has replaced the personal employer-employee relationship. In free enterprise, every human being has (or should have) rights. The owner should have the right to set terms of employment,and the employee have the right to refuse them. It is much more difficult and costly for an employer to modify his business to suit the employee (and this multiplies by the number of employees) than for for the employee to modify his life to suit the employer. Each should have the right to say Yes or No. There is, however, one more thing; The idea that profits are unpaid wages. Well, of course, in actuality they are. The less the employer pays his workers the greater his profit. But the more he pays them the more productive and loyal they will be. However, the basic thought behind the statement is that the profit is wrongly or immorally held back by the greedy, heartless boss. Are we to suppose that the workers are less greedy, that they would come to the shop for less money, as some expect the boss to do? More basic is this: Did they agree on the pay scale? Did each keep his word? Then why the argument? Of course there are greedy, heartless bosses, just as there are lazy, indigent workers. But, again, it is much easier for a worker to change jobs than for the boss to change companies. If the worker had only one job possibility as the boss has only one company it might be easier to reach an agreement on terms.

A company owner who was losing money fast due to union contractual obligations found that it was illegal for him to close the business without fulfilling the rest of his two-year union contract. He, of course, could not do this without the company running. Bankruptcy became his only option, which helped no one; no company no jobs. Was that the goal of the union bosses, to destroy the evil big business? Americans are noted the world over as being naturally on the side of the underdog, but we demand fairness in the field and in the rules. The underdog does not have five downs to make ten yards, or an eight-foot high basket. But neither do we keep a five foot tall player off the court. If he wants to play, we let him play, but by the same rules on the came court or field. Government and politicians make awful referees, because most of the time they do not understand the game. They have neither played on, nor coached, nor owned a team. They should not be involved at all, on either side of this engagement. A free people should be left to work out their own differences. Relationships are most often best kept by the parties involved. The same holds for doctor-patient, husband-wife, child-parent, teacher-student etc. Elected officials do not obtain Solomon-like wisdom by virtue of their election. Whatever they were, they still are. There is no substitute for experience in any endeavor. The only way for free enterprise to return to American life is for Government to step out gracefully. It will never happen. We will have to vote them out.