And he calls out, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?
From earliest Hebrew history one prophet after another keeps warning the people they are not keeping faith with God. They, the people, had forsaken God and there was a price they would pay..Let us leap forward a few thousand years into our short history, and in times of great sorrow, crisis, sickness, turmoil, our people also have called out, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, Lord why have you forsaken me, us, we, them, or the nation….?
Could we consider for a moment that God is responsible for the 'fact' of our freedom but we humans are responsible for the 'acts' of our freedom. God is responsible for the "fact' of food and shelter. It is we who are responsibility for our food and shelter as well as meeting all the other needs of our lives. This includes being responsible for a government that is responsible and responsive to the needs of the people and the nation. God did not send a plague of locusts to Washington to destroy us. We sent each of those congressional members there and our apathy keeps them there.
Apathy is an insidious thing that very slowly winds its' way into our behavior and impacts everyone and every aspect of our lives. Obama is president because of the apathetic way we have conducted ourselves particularly in regard to our State and Federal government. Each time government has offered in someway to take care of us we have said, "Right on bro."
Obama is simply the logical next step in this long governmental road towards the socialist system of governance wherein individuals have no responsibility. We cannot point to our president and say, "He started all of this. He is the one at fault. He is the one to blame for the problems we are having." Even if we were to look back over many congresses and many presidents it is hard to identify where this idea took hold in American government to redefine itself as the seat of all knowledge with a mission to control and direct all aspects of our personal, social, and business lives. Certainly no one involved historically would have dared to state this new mission….Most likely the men involved in the earliest stages of this change would have never imagined where the ideas would lead the nation. However, through one new law at a time, one new regulation at a time, and with a smidgen of apathy thrown in by the voters the new federal mission is well on its way of being accomplished. Had the Dems been able to hold the 'House' in November's election it is my belief Obama could have put the final nails in the coffin of freedom in America. The GOP with it lack of mission and leadership doesn't get a 'pass' for what has happened and neither do we.
It makes no difference if it was liberal voters or conservative voters, DEMs or GOP's it was we, the American voters, who kept saying to these congressional folks, "Your doing a good job, you are on the right tracks", by reelecting them."
Although Holy week has now passed it is not time for us to stop reflection, prayer, and fasting.
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?
The Gospel of Matthew 27:35-37, 45-53
Redemption is not easy to come by as the old prophets warned and as we are discovering.
This country, our people, and people around the world are in transition. We are seeing this struggle for change in the mid East that no one has seen in their life time. We see the people here (Tea Party and supporters of similar beliefs) are up against our form of entrenched government in a way we've not seen before and no matter the color, nationality, or religion, behind it all is the cry for freedom and a lash against governments no matter what they are called or the form they have hidden behind.
The Ayn Rand ideas have been around a long time and she came to our attention in her novels Atlas Shrugged and Fountain Head. All of Ayn Rand writings can be summed simply: Reason is everything. Religion is a fraud. Selfishness is a virtue. Altruism is a crime against human excellence. Self-sacrifice is weakness. Weakness is contemptible. "The Objectivist ethics, in essence," said Rand, "hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself."
Tying all her individual ideas together in a paragraph allows us to see how hideous and destructive these ideas are. However, if we tear the paragraph apart and scatter the ideas around we see a large part of our society following her philosophical world of Objectivism as a way of life. Whatever society/nation in history that has embraced these ideas, she compiled in her many books, those nation crumbled and always from inside out. Rand's achievement was to turn a life phase (adolescence) into a philosophy, that has embedded itself into the fabric of America and a way of life for so many citizens, many of whom become our politicians. (Which of our congressional leaders will vote for any bill that they think will lose them votes or even one congressman who offers to cut their salary or their pension benefits when so many don't have a salary?)
If any of this litany seems familiar, it is because most of us had a difficult period in our younger adolescent life. Where we experienced the same invincible self-involvement, testing moral boundaries and prone to stormy egotism and hero worship. (Most parents pray weekly sometimes daily that their children will get through adolescence stage before their last drop of patience runs out.)
Many if not most of us did grows out of adolescence, eventually discovering that the quality of our lives is tied to the benefit of others. The Tea Party reflects this daily as we try to save our country.
No nation or group of nations can take this country down….(Not socially, economically, or militarily) BUT the boys and girls inside the beltway are working, daily as if on a religious mission, supported by a 'mass' of the American voters, still saying, "At a boy…to these ensconced congressional leaders."
How is this possible? What are we seeing that they don't see?
One thing they don't seem to see is the fairly simple math, concerning the national debt their children and grandchildren will have to pay off. Another thing we see is a nation built on simple ideas of individual freedom and liberties being morphed into a nation where individuals have little or no control over their lives. They seem to feel that they are safer and more secure with government calling the shots. (Government calling the shots was the core problem that caused the original American rebellion.) Growing up I thought this battle has been fought and won. Our forefathers thought this battle had been fought and won. However, many of the 'founders' also believed so long as there was a central government this issue of personal freedom will never be safe... Clearly the Tea Party along with lots of help from others are refighting this fight for personal freedoms with this president and this congress and we will continue to fight this fight.…. When won, and it will be won. Lets make sure that congress does not erect any boundaries again around their power as well as presidential powers. Never again…..We need to make sure of this because we don't want our adult grandchildren looking back and thinking we were slack in our duties as they pay off these national debts our generation incurred. Also, we never want them to have to refight the fight, we are in the throws of.
Know that no matter how many wins we have had and no matter how much noise we make the 'inside the beltway folks' still think they are safe and continue business as usual. Look at what is going on now in terms of budget debate and debt ceiling ….I pulled this paragraph out of a Redstate article which makes sense. "One of the old sayings in Washington is that there are two parties — the stupid party and the evil party. Occasionally the stupid party and evil party will get together and do something that is both stupid and evil and it will be hailed as a bipartisan compromise. The media is complicit in this because just about every bipartisan compromise gets referred to as the adults coming together in a room."
Don't you love their definition of adult….
To think America can be understood or known by looking at a map of the world or seeing it through news media blips is to miss the point of America. American is an idea, values, beliefs, and freedoms that can only be known and understood by looking into the heart of the American people. That is where it is located and that is what it is. When someone(s) starts messing with what America is then who ever 'they' are will face the wrong end of a stick willed by 200 million maniacs on a mission.
540 days, 7 hours, 40 minutes till the 2012 polls close…Do you know where the next new conservative voter will come from?
Lots of Tea Party things going on around the country.. Things are heating up and groups are getting better organized with many getting out front and in front of these potential candidates….
Ron
docnick37@gmail.com
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/
