Calexit, an Unintended Comedy Act

...my opinion is that no state can, in any way lawfully, get out of the Union, without the consent of the others; and that it is the duty of the President, and other government functionaries to run the machine as it is. -December 17, 1860 Letter to Thurlow Weed by Abraham Lincoln

While I usually take politics rather seriously...really quite seriously, every now and then I come across something that makes me smirk and roll my eyes, but it is truly a very rare pleasure that find something I would call so ironically ridiculous and amusing that it qualifies as perpetual "comic relief." I will try to contain my laughter while I explain.

California is going to have a vote in the spring of 2019 about whether or not to secede from the United States and become its own sovereign nation. The last time this happened with several southern states, it did not go well, but let's put aside the possibility of another war between the states and just look over their gripes.

The 2019 #Calexit Independence Referendum at YesCalifornia.org

1. PEACE AND SECURITY
The U.S. Government spends more on its military than the next several countries combined. Not only is California forced to subsidize this massive military budget with our taxes, but Californians are sent off to fight in wars that often do more to perpetuate terrorism than to abate it. The only reason terrorists might want to attack us is because we are part of the United States and are guilty by association. Not being a part of that country will make California a less likely target of retaliation by its enemies.

Do they think those tax subsidies toward a massive military budget will just go away? Will California not have to have its own military or does it believe that no military is needed?

Californian is a coastal state that seems to believe without U.S. military services like the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Border Patrol it will be less of a target than it is now. As I see it either terrorists will either attack them while they are weak militarily or they will just infiltrate California because its open immigration policies will allow them to do so. Californians could find that terrorists set up bases there and right on our border. And since the U.S. is at war against terrorists (and countries that harbor them).... Well, at least it will not be another war between the states, at that point it will be more like the West Bank.


2. ELECTIONS AND GOVERNMENT
California’s electoral votes haven’t affected a presidential election since 1876. On top of that, presidential election results are often known before our votes are even counted. So, why should we keep subjecting ourselves to presidents we play no role in electing, to 382 representatives and 98 senators we can’t vote for, and all the government officials and federal judges appointed by those very same people we don’t elect.

Oh, boo-hoo! Really! California with 55 electoral votes has more than any state! Imagine what the 34 states with just 10 and less electoral votes feel in comparison to California's 55, or the fifteen states with 5 and less, or the eight states with just 3 and less. There are only five states that have 20 or more electoral votes not counting California.

Fact check this: California has 17 electoral votes more than Texas, the second most populous state, and just 3 votes less than the two next populous states of New York and Florida, both having 29 making 58 combined! And yet California is upset that it does have not real influence on the presidential pick for 140 years. Well...what is that favorite chant of the liberals? Oh, yeah. "Tell me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!" The little states and those with smaller populations, minority states actually, still have a voice in the elections because of the republic system with an electoral college...and aren't the liberals the ones who boast that they are pro-minorities?


3. TRADE AND REGULATION
The U.S. Government maintains a burdensome trade system that hurts California’s economy by making trade more difficult and more expensive for California’s businesses. As long as California remains within this burdensome trade system, we will never be able to capitalize on the trade and investment opportunities that would be available to us as an independent country. On top of that, the United States is dragging California into the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement which conflicts with our values.

For one, California has burden itself with some of the country's harshest laws against businesses that hurts its own economy. Two, President Trump has (in just the last few days) nixed the Trans-Pacific Partnership that was Obama's pet project. 


4. DEBT AND TAXES
Since 1987, California has been subsidizing the other states at a loss of tens and sometimes hundreds of billions of dollars in a single fiscal year. As a result, we are often forced to raise taxes and charge fees in California, and borrow money from the future to make up the difference. This is partly why California presently has some of the highest taxes in the country, and so much debt. Independence means that all of our taxes will be kept in California based on the priorities we set, and we will be able to do so while repaying our debts and phasing out the current state income tax.

This is the one that made me laugh the most. What have liberals, particularly Hollywood liberals, been saying for years? That they welcome higher taxes so that the government will have more and better social programs for the poor? Now they are complaining of how high their taxes are because they are subsidizing poorer states? This just sounds like a conservative view to me. What will happen when they figure out that having sanctuary cities (and now wanting a sanctuary country) for all those illegal aliens is a huge drain?


5. IMMIGRATION
California is the most diverse state in the United States and that is something we are proud of. This diversity is a central part of our culture and an indispensable part of our economy. As a U.S. state, our immigration system was largely designed by the 49 other states thirty years ago. This immigration system has since neglected the needs of the California economy and has hurt too many California families. Independence means California will be able to decide what immigration policies make sense for our diverse and unique population, culture, and economy, and that we’ll be able to build an immigration system that is consistent with our values.

Each state has its own diversity, California does not have a corner on that market, but placing this argument aside. I really have no idea what a California immigration system would look like since it is not explained here, but I have to ask what are the needs of the California economy in regards to immigration? Are we talking Hollywood elitists being able to contract servants and construction workers on the cheap and without providing health insurance for them?


6. NATURAL RESOURCES
Certain minerals and other natural resources like coal, oil, and natural gas are being extracted from California at below market value rates by private corporations with the permission of the U.S. Government. While a small portion of the revenue is shared with us, our share has been withheld during times of sequestration. That means the U.S. Government is paying their debts with royalties collected from selling off California’s natural resources. Independence means we will gain control of the 46% of California that is currently owned by the U.S. Government and its agencies. We will therefore take control of our natural resources and be the sole beneficiary of royalties collected if and when they are extracted from our lands.

Let's be completely honest here. Most of that natural resources in California would not be tapped at all because of the strictness of California's laws. If California takes control, it will either close them down or make it so costly that it is not worth to extract its own resources. How long will it be before California will need to import resources from other countries that it will not extract within its own borders due to inflexible environment protection laws?


7. THE ENVIRONMENT
California is a global leader on environmental issues. However, as long as the other states continue debating whether or not climate change is real, they will continue holding up real efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The truth is this country accounts for less than five percent of the world’s population yet consumes one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 27 percent of the aluminum, 23 percent of the coal, and 19 percent of the copper. Independence means California will be able to negotiate treaties to not only reduce the human impact on our climate but also to help build global resource sustainability.

And there is where those harsh laws on businesses will kill its own economy. Environment over economy only works when one country is buying its goods from another that has less restriction because it values economy over environment. The United States tries to keep a balance that is a compromise on both sides of these issues.

By the way, climate change is real. The climate changes every day. The debate is about whether carbon emissions is having a real effect on the environment, especially when we find out that global warming was not just an Earth issue but an issue with every planet in our solar system, because of the higher temperature of the sun. 


8. HEALTH AND MEDICINE
The Affordable Care Act was enacted by the U.S. Government to lower the cost of health care and expand health insurance coverage to the uninsured, yet millions of Californians still lack access to quality health care because they can’t afford it. For many, access to hospitals and medicine is a life or death issue. Independence means we can fund the health care programs we want and ensure everyone has access to the medicines they need because our taxes will no longer be subsidizing other states. Finally, California can join the rest of the industrialized world in guaranteeing health care as a universal right for all of our people.

Both California Democratic Senators voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act and in the House is was 34 California Democratic Representatives for and 19 Republicans against. In addition, Nancy Pelosi of California and majority leader even said "But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it....” Is it possible that California politicians really did not know what was in it, yet voted for it, which not only affected its state but all the others?

It was impossible for it to be affordable, but it was a liberal idea so it should have worked, right? So let's see how this one will probably work: Immigrants will flock to California in greater numbers than they do now. Illegal immigrants will probably try to leave the other states just to get California's free health care. Bankruptcy will be within months. Will California then be asking to re-enter as a state?

As much as I hate to say this, health care is not a right. A right is something you have because you exist. It does not infringe on anyone else or on the rights of another. A right is something it would be against the law for it to be taken from you as it is against the law to harm your person or your property or to take the life of another. In the United States, we have a protected right to carry arms, because that right does not infringe on anyone else, but if a firearm is misused, it can, and that is why we have a court system to keep people accountable. Who would one be able to sue if you do not have health care? Can you force anyone to give you health care? Would that not be an infringement of his rights?


9. EDUCATION
California has some of the best universities but in various ways, our schools are among the worst in the country. Not only does this deprive our children of the education they deserve, but it also costs taxpayers billions in social services and law enforcement expenses linked to lacking opportunities resulting from poor education. Independence means we will be able to fully fund public education, rebuild and modernize public schools, and pay public school teachers the salaries they deserve. On top of that, independence means freedom from federal education policies and one-size-fits-all standards set by political appointees on the other side of the continent.

Here I have several thoughts. One is that when a number of illegal immigrants jump the border, they do not speak English nor do their children. Language incompatibility slow the pace in classrooms and the education of all the students suffer. Another is that if California wants total control of education, it should refuse federal funding and tell its politicians that they should not have adopted Common Core back in 2010; it was a choice, not a mandate. California does not need to secede from the United States to fix this one because it already has control over its education.


Of course, before the presidential election, this Calexit idea was already simmering, but when Trump won the presidency, it went into a rolling boil.

Maybe California has gotten a bit presumptuous because it has the 6th highest gross domestic product (GDP) at $2.448 trillion in 2015, which is largely due to the entertainment industry, yet it is ignoring its $778 billion debt. I really do not care if the liberals of California actually manage a secession or not—Bye-bye, Calexit. You have my permission to panic, run away, and take a bunch more libs with you!—although I highly doubt it will. Still, I think about how nice it would be to leave the United States with a more conservative bent. However, despite that it is largely a liberal democratic state, it is highly conservative republican along its eastern border and presently it is said that only 1 out of 3 Californians open to the idea of secession.

In the end, Calexit just is another indication of how terribly polarized my country has become. And I will say that while Trump was not my pick and I may not like many things about his personality, I do like that he is decisive and determined to do as he said he would do. To me, he is like a crude cowboy dressed up in a gentleman's suit. He is not PC and he says what he thinks and follows up with what he said he would do. So far, I am pleasantly surprised with his choices.

My Lord, do help my country to stand strong and stay strong.

The Presidential Election

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. -Romans 13:1-2

I have avoided this subject for the most part. I voted early, not really for the person I wanted, but for the one whom I thought would do the best job and had a chance to win of the ones presented on the ballot. However, since the only one running for which I could have stood up did not win the candidacy, I was able to view the rest of the election with very little bias. I just did not have a dog in the fight, but I had a hope that God would place who He wanted in the Oval Office.

I did stay up to sometime after midnight on election day pretty sure that Trump would be our President-elect in the morning for two reasons, actually because of two swing states: Ohio and Florida. I have lived in both. Ohio can brag that there has only been two times in 30 presidential elections since 1896 when it failed to go with the winner. Once I saw Ohio and Florida was a certainty, I felt it was just a matter of the rest of the country's votes being counted to prove without a doubt that Trump won.

I know that the moderates in the swing states, actually the people who consider themselves to be independent thinkers rather than being loyal to either party, are the ones who determine who will win the electoral votes of their states. I also know that people are angry. There are not enough jobs or opportunities for advancement if one has a job. There are too many people too deeply in debt from a college education that they cannot use. There is far too much red tape and costs to start a small family-operated business. People are coming here illegally for work, while companies are bugging out to remain profitable; it is not sustainable! To those who see these things, all this stuff about Trump's personality flaws can be tolerated, as one tolerates a "rough around the edges" boss as long as he keep the business going so they have paying jobs.

I will not even begin on Hillary because her record is too silent about accomplishments she should have made and too loud about her lack of good judgement with National Security. But, even if all that is pushed completely aside, I honestly think there should be a law that if one of a couple has been the president, then the other should not be eligible to run for the presidency at all, not ever...period. (And I hate the phrase "there aught to be a law" because for the most part we have enough laws, but in some areas not enough enforcement of them.)

With all that said, here is the main thing I wanted to address. I have a friend, who used to be a blogging buddy I dearly cared about as she was one of the sweetest Christian people I have ever known. We have been out of touch because she prefers Facebook and I am not a Facebook fan at all. She also has become rather outspoken politically. I did not really know her stand on politics previously, but I certainly have no doubts now. While I am on the highly conservative side of the spectrum, she is as far left as I am right. I am okay with people having differing opinions. What I have a problem with is when people, who are Christians, will say that they are trusting God about the election and then when their candidate does not win, they use their First Amendment right to say things like "now we reap the whirlwind" and "...many of the foreign students are gathering up their visas and planning to leave the country. GOOD WORK AMERICA!" with the latter being shame-blame sarcasm.

Where is the trust in God in such words? Regardless of who won, I mostly wonder what God has in store. That maybe, just maybe, the Almighty Creator of All had need for His purpose that I cannot understand because my ways are not His ways or maybe I would never really see it because His wisdom is so far beyond my own. How arrogant it is of me to think that I know better than God? And I cannot think of one person in politics that did everything the way I thought he or she should...even the one I really wanted to win in the primaries has said some things that made me cringe, possibly God too, but God can still use anyone to His purpose, right?

I was very much against Obama and it had nothing to do with his skin color, because I have voted in the presidential primaries for two black men and a Hispanic or two in my lifetime and I have voted for women over men when I thought they were the best candidate. However, when Obama won, I did not think the world would come to an end, that all whites automatically would be considered racists or anti-black, or that America and Israel would be ruined, not by him alone, at least, and certainly not without God allowing them to be. I may never really know what God's purpose was or what was accomplished through Obama, but I trust that God is in charge.

So, Christian Americans, whether you are happy, sad, or angry, with the outcome of this election, I have to ask these questions:

Are you really being like Jesus about this? 

Are you really trusting God?

My Lord, I think if we really have Jesus as the leader in our hearts that our opinion of who should or should not be the leader of our country would not matter so much. Jesus lived in a time when Rome controlled what You had given to the Israelites and He did not speak ill against Caesar, the Romans, the soldiers, or even the people that favored Rome even though He was the only Rightful King. Help Your people, all of us, to be like Your Son.

Imagined Reality

Men should use the men’s bathroom and women should use the women’s bathroom. Just because a man may "feel" like a woman doesn’t mean he should be able to share a bathroom with my daughter, or yours. That used to be called common sense.
-Phil Robertson, patriarch of "Duck Dynasty"

Just before we left on vacation there was a serious transgender bathroom school policies controversy that was all the talk thanks to our end-term president threatening to pull federal funds out of schools that do not comply with his wishes for students to use whichever bathroom and locker room that they identify as their gender. While at the museum, we were in a Christian safe environment but I had begun to ask myself questions. What if my daughter at four years old had told me she was really a boy? What if, indeed. Well, children like to pretend lots of things. Some want to believe they are a super hero and wear costumes day after day and it can last for months in some cases. Even so, these are normal phases.

When a child puts on a superman costume, it is understandable that people will play along, but when that child jumps off a build believing he will fly, that would be going beyond what is normal behavior. Sometimes our playing along is too convincing, too supportive, too accommodating, too attentive, especially when the child has been enabled to alter his perception of reality. My reality check to the flying argument there would be that superman can take off from the ground, so if you cannot jump up and stay in the air from the ground, you are just going to fall going off a building. I remember as a young child jumping off a couple of steps repeatedly for an entire summer in the backyard believing that one of those times I would really fly...didn't happen, but I was determined I could do it just the right way once and I would fly. I even dreamed of flying, so it had to be true!

I do not get why it is demanded of everyone to not only play along with a child's imagination, but to encourage them to the point that they cross over to denying reality or trying to change themselves to fit what they want they believe is their little private reality that no one else sees yet. I remember wishing I was a boy when I was younger because boys were into taking apart bikes and having pocket knifes. It is not that girls cannot do those things, it was just not as common for girls to want to do those things. If I wanted to wear boy clothes and my brother wanted to wear girl clothes, it was for fun, but even with our messed up childhoods and abused hearts, we were not confused about our genders. I just cannot relate with this catering to men who have chosen to change their appearance and welcoming them to use the same public bathroom as my daughter and me. Sorry, but no.

What about the pedofile's little private reality, where a man or woman believes children are capable of consensual sex? Some would say that is completely different. Well, yes and no. They want it to be true and they acted on it as if it were and they were blinded by their own desires to see the harm it caused to others. People would argue that a transgender person does not cause harm to other people. I think that if you talk to the families of most, you would find some deeply hurting and struggling hearts there.

My daughter did tell me one thing when she was four years old. I do not remember what I had said to her, but in the sentence I addressed her as "Child" to which she quipped sternly and quite seriously, "I am not a child, I am a woman!" (It still makes me giggle thinking of how she said it.) She really meant it, maybe for a time she really believed it and wanted me to accept it also, but I still treated her like my four-year-old child. She is still highly imaginative and creativity, but she also has accepted and learned to work through life within this: reality is the reality.

My Lord, this is such a fallen world. How much longer can You endure it?

I Am So Going to Need Therapy!

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato

The presidential election years are always stressful, but this one is just plain crazy wild! I am not going to name names (or body parts, as if that could ever be appropriate behavior for presidential hopeful, although it has happened this time repeatedly) but I just have to say: My Lord, please save us from ourselves!

For the Democrats:

• A liberal woman, who was a former First Lady and a former Secretary of State, has been under in investigation for using an unsecured personal email address and server to send and receive messages so top secret that the FBI does not even have clearance to read them. In other words, she should be indicted for treason!

• A self-declared socialist—a solialist!—who will be 75 years old before this election ends, would be the oldest president at inauguration we have ever had. (To date the oldest president at inauguration was Ronald Reagan just three weeks shy of 70.)

For the Republicans (presently):

• A wheeling-dealing business man, who inherited millions and turned it into billions, admittedly bought Congressmen, bragged about having affairs while married and with married women, and seems to think he can insult people to their face while smiling as if they are friends, but whines when he feels people are being mean to him. He reminds me of a schoolyard bully, but who would dare not be nice to and a "friend" with a multi-billionaire, after all?

• A Constitutionalist senator, who has a Cuban born father, an American mother, was born in Canada, and speaks with a Texan accent, would be our first president of Hispanic descent and has been threaten with a lawsuit about his eligibility, even though he personally has won cases regarding what is constitutional in the Supreme Court. He is so principled and unwilling to compromise or make deals that he has alienated himself in Washington, D.C. (yet his home state loves him because he has been doing what he promised to do in the Senate).

• Another Senator of Hispanic descent made a huge mistake by saying he was absolutely against amnesty to get elected, but then was one of the Gang of Eight who wrote a bill permitting illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship. He played it the establishment way (go along to get along) and got called out by his constituents. He is hoping to win his winner-take-all home state to force a contested or brokered convention, although the polls are not looking that good there for him.

• Lastly, a governor from my home state, who is the epitome of how that state sits on the fence and just leans slightly according to which party is promising the best goodies that election year. He invokes the name of Reagan, the most popular conservative president in my lifetime, because he worked under his administration, but the only state he may win is his own, which is winner take all. He is purposely staying in the race hoping to force a brokered convention, because that is the only way he could possibly win.

As for the rules of the Republican convention—well, the rules allow the rules to be changed up until the convention begins, so who will know what the rules will be? Whether it will be a contested or brokered convention depends on the rules. Basically, with that kind of flexibility, the establishment Republicans can change the rules so they can pick their man regardless of the popular vote and the two top candidates are definitely not the establishment types. One has to wonder what will happen if the establishment Republicans pick a candidate that was not popular or had not even ran!

As I watched debates and results with each primary and caucus, I was just bewildered by what I was seeing and hearing. It is too painful to watch and yet I cannot just not watch. (If you are an U.S. citizen and you cannot tell who is who by my descriptions then you have some research to do to be an informed voter rather than a voter of a brand name.)

Personally, I believe in voting for the most principled Christian conservative, who truly understands and respects the limits placed on the president and all of our government by our Constitution, because I believe that if we have that then the issues, on which campaigns promises are made and often broken, will be rectified accordingly.

I am definitely going to need therapy to recover from this election year no matter how it turns out (but maybe a little less if the one I believe should be president is elected).
 

My Lord, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!

Who is in Charge?

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ~Edmund Burke

Most of my friends are women with which I have a few things in common: different friends, differing things. The one thing I do not have in common with a majority of my friends is my rather strong interest in politics. This is something I have mentioned on my blog before, but I rarely make my politics known here. I am mindful that these things are of the world and my true home is in the Kingdom, so these things will not be of lasting value to me someday in future, however that can be said of nearly all our daily concerns and while I am here on this earth as it is now, I will continue to be politically minded, because what we do here counts not only to those who continue here after we have left, but also to my Lord.

I was talking with one of my not-politically-minded friends about voting in the primaries this month, hoping that she would consider how Common Core in our public schools is a major issue affecting her very own daughter's education and that we have the opportunity to select candidates for the governor (the governors were the push to get 44 states--was 45 but Indiana pulled back out in March--to accept Common Core with the golden carrot of federal grant money), the state school superintendent with several people running (at least half against Common Core in the conservative party), and three school board members in our county.

There is much to research about each candidate because a speech is not a politician in action once he has taken office, but that is why staying involved in our communities and seeing the effects from other points of view of laws, codes, and ordinances passed help us understand for every new rule there is a downside, not all that we think is good is good for all. We should question our leaders, make our concerns known, and protest when necessary to be heard and make others aware.

That brings me to another hotly debated issue in our county: the airport. A group of influential business people want it to become commercial with passenger flights, which we were originally promised it would never be. This airport--only six years old--well, they just cannot leave it be because they changed the name this past year. Now it is named after a 60-mile walking-bike trail running through three counties that was originally a train railway and named after a passenger train--No kidding, an airport named after a trail named after a train. This airport is located between my friend's house, which is near our church about 20 minutes away, and mine. Surrounding it now is forests, farm land, and small subdivisions out away from the cities where people cherish the quiet life...including my friend.

Still, when I discussed these things with my friend, her response was that she does not vote unless it is a big election, like the president of the U.S. (which is not determined by poplar vote anyway), because as she sees it "God is in charge."

It just did not sit well with me, although I told her I understand her viewpoint and I really do, but I have a different viewpoint about how God's being in charge works. I believe absolutely that God can do anything, that is why I get so disappointed when He does not do what I have prayed for, but the flipside is how God does what He does. Most often even the most maraculous miracles have a human element involved, someone who did not just sit back and say God is in charge, but someone who acted on his belief that God is in charge so His works could be done through that very someone. Imagine if Jesus had said God is charge instead of actively working in His ministry or saying God is in charge in place of saying with faith we could command a fig tree to wither and mountains to move as He did in Matthew 21: 21-22. To the blind and lame, did He say "God is in charge" or "be healed?"

Christains use "God is in charge" often when we feel we are not, or that we have no ability to effect change, however I also feel we use it far too often to excuse ourselves from being used by God to make the change. It is true that Jesus did not get politically involved against the Romans or to take an earthly office--How do you top the Son of God after all?--but He certainly changed politics, because He changed people. (Just imagine what kind of endorsement from the Son of God would be!)

We, who live in countries where we have the right to vote for our leaders, should not only do so to honor the freedom other people died and suffered to protect, but to honor our Lord who taught us more than anyone on earth that we can move mountains...when we go out to purposely move mountains. God most definitely is in charge, but the real question: is He in charge of you? That is where He starts.

~ My Lord, we want You to take charge of our world, but we often fail at taking charge of it for You. Help us to choose with Your wisdom when we vote for our leaders and help us to see the importance of voting so that we cannot excuse ourselves from this important duty and precious privilege. ~

Realization Days After the Election

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here. ~The Trumpet Voice of Freedom: Patrick Henry of Virginia, p. iii.

In a sneaky way, one of my personal rules was broken. I did not realize it until this week. I distracted myself with the election and all that lead up to it, but I messed up.

I have this rule about placing expectations on other people: I try to have low-to-no expectations on people.

Now, I do have expectations on my daughter; she has chores and lessons she is expected to do with a reasonable attitude (relatively reasonable for a tween), but these expectations are necessary to guide her growth into a responsible woman. I have few on my husband, truth be told. However, the rest of the world...I hope, but I tend not to expect, which is one of the reasons I am a highly defensive driver!

Yet, I had some expectations of people in my country, of the presidential candidates and...yes, even of God in regards to this last election.

I expected that over half of the American people would be very concerned by many things our president has done in the last four years and our increasing debt due to uncontrolled spending. I expected them at least to be outraged that he knowingly lied to them and to the United Nations--basically, the entire world--setting up a man who made a YouTube clip, which had nothing to do with it at all, as to why four Americans including our Ambassador in Benghazi was murdered in a military attack that lasted for hours. It was act of war, (notice I did not write terrorist attack, because terrorism is an attack on civilians for the purpose of terrorizing them) while our nearby forces were told to stand down. I actually watched a large of part of Congressional hearings and then I watched ignorant Obama supporters at an Ohio College being interviewed about Benghazi, who did not have a clue about the attack at all but were voting without even googling. So much for being informed voters! Although I wonder if that would have mattered to them...?

I expected that the politicians to be...politicians, but better at showing the stuff they are really made of, so to speak, even though I knew that depended more on the mainstream media, which seems to favor one party over the other and tips the scales accordingly. That is probably why college students had no clue about Benghazi. Worse, though, I expected whoever was elected to work toward a resolution to better our economy before the dollar's inevitable demise.

What I expected of God about the election was that He would see to it that the candidate who served the greater good for the country would be elected, but I realize that the worst expectation of all.

Instead, I should have been willing to accept that God's purpose is not to make America what I would like to see it be. Why would He? How is America so different than ancient Israel that many times turned away from God, worshiping idols and practiced immorality, and then overtaken by enemies? As a nation, we have failed God, so we should expect being overtaken by our enemies, shouldn't we? But our real enemies are not of this world.

We can try to repair the crumbling front of being a great nation with superior military power; try to brag on the great men of our history who built our government into a sovereign country; and proudly claim our Constitution protects our rights of freedom. We could do all that but how does that stand with God? The reality is that today America is not a nation "in God we trust." It is ironic that these notes and coins on which that quote is stamped is on the very edge of crashing to worthlessness.

I should have not expected anything from any person. I should have trusted in God for all of it. There is always one very good thing that comes about from adversity...seeking God. I think people will be provided many opportunities to exercise this. I do not know what will happen with our nation, but I do know that we, as a people, have been comfortable with material amenities and unchallenged spiritual convictions. We allowed what is so ungodly to take over because of Constitutionally protected rights--that which protected religion when it was necessary has been twisted in our courts to protect from all religion. But then, religion is not what God wants from us.

This week I have been reminded of Paul singing praises in prison as I began preparing the praise and worship service for this coming Sunday. Also, in our weakness, God's strength. America may become weak, but if that is what it takes to make the lost souls in America turn towards God, then I should welcome it. My expectations would not have been met no matter which candidate won, because meeting my expectations was not God's purpose and I was not surrendered to His will.

Finally, I came to this conclusion:

My man did not win on the election,
but then my Man was not even running.

~ My Lord, thank you for reminding me that this is not my home. My home is where You reign and that reign starts within my heart.~

Down the Drain with Eyes Turning Up

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. ~Winston Churchill

I have often wondered at what point one finally gives into to the struggle of rushing water, when the body is too exhausted to continue and the hope to survive has been replaced with the emotionless desire to simply yield to one's fate.

I want to resign myself to the drain.

I went to sleep last night realizing that today I would wake in a country that is no longer the American dream. No, it did not change overnight, just a few decades of one socialist idea becoming law and then the addition of others like it slowly eroding personal liberty while promising security. Last night, however, was the indication that just over half of the American people, most of them living in large cities, are into entitlement.

These are people who must have food brought into their grocery stores, because they have no place to raise their own. In a crisis of having no power, as we are seeing in the northeast after the wake of Hurricane Sandy, they can only survive by relying on the generosity others and, if that is not enough for them, they will take from others, because producing the most basic needs for survival like food and warmth is not possible for them. This reminds me of the last chapter of Ayn Rand's book, Atlas Shrugged--actually the entire political train wreck does.

Perhaps it is the inevitable course of mankind as it seeks to make all that we want as humans righteous in our own sight. I had hoped that Americans would come to understand how much government would have to take from them to give all it is promising to them. It is obvious to me now that too many, far too many, people are dependent on government support, or just want to be, so they vote for the representatives who promise a government that will care of them and that will protect them from all judgements about their lifestyles...even from God Himself. We are an arrogant nation racing to condemn ourselves as we substitute God with government, religious beliefs with secular policies, and charitable generosity with forced redistribution.

Too many people turn a blind eye as to where government will get the funding. They are told it will be from the rich, the ones who have so much more than they need. The reality is that it will come from all. They will later groan about how much everything is costing them because taxes are embedded in the prices of all goods and services. Eventually, they think it is a good idea for government to freeze prices, which will be the final death of capitalism resulting in struggling companies going out of business. Which companies will be cherry-picked and how many of them can the government buy into to keep them going? There will be more job loss and more expectations on government to provide and more government dependency. Each feeding on the other, but more like a snake swallowing its own tail.

It was not important to the people voting that our government is spending an unbelievable amount of money that it does not have while it is taking care of all of them. They are too far removed from it. They are ignorant about how our government works--rather, should work--preferring to see it only for what they can get from it. It took just a hundred years to evolve into a credit card country with people believing in entitlement over financial responsibility and making minimal payments as the spending continues and debt increases.

They really don't care how in debt the government is as long as they get more. Perhaps they believe it is too big to fail...maybe. Europe's financial problems are too far removed...well, maybe not much longer.

I wish sometimes I was like them. That I was ignorant or just did not care so that I could go blissfully along and get my government handouts. That I was not one of the 53% of Americans who actually pay federal income tax, but got all the benefits from the others that do and felt I was entitled to it and more.

But, even though I am clearly caught in the whirlpool of the drain, I still am struggling against it. What I hoped would not happen for four long years, did, in fact, happen, and I am grieving today watching the dying off of what was the American dream. Yet, I just cannot completely resign myself to the defeating exhaustion and impending destruction. Last night I lost so much hope for my country, but I am still believing God has a purpose in all things and now my eyes are focused on His Kingdom even more.

~ My Lord, My Lord, You alone are my Hope. ~

Ayn Rand and Her Book

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. ~Ayn Rand

Now that I am finally caught up on the book reviews I had made commitments to do too long ago, I have the pleasure of sharing just a few of my thoughts on a book that some have claimed as one of the most influential books of all time, second to the Bible. I finished Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged a few weeks ago and, as I said in this previous post, Who is John Galt?, I found it quite disturbing, even though I found my myself enraptured by it at the same time.

Ayn Rand wrote about a world in the near future without many sci-fi props. It is one of the greatest love stories of all time: the love for an ideal man unknown, the love of one's life-work, the love of personal freedoms, and the love of a country as it should be. It is the destination of a transcontinental political collectivism railroaded into the minds of generations delivering what it should have never promised and could not sustain.

No one can really read this book and not feel the author's anguish. It was very personal.

Ayn Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in Russia in 1905. Although non-observant Jews, they were subject to strict anti-Semitic laws, but her pharmacist father was successful in owning his business. At twelve years old, that all changed as Rand witnessed Bolshevik soldiers march in and take her father’s business. Her father would never really work again. No doubt this birthed her ideas on “looting and mooching” from productive businessmen by use of government-supported force and policies. It is also quite pronounced in Rand's book that she valued reason as the highest of man's attributes for she was an atheist. Ayn Rand died in 1982.

A few days ago I watched a documentary called Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged and I found tears in my eyes. Those tears were not for how the critics of her day (and even yet today) slammed her ideas, but in how she took ten years to write this one book and yet so many of her readers, fans even, failed to understand the philosophy she so brilliantly portrayed in Atlas Shrugged. Even if you disagree with her objectivism philosophy completely, which has been criticized as rationalized self-interest, how can you not appreciate her valiant effort to make it clearly understood?

Are there flaws in her philosophy? No doubt, just as in any man-made idealism. There was a part that I felt should grate against my beliefs, but even then I could not escape the purity of her concept in the "virtue of selfishness" and the enslavement of guilt. I know, I know. She was an atheist and true atheism is the religion of guiltless selfishness. Still, her logic was amazing and even before I read this book I have wrestled with the ideologies of selfishness and selflessness.

Selfishness is supposed to be unchristian-like, therefore quite undesirable, although perhaps inescapable, but on the extreme opposite side complete selflessness makes it impossible to sustain one's own life. I addressed some of my conflicted thoughts on selfishness about three years ago in my post Selfishly His. Some believe to be truly selfless would be to give everything you have to everyone you can that does not have those things, but then two things would happen: you would eventually have nothing because there is always someone in greater need and eventually you would be in greater need, but then you cannot depend on others to have anything left to give you.

I do not know if selfishness is actually a virtue, but I am not fully convinced that it is all bad either. I have deeply contemplated whether God Himself is selfish in some manner and, if He is, would it not be virtuous? Does that thought disturb you? Does He seek to please us above His own purpose, above His own pleasure? I would not expect this of my Lord. He gives us what we ask when and how it pleases Him to do so. If one person prays for rain and a neighbor prays for a sunny day, would He be likely to please both? He is God and will do whatever He will do because He chooses to do it--who can find fault with that!

How can God enjoy us if He was not for selfishness? For that matter how can one enjoy anything in life without selfishness? When I take a bite of chocolate, how can I enjoy those moments of delicious chocolate melting in my mouth without selfishness knowing that thousands have never tasted chocolate and worse may not have had any food available to eat for the entire day? Just desiring the chocolate I should feel guilty, right? Do you think God feels guilty having a throne in heaven while people still suffer on earth?

Ayn Rand had some things to say against religion causing this guilt factor. She illustrated how people would be convinced by their guilt, if not their own needs, to want government to be the equalizer, penalizing those who prospered to provide for those in need. The more needy or dependent, the more guiltless and noble one's life would be, so the goal would be to own nothing and willingly be paid according to your need rather than the contributions you would make to serve society. This idealism also would not stop at international borders, so there would always be some place in the world with people in greater need...always. Ayn Rand believed in separation of economics and government because she saw that collectivism resulted in all people of wealth being the evil ones and all those in need could, should, and even would have the right to take from them by the way of government. When I hear President Obama speak, I hear this sentiment loud and clear.

To that end, Ayn Rand said it herself when interviewed about the prophecy made in Atlas Shrugged: "Only that I am sorry it is coming true so exactly." And that was 40 years ago!

I rarely look back on my life and wish it went differently, not that it was so good, but that knowing myself I would have made the same choices without the wisdom gained from results of those choices. However, I do wish I had read this book before I graduated high school as I know it would have profoundly altered my perspective and changed the course of my choices as a young adult. My only excuse is that I did not know of Atlas Shrugged then and that is why I am sharing information here on my blog this day, so that those of you who have not yet read it will consider adding it to your reading list soon.

~ My Lord, it is so difficult to watch the dying breaths of this nation. ~

Making God into Our Image

Jesus Christ did not say, 'Go into the world and tell the world that it is quite right. ~C.S. Lewis

I was listening to a local radio talk show when I heard the hosts discussing a poll on their blog. It asked to which political party do you think Jesus Christ would lean towards. Although I cannot seem to find the results online now, they reported the highest percentage was Libertarian at around 25%, with Other a close second, and Republican and Democratic following respectively. Understand this is not a religious station, but one that has conservative talk shows so that would be its base. However, even knowing this, I was sickened by the results.

I am conservative and I would like to believe that Jesus was a well, but I would not dare to suggest that Jesus would lean Republican or Conservative Libertarian or even Constitutionalist, the latter to which I am relate closest of the three.

I cannot speak for Jesus, but He is the King, the Right Hand of God! I would think He would have a Theological Government...and that would have come under Other in this poll. Shouldn't Other have been nearly 90% at least? The other part about which I wonder what else "Other" represented to the other voters.

I know it is just a silly poll, but it suggests the climate of our society and the lack of understanding of who and what Jesus is. Why do we all think Jesus would align with any of our political parties? Is it that we want God to fit in with us...instead of us fitting in with Him? Are we so arrogant that we seriously believe that God would not completely do away with our petty political parties?

I find it very disturbing.

~ My Lord, may we be very careful in how we represent You, even to ourselves. ~

Who is John Galt?

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
~Ronald Reagan

Somewhere between gardening, fragments of homeschooling, and exhaustion, my mind has been occupied with Atlas Shrugged, a novel that reads like a premonition of today's political policies and social climate. I am just over half way through the over thousand paged book, but I am so moved by it that I cannot withhold my thoughts. It both fascinates and frightens me. I am almost afraid to finish it, because it can only end one of two ways. One would leave me unsatisfied and disturbed. The other...? well, I suppose it would do the same. The hope it might provide would be false, for it is a novel, and I would still be relating it to real life that may not be saved by the cunning of a secret alliance.

Still, as I have been reading the book, I have been facing my own fears of the future; of the lost of liberty and personal rights; of people blurring the definition of freedom to choose with personal rights, and fairness with entitlement; of the trend to demonize the rich and favoring redistribution of wealth; of the government strangling businesses so that it must subsidize them, possibly just take them over for "the good of the people."

Somewhere along my life's journey I recognized that one of the most terrible weapons evil has to use against the righteous is not fear nor even our selfish nature, but our own morality, our choosing to act against our fear and selfish nature, our willingness to sacrifice ourselves to make things right...in our own eyes if not in God's. This book has no religious basis, and yet as I read through it, I find myself thinking that our salvation will not be a worldly one, but a spiritual one, a real one, not fiction.

This book reminds me that there could be a higher purpose--than even this book will suggest--in the allowing of the world to fail completely. When I see decisions made today chipping away our future rather than securing it, as some may be deceived to believe, I am amazed that people do not see the obvious outcome. There is no logic, only what one feels makes something right or wrong. How many more laws do we really need to define common sense, thus defy it? These are some of the philosophies explored in this book.

I watched the movie, Atlas Shrugged Part I, recently and I could not wait for Part 2, which is scheduled to be released this fall. The first movie highlighted key events and elements staying true to the heart of the book altering some things and leaving out some nuances that enriched the story, as expected with the translation from book to big screen. I am disappointed when I discovered the cast for all the characters will be completely different for Part 2. I felt that each actor fit so well with the character. I did like how they modernized the movie version with items that were not yet invented in 1957 when the book was published--things like cell phones.

I wish the book was required reading in high schools across the world, so that everyone could answer this one question: "Who is John Galt?"

~ My Lord, thank you for using this book to help me to understand the need for the world to end horribly as it must for us to be freed completely of evil and that the reward will be worth it. ~

Another Socialist Experiment in Failure

The world is full of fools and faint hearts; and yet everyone has courage enough to bear the misfortunes, and wisdom enough to manage the affairs, of his neighbor. ~Benjamin Franklin

Just who is being greedy?

Hypocrisy is so fascinating to me. I say this because I readily admit I am a hypocrite and I have never yet met anyone who is not in some way or another, it is just that some hide it better than others. However, get a group of people together that criticize how unfair it is for so many to have so much less money and power than a few and you are sure to find the same among them.

All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.
~Logan Pearsall Smith

I found it rather interesting that Michael Moore, a multi-millionaire ($50 million net worth, actually) in support of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), denied he was in the 1% on a CNN interview. Who else is in the 1% and supporting OWS? Yoko Ono ($500 million); Russell Simmons ($325 million) hip-hop mogul and founder of a high fee credit card company called UniRush Financial Services; Roseanne Barr ($80 million) who stated that anyone with over $100 million should be beheaded; Deepak Chopra ($80 million); Kanye West ($70 million); Alec Baldwin ($65 million); Susan Sarandon ($50 million); Tim Robbins ($50 million); Nancy Pelosi ($35.5 million); and George Soros ($22 billion, yes with a "b"), who has a net worth of nearly 17 times the sum of all the ones previously listed put together. The first question that comes to my mind is that if these people are really in favor of socialism, why haven't they given away most of their own money? More to the point, why would anyone who has accumulated as much as Soros be in favor of socialism unless he had something to gain from it?

Oh, just to get an idea of how mega rich these people are, in 2009 to qualify for the top 1% you would need to make $340,000 in a year. Pelosi was the lowest of the list above and her net worth is over 100 times that. Are these people really in touch with the 99%? I don't think they can be in touch with anyone who is worth just one million, let alone all the people making less than $300,000 a year!

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. ~Alfred Adler

Now the Occupiers of Wall Street have been given donations and have accumulated about $500,000--that is half a million dollars being handled by inexperienced people who never have had much money and yet want all the things that money provide. (It makes me think of giving a group of teenagers a credit card.) According to MailOnline there are now squabbles about how that money should be "shared" fairly, especially with winter coming.

Mr Smith, who works in TV production, is a member of the Comfort Working Group, which is charged with finding out what basic necessities campers need, such as thermal underwear, and then raising money by asking for donations on the street, the New York Post reported.

'The other day, I took in $2,000. I kept $650 for my group, and gave the rest to Finance, he told the paper.

'Then I went to them with a request - so many people need things, and they should not be going without basic comfort items - and I was told to fill out paperwork. Paperwork! Are they the government now?

'We need winter gear, shoes, socks. I could spend $10,000 alone for backpacks people need. We raise all this money. Where is it?'

Where, indeed? And paperwork! Bureaucracy has now become part of the Occupation. I am wondering how far this will go.

Pete Dutro, 36, a Brooklyn tattoo artist studying a master's in finance and sits on the Finance Committee, said big purchases can't get the green light straight away.

'We don’t have the power for that. They have to go to the General Assembly. If it's approved, we pay out that amount and make sure everything is accounted for,' he told the New York Post.

It seems to me that they are getting just a taste of what it is like to govern themselves. Perhaps it is a good thing...?

The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers. ~James Russell Lowell

The most notable hypocrisy about those calling themselves the 99%, those that say they are fighting for the poor and calling for redistribution of wealth, those that now have $500,000 with more coming in, those who have not paid for one permit to hold this rally, is that they do not want to share their good fortune with all the homeless and newly released convicts have been attracted to the gourmet food, free infirmary, and warm sleeping bags in a "safe and friendly" environment.

Oh, yes! These poor, who are in such great need without homes, it seems that they are a drag on the OWS folks. The people who are willing to take what is not theirs, that take what belongs to someone else, that do not work for it, they been have judged to be undeserving of OWS's stuff! Just who saw that one coming? However, OWS cannot exactly push them out, so the protesters hope to discourage them with a brown rice bland diet for three days.

It is also reported that the volunteer kitchen staff have been working up to eighteen hours a day and now are having a kind of labor dispute because they are doing more than their "fair share." They plan to provide directions to local soup kitchens for those not in the protest movement. However, it is a public park and these homeless people have just as much of a right to be there as the protesters and, if the protesters really believe what they say they do, then they should be giving their fair share to these less fortunate people--or perhaps they feel that is what the 1% should be doing, not them?

Many of us believe that wrongs aren't wrong if it's done by nice people like ourselves. ~Author Unknown

The protesters will probably make adjustments, of course, but in the end I think many will lose heart because the use of the money and the labor each does will never be fairly distributed. There are always people who will believe they deserve more than they have, who truly have greater needs, who are willing to take from people who have more. If numbers at OWS do not dwindle in the coming winter, they will create a representative governing body out of necessity instead of the collective making all decisions, leaders will clash as they already are, and people will complain about the money within the group as much or more so than outside of it. It will become everything they claim to hate and implode or just dwindle to complete ineffectiveness.

Perhaps then they will realize that the problems they have with 1% is the same problem they have within themselves.... Well, probably not. It is my hope, but it more likely will always be someone else at fault, but I am hopeful that at least a few will learn before they become ill living in the freezing cold.

~ My Lord, we are all hypocrites. The saddest part is when it goes unrecognized. May we be embarrassed and repentant of being so. ~

A 1948 Cartoon about Isms for Occupiers of Today

-Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. ~Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

The Occupiers of Atlanta has been evicted peacefully but with some arrests. I see them as anarchists mostly and anti-capitalists definitely, but without foresight in understanding what kind of system would evolve from what they think they want. This cartoon, created in 1948, has a message for them...and for us all.



The protesters kind of remind me of Ferris Bueller, who skipped school to enjoy the freedom, but the difference is that he was not thinking of trying to change the world nor bring down our monetary system, he just wanted a break and then he would take on the responsibilities of a maturing person: In other words, even he understood that he would have to go back home and grow up navigating his life on the sea of the personal freedoms we all enjoy.

~ My Lord, please help people to see and change the course of this country so that we stop exchanging our freedom for entitlements, for one day we could lose our freedom of worshiping You. ~

So Cometh the Winter of Discontent

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. ~Exodus 20:17

I have purposely been staying away from all blogs including my own. I am disturbed by many things of political natures right now and I wanted to have time to clarify my thoughts. I have mentioned in the past that I am politically minded, but I do not usually mention politics on my blog. I align myself with few groups because mostly I am very conservative and typically conservatives tend to be highly self-reliant, independent, principled people. (I hope I live up to that standard.)

In our Sunday School lesson last week, we covered the Ten Commandments and I realized something I really had not thought of before. I knew the first four commandments were in reference to God and the following six in reference to others, five of which were based on actions, but the tenth one is just a bit different than all of them. Now I know that entertaining the thoughts is the same a committing the sin in action to our Lord, but the tenth one is specifically about our yearnings. Coveting is a yearning of the heart, and it leads to committing sins against all the other commandments, as in one will covet the wealth of another before he steals it; lie to get it; dishonor God and parents in the process, and so on. Coveting could be considered the root of all evil.

I have been watching with strange fascination the soul-sick protesters now spreading their demonstrations across the globe wondering how the course of human events will try to balance itself, as it historically does. I am concerned about how bloody it will get as the numbers are swelling emboldening the protesters to grow more confrontational along with some of them calling for violence. Even though they actually are a very small percentage, when mobs rule, they do not govern themselves well. I have watched the self-described peaceful demonstrators goading police officers there to keep the peace and wonder how peaceful this mob would remain if those in uniform were not there.

Beyond all that though, I have been trying to see behind the signs and masks, and even beneath its pretty packaging that these who call themselves the 99% and say they are fighting for me as one of them. Because their message is not one but many, too many in which I cannot find agreement, even with some alarming anti-Semitic malevolence. Peering into depths of its soul, what I have found is that these protests are mostly about money: people wanting other people's money. People hating people who have more than they do. People who are willing to take money from other people believing they have rights to it. People who willingly borrowed money but do not want to pay back the loans because they feel they are in debt unfairly.

People not trusting God for His provision in their lives.

This is why I do not agree with this movement, nor do I sympathize with these people except in this: I see these protesters as soul-sick people. They have broken just about every one of the Ten Commandments while peacefully protesting, if not yet in action, then certainly in their hearts by coveting. I am sad for them and those who support them, for they are being supported by people who have profited in the very capitalistic society they claim to hate and wish to bring down. (If hypocrisy itself was a sin, it would be the one of which we all are most guilty...and I include myself most of all here.)

They do not see that no matter what form of government is in place, it will be corrupted by money because governments have power made of people with corruptible hearts. They do not see that placing more taxes on the rich only make them pay more for goods themselves and so they gain nothing. They think that if we tax the rich more they will be satisfied, when there is no satisfaction for coveting; they will always just want more. Given the opportunity, most of them would become what they protest against...it is human nature.

I am supposedly one of the 99% because I am not in the top 1% of the rich, but I would rather align myself with the 53%. Those are the ones who are paying income taxes while 47% pay no income taxes and some of them, some of which are friends of mine, are getting an earned income tax credit, which is money given to them above what they paid in, a redistribution of wealth. That redistributed money comes from the 53%, not just the top 1% which actually pay nearly 40% of the all federal income taxes collected. We are a very diverse group that is not a group, just individuals who make enough pay income taxes, according to our current tax laws.

I feel I have been taxed enough already like others in the TEA Party. I would like to see a radical revamping of our tax code and our government downsized. I would like my tax dollars to stop funding things against my religious beliefs, particularly abortions. I will pay off my own debts. I will try to trust my Lord to provide and be thankful for that with which He has entrusted me. I will try to be content with what I have even in this coming winter of discontent.

~ My Lord, thank you for being my God, Lord of my heart. Help me to be content in You and Your provision. Please reveal Yourself to these people who so much need You in their hearts. ~

Perspective Change on College

That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun. ~Ecclesiastes 1:9

For the last few years, I have had this underlying fear. I would say it is like being in a whirlpool. I can see the world going down the drain. I can feel it, but I am as caught up in it as everyone else. I listen to the news hoping for hope and I do not hear any.

A few of the presidential candidates that might possibly slow this whirlpool, perhaps even reverse it, are considered too radical...too radical because they believe our federal government is doing things it was never meant to do and most were never lawful. Too many people think that the creators of the U.S. Constitution could not have foreseen how the world would change.

But God has seen this scenario played out many times before. History has shown us that mankind continually makes the same mistakes regardless of how intelligent it becomes. You would think God would get tired of us making the same mistakes over and over and over again. I believe there will be an End Time and sometimes I think that if God Himself does not end this world as it is, we will.

I cannot remember how I came across the following video yesterday, but I feel my Lord has been trying to get me to change my perspective and expectations regarding education, my daughter's education in particular. I want(ed) her to go to college, maybe more so because I did not. I feel have no safety net, no paper to prove I am "trainable" and I say this because that is what employers see when they see a college degree. I would say about half of people I know, who have a degree, were working jobs unrelated.

I am feeling unsteady as if trying to walk on shifting sands, but if God is leading me then I should welcome the journey. I should be willing to make my desires fit His desires.

This video is an hour long. I know that is quite a time commitment and I myself had to watch it in segments because I rarely have an entire hour to sit and watch anything these days, but the information on the "college bubble" is very interesting and has helped me to reconsider the idea of placing so much importance on a college education.

While I know that many of my friends do not care for politics as much as I, there are some things that really do need to change so that people are not so hampered by government regulations to be inventive entrepreneurs starting small businesses or running farms and that will not change unless we vote for people determined to make those changes.

Perhaps it will spur some interesting conversations, at least.

~ My Lord, I will listen to Your words and follow as You lead. Help me to be as You wish me to be, not what I think I should be. Help me to shape my daughter's education as You wish it to be, for her to be prepared for the tasks You have planned for her. ~

Hypocrisies Always Amaze Me

Because the worst of all worlds is when you pretend like you have an immigration policy, you make coming into the United States without our permission illegal, and then you actually don't enforce it. ~Tom Tancredo

I rarely write about political issues on my posts here, but I am quite interested in politics, a strong believer in the U.S. Constitution, and a conservative. I live in a state that is 7th in the number of illegal aliens. Understand that I do not fault these people for desperately wanting a better life for themselves and their children, but there are many complications and expenses on the U.S. citizen because of these people circumvented our laws. First of all, in most situations they do not pay any income taxes, yet are recipients of income tax dollars through a variety of programs meant for citizens. It is common they use stolen IDs, often children's Social Security numbers, to get credit, which happened with two children of a friend, because it is less common for children to check their credit.

They can easily skirt around our laws because they are not really here on paper and easily escape retribution because of the lack of legal documentation. For instance, a pick-up truck load of Hispanics ran into a family's car. All of the family died save one boy who is now crippled for life. The men involved...? Who knows as they ran out of the truck and scattered. The owner of the vehicle? Who knows because the tags were stolen. A trace of the VIN number was also a dead end as to finding the owner or driver.

Georgia recently passed a law that so that private employers in Georgia with eleven or more employees must use E-Verify for new hires to be sure that they are citizens of the United States. This has caused a few problems.

One is that many illegal aliens are leaving the state, some going back to their home countries, but others are probably just moving to other states. Now Georgia farmers are saying they do not have enough workers, so the governor suggested they hire people paroled and on probation who must have jobs, but have difficulty in getting hired because of their records. Some farmers are receptive and some are not so much.

Another problem is that there is lawsuit to challenge the constitutional validity of the law. I am completely receptive to laws being challenged for their compliance with our Constitution. Although it is a costly and time consuming process, I believe it is a necessary one to protect our rights. However, adding to this challenge, several countries have filed a brief in support of this new law's opponents. Yes, countries. They are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and more countries may join as well.

Here is one premise: Creating a patchwork of state laws damages U.S.-Mexico relations and makes it "nearly impossible for Mexican nationals to understands their rights," Mexico stated in its court brief in Georgia.

Hmmm. Well, having studied a bit of law, I have to first say that each state is sovereign, having rights to make its own laws, and state laws do not have any power outside of their own boundaries. As most homeschooling families well know, every state has very differing laws about homeschooling. Does that mean I, being in Georgia, can make a legal argument protesting Ohio and Florida and Texas homeschooling laws because I have family living there? I don't think so.... So why should the argument from these countries have any weight whatsoever with a state law?

This country is called the United States because each state has its own right to self-govern, but we collectively are to be protected by our federal government. It is the federal government who should be protecting the country's borders so that we do not have an illegal immigration problem that is bankrupting our states as well as the federal government. You see, we have laws in place that are well defined at the federal level, but not well enforced, which is why states are now devising their own laws on illegal immigration. However, if the federal government would enforce the laws already in place, the problem with each state making its own laws against illegal immigrants would not even be a factor.

Is it the responsibility for any state or even the federal government to conform its laws so that the citizens of another country can understand their rights when they have illegally entered our country? My husband has traveled to a few countries and in each one the responsibility not to break any of the laws in whose countries is his responsibility. No country is required to educate him on his rights when he legally enters it, and I would imagine that if someone would enter a country illegally, the person could not feign ignorance of the laws there either.

Now I believe we are all born with certain unalienable rights, but when a law is broken in our country, the person has chosen a path that is outside of the protect of the law. Citizens and those who are here legally have that protection. Those who are here illegally have willfully and knowingly broken our laws so they also are outside of that protection.

Ironically, the immigration laws of some of these countries are more penalizing than our own. Did you know that Mexico annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does? It is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico and immigrants who attempt to re-enter after previously being deported can be imprisoned up to ten years. In comparison, illegal immigration into the U.S. is a misdemeanor punishable by criminal fines and imprisonment for up to six months and, if repeated, becomes punishable as a felony up to two years in prison with additional civil fines imposed at the discretion of immigration judges.

Now, think about this: some of the legal immigrants in the U.S. passed through Mexico illegally as well. According to information at Wikipedia:

In September 2007, Mexican President Calderón harshly criticized the United States government for the crackdown on illegal immigrants, saying it has led to the persecution of immigrant workers without visas. "I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico", he said.

In October 2008, Mexico tightened its immigration rules and agreed to deport Cubans using the country as an entry point to the US. It also criticized U.S. policy that generally allows Cubans who reach U.S. territory to stay. Cuban Foreign Minister said the Cuban-Mexican agreement would lead to "the immense majority of Cubans being repatriated."

It seems the United States has been too enabling and it cannot please other countries no matter what it does about illegal immigration so why not just enforce our federal laws and tighten up guarding our borders to help foreigners come into our country legally so there is far less concern about our policies on an illegal immigration.

~ My Lord, it is difficult to know for what I should pray. My heart is torn for so many of the people affected, but they made a choice to purposely be here illegally and often break more laws, hurting innocent people by stealing their identities, to stay. Please help them make better choices for their families so they can be protected by the laws and help my government to enforce immigration laws so we no longer encourage the breaking of those laws. ~