Paul Harvey: If I were the Devil

"I'd evict God from the court house, the school house, and the houses of congress."

Paul Harvey





Psalms 18

7 The earth trembled and quaked,
   and the foundations of the mountains shook;
   they trembled because he was angry.
⁸ Smoke rose from his nostrils;
   consuming fire came from his mouth,
   burning coals blazed out of it.
⁴⁰ You made my enemies turn their backs in flight,
   and I destroyed my foes.
⁴¹ They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—
   to the LORD, but he did not answer.
⁴⁷ He is the God who avenges me,
   who subdues nations under me,

The Lord is not slack as some men count slackness but is long suffering, not wanting anyone to perish but for all to come to repentance.   The founders often spoke the necessity of religion and morality as bed rock to a free society.

From Wallbuilders:

John Adams
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Second President of the United States

[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.

History is replete with examples of power based nations that grow in self aggrandizement that have been made humble by the hand of God.  Read these words spoken by Margaret Thatcher to the general assembly of the church  in the late 1980's:

The truths of the Judeo-Christian worldview are infinitely precious, not only as I believe them, but that they're true.  They are also because they alone provide the moral impulse which can lead to that peace which we all long.  There is little hope for any democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched to a call greater than themselves.  Political structures, state institutions, collective ideals are not enough.  We parliamentarians can legislate for the rule of law--You the church can teach the life of faith. Teach your children to be grateful for what God has provided for them, it did not come from merit but the goodness of the hands of God.  

The core of democracy and freedom is faith, family and morality.  The pulse of our nation has been given over to the lusts of the flesh; lust, greed, pride.  Is it any wonder that our economic foundation has been shaken and our constitution forgotten, when the God who gave us that moral impulse Thatcher speaks to has been forgotten both in government and in our homes? 

Pride: Live Humble & Forgive

 ¹⁶ There are six things the LORD hates,
   seven that are detestable to him:
    ¹⁷ haughty eyes,
      a lying tongue,
      hands that shed innocent blood,
    ¹⁸ a heart that devises wicked schemes,
      feet that are quick to rush into evil,
    ¹⁹ a false witness who pours out lies
      and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

Proverbs 6:16-17

Pride was the original sin.  It is what caused Satan to fall from his position in heaven to the depths of life without God.  The Lord spent most of his life in human form confronting this sin, constantly debating the Pharisees, which where the religious rulers of his day, over this issue.  He spoke out, most notably recorded in Matthew 23 "The Woes of the Pharisees", against their arrogance toward their obedience to the law speaking that they 'strained at a gnat, but swallowed a camel.'  Christ preached humility and lived that virtue out in his life.

We look at the Cross and recall the anguish and suffering of the Messiah, but do we look at the cross and see our sin, especially our arrogance and pride that he died for.  Most of the time, we live life with a sense of entitlement: We are entitled to a wife, house, kids, and a dog.  We deserve to retire after 30 years of toil under the sun to live an enjoyable life free of responsibility.  We earned heaven because of our time spent doing good works.


In effect, we become our own undoing and deceive ourselves singing to ourselves in the mirror.  We forget what happens after death, until we have someone close to us die.  We think we can live independent of anyone until we get into a jam and need someone else to bail us out.  We think that we don't need to share the Truth, talk to strangers, or spend time figuring out someone else's bad life decisions.  In effect, we undermine through our actions the whole reason Christ came to this earth.

Every day brings a new decision.
Instead of pride: humility.
Instead of Criticism: Praise.
Instead of Arrogance: Grace.
Instead of Myopic-ism: Eternal Perspective.
Instead of Greed: Selflessness

Our lives may be full of labor and suffering, but our life was worth the price of God's son.  We cannot begin to be used by God until first we realize just how much he paid and just how dependent we are on him, for his grace. 

 ¹⁵ Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. ¹⁶ For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

1 John 2:15-17

 ⁶ But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷ For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it

1 Timothy 6:6-7

Crony Capitalism USA

Capitalism is dead for all intensive purposes in America.  While the system itself may never have been perfect, their was a time when government was smaller and less powerful.  This former government allowed at least a little transparency for all those who freely exchanged goods and services.  We had monopoly during the late 1800's, Teddy Roosevelt and congress broke them up.  Pre-1913 we had no income tax or social security 'tax'.  We had no Federal Reserve inflation tax.  There was no medicare or medicaid to deal with in the health and insurance industry. We had no Davis-Bacon laws until the 1930's, which mandate gov. contracts pay union wages for all public jobs.

We have always had un-fair competition to some extent, but we had competition and companies have for the most part had to rely upon their own merit to produce things.  For example, there wasn't a backing of the automobile companies the way it is today.  Back in Henry Ford's day, Henry actually had multiple auto companies go bankrupt before the Model-T finally hit the assembly line.  He never got bailed out and neither did his investors.

The 2008 economic collapse ushered in the largest transfer of wealth of failed companies in the history of the world.  The bailouts in the level of trillions has forever changed the nature of the game in the USA and the world. 

Crony Capitalism, using government to deliver money to your pals in the business world, is alive and well in America.  It's our wealthy elite's coup d'état of the free market system.

We're paying for this America:

• At the grocery store, via higher grocery prices thanks to sweetheart deals to the dairy industry and sugar lobby.
• At the drugstore because politicians, rented by Big Pharma block competition
• via lower return on pension plans with banks speculating with taxpayer money
• In the loss of jobs with labor deals bought and paid for by unions and corrupt tax law
• pay via higher taxes
• pay via higher gas prices thanks to government regulations and the special environmental lobby
• pay in the loss of sovereignty where money dominates politics
• and largest of all, via an inflation tax thanks to the federal reserve, treasury, and big banking interests

Time is money.  In effect, we are being rented out, shelled of our freedom and liberty.


From JesseCafe:

David Stockman on crony capitalism.

David should know, because he has been knee deep in serving the monied interests and profiting from their activities for most of his life. He often strikes one as a very sly and self-serving 'reformer.' And he may be a Judas goat.

While I do not agree with his characterization with the extent of the panic that froze the paper markets necessarily, and do not trust him in general based on his past performance, much of what he says is very much to the point. It was he does NOT say that is just as interesting.

Banking Armageddon: The Powerful Elite

Thomas Jefferson once was famously quoted saying in 1802:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies..."

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."

"The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." 

 From Monticello.org 


Have we been so deceived as to think that our leaders have our best interests at heart?  The trillions of dollars of debt that has been both created and pushed upon the American people will eventually have to be repaid either through lower living standards, higher taxes, inflation, or a combination of these three.  The average debt per person in America is over $50,000 or about 1 year of an average wage in this country.  Would you work a year of your life to pay off a debt that you don't believe is yours?

We have nationalized our banks, car companies, and now our health care system.  The government as a percentage of GDP is over 20% and almost 50% of the country does not pay income taxes.  In effect the institution of the family has also been nationalized, with kids being sent off to state schools at the age of and over 15 million families relying on food stamps to feed these kids.  Then, after the student grows up they are given a choice of either turning to the government to fund their student loans, thanks to the nationalization of this program, or they can work for the government either through the volunteer army AmeriCorp or the Military in exchange for guarantees to pay off that debt when they go back to school.

When will we wake up to the fact that we are being boiled like a frog in hot water?  If we are to remain independent and free, unlike most of the known world, we will have to gain an understanding of what made us free and prosperous.  It starts with understanding how destructive the Private Central Banks and Big Government policies have been in forever indebting us to the shackles and chains of debt slavery.

Kony 2012: Beating the WAR-Drums

An incredible phenomenon has been sweeping the web recently.  If you haven't seen it, you eventually will.  The short documentary: KONY 2012 in a nutshell is a piece put together by InvisibleChildren, a non profit advocacy group out of San Diego, CA that has pushed toward ending child slavery, human trafficking, and by the use of military force via the ending of the life one its  leaders, an African war-lord of Uganda named Kony.

Wait? A call for assassination? Military intervention?

Yes, and top it off with 100 million views on Youtube and 1million people pledging their support.

The major push of this film is to get America's youth on board and in the name of justice, to take out an evil mini-dictator in Africa.


Who is Kony?  From Wikipedia:

Joseph Kony (pronounced IPA: [koɲ];^[6] born c. 1961)^[1] is a Ugandan guerrilla group leader, head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). While initially enjoying strong public support, the LRA turned brutally on its own supporters, supposedly to "purify" the Acholi people and turn Uganda into a theocracy.^[2]He ordered the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers.^[20] An estimated 66,000 children became soldiers and two million people have been internally displaced since 1986.^[21

Evil:  Mentality & Ignorance:

"This movie is being shown in middle schools, in grade schools.  I've got kids calling me and saying, we need to kill him, he's hurting children!"

Evil abounds in this world.  Right now in this world, consider this: 

1. Syria:  
• Civil War has broken out.  The UN estimates up to 10,000 civilians have died just over the last few months alone.  An evil dictator is killing his own people.
2. Afghanistan:
• America's war on terror is in its' 10th year in this country.  When will it end?  This war has already surpassed the war in Vietnam as the longest war in America's history.  3,000 American troops have died thus far, upwards of 40-50,000 Taliban fighters as well.  100,000 troops are still stationed in this country
3. Iraq:
•  Estimated war deaths exceed 100,000 including civilians.  Upon a majority of US forces leaving, a civil war between the Suni and Shiite may soon happen.  Bombings, like this one leaving 16 dead innocent men, women and children dead and 26 scarred for life , continue with a never ending frequency.
4. Libya:  
• Civil War has ended the life of Muammar Gaddafi and 20-30,000 soldiers and citizens. 
5. Congo:
• The deadliest war in modern African history was recently 'ended' and directly involved eight African nations, as well as about 25 armed groups. After beginning in 2003, by 2008, the war and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation.  This war was engineered and ran by multiple African kings.
6. Palestine:  
• Terrorist group Hezbollah has been targeting Israel ever since its existence in 1948.  Hezbollah, which started with only a small militia, has grown to an organization with seats in the Lebanese government.  This terrorist group has been democratically elected! Their sole purpose is to destroy Israel.
  
7. Iran:
• Protesters were shot and killed in in 2009 in protesting the tyranny of the Iranian government over their lives.  The country is an Islamic republic ruled by the Ayatollahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has professed that he will 'wipe Israel off the map' once he has atomic weapons.  He is building them as we speak.
8. Rwanda:  
• Government sanctioned genocide just recently 'ended.'  Here's a summary:  The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days (from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6) through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate.^[1]
9. Nigeria
• A war between Muslim and Christian factions have split the country in two.  Another suicide bomb killing 'just' 10.  Thousands, perhaps 10+ thousand have died just in the past few months in the name of violence.  
10. Mexican Drug War:  The war the never ends and has left thousands dead

America has been the defender of liberty since it's founding out of tyranny in 1776.  George Washington led the initial revolution, but upon stepping down as president in his farewell address he stressed the need to stay out of foreign wars in Europe.  The founders understood what war was all about, why? Because they experienced it first hand.  They saw the evil in this world and understood that in order to stay independent and free, we could not afford to lose millions of our young men and women on the battlefield.  Some could argue, we have become a great country in no small part because we have stayed out of wars longer than other rival economic super powers.

We've seen carnage in WWI, WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Holocaust, Russian Stalin Communism, Pol-Pot's slaying of millions in the Khmer Rouge, and so many other bloody events.  Some would say that this is the history of mankind, a long period of war interrupted by brief periods of peace.

Evil exists.  Yes, the land of the free and the brave has done much to take out that evil and in effect saving the world not once, but twice from tyranny.  But, we fought in WWI and II not because we wanted to grab land or gain power, but rather to free citizens from the shackles of tyranny and by doing so protect our lands from those chains ever coming upon us.

We are fighting for freedom right now in the longest lasting war in America's history, Afghanistan, surpassing even Vietnam's long length.  We have troops in over 100 countries around the world.  We could be at any moment engaged in yet another conflict in Iran.

Fighting for freedom is a noble cause, and when wrapping it in a nice 27 minute video full of passionate appeals from the children, it appears even nobler.  But to fight a war comes at a cost, a cost that can not be so easily explained in 27 minute sound bites.

Why is it that the same anti-war and anti-bush celebrities are now joining in on this call to end this rebel's power and now advocating assassination?  and why Kony of all people?  Where is the Ugandan government in all this, don't they have an interest in ending this evil in their own country?

 

Should we always be eliminating evil in the world with war? Why is it that America is seemingly all alone when we go to war? Why are we the last ones to leave? Why is our defense budget greater than the rest of the world combined? Too many questions to explain to the children.  Rather, should we kill a bad guy? Ah, that's better. I can understand that.

Perhaps we should have a campaign with little kids waving signs saying: "Communism has claimed over 100 Million lives over the last generation, Kill the Chinese Dictator"  or "Military draft for the restoration of freedom all over the world!"

But then, that war may be too expensive, or difficult to do, or ruffle too many feathers--that's right, we just want to live in peace.  We can't do anything militarily with China, that might cause a real war where millions would die.  Oh.

We are blinded in America by our greed, our pride, our arrogance.  We think that we can take evil out of the world while it is still lodged in our own heart. Abortion anyone? How many millions around the world, even now with China's one-child policy have been silenced this way?   When God is forgotten, evil manifests itself.  We have moved away from Him in America.  Evil will only increase without his hand on our society.  War is not the answer, God is.  Yes, we need to protect the innocent and stand for freedom around the globe, but we need to consider the costs and consider the motives for these actions.

Perhaps we should get our house in order.  Perhaps we should get the log out of our own eye first.