Of Financial Crisis and Hopes for Better

Sitting by the hearth on a Sunday afternoon, comfortable and cozy, while the winter winds blow, it is easy to ponder how the changing of the year has come to be a time for leaving behind the failings of the past and embracing hopes for better in the future.  I reflect upon the general healthy recognition at this time that happiness in the new year is to some important degree connected with our own personal performance.  Success is not so much the luck of what happens to us as the result of what we do, hence our natural determinations to resolve to do better in some way or another.

Within a few weeks—or even a few days—many of us overcome such thoughts, abandon our resolutions to do better, and settle back into familiar patterns, including the narcotic belief that what happens to us is largely a matter of fate and fortune and little related to our efforts and actions.  Successful people are seen as more “fortunate” than others, who somehow owe something to the “less fortunate,” especially if we consider ourselves among the “less fortunate.”  How else could rational people conjure up the palpably false claim that it is fair to demand and take the property of more successful people and give it to those who have done little or nothing to earn it, who in fact have in many ways squandered their wealth and opportunities for success?

Had we as a nation embraced the principle that what a man or woman earns is his or hers to use or keep or share as he or she wishes, we would have avoided the weeks-long political soap opera called “the fiscal cliff.”  The misleading story proffered by the institutional media is that our nation is on the edge of economic calamity because Congress—meaning by implication the Republicans in the Congress—is unwilling to do its job.  In fact, there are important fundamental principles at the heart of the disagreement between congressional Republicans and President Obama, namely whether cutting government spending—mostly government give away programs—should be postponed by raising taxes on the “wealthy” and independent businesses, and moreover whether raising any taxes on a weak economy makes economic sense.  There is a growing gap in views over these principles.  But for the national cult of coveting there would not be one, but there is, and sooner or later it will be too wide to bridge.

Without this disagreement, we would address excessive government spending the same way that families do.  Families that spend more than they earn will either borrow (within their means to support debt), reduce spending, or earn more, or some combination of these.  Our government has almost exclusively relied upon borrowing (beyond our ability to support it without foreign help), has increased its spending, and has “earned” less. 

On this last point, keep in mind that governments do not earn anything; people do.  Governments take what people earn.  Government policies over the years have reduced economic growth below the growth of government, inhibiting the ability of people to earn, which in turn undermines what our government can afford.  This trend has not been getting any better and has brought us to economic crisis.  A refocus on economic growth, not government growth, is what is needed, but there lies the disagreement in Washington.

In that context, I take advantage of the year-end season of better rationality—however brief—to propose that the bells we sound for the new year ring out the old and destructive coveting for the fruits of others’ labors and ring in the determination to improve our own condition by our own labors.  I propose that for you and for me and for our society as a whole we commit to rely more upon ourselves and to unleash our creative powers for growth and prosperity.  In the same way we will increase our ability and willingness to help others, but we will do so as a healthy exercise of our free will.  Government cannot be generous, for there is no generosity in distributing other people’s money.  But the individual people who make up society can and will open their hands to those around them, as Americans have more than any other people for more than two centuries.  More productive ourselves, we will have more means to share and better judgment about how to share it—ennobling to ourselves and to those we choose to aid.

Of Christ and the World of Tribulation

The text of one of the most famous and popular of the choruses from Handel’s Messiah is taken from Isaiah 9:6, “For unto us a child is born,” a very clear prophecy of Jesus Christ given seven centuries before His birth.  Isaiah declares that the coming Messiah would be called by several of His many names.  Among them—

Wonderful Counselor,

The mighty God,

The Everlasting Father,

The Prince of Peace.

I reckon that this is more than a mere list and that the order is not accidental.  It seems that each title is a progression from the former, reflecting what He means to the progressing believer in Christ. 

Faith is not something that you either have or do not have.  It is a dynamic gift possessed in growing or diminishing degree.  Jesus Christ during His mortal ministry among his disciples frequently pointed out to them that they needed more faith, that their faith was still “little.”  I do not recall that He told them that they had no faith, just not enough.  He wanted their faith to grow.  Luke records the plea from the disciples to the Master, “Increase our faith.” (Luke 17:5)  Later Paul writes to the Corinthians that his ministry will grow as the faith of the saints is “increased” (2 Corinthians 10:15).  In his second letter to the Thessalonians, Paul rejoices in God that the faith of those saints “groweth exceedingly” (2 Thessalonians 1:3).

During this Christmas time, especially in a world of gathering troubles, perhaps a good way to worship Christ—which is the true spirit of Christmas—is to reflect upon how your faith has grown and how that growth affects what the Savior means to you.

Do you call Jesus Christ your Wonderful Counselor?  If so, you are doing well.  The Savior’s counsel never fails, never leads astray, always leads to happiness and success.  I can personally testify that in my life when relying upon counsel from God I have never made a major mistake, whether in family relations, career choice, or the timing of life’s large events.  I have also been guided in uncounted lesser things.  The ancient American prophet Helaman promised to his sons that if they would build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ they would be on “a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” (Helaman 5:12)

But Christ is more.  Too many in the world who are at best casually familiar with Jesus and His words and work would dismiss Him as being a truly wonderful counselor, but one among many throughout history.  Does your faith allow you to call Him more?  Do you recognize Him as the mighty God?  The testimonies of many since Adam proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and God.  The Apostle John, who knew Jesus personally and from direct association perhaps as well as anyone who walked the earth, declared that Jesus was God, that “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3)  Do you have the faith to receive Christ as the mighty God, before whom you worship no other nor have any higher priority?

Being God need not cause the Creator to be distant from us.  One of the great messages of the gospel, anciently as well as in modern times, is that our relationship to God is one of family.  Paul wrote to the Romans,

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans (8:16-18)

God is literally our Father, the Father of our spirits.  We lived in His presence, in His family, before He sent each of us to this earth as part of our eternal progression to become more like Him through the experience of trials and testing, trials and tests that all of us would to some degree elect to fail.  Our Father did not intend for those failures to be permanent.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:17)

Every week, every day, we receive powerful reminders that a lot of saving is needed.  That among so much evil and destruction on the earth goodness and kindness can exist and even flourish is unmistakable evidence of the presence of God and His influence.  As we become full time participants in those realms of goodness and kindness, and are saved by the spiritual transformation that comes through Jesus Christ, we are reborn into the family of God.  As the ancient American king, Benjamin, explained to his people, we are thereby “called the children of Christ, and his sons and daughters” (Mosiah 5:7).  This rebirth comes through keeping covenants to follow Christ

with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent . . . then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels . . . . (2 Nephi 31:13)

In short, for all with sufficient faith so to receive Him and be spiritually reborn, Jesus becomes the Everlasting Father.

Once having received Christ and the spiritual rebirth He offers, the task of life is to press on into the light.  As we do so the prophets have promised, “the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.” (Isaiah 32:17)  The Savior explained to His apostles during the last supper,

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation:  but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

And so He has, and He promises that in Him so shall we.  As we follow and receive Jesus Christ in our daily walk, being transformed in thought and action, our endowment is “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding”.  (Philippians 4:7)  Then for us the promise of Isaiah is realized, and Jesus Christ becomes our Prince of Peace as we enter His peaceable kingdom, even in a world of tribulation.

Of Taxes and the Tenth Commandment

It may be a commonplace to comment on popular culture’s war on the Ten Commandments, but it merits the effort.  At best they are treated in Hollywood and other secular Zions of pop culture as the Ten Old Fashioned Ideas.  Undeniably, Moses was after all just another one of those old white men, whom many with public microphones wish would fade from the contemporary scene (as long as they keep paying the bills).

Yet there seems to linger in the hearts and minds of most people in America who are not cultural trend setters an enduring if vague respect for Ten Commandment concepts such as the preeminence of God, the duties to parents, abhorrence of murder, the value of marriage covenants, the evils of theft, and that telling the truth is still better than lying.  These are basic concepts that even children have little trouble understanding.

I must confess, however, that as a child I had difficulty understanding the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet” (Exodus 20:17).  “Covet” is not a word much found in a child’s vocabulary, or in anyone else’s for that matter.  It required explaining to me.  Then it was not overly hard to take in as an idea.  I did wonder, though, why it had an exalted place with the other nine commandments.  The gravity of theft, murder, blasphemy, lying, not going to Church on Sunday, and even dishonoring parents I could sense as a child, but why make such a big deal about coveting?  Very bad things happen from breaking those other commandments.  Sure, coveting, as explained to me, led to other sins, such as stealing, murder, lying and the rest, but where was the great evil in the thing itself?  You could go to jail for breaking some of the other Ten Commandments, and you certainly were on the high road to hell if you did.  Coveting might make you feel unhappy or dislike someone who had something you wanted—not good, but was it really so bad?

I have come to learn, with time and experience, that the answer is, Yes, it is very bad.  The Ten Commandments address, first, our relationship with God; second, our relationship with family; and finally our relationship with our neighbors and in the communities where we live.  Coveting is a powerful corrosive acid in community relationships.  It dissolves kindness and respect and love for our fellows, leaving an envy that has hate at its root. 

Indulged in, coveting insidiously works to separate us from those who have what we might want.  One need not act on the coveting, one need not steal, lie, cheat, commit adultery, or engage in other offenses for the wedge of coveting to work its evil within society.  Neighbors become cold, businessmen and workers become self-centered, helping hands become harder to find, envy and jealousy increasingly push compassion and cooperation aside.  The poor hate any richer than they, and those who are better off lose their pity and concern for those whom they might otherwise be quick to help and encourage.

I am not one who looks to our political leaders to be moral leaders, but I do look to them to be virtuous.  Morality must be a fundamental qualification for those to whom we give authority to make, execute, and judge the laws if we want our laws and their administration to be based upon virtue.  We do not and should not derive our morality from these people, but we should expect them to act morally in the exercise of the duties and powers that they derive from the people whom they govern.

It is more than irresponsible, then, that coveting has not only been accepted by President Obama but is in fact advocated for the nation to embrace as the defining element of our economic policy, one that begins with demands for higher taxes on “the rich.”  This national call to covet is dangerous to our community.  Look again at how the evil was described on Mount Sinai, keeping in mind President Obama’s call to soak the rich to support more government:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. (Exodus 20:17)

All sharing in the tax burden is a necessary element of self-government.  Self-government does not work without all of the individual selves in society pitching in fairly.  But how else than a call to covet can we understand President Obama’s “not negotiable” demand that the United States, on the brink of renewed recession and economic trouble for millions, do nothing unless the government first takes ever growing shares out of the pockets of those he calls “the rich”?  He wants their money, and he wants the rest of the nation to covet their money in support of his plans for bigger government. 

The demand cannot be explained on grounds of “fairness” or financial value.  One part of the population is singled out to pay for an outsized share of government spending, including promised subsidies to some of the rest.  The rich, for now defined by the President as those with incomes of $250,000 or more, currently earn 22% of all income but pay 45% of all federal income taxes.  No fairness in raising that share even higher.  But neither would Obama’s plans do much to pay for government budget deficits.  His so-called “Buffett Rule” would drink in some $47 billion more over the next ten years, or just under $5 billion a year.  The federal government, however, is currently spending $4 billion a day more than it collects.  That is, soaking the rich will pay for a little more than one day of the federal deficit.  Not a financial policy that will bridge the government budget gap.

What is going on here, other than a destructive and cynical effort to gain popularity by stirring up the many with envy of the income of a few?  This short-sighted strategy is working to undermine our national community, just as surely as Moses warned 4,000 years ago.  Already it has brought us to a month long national financial emergency, at the very time of Christmas when virtues of generosity, tolerance, kindness, and unity would better occupy the public attention.  The theme of peace on earth and goodwill to men is replaced by a manufactured national crisis over how to pitch class against class with sentiments of envy and hatred led by America’s chief executive.

By the way, I am not aware of any religion that condones coveting.  But even if the fear of God does not make you slow to covet, objective love for the nation as a whole and the integrity of the society should cause you to recoil from a political platform based upon feeding the fires of envy.

Of the Constitution and the Ever-Fresh Idea of Freedom

It seems that the days of trial and testing of our Constitution are not over.  Perhaps they never will be until the Author of the Constitution returns to the earth.  The Obamacare statutes unfold as the time approaches when people will be required to buy government-designed health insurance whether they want it or not.  The Environmental Protection Agency continues to impose on industry rules that Congress refused to pass.  The new financial consumer czar, with no meaningful oversight or accountability, exercises his will to design financial services for all Americans, even though he was put in office by a recess appointment made when the Senate was not in recess (skipping the uncomfortable Senate confirmation process).  There is more, but these examples represent the challenge.

Under the inspiration of God, the Founders established the Constitution to protect, preserve, and indeed promote the rights of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That is the legitimate purpose of government, as the Founders inscribed in the Declaration of Independence, considering it self-evident,

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed,

that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

In this effort the Founders twice abolished and instituted new basic forms of government.  The first was to throw off their allegiance to the Crown of England and control by his Parliament.  The second was to exchange the loose and ineffective Articles of Confederation with the new Constitution.

The Constitution was and remains a revolutionary document.  With footings based solidly on the indestructible rights and worth of the individual members of the society, it was unlike anything anywhere on the earth at the time.  At the core of the Constitution, and affecting all of its members, are the overriding and animating principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, constantly at war with and destructive of all forms of tyranny. 

Among the first fruits of the Constitution was the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments, all so wholly consistent with the Constitution that the only objection raised to them was that they were redundant to the basic text that they amended.  Maybe they were redundant, but time has proven the wisdom of spelling out these powerful and important rights of the individual.

They were soon challenged.  Once in government it is natural and expected that government leaders would become progressively intolerant of criticism and opposition.  Government “of the people” does not make government automatically friendly to the people and tolerant of their freedoms.  We see it today, every day.  In 1798 the Federalist Party leaders in government passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, inimical to the Constitution, in significant part to silence opposition voices from the new Democratic-Republican Party.  The Acts sought to declare criticism of public figures to be libelous, punishable by fines and imprisonment.  Under these unconstitutional statutes newspapermen were arrested and their newspapers stopped, among other outrages to liberty.    

Fortunately, the Constitution was not impotent to throw off this new effort to impose an old tyranny on the nation.  Thomas Jefferson led a popular revolt through the elections of 1800 to expel the Federalists from office, repeal these statutes, and launch a renewed spirit of governing focused on individual rights and liberties.

In succeeding years the inconsistency of human slavery with the principles of the Constitution grew increasingly acute, until in 1861 the leadership of most of the slave-holding states concluded that it would be impossible to maintain their “peculiar institution” if they remained governed by the Constitution.  They understood that they could maintain slavery or observe the Constitution, but not both.  Eventually, the spirit of freedom at the core of the Constitution would work to end slavery, by operation of the very constitutional system. 

Since the Union created by the Constitution would not allow the states to leave peacefully and take their slaves with them, the southern leadership invoked rebellion as the only way out.  Theirs, however, was a rebellion to invoke and support tyranny, and it failed.  The revolutionary American Constitution and the people on whom it rested won yet one more victory for freedom.  As Abraham Lincoln perceived, the war of the rebellion was a test of “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

That nation, conceived in constitutional liberty, did endure that test, but the tests never end.  There are ever those who believe that they have the privilege, the calling, the right, or even the duty, to impose their will and judgment on others in ways destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Not every assault on freedom and the Constitution fails. There have been too many that have succeeded.  So far the Constitution and the people who uphold it have withstood these assaults, even if at great cost.  The Supreme Court’s outrageous Dred Scott decision and the foolish Kansas-Nebraska Act were last gasp efforts to perpetuate the tyranny of slavery, but in the end they sparked the birth of the Republican Party and fed the Civil War that removed slavery and extended the reach of the principles of the Declaration and Constitution.

Today as a nation we face the sputtering final efforts of the Franklin Roosevelt legacy to enthrone government as the source of solution to people’s problems—and to buy popularity with government-laundered largesse confiscated from a dwindling pool of taxpayers.  That is a hoary practice of kings and Caesars that buys time but no lasting success.  The money always runs out before the promises do. 

The question that remains for us and for our Constitution is how well will we as a people, and our Constitution as a system of government, weather the demise of the New Deal system.  Acute test of freedom approaches again, if not already here, when we will determine whether our “nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”  I have confidence that it will, and—in the words of Lincoln—that the American people will decide “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom,” as it has in all of its greatest tests so far.

Of the American Revolution and the Counterrevolution

One of the comments that I have heard following this year’s national election is that it did not settle much.  Barack Obama was president before the election and he will now be president for another term.  The Democrats held a small majority in the Senate before the election, and they will have a small majority in the Senate afterwards.  The Republicans controlled the House of Representatives before the election, and they will control the House in the next Congress.

I acknowledge the point and the extent of its validity, but I am careful not to overvalue it.  This time was different, if not yet different enough. 

The reigning governing system is nearing its end.  Barack Obama and his companions embody in the 21^st Century the old wizening counterrevolution in America begun by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, now well into its senility.  The FDR counterrevolution has been the prevailing doctrine of governing in the United States since the (aptly named) Depression.  Even Republican presidents—with the exception to some degree of President Reagan—have governed within the terms and context of the FDR counter-American revolution, rarely taking issue with its basic theme of government as the ultimate source of solution to people's problems.

I like the analogy that Senator Phil Gramm used to offer in illustration of how Republicans get co-opted into the FDR approach.  Imagine, he would say, a great big piece of paper blown by the wind getting caught on the top of the dome of the U.S. Capitol, blocking out all sunlight below.  The typical solution from the Democrats would be to create an artificial sun inside of the dome to illuminate the room.  The typical Republican response has been to argue for a smaller artificial sun, one involving the private sector.  The real solution—seldom mentioned—is to remove the big piece of paper.

Today, the great piece of paper to be removed is the fundamental contradiction that lies at the heart of the FDR welfare state:  robbing Peter to pay for Paul’s votes.  For over 70 years Democrats and Republicans alike have been bidding against each other to gain Paul’s support, until the day is at last in sight when there will not be enough left to take from Peter to honor the promises to Paul.  The looming national fiscal crisis in over-promised Social Security, Medicare, and a host of government give-away programs is at last acknowledged by the public, even if its full import remains for most hard to grasp as real.  Still, more and more people suspect that all this has about played out.

Against much public vilification by the media propagandists, some are challenging the FDR counterrevolution, getting outside of the context of the tired debate that for decades characterized the contest between Democrats and Republicans.  They are explaining that government cannot create wealth, and redistributing wealth destroys it.  Defeating Barack Obama and his FDR policies this year would have been an important milestone, because more than any other recent president Obama fully embodied the FDR approach to governing, and more than any other presidency its abuses have been apparent.  At the same time, more than any time in the past 70 years political leaders and would-be political leaders have been challenging the FDR counterrevolution.  Mitt Romney chose one of those leaders, Paul Ryan, to be the Republican candidate for vice president.

In the event, we fell short, but we made progress.  As I said, this time was different.  To begin with, President Obama’s margin of victory was materially smaller than four years ago, 50%-48% of the vote in 2012, while in 2008 it was 53%-46%.  Similar narrowed margins were the pattern in the various states.  Moreover, notably few other Democrats were able to sail to electoral victory in Obama’s wake.  In 2008 along with President Obama 7 more Democrat Senators were elected and 20 more members of the House of Representatives.  Four years later it looks like Democrats will pick up only 2 Senate seats and 4 seats in the House.  In all respects, a very narrow victory.  Mitt Romney came close to being elected president, a point that media propagandists have been busily trying to bury in their efforts to make it feel like Obama won in a landslide with a mandate to continue on with his policies of impoverishment.

What the election has not changed are those policies.  President Obama’s economic program is just as much a failure today as it was before the election.  The vote on November 6 did not make it any better.  Neither have the problems changed, except that they continue to grow.  With each day, the federal deficit and federal debt deepen and America’s ability to manage that debt declines.  Each day brings us nearer to the day when we as a nation will be unable to pay that debt.  Economic performance as a nation remains weak and wobbly, while Administration apologists preach that weak is the new normal for the United States of America.

Governing will prove even more difficult for President Obama.  At least now he can truthfully blame the previous administration, the Obama first term administration.  He spent those years avoiding the most significant problems, pushing them off until after November 6, 2012, while creating new ones with his healthcare, regulatory, energy, and environmental policies.  The problems are a gathering storm.  There is not enough money left to run the welfare state, and the willingness of investors—foreign and domestic—to lend Uncle Sam money to pay for it is four years closer to an end. 

Foreign policy does not look very good either.  National weakness, economic or military, is provocative.  It encourages those who mean us harm.  Iran is heading toward crisis, without a comprehensible U.S. policy to deal with an unstable violent regime approaching the production stage of a nuclear arsenal.  The unanswered, mishandled, and covered up failures against the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, will invite others.  With dread we await the realization of what President Obama meant when he told the Russians that he would have more “flexibility” after the election.

I acknowledge and applaud those who worked so hard to bring an end to a misrule that now will continue to inflict hardship on the nation and the people.  We came close to turning back the FDR counter-American Revolution in its naked manifestation.  We all need to keep on working for something a lot better, to restore the American revolution of 1776.  We are gaining ground.

Of Struggling Economies and Finishing the Job

The Obama Administration is having trouble keeping the economy down.  In spite of all the battering that the economy has taken from Obama policies, it keeps showing signs of life—weak, hesitant, surely not robust, but they are there, like the weak patient who wants to get out of bed and shuffle downstairs to sip some chicken soup.  Instead, the Administration, like some 18^th century doctor, wants to try some more blood letting to get the bad humours out of the system. 

People want to do things.  Businessmen have new ideas that they want to have a go at.  Men and women like to build, grow, and develop their lives.  No one needs to tell them to do it.  You just need to get out of the way.  The most productive, the most energetic, the most inspired, the hardest workers will do it best.  We can still remember when the economy was like that, when the news was full of new products, new ventures, new growth, and new jobs.  That is the light America shines to the world and what despots throughout the world hate about the American experiment.

President Obama came to power with a different vision for America, what he thought was a mandate to spread the wealth around, to take from those who succeeded the most in economic activity and growth and find ways in which he and his administration could give it to those who were less productive—or not even productive at all.  In other words, his plan was to tax success and reward failure.  So far, it has worked as designed, even if he has not yet finished with his efforts.  We are getting less of the success and more of the failure.

The trillion dollar “stimulus” plan was a good example.  President Obama and friends hit the economy with a special trillion dollars of new Washington spending that went to support cronies and fund new projects that soon added to the landscape littered with failed businesses.  The “stimulus” plan added to the deficit and became a seemingly permanent part of federal largesse, but it failed to add to the economy.  In fact, it made legitimate businesses compete for funds and customers against those who enjoyed government subsidies.  Hard to do.

The housing market makes up about a quarter of the economy, when you include people who build houses, furnish houses, maintain houses, and so forth.  That market was in full decline as the housing bubble burst in 2007 and kept deflating.  But eventually all the extra air comes out of economic bubbles (if you do not keep pumping new air into them), the crashing market reaches bottom and starts to recover.  The Obama Administration has made sure that it stayed on the bottom a long time.  Normal economic crashes and recoveries look like a “V” on a graph charting their progress.  The housing market under the Obama Administration looks like an “L”.  Note the tiny turn up at the end of the letter.  That is what the Administration’s friends would try to convince us is the recovery.  And they would like to divert our attention from the several thousand pages of new mortgage regulations that will go into effect in the next several months to whack the housing markets again.

Sure, mortgage rates are incredibly low, but that is not a healthy sign.  Have you tried getting a mortgage lately?  The paperwork, already a mountain, has become overwhelming.  And do you think that those rates would be so low if there were a real recovery in demand for houses and mortgages?  There is more (or less):  many people who qualify for mortgages today will have trouble qualifying in the future under the new rules.  The Obama Administration’s new consumer Bureau has been putting off those rules until after the election, but they are promising to issue them by the end of the month.

The summers of 2009, 2010, 2011, and even 2012 were each supposed to be the “Summer of Recovery” with the “green shoots” of new economic activity showing life each spring.  Yet each year those summers saw instead new economic setbacks as the green shoots wilted.  Sometimes the damage came from threats of new tax policies that would raise rates but give “tax breaks” to people who spent their income in ways approved by the Obama Administration and the tax code.

Businesses were threatened with new carbon taxes and other innovative and contorted ways to penalize any use of carbon dioxide, part of the air that we as humans produce with every breath.  Even a Congress with heavy majorities of legislators from President Obama’s own party choked on that idea.  Not to be deterred, the Obama Administration just imposed restrictions by fiat through the Environmental Protection Agency—all part of the war on carbon, which includes the energy industry as its victims.

The business climate remains in turmoil, as waves of new regulation and Obama campaign promises to bail out new favorites in the economy continue changing the rules and make business planning impossible.  Who would take a risk at trying something new when Obamacare and other employee regulations make it hard to know what the expense will be for new hires?  American businesses are sitting on somewhere between one and two trillion dollars in funds, waiting to know when it would be safe to invest them.  Employers are trying to put some of that cash to work, but they are being very cautious in doing so, not what the words “free enterprise” bring to mind.

The Obama Administration and its apologists call the recent unemployment report “good.”  The unemployment rate went up, above the level when President Obama came to office; 5 million people are long-term unemployed, up by 200,000 from the month before; and the economy has 4.4 million fewer jobs than at the peak of its last growing period before Obama took office.  The excitement apparently comes from the net increase of 171,000 jobs in the past month, above the experts’ predictions of 125,000.  Watchers have learned to lower their expectations for this administration, so that they greet with cheers any signs of life above their reduced standards.  Maybe for President Obama that continued anemic performance is good, but America can do better.  America has done better, much better.  We cannot afford to lower our vision. 

Our future and the future of our children and grandchildren must not be crippled by looking at 2% economic growth as being “good” or even acceptable.  If we want a better future for our children and grandchildren, in fact if people my age want a secure retirement, we need to get back to an America where 4% annual growth or better is the norm.  The social welfare state is expensive, not the least of which being the cost it exacts from the future to pay for the promises of today.

Fortunately, the economy still refuses to die, in spite of all the beating that it has received at the hands of the Obama Administration, but the economy is not well.  Let’s not give the Obama team another four years to try to finish it off.

Of Freedom and Despair

Every man and woman who walks the earth is a union of three natures:  intelligence, spirit, and physical body.  The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that only in this union can there be found a fullness of joy.  Our intelligence is eternal; our spirit an inheritance from God, the Father of spirits; our bodies, mortal vehicles of trial and testing to be placed in the grave and then raised in the resurrection to immortality through the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.

Before we were born and earth’s history began we all lived as spirits in the presence of God, where the whole plan for this earth and its purpose were presented to us.  In a great act of courage, greater than I believe that we can imagine, we each agreed with that plan and volunteered to be born into this world of trial and sorrow, but also of potential achievement and triumph.  The exercise of our free will centered on voluntary obedience to Jesus Christ would make all of the ultimate difference.  As the scriptures  relate, many there were who shied away from the risk and in rebellion sought another way where freedom would be denied us while all of our needs and comforts would be provided for without any exercise of our will or moral effort.

Those who rejected the plan of the Father and rebelled against Him before His face were cast from His presence directly to earth, without birth, without any future or hope.  The plan of moral trial in physical bodies being rejected by them, they could not participate in it.  For those there would be no bodies, no progression, no returning to the presence of God.  Having lost all hope, damned, or stopped in their eternal progression these became devils seeking forever the sorrow of those who chose a better way.  As if to reach for a blistering balm in other’s suffering, they tempt us to rebel against God here on earth and misuse all that a loving Father has provided to His children.

One day near Hallowe’en, more than thirty years ago, I thought to capture in verse something of the attitude of these unembodied spirits towards us, who chose before our birth to follow the plan of the Father as fulfilled by Jesus Christ, His Son.  These devils wish us no good thing, but evil and destruction continually, envying every good thing with which God has blessed us, not the least of which are all of the sensations and experiences that a physical existence in a physical world can provide.  They can see, but they cannot touch.  But they can speak to our spirits, and they each day encourage us to follow them, which is what sin is.

Dance of the Damned

’Round and ’round and sing around,

Swirl the spinning sky with sound.

Twirling, grinning, spinning down

Franticly upon them.

Fill the earth and spread around,

Make the awful beauty frown,

Rip it down, infest the ground,

Though you cannot touch it.

Curse the bodies never known

’Till they’re thrown into a mound.

Bring them blind and blinder still,

Swing the chain ’til you fill

All the world with sorrow;

For if we end tomorrow

They must die tonight.

Twist their sweet virginity.

Drain their new infinity.

Waste their pure divinity.

’Round and ’round, let song abound,

Swirl the human soup around.

Stir them floating, bloating, drowned,

Crowned with our iniquity.

Of Early Results and Final Scores

When I was recently in San Diego, local football fans were vocally wild with excitement when their NFL team, the San Diego Chargers, was winning its Monday night game 24-0 at half time.  It was all over for the visiting Denver Broncos.  But they played the second half anyway.  When the game was really over by the clock and the rules the final score was 24-35, and the Denver Broncos were the winners.  

In 2004, the arch rivals New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox played each other for the American League baseball championship and the right to go to the World Series.  The New York Yankees won the first 3 games of the best of 7 series.  With 4 games left and the Yankees needing to win only 1 of the 4, the series was all over.  Unfortunately for the Yankees (and their fans in my household), the New York team would not win another game that year and Boston would not lose another game that year, winning the American League championship and then sweeping the World Series in 4 games.  (For the benefit of Boston Red Sox fans I will mention that this was the team’s first World Series championship in almost a century.)

As they say in sports, that’s why they play the games.

As in sports, so often in life, there is virtue in playing to the end of the game and not leaving the field before it is really over.  Like all virtues, that virtue is often challenged in this life.  Many wars are won or lost in the hearts of the participants even before the first battle.  Many are the voices who try to call the election before the first real vote is cast and long before the last one is counted.  Many are the men and women, boys and girls, whose careers are ended before they have begun, or at least after the first setback.  In real life, often it is so, but far too often it is so because people believed it to be so, not because the end was really inevitable.

We are and should be inspired by those who have won through determined perseverance.  The persevering struggles of such technological pioneers as Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers gave them triumphs that changed the world.  How tempting it must have been to them at many points and after many failures to give up and say that “it” could not be done.  How poorer the world would be if they had called the game early and accepted failure.

Perhaps no less inspiring are those who struggled to the end in apparent defeat, only to make a greater victory possible for their friends and allies or sometimes for themselves.  The most famous battle of the Texas Revolution was the apparent defeat at the Alamo.  The Greek defeat by the Persians at Thermopylae is as famous as the Greek victory at Salamis that it helped make possible.  Abraham Lincoln’s loss in his Senate contest with Stephen A. Douglas sowed the seeds for Lincoln’s win against Douglas two years later for President.  Moses fell from royal glory among the Egyptians to become a nomadic shepherd before being chosen by God to be His prophet to deliver Israel from Egypt and restore to them the laws and ordinances to guide them for thousands of years. 

In our own personal lives, it is only those who persevere who win.  There is no easy triumph in the battle of life.  It is intended to be hard.  But the end is also intended to be known and can be known.   The Father and the Son discussed life and its purpose before the world was created.  They revealed to us that purpose and the end to give us direction and hope: 

We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; and we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them. . .  and they . . . shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.   (Abraham 3:24-26)

The ancient American prophet Nephi explained the proving process this way:

Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. (2 Nephi 31:20)

There are numerous contrary voices, who would either say that salvation is easy or impossible.  Neither is right.  The pressing forward with a focus on Christ is how each of us can be transformed, how the goodness is refined from a decidedly alloyed ore, “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

None of us knows how long will be his or her mortality, but we each must play it to the end.  We cannot call the game early.  If we travel and reach the end in company with Christ, then success is certain even as seeing the game throughout all of its stages is worth the playing.  After all, that is why we play.

Of Vice Presidents and Manners

One of the most moving scenes in the entire Harry Potter series of books by J.K. Rowling is the death of beloved headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.  A standard element of much good fiction writing is the presence of a character representing a deliverer, sometimes referred to by scholars of fiction as being a “Christ figure.”  Such a character in the novel serves as a touchstone of good, who is rarely the main character but is a steady and constant central person to guide and often deliver the main character from danger and evil.  Gandalf serves that role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien.  Albus Dumbledore fulfills that role for Harry Potter and his friends.

In the scene to which I refer, Dumbledore is on a balcony of a high tower, cornered, disarmed, and surrounded by merciless enemies impatient for his murder.  I quote just a few lines for my purpose:

            “Good evening, Amycus,” said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party.  “And you’ve brought Alecto too. . . . Charming. . .”

            The woman gave an angry little titter.  “Think your little jokes’ll help you on your deathbed then?” she jeered.

            “Jokes?  No, no, these are manners,” replied Dumbledore.

            (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, p.593)

Manners.  Perhaps they seem extravagant for a man facing sure death, but why not, why not retain high humanity in the last moments of mortality?  Outside of novels and in the real life where we live, what I find distressing is the absence of manners in places where they should be found.

A prominent example is the recent debate between the 2012 candidates for vice president of the United States, the second highest executive office in the land.  This is a lofty and important office, one of only two to which a man or woman ascends by the vote and permission of the entire nation.  Many vice presidents have gone on to become president.  A debate among these candidates is an important opportunity to help voters discern who would make the better government leader, deserving of their support. 

Respect for the electorate as well as each other would seem to call for courtesy and a display of good manners.  And yet the current, sitting vice president displayed very poor manners, frequently interrupting his opponent and openly laughing at serious arguments about serious subjects.  The assertion and presentation of views in public debate can be sharp and indeed critical of the views of the other, but courtesy to the electorate would allow them to hear each argument made fully and without interruption, and respect for the views of one another would create an atmosphere that fosters a thoughtful consideration of the issues.  Such manners were largely absent in the public conduct of the current vice president of the United States in this nationally televised debate.  I might add that the debate moderator, who should have encouraged better conduct, herself showed poor conduct, frequently interrupting each of the candidates to insert herself as a third participant in the debate.

Society exists only by respect that people have for one another.  We extend our courtesies that allow all of us with our own personalities and interests and characters to live in close proximity to one another and even to be ready to cooperate from time to time.  It tears the social fabric to undermine that civility.

About a year ago I visited Tokyo, one of the most densely populated places on the globe.  I was astonished at how relatively quiet the city was.  I do not think I ever heard a car horn sounded, though I witnessed driving practices that would have quickly provoked anxious beeping in the United States.  I asked my hosts about that.  All of the cars were equipped with horns, but I was informed that it would be considered discourteous in Japan to sound them other than for emergency purposes.  I am sure that Japanese drivers get on each other’s nerves as frequently as American drivers do, but the incidence of driver’s rage is significantly reduced by observance of this courtesy.

And then there was my recent visit to Johannesburg, South Africa.   There is a lot of hope that South Africa can play a major leadership role in the economic and social development of much of the rest of the continent, the poorest of all the seven continents.  The nation has a good head start on its neighbors, with a functioning representative government with free and competitive elections, laws supported by an independent judiciary, a diversifying economy, including much local industry, and a strong banking system. 

What surprised and depressed me was what I saw of South African homes.  Traveling throughout the city I did not see a single family home that was not enclosed in a concrete or fenced stockade, topped in barbwire, concertina wire, or even electrically-charged wiring.  During the day people seemed pleasant enough, but come nighttime, families retreated into their fortified compounds, however small.  Every nation has crime, but not every nation lacks the minimum of civility needed to allow people to sleep at night without dread of violent assault on their property and person.

I do not doubt that we can find similar zones in parts of American cities, but I have never seen anything so pervasive as what I observed in Johannesburg.  I am told that it was not racially based, given the history of difficult race relations in South Africa, but rather economically based.  Not only was there little respect for property among many in the population, but too little respect for each other.  I hope and trust that things are getting better there or will get better.

I fear what the erosion of respect for property and person might produce in the United States.  Kind words and practices of courtesy reinforce through our conduct our recognition of each other’s humanity.  What we witnessed in the vice presidential debate was a courser, callous style of human interaction.  We encounter similar scenes too often.  I pray that in places where respect and courtesy are lacking I have not seen the future for our society, or for the erosion of our society.  It is not a happy way to live.

Of Elections and Sports

It is early Fall.  That means that we are nearing the end of the regular season of baseball, and the New York Yankees are on course to make the playoffs and another run for the World Series title, number 28.  Their chances look good this year, if they can keep their players from injury and the bullpen resumes pitching up to its abilities.

Others are following football.  Already the Washington Redskins have gone from having a lock on getting into the Super Bowl, after winning their first game, to being nearly mathematically eliminated from the playoffs by losing their next two.  As they say in baseball, though with less justification in pro-football, it’s a long season.  And speaking of the Redskins, it has been said that you can tell that someone has been in Washington too long when he begins cheering for the Redskins.  Let that rest on your own taste and experience.

Basketball fans know that in just a few weeks, practice begins for college hoops.  The college basketball season will terminate several months later in the greatest sporting event that the United States has to offer, March Madness!  I don’t know when or whether the professional basketball season ever ends.  I suppose it does.

Somewhere someone is playing soccer, where some team is leading another by the insurmountable score of 1-0.  But I think that we may be in the only few weeks of the year when there are no hockey games—even as the NHL is haunted again by more labor-management strife.

At his school my son is running on a cross country team, the Trinity Tempest.  The motto of the team is not but should be, “Tempest Fugit.”  Instead, it seems to be something like, “Pass the weak, hurdle the dead.”  Nice so far as it goes.  Classical Latin would be better, it seems to me, but I am not a runner and have no say.

Yes, there is much sporting excitement and many sports in the Fall.  Elections, however, are not one of them.  Electing the leaders of our government, who will wield control over life and death, freedom and slavery, prosperity and poverty, is not a sport.  Self-government is one of the most serious activities of life for those who cherish their liberty.  Those who do not will eventually vote away their freedom, as we have seen in places like Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia in recent years, and before that in places like Germany of the 1930s.

Of course, you would never know that from the public discourse on television, radio, in newspapers and other media outlets.  Presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional races are treated as if they all were games, with little at stake other than whether your favorite team wins.  Issues are trivialized, if mentioned at all.  The trivializers have even assigned team colors, one side “Red” and another “Blue.”  The most important issue in the media after a debate is “who won?” rather than, “what did we learn about what a candidate believes and what he would do if elected?”  Points are awarded by press experts for style, poise, rhetoric, and gotcha lines.  Panels of talking heads award scores as if they were judges at a figure skating competition.

It is all more than beside the point.  It corrupts the process.  Rather than true debates, in which candidates have enough time to declare and explain their views and policies on important issues, media celebrities offer trick questions, to which the future President of the United States is given two, three, or sometimes even five minutes to respond as he or she fishes for a soundbite to make it into the 60-second news recap (most of which will again be focused on, “who won?”).  Based on this silly exercise, viewers are encouraged to text in (for a small fee) their vote—not for who would be the best office holder—but for who was the winner of the night’s contest.

We should expect and demand better.  Through modern revelation we have been given a set of standards.  You do not have to be a believer in revelation to recognize the wisdom of the counsel:

Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise, whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.  (Doctrine and Covenants 98:10)

Our task as voters interested in preserving our rights and freedoms is too seek out diligently the honest, the good, and the wise.  Anything less is evil.  In an election, in a campaign, in a debate, I want to discover who is the honest, the good, and the wise, and I am little interest in style points. 

That takes careful and diligent effort, for among the honest, the good, and the wise, are the liars, the false, and the foolish intent on deceiving.  These latter like to hide in the noise of the sporting contest and often seek to divert attention to the things that little matter, the stray word, the high school prank.  We need to keep our focus on a diligent search for the honest, the good, and the wise.  With persistent effort, we can find them.

 

In self-government, we are the players.  The issue is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, decidedly not a game.  But if we follow these standards and apply them diligently, then in the end We the People will be the winners.

Of Elections and Personal Responsibility

Personal involvement in the community, including thoughtful and diligent participation in elections and other essential elements of self-government, is not just a good idea.  It is central to the achievement and preservation of freedom.  For Latter-day Saints, it is also a sacred commandment.  Modern prophets have taught that the establishment of a constitutional-based nation in modern times was not an accident, nor can it be preserved by indifference.

In December 1833, the Lord declared,

I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood. (Doctrine and Covenants 101:80)

This teaching would have been no surprise to the Founders of the nation.  Many wrote of the protecting hand of God in the American Revolution and sensed His inspiration in the development of the principles on which our constitutional government was built.

When the Constitution was established, now some 225 years ago, the Lord was not finished with His interest in the American experiment.  God declared that perpetuation of that work was an ongoing responsibility.  The Constitution was to be “maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:77).  Note the Lord’s intended role for the United States as a benefit for all mankind. 

In his book, The Battle, Arthur C. Brooks observed how the United States has been a refuge of freedom for people from many nations.

For immigrants from around the world, the United States represents the land of second chances, a place where you have the possibility of determining what you will become. (Arthur C. Brooks, The Battle, p.82)

America’s influence for good has not been reserved only for people who have immigrated.  Since its founding the United States has acted on the world stage like no other nation in history.  While not neglecting the national security, the positive influence of the United States internationally has been obvious, not the least by those who hate what the United States has done to promote respect for individual rights and human progress.  The Islamic terrorists, the Marxist revolutionaries, the Nazi tyrants, the monarchists of earlier years, and oppressors of every other stripe for more than two hundred years have correctly seen the United States as a threat to their core beliefs.  Arthur Brooks described it in these words:

The claim that American militarism is to blame for the world’s woes is indefensible.  In World War I American military strength brought to an end the bloodiest, costliest war that had ever been waged up until that point in history.  In World War II, which began for the United States when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on us, the American nation mobilized to end the twin evils of Japanese militarism and Nazism—and converted Japan and Germany into prosperous, free nations.  And through victory in the Cold War, won without a direct engagement of troops, America gave freedom to hundreds of millions of people previously in the shackles of Soviet communism.

(Arthur C. Brooks, The Battle, p.121)

 Historian Victor Davis Hansen echoed that theme, writing,

When we list the rogues’ gallery of thugs and killers that the United States has gone to war against in the last three generations—Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim il-Sung, Ho Chi Minh, the Stalinists, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden—while providing postwar aid rather than annexing conquered land, it reminds us that no other country has had either the capability or willingness to take on such burdens.

(Victor Davis Hanson, “Is America Periclean?”, The New Criterion, October 2011, p.12)

In August of 1833, the Lord reemphasized that personal rights of freedom under constitutional safeguards are indeed unalienable, as the Founders held in the Declaration of Independence, a divine entitlement for all of His children.

And that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me.  Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land; and as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil. (Doctrine and Covenants 98:5-7)

That these rights may be violated history has amply proven and modernity continues to demonstrate.  But their virtue never goes away, as these rights continue to assert themselves, as all eternal things do.

I would also note, which is my key point today, that Latter-day Saints have a particular responsibility in “befriending” constitutional law as the protector of freedom.  That is because, as the Lord went on to explain in the revelation of August 1833, “when the wicked rule the people mourn.” (Doctrine and Covenants 98:9)  Constitutional government is demonstrably the least violent and most successful means for a people to deliver themselves from the oppressions of wicked rulers.  The United States is not and has not been immune to them, but our remedies for over two centuries have been ready at hand.  For Latter-day Saints, there is an obligation to join with our fellow citizens to use those constitutional remedies.

The Lord also gave counsel on how to meet that obligation:

Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil. (Doctrine and Covenants 98:10)

Before each election the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints remind the people of this duty.  The Latter-day Saints are not told who to vote for, as discovering that is part of the personal responsibility to seek “diligently,” but the duty and the purpose cannot be escaped, to find and support the honest, the good, and the wise.  Anything less than that is evil, for Latter-day Saints, and for anyone else who holds his rights and privileges of freedom to be unalienable and dear.

Of Aliens in Washington and the National Symbols

Driving into Washington, D.C., each day, it is easy to become blindly accustomed to the rich symbols that delight and inspire the more infrequent visitor.  Occasionally, such as when the choke of traffic allows reflective moments, or the morning light or evening illuminations stimulate more meditative inspiration, even the hardened local can again be moved by the monuments of the nation’s capital.

One such recent morning, as reflections led to marveling at our wonderful and unique nation, and musing followed musing, I was struck by how out of line the Obama Administration is with all of these symbols and what they mean.  The differences between the symbols and the resident reality are not minor.  It is as if some group of aliens had taken dominion of the Capital of Freedom.

Consider an example a mere few days old.  In Barack Obama’s most recent weekly radio address he made the following statement.  Read it carefully.

It’s time to build a nation that lives up to the ideals that so many Americans have fought for—a nation where they can realize the dream they sacrificed to protect.

The address was entitled, “Honoring Our Nation’s Service Members and Military Families”.  Its main thrust was to provide that honor through more federal spending on “roads and runways and ports.”  Apparently, President Obama’s view is that this is what our soldiers, sailors, and airmen have been fighting for, or as he said, “That’s how we can honor our troops.”

Back to the highlighted quote, however, the rhetorical apogee of the speech.  Aside from the President’s revelation that he had tarmac in mind when he envisioned the dreams of our veterans, there is the declaration that, “It’s time to build a nation”.  Why would the President of the United States of America declare that now is the time to build our nation?  What does he consider to have happened in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was boldly adopted?  Was it not then that the building of the nation began?  What does he believe that Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and the many other Founders did?  What does he consider was the purpose of the Constitution if not “to form a more perfect Union”?  Does he believe that America has been waiting for Barack Obama to begin the building? 

It is hard to escape the impression that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are in meaningful ways alien to the current President, that he does not recognize what they wrought.  For President Obama, now is the time to build the nation.  Apparently, he does not like what he sees. What kind of alternative nation does Barack Obama want to build? 

I suspect that what my father fought for in two wars was akin to the ideals embodied in our national symbols, not more government construction projects.  I doubt that in France, Germany, or Korea he ever spent a single moment imagining that he was risking his life for new highways.

Which brings me back to my musings on the highways of the federal city.  I see the Lincoln Memorial, in which the words from President Lincoln’s last address to the nation are inscribed, proclaiming malice toward none while seeking to unite a nation and bind up the nation’s wounds.  I contrast that with the current President and his long list of those he labels enemies:  big oil, big banks, big insurance, big medicine, business in general, the world’s financial center in New York, people of strong religious conviction, among others.  Instead of unifying the nation, it is impossible to avoid his constant efforts to divide the nation into racial, ethnic, and interest groups, as if the citizens of the United States are black, or white, or rich, or poor, first and Americans second.

From almost anywhere in Washington you can see the Washington Monument, soaring over 500 feet high.  The monument is simple and unadorned, symbolizing the man declared by mourners at his death as, “First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” who set the pattern for freedom protected by limited government, where government office was a service to the nation and its people.  In little more than the last three years we have instead experienced an unprecedented accretion of power to the government in Washington.  Government workers make decisions reaching into nearly every aspect of people’s lives, even as the President declares that the achievements of individuals are as much or more the work of government than the fruits of their own efforts.  Rejecting the example of George Washington, who turned aside a crown and walked away from generalship and public office into quiet retirement, President Obama fosters an imperial cult of personality, where the light of every achievement, real or imaginary, is focused on himself.

Ringing the dome of the Jefferson Memorial are Jefferson’s words, “I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”  Today we have a presidency filthy with politically correct speech, that pounces on any words of opponents that can be made to appear at odds with the official doctrines of the administration.  Instead of free speech and open debate, the President declares that for his priorities, such as global warming, health care, financial legislation, “the debate is over.”

In H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction story, The War of the Worlds, the invading aliens are at last destroyed by simple bacteria in the air and water that men breathe and drink, defeated, “after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.”  Was our Declaration of Independence correct that God has placed similar protections in our society, the heavenly endowed unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”?  Will these simple, fundamental rights will out and preserve our nation from our present alien occupation?  They may, if we employ them as the Founders did.