Offensive
Attitudes
Deborah
Venable
Spring
2004
No wonder America is in trouble. Having immersed myself in the “average”
working class of America for several months now, I have observed first hand the
shocking ignorance that exists among these masses. Far too many American people have no hope, no dreams based in
realism, and no moral foundations to build from as they scramble to make a
living and cut their “share” of the pie from whatever the powerful financial machine
and governmental god-like mechanisms allow them. The “pie” is stale and the flavors of a rich heritage are not
even missed as bellies are filled with a substitute called apathy.
It all comes down to what people are willing to
settle for and how much they are willing to sacrifice. The answers to those two questions leave no
doubt in my mind that a vast majority of the working class of America is
willing to settle for anything and sacrifice almost nothing to get it. The spirit that built America, however, was
exactly the opposite. Our forefathers
were willing to settle for nothing less than their dreams of freedom and would
sacrifice their very lives to achieve it - for their posterity if not for
themselves. Try to sell that mindset to
present day Americans and most do not even understand what you are talking
about. So, it is no wonder that they
have no idea how to recapture and preserve freedom.
Now this is a grim enough picture by itself,
but add to that the self serving power brokers and corrupt politicians that are
supposedly there to serve the needs of the people and you have an unpalatable
stew guaranteed to burn a hole in the American gut. Our education system was supposed to keep this from happening,
but all it has done is serve up this stew on the platters of unlearned human history. The richest country in the world now
supports an education system that has demoralized the masses, even as it
continues to glean more control of every aspect of life. Standardized testing is bought and sold at
the horrific price of an honest and real education. Children and adults alike are constantly scammed into believing
that a certification insures knowledge and ability, while the actual product
being sold is ignorance. Meanwhile, all
the politicians do is first promise and then demand that more and more of the
public’s money is thrown into the sinkhole of education.
The education system does not need money; it
needs an honest evaluation by the people who support it. When that has happened, we have seen the
growth in home schooling and good alternative educational sources that are
untouched by government. Unfortunately,
too many otherwise good ideas about education have faltered because of that one
component the average American mindset refuses to relinquish - government
subsidy of some kind. It still makes
sense to far too many people that the education system needs public, (i.e.
government) support and regulation/standardization. In two hundred years we have undeniably proven that this is
false, but still it is upheld and accepted that a publicly funded education
system is the only way to preserve a free country. Preserve a free country?
America hardly resembles herself any more!
Domestic and social issues that command so much
press and media attention are accepted as the make or break carrots for
politicians. Americans no longer demand
that our representatives focus government attention on preserving our heritage,
our borders and our liberties against enemies that would destroy us. Instead, we allow the breakdown of our moral
fiber, the demise of our basic principles of freedom, and the weakening of our
individual strengths through the embrace of tolerance and multi-isms. What was once a true multi-cultural country
with a firm foundation in Christian values of right and wrong has become an
empty shell of imagined freedom. With
no supporting framework of commitment interwoven with moral fiber and no
driving force of intelligence to preserve traditions, profit and power are the
only motivators for politicians, and a bogus sense of personal security is
their only currency to trade to the electorate. If politicians can make you think that you will be more
economically and physically “secure” with candidate X in office than you will
if candidate Y gets elected, then they will secure their own power and profit
from whatever deals they can swing while they are there.
Until the electorate is willing to take an
intelligent look at this “currency” of security being used to buy and sell
American government policy, the country will continue to be in dire
jeopardy. There are two types of
security: personal and communal.
Governments exist in free societies for the SOLE purpose of defending
individuals against the will of the masses and defending communities, i.e.
local, state, and country, against the will of other communities. We must never lose sight of the fact that
government is only a necessary EVIL.
Governing free societies is not like ruling kingdoms. The powers of government in free societies
flow uphill, while the powers of non-free governments flow with gravity. It is easy to see why so many human
inhabitants live under non-free, dominance rule and truly believe that freedom
and security are impossible to obtain together. Freedom is directly relative to the amount of responsibility for
security an individual or a community is willing to assign itself. Any community with a base that is weak in
mind, body and spirit cannot hope to defy gravity and rule itself with a
non-tyrannical government. The
“community” of America was forged from the strongest fabric of individual
spirit the world had ever seen. Today,
that spirit has been defiled and ravaged with weakness in mind and body. That is why I say that America is merely a
shell of her former self.
We, as individuals and as members of our
various communal societies cannot continue to point our fingers at problems and
expect solutions to those problems to come from the top down with the easy flow
of gravity. We must drive those
solutions from the bottom up or relinquish any claim to a free society. We must be strong enough to take care of
ourselves in body, mind and spirit.
Healthcare, that glaring social issue that politicians feed on, begins
with caring for our own health and not looking to standardization procedures
mandated by government to do it for us.
We are no healthier by having everything monitored that we ingest or
breathe by a government that sells out to the highest bidder. We are no healthier by having government
monitor, standardize, and subsidize the practitioners charged with nursing us
when we are sick and injured. This has
only resulted in growing one of the most corrupt industries and inefficient
systems in our society to “insure” us from fate and deliberate abuse. It has interfered with the economics of free
capitalism to such an extent that it almost does not exist any more. The “markets” are no longer driven by the
people who support them but rather by the politicians and other power brokers
that use them for their own gain.
We are a constantly manipulated society. Our media for news and entertainment
oversteps the boundaries of honesty and decency every day, and all we can do is
scream for government to do something about it. Evil thrives in an environment where individuals expect others to
protect them. Evil thrives in an
environment where individuals expect government to subsidize their well-being
and prosperity. Evil thrives in an
environment where individuals have allowed government power to flow with
gravity and flood the green valleys of freedom with the muddy waters of
socialism. Strong and free individuals
do not allow themselves to be manipulated, intimidated and encouraged to go
with the flow. If they are to remain
free, they must fight the current of public opinion when it defies their own
consciences and they must stand in solid support of the principles, ideals and
traditions that have been bathed in the blood of so many strong and free
individuals that have come before them and allowed them the luxury of that
choice.
With freedom comes risk. There must be a willingness to take risk
that I do not see among the masses and is not forthcoming from many who would
presume to be our leaders and representatives.
The American society has gone from standing for something to falling for
anything in too many respects. People
have been falsely taught that a society can stand only if it is never
offended. No one has a right never to
be offended but that has been woven into our fabric of laws to such an extent
that now evil offends good every day and gets away with it legally. Good people are not allowed the luxury of
being offended at the expense of silly, weak and misinformed individual
sensibilities, but the demonic among us expect restitution for any offense of
those aforementioned sensibilities.
There is no willingness to even take the "risk" of being
offended! How can freedom survive in a
convoluted environment such as that?
Children take foolish risks in an attempt to be
different or to feel special and glean admiration from their peers. While foolish risks are not warranted,
adults could take a refresher course in growing up and realize that risk taking
IS an important component in building the character of an individual. Children, at least, recognize it and
generally exercise the natural human drive to take risks that would set them
apart from the norm. The danger that
exists in a society where adults have caved in to the "let somebody else
do it" syndrome is that their children will be confused into thinking that
alternative dangerous and risky behavior is the only way to be
individualistic. Instead of defining
themselves away from the norm, they are actually creating a new norm that will
scar them long before they realize what they have succumbed to. As with everything else in this topsy-turvy
reality, adults with no strong moral values are powerless to help these
children and instead are admonished to be accepting of the offending
behavior. Evil offends good every day
and gets away with it legally.
A Christian worth his salt is trained from
early childhood to be charitable, thrifty, caring, honest, respectful,
tolerant, and forgiving – just to name a few – in his dealings with his fellow
man. These are age-old characteristics
that Christian traditions demand of those who would call themselves true and
faithful Christians. The only thing
that a Christian must never be tolerant of is the deliberate offense against
his freely chosen, personal relationship with Christ, for Christ has pre-paid
for all of man’s sins with His own suffering and blood. The simple cost to man of this greatest gift
in all the world – absolution from human sin - is the individual acceptance of
this Savior as priority number one.
Professing belief in this God of Christ is the one thing that each of us
must do before we leave this earth.
Asking forgiveness for the sins that we have all surely committed is the
only formality required of us, and to do that we must accept that Christ has
already secured that forgiveness. It is
the simplest of religions based in love and good will to all things positive in
the human existence.
The only thing that Christians must fight is the evil that springs from within and that attacks from outside the individual. Identifying these evils and committing to the fight against them becomes the driving purpose for the salvation of humanity. We are not required to destroy all other religions on earth or kill all non-believers in Jesus Christ. God does not want us to do that. We are not even required to hold the exact same beliefs as all other Christians, although there are some misguided organized Christian sects that have appointed themselves as the only “way” to Heaven. True Christians know that this just isn’t so. “I am the way…” said Christ, and our God-given free will allows us to find Him. Once we have done that then we must preserve that precious relationship with the same fervency that committed men and women preserve their marriage vows. We cannot simply adulterate that relationship by denouncing our God and defending others’ faith ahead of our own. But that is exactly what we are expected to do by the politically correct in this country who have stripped God from our children’s classrooms and seek to make His influence in this great country nothing more than smoke from the dying fire of liberty. There is ample historical evidence that our founders had no intention of adulterating their relationship with this same God Almighty, but it is ignored and buried in the deceitful lies of secularists and atheists.
This is the most offensive attitude that a true
Christian can encounter in his life.
Nothing else can hold a candle to it, yet few will stand up to this
attitude and put it in its place in this politically correct America of ours
today. We place all other “offenses”,
real and imagined, above this one, and many of the new laws emanating from our
legislative bodies and our judicial benches support this most horrible of all
offenses against true Christians. Laws of
men that insult individual conscience are not only immoral but also illegal in
the eyes of any philosophy or religion.
Evil offends good every day and gets away with it legally. Perhaps it is finally time for us to say,
“no more” and mean it. If we don’t,
those who are committing the offense might find themselves the first victims of
a much more demanding philosophy or religion than Christianity has ever been or
will ever be. The offenders should give
that possibility careful consideration before they offend again.
No wonder America is in trouble.