The wonders of American government
Bookworm on Jan 14 2009 at 7:44 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
Thanks to Danny Lemieux for sending this link to one of the best videos I’ve ever seen explaining what kind of government America has, and why it’s so much better than any other form available. It also puts to rest the notion that conservatives are “fascists.” As we all know, the opposite is true.
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I’m almost done watching the John Adams series that was recently released.
I can’t help but be overwhelmed at the beauty of the gift we were given by these men and the women who supported them. Watching it, though, makes me fearful. I’m not sure enough people understand the value of what they gave us and I’m confident that most on the left believe that other systems of government are better. (A brief reading of history would disabuse them of that notion but apparently that is too much to ask.)
As for this video – it’s excellent. I especially love how it shows the problems with democracy.
Deana
Bookworm: The video explained it all quite well. This article leaves me beyond description.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/strategic-collapse-at-the-army-war-college/
(A brief reading of history would disabuse them of that notion but apparently that is too much to ask.)
Their brains have been so brainwashed that they can no longer even read history without interjecting their own pre-programmed prejudices into things.
Ymarsakar:
If one’s brain has been brainwashed, than it no longer can be considered a brain. It then becomes a mindless and robotic exercise in its use.
If this is the approach used at the Army War College, we are doomed.
What has been left out of this otherwise fine video is the role of Religion in a government of a free people. Most — probably all — of our Founders said, much more eloquently than I will, that without a belief in God, and his ultimate, and perfect Justice any People, and their government are doomed. And that is just about where we are now with many on the Federal Bench ruling that the Founders intended that religion should be utterly banished from the public square when that is exactly what they did NOT do. The Constitution itself is signed:
“Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.”
If those in government do not feel restrained by fear of a higher, Righteous power, or the wrath of a Righteous, God fearing populace, any government is doomed to fall into anarchy.
And that, I am sorry to say, is almost where we are now.
Bill -
I cannot agree with you more.
A while back, I had a conversation with a friend about our childhood. While we were both loved a great deal by our parents, we both agreed that what was key in making us what we are today was a fear we had of our parents, particularly our mothers.
It is the same with the Lord. Fear and respect of Him are necessary. When that is taken out of the equation, humans start to think too much of themselves. They lose perspective and begin to believe that humans can control things that humans should not ever control.
What amazes me is the number of people who deny the role of faith in our nation’s founding. They never seem to mind denying actual, recorded history!
Deana
Thank you, Deana.
It’s because liberals are all about themselves right now, so changing/ignoring actual history is of no importance if it serves their own purposes in the present.
“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” – Proverbs.
Bill #5,
>> If those in government do not feel restrained by fear of a higher, Righteous power, or the wrath of a Righteous, God fearing populace, any government is doomed to fall into anarchy. >>
Perhaps this helps explain why the secular left places so much faith in the power of government to heal all wrongs in our society. And why they are treating Obama as a Savior.
I’ve heard it said that those who do not worship a Creator always end up worshipping something else.
It’s interesting to me that you point out that belief in a Creator is not enough; restraint caused by fear of the righteousness of the Creator, or the Creator’s wrath, also seems necessary.
I recently finished ‘The Shack’, which was recommended by one of our fellow commenters here a number of months back. (Now I am finally on to the Biblical ‘Proverbs’, which I think Danny L. recommended, and then finally the Weber Rift books await, recommended by Ymar.) Not much time to read these days…
But, ‘The Shack’… I have a love-hate relationship with that book. I admire its attempt to integrate the idea of the importance of relationships into the Trinity. It is a well-done devotional book. It deeply affected my sister. Yet I found it primarily to be a rehash of 60′s love themes – God is Pure Love, and All You Need Is Love, Love, Love Is All You Need. There is more to it than that, of course, but the righteous, judgmental God of the Old Testament is completely absent.
In my reading of Proverbs, there sure is a lot about Fearing the Lord, but not that much about Pure Love. So this is based on a selective interpretation of the New Testament alone; no throne of judgment, that’s for sure.
Add in what seemed like an overt appeal to ‘Matrix’ fans, and my irritant level rises.
Then the PC factor: The Trinity is presented as a large black woman who loves to cook, as God; an inscrutable Asian woman as the Holy Spirit, and Jesus as a man of “Middle Eastern appearance” who is not identified as Jewish. Add in an adjunct appearance of Sophia in a judgment scene as a striking Hispanic beauty. Three women: Black, Asian, Hispanic, and one man who ought to be but is not quite Jewish. When God changes appearance to a man at the very end, he has a ponytail, moustache and goatee, older, wiry, plaid shirt with jeans; and if like me you pictured George Carlin, well, you’d be forgiven. They cook, they garden, they work wood in a woodshop. Nods are made to scientific investigation and quantum mechanics, but it’s just a sentence or two. It’s just all too PC for me.
Throw in a hatred of individual independence, economics, and property… in favor it would appear of communal sharing in perfect understanding of each other, with nary a conflict in sight… in particular the hatred of individual independence was shocking to me, and that hatred is virulent and comes across very, very strongly. Apparently the eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was an act of independence, and THAT was the primary sin and cause of collapse. I personally cannot make that connection; it appears to me an act of disobedience and the deliberate selfishness of satisfying an itch (curiousity) without regard to consequences. Why independence must be an object of such virulent disgust in order for relationships to assume importance is something lost on me.
I guess I pictured the author writing the novel with ‘Imagine’ playing endlessly in the background, and I got very irritated. The novel’s focus on the healing power of relationships, and the power of unconditional love, is a worthy message. Too many other things, I guess, got in the way for me.
Mike Devx, sometimes you write about things with such insight that I’m compelled to stop whatever skimming was I doing and just settle in and see what you’re going to say.
Your misgivings about “The Shack’s” distortions of the Trinity resonate with me. I think the disconnect is the inability of the author to understand that a relationship among three divine persons that involves, as you say, “communal sharing in perfect understanding of each other, with nary a conflict in sight,” is not at all analogous to any human experience.
So he attempts to shoe-horn this perfect mutual understanding and lack of ego into a pathetic PC Kumbaya moment. The Father is really a black mama (I’m sure she has a rich laugh and is overweight) and the rest of the trio is tiresome ethnic cliches. The problem is that to make this motley threesome approach the real Trinity, he has to take away their humanity. There’s no room for individuality or purposeful activity, such as economics, not to mention any shred of the postmodernist’s true Original Sin, whiteness.
The relationship among the persons of the Trinity is for us to ruminate on, but not to try to imitate in any meaningful way. It is simply beyond us. We are not God and it is not our place to imitate Him. In the meantime, though, God has given us our humanity, a condition that under the right circumstances includes great inventiveness, individuality (as well as cooperation and fellow feeling), and, in the case of “The Shack’s” author, the ability to know better.
Georgia’s Constitution requires that the budget be balanced, meaning cuts are mandatory if income is lower than last year’s. It would be nice to see something like this on the federal level.
MikeD – perhaps I can help. “Proverbs” is supposed to reflect the accumulated wisdom of King Solomon. This was before the nature of the relationship between us and God and ourselves was changed (according to what we Christians believe, anyway) by the crucifixion. However, much of what I appreciated about “Proverbs” is how it describes and warns against our human weaknesses and the guidelines it offers on how to behave in order to lead happy, fulfilling lives. It confirmed for me that people are people and we are no different today than we were thousands of years ago.
Regarding the idea of disobedience to God as a means of declaring our independence from God, this is how Satan is portrayed by Satanists and is based upon the Old Testament – the “most beautiful of the angels” who declared his independence from God in order to be free and thus became corrupted (Ezekial, I think). I think the import of this is the belief that our obedience to God provides us a path whereby to lessen our earthly corruption, whereas declaring our independence from God hastens our corruption. I guess it is up to everyone to look around us at society and come to our own conclusions about this.
Phil Pullman wrote a series of childrens books called the “Dark Matter” trilogy, of which “The Golden Compass” was made into a movie recently, that is based upon the Satanist view of Satan as a “liberating” spirit in opposition to God.
Sorry about the long discourse -I will shut up now.
>>If this is the approach used at the Army War College, we are doomed.>>
IMO, this one paragraph clarifies the problem.
“Coughlin’s thesis had barely seen the light of day before he was sacked from his position with the Joint Chiefs, having running afoul of another Pentagon official, Hesham Islam, a top-ranked Muslim advisor to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who took issue with Coughlin’s academic analysis.”
As one of the commenters on the article states, it’s folly of the worst sort to allow the enemy to educate your upcoming leaders. There is no doubt in my mind that we are being actively infiltrated by muslims with eventual islamification in mind. Nevertheless, I have faith in the caliber of our military leaders…they _should_ be taught about islam because they should be taught to know the enemy, but if they are not taught about it in the College, they will seek it out for themselves. They are mostly good, capable and honorable men – and intelligent as well. They have seen the enemy – they will study him. Check out the milblogs – they know who the enemy is. And they’ll be well aware of quislings in the government, and will treat them as such. My faith may be misplaced, but I don’t think so. Still, only the future will tell.
Danny #12
>> Sorry about the long discourse -I will shut up now. >>
Danny, please never go quiet, and don’t apologize.
>> whereas declaring our independence from God hastens our corruption. >>
I’d urge everyone to read all of Danny’s #12. It’s quite thought-provoking to me, especially in light of my rebellion against the message of ‘The Shack’. “Independence” as a rebellion against God was an important part of the book’s message, but I also thought the author went far beyond just that.
Declaring independence from God fits quite well into the guarantees of personal disaster provided in the Biblical Book of Proverbs. A grain of salt may be required to accept Proverb’s exaltation of Kingly and Princely prerogative…
‘The Shack”s author appears to hate private property and individualism. Those hatreds are what I specifically object to.
We are about to see the inauguration of a corrupt government. Pelosi has basically cut the Republicans out of any action in the HR except for voting. And this is one of the first things they’ll be voting on:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.J.RES.5:
Another interesting tidbit. Comments are interesting as well…
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024405.php
Still another.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024401.php
Suek #17
This third link was the important one to me. For those who didn’t click, the headline reads:
Muslim soldiers in French military refuse to go to Afganistan, say they won’t fight fellow Muslims
France (and England) have recently shown so many signs that their national governments are unable to maintain sovereignty in the face of Muslim provocation. And make no mistake – soldiers who disobey on this basis are engaging in a shocking provocation, and it is a direct challenge to governmental sovereignty.
Add in Sweden and several other European governments that are unable to maintain their sovereignty in the face of Muslim resistance, and you can see a Europe sliding ever closer to the tipping point. When collaborationists within those governments are openly aligning themselves with the Muslims – against their own system of laws and constitutions – you have a situation that can only, over time, edge into the inevitable anarchy to come.
Anarchy – if the rest of the people revolt against what is being done to them. De-facto Muslim dictatorship over the dhimmi, if they do not. Either way, the situation in Europe will eventually become dire.
Yup.
>>This third link was the important one to me.>>
Heh. Links provided as I stumble across them, not in order of importance! I don’t frequent Jihadwatch, although I have it bookmarked, so I have to run across articles others have considered important before I read them.
Those links to Jihadwatch came from a blog that is religion centered
( http://www.realclearreligion.com/index.html ) and as far as I can determine, based in GB. Because it’s religion based, it reports on items across the world, and is particularly aware of islam. I find it to be a good way of keeping track of what’s going on over a broad spectrum that isn’t particularly politics focussed, but is aware that it’s primarily the lack of religious belief in the west today that allows for the entry and probable future dominance of islam. Nature abhors a vacuum etc.
I recommend it as a source of info, even if you aren’t religious and whether you agree with their basic premises or not.
My fear is that for a third time in a century the United States will be called upon to save Europe’s cookies.
By that time the Europeans, late as always, will have awakened to their impending dhimmitude and will have, true to form, embarked on a regime of concentration camps, forced deportations and ethnic cleansing. (I’m sure the Germans will gladly offer solid technical advice.)
The problem will be that the depleted militaries of Europe will not really be up to the task. It’s kind of hard to sustain serious armies when your frickin’ nanny state citizens can’t be bothered to have the children that the armed forces need as recruits.
So, as young Muslim crazies kick ass and create chaos, guess who our Continental Betters will invite in to restore order?
We could say no. After all, our military is already hyper-extended and facing at least four years of savaging at the hands of a metrosexual chickenshit. Also, why should we rescue people whose greatest inventions over the past century have been Communism, Naziism, anti-Semitism and ingratitude?
Wouldn’t it feel great to tell the Germans, “Ach du lieber, vee chost remembered vee haff ein appointment in Poland! Gut luck mit der ekonomy after vee leaf!”
Alas, France has about 200 nukes. The thought of sophisticated weaponry in the hands of militant Islamic savages does make one pause.
Whether we like it or not, for now the United States really is civilized people’s last best hope. But the strains and demands being put upon it now and soon may be beyond our abilities: weather our financial crisis; protect Israel and eastern Europe; protect Taiwan; defend Japan against North Korea; protect Colombia; manage Mexico if its government collapses; deal with Iran.
Obama will up to two packs a day by July.
Defend South Korea from North Korea.
Defeat the domestic insurgency. Prevent the Gramscian insurgency in America from winning.
>>By that time the Europeans, late as always, will have awakened to their impending dhimmitude and will have, true to form, embarked on a regime of concentration camps,>>
I don’t think so.
>> forced deportations >>
I doubt it.
>>and ethnic cleansing.>>
That’s the ticket.
>>(I’m sure the Germans will gladly offer solid technical advice.)>>
The muslims don’t need any technical advice. They already know how to do what they believe needs to be done. Hint: it doesn’t require any construction skills.
>>the United States really is civilized people’s last best hope…>>
So you’re saying “America Alone”? I think that’s copyrighted already. Very good book, if you haven’t read it already…!
suek, Mark Steyn’s book is indeed a very good one.
At the rate things are going, I may have to title mine “Texas Alone.”
Have you done any research on the “right” of Texas to declare independence? I’ve read that the right to do is included in the original treaty between Tx and the US Federal government, and I’ve read that that’s a bunch of hokum. I started to do so research on it and got sidetracked.
Texas isn’t exactly my idea of where I’d like to spend my last days, but then…I may have to re-evaluate!
suek, after the landmark case “North vs. South” was decided in 1865, no state has the right to leave the Union.
However, when the U.S. moved to annex Texas in 1845, there was concern that it would tip the balance of state power toward the slave-holding states. So the enabling leglislation provided for the ability to form four additional states out of the the big state’s territory if it became necessary to create additional free states. As far as I know, Texas still has that power under treaty to do so.
(I, too, am no big fan of Texas when it comes to weather and landscape, but it seems to have a lot more sets of huevos than Wussifornia. I’m not looking to spend my last days there but will if that’s what it takes to live in the semblance of a free society.)
Sadly, I live in a part of “Wussifornia” that has a near perfect climate. Every time we’ve considered the possibility of moving, you can hear me start to whine about “It’s too cold” it’s too hot” “it’s too wet” or “it’s too dry”. Ok…not that last one. My real ideal is for it to precipitate on the mountains only, and let all that good wet rain come to those of us in the lowlands by means of the riverbeds.
I’ve lived in cold climates, I’ve lived in humid climates. Where I am now is as close to perfect as anyone could ask for. I’d leave with reluctance. It may be necessary, but if so, I’ll be dragging my feet!
The only part of being senior that has any benefits is that people tend to ignore seniors – and in some situations, that can be a good thing.
Hokum it may be, but if it comes to that, what’s written in a treaty won’t matter. Speaking of what is written, we do have the right to self determination, “When in the course of human events…” and all that. That right is one we simply announced. We had to fight a war to make it stick.
If what has happened in Europe and the UK starts to happen here, and blue states start disarming citizens, and bowing before sharia law, people will start to rebel with their feet, and move to red states where people still have a backbone, bringing with them such equipment and supplies as may seem necessary to defend what’s left.
Here’s a glimpse of our future. Remember, these people have already lost their weapons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTq2NEUlhDE
Let’s all hope that President Obama can keep the country as we know it together, and prosperous.