Got Hope? January 30, 2019

Marching out of Yorktown to surrender the British Army played the song “The World Turned Upside Down.”  As I drive to Mega Lo Mart to make my latest deposit of monopoly money in a Chinese savings account all I can do is mumble the final tag-line of the Wicked Witch of the West, “What a world! What a world!”  

There is a massive unspoken problem in America today floating like the iceberg in front of the Titanic waiting to sink the unsinkable ship.   Founded by revolutionaries crying “No taxation without representation!” the Republic these revolutionaries devised has devolved into a society where 44% of the people  pay no Federal Income Tax and the number of people receiving government benefits is even higher.  What incentive would these non-paying receivers have to reign in an overbearing and intrusive government?  This unseen and unspoken problem is a cancer in the body politic. 

Self-serving professional politicians buy votes by exempting non-productive people from personal financial responsibility while providing ever-expanding benefits at the expense of the productive.  This is not the right versus left, conservative versus liberal, democrat versus republican he-said-she-said endless debate that devours the chatocracy of cable’s wall-to-wall talking-heads.  This is not an academic exercise that pointy-headed political science and history majors with dueling pocket protectors debate for hours in their mother’s basement as they post their latest scoop on their samizdat blogs. If it is not any of these things what is it?  It’s a dagger pointing directly at the heart of our civilization. 

Western Civilization awoke from the slumber of the Dark Ages enlightened and empowered by a belief that humanity has an innate right to be free and a natural right to excel.  Rights and freedoms given by God not bestowed at the whim of some Legend-in-his-own-mind Leader.  This civilization gathered steam in Europe exploding upon the world stage through an energetic period of exploration.   

In America after a revolution fought by farmers and merchants against the greatest empire of the day the Founders dared to declare, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” After centuries of government thugs standing on the windpipe of everyday people these self-sacrificing giants observed that in a civilized world government was not imposed by the strong upon the weak it was instead built upon a social contract between the governed and those entrusted with the privilege to govern when they said, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” 

Today this bold and unique experiment in freedom is being devoured from within and challenged from without.  Those who believe the collective should reign over the individual, those who believe in the suffocating sameness of socialism over the rough-and-tumble of capitalism have worked for generations building a culture of dependency. This has tempered the steel will of the pioneers into the sloppy demands of the couch-potato slacker waiting for someone to find their remote as they guzzle some refreshments and wait for the game as bread and circuses take the place of innovation and accomplishment.  Schools teaching 2+2 might = 5, trophies for everyone, politically correct new-speak and affirmative action promotions have sapped the vitality from the citizens of our Republic.  Politicians and their fellow-travelers use a system of cronies and sweet-heart deals to reward each other for siphoning trillions from the public treasury promising the dumbed-down descendants of revolutionaries that they just might win the lotto before they have to declare bankruptcy so they might as well re-elect the same old grafters once again. 

There comes a time when those who are raising the sails and paddling the boat have to admit to themselves the ballast down in steerage weighs more than the cargo.  There comes a time when even the most non-confrontational and loyal among us begin to ask, “Who is John Galt” as Atlas tires of his thankless job and shrugs the burden of dead-weight into the dustbin of history.  As the perpetually-reelected and the propaganda spewing Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media trumpet the inevitability of government rationed health-care, cap-n-trade industrial suicide, comprehensive import-a-voter immigration reform and the surrender of sovereignty through treaties supposedly designed to deal with  mythical global warming  there shines a light in a bell tower, one if by land and two if by sea. 

America finally elects a president who directly runs on promises to deal with these life threatening problems and the disloyal opposition and the kangaroo courts do everything in their power to make sure no one applies the breaks as we careen towards the cliff on insolvency. Every trick in their playbook is employed to make sure the president elected to drain the swamp is neutered.  Investigations run by politicized lawyers and G-men keep revealing things that point at Hillary as the only person who tried to fix an election by stealing the primary from Bernie.  Hillary whose campaign colluded with the Russians through Fusion GPS and their KGB connected British Spy Christopher Steele.  It turns out that the Trump campaign received 0 dollars from the Russians while the Clinton Foundation money laundromat received millions over a period of years while Bill earned 500,000 for a short speech to the Russians seeking to corner America’s uranium market, a sale that his wife help guide through the process.  And the conclusion drawn by the witch hunters …wait for it … Trump is a Russian agent. 

If Chicken Little hasn’t told you lately, “The sky is falling.”  Can anyone say, impeachment?   

That is the sorry state of the American political world today.  There is one almost humorous aside as we slide towards that dustbin historians love to reference.  All the geriatric radicals and revolutionaries still dreaming of their glory years in the 60s and 70s aided by the screen-addicted beneficiaries of government public school programming lined up behind the swampy establishment to fight the first truly revolutionary leader we’ve elected since 1980.  “What a world! What a world!”  

But praise God we have somewhere else to look for hope for without hope we’re hopeless and I refuse to allow the despicable but predictable changes currently assaulting our economy and our political system to bring about my own personal Great Depression.  Those who believe in the Devil believe he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  I believe if he can’t steal your joy he can’t keep your stuff and weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.   

And I believe that Jesus Christ has come to set us free.  And if He sets us free we are free indeed.  So take courage.  Don’t lose hope.  Instead be hope-filled. All you have to do is confess Jesus as the lord, the leader of your life and believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and you will enter into a world of joy unspeakable and full of glory.  If you haven’t done that before I’m going to believe you just did, and that fills me with hope. 

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com   Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens