Who is to blame for the recession?

Bush is…or so we are led to believe on a daily basis.
Frankly, the notion that George W. Bush is responsible for the current recession is like the old assumption that Herbert Hoover was responsible for the Great Depression. It is asinine.
Bush, like Hoover, presided over the impetus of an economic mess. So, it only stands to reason that he gets the blame, right? It is not unlike the coach whose team loses a game. The team is largely responsible for the loss, but the coach gets the blame.
Well, both the Great Depression and our current Great Recession were the result of greed, avarice and excess.
The Great Depression happened because banks overextended themselves on investments, many of them rather risky. When the stock market fell on Black Friday, October 29, 1929 investments went belly up, too, and banks were quickly losing thousands to millions of dollars on their investments.
A nationwide collapse of the banking system occurred because small, local banks were unable to get money from the larger regional or national financial institutions, which went broke from their investment failures and the failure of those they invested in to pay the money back that was owed. The lending system collapsed, causing massive business failures.
The Great Recession happened much the same way. The financial industry was selling a lot of loan products and overextending credit. The collapse was triggered by sub-prime lenders and borrowers in the mortgage lending industry. Many of the loan products tailored to low-income people were encouraged, mandated and/or backed by the federal government through federal loan programs called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In the late 1990s laws were passed in Congress requiring the lending industry to make home loans more accessible to lower income consumers; the idea being that even low income Americans deserved the right and the chance to own a home.
The only practicable way for financial companies to recover inevitable losses incurred from lending money to those with limited income and/or poor credit was to tailor their products designed to get people into their homes at minimal cost and eventually recover their losses at a later date.
What emerged were interest-only home loans in which the borrower paid only the interest on the loan, never touching the principal. This permitted lenders to offer loans at significantly reduced interest rates, too. As such, monthly payments were at levels that lower income consumers could afford.
But there was a caveat to these loan products: They had expiration dates attached to them. At a certain point in time, the interest only loan would revert to a traditional principal plus interest loan product, so that the lender could start recovering its losses.
What this meant for the consumer was a monthly mortgage payment suddenly and significantly higher than what he had been used to paying. In no time, borrowers were falling behind on their payments, because they couldn’t afford what the mortgage now cost them. They were spending more money than they were taking in, leaving them in the red.
Widespread defaults and foreclosures resulted, causing a collapse of the real estate market. Home values plummeted, eventually leaving people with mortgages higher than their homes were actually worth.
Home construction ground to a halt, leaving millions in the construction industry suddenly unemployed. All other occupations related to the housing industry were similarly impacted.
The worst part about this catalyst is that the federal government had initially backed the loan products that ended up getting a lot of consumers into deep trouble.
Yes, thanks to the foresight of our esteemed leaders who just wanted to make home buying more fair for those less fortunate, an economic crisis erupted.
But I can’t place the blame squarely on the shoulders of government. Consumers share in the responsibility, too.
People failed to read the fine print when they purchased their low-cost mortgage products. Consequently, they reaped the whirlwind of their own ignorance.
The American economy has always had a consuming culture, because of the free market, free enterprise capitalist system that has made the United States the economic envy of the world. The trouble is not too much consumption, but rather not enough money to buy with.
Since credit cards were introduced a half-century ago, the American public has been largely spending somebody else’s money and not their own. They have been spending money that they personally do not have. This so-called plastic money isn’t money at all. Rather, it is literally a promise to pay back somebody else who hands over the cash for the good or service you want to buy. It is placing the burden to pay for goods and services on somebody else with our implied or explicit agreement to pay a third party creditor back at a later date.
Credit, of course, is nothing new. Nineteenth Century farmers opened up lines of credit at general stores and mercantiles in order to get the goods they needed to harvest their crops and sell them to market. Once the money was in their hands, though, the farmers paid off what they owed to the store. Some had to extend their credit because of a bad crop year, but most of people didn’t just keep buying things on credit. Most often it was cash on the barrel head or nothing.
Modern society, however, doesn’t seem to understand, appreciate or respect what credit is. Consequently, it has been used recklessly and abused over the years. A large number of consumers even began to use credit cards to pay balances on other credit cards. Instead of using real money to pay down a balance, people would just put that balance on another credit card, then another, and another. Before they knew what was happening, they had become overextended on credit with debt into the tens of thousands.
American consumers today are able to buy more things on impulse simply because they can with a credit card and line of credit. Consuming today has little to do with need and most to do with want.
So, you like that 60-inch flat panel television with the home theater package? No problem. Just put it on the card.
Heck, people have gotten so casual and laissez-faire about using credit cards that they will even pay for a fast food meal—no more than a few dollars—with plastic instead of cash. But by the time one gets the credit card statement showing that charge, the food is long gone, and one is stuck still paying for the meal months or years later.
That is the root cause of the current recession: Careless and reckless use of credit. Because we didn’t handle our credit wisely or responsibly, we ended up owing incredibly huge debts that just could not be paid back; especially when our interest-only loans reverted to interest plus principal products too high for our current incomes to cover. We had to default, got foreclosed on, and filed bankruptcy. Creditors lost vast amounts of money by carelessly and loosely giving credit to just about anyone willing to put their plastic cards in their wallets.
Ergo, our current economic predicament.
It is true that George W. Bush presided over the start of the Great Recession, and it’s true that he did little to help the situation. But that doesn’t mean he gets the blame for it, either. Rather, if you are looking for someone to blame for double-digit unemployment, a tanked housing market, and broken financial industry, I suggest standing in front of a mirror and looking into it. The face looking back at you shares much of the blame.

Life still isn’t fair, so get over it

Throughout human history people have tried everything to make life fair for them. But it never has been and never will be as long as life remains imperfect.
Unfairness is a universal truth ranking up there with death and taxes. Life just is unfair, and there’s really nothing we can do about it. So get over it already.
The fact is that there’s always somebody else who seems to have it better than you do. Somewhere in the world, somebody else has more money and more material possessions than you. Somebody somewhere is healthier and happier than you. And undoubtedly, somebody somewhere is probably having more fun and experiencing more pleasure than you are right now.
So, what’s to be done about it?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing can be done to make life fairer for you so that you can have the same pleasures, happiness, money or material possessions as another person.
But try telling this to the avowed Marxist-socialist, whose fundamental belief is in a fair, equitable and even distribution of money and material so that everyone has the same things and nobody wants. Modern left-wing progressives are cut from the same cloth as traditional Nineteenth Century socialists. They have been influencing federal and state domestic policies for a hundred years. Their goal is socioeconomic egalitarianism where everyone is equal and has an equal share in everything. Nobody wants, everyone is taken care of, and there are no have-nots.
A pipe dream if I ever heard one.
The rift between rich and poor has existed since the dawn of human civilization. In every society, in every culture, in every country and political nation, there are rich people and there are poor people. Even in socialist countries where egalitarianism is not only the exclusive practice but also the law, there are those who seem to have more than others.
Take the former Soviet Union as Exhibit A. The Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 ushered in a 75-year period of communism, or extreme social egalitarianism. During that time, the number of poor Russians grew exponentially as the government took from the haves and divided up its booty to distribute equally among the have-nots.
The result was long lines of poor people waiting to get their daily rations of food, clothing and other material necessary for living.
By trying to institute a policy of fairness, equality and sameness the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics brought more suffering to its people than had even been suffered under the rule of the Czars. In other words, by trying to make things fair, the Russian leadership ended up only making things worse for the Russian people.
By taking money from the haves, the USSR caused massive unemployment, because the haves employed the have-nots. Communist Russia turned its haves into have-nots, too. So everyone was now equally poor and poorly the same.
And yet, despite all of the widespread suffering experienced throughout the USSR, there still existed the haves in government; those in power who dictated to and over the people. They were the ones trying to make things “equal” and the same for everyone else, while personally living beyond their means themselves, and way above the level of the average Russian citizen.
All things being equal, then, the Soviet Union in all its extremism wasn’t truly equal after all. Fairness was something propagandized, but not practiced by the government elite.
The former USSR has since become an object lesson on how not to do things.
But despite what we have gleaned from Russia’s political fiasco, today’s leftist progressives seem impervious to the lessons of history. They ignore the fact that socialism—whether in mild or extreme forms—fails on its own.
Modern leftists believe that they can do better than the Bolsheviks did. They think that they have the answers and that the results of their plans will be different.
Renowned Twentieth Century physicist Albert Einstein once offered his definition of insanity: Doing the same things over and over again, and expecting different results each time.
Based on Einstein’s explanation, left-wing progressives must be insane because they truly believe that they can do better than the last socialist efforts to equalize society.
Progressives point to communist China as an example of socialist economic success. But the communist China of today is nowhere near the original Maoist China of the 1950s.
The old communist China was a third world country, very nearly medieval in its technology, health care, food and living standards.
Not until the 1990s had China made the transition out of the dark ages of communism and into a modern age of industrialism and technological advancement. Largely with the help of the United States of America—a right-wing capitalist and free market nation—China has become an emerging world industrial, economic, political and military power. America’s self-destructive domestic economic policies have handcuffed her own businesses and industries, thereby helping China immensely in its drive to compete with the rest of the world because American companies have relocated operations overseas where the corporate climate is friendlier and the cost of doing business is much cheaper. America, in fact, has gone out of her way to support and promote China to her own disadvantage and detriment.
As such, China is merely a shadow of its former self. It is more like a hybrid of socialist and capitalist—capocialist.
If it weren’t for capitalism, communist China would likely not be any better off than its failed Russian counterpart, the USSR.
So, to the progressive propagandists who like to use China as a model of socialist success, I’d like to point out that it is only successful when funded by capitalism. China is funded by the capitalist United States, and that’s why it is successful. Period.
But I digress: The utopian idea of fairness cannot be successfully implemented by government policy. That has been tried many times before, and it has failed consistently.
The bottom line is that man cannot mandate fairness, because life itself isn’t fair.
Consider all of the equality laws that exist in the United States of America. The federal codes are fat with them. And yet, despite exhaustive legislative efforts to make everyone equal under the law, inequality still exists. This is because fairness is a human character trait; it isn’t a legal matter.
Fairness cannot be legislated any more effectively than morality can.
As such, I’d like to say something to the individual who cries that life is not fair, and then appeals to his government for help: Life will still be unfair, even after the bureaucrats are through manipulating individual liberty yet again. Your only comfort and gain will be a superficial notion that somebody in power somewhere did something about your unfair circumstance by proposing and passing yet another law; one that will only end up getting lost in the tens of thousands of other laws clogging the books. Such a law will have no effect whatsoever on making your life any more fair than it already is or is not. Instead, all any law against unfairness does is shave yet another chip off the statue of liberty. Eventually, once all the people with an axe to grind are through trying to make life fair for them, all that shall remain of essential liberty will be a pile of chips and shavings that once resembled freedom.

Life isn’t fair

Two universal truths most people recognize as absolute certainties are death and taxes.
But there is a third: Life isn’t fair.
No matter how hard we try to make things work out for us or others, life just happens.
Life itself is ambiguous, unpredictable and even chaotic.
While I believe there is an order to things, the natural course of life cannot be planned, cannot be predicted, and does not fit neatly in a bottle.
A large part of the reason why is because of our own imperfections. Our imperfect bodies and imperfect hearts have forged an imperfect environment around us, the imperfect world that we live in. As a result, we have to deal with its consequences; namely that things just don’t happen or work out the way we want them to.
Life isn’t fair.
While I’ve always known this truth, rarely has it hit me square in the face. That is, until last month when my wife and I received a telephone call that our nephew-to-be had died in his mother’s womb.
He was just two months shy of his due date when his heart stopped beating.
He would have been his parents’ first child, and the first of the next generation in my bloodline.
His loss hit us all very hard; none harder, of course, than his parents.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself pondering more than any other time in my life the universal truth about fairness.
Why did my brother and his wife have to lose their first child, while America’s welfare queens seem to have no problem popping babies out and increasing their income? How come my brother and sister-in-law had to go through the pain of losing a single baby, but a histrionic and egocentric narcissist like “Octo Mom” can produce eight healthy newborns, which have earned her fame and fortune?
Is it fair that my brother and sister-in-law must go into debt to the hospital over the loss of their child, but “Octo Mom” can get a book deal, appear in magazines, and get invited onto the television talk show circuit just to tell the story of how a doctor surgically implanted eight fertilized eggs into her?
And is it right or just that a woman can casually select to abort an otherwise very healthy baby because her child is inconvenient and unwanted, yet my brother and his wife can’t even bring a child into this world?
The answer, of course, is that life just isn’t fair. Some people get all the breaks in life, and others don’t get any. Some people are born, while others never get the chance.
Millions of abortions have been performed in this country, terminating the lives of unborn or partially born children who would otherwise have been born alive and healthy had they been given the chance to live.
It is a travesty that people like my brother and sister-in-law are denied the opportunity to be parents, while other expecting parents can summarily choose to kill their unborn children simply because the child wasn’t planned; the parents weren’t ready to be parents; or the child was just an inconvenient burden to them.
My nephew wasn’t planned, either. He was a complete surprise. And my brother and sister-in-law were in no position financially to afford the costs of not only birthing a child, but also raising it. Yet, they wanted to give this little boy his life, because it was at no fault of his that he was conceived. They wanted to bring him into this world and raise him as their son the best they were able to.
But his birth and his life weren’t meant to be.
What burns me up about abortion on demand is that it takes the life of a child whose beating heart and functioning brain were meant to be. It is foiling nature and denying God the life He chose to breathe His spirit into. So many babies whose lives were meant to be are not here to claim their birthrights, because brilliant man in all his finite wisdom decided he could intervene and interrupt nature’s course; so he did.
Here we stand in judgment of unborn lives; we who were born and given life are determining the fates, the lives of others. That’s not fair and it’s not right.
Life isn’t ours to give or to take away. It is God’s and His alone to grant. When we determine to make that choice, then we are playing God.
Imagine that: Imperfect man trying to impersonate a perfect being. What an oxymoron.
Life is so full of contradictions like that, because it just isn’t fair.
And while I accept my nephew’s death as life not meant to be, I cannot and will not accept abortion on demand this way, because we really have no way of knowing whether life was meant to be or not. It was terminated before it ever had a chance to be.
Abortion, like life, just isn’t fair. But unlike life, which we can do nothing about, we can do something about abortion. The cycle of infanticide can be broken.
The question is whether or not individuals and communities have the courage to do what’s right, instead of settling for doing what they want.
Life may not be fair, but it does deserve a fair chance.

In defense of marriage

I can’t speak for any other Christian conservative. But as for me, I am sick and tired of being labeled an evil hate-monger, bigot and homophobe just because I believe that homosexuality is a sin according to the Word of God, and that marriage should be preserved as a moral and a civil institution; not sanctioned or regulated by the government.
There is homosexuality within my own family.
Now, I don’t shun the family member. I treat them with love and respect just as I would do for anyone else. This family member can feel safe in my own home, knowing that they are accepted as family and as a human being, even though I have made it clear to them my opinion about their lifestyle. But I also don’t tell them how to live their life, either.
I was once confronted by this family member about their lifestyle choice, and I was asked how I felt about it.
I was honest with them, but I made it clear that their choice did not change how I felt about them as a person or as family. No issue has ever been made of my stand since.
Why?
Because I believe I was respectful of the person, while at the same time honest and firm in my convictions. Am I a homophobe in this person’s eyes? I don’t know. I hope not, but I have no control over the opinions formed by others.
What I do know is that I am not a homophobic bigot, because the proof has been in the pudding. I do not hate homosexuals. And just because I believe marriage should be preserved as a heterosexual institution shouldn’t make me a hate-monger, either.
In some states, there exist civil unions for partners of the same sex to express their vows and be able to live together in the kind of commitment that married couples do. Civil unions allow for recognition and distinction as a legal couple.
Fine.
I have no problem with civil unions per se. If legal status is important to the gay community, then let them have civil unions.
But, please, leave marriage alone. It has a purpose beyond just romantic love.
Marriage represents spiritual commitment, moral devotion and obedience. Marriage carries with it a high degree of religious importance to the vast majority of belief systems around the world, thereby transcending political and legal definitions. It is the primary means of replenishing the gene pool in human societies. And marriage is a proven method of raising generations of young people to eventually take the place of present adult generations.
Marriage is an institution that has a practical function in society: That being the procreation of future generations of residents and citizens, who are brought up in a stable, balanced home with a mother and a father, who, in turn, prepare these future generations to become productive, responsible members of society.
Some will say that gays can provide stable, loving homes, too.
I’ve no doubt.
But can gays give children the balance between feminine nurturing and masculine strength that they need as a crucial part of their personal development? There is something to be said—yes, something special and unique—about the union between a man and a woman. Since the beginning of time, heterosexual marriage has been a proven institution for not only ensuring the continuance of the human race, but also the assurance that younger individuals will carry on civilization through the kind of preparation that only a mother and father can provide together.
Are there bad marriages and good civil unions? Of course there are. But that’s not the point here.
Rather, the point is to offer a reasonable and logical argument for the preservation of marriage as the traditional union between a man and a woman. Marriage is divinely ordained. It transcends any human definition. Therefore, it cannot and it should not be redefined by secular human society or by government simply because to do so is politically expedient or prudent.
If the gay community wants its unions to be recognized, then follow the democratic process: Draft a measure, collect signatures, get it put on the election ballot and have the people of respective states vote either for or against it. That is the fair and the right thing to do.
What isn’t right is the government attempting to redefine for political purposes the nature and purpose of marriage.
That is God’s domain, and in God’s hands it ought to remain.

Casualties of the culture war

In every war, there are losses. And the innocent ultimately suffer the consequences. Such is the nature and grim reality of warfare.
The culture war first waged in the 1960s is no different.
Only the casualties of this conflict have continued to mount long after victory had been declared by the political left that waged it in the first place. This is because the tactics used by the left-wing were destined to snow-ball out of control down slippery slopes of dangerous precedent.
Our republic and its culture were undermined from within—chiefly through public education, the media and the legal system. The left infiltrated higher education and infected the minds of impressionable young people, who took what they learned and applied it to society at-large through their own professions: Law, medicine, journalism and K-12 education, among others.
Next thing you know, elementary school students are watching their teacher demonstrate how to put a condom on a cucumber and they grow up thinking that it’s okay to have casual sex with random strangers as long as you wear a condom.
All of a sudden, the perversion of free love has gone from taboo to an accepted norm that permeates even the sanctity of the home. The result has been the systematic destruction of the nuclear family.
Along with the propagation of free love came the insistence on women’s liberation and a sexual revolution, the intent of which was to make casual sex by either gender okay. This was based on a perception that sexual promiscuity by men was tolerated, while that of women was not. A consequence of this effort to equalize the genders by declaring free love for all has been the dissolution of marital commitment and an assault on marriage as a social institution.
Consequently, generations of children have been born out of wedlock to parents who never had any intention of committing themselves to marriage or providing an intact, stable home in which to raise their offspring. Now, the children of the cultural warriors have had children of their own. And those grandchildren are beginning to have children of their own now, too. With each successive generation, the importance of marriage, sexual fidelity and lifelong commitment deteriorates. And it will continue to do so until such virtues disappear completely from the sociological map.
But the family is merely one casualty of the culture war. There are others.
God, most importantly.
Who once was at the very heart of American culture and daily life, and who once inspired great influence in political and government affairs, is now treated as an obscure apparition by the culturally degenerate left, which has succeeded in having vilified the Supreme Being.
In the 1920s, God and Creation came under attack by forces intent on pushing Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution: Man’s—and not God’s—explanation for the origins of life.
The assault has been unceasing ever since.
Secular humanism now rules supreme in popular culture, having been aggressively promoted since the Sixties.
Today, we are taught and told that man is his own Supreme Being. He is the master of his own destiny, and that fate rather than intelligent design is responsible for where we came from and where we are going.
Life, we are told, is chaos, and when we die, there is nothing after that.
In fact, the left-wing degenerates who pushed secular humanism have gone much farther than simply insisting that God doesn’t exist. They’ve managed to convey that a belief in the one, true God of Abraham is unjust, evil and ultimately responsible for all of the political, social and economic ills of the world.
God, and those who believe and trust in Him, is now the enemy.
What is right and good today, in many respects, is unrighteous to God. And that is precisely the point.
The counterculture of the Sixties was meant to be a complete rebellion against everything that American society was build upon and stood for; including and especially God.
Sexual promiscuity of every sort and persuasion is promoted and practiced. A widespread public health problem of pandemic proportions is the consequence. Not only was there an exponential increase in the number of unplanned, unwanted and inconvenient pregnancies to single mothers, but there have also been millions of abortions of unborn children performed in the name of compassion and tolerance.
Further compounding the public health issues surrounding out-of-control sexuality has been the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, which have soared since the Sixties. Newer, more deadly viruses such as HIV, and its terminal end known as AIDS, have also become problematic because of the counterculture’s focus on free love and casual sex.
And yet, we are to believe that the sexual revolution was a good thing?
Further complicating public health has been a subculture, and foundation, of the counterculture: Illicit drugs.
The drug culture has been glorified over the years, resulting in widespread use, abuse and dependence. In fact, drugs have become the new god of secular society; one that we rely on for strength, courage, safety, a sense of self-efficacy, and of belonging. When our resources become depleted, we turn to the needle, the pipe, the straw and the bottle to replenish ourselves, instead of falling to our knees in prayer.
Besides, drugs offer our hedonistic counterculture something that God does not: Instant gratification. It is the ultimate idol, answering our prayers instantaneously with each use.
And a social policy of “do what feels good” has been pushed through the schools in an effort to promote what the left says is individuality; but the result has been generations of people growing up without any clue as to the consequences of their actions.
Thanks to counterculture, America has become a nation of pleasure-seeking hedonists whose selfish pursuits place the needs of others secondary to their own. Instead of helping out our neighbor, we have empowered the government do that for us while we do our own thing.
American society today is controlled by several “me” generations, beginning with the baby-boomer hippie types that were behind the very thrust of the sixties counterculture revolution. These “me first” generations have succeeded in casting God out of the public eye. They have succeeded in replacing Him with the idols of drugs, entertainment and popular culture.
The average counterculturist tends to care more about renting a movie on Friday night than doing his duty as an American citizen on election Tuesday. His most important decision is no longer who or what he should vote for or against, but rather choosing which movie to rent. He no longer cares about how his neighbor is doing, because he’s too busy getting his jollies from visual eroticism.
The average counterculturist will complain about the price of gasoline and how he can’t afford it, but still somehow manage to scrape up a few extra bucks to buy himself a six-pack of beer. He will complain about the cost of heating or cooling his home, but will pay $75 a seat to go watch his favorite professional sports team play.
And he would just as soon keep up with his fantasy sports leagues as keep up with national, regional or local politics.
This leads me to the final casualty of the counterculture war: Sovereignty.
I am talking about individual sovereignty, of course; the kind written about by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and the kind protected and preserved by the Bill of Rights.
We have given up our individual sovereignty because of apathy and complacency. We delegated tough decision making to the decision-makers in government; whether or not they have our best interests at heart.
Counterculturists leave leadership up to our elected leaders rather than become leaders themselves. And when one of them gets elected into a leadership position, they become more concerned about preserving and protecting themselves and their own interests than defending those of the people who elected them.
Americans have all but relinquished individual sovereignty to the state in exchange for personal safety, security and contentment.
The result is government acting on behalf of, but separate from and independent of the people. The progressive counterculturists in political power have succeeded in distracting the electorate with drugs and entertainment so that they can pursue their objectives and advance their political agendas without fear of opposition from the people, who are either too high, too complacent and apathetic with their entertainment to care, or both.
America has been hijacked by counterculture revolutionaries who preached hedonism, but whose dark, underlying objective has been the take-over of power in government.
They’ve destroyed the nuclear family and diluted or minimized its importance. They have destroyed God and wiped His importance clear off the map by replacing Him with idols; human-generated and created gods that give us what we want, when we want it.
They have succeeded in turning individual pursuits of pleasure into political apathy and complacency, which have allowed them to subvert the system and entrench themselves into positions of sociopolitical power, turning America from a nation that values individual sovereignty into one that favors state or government sovereignty instead.
That is a true progressive vision, one that could only be achieved by a revolt of America’s traditional values and the substitution of its own values in our daily lives. Progressives have understood for years that the way to defeat American values is not to compete against them, but rather simply replace them through social activism, referendums, and, most important, distractions that prevent people from seeing the truth.
Progressives have known for years that to challenge individual liberty and freedom by advocating government sovereignty over that of the individual would never be accepted by a majority of the people unless they appeal to liberty and freedom via our carnal nature.
Now people equate liberty and freedom as being able to do whatever one wants, whenever one wants and in whatever way one wants. They see freedom as doing their own thing in spite of others. They think liberty means living in whatever way pleases them regardless of how it may affect or offend others.
What gets conveniently ignored is the truth about freedom and liberty, which can only truly exist with personal responsibility and accountability toward one’s actions and words. Liberty and freedom can only exist when people are able to police their own behavior, thereby eliminating the need for laws and government policy to do the policing for them. Otherwise, when people live only for themselves and ignore others around them, liberty and freedom can only superficially exist.
If the United States of America is ever to return to the age of individual sovereignty, I’m afraid it will take another cultural revolution: This time a war against the counterculture that has destroyed the very notion and existence of individual sovereignty. And it must be waged by we who hold true to the American Establishment of traditional values supporting individual liberty and freedom through self-governance and personal discipline.
The reality is that the culture war rages on in spite of claims to the contrary by the victors, who are now the ones in the seats of power making policy over the rest of us. The reason the war continues is because of people who still hold true to traditional American values, the Establishment, and are willing to fight for them. They have refused to give up or give in.
I know the road is long and hard, the task daunting, but we can reclaim America again from those who have ravaged her and stolen her virtues. We can instill individual responsibility again, the same that has been taken from us by the counterculture. And once that accountability returns, America in her true form can return again, too.
The war isn’t over. But it could easily be if we decide to simply give up. I urge you to continue the fight to the bitter end, because America is worth the effort.

Jesus is not a liberal

He isn’t a conservative, either.
The fact is that Jesus Christ is so far above worldly politics that to assign a political philosophy to him is like saying God favors Toyotas over Hondas. It is absurd.
And yet, I have lost count the number of times a left-wing progressive has tried to pick an argument with me—a Christian conservative—by stating that Jesus was a liberal.
No, he was not. He is not. And he isn’t going to be, either.
Leftist progressives have tried to argue that because Jesus treated people equally regardless of their gender or skin color; because he advocated giving to the poor and selling one’s worldly possessions; and because he was the epitome of human compassion that somehow makes him more like a liberal.
No, that makes him God.
To say that Jesus is a liberal is to make him of the world, a palpable figure whose values are in harmony with ours.
But to do that is a mistake, not to mention completely inappropriate.
Jesus Christ is not concerned with a person’s politics. He is concerned about a person’s heart and spirit.
During his time here on earth, Jesus gave to the needy, denied himself material possessions, took pity on the sick and sinful, and treated everyone with equal love and compassion because he is the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ and God in the flesh; not for political reasons.
He modeled the kind of behavior that God expects of all of us: liberal, conservative, progressive, right and left-wing.
The principles that Jesus lived by as a man are not exclusive to any particular political philosophy. Rather, they are the principles and values of holiness and righteousness.
A progressive isn’t more compassionate than a conservative. Neither is a progressive more fair, just or equal than a conservative, nor left more charitable than right.
To suggest as some progressives do that their philosophy more closely reflects the teachings of Jesus Christ is pure arrogance.
I’m no expert on God’s Word, but I’ve never read in the Bible where Jesus advocates compassion and charity at the point of a sword; i.e., compulsory giving via taxation and government policy. From what I’ve read, Jesus never advocated government-run charity, welfare, health care or any another publicly funded service.
Rather, he left it up to man to govern himself in the world. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s.” (Matthew 22:20-22)
To support government run compassion as progressives do does not make them more compassionate than conservatives, who believe that compassion can neither be defined, nor determined nor measured by how much government spends. It is measured by the charity within men’s hearts.
As I recall, state sponsored and funded compassion has been tried throughout human history. And throughout history, compassion has been the one lacking element in these endeavors.
The Roman Republic and later Empire took from the individual the responsibility of caring for the needy. Roman citizens paid taxes to provide for those who could not help themselves. As such, private charity within the republic and later empire was rare if non-existent. In fact, it was generally discouraged.
Citizens saw no point in additional giving when their taxes supposedly took care of the problem. They saw no value in showing more compassion or giving more charity when they already paid taxes for these purposes.
Likewise, fictional character Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ classic novel “A Christmas Carol” summed up what government compassion can do to a person who becomes complacent in his charity: “Are there no prisons? …And the union workhouses…? ... I help to support the establishments I have named; those who are badly off must go there.”
Scrooge was so detached from suffering through paying his taxes that he had forgotten what real compassion of the heart was.
It is this desensitization that is risked when the people let the government be their compassion and their charity.
This is not the compassion that Jesus Christ advocated.
But oddly enough, it is the kind of compassion that progressives advocate for; the same progressives that say Jesus was a liberal.

I am a liberal

There, I said it.
Actually, I am an American conservative, which is the same as being a liberal in classical, old world politics.
I find it amusing how Americans have confused the political terms “liberal” and “conservative” to represent left and right politics, respectively.
A fundamental definition of “conservative” refers to the traditional way of doing things. This would mean advocating for a monarchy and state-run economy in the Old World East and West.
To be an Old World liberal, however, would mean embracing new revolutionary ideas that promote freedom and liberty for the common folks; in particular, a republican democracy and free-market capitalism.
In the United States—the western New World—“conservative” still means the traditional way of doing things. But our “traditional” politics is really new, revolutionary and “liberal” to the rest of the world.
Oddly enough, the so-called “liberal” in this country has much less in common with America’s traditional political foundations, and more in common with old world classical conservatism.
The modern, so-called liberal movement in America has been known as “progressivism” since the beginning of the Twentieth Century. While it sounds new and forward thinking, progressivism is actually moving backward toward the kind of authoritarian governments and state-run economies that dominated Europe and Asia for centuries up until the modern era.
An authoritarian government is one in which the state—and not the people—has the highest governing authority. Governments of this kind often, but not always, rule without the consent of the governed and operate independent of the people, making decisions on their behalf. Progressives have succeeded in transforming both state and federal governments into autonomous engines capable of operating independent of the peoples’ consent. Appointed and unelected bureaucrats run governments like a corporation or business, collecting and spending money without regard or respect for the people. Our elected leadership acts and makes decisions on implied, rather than explicit consent of the electorate; meaning that because it has been elected, then it assumes it is given leverage to govern its own way. This is a form of authoritarianism: Government acting independent of the people.
American progressives promote this kind of government, because it appears to them to be the surest, fastest and most direct way to achieve their economic and social egalitarian objectives. It is the shortest distance between two points: Closing the gap between what progressives perceive to be economic disparity under free-market capitalism and the socioeconomic justice of egalitarianism, or socialism.
In truth, a pure authoritarian government can’t exist in the United States without throwing out the Constitution entirely, because our nation’s foremost legal document and authority provides laws on what the government cannot do.
Authoritarian governments are limitless in their powers and have no overriding or controlling legal authority.
But American progressives have created a hybrid form of authoritarianism using a democratic republic as a smoke screen to hide its true objectives of a state run country in which the government ensures social and economic equality for all.
The truth is that there is nothing “liberal” at all about American progressivism. It is, in fact, regressive to the revolutionary principles upon which our nation was founded.
Progressivism seeks to make all individuals economically and socially equal through government policy. The principles of the American Revolution, by contrast, put the power of equality, fairness and justice into the hands of the individual instead of the state. Our founders believed that all the laws of men, all the edicts of government could not guarantee equality among men; that equality came from the charity of men’s hearts, and such charity was willfully, not forcefully, given. Their concept of freedom and liberty was based upon the notion that individual responsibility replaced and, in fact, transcended government as the final authority on behavior and action. They believed individuals could and should police themselves rather than appoint a government to do it for them. This philosophy was applied both socially and economically.
Progressives, on the other hand, place no such trust in the individual to do the right thing. Rather, their faith is invested in government to instigate and carry out social and economic policies designed to compel equality among the populace. It is truly an authoritarian, rather than liberal way of thinking.
How can egalitarianism via government compulsion be considered progressive, especially in the United States of America? In the old world, governments handled issues of social and economic injustice; not the individual. But the American Revolution changed all of that, putting the power into the hands of the individual to change not only his destiny, but to affect and influence the destiny of others. Equality and justice were entrusted to the individual, rather than government to carry out and preserve.
The fundamental principle behind American conservatism is the preservation of the principles of the American Revolution. Conservative Americans want to maintain the founding values of equality and justice through liberty, freedom, opportunity for the individual, and by the grace of God; not by the good graces of government.
I don’t get how progressives can rightly claim that conservatives cling to an old fashioned way of thinking when American conservatism is actually quite new and revolutionary compared to the politics of the world. If any form of political thought is old and outdated, it sounds more like progressivism than conservatism to me.
As such, I can no longer in good conscience refer to left-wing progressives as “liberals,” because they really aren’t liberal. Rather, they are socialists who believe in government egalitarianism; not in the individual. From now on, so-called liberal progressives will be referred by me as leftists, because that is the essence of what they are and what they believe. If they were real liberals, they would support liberty for the individual above granting more power to the state.