Obama & Pickett

Obama & Pickett
Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg is often referred to as the high water mark of the Confederacy.  Like the famous Charge of the Light Brigade memorialized by Lord Alfred Tennyson, Pickett’s charge was a nearly suicidal mission.  On July 3, 1863, General George Pickett led more than 12,000 men spread a mile wide across 1,000 yards of open field directly into the face of entrenched Union troops.  It was a slaughter.  The result was more than 50% dead and wounded.  And, for all intents and purposes, it was the last major offensive of the South against the North in the American Civil War.  It is today considered the turning point in the war.

Pickett’s charge was uncharacteristic for General Robert E. Lee, a man known as a brilliant tactician.  Certainly in hindsight it makes no sense.  But General Lee greatly miscalculated and was from then put on the defensive.  Although there was an outside hope that the North would sue for peace if McClellan defeated Lincoln in 1864, ultimately Pickett’s charge led to Lee’s surrender in Appomattox, Virginia in April 9, 1865.  Had Pickett’s charge succeeded, the outcome of the war may well have changed.

Like Pickett’s charge and the famous Charge of the Light Brigade by the British against the Russians in the Crimean War, the charge of the far left following the 2008 elections has been similarly suicidal.  President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are in denial.  They act as if they did not get slaughtered at the polls.  They just can’t accept the fact that the American people want absolutely nothing to do with their big government, less freedom agenda that has put the United States of America on the brink of fiscal insolvency.
 
Last November the far left charged forward, certain that Americans would be suckered in by Obamacare and that every American would thereafter become a ward of the state, bowing and scraping to their every whim and demand.  But the election results turned their world topsy turvy.  And yet they never noticed.  They said they did a bad job of getting their message across.  If the American people only heard them correctly, they said, they would embrace their far left agenda.  And so as we march forward toward the 2012 election, the troika of Obama-Reid-Pelosi continues forward down the path of total political annihilation.  They refuse to face the truth that they have reached the high water mark of American liberalism.  They can’t accept the notion that they have gone as far as they are going to go in their effort to transform America from a land of opportunity, decency, and compassion into a nation of lesser goals, lesser opportunities, less stature, and less freedom.

In reality, the left has achieved only one success in its long, dismal climb into power—the civil rights movement of the 1960s.  All other efforts have either failed or have been detrimental to the well being of the citizens of the United States of America.  In fact, their very philosophy of a big government of enlightened liberal elites running the world is the very antithesis of the world view of our American founders. 

For some seemingly bizarre reason today’s liberals or progressives think that a centralized government they create will not result in tyranny as all centralized governments in history have resulted.  For some puzzling reason they think that they are a new breed of benign individuals who are not only more moral and more talented and smarter than anyone else, but also know better than you and I do how we should live our lives.  There is not one scintilla of evidence that liberals are kinder, or gentler, or more tolerant, or more compassionate than anyone else.  In fact, from the evidence it seems that liberals of today are in fact more callous, less civil, and less caring and compassionate than those they seek to rule.  When volunteers or donors are needed to help the poor and infirm it is conservatives who wade into the fray while the vast majority of liberals stand on the sidelines or vote to spend other people’s money to solve the problem.
 
Like the outcome of the last election, today’s liberals ignore history.  There are no instances of socialism working or delivering a better society for all.  Yet the faith of liberals in socialistic schemes continues unabated.  While the history of freedom, and economic freedom in particular, stands as a model of economic growth, scientific advancement, and widespread abundance, the history of socialism is one of drear sameness and of meager existence for all.

How can liberals deny the reality before their eyes?  The amazing answer is that they truly believe that they stand unique in history.  That they in particular have through education evolved into being better and more enlightened than the rest of the population.  Never mind their thuggish political activities or their hate filled rhetoric against those with whom they disagree.  Today’s liberals see themselves as good and everyone else as flawed.

The mirror they are looking into is broken.  Why did the Founders seek a government with limited power over its citizens?  The root understanding of the Founders lies in the Bible.  Books were rare at the time our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written.  The most widely read book leading up to the American Revolution was the Bible.  A large number of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had formal seminary training. 

And what is the theme of the Bible?  Genesis tells the story of man and woman sinning in the Garden of Eden and being driven out into a corrupted world.  All men are corrupt and evil.  We are saved only by the grace of God.  That’s the message of the Bible in a nutshell.  Only when we fear and love God are men capable of doing good.  The Founders knew the natural tendency of man is to gain power over others and thus they created a system of government which limited the power of the Judiciary, the Legislature and the Executive branch.  And they limited the power of government itself over its citizens.  It was this understanding of human nature that enabled the Founders to create the first truly free nation in the history of the world.  Wisely, they did not make the same mistake as Europe and nationalize the Christian religion.  Instead, they guaranteed freedom of religion, knowing that faith prospers best when government is absent.

No wonder less than 5% of Europeans attend church on Sunday.  They feel they have fulfilled their religious obligation by paying their taxes.  What more should they do?  Government support, which means control of churches in Europe, has led to churches that have lost the true message of the Bible.

In stark contrast, nearly 40% of Americans attend worship services at least once per month.  Another 40% proclaim that they listen to a Christian radio broadcast, watch a Christian television program or read Christian literature once per month.  By establishing a state religion in the various countries of Europe, government has undermined Christianity.  By keeping government out of religion in the US, it has prospered as in no other previous society.

It is the Christian and Jewish understanding of the frailty of man that keeps our nation on track.  The understanding that man’s tendency is toward evil and not good has created a nation that respects life, property, and individual freedom.  It is the silliness of liberalism that has led to its impending demise.  Freedom simply cannot exist in a society where there is not a consensus among its citizenry of the weakness of human nature.  It is this understanding of human nature that allowed the Founders to erect a government that resists a concentration of power into the hands of a few.  If the United States of America ever loses its majority of citizens with this basic understanding, our republic will die.

Freedom itself is not a virtue, it is a blessing from the God who loves us and sent His Son to take away our sins so that we can live forever in a perfect place.  All attempts to create a utopia on earth are doomed to failure because all men are flawed and incapable of perfection.  When we fail to recognize this, we stray from the understanding that enabled our forefathers to create this special land of freedom in the first place.

Let’s not only share the Good News of Jesus with those around us, but also act as good citizens and use our freedom to resist those who lack an understanding of human nature and who seek power over us. 

A political victory by nature is a temporary victory.  But temporary victories are important to the preservation of freedom and to keep the United States of America a beacon of hope to the world.  You and I have been bequeathed a legacy of freedom by our parents and by those that came before them.  We did not create this great land, but thankfully, wise, God fearing men set this nation on the path of freedom and opportunity unprecedented in human history.  It is, therefore, our solemn duty to preserve the American dream for the next generation of Americans.  To do less would expose us as unfaithful heirs of the freedom passed along to us by those who came before us.  When the roll call sounds, let us not be found wanting.