Ol' Buffalo Blog: Good vs Evil

Where do you compromise between food and poison? — Ayn Rand

The following few paragraphs begin an article about our nation's stealth enemy come from The American Legion Magazine. Your task is to guess who that enemy is:

For the first time in its history, the United States is trying to wage and win a war without accurately identifying the enemy or its motivations for seeking to destroy us. That oversight defies both common sense and past military experience, and it disarms us in what may be the most decisive theater of this conflict: the battle of ideas.

Such a breakdown may seem incredible to veterans of past military conflicts. Imagine fighting World War II without clarity about Nazism and fascism, or the Cold War without an appreciation of Soviet communism and the threat it posed.

Yet today, the civilian leaders of this country and their senior subordinates – responsible for the U.S. military, the intelligence community, homeland security and federal law enforcement – have systematically failed to fully realize that we once again face a totalitarian ideology bent on our destruction.

That failure is the more worrisome since the current ideological menace is arguably more dangerous than any we have faced in the past, for two reasons. First, its adherents believe their mission of global conquest is divinely inspired. Second, they are here in the United States in significant numbers, not just a threat elsewhere around the world.

What, then, is this ideology?

The title of the article is Stealth Jihad and discusses the extreme threat that Islam's Sharia poses to our freedom and our way of life. It's a good article and I recommend following the above link to read it. I firmly believe that a major factor in the march of radical Islam against liberty is because we truly have become the "Great Satan" they despise. We have become morally bankrupt. We both consciously and ignorantly elect destructive politicians who cleverly take us steadily away from that which is good.

As I read those introductory paragraphs, I was struck my how much those words describe an even more urgent threat to our liberty. That threat is us as much (if not more so) as it is "Stealth Jihad!"

Government and politics today is not a fight between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Conservatives and Liberals. It is not a conflict between Left and Right. Politics, for several years, now, has simply been a war between good and evil. It has been a struggle between individual liberty and big government.

Here are just a few of the areas where we have lost our moral compass:

▪ The Constitution is virtually never considered in making legislative, executive, or judicial decisions.
▪ Our education system is controlled by unions and social engineers whose agenda is to indoctrinate, not educate.
▪ Our religious leaders are guided by revenue, not God.
▪ Church attendees seek entertainment, not truth.
▪ The first-amendment rights (and responsibilities) of our righteous religious leaders have been crushed by legislation and judicial fiat.
▪ Our military servicemen must tolerate, even accept, deviant behavior.
▪ Military chaplains are restricted from praying in the name of Jesus and have been forced to confiscate Bibles.
▪ There is virtually no concern in the Whitehouse, in Congress, or in the Courts to enforce immigration laws.
▪ Our nation's politicians don't even care whether we have a common language.
▪ Taxation and other government intrusion into the financial market is so capricious, counterintuitive, and anti-liberty that one cannot make viable medium- to long-term plans including retirement, for one's estate, to start or run a business, or to create new jobs.
▪ Government's so-called social programs (ie Social Security, Medicare, etc.) are so morally and financially bankrupt that only a fool would make future plans based on their solvency or effectiveness.
▪ We have drifted away from the concept of charity (selflessness) and toward the concept of social justice (let the government make everything "fair" at somebody else's expense).

I am disappointed in the Republican Party's obviously weak opposition to the evil agendas in national and global politics. The Party elite are far too willing to compromise with, or submit to, evil. Prominent, seemingly good people, but compromisers include (alphabetical order) Bob Bennett, George HW Bush, George W Bush, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, Orin Hatch, Mike Huckabee, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Lisa Murkowsky, Colin Powell, Mitt Romney, Michael Steele, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and far too many more. Sure, they often talk the talk, telling us what we want to hear. But they cannot be trusted with our liberty.

Anyone who pays attention, knows that the loudest protest against Republican recklessness is from the fiscal and social conservatives. This protest has always been on every conservative radio talk show. You see, one of the many differences between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives don't necessarily stand behind the politicians they get stuck voting for, they stand on principle. Even when Republicans are in power, the harshest critics of free-spending Republicans are conservative Republicans -- not Democrats.

There are only a tiny handful in politics with the courage and integrity to consistently stand up to fight against, not compromise with, evil. It is for this reason that there is little difference between the two major political parties. The only meaningful difference between the two major parties is the rate at which they take us in the wrong direction -- away from liberty and toward a tyrannical government. Compromise with evil always moves us away from the good and toward evil.

What is the real cause of this trend toward the welfare state, toward more socialism? In the last analysis, in my judgment, it is personal unrighteousness. When people do not use their freedoms responsibly and righteously, they will gradually lose these freedoms....If man will not recognize the inequalities around him and voluntarily, through the gospel plan, come to the aid of his brother, he will find that through "a democratic process" he will be forced to come to the aid of his brother. The government will take from the "haves" and give to the "have nots." Both have lost their freedom. Those who "have," lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who "have not," lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got "something for nothing," and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift. Under this climate, people gradually become blind to what has happened and to the vital freedoms which they have lost. — Howard W. Hunter on Socialism and Freedom (Devotional Address, Brigham Young University, 8 Mar 1966)

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. — CS Lewis

Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time. — Robert D. Hales

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the US Constitution, 4th US President

In his Second Epistle to Timothy, the Apostle Paul wrote:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. - 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Paul was addressing churchgoers who seek pastors whose teachings match their own and not necessarily the whole truth as taught by Jesus and his Prophets and Apostles.

However, I find that Paul's prediction applies to politics as surely as it does to religion. Far to many voters seek political representatives who tell them only what their "itching ears" want to hear. Far too few voters truly study the issues and the candidates. They care only about their selfish and ignorant wishes.

God's are the laws of freedom. Man's laws, except where they agree with those of God, are laws of bondage.