Selfless Sacrifice

At times he might appear to be too black and white or unmerciful or hard to those looking in from the outside. He is matter of fact about criminals, those who choose to hurt others for their own gain; be that gain financial or out of some sort of warped emotional need for satisfaction.


He is strong in his convictions, yet he shows mercy and grace to those most of us would be too scared or repulsed by to give the time of day. Every day he willing aids the unlovely, untouchable, the unwanted. He protects those who otherwise can't protect themselves, making sure the needy and the wealthy are both given equal and fair treatment. He gives counseling to the single mom and the domestic abuser, alike. He safeguards the “home” of the homeless, making sure the small portion of pavement they claim is out of harm's way. He ensures that the injured are given care and that the mentally ill are not beaten up on the parking lot of some abandoned warehouse.
He willingly lays down his life (and by doing so the lives of his family) even when he is not on duty. He is ever vigilant. While others go about their daily lives, he is watching, like an angel with human skin. The Lord equips him with selfless, quiet strength.

He does not ask those he protects who they are, or if they deserve his sacrifice. He does not discriminate, loving others not with his words, but instead with his actions. He does not ask those he serves if they are his neighbor nor his friend, but freely gives to all.

A man has no greater love than this, than he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

Like Everyone Else: Health Care

In the health care debate, over and over again those that propose government intervention have pointed to other countries as examples of what we in the United States should adopt. They argue that other industrialized nations guarantee health care for everyone. Those who desire more government control look down at our system and cry out for single payer or universal health insurance, like everyone else in the industrialized world.

Another people once cried out for a governmental system like everyone else. They were upset that all the other nations around them had a king and they did not. They were a free people, with no ruler over them, but instead representatives from each tribe led them. They had leaders who directed their steps, but they rejected the freedom they had as one unified nation under God, and cried out for an absolute monarchy, like the governmental system of all the other nations around them.

They traded freedom for "security", and within three generations, they found that they were like the other nations, no longer one united nation under God, but instead, a broken nation with no ability to defend itself from the nations they so desperately wanted to imitate.

When they asked for their king, they were warned, told that their sons would not be free to live out life as they had, instead they would be forced to serve the king and his government. They would not be allowed to simply work their land, but instead would be forced to work the land of the king. Their daughters would not be allowed to live out their lives in peace as their mothers had, but instead would be forced to work as cooks and bakers in the king’s service. The best of the land, of the produce, of their labor would go first to the king, and the rest left to them. They would be taxed, a tenth of all they produced would be taken and they themselves would become the king’s slaves. They were even warned that the Lord would no longer hear their cries, yet they ignored the warning, no doubt dismissing it as fear mongering and demagoguery.

Israel rejected God, not trusting Him to lead them as He had always led them. From the land of Egypt, across the Red Sea and the Jordan, into the promise land of Canaan, He had faithfully protected them, but His guidance was not enough. They wanted what everyone else had and they got it.

So too, we as Americans have freedoms the rest of the world has never known. That is why our nation has been such a magnet for people from all over the world. The human heart desires freedom, but sadly once it has known freedom and only freedom, it begins to reject it, along with the only One who can provide it. Instead, those who have enjoyed its riches discard it for "security", and they start to look around at other nations and desire something that will only bring them bondage.

Governmental health insurance is not going to set people free, it instead will cause them to become dependent on a system that will never be able to meet their need. Our sons and daughters will have to work their whole lives in service to it. Taxes will increase to sustain it, and it will never be satisfied no matter how much money is thrown at it. We only have to look at the monstrosities of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to understand that the government has NO ability to keep costs down. Yet, we work to maintain these programs, paying 2.5 percent of our pensionable income to the federal government. Those who receive them become so dependent on them that they fear their loss and are paralyzed at the thought that they might not receive their check.

When a nation looks to their government to save them, they find themselves in bondage. Those nations that have universal health care may look appealing to some, but the lack of patient choice, the loss of doctor driven decisions, and the dominance of bureaucratic red tape leave those who most need help waiting and in some cases dying as they look to the government for help, we only have to look to the UK and Canada to understand this.

When a free people look to other nations, who have less freedom, to find a governmental system, they will find themselves servants to the state instead of citizens in a free land. When they cry out to be like everyone else, they might just get what they are asking for.

Pledge Allegiance to Obama?

Pledge to Barack Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51kAw4OTlA0


Never before has our nation been led in a “pledge” to one man. Our founders feared such a pledge, protected against it through a Constitution, which placed limits on any one man gaining power over the whole. We the people did not appoint a man, but in order to form a more perfect union, ordained a Constitution that placed checks and balances on every man, so that one would not rise up above the rest. The Founders understood what the rule of one man looked like, what a “Sovereign” could and would do with absolute power.

They wrote a declaration of independence not from a nation they were rebelling against, but from a King. Thomas Jefferson did not address the wrongs of the parliament of England as the reason for the decision of the colonies to reject the rule of Great Britain, but instead he wrote of the wrong one man had done to the people of the colonies.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an
absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a
candid world. Declaration of Independence

Jefferson pointed out these facts and addressed the ‘injuries and usurpations” carried out by the King of Great Britain. Jefferson used the pronoun HE over and over again in the body of the Declaration, revealing the Founders deep dissatisfaction with the rule of one man. They formed separate and independent states, in order to ensure that no one man, nor one group of men had absolute power over the whole.

Yet, the social aristocracy of our day seems to have determined that we need to once again fall under the rule of one man. We are now called on to pledge allegiance to President Barack Obama. Never before in the HISTROY of the UNITED STATES have we sworn allegiance to any one man, as a nation. Yes, we have supported our presidents in times of war, in times of national crisis, and in times of national service, but never before has a man, a president been place on such a pedestal of political dominance and superiority as to deserve a pledge.

Our Founders understood that power corrupts, and placed a balance of power upon all branches of the government, understanding that absolute tyranny can come in many shapes and sizes. They understood far better than we do the ills of one-man rule. They also knew that no one man is of any greater value than any other. An idea that was foreign in their day yet seems to be lost up our own, that “All men are created equal.” President Obama should reject the idea of national allegiance to him.

This new pledge, created by those in Hollywood, divides our national loyalty; it is based upon individual choice and opinion. It calls on all of us to pledge to stand up for something we believe in, but would never allow those of us with differing beliefs to add our list of concerns to theirs. Their opinions are somehow more enlightened, but even those are subjugated to the overall allegiance to one man.

Our nation already has a pledge that brings unity to our people, without raising a single man above the nation as a whole. It allows for differences but does not highlight those differences as values higher than those set forth by our Founders. It is singular in focus, to bring allegiance to an ideal not a person. An ideal founded upon the principle that the people form the most perfect union, and have certain rights that no one can take from them; the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That pledge is:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the
Republic for which it stands. One Nation, under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all.

Pledge what you like, join the social aristocracy of Hollywood in bringing about “a change we can believe in” by swearing allegiance to a man, but I will choose the “change” our nation was built upon 200 years ago. I will align myself with the people who form our republic, so “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Declaration of Independence

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America when in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.