Recent homicide by shooting has once again caused a great sadness to come unto our society. Sadness unlike anything our father’s generation would expect or tolerate. That generation was predominately Judeo-Christian with well-defined values including a belief in sanctity of life. We are now at war most serious whether we believe or even understand it. This war has many fronts, some at physical locations, but the most insidious, nay the most dangerous, is the battle for the mind. Our morally relativistic society where anything goes has led us adrift, and at a time when our ‘way of life,’ may well be facing the greatest threats to existence.
Liberty and freedom require eternal vigilance. You have a democracy, quipped Franklin, if you can keep it. Those words are as true now as then. Each generation is tested anew as to whether it has the wisdom, the knowledge, the will, the strength, and the courage, needed for the maintenance and preservation of that great democratic experiment in individual liberty and freedom. Each generation must decide whether it is worthwhile to make the requisite sacrifices necessary in order to pass that experiment in self-government on to their sons and daughters. Events over the past two decades and our responses to those events cause concern that this great experiment in government may be drawing to a close.
All governments along with the bureaucrats and politicians that run those governments have certain commonalities, among which is the unending quest for increasing power. This is why the framers created our triune form of government replete with checks and balances. This I know, as governmental power increases, individual liberty and freedom diminishes. Government is the most deadly human created force on the planet, certainly the most likely to kill you and exterminate your family. We can look to our own Civil War, World Wars, and unending Middle Eastern war for proof.
For the first time in history this government has the ability to regulate our lives to the smallest particle of detail. We are limited as to how much cash we can withdraw from the bank lest we become the focus of regulators. Indeed, if we are stopped by law enforcement with more than a piddly sum of cash we are lumped in right along with the drug dealers and our hard earned cash promptly confiscated by greedy government. If I choose to walk the streets of our land with $100,000 in cash in my pockets, what concern is that to law enforcement? We all know that there is no longer any presumption of innocence and that those monies would be promptly seized. Uncle Sugar has the so-called Patriot Act that does not encourage patriotism but in fact regulates behavior thus denying freedom to us patriots. Our most private conversations have been carefully monitored lest we utter a key word that just may put our names on a watch list and remove our ability to use public transport, worse our very freedom. We are subject to remediation, a vile process whereby we may held by incommunicado with writ of habeas corpus permanently in suspense. We are not only told how to educate our children, but they are constantly exposed to revisionist history. This is intolerable.
I have lived long enough to have seen our country not once but twice, exist as an undisputed superpower of the world. Professional politicians and bureaucrats pandering any promise to remain elected subsequently squandered that power, most recently under the guise of an end to Cold War, ‘Peace Benefit’.
I recently heard one Republican presidential hopeful described in a positive way as being an experienced politician – as if being re-elected too many times provided some sort of special insight into the art of governance. What being re-elected many many times does, is to concentrate power, which is a very bad thing for individual liberty. Professional politicians serving more than two terms are the bane of our national existence and should be promptly turned out at the polls. The multi-term professional politician will make any promise, tell any lie, and violate any sacred trust, in their quest for re-election. Their primary goal is not to represent your interests; instead their operative goal is to secure their livelihood by being be re-elected. Yet we fools continue to re-elect those same old tired pundits to the highest offices in the land. Never in my wildest imagination would I have believed Bill Clinton or Barak Obama would have been elected to second terms – and now we shall likely have Madame Clinton at the helm of government.
The Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 tragedies, airline bombings, and targeted shootings of selected groups ranging from school children to members of our armed forces, even more so when coupled with unbridled national debt, are indeed telling symptoms of a society facing imminent destruction.
So how did we come to this horrible situation? I think it was the result of two critical events. The first was a Supreme Court certiorari decision in Murray v Curlett. As you probably know, this decision reinterpreted the First Amendment in a way as to eliminate prayer in public school and of course a host of predictable similar regulatory actions by judicial activists followed.
I have written previously about the insidious effect on our society of the Murray decision so I won’t encumber my readers unnecessarily. It is easy to blame the Court for this decision, and on the surface that decision is indeed well reasoned. Secular government has no business telling me how to worship. We can look to the Irish problem of recent, to the provenance of the Church of England, and even to the confused politics of the Middle East to see what happens when government and church intermingle closely. I find little wrong with the doctrine of separation of church and state. What has happened however is that our society has interpreted anything Christian as being wrong, to be put down and suppressed, while other religions such as Islam and lifestyles immiscible to the Christian walk are promoted. Only the most revisionist will deny the role of Christian faith in the founding and early life of our nation. Christian belief is central to our national formative documents. Yet it seems as if we are possessed of a lemming like drive to turn our back on all that this country was founded upon and stood for, in favor of religions and policies of hate, and in my view of the Christian perspective, evil. This I know, there is nothing more vicious and spiteful than the liberal denied his way.
I believe the second critical event leading to our national downfall was the ascendancy of the National Education Association cult of liberal so called ‘professional educators.’ I don’t know about you, but I would much rather be taught than educated. Being ‘educated’ sounds too much like something the North Koreans did when they ‘brainwashed’ US prisoners of war. Sometimes appearances are deceiving – but not always.
So what does the National Educational Association have to with this sad state of affairs? Ok, I admit it, I was once a teacher in public school. I taught science on an emergency permit in a small ranching school district for two years while studying for a Master of Science in a substantive field and preparing a thesis and its defense. At the time I had an Bachelor of Science with majors in Chemistry and Biology and a 30+ hour minor in mathematics along with many many hours in electrical engineering. It was at this time of my life, I was exposed to the NEA and encouraged forcefully to join. Had the encouragement not been so vigorous, I just might have. While teaching on that emergency permit, I had to complete something like nine hours of college credit toward a major in education annually.
I actually looked forward to my first college class in this major. It did not take me long however to utterly despise the college of education coursework as a Waste of Time. The first thing I noticed was an absolute lack of academic rigor in the class work, at least when compared to say the study of electrical engineering, chemistry, mathematics, or even biology. I sat through several classes in what was called the ‘soft sciences,’ psychology, sociology, and the like and too many touchy feely worthless classes in early learning experiences, mechanics of teaching, and the like. What rot! It occurred to me that my new peer group was quite intent on earning a major in such folderol and in the process, learning only the minimum in the substantive areas they would actually be teaching. Of course there might have been a few dedicated souls intent upon becoming world class teachers, but if so, they were in the distinct minority. As I learned more about my new peer group, it seemed that many had first tried the school of nursing hoping to become highly paid registered nurses but fell afoul of substantive classes like microbiology and chemistry 101. Those folks cast about in the university, seeking easier majors they might successfully complete. Many tried secondary education and running into problems with the soft sciences turned toward elementary education. Me, I was glad to have been taught in high school by master career teachers of that greatest generation.
You might infer where I am headed by including the National Education Association right up there with the Murry decision as precedent to the downfall of our society. The political action arm of the National Rifle Association could learn from the NEA. A more activist group of ‘educators’ you will never find. It immediately sought to exclude any non-education college major otherwise qualified to teach in the relevant subject matter including PhDs, from being able to teach in public school. By virtue of substantive non-education major post graduate degrees, I am qualified to teach in the highest institutions of the land – but not high school history, government, chemistry, or anything else for that matter in public school. And so our children are now ‘educated’ by professional ‘know-nothings,” unsurprisingly sharing a number of common characteristics with their political brethren.
Have a look at the NEA web page, http://ift.tt/1IwFH39.
See where the NEA wants its members involved in the political process? The NEA has an absolute stranglehold on public education and need I remark that it is most liberal in its philosophical bent? Thanks to the NEA and so called, ‘professional educators,’ we have been dumbing down our high school graduates for decades making them increasingly unsuitable for productive and functional life in a democracy. Is it any wonder so many become consumers rather than producers? Engineering, chemistry, mathematics, physics – those subjects are hard to master which is why we have more public school teachers than physicists, engineers, and chemists. The NEA and its powerful lobby set the standards for public school teachers in this land, both prospective and practicing and by so doing, define the academic standards of our public school educated children.
My children were educated in the public schools and although one now holds a doctorate in medicine, she is considered unqualified to teach health in public school. Having experience with colleges of education and their notably weak product, my children were also homeschooled while attending public school. One thing public school still does well, is to socialize kiddos and I wanted mine to understand their peers.
In my generation, every unlocked pickup truck in the high school parking lot had at least one rifle in the rack by the back glass. We are judged by our government to be so irresponsible a people these days, that in most places it is a felony for even the holder of a concealed pistol permit to carry a firearm on an academic campus. That my friends is the operative word, IRRESPONSIBLE.
The Murry decision will stand. Judicial activism promulgated the law of the land in this matter. I think the best we can hope for is that government will be neutral toward religion. The liberal NEA will not brook any interference in educational matters. Of that I am certain and so we are left with a truly sad state of affairs with little real hope. Our nation is increasingly polarized with adherents to one view or another. So, we shall endure and expect bombings, active shooters, and religious persecution. We as a people and indeed our society are at a crossroads. How many of the recent notorious villains of tragedy were practicing Christians? How about Muslims?
Seems to me I might just want to pay especial attention to anyone who practices a religion of hate and intolerance to the point of preaching death for non-believers. Who could have imagined mosques in this great nation yet I have a friend in Dallas who chose to relocate from his neighborhood rather than hear the calls to worship when a mosque moved nearby. Communities in the Detroit area are calling for Sharia Law. This is little wonder because during the 2013-2014 academic year, this country granted an unprecedented number of student visas to Muslim nationals. 7,288 student visas were issued to Kuwaitis (where the Chattanooga shooter was born). 7,921 visas were issued to students from Nigeria, that nation most synonymous with Internet fraud. 7,920 visas were issued to Indonesian students, and as many as 53,919 student visas were issued to Saudi Arabians, which country pays well for colleges in the US to assist their young men and women study here. Anyone remember Osama bin Laden? Stand I alone in exasperation?
Without pronounced change it is hard to predict future diminishment of turmoil. Bombings, shootings, and indeed wars, shall only increase. Professional politicians and bureaucrats will increasingly seek to concentrate power at the expense of individual freedom and liberty. We are indeed faced with unpalatable choices. We can acquiesce and join the anything goes, great unwashed herd of sheeple. We can drop out and hide from society hoping to somehow remain un-noticed. Or we can acquit ourselves like proper men and women and say ‘enough,’ that I shall not stand for any such abhorrent practice in my presence.
I think the time is shortly coming when Christians will be once again put to the test, perhaps even to the sword. It will then be apparent who are Christian by acclaim and who are indeed, Christian by practice. A little sleep, a little slumber…, and all is for naught (Proverbs 6:10-11). I fear it will be this generation that will pay a heavy price for that sleep and slumber and I think that price will be most dear.
Sincerely,
Panhandle Rancher
via ModernSurvivalOnline.com http://ift.tt/1IwFGfI
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