I recently received a video e-mail that had scenes of terrorists rioting, bombing, and getting people ready for beheadings. It also showed the collapse of the twin towers and a child cutting off the head of his teddy bear. Soon-to-be president Trump was narrating the lyrics of a 1968 Al Wilson song written by Oscar Brown in 1963, titled "The Snake". Many of you may have heard it but I feel it is worth repeating and expanding on its impact on the politics and events of our day. Here are the lyrics without repeating the refrain each time:
On her way to work one morning Down the path along side the lake A tender hearted woman saw a poor half frozen snake His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew "Poor thing," she cried, "I'll take you in and I'll take care of you" "Take me in tender woman Take me in, for heaven's sake Take me in, tender woman," sighed the snake She wrapped him up all cozy in a comforter of silk And laid him by her fireside with some honey and some milk She hurried home from work that night and soon as she arrived She found that pretty snake she'd taken to had been revived She clutched him to her bosom, "You're so beautiful," she cried "But if I hadn't brought you in by now you might have died" She stroked his pretty skin again and kissed and held him tight Instead of saying thanks, the snake gave her a vicious bite "I saved you," cried the woman "And you've bitten me, but why? You know your bite is poisonous and now I'm going to die" "Oh shut up, silly woman," said the reptile with a grin "You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in (The Snake lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group) This was one of President Trump's messages about admitting Syrian and other refugees into our country without proper vetting. That was the snake he warned us about. As I thought about this message, I realized this was but one of the snakes we have to deal with. Another that quickly came to mind is the communist, socialist, progressive, and democrat system of gradualism. These groups don't expect to achieve their full agenda but only hope to move gradually toward their goal. If the Republicans pass a bill which can be labeled "Obamacare Lite" these groups will consider it to be their success. How do we know this? Because they told us. We would find out what was in Obamacare after it passed. And we did. And it was national healthcare. Did you feel and see the snake that was ready to bite us? We were forewarned and knew darn well what would happen. Gun control is another example. The left is always looking for a compromise. Too many on the right are ready and willing to hold that snake close and warm it up because they want to show they care. And then the bite comes. We lose again on willingness to compromise. We agree to background checks, concealed carry permits, magazine limits, gun locks, and many other regulations which will have no impact on murder rates or crime as the statistics reveal. And guess what. The left told us they were coming after our 2nd Amendment rights. We knew darn well what would happen if we cooperated, but we did anyway. The snake bites again. President Trump's new budget proposal is a small start to win one for our side. But our Congressmen must support it and, better yet, insist on more cuts. Now we must keep the pressure on them or the snakes will bite again. As has been quoted, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." We have been fooled, and bitten, more than once. As Yogi Berra said, "We made too many wrong mistakes."
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Today, I'm going to get into a controversial subject, religion. But have no fears; I'm not going to debate that subject in itself but only use it for background. Oh good, I didn't see anyone leaving
. Nearly 500 years ago on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Why is this important? This was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. During the next couple of centuries, the early settlers, most of whom were Protestant, settled in America. Their religion was very important in their lives, their thoughts and actions, and in their governments. How important was it? Research shows that 34% of our Founders' quotations between the years 1760 and 1805 were taken directly from the Bible. As we read about the debates in the formulation of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, we see how important the Bible and religion were to our Founders. They recognized the existence of a higher authority as noted in the Declaration and regularly included prayer during their deliberations. Let's take a slight turn here and discuss a topic that seems to be very important to us today. That topic is values. What are values? They are defined as a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life. So we see that values are strictly personal. Everyone has them; President Trump, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Billy Graham, and so forth. And we can't say that their values are right or wrong. We may not agree with them but that doesn't make them wrong for that particular person. So what's missing here? Let's look at another "v" word; virtue. What is virtue? Simply, it's behavior showing high moral standards. So isn't virtue just values with high moral standards added in? As opposed to values, we can evaluate virtue and identify it as right or wrong based on moral judgements. Our Founding Fathers often mentioned "virtue" in their many debates and discussions. In William Federer's book, "America's God and Country" which is an Encyclopedia of Quotations, the Index has 76 referrals to quotations having the word "virtue". It was a very important concept in our history. Let's now go back to religion and look at the Ten Commandments. We'll skip the first 3 or 4 which relate to God and consider the remainder of them which relate to us and each other. These cover moral issues such as murder, adultery, theft, lying, and so forth and are mainstays in all societies and cultures. If a society ignores these, history shows it is doomed to failure. Is our country looking past the importance of these rules? And as individuals, do we always include morality when we decide on our values? How much effort do we make to turn our values into virtues? This recent election cycle has uncovered many peoples' values. How much virtue has it uncovered? Very little, if any, I'm afraid to say. Isn't it time to again look to our Founders and the things and ideas they deemed to be important for our country and then follow their lead? I think so, if we are to maintain our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It would be interesting to see how the progressives and their controlled media would handle putting virtue into their actions. Would we laugh, or cry? It could be entertaining to watch. We can only hope. Thought for the Day
July 16, 2016 Today I’m going to speak on a topic that I know some of you have studied in detail, others have heard of it, but some may not have had the opportunity to be exposed to it. It is a subject that is so important to the survival of our nation that it is important to discuss it again and as often as we need until it hopefully goes away. How many of you have heard the name Saul Alinsky? He’s been dead for 44 years, so can he still be important in our lives today? You better believe it! Hillary Clinton did her college thesis on his writings and President Obama writes about him in his books. So who was he? He wrote the book “Rules for Radicals” and dedicated it to Lucifer. This, and his other writings, inspired American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven to formulate their Cloward-Piven Strategy. According to them and Saul Alinsky, eight levels of control must be achieved in order to transform a democratic republic or democracy into a Communist/Socialist State. So what are these eight levels of control and how are they impacting us? The question to answer is, “Are we in control, or is the government in control?” 1. Healthcare. Government must control healthcare to control the people. With Obamacare, Medicare, and Medicaid in place, we’ve lost on this one. 2. Poverty. Government must increase the poverty level because poor people are easier to control and will not resist control if the government provides for them. Obama has set the record for unemployment and the number of people in poverty. We’ve lost on this one. 3. Debt. Increase the national debt to an unsustainable level. Need I say more? We’ve lost on this one. 4. Gun control. Government must remove citizens’ ability to defend themselves. This is necessary to create a police state. So far, we are still in control, but no thanks to the President and Hillary. 5. Welfare. Government must take over every aspect of the people’s lives such as food, housing, and income. 50 million people are on food stamps and welfare spending, without Social Security, is over $1 trillion. We are close to losing this one. 6. Education. Government must take control of what people watch, read, and hear. It must control the public school system. With few exceptions mostly due to our personal wise choices, we’ve lost this one. 7. Religion. Government must remove any Christian belief in God from public places, the government, and public schools. What happened to the 1st Amendment? We’ve largely lost this one. 8. Class warfare. Government must create division among the people, dividing them by skin color, education, and income. Division will cause more discontent. This activity is classic Obama. We especially note that the Middle Class is no longer the world’s richest. It only took him six years to accomplish this. We’ve lost this one. Out of the eight levels, we still control one. Gun control. The people of Germany, Russia, China, and other countries were not so fortunate to have had this control in their possession. I don’t need to elaborate. So what do we do? You know I don’t like to leave a topic like this without discussing a solution. One thing to recognize is that the President is not solely responsible for all of this. True, he has been a big player but most of this could never have taken place without the close cooperation of Congress. Congress had the opportunity to prevent all of the above from happening, or to reverse what took place if it was unconstitutionally enacted. We, the people, must not only elect the right people to office, we apparently must have to control them once they are elected. That’s our marching orders for today. As Benjamin Franklin said when asked what the Founders had given us, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” So how are we doing? Let’s get busy and make sure we keep it. |
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