Rogue Government

It’s been a busy year or so for questionable activities within the US government. Just in the past few weeks we have had breaking stories about the IRS deliberately persecuting certain types of political organizations and the NSA engaging in massive surveillance of the American people, the 4th amendment not withstanding. A growing, but still relatively small, number of Americans are deeply concerned about the state of affairs in Washington DC. Many have taken to blaming their elected officials for this mess that we find ourselves in.

Let me be clear. This is not President Obama’s fault. This is not Congress’s fault. This is our fault. Speaker Boehner tried to blow off the NSA spying program as no big deal, because there is supposedly plenty of congressional oversight in place to protect us.

Get real Mr Speaker! The NSA is estimated to have around 30,000 employees, and that is not counting this new trend Mr Snowden uncovered of using government contractors to engage in surveillance work. The IRS is even more bloated with over 100,000 employees. Let’s look at a few more agencies: USDA 105,000; FDA nearly 10,000; CIA around 100,000. You get the point.

The problem we are facing today is not that our President or Congress are actively engaged in these kinds of unconstitutional behavior, although they certainly condone them. The real problem is that we have developed a giant bureaucracy that is far to large, just in terms of manpower, to actually be overseen by our elected officials.

When we put these kinds of systems in place, most people believed that our government was just looking out for our best interest and that our elected officials would keep things from getting out of hand. The reality is these kinds of departments get far to big, and far to powerful for Congress or the President to remotely keep in check. In fact, in many ways these agencies have far more power and influence over the decisions of our elected officials than the other way around.

As if that wasn’t enough, a multitude of the people controlling these agencies are former employees of organizations they are supposed to regulate. Monsanto for example has a plethora of people at the USDA. If you think lobbying is a bad thing, imagine free lobbying by loyal ex-employees who are now supposed to give key advice on issues that affect your company. These agencies aren’t looking out for us, they are looking out for themselves. Why should we really be surprised when the IRS persecutes political groups, many of which have sought to abolish the IRS. They are just seeking to protect their own paychecks.

There is no amount of oversight possible that can reign back in these rogue agencies. They have accumulated a vast amount of power, often under the cloak of secrecy; and as the NSA leaks reveal, will use it as they see fit whether Constitutional or not.

The only answer is to return to our Founding Principles and begin abolishing the myriad of Federal agencies we’ve created. The NSA has served to strongly prove that our Founding Father’s were right, and that we can’t compromise our liberties in the least to the Federal Government. Supposedly we were trading liberty for safety, in the end it looks like we’ll have neither. The only way forward through this mess, is to return back to principles that have always been there to protect us.

Liberty and limited government cannot be halfway done. Once we begin to compromise the bureaucracy takes over and the steady march towards tyranny cannot be stopped unless the bureaucracy is first abolished.

Of Lambs and Lions

When we were deceived and paradise lost,
When chains of sin encircled our hands and feet,
When generation after generation we could not escape,
The power of sin and death that held us tight,
When in our foolishness we pursued false gods,
Making idols of ourselves and of material things,
Pursuing as gods those things which are not gods,
And binding tighter the shackles of our sin,
A rebel race we were,
Completely estranged from God,

Then You were the Lamb,
Offering freely on the alter,
Your blood to set us free,
Your sacrifice tore the veil of separation,
From top to bottom,
And opened before us the throne of grace,
Our chains were broken,
In the moment of your sacrifice,
Your blood purchased for all our race,
Redemption before the Father.

When in Egypt your people were oppressed by the cruel King,
When Goliath spat out his contempt for you,
When the three Hebrew children were thrown into the fiery furnace,
When Nehemiah rebuilt the wall,
When oppressors surrounded us on every side,
In the moments when there was nowhere else to turn,
In times of fear and darkness,
When evil seems to reign upon the earth,
As the Kings of the earth gathered together against us,
And lay siege to your holy people,

Then you were the Lion,
Your roar shaking the earth,
With your arm outstretched to redeem and save,
You struck the oppressors,
They will never rise back up,
Your arm is might to save,
None can withstand the power of your coming,
In righteousness and justice,
You have removed the cruel oppressors,
And reign in truth and love,

To the unreached child who has never heard your name,
Wrapped in fear and sin,
Worshipping with trembling the evil spirits of the earth,
To the orphan child,
Raised upon the garbage heap,
Ignored by a world that has passed her by,
And that could care less for her needs,
To all those in deep despair,
Hurtling into a future apart from you,
Having never heard your name,

I want to be a lamb,
And sacrifice my life that they may live,
Give up the choice things,
To pursue those on your heart,
To tear down from before their eyes,
The veil that separates them from the Father,
And if necessary bleed and sweat,
To make your sacrifice real to them,
I want to walk in their midst,
In such a way that Jesus walks among them

To the unborn child,
Slain in her mothers womb,
To the child starving to death,
Because cruel war consumes his land,
To the woman tricked into a life of shame,
Bound with oppressive chains and lies,
To the generation for whom liberty ought to be a birthright,
But have instead had it taken away,
And traded for cruel tyranny,
And oppressive destruction

I want to be the Lion,
Let my words be like the roar of justice,
Let roar of righteous truth overwhelm the noise of the crowd,
And cut the through the lies of the destroyer,
I want to take my stand in your strength,
To stop oppression,
And rescue those who are being lead away unto death,
Bringing them safe and sound before your throne,
I want to draw them out from slavery,
And strike the oppressors with the arm of your power

To the countless masses,
Who know not of Jesus Christ,
To the men, women, and children,
Still bound in the darkness by lies,
To those who know not His truth,
Nor the comfort of His voice,
There are over six thousand peoples,
Yet unreached and untouched by this Good News,
The cross is of no effect to them,
Because they have not heard of it

Won’t you come and be a lamb?
Trade in your life of ease and comfort,
And sacrifice your selfish desires,
To bring Christ alive in the midst of them,
Through your own bloody hands and feet,
Will you be the incarnate God among them?
Walking and talking in their streets,
And in so doing tearing down the veil,
Be a lamb revealing Christ’s love to thousands,
Let redemption flow from your hands and feet

To the children starving to the point of death,
Despite an abundance on the earth,
To the earth abused and cruelly treated,
To the point of infertility,
To our nation,
Staggering on the brink of collapse,
To your children ensnared by the cruel lies of our times,
To all of the abused and outcasts of this earth,
In times of deep darkness and oppression,
When all the lights in their universe have gone out,

Will you come and be a lion?
A bright light in a world of deep darkness,
Will you shake to pieces the chains of oppression,
With the might of the Spirit that is in you?
Demonstrate the righteous wrath of God against injustice,
And trample the oppressors under your feet,
In you will the arm of The Lord be revealed,
Become again a city of light,
Fight against oppression with a Holy vengeance,
And set free the oppressed to know the love of their Father.

We are, each and everyone,
Called to be lambs and lions,
In a world of hurt and pain,
In a world of oppression and evil,
The righteous light must shine forth,
Full of hope for the hurting,
And strength for the captive,
To redeem and rescue a world in need,
Christ calls out to you and me,
Won’t you come and be a lamb?
Won’t you come and be a lion?

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God

Following the events in Boston yesterday, it is my full expectation that we will see yet another push for the American people to trade their liberties for security. With growing resistance to drone surveillance, the TSA, the growth of our police state, our unjust policy of endless war; and the growth of the liberty movement, I have every reason to believe that this event will be used to “bloody the nose” of the American people to continue trading liberty for safety. As Benjamin Franklin, who is quoted in the title as well, said “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.” I hope this post serves as a timely reminder to all Americans.

The battle taking place in America today, the one that is playing out in our court houses and in the halls of congress, is not merely a contest of political ideologies. It is becoming clear, certainly, that many Americans strongly disapprove of the actions of their government – whether Republican or Democrat. It is also becoming clear that the two parties have conspired together to push an agenda that is damaging to the cause of liberty. The battle taking place, however, should not be summed up as some mere difference of political opinion; rather it is an all out war for the heart and soul of the nation.

These men in power today, who swagger around Washington D.C. like aristocrats and attempt to bully the American people into submission didn’t come to be there overnight. They came to be there because we the people turned our back on the fear of The Lord and with it wisdom. They came to be there because we neglected our sacred duty and gave up the watchfulness that so long protected our cherished liberty. They came to be there because we came to worship the state instead of God.

You don’t think we worship the government in this country? Who do we turn to in the event of a crisis? When an event like Hurricane Katrina happens, who gets blamed if it isn’t handled well? Who do we run to when our enemies attack us and kill us? Who do we turn to when we don’t like the behavior of our neighbor, whether how he handles his own property or his moral choices? Most Americans turn first to the government to act on all of these issues. And because, like the children of Israel we neglected The Lord and sought after a king, now in His righteous judgment God has given us kings.

The question now, is will the Church, the people of Faith, those who are to have no king but King Jesus stand idly by while these events unfold. Many Christians today seem to not understand that they have an innate Biblical command to resist tyranny. Not only is it ok to resist, it is Biblically mandated. This is the case for two reasons.

First, we are commanded by the Holy Scripture to protect those weaker than ourselves. Do you think God cares that the American government has violated the principles of Just War and begun rampaging about the earth like the pagan empires of old, Babylon, Assyria, and Persia? Do you think he cares that we have shed the innocent blood of several hundred Pakistani children, who by the way have likely never even heard the Gospel, with drone strikes from above? Where does it stop friends? We live in a Constitutional Republic, which means at least in theory that our government answers to us. This means, that we are morally responsible for the actions our government commits, particularly those carried out by men we helped to elect.

Second, when the government engages in tyrannical actions and takes away the peoples liberty, activities like forcing Catholic and Christian organizations to violate their consciences by paying for abortions, it is acting in direct opposition to Natural Law and in so doing to nature’s God. God has set in place on this earth His own law, a law by which all men are to be free and are created with certain rights. When the government attempts to seize these rights it violates the law of God, and those who submit to its unjust authority align themselves with this rebellion against their creator.

The people of God cannot remain on the sidelines on this issue. There is no neutral ground. Either we take a positive stand for the honor, reputation, and righteous rule of our God and Liberator or we stand with the kings of this earth in their quest to destroy His image and the liberty he placed in the heart of every man. I have heard it argued that the Gospel, and the Kingdom of God must come first above other earthly considerations, and indeed they must; but do we really think God will honor the advance of the Gospel in the hands of churches and Christians with blood on their hands, at the hands of those who have engaged in active rebellion against his law through the support of their nations false authorities?

Christian, it is your sacred duty, Divinely commanded, to stand with liberty. To protect the law of God and defend the weak and helpless. Those who act in tyranny are in rebellion to God and have no authority for their actions, you on the other hand have full authority vested in you from on high to resist, and ultimately stop, the actions and crimes they are committing against God’s law. Will you stand with liberty and the God who endows it to every man, or will you rebel against the only King you ought to have?

Pray for our nation, pray the prayer of repentance. Pray that the Church would be revived and again take her proper place in society. Pray that the people of God would recognize the duty they have to protect His law. And then STAND.

Are Alabama’s Legislators all Tyrants?

I haven’t taken on any local issues here on the blog, but this one is very important to me personally. It probably won’t surprise many of you to find out that I am a big believer in natural and wholistic medicine as is my wife. Here in my home state of Alabama, it is actually illegal for a midwife to assist at a home birth. This is, as I said, pretty personal for me since I have had to make the drive to Tennessee to use a licensed CPM there for the births of my children. There has been a lot said about this issue already, but I think I offer a pretty unique perspective that needs to be addressed.

This is not an issue of appropriate healthcare, this is an issue of liberty versus tyranny. The question that Alabama’s legislators need to be called to task on is this:

Why is it that you believe you have the right to dictate to Alabamians the choices they may or may not make about their own health?

We got all up in arms about Obamacare in this state, and yet here are our own state representatives enforcing their will freely upon the people of this state in the very area of healthcare to affect every single one of us at the moment we come into the world. The government of this state is literally trying to control our lives in the very moments we are being born.

Let me tell you something folks, you may not be particularly pro-midwife, and if you aren’t that is ok; but a government that believes it can tell you what healthcare choices you can and cannot make doesn’t actually believe you have any rights at all. Despite their being Republicans, and despite their bold talk it seems very clear that we have a house full of tyrants in Montgomery who really do think this is their decision to make. They, through their actions, are willing to override the carefully thought out actions of families all over Alabama who recognize that midwifery is a better choice for their families, because they aren’t comfortable with it.

I don’t care one bit whether they are comfortable with my healthcare choices, it isn’t any of their business. The people of Alabama, contrary to the apparent opinion of our legislators are not total idiots. We are fully capable of making our own, informed health care decisions without the help of the special interest groups that run Montgomery.

Next time you decide to call or email your elected officials on this issue I suggest a general change in the way we address the issue. We can talk all day long about how midwifery is a beneficial form of healthcare that is much needed in Alabama, and it very much is; but that argument needs to be made to the people of Alabama at the grass roots level. The focus of our discussion with our legislators needs to be about discovering why they believe they have the authority to make health care decisions for us in the first place.

On this issue I would contend that our legislature is behaving itself as bad or worse than the Federal government in intentionally limiting health care choices that Alabamians clearly want. Until we begin to recognize that our states are just as quick to seize our liberties as the Fed, we will never get our freedom back. The way the state of Alabama has acted on this issue and a few others, if the old south “rises again”, I’ll move.

Dare to defend your rights! Take action on this issue while you still have the right to do so!

No Magic Bullets

I won’t lie, there is a lot wrong in the world today. I won’t say things are worse in the United States than the rest of the world, but we have begun the process of decline and that will probably come with some very extreme consequences. Just think about some of the things that we are now facing:

*We have entered a period of total moral depravity, and the church, in most cases, has chosen either to endorse wicked behavior despite clear Biblical contradiction or else fails to take any significant action other than petitioning the government to outlaw such behavior.
*Mixed in with this moral decay is a level of narcism, materialism, and hedonism rarely seen except in the death throes of a society. As a result of this many members of society are too focused on themselves to even notice the early markers of societal collapse.
*We have so totally destroyed our nation’s topsoil reserves that we could very likely see a famine sometime in this generation.
*In the meantime the food that we are producing has been so processed, genetically modified, chemically altered, and degraded that we are all getting sick just because of what we eat.
*Our economy is exhibiting all the early warning signs of a hyper-inflationary collapse, and the national debt has soared so high that we are only a few short years from having the interest payments on said debt exceed our GDP.
*We have a political class that largely believe that it knows better than the people and can take whatever liberties it wants at our expense.
*This same political class is largely bought and paid for by a relatively short list of major corporations resulting in an unholy union of government and big money. The result of which has been the rise of a new aristocracy with tendencies every bit as oppressive and tyrannical as any before it.

I could go on like this for quite some time, but I think my point is sufficiently made. No doubt you have many of your own issues that are deeply effecting the lives of Americans and others around the world today. There are a growing number of people well aware of the difficulties that we have created, the problem is that most people don’t recognize the solution. We have a tendency, as human beings and more specifically as Americans (who love convenience), to want to find some miraculous solution that will put everything right, what I refer to as a magic bullet. “If only we could elect X” or “if only we could pass a law doing Y” are phrases that get tossed around constantly.

Now if you pay attention to nothing else, pay attention here. The fundamental problem with these kinds of phrases, and even with several recent grass roots political movements, is that they fundamentally believe government is the answer. They are rooted in the belief that if we change some governmental issue then all will be well. The thing is, there is no quick fix or magic bullet for the litany of problems we are facing down as a nation. It is time to remember who we are as Americans, and more importantly as free human beings. The answer isn’t some mystical “them”. The answer lies with us. Americans have always been a people who find ways to overcome extreme odds, a people who pull together their own creative genius to find new and better ways to overcome unbeatable odds. The problems we face today, while certainly influenced by those who benefit from them, are the result of millions of poor decisions made over time. When you change yourself, and then begin to take a positive role you aren’t just changing things, you are becoming the change that needs to take place.

This isn’t an easy thing to embrace. It means that we bear ultimate responsibility for each and every situation we encounter, and that means that in areas we have yet to change ourselves we have to accept that we are part of the problem. At the same time though, it is time to do away with this nonsensical notion that nothing can be done. Stop behaving as though those in power will do whatever they like and no one can change it. You can change it! You, yourself can take actions that will ultimately result in total transformation of our society, because you are society.

Is your faith deeply offended by the American church culture? Be the change, get repentant before a Holy God, become a person of prayer and holiness. Then find a church that is actively engaged in the Great Commission, in local ministry, and teaching the word of God unadulterated and with authority. Can’t find one? Then start a home fellowship, church isn’t about a building it’s about the fellowship of believers. Don’t just passively endorse false doctrine or total inaction by your continual attendance every Sunday.

Does the media’s constant drivel of wicked programming bother you? Turn it off. Seek out new and more uplifting means of entertainment. There are millions of books, many of the greatest classics are now free. Besides that, there are millions of activities you could be doing together as a family that will make you stronger and closer rather than weaker.

Does the encroachment on American liberty by the new aristocracy deeply disturb you? Take back your liberty! Stop voting for lesser of two evil candidates and instead vote only for those who actually represent your values, you may not win right away but you will at least not be part of the problem anymore. Get involved within some of the 3rd party and independent grass roots movements. Demand pro-liberty legislation, especially at the state and local levels. Educate your fellow citizens, many of them probably don’t realize that they are surrendering their liberty bit by bit every day. Wake them up and show them how to stop. The Son’s of Liberty had to do exactly that prior to American Revolution, otherwise we might still be under British rule. Remember that depending on where you live you may have to vote with your feet, and you may also be forced to commit civil disobedience.

Are you concerned about the economy? Fix your home economy. Get rid of your personal debt load even as you raise the alarm about our national debt crisis. Build a strong home economy that will have enough redundancy and resiliency to stand up under a wide variety of economic conditions, including collapse. Pick up a productive trade in addition to whatever you already do for a living. Then, help re-form the Daughters of Liberty. They worked together to make sure American’s weren’t overly dependent on imports, especially British imports. Even as the Sons of Liberty were preparing the people to start a revolution, they were making sure that American homes were adequately prepared to do so. Band together with your friends and neighbors to form your own micro-economy, one which is free from the industrialized economy and not dependent on our failing currency.

Are you tired of the constant assault on our nations agricultural resources? Feed yourself. Grow a large garden. Or, better yet, get a hold of some land, whether borrowed or bought, and become part of the small farm revolution. Purchase what you can’t produce from healthy, local producers. These skills are slipping away from us quickly, read as much as you can on the subject and relearn the proper ways of producing food. Rediscover your own kitchen, prepare your own food from raw ingredients rather than letting some massive producer prepare it all for you hundreds of miles away.

These suggestions are only the beginning. There are literally millions of small action steps that you can take, and help others take to become an important part of the necessary change. I hope that we can discuss these others together as more time occurs, if you have a problem or answer you would like to discuss drop me a comment.

At the most fundamental level, the first thing you must do is change your mind. Recognize that our situation is not hopeless, we have overcome worse situations before. The Great Awakening occurred at a time when public morality was so poor, many thought the church wouldn’t survive. The revolution was carried out against the world’s most powerful empire. The Constitution was created, in large part because of a inflationary and debt laden monetary crisis. We are the answer, and with God’s grace, providence, and guidance we will overcome these crises as well.

It’s time to stop complaining about the problem, and become part of the solution.