A republic, if you can keep it

It’s been a while since I have posted anything.  I’ve been altogether too busy with work, family, the Moapa Valley incoporation thing, and so on.  I still don’t have much time, but this is is important enough that I took the time to write it.

I just finished reading this report from michellemallkin.com about a DHS report on “Rightwing Extremism.”

These are scary, sobering times we live in.

There are so many things wrong with this report, and while I guess I shouldn’t be, I am shocked that my country has gone this far this fast. As usual, Michelle covered every point, so I don’t need to restate what she has said, but this part of the report, found on page two, got my attention.

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that…are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

Here is how fascism is defined by Merriam Webster:

A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

Look at some of the bills that Congress is discussing, as well as those already passed.  Look at their actions, look at some of the things they say.   The current crop (that’s a pun - keep reading) of food related bills bill would cause grocery prices to skyrocket, and would make growing your own garden a federal crime (google HR875, HR759, and HR1332).  A proposed Internet bill would give the POTUS unilateral power to cut off parts or all of the Internet in the case of a “national emergency” while failing to define a national emergency (of course).  It would also give an unelected appointee power to see ANY and ALL Internet data (i.e. your online bank account statement, your online medical records, etc).  The GIVE act requires compulsory volunteerism at the organization of the governments choosing (no churches allowed).  Then there is socialized medicine, the “smartgrid”, cap and trade, global warming, monetizing the debt, assuming more and more debt and the way we are treating our allies and our enemies (Cuba, House of Saud and Iran), just to mention a few problems.  We have also already seen the federal government go after individuals here and here.  These issues just barely scratch the surface.
Are these not the actions of a fascist government?  The DHS now states that if you “reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority,” you are an extremist, so much so that the DHS feels it necessary to have a report about you.  Is this really where we want to go, what we want to be, and what we want to leave to our children?

The Founding Fathers created the union known as the USA from several sovereign states.  The Constitution clearly states that the federal government derives it’s power from the states, and grants - GRANTS - permission to the federal government to do 18 specific things.  It then goes on to state that ALL other rights are retained by the people, and that the enumerated powers of the constitution CAN NOT be used to weaken or deny other rights retained by the people. But now, according to the federal government, if you don’t acknowledge their complete and total power, you are a person who is just as threatening to them as Islamic terrorists, or members of the KKK, ALF, or ELF.

At some point, people are going to have to stand up to this evil.  And make no mistake, it is evil.  We have faced it before, a long time ago.  Remember that Lucifer proposed that no one would have the individual liberty to choose the wrong thing.  Ever.  The good of the group would be put above the good of the individual.  This would mean that all people would be successful, and he would get all the glory for the accomplishment. This proposal was soundly rejected by his Father, and by the majority of God’s children. One reason I suspect it was rejected (there were many) was because it violated one simple, eternal truth:  There must be opposition in all things.  How can one be successful when one can’t fail?  Without having the freedom to fail, or the freedom to make a wrong choice, how can you succeed or make a right choice?  It is not possible.  All of us at one point understood that, but it is amazing how many have forgotten that.   Let’s just say that Lucifer’s plan had been accepted by all in attendance.  So we would all be saved; we would all be “successful.”  But how could that be?  We all would have gone through life without ever learning what we need to learn to enjoy that success.  Even though all of God’s children would be present, none of us would be prepared to be exalted.  We wouldn’t know what to do, and as a result, all of us would be failures.  Our government is on the fast track to remove so many of our liberties that we no longer have the option to fail, or to make what in their mind is a wrong or bad decision (like having more than one or two children).  When that happens, we will all be “successful.”  But since we won’t know what to do, the only thing we could possibly be successful at is failing.  There “must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things,” and the reason for that is simple.  Opposition is the refiners fire that makes us all better.

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.  The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties.  Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

That is one of my favorite quotes.  Abagail Adams wrote that to her son John Quincy in 1777, in the middle of the Revolutionary War.  Challenges force us to look deeper into ourselves and draw upon powers and talents we probably don’t even know we possess.  We discover them, learn to use them, and as we sharpen those abilities, they sharpen and form us into the being that our Creator intends for us to be.

What actually scares me, even more than this latest DHS report (there have been others), is that I see so many people who know, who have been taught what evil is, yet choose to ignore it.  They have access to all of the truth, light and knowledge that exists in this life; while they don’t remember specifics, they know what they fought against before coming to Earth.  Clearly, since these people are part of God’s kindom on Earth, since they are living in these latter days, in this great nation that God created for a specific purpose, they did something special to fight this evil before.  Yet now so many sit and do nothing.  They simply say they will continue doing what they are doing, and pray for a good outcome.  Since faith without works is dead, how will that approach work?

In a previous life, you did something extraordinary.  Neither you or I know what it was, but because you are here, at this time, you can know you did something that was extremely valiant.  You did not sit on the sidelines and watch, you were very involved.  You were successful in fighting evil once, and now it is time to fight it again.  Lucifer was a fascist.  Like every other fascist who has followed him (Stalin, Lenin, Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, Castro, Che), he has morphed into something even more heinous.  Our current politicians are fascists.  History shows what road they take, so I ask again: is this what we want to leave to our children?

Tomorrow is April 15th.  Tax day.  You may have heard about the Tea Parties that will be happening throughout the country.  I would encourage you to go to one.  Most feel that it won’t make much difference, that those in DC don’t care, and they are probably right.  But it still needs to be done.  It is the next (still peaceful) step.  If you want to know where the nearest one is, click here. The Tea Party site is here.

Once again, it is time to stand up for freedom, liberty, truth and righteousness.  No doubt it is scary.  A latter day prophet has told us it may cost us in blood (last paragraph, but the entire speech is outstanding).  However, we are blessed with knowing the outcome, but we still have to fight for it.

I recently finished reading the fictional series “The Great & Terrible.”  At one point in the series, one of the characters explains his belief that when we can do for ourselves, God lets us do it.  But when we can’t, and it is necessary for the survival of the righteous, God intervenes and performs miracles.  The more trying the time, the more spectacular the miracle.  While this is a work of fiction, that sentiment makes sense to me, and seems to be borne out in scripture.  On several occasions, I have heard Glenn Beck say that we live in a time where we are soon going to witness many marvelous miracles.  If both sentiments are correct - and I mention them because I think they are - then we are about to go through an extraordinary time.  A separating of the wheat and the chaff the likes of which have never been lknown.  Just as in the pre-existence, you won’t find “wheat” sitting on the sidelines, it will be actively engaged, this time in saving the world.

We have been told of this time.  We have been told to prepare.  The time for preparation is over, it is now time to choose and act.

I wrote this letter to a co-worker yesterday, and after thinking about it, decided to put it up here as well.

From November 4th through about January 20th, I felt a little depressed and quite worried that we were at the beginning of the end (I mean the end in a biblical-type sense). My reason for this worry was that the Democrats (& most Republicans, too), the mainstream media & seemingly most Americans had replaced God with the obamessiah. And with that feeling, there were two quotes that were always in the back of my mind (actually the Jefferson quote is framed & hanging in my house, which helps keep it in my mind):

“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?”
Thomas Jefferson

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams

I have a deep respect for those men, so I can easily see the wisdom in those statements and agree. With the election of Obama, I feared that we as a nation had replaced our belief in the actual God with a belief in a false one. Speaking of the nation as a whole, it is clear that belief in God has fallen by the wayside. With so many people clamoring for the government to take the property of those who have lawfully acquired it and redistribute it to the “victims” of capitalism, our national morality is in question.

While this phenomenon continues - and continues to amaze and disgust me - it was quite literally on the afternoon of January 20th that I began to see signs - albeit small - that people were beginning to realize that what our government is attempting is wrong. The masses may not yet be able to explain what or why it is wrong, but I sense that many, in fact the majority of Americans, feel in their gut, their heart, their soul, that what is going on is wrong. Most Americans were educated in public schools, so they have likely never read the Declaration, the Constitution, writings or biographies of any of our founding fathers, the writing of people like Locke, Hume, Cicero, etc., and that’s why they can’t explain why this is wrong. But they know it at their core, and slowly but surely, they will be moved to find out why they feel it is wrong (that’s human nature). They will read those writings, they will be able to explain why these things are wrong. This is happening slowly now, but as time goes on, it will gain momentum, until it will become an overwhelming and unstoppable force. Because of this, liberty will prevail. As John Adams said, “The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved.” While virtue, moral character and knowledge are lacking at a national level (how’s that for an understatement?), the speed with which our government is trying to get us to become socialists is already giving many Americans pause. We are just now slowly beginning to wake from a deep slumber and realize that we are lacking in knowledge. Many will then begin to seek knowledge. That new knowledge will be used to restore our national moral character (people will begin to apply principle 3 of Glenn Beck’s 9 principles), and we the people will then be ready to fight the malaise and fascism that emanates from Washington DC. This belief that the American people are not ready to go quietly into the night helps me to remain optimistic. Prior to the election & inauguration, I didn’t think that we had the desire to regain the knowledge and virtue our country once had. Since then, based on what I am seeing, I believe we do still have that resolve, it just needs to be focused.

The question is, how much damage will Obama and his ilk inflict upon America while Americans awake and ready themselves? I have a feeling that they will do much harm, but it will not end us. Calvin Coolidge said, “In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man; these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world.” As people acquire that knowledge and those morals, they will hopefully - to a certain extent - gain at least an understanding, respect and appreciation for God. My belief is that God’s hand was directly involved in the creation of this country. America exists to fulfill a purpose for Him. So long as the people of this country will remember Him, He will help us, just as he helped us during the birth of this nation.

I don’t know exactly what the future holds, but I suspect that it will get worse before it gets better. The American people as a whole are not yet ready to stop being American. A revolution is coming. I hope and pray it will be peaceful, but there is no way to know anymore (one more founding quote from Thomas Paine. “If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”)

Now to be brutally honest, I do hope & pray for a peaceful resolution, but the more I think about it, the more I study, the more I am convinced that it will not be peaceful.  It scares me nearly to death to think what lies ahead.  Borrowing from Jefferson’s writing on Shays Rebellion, The Tree of Liberty will survive, but only after a healthy dose of its’ natural manure.  I believe this is why the latter part of the book of Alma, most of the book of Helaman, the historical writings offered by Mormon & Moroni and to a lesser extent, the record of the Jaredites were included in the Book of Mormon.  Those writings offer warning signs, as well as counsel on how to combat this evil that is now openly among us.  At some point we must heed the warning and act accordingly.  The widow in which we can act is rapidly closing.