I came home from vacation with great expectation last Friday night.  While on vacation, I had a general contractor installing a new wood floor in my townhome.  Instead, he had erred and did not install the dishwater properly.  My kitchen was flooded.  It leaked into my finished basement causing consideration damage.  Of course, I immediately turned off the water to my dishwasher, called my insurer, and a restoration company (which is another story entirely). 

After going through all this, I thought about what if I had done what Obama has done in the gulf.  Why shouldn’t I have capitalized on the crisis?  The insurer wouldn’t have known when I got home.  What if I left the water running to do additional damage?  My gosh, I had a replacement value insurance.  I could have taken full advantage (dishonest of course) of this crisis, and let the water run for hours longer; thus, ensuring my claim.  Of course, I did what was proper and honorable.

I just wonder now about BP.  Okay, they’re responsible, but to what end?  Did the Federal Government act in such a manner to minimize the loss?  That was expected of me, and you.  I don’t think BP is liable for any more than what the Federal Government could have, in a reasonable effort, could have done to mitigate the loss.  Thirteen countries offering aid?  No waiver to the Jones Act?  The Coast Guard holding up deployment of the barges for life jackets?  Please.  If there was a court on earth that could review the actions Obamas’ Administration took, don’t tell me BP is on the hook for the administration gross ineptitude and dishonorable action.  Just like letting the water run in my townhome…..  would I have had a case?

Somewhere along the way Eve forgot just exactly what God said.  When the serpent questioned her that she should not even ’touch’ of the fruit, I can imagine her mind racing; wondering for a brief moment if she knew at all what God had commanded.  Caught in her own trap at that point she bit and Adam right behind her. 

In a very real way, we have all bitten of that apple.  At some point along the road, we’ve added things to the message and when confronted we stumble.  It happens when we mix principle, or this case, commandment with our own arrogance or ignorance.   Frankly, I believe Eve was arrogant.  She was not ignorant of what God said…  but arrogant… the whole idea of her talking down to such a lowly creature as a serpent.  Come on now… it was time for her to pile it on…. not just to eat but not to touch!  Look at me! 

Principle and pride doesn’t mix.  Most principles are simple, straightforward, and require no defense.  We have a historical record of the sheer beauty and wonder of our Constitution and a living testament of the wisdom God graciously and abundantly gave to the founding fathers that led to our great Nation. But even with the Constitution, there are those like Eve who have added a little here, trimmed a little there.  There are those serpents (marked by socialism, communism, facism, humanism) that again question, “Really?  Why then pass Medicare?  Social security?  Isn’t it important to care for one another?  What kind of person are you?”  Again, we find ourselves like Eve on the defense and questioning the whole, or like Adam, saying nothing and taking the PC bite.  

What I hope we remember this year is that truth stands alone, regardless of our view of it.  Truth does not require affirmation; but it does rquire our outspoken advocacy.  It reminds me of the bumper sticker that reads:  “God said it, I believe it; that settles It,” as if God requires us to affirm his truth for it to stand.  The sticker should have read, “God said it; that settles it.”  Our display of it is the advocacy.  We need to stand on Constitutional principle and not apologize for the past; not if we are to see the promise of liberty restored as envisaged by our founding fathers, as given by our Creator.   

In 2010, let’s keep the message simple and on target.  And please, please don’t eat of the liberal apple.

It’s our embellishment that becomes the snare.

An old Chinese Proverb said, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  An Obama Administration revision to that proverb is, “If a Democrat gives a man a fish, the man is promised a fish for a lifetime in return for his vote and the Democrat gives the rod back to the capitalists, saying ‘You keep this.  You must keep fishing.’ Of course, everyone else in the world is fishing, including the Chinese (who have taught all of their folks to fish), and the capitalists cannot catch enough to feed themselves; let alone the untaught democratic masses.  As a result, we outsource our daily fish requirements to the Chinese, paying them interest well beyond scale, while the capitalists dwindle in number and are forced to eat the fish offered by the Administration.  Needless to say, because the Administration itself never learned to actually fish and the demand for fish cannot be satisfied, the Administration announced through the FDA that the mercury level in fish is too high, and for the safety of the masses, fish is no longer available. 

Now is there a moral to this story?  Of course there is and it’s an even older proverb:  Spare the rod and spoil the fishing for all.

An old Chinese Proverb said, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  An Obama Administration revision to that proverb is, “If a Democrat gives a man a fish, the man is promised fish for a lifetime, and the Democrat will then give the rod back to the Republican, saying ‘You keep this.  You and your capitalist friends keep fishing.’”  

I find myself drawn to this diaries section in almost a magical way.  I suppose if Red State had called it a commentary section or opinion section, I probably wouldn’t have reacted the same.  But they called it the diary section, and while I have never maintained a diary, it appealed to me as a place to write my thoughts on what changes I have seen in this world, and my country, since the year of my birth, 1952.  Of course, I have always thought of a dairy as a personal record of the evolution of ones’ experiences and reactions to the events of the day.  Until recently, I just didn’t see the need for one.  Now I do.

I’m no different than most people.  If we believe we have something to say, we would like to believe we can be heard and that an opinion should be heard.   Still if no one reads my posts, I am still the better off for it because a diary is a great place to revisit my thoughts and perhaps more finely tune or expand upon what I personally (re)discover.  Such as my revisit to the post, “Beware of the Plot,” last night.  I thought more about what it is to have an idea.  To me, an idea is but a thought or concept that may or may not come to fruition or into existence.  There is little doubt in my mind that some of the ideas presented by the current administration are clear fiction in their substance:  Health Care Reform, Global warming…  There is nothing historically or scientifically that supports the Government can deliver what is promised in health care and deficit reduction, or that CO2 emissions present the clear and present danger heralded in Copenhagen.  In fact, reality proves the opposite is true:  Government has rarely successfully and economically operated an industry, and there is more evidence today that global warming (climate control) is a fraud.  In retrospect, the Senate passage of health care reform and the Obama position on global warming serve as better examples of the fiction and the plot than did the ‘celebration of diversity’ discussed in yesterdays’ post.  I still believe the ‘celebration of diversity’ as it is represented by the left is a fiction, given the way Ms. Palin was treated and how the Tea Party was characterized.  However, I can celebrate diversity as defined in the Constitution, with all men being equal and having certain inalienable rights.  That is a wonderful ‘idea’ brought to fruition through the blood shed by many Americans during our civil and global conflicts and wars.  But what do we find now? The far-left ‘idea’ of diversity is exposed for what it is, and what most of us can not celebrate: Anti-Constitutional and secular humanism, populated by those who demand protected deviant behaviour, relationships, and ideologies contrary to the democratic vote and rule of law.  With respect to the rule of law, that’s where I applaud the conservative and God-fearing base, but know it is also our greatest challenge and weakness: those who oppose us have no rule.

It has been absolutely mind-boggling to me to reconcile just how far we have devolved as a nation. Of course, some would argue we have evolved as our nation witnesses the expansion of its moral, communal, and global boundries to embrace and celebrate the hope and change of mankind.  But really, what is there to celebrate?  Most of us once in our lifetime had this ‘idea’ of what the world should look like and the role we should come to play in it, but it was only an idea…  even as ‘the celebration of diversity’ itself is only an ‘idea.’ As noble and as wonderful as this ’idea’ of celebration may appear, as it expands there is less and less individually we come to believe that we really hold in common in ethic, morality, and body politic.  The idealogues who understand and promote the ‘celebration of diversity’ fiction are able to band together, present a united front, and do much more with the resources available to them than the majority who are attempting to ‘politically respect this ‘idea’ through correctness.’  You see the majority of us are merely trying to live our lives really; the notion of living an ‘idea’ has long since passed with our youth.  But there is something about once having had an ‘idea’ that as we look back we find ourselves apologizing for losing our idea, and respecting theirs without really understanding what theirs is.  Fortunately, and by God’s grace, we’re learning what theirs is, and as I said, it is a fiction.  However, the one thing we must learn when reading either fiction or nonfiction is that the human response to each is real, what is false in the one is the plot.  Beware of the plot.

For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Is 55:9

As hard as it may be to believe, I am not God.  The older I become, the more I realize I really don’t know much at all.  I am not apologizing for my faith in God, or His Son, Jesus Christ, but I do apologize and ask God’s forgiveness for my arrogance as a professed Christian.  I could have said things, and acted in ways, more reflective of an attitude of graciousness and longsuffering, even as God has shown me grace and longsuffered my stubborn addictions to this world.  God forgive my hypocrisy.  A puritan writer once wrote (and I paraphrase), ‘There is little solace to a man who is in hell to think of those yet alive who believe he is gone to heaven.’ Indeed, God’s thoughts are not my thoughts; what I believe to be true is not necessarily but what I live is necessarily. For His ways are not the natural ways of men; but are of the supernatural. 

Why do I write such things?  Because God is not a cause; though to live His life is virtuous.  Man was God’s cause; one that He shed His Son’s life for.  We do not stump for Him; nor is His rule bound by term limits.  He is not elected; but we all should pray to fall within the elect.  True Christians understand the nature of man and pray for God’s continued patience and for man’s repentance.  We understand diversity but through unity, and unity is understood through the Holy Scriptures, which reveals what little God chose to make known to us.  Christians must act, even as the Apostle Paul, who knew and proclaimed his rights as a citizen of Rome.  Equally, we must prayerfully and powerfully seek the wisdom and grace of God and proclaim our citizenship and voice.  But we must do so understanding that God’s ways are not our ways; and His thoughts are not our thoughts.  Therein is the peace that surpasses all understanding.