Posted on 04/25/2012 6:37:11 PM PDT by dewawi
My God. Tens of TRILLIONS in unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare and not a peep by the media other than Fox!
Nikita Khrushchev.
No argument from me!
The fact is that the republic has been undermined from the beginning but it was Lincoln who finally threw it onto the ash heap of history and converted it to the mercantile empire we now “enjoy”.
That set the table, but LBJs 'Great Society' with both un-capped and unfunded 'entitlements' took us over the top fiscally. (Aside from destroying families)
Yes, I saw it 40 years ago and I was still young and inexperienced. As they say, it's not the fall that hurts... it's the sudden stop. We are getting very close to that thanks to politicians promising everything to people even if there is no way to pay for it for the last 40 years.
I would say Lincoln through us toward the ash heap of history and that we landed there somewhere during FDR. Before Lincoln, things could have been stopped by good individuals. After Lincoln, leadership that was very good have turned things around. After FDR one would need leadership of a quality rarely seen in a fallen world. And after LBJ and Nixon it is a question of how long, not if. The how long could have been a lot longer though.
Points well taken.
Even now our republic could be restored but the hill is VERY steep and the road VERY long indeed!
BS. Under Adams, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Andy Jackson created the Trail of Tears in defiance of the Supreme Court. Pierce took us into a bold faced war of aggression against Mexico.
No 'good individuals' stopped any of that.
I am not as optimistic as you are.
Once the framework of a human society becomes thoroughly corrupt, the society has to be run through a crucible and restructured before health is restored. God alone can change hearts, and at least on the level of society, this is how He operates.
If I were a Muslim or a Calvinist who held that how God interacts with the world may turn on a dime, or an ancient Jew looking for a Messiah to restore temporal greatness, I would have hope. But I am a Catholic theologian, firmly holding to what the Church terms “the economy of salvation”—God acts in broadly consistent ways throughout history that shed light on each other.
Republics require wide-spread virtue to operate well. Virtue when corrupted is only re-acquired through suffering. Corrupt republics facilitate the avoidance of suffering. If it were not for the spiritual realm, I would find things very bleak indeed.
I am not saying that good individuals did stop everything, but that the environment was such that they might have. And some things were stopped. For example, the Alien Act and the Sedition Act are no longer with us, and led to the election of 1800, which was a fairly good year.
“If it were not for the spiritual realm, I would find things very bleak indeed.”
Amen
Obviously the Republic is lost. Our ilk may be the majority, but we are neither the ruling class nor the talking class. Many of us find our peace and richness in our Lord and Savior. Nothing short of a bloody revolution will turn back the march of communism.
Oh, that is correct. In all their history of communism was there a bloody revolution.
Uhmmmmmm let it come sooner or later??
"And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering.
Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man.
And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Sam Kercheval about reform of the Virginia Constitution, July 12, 1816; "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson," Definitive Edition, Albert Ellery Bergh, Editor, The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association (1905) Vol. XV, p. 40
This also was well know among the founders.
“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. “
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, November 4, 1775
"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue."
John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776
If it were not for the spiritual realm, I would find things very bleak indeed.
I find solace there as well. I believe that the coming forth of this nation was a divinely inspired event and doubt that God will suffer the foolishness we see around us for much longer!
“.....just where in the hell did they think the money would come from.”
Illegal Aliens....
Thank you—thanks for the link as well, though my inspiration is actually the one for whom he is probably named. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome
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