Inheritance

When my wife's father passed away several years ago, we came into some inheritance money. With funds split among the four surviving children, we became the beneficiaries of this man's years of hard work and wise management.

As an heir to her father's estate, my wife received a portion of property that once belonged to him. He created the wealth, and by right of succession and the devising of his will, she reaped some of the fruit of his efforts.

Like all fathers passing their plenty to their progeny, my wife's father expected each of his four children to steward their inheritance well. No parent wishes the fruits of his life's labor to be squandered away foolishly.

As 21st Century Americans, we often forget that this wonderful country of ours is also an inheritance. We benefit greatly from the brilliance and wisdom of our nation's forefathers. But our inheritance is much more than this bountiful land of plenty. Characterized by our "amber waves of grain" and our gleaming "alabaster cities," this land of plenty is merely the fruit of their difficult labor to birth a governmental system that would not only serve them, but serve the generations which would follow.

Thus we are heirs, inheritors of a nation created by their "liberating strife." They loved their country more than they loved themselves. Their passion for liberty and justice is to be emulated.

Their illustrious, ideological legacy is seen in every American born into poverty that rises to one day live in comfort through hard work and persistence. Blossoming all around us are souls who, through liberty inherited, found ways to better their lives, and the lives of others. But these are merely the fruits, the offspring of the seeds our forefathers planted long ago.

And it is those seeds above all, that we must learn to treasure. They possess far greater value than the fruits they produce.

When our nation's forefathers labored to establish a system of self-government, they planted a garden with a core set of ideas and principles. The fruit will continue to grow as long as that garden is properly tended.

In our Declaration of Independence, a document that many consider to be our nation's charter, we find the following claim:

"... all men are created equal, ... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

What a magnificent statement of a fundamental truth! Planted and tended, this marvelous idea gave birth to a nation. Four score and seven years later, Abraham Lincoln would echo this truth, proclaiming that our nation was "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Though penned by an American, and claimed as core American ideology, the beauty of this wonderful idea, is its universality. The five words, "all men are created equal," are the great democratizer. They are the birthright of every human ever born.

But though a universal truth, it was OUR forefathers who first put it to work in a lasting and practical way. Thus we, the American people, by birthright, are the only ones who can lay rightful claim to the fruit it has produced in THIS land.

A few nations have, in various forms, implemented this idea in their own, unique way. But the founders of most nations have failed to plant this marvelous seed in their own native soil. Thus their progeny have not benefitted as have we.

Those who crash our borders without permission, claiming to have rights to the same benefits as American citizens and those who reside among us with our permission, are thus thieves. They seek to lay claim to an inheritance that their own forefathers could not provide to them. So they want ours.

The failure of their fathers to plan well does not, even under the guise of high-sounding political rhetoric, entitle them to what we have received as a gift from our own fathers. If we choose to share our plenty with others, which we certainly have done, then that is our choice. It is our plenty to share, not theirs to take.

America does not own the seed. Everyone who has ever lived enjoys the same birthright-seed of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But Americans do still hold the patent on our particular method of planting the seed and growing its fruit. Our unique formula of just the right mixture of soil and nutrients, and our special method of cultivation, is our mark of ownership on the process and its produce. We have inherited this garden from our our nation's founders, our ideological fathers. And only we have the right to harvest our garden's fruit, and the privilege of determining how both our fruit and our gardening process will be passed to our children, and if we so choose, to others outside of our American family.

Press One For English

Multiculturalism sounds good on paper. In real life, it just doesn't work. Language is the glue that holds a nation together.

Permutations of a Dream

Every great, historic nation has had, at its core, an idea or a principle with which its people identify. One might even call such a thing a nation's prime characteristic or theme. Ancient Israel had the Law of Moses; ancient Greece its philosophies and its love of beauty; ancient Rome had its army, its roads, and its very effective government; Great Britain, at its zenith, had its culture spread across the globe.

At the outset, our nation, the United States of America, had, at its core, the fundamental ideas of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These three lofty ideas formed the bedrock of our national identity. And for generations, we moved forward with a common understanding of these ideals.

Sadly, within the last two generations, we have traded in these high, majestic ideals for inferior substitutes. America today is characterized by ideas such as tolerance, equality, diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism, fairness, and so forth.

While each of these words represent worthy goals, they do not, by any standard, measure up to our nation's original, core precepts. Preached and oftimes mandated from well meaning but misguided leaders, America's newly adopted values and identity, sap our people of liberty. And liberty has historically been the fuel which has fired the engine of America's greatness.

As more and more of us conform to these new, inferior ideas, whether through peer pressure or outright brainwashing, we become weaker as a nation. We do not fly our flag with the same sense of pride as did our fathers and grandfathers. We labor under a false guilt for our national wealth and prosperity. Some Americans even believe that we are somehow responsible for the world's misery.

In their misguided efforts to reshape our culture, our teachers, politicians, and social engineers have denuded our nation of the ideas and ideals that once made America The New Colossus. Millions of immigrants from earlier centuries came to our shores not for tolerance, equality, diversity, inclusion, and fairness. Nor did they expect us to embrace their culture. They came to assimilate into our culture, to learn our language, to work hard, and to enter into the fullness of being an American. And we, as a nation, were strong because of it.

Today we are weak. We no longer value liberty. We have somehow come to expect a risk-free existence. We want to be cared for. We want lives of minimal risk, of guarantees. Toward those ends, we have slowly and methodically surrendered, bit by bit, our liberty. So gradual has this slide been, that we scarcely recognize it.

Our world is riddled with sin and its after-effects. With sin comes the potential for personal failure, catastrophe, poverty, premature death, and all sorts of other hazards. Our Creator granted us life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But he did not guarantee to us a happy, or even positive outcome, in this earthly life.

No government, no amount of education, no indoctrination or reprogramming of the mind, will ever make the world tolerant, equal, accepting of diversity, inclusive of all. Nor can any amount of government edicts ever make life fair. Such thinking is foolish utopianism, a pitiful, second-rate permutation of the original, American dream.

The Myth of Equality

One of the greatest deceptions being perpetrated upon the American people today, is the myth of equality.

Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of Independence, and our nation's third president, penned these most powerful words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

What is Jefferson really saying here? Is it not that in "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," all are equal? Note he did not say that all had a right to BE happy, only a right to PURSUE happiness.

Universal equality is a seemingly noble idea, but it is an idea not rooted in truth. Here are some indisputable truths:

• All people are created by God.
• All people are loved by God.
• God does not accept/reject a man (woman) on the basis of race or ethnicity.
• In America, all people are equal under the law. (We are looking here, not at the advantage that wealth can and does sometimes bring to those who are guilty of crimes—eg: O.J. Simpson and others like him who sometimes succeed in purchasing their exoneration. We are looking strictly at what the law says, and what the law attempts to achieve.)

Here are some of my beliefs about equality, submitted for your consideration:

• The Constitution guarantees equality of opportunity, but not equality of outcome.
• Not all people are equal in looks, talents, abilities, skills, or giftings.
• Not all people are born into an equal station in life.
• Religions are not equal.
• Ideas about God and man are not equal.
• Cultures are not equal.
• Jobs are not equal.
• Some families are better than others.
• Some geographic regions of the earth are more inhabitable than others.
• Some nations enjoy better governments than others.

This list could go on. Hopefully, I have communicated the basic idea.

Let's look at some ideas from Scripture:

"Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." (Romans 9:13 NIV). Wait, I thought God loved everybody? But here God is saying that he HATED Esau. In this passage, the Greek word for "hate" is misevw, meaning "to hate, pursue with hatred, detest to be hated, detested."1. It is used numerous other places in the New Testament, and means "hate" in each case.

"There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory." (1 Cor. 15:41 KJV).

Why are some trees large, and others small? Why do some insects only live for a day, and other creatures live well past 100 years? Why are some men bald, and others, not?

Did God not choose Abraham? Why didn't he choose someone from another part of the world—a Chinese man, maybe?

Did God not choose the ground of Israel to be the place where his people would dwell? Why didn't he choose Russia, or Africa, or some other part of the globe?

All things are not equal.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will." (Ephesians 1:3-5)

Why are some chosen, and others, not?

"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you." (John 15:16 KJV)

We live in a culture that has foolishly cast off the idea of winners and losers. While sports programs at the college and professional level still allow for losers, many of the local, community-based, youth athletic programs have set aside the idea.

When I was ten, my youth baseball team won the championship game. I received a trophy. A generation later, my daughters' youth softball team regularly placed second, third, or fourth. They never won. Yet they have trophies. And their second, third, and fourth place trophies are much bigger than my championship trophy from a generation earlier.

Fred Rogers, the PBS icon who taught and entertained millions of children for many, many years, is known for telling his young viewers, "you are special." But if everyone is "special," then what becomes of "ordinary?"

Because of America's tarnished history with slavery and the mistreatment of American Indians, we labor still under a burden of guilt. Because in generations past, some were deprived of opportunity for reasons of race, creed, or color, all now are somehow expected to be equal, not only in opportunity, but in outcome. But it simply cannot be.

Jesus instructed us (his people, not the civil government by the way) to care for the poor. But he also made it clear, that there would always be poor among us.

We do not, nor will we ever live in a utopian society, a place where all is fair, where everybody wins, and no one does without. Some will always have more than you, others will always have less. Some will be better looking, and others uglier. Some countries will always be better to live in than others. Why even in heaven, there will be a portioning out of rewards based upon God's reward system.

Our role, as God's people, is to do the best we can to help our fellow man along the way. It is NOT our job to make everything equal.

1. from the online KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon

America: Land of Enablers

The term "enabler" has become a familiar one in our culture today. An "enabler" is one who, by not laying out firm boundaries in a relationship, makes it easy for another to continue in an addiction or some form of self-destructive behavior. The most recognizable form of enablement is spousal alcoholism. An alcoholic spouse is enabled to continue their drinking because their partner fails to draw a firm line and say, "no more." The behavior is permitted to continue unchallenged because confrontation appears more costly than the continuation of the bad behavior. Thus one spouse becomes an "enabler" of the other.

Sometimes parents "enable" their children, stifling their entry into adulthood. Think of Paris Hilton.

Both parties caught in the enablement web are called "codependents." HealthAtoZ defines codependency as follows:

"A set of maladaptive, compulsive behaviors learned by family members to survive in an emotionally painful and stressful environment. These behaviors are passed on from generation to generation whether alcoholism is present or not."

In codependency, the chief motivation is the need to be needed. Sometimes this behavior is referred to as a "Messiah complex," a situation where the codependent sees himself as the only one who knows, understands, and is capable of helping the other person through his/her addiction.

In the last forty years, we Americans have created millions of addicts simply by opening the public treasury and funding a myriad of programs to "help" people. The most egregious is the federal program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) (1935-1997). This program actually encouraged out-of-wedlock births by increasing financial aid to mothers for every child born without a father in the home. During the years when this program was active, out-of-wedlock births skyrocketed. Women were actually being rewarded for getting pregnant and giving birth, resulting in the catastrophic destruction of the family unit in lower income communities.

Thus, our federal government became the classic enabler. By funding out-of-wedlock births, our wise leaders in Washington took away the incentive for the unwed mother to improve her lot in life. Generations became trapped in an endless cycle of helplessness and addiction to government largesse. Such a dependency binds the addict to their enabler. And the enabler feels good about themselves because without them, the addict would be without hope.

Government largesse leads to socialism. There are different kinds of socialists. Some are actually Marxists, lusting for power and control over the masses. They are kingdom builders, where they are king, and everyone else is a subject. These kinds of socialists are essentially evil. They mask their evil in nice sounding words and phrases like "universal health care." In this example, all the Marxist is really after is the complete control of the health industry. Substitute any industry you want. The result is the same.

Other socialists are genuine and sincere, actually believing that the best way for a country to be run is for the civil government to control the economy's means of production and distribution. These socialists naïvely believe that things are actually run better from the top down, rather than from the bottom up. One needs only look at the federal and state response to Hurricane Katrina to realize what an absolutely fallacious concept such thinking represents.

So we come to our current day. Millions of illegals have entered our country. And many of our leaders see them purely as opportunities, not as people. Allow me to explain.

The defeat of the immigration bill created some strange bedfellows. Conservatives (and libertarians) on the right, who thought the bill too wide open, were joined in opposition by liberals on the left (sincere socialists) who thought the bill not open enough. Meanwhile those in favor of the bill consisted of country club Republicans funded by the global business community in a quest for cheap labor, and Democrats (Marxists seeking to strengthen their political power) who saw the mass of illegals as future Democratic voters.

I believe that I can say with a good measure of confidence that the only healthy thinking people out of these four groups, are the conservatives (and libertarians), who want power and control returned to the people. We seek an environment and an economy where every person is both responsible and accountable for their own actions and behaviors. In other words, we treasure freedom above all other political virtues.

The other three groups are codependent enablers. They would sacrifice our freedom on their own respective altars.

• The sincere socialists would sacrifice our American freedom at the altar of their own "Messiah complex." Their self worth and reason for being is found through seeing themselves as the savior of the underprivileged and oppressed. They are codependent upon the oppressed for their existence. Think Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
• The country club Republicans and globalist business leaders would sacrifice our American freedom at the altar of the bottom line. All that matters to them is wealth. They are codependent upon cheap labor, much like Southern plantation owners and their Northern, business counterparts, depended upon slave labor for picking cotton and tobacco. Think of Microsoft and other American technology companies.
• The Marxists would sacrifice our American freedom at the altar of their own grab for selfish power and control. They are codependent upon the masses. Think of Venezuala's Hugo Chavez.

A final word on the "Messiah complex." Emma Lazarus is known for her powerful words, engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The most well known phrases are as follows:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

But earlier in her epic poem, Colossus, Lazarus employs the phrase, "Mother of Exiles." Throughout the generations, America has been a "Mother of Exiles." Consider the primary role of a "mother." Is it not to raise her children into adulthood, to train and prepare them to stand on their own, and make their own way in the world?

Since our gates first opened, America has generally been a good "mother" to her immigrant children. But not so anymore. In the last forty years, with the massive growth of our federal government and its commensurate programs, America has become a bloated, overbearing, controlling, b**** of a woman. She longs to keep us at her breast, and in the cradle, until we go to the grave. Many of us have already become selfish, spoiled little Paris Hiltons, living under a mindset of entitlement, never growing up.

Today, America suffers from its own form of the "Messiah complex." The flood of illegals into our country, and the various, selfish reasons for not shutting off the spigot noted above, speaks of a gross misinterpretation of our role in the world.

Puritan John Winthrop saw the first settlement of his followers in New England as a "city on a hill." Ronald Reagan and others through the years, have referred to Winthrop's words, actually originating with Christ, as an axiom defining America's part on the world scene.

No city can absorb all of the world's "wretched refuse." Nor can any nation. Our job as Americans is not to become enablers, not to open wide the gates to our city, but rather to shine the light of freedom as an inspiration to others.

There are six billion people in the world. We have no obligation to adopt them. Nor do we have an obligation to adopt the millions from just south of our border. Their governments are more dysfunctional than ours—much more. And they bring with them little understanding of the principles of freedom and self-government.

America is not the world's savior. That role belongs only to Jesus Christ.

Leadership? NOT!

According to the Whitehouse website, the mission of the Department of Homeland Security is as follows:

"The primary mission of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is to secure the homeland and protect it against conventional and unconventional attacks in the United States. DHS also leads response efforts to natural disasters, administers our Nation’s immigration system, ensures the safety of America’s waterways, and helps stop illegal drugs from crossing our borders. Effectively performing these functions requires coordination and a focused effort across all levels of government and throughout our country."

Michael Chertoff, the president's man charged with leadership over the DHS, the individual assigned to protect our nation from foreign invaders, is a tremendous disappointment in my opinion.

Following the defeat of Senate Bill S. 1639 (A bill to provide for comprehensive immigration reform and for other purposes.), Mr. Chertoff, speaking on Fox News Sunday, essentially scolded the Senate for failure to pass this bill. He said, "We're going to continue to enforce the law. It's going to be tough.We don't really have the ability to enforce the law with respect to illegal work in this country in a way that's truly effective."

Wait a minute here. I am confused. Don't we already have laws on the books authorizing him to deal with this problem? Uh ... yes ... we do!

There are three, very comprehensive Federal laws already on the books dealing with the issue of illegal aliens.

1952—the McCarran-Walter Act:

• Outlined deportation procedures
• Established a quota system and politically based criteria for entry if legal immigrants

1986—The Simpson Mazzoli Act of 1986:

• Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan
• Criminalized the act of knowingly hiring illegals
• Established fines and penalties for those employing illegals

1996—The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996:

• Established increased criminal penalties for immigration-related offenses
• Enhanced border enforcement and the expediting of deportations
• Laid out requirements for legal immigrants to have at least three employment authorization verifications
• Restricted non-citizens from acquiring public benefits
• Imposed new requirements on sponsors of relatives for immigration
• Eliminated the "suspension of deportation" practice, which had allowed illegal aliens without a criminal history protection from deportation
• Imposed new rules for immigrants choosing “voluntary departure” as a means to avoid deportation and being barred forever from returning to the United States

In addition, the U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section IV, clearly defines the role of our Federal government:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

When a president takes the oath of office, he swears to uphold the Constitution (Article II, Section I):

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Michael Chertoff works for the president. His job is to help the president defend the Constitution.

So just what is the problem here, Mr. Chertoff? It sure looks to me that you already have plenty of weapons in your arsenal. Are you telling us that we need a NEW law to help us enforce the old laws?

I just don't get it.