One of the things which we seem to be losing in America is a sense of morality, and morality is necessary for the function of any republic.
Recently, a Stephen Learner has been out speaking to radical groups, with the proposition that, we need to double the number of foreclosures in order to bring down the system. Now, he teaches that, this will restore the wealth to its rightful owners by bringing down the banks. The idea is, you cannot simply tell someone, “You need to perform this very immoral act.” You need to present it to them so that they can justify what they are doing in their own minds.
At the same time, there is a website about how to walk away from your house, and “stick the bank with the bill.” However, since FNMA or FHLMC probably guarantee that mortgage, and since these institutions are failed institutions, that means the loss will ultimately come out of the taxpayers’ pockets.
Let me tell you about your bank and your house: the bank did not guarantee that your home would always maintain its value or go up in value. Taken in the long term, this nearly always happens, say, over a period of 20 years or more. But that is not any sort of guarantee that comes with your mortgage.
Our mortgages worked for a very long time because people understood this. FNMA offered guaranteed loans, as long as the buyer paid 3% down and their closing costs and prepaids. It was a lot of money, especially to a first time buyer, but people took their financial obligations seriously, so this program worked for decades. At this point in time, these kinds of mortgages may go away, because of all the bad housing loans (the government and lending institutions also played a big part here, but that is because they were immoral as well).
John Stossel did a show on this called “Freeloaders” and presented a number of ways that people play the system. One woman has lived in her foreclosed house now for 25 years, as she is able to outsmart the bank’s lawyers.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dW21VJfDOg[/youtube]
Since abortion has been made legal, all sorts of rationalizations have been offered up in order to justify aborting one’s own child, but the simple genetic fact is, that child is a real, living human being with a unique genetic code, which began on day one. Philosophically or religiously, we could haggle about when this child in the womb becomes a real human being; but, insofar as biology goes, that happened at conception. Yet, somehow, we have managed to abort far more babies in the United States than we have killed on he battlefield in our entire history. And somehow, people who are very anti-war and very pro-peace seem to be able to justify the massacre of so many babies.
It is a conservative maxim that, when you tax something, you get less of it, and when you subsidize something, you get more of it. At some point, probably very sincere people decided that, a single mother is in a precarious position and that we need to help her. This resulted in food stamps, rental payments and welfare for these women. What is the result. More and more and more single mothers. When you subsidize something, you get more of it.
Also, statistically, children raised in a fatherless home are more like to use drugs, get pregnant early, have sex at an earlier age, drop out of school and get arrested—oh, and become single mothers—more than their counterparts from homes with a mother and a father. So, helping out single mothers essentially increases our crime rate, our incarceration numbers, and produces more single mothers, while producing fewer children with college or even a high school education.
Someone decided, we have all these poor starving children in schools, and they are not performing to their potential, and we need to feed them. In some schools, those who are fed by the schools at taxpayer expense is between 50–100%. And yet, do we have an epidemic of starving children every summer, when only 10% of kids go to school? No. Somehow, for 3 months, parents figure out how to feed their children.
Recently, some lawyers won a lawsuit about Black farmers who were denied loans, and therefore, could not farm. However, the end result is, huge numbers of Blacks just showed up to get the $50,000 handout, even if they had never farmed a day in their life. All they had to do was fill out the forms. One of them reasoned that, his ancestors were not paid for their servitude, so he is simply taking what is rightfully his.
A lot of this boils down to many of us thinking that the government owes us something. We figure, we pay taxes, here is a benefit that we can get, and so we take it.
35% of Americans live by means of a government handout, subsidy or social security. 65% of us who work, are paying for those who do not work; and, in addition to this, we pay for the government as well.
What is the cure for this? Simple morality. Parents teaching their children that they are responsible for their own lives; that they ought not to look to government to take care of them.
Marriage. We face a plethora of social problems because of single mothers. How does this happen? Immorality. We have more public school education and more free condoms being handed out, and more Planned Parenthood clinics; and yet, out-of-wedlock childbirths is skyrocketing.
Blacks complain that they make up a disproportionate percentage of the prison population, or that they are not doing as well in school, or that they lack all of the advantages that whites have. The key advantage is, the huge percentage of Black children being raised by a single mother. That is where all of this disparity comes from. Equalize the statistical information so that we look at the same percentage of children raised by single mothers whether Black or white, and all of the negative stats either are dramatically reduced or they go away.
It boils down to simple, excuse the expression, Biblical morality. Honor your mother and father. Do not steal. Do not commit adultery. To not murder. Do not lie. Do not strongly desire things that do not belong to you.
This immorality is always reflected in the government. We have politicians of both stripes promising more than they can give us, while taking as much as they can for themselves. Government simply does not have the money to pay for everything it has promised, and all of the demonstrations in the world by people with their hands out will not change that.
Some countries have kicked the can down the road as far as they could—and now they are at the end of that road: Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Most European countries and the United States don’t have much road left. To fix this, it will require our politicians to be honest with us, and for us to realize, we aren’t going to get everything that government has promised us. That’s called morality.
When Adam was formed by God in the Garden of Eden, what did he do? He worked. In perfect environment, he worked. When Adam and the woman fell, God continued to mandate that he work. In the New Testament, Paul told the Thessalonians that, “If a man does not work, then he should not eat.” Throughout the Bible, from cover to cover, work is required of everyone—even the poor.
The first relationship in the Bible? A relationship between one man and one woman, designed to be continued throughout their lives; and add children. Nowhere in the Bible is this ideal contradicted. When men in the Bible went against this ideal (like David or Solomon) there were grave consequences. When men had sex with men, this is portrayed as wrong in both the Old and New Testaments.
Today, there are two political views which look to the formation of an international structure: communism and Islam. Both systems have failed everywhere they are tried. What does the Bible teach? Nationalism. Separate countries, each country maintaining their own borders.
These things: simple morality, the work ethic, self-reliance, a traditional family structure and nationalism—they work every time they have been tried. These things will be the difference between us turning into Greece or us returning to an era of prosperity. But prosperity will not come to a people who simply stand there with their hands out.
This is a fantastic slideshow from Heritage, about how marriage is America’s #1 weapon against childhood poverty. I recommend that you email this link to everyone you know.
Here is the more detailed report:
Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty
A retired math teacher who spends most of his time exegeting the Old Testament and, once a week, puts out an ezeen.
Ron Paul was right
Bachmann condemns Patriot Act at Tea Party rally.
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/04/01/michele-bachmann-apologizes-promises-to-fight-patriot-act-at-tea-party-event/
(From No Quarter post)
What is Trump up to…no good?
– Trump’s agent is Ari Emmanuel, brother to Rahm Emmanuel.
– Trump donated $50,000 to Rahm’s campaign for Mayor of Chicago
– Trump donated $24,000 to Charlie Rangel’s campaign
– Trump donated $10, 400 to Harry Reid against Sharron Angle
– Trump donated $116,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Committee
Based on this, my take is: he purposely will put himself forth as a third candidate a la Ross Perot to intentionally seal the deal for BO.
“35% of Americans live by means of a government handout, subsidy or social security. 65% of us who work, are paying for those who do not work; and, in addition to this, we pay for the government as well.”
Your religion tells you not to lie does it not? If it does why did you post the above words? Getting back money paid into social security isn’t getting a government handout.
Thank you. It’s easy to ignore consequences, but they don’t go away.
About 20 years ago, I was widowed and had to bring up two kids myself. I take this seriously. I have managed to work multiple jobs to pay for college tuition. My kids worked multiple jobs.
I never asked for help. I did it myself. The government gave me lots of help, with social security payments, but I paid the majority of bills myself.
I worked. Life is hard, but life is full of magic and rewards.
Utopia is expensive. People voted for change and utopia. It’s time to grow up.
We need to constrain “benefits.’ Food stamps (opps, Independence Cards) should not be use for latte’s, lobster and steak. The Constitution does not guarantee you the “right ” to have the federal government pay for your toilet paper of dog food.
I have no sympathy for freeloaders. Get a job. Take care of your kids. Get a grip.
Though not a dictionary difference, Americans have long distinguished between “ethics” and “morality”, going back to the foundations of our republic. It began because of the distasteful European tradition of declaring kings and the state to be ordained by God–thus to oppose the state was to oppose heaven.
So the founding fathers, while respecting religion, wanted to be very clear that, as Abraham Lincoln later stated, that our nation was “Of the people, by the people, and for the people.” And since people wrote the constitution and the law, people could change the constitution and the law.
Even today, if you ask the typical American what he wants in a politician, he will readily say that he wants them to obey the law. Obeying the written laws of men is “ethics”. However, “morality” is both religious and sectarian. If you want your politicians to be “moral”, what exactly are you asking of them?
And how, exactly, does their idea of “morality” differ from yours? Every religion, and even individual churches, have their own take on morality. So if a politician says he is “moral”, what does that mean?
What the author holds up as a lack of morality, may in fact, if it is illegal, be a lack of ethics. But those who take advantage of government largess might not themselves be unethical, but the largess itself comes from unethical government, doing what it is not authorized or allowed to do by the constitution.
This means the end of the problem must first lie in correcting this lack of ethical government. And only then, when the largess spigot is turned off, and these people must fend for themselves, will the real chance for morality to take place. If there are religious people willing to teach them morality when the time comes.
@plainjane: Trump will be the Republican candidate for president. He will not be a spoiler. He is not my favorite candidate (Herman Cain is), but we live in a celebrity-obsessed society, so he’s our next prez.
Expect to see him attacked in every way imaginable, beginning with these stats that you quote. As soon as the press catches on that he will be the Republican nominee.
@David Smith: When the government gives you a lot more than what you put in, that is a handout. When the government gives people social security to people who did not pay into the system, that is a handout. I personally know 3 people in the latter category.
@David Stanley:
Pretty much, every Christian, Jew, Muslim and many atheists and others believe in the final 6 commandments. So, I don’t see them as that radical. You may not.
Most people understand and value hard work. Again, not a difficult call. I see close up people who take advantage of the system and are paid to do nothing. If people realized how many there were who live without working, I think they would be shocked. In many cases, they lie in order to do so.
Marriage between 1 man and 1 woman, and children being raised by the same; more controversial, although if people saw the honest statistics, it would be less controversial. In any case, when put up for a vote, the population has again and again voted for marriage to be between 1 man and 1 woman.
In an encyclical in 1968 and it predicted much of what we see today in regard to morals or lack thereof. It stated the Catholic Church position on the use of birth control pills which up to a relatively short time before was the position of all major religions. The Pope nailed what would follow and he hit a home run on every issue. From that point on, the USA became a culture of death as pointed out by many including Mother Theresa and Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It was of course immediately attacked and was thrown away in many peoples lives. Those things were not going to be the result of the wide spread use of the birth control pills. It is sad because he was so spot on and we continue to pay the price in almost everything we see today. Abortion soon followed because women needed to make sure that if the pill did not work, there was a back up plan to avoice children. Men began to treat women as sex objects and women became almost as bad in regard to taking on multiple partners. Men began to father and leave if abortion was not chosen, only to leave anyway even if it was. Pornography flourished and what would have been considered obscene is not on regular TV and far worse on cable. The growth of big government arrived in full force giving us the Nanny State on steroids and the Democratic Party got in bed with public employees labor unions which had not been allowed until democrat mayor of NY saw he could insure reelection with his support of unionization of city employees. JFK immediately followed suit on a national level. In 1960 we had 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government either of local, state, or federal. Fast forward 50 years and we have nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). Yes, from founding to 1960 we had grown government to 8.7 million. But after the birth of the marriage of democrats, labor unions, and public employees, it grew about 250%. meanwhile, manufacturing jobs declined. In fact, the new god called government has more employees than all of construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. With this growth of employees, we saw each year less freedom and more distance from God. In fact, the government almost became the enemy of relgion with judges appointed by this group inventing out of thin air things never in the constitution and things which could never have been added by amendment. This of course has led to massive debt and political hacks who seem able to hold onto office by using the money they gain in ways that should be illegal. And pity the person who goes after this band of democrats, union thugs, and the public employees who have seen massive increases in job protection, salaries, benefits, pensions, and no push for any real improvement in anything they do such as teacher performance. Now they want control of healthcare and while doing so, are pushing their agenda through removing conscience clauses, bringing about the collection of information on every single person who visits a doctor which will be followed by death panels. We see the same group pushing open gay lifestyle in every way and now jamming it through our military in time of war as some giant social experiment where they are systematically removing the right of free speech and freedom of religion from out chaplins who serve the troops.
So it is no surprise to those who have agreed with Humane Vitae back in 1968 that what would follow is what we have seen. It is also interesting that many are now turning to this brilliant work of prophecy to try and seek a way out of our moral depravity. It is also interesting that finally studies are breaking through the wall of silence showing that women who take the pill are at greater risk of cancer and that one of the main impacts of using the pill is that it actually destroys life in its earliest form. Yes, life with its full component of DNA as it will have during the remander of life is present from conception. That is why those inside the culture of death want to gain access to embryo’s because it gives them humans to use for research and body parts. Unless we end the culture of death, we cannot expect a moral country or one that is truly under God and in whom we Trust.
@Greta:
Greta—
There are lots of reasons for women to use birth control far beyond promiscuity– the inability to support more children is perhaps the most important.
There are also lots of reasons for immorality far beyond the use of them too– the increased access to travel and increasing media access providing ever expanding awareness of the difference of the many cultures beyond your village certainly have to be two of the weightiest.
You also seem to ignore the fact that living out of immediate contact with your church morality police in modern faceless cities allows human weakness room to flex its muscles.
The Catholic church heirarchy would condemn families who try to limit their size by lumping them into the same ugly pile with irresponsible reprobates while at the same time they have been making an institution-wide effort to conceal and protect child molesters. I would suggest to you that the morality WITHIN the church is not any better than society at large and I would also suggest that truly disgusting officially protected acts such as these have had a much more telling effect on people’s desire to ignore church dictated morality than the pill.
Its a tough world with no heroes but most of us have learned that morality comes from your heart and mind, not some sad out of touch old man who doesn’t have any idea what life is like and uses traditional rituals to get him through the day.
What a great, and absolute honest observation of current society as a whole! thank you!
I would add, that in order to maintian a sense of morality, ‘consciene’ is what is also necessary to maintain a somewhat morality order. The Ten Commandments are set in stone, spelling it all out. Also, Government, and courts etc suppose to run parallel to God’s Laws. This no longer happening, subsequently destroying the moral fabric of society-we are witnessing the decay of a society. It’s not a pretty picture.
The end result is as you stated, abortion,corruption of the highest order, homosexuality, breakdown of marriages, disrespect of youth towards their elders etc…!
I only wish, people would understand that ‘evil’ is real, and at least attempt to do what is right!
What we need is a smaller, less intrusive government that abides by the Constitution and lives within it’s means. What we need is to stop using the military as an international “rent a cop” / “meals on wheels” hybrid.
What we don’t need is more people wanting to use the government to enforce their version of what is “moral”. Leave that to the individual and lead by example.
@JustAl:
“What we don’t need is more people wanting to use the government to enforce their version of what is “moral”. Leave that to the individual and lead by example.”
No, we do not need government because man can each decide every moral issue and government should not be involved in anything. So taking money from one person to give to another is no longer permitted because that is based on some moral judgement somewhere. There should be no prisons because each individual makes up their own moral code. Hell, we don’t even need a government to push things like product or food safety because somewhere there is a moral judgement that says companies have some moral requirement to make things safe and we should leave that up to the people and the company.
Everything we do has some moral component. The country was founded as one nation under God and our money states that we place our trust in God. We believe that every right does not come from government, but that every right we hold dear comes from the Creator. I always have to laugh when some idiot comes up with the statement that those who preach moral values should have no part in government. Guess they missed the founding documents and what the founders said to get the constitution passed. They believed that the government as established could only exist if there was a strong moral component in the country and that this was translated into the government. Religious Freedom was not there to restrict religion, but only for one reason and that was so that government could not establish one relgion as with the Church of England. The house of representatives held church every sunday in the same building they met in to create laws. Thomas Jefferson attended those services while in office as President. Prayer was established before each day in congress and we still have a chaplin assigned for this service. Out pledge of alligence was modified to make sure “under God” was added and it has withstood even the left attempt to have it removed.
Only an idiot thinks we can somehow be seperate from God and exist as a country. The left has made a strong attack on this for the last 50 years and the fruit of their efforst can clearly be seen. Do whatever you want is not freedom. Doing what is right in the eyes of God is the only freedom. Government should do nothing to get in the way of what we were founded to be, a country based on Judeo Christian values that allows all religions to exist, but not to set up aethism as the state mandated religion.
@Greta:
Greta, law and morals are two completely different things. Laws exist to guarantee rights, not morals. Straw man dispatched. Laws existed long before your religion did, as did moral men.
Middle eastern mythology is the number one problem with the world today and frankly, those who pride themselves on being able to live in the fantasies it affords don’t inspire much confidence in their ability to deal with the reality of the world today.
Keep in in church, that’s your right. But legislating your “feelings” is in no way superior to the leftists who are killing this country.
@JustAl:
straw man was not dispatched as you never addressed the points. you say ” law and morals are two completely different things” and I say again that all laws made by government represent a certain moral viewpoint, even if it is bad morals. You do not address a single point made and try to bluff your way through the post. You also make a point that we need to “lives within it’s means. What we need is to stop using the military as an international “rent a cop” / “meals on wheels” hybrid.” That seems like a moral postion. It is your moral viewpoint that we should live within our means but of course moral decision determine what we should spend money on. Suggest you show some things we should spend our money on and how they have no basis in morals, good or bad. You also seem to think your moral judgement on where and how we use the military is superior moral belief. While I might agree on the use of military, on living within ones means, and following the constitution, I doubt in the end we would agree on the details of those things. We would indeed in the end make decisions based on some moral truth we believed. Allowing legal abortion is bad moral government in my view as it creates a culture of death and many things flow from a culture of death.
If you try to seperate morals from government, you end up with what the USSR intended, except for the fact that they made moral decisions to send people off to their death for their own moral reasons and to kill God if possible for their moral reasons.
So please enlighten me on what government decisions or laws contain no moral ingredient. And how do you answer the founders clear belief that if we were a country without morals, the constitution created would not work.
Greta,
Read the Constitution. Count how many times it refers to “morals” and “God”. Then get back to me. It’s not a “living document” up for interpretation. It was written so any literate citizen can read and understand it. It takes a law degree to figure out how to mis-interpret it.
Any attempt to legislate morality is, de facto, immoral. Equal protection of individual rights under the law is clearly what the Constitution was meant to insure, and does insure, until people ignore it, abuse it, and go around it.
The leftists who want to socialize medicine excuse it as a “moral imperative”, the open border reconquistas think international borders are “immoral”, the proponents of the welfare state, ditto, “more morals”. If you abandon a Constitution of laws for a raft of “morals” this is what happens when you lose at the ballot box.
No body’s telling you to abandon your morals, just don’t try to legislate them, as I said in the earlier post, set an example. If your way really is the best way then others will follow without the boot of the federal government kicking them along. Morals are not “one size fits all” but laws must be.
Frankly, we have much more pressing things to attend to like killing a lot of people who think it’s “moral” to stone rape victims to death or cut the heads off of cartoonists.
As for abortion, gambling, prostitution, drugs, cow tipping and spitting on sidewalks, these all existed when the Constitution was written, and none of them were enumerated as federal jurisdiction.
If you’re against abortion, fine, fight it at the state and local level as it is clearly a tenth amendment issue. As for me, hell, when I look at Congress, I think abortion should be legal at least until the 210th trimester.
@JustAl:
I guess you read the word “morality” and skipped down to the bottom to insert your opinion.
There are very few people who have a problem with the final 6 commandments (although Democrats would love to throw away the 10th commandment).
But our government has made a choice to subsidize that which destroys children–single mothers. I understand you being sympathetic with their plight, and, for that reason, you and like-minded people ought to support them. The government should not.
@JustAl:
ALL legislation is some form of morality; all legislation favors one set of values over another. I am suggesting that we go with values that we know work.
The saying “you can’t legislate morality” is simply wrong; it is a meaningless slogan, that you repeat, repeat, and repeat again, to somehow make you think it is true. The choices that we make as a society come down to moral choices. I believe in the values which I put forth (hard work, self-reliance, marriage and family); others think that, it is okay if you can figure out some way to get the “government” (i.e., your neighbors) to pay for you.
@JustAl:
Most of the time I disagree with you, Al. Hard to argue with you on this point, however.
@Gary Kukis:
Then I guess the term “Constitution” is just a slogan. The laws in a free country exist to guarantee the rights of the individual, not the dogma of the majority.
Note that I didn’t say “you can’t legislate morality”. What I said is that it is immoral, and I stand by what I said. There are plenty of ruinous laws on the books passed in the name of “morality”. More civilians died violently in Juarez last year than in all of Afghanistan because of our “moral” “war on drugs”. Clearly an example of laws that defend no one’s rights, but instead infringes them to appease those who “know better” what everyone else should or should not do with their own bodies”. But hey, at least we get to spend $2B per year on DEA, that really helps with smaller government.
And now we’ve joined the UN to bomb the hell out of a sovereign nation to influence an entirely internal issue, because, “it’s a moral imperative”. The Constitution is one, entire proposition, you can not pick and choose which parts you support and which you do not. We are either a nation of laws or one of “morals” which change like hemlines.
Today a couple of US Senators want to limit the basic freedom of speech because religious zealots think it’s “moral” to kill people over a book burned half a world away. They want to do this because it’s “immoral” to provoke such atrocities.
A statist, is a statist, be he right or left.
Greta, gezz you are good at what you do bring, religion was having GOD AS AN ALLY,
when they wrote the CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHT,
NOW GOD IS BEING REPLACE AND ENCOURAGE TO ACCEPT BY ANOTHER NAME,
that is promoted against the will of the PEOPLE, BECAUSE A GOOD NUMBER OF THOSE BELEIVER ARRIVED TO TO SELL THEIR PROGRAM OF RELIGION AND POLITICS,
the fact that it is being kept suspicious should have awaken everyone to a problem’s coming, but nobody in leadership care what the PEOPLE SAY AND CONTINIUE TO WARN ABOUT,
THE LEADERSHIP DOESN’T CARE ABOUT WHO CLANDESTINED COME IN AS ILLEGALS, NO, THEY HELP THEM TO SETTLE IN, CREATING A BIG PROBLEM FOR THE PEOPLE,
GOD AND GOVERNMENT IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ONE WAY OF LIVING IN GOOD BALANCE AND MORALITY THAT IS THE WISDOM OF THOSE WHO WROTE THE LAWS OF THIS NATION IN PERIL NOW
BECAUSE THE PEOPLE ARE BEING BAN FROM PRAYING GOD PUBLICLY.
AND YES EVIL IS HAVING THE GOOD TIME NOW.
@JustAl:
This sounds like those who blame that goofy Florida pastor for the deaths in the riots in Afghanistan.
Legalizing sin does not make everything all better. Legalizing sin and then taxing it has never solved an economic problem.
I have known people to abuse the system, with the intent to live off welfare insofar as to encourage their children to do so also. Then I have known people with mental illness and disability get by with whatever social program could help them out. Some people truly do need it and I am more than happy to see them receive it.
I am a former welfare child. Thankfully, I have never needed any of the assistance that my mother did. To me, not only is it embarrassing, but oppressive and restricting. No fancy vacations, clothing or career recognition. Why the “un needy” wants this type of life is beyond me. It sucked.