Is it Politically Correct to Critisize the President?

A long as our national leader has the press and opinion polls on his side, detractors are made out to be crazy, insensitive fear mongers. Has criticism of the president been added to the long list of politically correct items? Those who are most upset with criticism directed at the current president and his policies are all too quick to malign and criticize the former. They now feel it necessary to personally attack their own long-time friends over current political issues or what gets posted on social media. Could it ever become illegal to criticize our current president? I think yes if the majority says so. What would make someone like me even think this was possible? Or want to ask the question? I am constantly amazed by the virulent reactions I get from some liberals to my status updates on social media. I have never experienced such levels of hate and anger before in my lifetime. Friends I would welcome civil conversation from having resorted to calling me names, de-friending me, demanding that I not send them links to information sources (even after they had sent me links to their own) and some have even banned me from respectfully replying to their politically charged posts because I questioned their position. I often wonder, how far will these attitudes go? I mean, really, how far of a jump would it be for these feelings and attitudes to progress into support for outlawing thought or speech? How far of a stretch would it be to arrest and imprison those who only speak out against a small simple majority? These are questions worth asking. I hope I have been very careful not to go to a level of name-calling, and hatred in my posts or replies. I want my posts to be thought-provoking and I am not ashamed to have them reflect my opinions. Has it become unacceptable to give an opinion that those in power might be wrong or have flawed policies? Even if their policies are supported by 51-63% of the voting public? Just because a small majority of voters support something does not mean it is automatically right or just. This is a reality that many of our citizens lived through during Jim Crow laws. How easy would it be to force the shoe on the other foot? All too often I hear phrases like, "We won, so get over it!" or "you UN-AMERICAN Republican Rupert Murdock follower." What do these have to do with anything? I'm not even a Republican and I watch CNN just as much as Fox News. I read the Tennessean online. To me, those phrases are only emotion speaking and not reason. I have many liberal friends who I respect very much. I honor their right to hold values and views. I may think they are wrong, but it doesn't mean I want them to disappear, crawl in a hole or not speak to me anymore. When I told one of the haters I have many liberal friends, they replied, "You have liberal friends? I doubt it..." Heaven help us if and when a political group sees their victory as a chance to punish, marginalize or do away with others who don't see things their way. The path to tyranny or anarchy is not so far a road to travel.

Distorted Modern Altruism is No Alternative

Our constitution protects the welfare of the people. Welfare in today's context mostly means organized efforts on the part of public or private organizations to benefit the poor, or simply public assistance. This was not the meaning of the word when used in the Constitution. It meant well-being, happiness, and prosperity. Protecting or promoting the right to prosperity does not mean guaranteeing prosperity. In much of our religious thought, we are encouraged to be altruistic, which is self-sacrificing for the good of others. However, modern altruism often maintains that one should sacrifice to the extent of total self-denial or self-destruction if that is what be required. Maintaining that all level and means of sacrifice is justifiable for the common good. Social structures that are based on altruism add a dimension that religion does not and it is a huge difference - force. In the Christian religion, we have been told to "love our neighbors as we love ourselves" but that implies a certain level of self-interest or self-esteem and is at odds with modern altruism. For if we feel required or forced to make a complete sacrifice for our neighbor, it is only a small step to expect the same of our neighbor. That is hardly loving. Any generosity should be done out of complete joy and free will. It has been said to me many times, "Jesus was a socialist," but I have yet to find any evidence where Jesus required or forced someone to be altruistic. Does one have a moral obligation to jump in and save a drowning man if they themselves can not swim? Should they be required to lose their life (livelihood) to save another? Modern altruism would demand so. However, if one can swim and can reasonably deduce that they could save a drowning man, without certain harm to themselves (or others), morally, they should make every effort. However, in a free society, they should not and can not be compelled to by force of law. For these reasons, I can not support any ideas of forms of government that would force someone to be altruistic. It is no form of love for mankind to force others to provide for the welfare of those who choose not to contribute to society. Those who criticize my view would say I am devoid of any charity and am only consumed with greed. That is the farthest from the truth. If I were to sacrifice to my own demise, I would no longer be free to help others. If you take away my ability to excel or produce, there will be no excess to give. The alternative is to allow me freedom. Freedom to direct my affairs as I see fit. Freedom to provide for my family and share with others whom I determine. This past fall my wife wrote a little note on sharing. It was a beautiful piece on how she has approached the idea of sharing with others and how it would be wise to consider this idea as a society. With her permission, I share it with you here:

My thoughts on "Sharing" - by Beth Teegarden 

 I am a mother of 5 children. I have learned so much from them as I have watched them grow up. As their mother, I, of course, have had to teach them about sharing. The "rule" in our house is you must ask before taking and the "owner" has the choice of sharing or not. As you might expect there were times when the "owner" did not want to share. At the beginning of raising these children I, as the mother, would step in and "make" the owner share bringing up many points about how it is the right thing to do and especially about how nicely their sibling asked. The owner would then share but I began to notice something. There was not a wonderful smile and warm fuzzy feelings I was hoping for from making the owner share. Instead, there was sulking, resentment and many times the comment "Mom MADE me, etc..." This taught me that if I FORCED the owner to share I was completely teaching them everything I didn't want them to learn and experience about sharing. Now, in our household, if the owner does not want to share they do not have to and I stay out of it.......well except for the side comments about how I wished they had chosen to share. This experience with my children has been in my thoughts as I have pondered the idea of "redistributing the wealth". As a Christian, I am fundamentally for sharing. It is a good thing and it should happen. But I am against MAKING someone share. I believe it will breed resentment and bitterness in the hearts of the people and then the "GODLINESS" of sharing is lost. By forcing someone to share are we not taking away the opportunity for God to work in the heart of that individual? I ask you...when you choose to share do you not experience a feeling of love, joy, thankfulness, and goodness in your heart? In my spiritual journey, I have not experienced "force" from God. Only choice. I made the choice to love and worship God...God does not force me to. I made the choice to follow Jesus Christ, my Lord, and Savior...Jesus does not force me to. I choose to pray...I am not forced to. I choose to share...God does not force me to. For me, FORCING the people of this nation to share is ungodly and I can't be for it. I do pray that we become a sharing nation. I believe God has asked us and is hoping we CHOOSE to share. But I pray that we are sharing because people have the love of God in their hearts and are following the teachings of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Sharing because they choose to...not because they are forced to.

Separation of Church and State: It's a Two-way Street

I believe it is irrational to live with the expectation that government should/will stay out of our religious affairs and simultaneously hold that our system of government and laws should embody all our religious beliefs. We stumble when we try to impose faith into the American Way. Right now, the American Way is the right to life, liberty and property. We need to be very cautious where our religious views trample on the freedoms of those who do not hold our same convictions, so far as it pertains to their own person. Am I calling for us to hide our convictions? By no means!

Our founding fathers recognized that we are a nation of people entitled to a "separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them." That was not a proclamation that government should be an extension of God. That would have established a Theocracy. The very words "under God" echoed by Gen. George Washington (in many of his military orders), by President Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address and added to our Pledge of Allegiance do not make our government a religious entity. They humbly acknowledge our government is secondary in directing the affairs of men. It recognizes that man answers ultimately to his creator and not the state. Government should not become the primary director of the affairs of man.

When implementing a separation of church and state, it comes down to deciding which mechanism is better equipped to solve moral issues in a society. Here is where we must decide if we have an implied directive to force our Christian moral view on society by way of government or be a catalyst for change through the ordering of our own affairs by way of the church. For me, it is clearly the church. Especially in areas of such highly contested public debate; abortion, drug use, homosexuality, marriage and other issues that are individualistic in nature. Even though I hold absolutes about these issues, it is hard for me to put my "Nebuchadnezzar" shoes on and force others into the furnace of my convictions on matters that affect their free private person. Would I wish them to share my ethics and beliefs? Absolutely!

I would hope elected officials (whom I vote for) would use similar ethics as mine in guiding their decisions but with the wisdom to avoid forcing a total religious bias on law.

I believe it should not be the state who decides what is intrinsically a person's private matter. In other words, things between them and God. Issues that primarily affect the individual. The only issues that should be governed by the state are moral issues that affect the interactions between individuals, states or other governments. All other issues should be worked out among individuals and where there is disagreement, our courts are provided to settle grievances.

My Thoughts on Welfare

I will start with the writings of Ayn Rand. While I don't ascribe to absolutely everything Rand believes, I find her reasoning most profound and balanced.

Morally and economically, the welfare state creates an ever accelerating downward pull. Morally, the chance to satisfy demands by force spreads the demands wider and wider, with less and less pretense at justification. Economically, the forced demands of one group create hardships for all others, thus producing an inextricable mixture of actual victims and plain parasites. Since need, not an achievement, is held as the criterion of rewards, the government necessarily keeps sacrificing the more productive groups to the less productive, gradually chaining the top level of the economy, then the next level, then the next. (How else are unachieved rewards to be provided?)

There are two kinds of need involved in this process: the need of the group making demands, which is openly proclaimed and serves as a cover for another need, which is never mentioned—the need of the power-seekers, who require a group of dependent favor-recipients in order to rise to power. Altruism feeds the first need, statism feeds the second, Pragmatism blinds everyone—including victims and profiteers—not merely to the deadly nature of the process, but even to the fact that a process is going on. - “A Preview,” The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 23, 1.

Our country will continue in its ever downward spiral until we wake up and realize the flawed nature of a welfare system of government. Many in our society have come to believe that government-sponsored welfare is the fairest, just, and kind way to help raise up those less fortunate than others. Herein is the major problem. When we continue to believe that the achievements and results of hard work, sound fiscal management, wise decision-making, and productive endeavors are somehow fortuitous, in other words, a matter of luck, it is only a small step to view the opposites of these qualities as a simple case of misfortune. Only those who received wealth by lottery or inheritance could be considered fortunate. It's a stretch to call those who inherit wealth as fortunate as it discounts the efforts of their predecessors. Only those in poverty through their inability to take advantage of even the smallest opportunities in life could truly be considered unfortunate. Those are the citizens we need to help. The level at which we are forced to meet the demands of those who consider themselves less fortunate will continue to increase at exponential levels and those who need this to happen in order to preserve their power will relentlessly promote the notion that welfare is the fair thing to do.

A few of My Favorite Lenin Quotes

Lessons From History Lenin was the revolutionary leader of Communism in Russian from 1917-1922. He led a revolution into Socialism. It wasn't a silent, peaceful revolution. Many people were imprisoned and close to a million were executed and around 9 million died as a result of the revolution through civil war or famine. All in the name of making things more fair and equitable. By redistributing wealth. These are some of his most resonating quotes, each followed by my commentary. 1) "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." Comment: His goal was to devalue the economy to such a degree that those that participated in a "free" market would be forced to sell their interests to the government. Be wary if our stock market collapses to the point where the government starts to buy all the failed assets of key industries. For this to be possible they will have to buy up worthless companies with imaginary money that they would print and appropriate. The sad thing is the majority of Americans don't even understand how our currency system works, so they won't even know (or care) about what is happening. Some would even see it as a glorious event. 2) "The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." Comment: This is mostly self-explanatory. The Bourgeoisie is a classification used in analyzing human societies to describe a social class of people. Historically, the bourgeoisie comes from the middle or merchant classes of the Middle Ages, whose status or power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those whose power came from being born into an aristocratic family of landowners. In modern times, it is the class owning the means for producing wealth. The problem here is most people think Lenin was just after the "Rich." That wasn't the whole story. He was after anyone who had the freedom and power to create wealth for themselves. The Aristocrats (landowners) were considered the most wealthy. Read the definition of bourgeoisie again and see if you might just be considered a bourgeoisie. 3) "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." Comment: Lenin was ultimately wrong but it took a lot longer than 4 years for people to dig themselves out of the horrible oppressive seeds of communism. If the seeds of socialism or communism were to take hold in our country, would we really want our children digging out for the next 60 years? 4) "One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers (Communist) and the disarming of the bourgeoisie (the middle class)." Comment: He wasn't talking about guns. He wanted to give more power or rights to those that work (or don't work) than those who provide work. Ultimately, Lenin waged terror on the very peasants he claimed to empower. Also, the peasants (workers) found themselves in far worse conditions than before Lenin took over, many of them died of famine. 5) "The surest way to destroy a nation is to debauch its currency." Comment: In other words, make its currency worthless by printing more of it than can be backed or valued by the domestic output of a society. This is very hard to understand for people who look to the government for more money or think if more money is needed, just go borrow it or print it. Lenin was out to destroy the economy of his own nation, not another. 6) "Behind the October Revolution there are more influential personalities than the thinkers and executors of Marxism." Comment: It doesn't take a large force to overthrow the masses, just a few influential personalities. Be ever watchful of media and celebrities. 7) "Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty." and "A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie." Comment: He knew the middle class would not stand for Socialism and Communism if they were armed citizens. And the quickest way to disarm them was to institute a system of licensing and registration of all guns. Once they knew who had guns, it was only a simple matter to show up and demand them by force. Other repressive, tyrannies have used this tactic as well. I saw a sign recently that said, "An armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man is a subject." Bulwark means, a solid wall-like structure raised for defense, and by popular liberty he meant, the majority of citizens who support freedom or liberty. I believe Lenin's primary goal was to deny liberty to individuals! And to think his supporters thought he cared for the workers and the downtrodden. He later said he didn't care what happened to Russia, it was about a worldwide revolution. These are just a few, but very telling. Look them up for yourself. Before you buy into everything our government is doing, hook, line, and sinker, do yourself a favor and read about what happened in the past to discern the events of our day. Are we a socialist state already? Not at all, but many current public policies and programs are socialist in nature. Consider this quote by Ayn Rand: Socialism may be established by force, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—or by vote, as in Nazi (National Socialist) Germany. The degree of socialization may be total, as in Russia—or partial, as in England. Theoretically, the differences are superficial; practically, they are only a matter of time. The basic principle, in all cases, is the same.

The alleged goals of socialism were: the abolition of poverty, the achievement of general prosperity, progress, peace, and human brotherhood. The results have been a terrifying failure—terrifying, that is, if one’s motive is men’s welfare.

Instead of prosperity, socialism has brought economic paralysis and/or collapse to every country that tried it. The degree of socialization has been the degree of disaster. The consequences have varied accordingly.