Take The Win

         An ECHO))) Article: 

The battle at Gettysburg was a pivotal point in the American Civil War.    And, the commanding generals of the southern forces all knew very well what was at stake.  They knew this could be a decisive battle which could decide the fate of their cause. And their shared hope was that a win at Gettysburg could bring an immediate and victorious end to the bloodshed.

One southern Brigadier General, Richard (Dick) Garnett, had been previously injured and could not walk to lead the infantry brigade which he commanded in their assault on the Union position. This meant he would have to ride his horse to lead his men in that advance – putting him in an elevated position and thus making of him a very easy target. 

So, his close friend, Brigadier General Louis Armistead, went to the commanding generals, Longstreet and Pickett, and asked each of them to order Garnett to stay behind.  Both refused, knowing that it would be a deeply felt affront to Garnett’s sense of duty and honor.

Finally, Armistead confronted Garnett, himself, and begged his friend to stay behind and not lead this charge which would mean almost certain death for him.  Calling Armistead by his nickname, "Lo,” this was Garnett’s answer to his friend.  Looking across that large open field of fire at the Union held heights, he said, “Lo – I gotta ride up there.” 

It was unthinkable to this honorable man that his brigade should advance while he remained safely at the rear. I suspect that in Garnett’s mind the peril of the battle greatly paled in comparison to the thought of betraying his own honor and self-respect.  Indeed, truly honorable men feel deeply that the betrayal of their own nobility is to leave their honor ever tarnished. And for men who travel in such admirable character circles as did Dick Garnett – that is simply unacceptable.

In a few days America will face another “Gettysburg” in this coming election.  It, too, will be a pivotal and pitched battle for the soul of this nation.  In honest, un-veneered terms, this election will, indeed, be the decisive battle in a now 100 year old war.  It is the conflict between America, a free and prosperous capitalist nation, rich in personal liberties, and the hellish darkness of a completely oppressive Marxist-Communism bent on achieving a world domination.

And, to our great embarrassment as a nation, unlike the noble Garnett, some in this present American generation are actually contemplating “just sitting this decisive battle out.”  Under the weight of their various disappointments, their intention is to opt out of even voting – choosing rather to ignore the issues of honor and devotion in the face of what is truly an existential threat to their nation.  

There is a proverb in the Bible which says this. “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance [the outlook] of his friend. [Brackets Added]   In that spirit of a brotherly intervention, may I offer this perspective on that non-participation outlook?

Do you really think it honorable not to make this “charge” in behalf of your own nobility, and the future of your children, your nation, and even the larger world?  You may have grievances. You may have been offended by one thing or another.  But surely your sophistication clarifies that reasonable people don’t put at risk a whole society to satisfy lesser grievances. 

Sometimes great gifts simply do not come in refined wrappings.  For goodness sake, can’t we just take the win of a vastly more enlightened leadership under a Trump administration and ignore those mostly irrelevant details arising around the flaws of personality – which, truth be told, we all have in abundance? Is absolute perfection across every dimension of a leader’s make-up the only standard that is acceptable?  I hope not, because I’m pretty sure the fulfillment of that standard won’t be available until Jesus returns. 

When I was a young boy, I practiced a certain flawed entertainment of my own.  I would sometimes elevate one end of a cardboard box and put a stick under it to hold it in that position.  Then I tied a string to the bottom end of the stick and sprinkled bread crumbs under the box. 

And then, I played out the string to the nearest shrub where I would hide and wait for some unsuspecting bird to venture under that box to eat those bread crumbs.  And when he did, I would jerk the string and the box would suddenly drop. And, in that instant, that unsuspecting bird was immediately and entirely stripped of his freedom to soar in the heavens which he had known all of his life.

For almost a century now, Marxists demons and dupes, wearing the face of Russian Communism, the Chinese Communist Party, and of late, the entirely Marxist conscripted Democrat Party in America, have been waiting in the dark weeds for an unsuspecting American generation to fall prey to their deadly treacheries.  It begs the question, “Are we that generation.”

If we are still casual and mostly unenlightened about the critical import of this present election, indeed, we are that generation.  If we still don’t clearly understand that this election is truly the decisive battle of that long war between the bright and broad blessings of Capitalism as opposed to the abject and oppressive darkness of Marxism – then, yeah, we definitely are that uninformed generation. 

If we still don’t see the absolute resolve, treachery, and power of the Marxist enemies of our way of life, then it is true.  We are that short-sighted generation.  And, if we are yet unaware of the deadliness of the natural alliance between the radical Islamist in Iran, the Marxist Russian Dictatorship, the Chinese Communist Party, the drug cartels, and the now way-out-of-the-closet Communist Democrat party – then, definitely, we’re that clueless generation. 

And, if we still don’t see the advanced infiltration of our Marxist enemies into our social fabric and our governmental seats of power – then all doubt is erased. We are definitely that careless American generation which will be the one to experience America’s final “nightfall.”  

And, that nightfall is, indeed, now terrifyingly close.  Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and the entire array of Democrat politicians at every level (federal, state, county, and local) and their media allies are now in lock-step.  Their aim is to bring this freedom loving nation under the permanent, iron-fisted rule of Marxism through this upcoming election.

And truly, they will not be stopped by a moody American populace in such intellectual disarray that we cannot see past the lies, the propaganda, and our own pet peeves. A populace which cannot make a solid decision to restore to this nation an enlightened governance and a firm resolve to immediately well-identify and fully best our enemies.

In this pivotal moment, the threat is absolutely imminent.  Our freedom to soar is very much at stake, right now – in this very decisive election.  Please, dear patriot, don’t sit this battle out.  You know you’re better than that.

A Terrifying Deficiency

When this election season started, I must admit, I was very concerned with the candidates, as one would expect.  And then I saw the TV interviews of those, so called, “ordinary voters” shortly after the Trump-Harris debate – and everything changed.

             And now, having seen and heard many more of those man-on-the-street type interviews since, I’m actually terrified at our prospects.  But now, it’s not as much about the candidates as what seems a multitude of small minded voters who appear clueless as to the more far-reaching and highly consequential issues which are absolutely in play in this truly existential election. 

             I know that America has some great people who have humbly dedicated their life to the pursuit of truth-based enlightenment.  And accordingly, they actually live principled lives.  They truly care about the quality of life in a world larger than their own foot print.  They daily reach for nobility of thought, words, and behavior.  And, they then employ that personal nobility to better the world – willingly accepting a gentle, daily responsibility for that larger state of well-being.

             I know those people are out there.  But, it seems there are not nearly so many as there used to be.  Yet, their counterparts appear to have multiplied exponentially somewhere along the way.  It seems we are now overrun with gullible, self-centered, short-sighted, and mentally simplistic types whose comprehension of “important” ends at the tip of their own nose. 

             And certainly, if the weight advantage of the American populace has, indeed, shifted to their ranks, then our now steeply downward national spiral is easily explained.  And, America’s imminent and irreversible “nightfall” is already a foregone conclusion. 

             Obviously, the consequences of a severely depleted national character is not something one can fix with a letter to the editor.  Indeed, I know of only one sure fix for that problem.  But, even The Almighty, before He can effect a national character renewal, requires a populace widely willing to honestly see and sorrowfully denounce their own degradation.  It begs the question, “Are we that people in this crucial moment?”  Sadly, there’s much evidence to the contrary.

The "State" of New York

How ironic this title:  The State of New York vs Donald J. Trump.  For a long time now, most of the rest of the country has been well aware of the “state” of New York,  i.e. its actual sociological condition.  And, it’s bad.  It’s really bad (Ref. Chuck Schumer, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, and Andrew Cuomo.  If these are their best and brightest – case made.

 And, that is hugely more actual evidence than anyone has against Trump.  So obviously, Degenerated, is the real “state” that vs Trump.  And, Asleep at the Switch would seem to accurately tar the rest of our judicial system – especially A.G. Merrick Garland (the essence of the problem). 

 And, if anyone is wondering what a Marxist/Democrat government with a permanent lock on power would look like in America – you need wonder no longer.  It’s evident now in New York City.  Look there and be both enlightened and terrified by the plausible reality that it could actually happen this very election year. 

 After all, the 2020 election turned out to be a great dress-rehearsal.  And, the Dems did get a figurehead president which allowed a mostly unseen radical oligarchy to run the country off the social and economic rails.  And, it all went off with hardly a squeak from those who were empowered to do the squeaking.  So, certainly, I would suspect that the country can look for a serious attempt at that brass ring this year.

 And, if that power lock is achieved, rest assured, the January 6 style hearings will be played out on a much grander scale.  After all, we’re talking about empowered Marxism.  Even in America, it is still Marxism, the brutal parent philosophy of Communism which has left 100,000,000 dead around the world (and counting).

 “Oh, but it will be different here,” said the duped to the gullible.  It will be different, all right.  Ask Donald Trump.  He will quickly confirm the difference we can expect in coming days if we don’t do two things - get humble before God and learn a new song:  I am Principled Voter – hear me roar.

World Changers

             

Every so often the sociopolitical plates of our world are forced to undergo a tectonic shift.  And what makes it all so completely ridiculous is that this militant upheaval can invariably be traced back to a psychopathic epicenter.  From Attila to Genghis Kahn to Stalin and Hitler to the arrogant militants of today, such violent social misfits believe their will should govern the world – no matter the cost in blood or treasure.

             In the times when these radical world changers rise up from their birthplace in the underworld, the more peaceful and manageable status quo of life begins to evaporate.  And, with it goes life’s positive outlook.  And, all begins to trend downward, until finally, one more time, our world is again drowned in its own blood and starved through its deep poverty.

             In my view, we are now facing another such uprising.  But this time, the world is being assaulted by an invisible oligarchy of psychopaths.  Nevertheless, while this group of social “puppeteers” is largely unidentified in the public eye, at the end, I’m sure their impact will be every bit as deadly to the human race as before – and then some.

             But, what I cannot grasp is the insanity of it all.  Why can we never identify this pattern of recurring social apartheid – the few forcing their will upon the many – and stop allowing it?  Why do the violent, the elitists, and the social experimenters, being in the great minority, get to rule over the rest of us at the expense of everything we hold dear:  peace, safety, prosperity, and the very lives of our children. 

             And who, besides themselves, declared these social manipulators to be gods?  And, when did so many of us become so idiotic as to empower their schemes which ultimately destroy us in mass?  Yet we continue to buy in with our political, philosophical, and material support so they can? 

             Obviously, we don’t really need the dark leadership of dime-a-dozen world changers.  What we really need to invest in, what’s truly valuable, are peace-filled lives fashioned by our own thoughtful will and principled deeds.

The Cost of Rose

 

Humility – the willingness to bow. Faith – the willingness to bow before God. Love – a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others. Duty – the willingness to engage responsibility. Honor – the willingness to be accountable to the higher conscience. Honesty – the determined embrace of objective truth. Morality – a willingness to live nobly. Temperance – the willingness to confront the worth of your own desires.


The phrases written above are not precise dictionary definitions of the virtues mentioned there. They are more a practical description of the real character impacts which those virtues produce in us – and ultimately, in our world.

But lately, it seems we’ve started to believe that we can just dismiss the Godly requirement of a virtuous heart which actually produces virtuous living. It seems we’ve started to think of such character issues as just too much trouble and not really that necessary to these “digital” times. So seemingly, we feel we can do fine without that inconvenience.

 
At this point, Dr. Phil would probably ask, “Well – how’s that working for you?” And, in the sane reality which always has the last word over the rose colored one, the answer would have to be, “It’s really not.”

Merely for the lack of virtuous hearts, our national government has mutated from protective to threatening. Our Justice Department and its FBI minions have entirely lost their ethical way. Our national identity is being drained away through our southern border. And, the “home of the brave” has become filled with Covid obsessed Chicken Littles.

Due only to the absence of virtue in the heart of those who have the power to make a difference, the value of our dollar is plummeting. The price of our goods and services is skyrocketing. Our educators no longer do. Our medical system has sold its soul to the bottom line. And, our work force is out on a long, lazy, government subsidized break.

 
It is true. A devotion to virtue does have a cost, but not nearly the cost of the upheaval which results from its absence. And virtue’s paybacks are proven and priceless.

Sentiments Mistakenly Consigned to the Tempestuous Teapot

 

But, these are no tempests in a teapot

Intrusions of the Darkness

Old  Tactics - New Faces

The Puppeteers

The Wisdom of A. A. Joe

                                                                                                            

Where America Is Going 

  - And Why

O>Portal Exhibit

A 1985 Look Back

Roberson / Reagan

by

                                      The 700 Club 

Where America Is Going - And Why

             What does it look like when God comes to the end of His patience with a wayward nation and finally steps back?  There is actually a good picture of such in the Bible.  It occurred on the occasion of God’s commission to Isaiah and His explanation of what the prophet was about to encounter.

             This occasion well demonstrates the look of God’s “end point.”  This is that point where a nation has become so willfully indifferent toward God and the principled lives which He would ask them to live, that the Almighty says, “Enough is enough.”  At the beginning of Isaiah’s ministry, Israel had largely become that nation – a people who no longer seriously pursued God or the foundational character issues which He wished them to embrace.

             Isaiah’s account indicates that everything started with a divine question.  He writes, “Also, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’

            "Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me.’

            "And He said, 'Go, and tell this people, hear indeed, but understand not; and see indeed, but perceive not.  Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.’”

 

            It’s important to understand that what God was expressing to the prophet here was not a divine decree of outcome, but a disgusted prediction of it – based in Israel’s previous stubbornness.  The essential idea was this.  Tell this people for Me - One final time, I’m sending you the truth, so one more time, you can close your eyes and shut your ears and insulate your heart against it, instead of embracing it in order to be healed.  Thus, if the reader simply adds the inflection of disgust and sarcasm to God’s voice as he or she reads this passage, it actually adds greater accuracy and understanding to the reading.

           

            Then comes Isaiah’s question to God.  It’s this question which actually leads to a verbal portrait of that point where God finally runs out of patience with human arrogance.  The prophet continues, “Then I said, ‘Lord, how long?’

            “And He answered: ‘Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, the houses are without a man, the land is utterly desolate, the Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.’” (Ref. Isaiah 6:8-12)

 

            What Isaiah describes here is a land which is facing a thorough decimation as a result of their great and growing apathy toward God.  And eventually, the trauma described here did come to pass in Israel. It became a fractured land of despair, and widespread decay.  Indeed, it is both sobering and frightening to see how deeply a nation can be impacted by the loss of God’s divine defense and blessing.  Such an absence brings darkness to the very soul of a nation – in short order.

 

            And, on November 3, 2020, America became set to experience this same kind of impact.  That was the day when God finally stepped back from America.  That was the day when God stopped restraining the Darkness.  That was the day when God finally allowed America to begin experiencing the consequences of its widespread, many decades-long, and still growing indifference, and even disdain, toward God.

 

            On that day, Election Day 2020, that critical election was, in fact, stolen by seditious political criminals, in service to the Democrat Party – the most prominent human face of satanic darkness in America.  And, it is very telling as to how widespread this infamous conspiracy had to be in order to succeed.  But, more impressive yet is how completely absent God was from America’s defense against this widespread assault on American sovereignty. 

 

            In each contested state, election officials chose to turn an obviously predetermined blind eye to voting fraud and illegalities – even in the face of compelling evidence.  And, the Supreme Court, in turn, also chose to embrace, what similarly appeared to be, a pre-planned blindness regarding the legal and political misconducts in this election.  And, in doing so, the high court surrendered the very essence of America’s democracy, the integrity of its elections, into the hands of these Satan-owned political schemers.

 

            And, across the propaganda media, the pat reporting was obviously a long planned and well synchronized part of that scheme – the part designed to cultivate a national normalcy bias.  The pitch was essentially this. “What fraud?  Let’s just move on as we’ve always done after an election.”  But, the true reality was that a horrible new “normal” was made entirely imminent for America through the success of that 2020 election fraud. 

 

            Now, having stolen this election with impunity, these dark-hearted political usurpers will simply repeat their seditious formula for doing so in future elections. And now, they can much more easily implement that formula from their seats of power in the government, thus assuring their hold on those seats in perpetuity.  So, our future elections will become nothing more than a sham to provide merely the appearance of legitimacy to what is actually an unseen dictatorial oligarchy operating from behind the scenes.

 

            Nevertheless, in the days following the election, it began to be obvious that the “normalcy carrot” which the media held out to the pubic did start to gain significant attraction across the country.  So, fairness, and justice, and conscience, and principle, and even the rule of law was simply brushed aside in service to less troublesome and more up-close life pursuits for a great many citizens.  Thus, this widespread moral and ethical carelessness simply became the freshest example of why God chose to step back from the nation in the first place.

 

            So now, America is left staring at the end of its identity as democratic republic.  And yet, at this writing, four months after the elections, most Americans are still unaware that their republic, and the liberties and blessings they derive from it, have been mortally wounded – and the death of it all has now been made completely imminent. 

 

            At this early juncture, the vast majority still choose to believe the lie that, indeed, all things will go on as before.  But, by the upcoming mid-term elections, most in the country will certainly know better.  By then, most all will have recognized the ever more threatening nature of the government. By then, most will know that America is no longer being truly governed by the principles of a constitution and the traditional fairness of American jurisprudence. 

 

            And, as the evidence begins to pile up, the country will start to feel the despair of being governed by the whims of those unseen and unprincipled powerbrokers who are using mere figurehead political puppets to reshape American society.  In coming months, Americans will, indeed, begin to realize that their government has assumed this entirely new and very sinister form. 

 

            And, you do not have to be a prophet to know what the attendant downward spiral will look like in the real terms of everyday life.  The real powers-that-be, operating from behind the Biden and, not too eventually, the Harris throne, are truly Satan’s children.  As such, they have no ethical restraints.   They are as cruel and heartless as is Satan, himself.  They hate true good as much as they hate those who stand for and do it.  So, they will ravage the remaining good in this nation without compunction.

 

            Nevertheless, these satanic operatives do, in fact, now control the seats of power in this nation.  And, they are set to do their worst.  Already they are implementing policies and getting prepared to weaponize existing and new laws to force their will upon the population.  And certainly, the previous Covid mandates have already given the nation a taste of the bitterness of this kind of forced, like-it-or-not compliance. But now, this type of oppression is coming to America with an unlimited scope, eventually toppling even the most sacred strongholds of traditional civil protections.

 

            And, rest assured, these children of the Darkness will essentially abolish our southern border and flood this nation with a poor, backward, criminal, and non-invested population to weaken its social and political fabric.  And this will also help assure their perpetual grip on power as they grant blanket citizenship to tens of millions of illegals.   

These dark minded world changers will also finish corrupting our criminal and civil courts, including the high court, as they have already been attempting to do for many decades.  And, House Bill 1, already passed in the House, if passed in the Senate, will legalize election cheating methods of the type done in the 2020 election.

        And they will destroy the ethical trustworthiness of the nation’s police forces by eventually filling their ranks with their own mercenary thugs.  The opportunity for this police overhaul, will be afforded by the quickly and constantly escalating attrition of good but highly frustrated police officers. 

 

            They, will poison the nation economically with reckless, purely ideologically based policies.  The dollar will begin a continuous slip in value and inflation will continue to rise with the printing of more and more of these less valuable dollars.  And, they will certainly enact stratospheric taxes on nearly all Americans to siphon off the nation’s private wealth for government use. 

 

            They will vastly over-empower non-elected bureaucrats as decision makers over our daily lives – including our property, health, financial, and social services issues.  They will weaken the military through economic starvation.  They will continue to encourage class and race divisions so citizens remain disunited.  And, they will come for the guns to prevent any serious resistance or insurrection. 

 

            And eventually, as companies and corporations begin to fail under the weight of ominous government regulations, and jobs dry up, and America’s wealth is very intentionally drained away, the country will fall into widespread decay and disrepair.  America’s many fine neighborhoods and homes will become run down; and, many homes will be entirely lost to their owners due to the severe economic decline of the nation. 

 

            Our commercial buildings will begin to show the ravages of our poverty in their cracked glass, broken doors, and elevators with permanent out-of-order signs.  Our roads and highways will become chronically shabby with potholes, and long broken traffic lights, and other unattended issues of decay.   

 

            And many will die and be imprisoned at the hands of these merciless overlords.  They will do these supremely horrid things because they must do them in order to impose their draconian political and social will upon this nation.  They will need these measures to silence their opposition and to relieve themselves of the burden of those whom they view as some sort of liability – often swallowing up even their own in the harshness of these actions.

 

            Also, the foundational things, which Americans have been able to take for granted for so long, such as freedom of movement, freedom of ownership, freedom of thought and expression, and the sanctity of legitimate religious convictions – these will vanish.  Our health care will have only a fraction of its former efficiency and effectiveness due to overcrowding, doctor shortages, and diminishing federal financial support. And, even the more mundane things like standards for the quality of food, medicines, and commercial products will become undependable.

 

            And, when all of this, and much more like it, has come to pass in the lives of rank and file Americans, surely they will wonder how it could possibly have done so.  And, many will then, almost certainly, begin to recap the political twists and turns of the nation’s recent past in search of answers.  And, doubtless, they will also point fingers of blame even as they curse the Darkness – but, only in low tones for fear of reprisal. 

 

            Nevertheless, I wonder if this nation will ever understand that these troubles were actually, most essentially, just the outflow of their arrogant dismissal of the God who gave birth to the nation in the first place.  And, I wonder, when Americans finally come to this time of soul searching, if they will see the need to admit their mistake and repent of their conceit before Him? 

 

            But, be all of that as it may, in that too-late hour of their musings, without a doubt Americans will have come to know one thing with absolute certainty.  For, they will know this thing from their own deeply heartbreaking experience. They will know precisely what it looks and feels like when God does, finally and decisively, step back from an incorrigibly arrogant nation who has so long and so willfully gone away from Him.

 

            “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, the houses are without a man, the land is utterly desolate, the Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.”

~

             And, lest the reader think all of this, just the rantings of one more doomsday lunatic, consider these three compelling questions.

 

1.      Can any democracy, no matter how vibrant, survive the systemic corruption of its election process?

2.      Can any democracy survive the unfettered power of its government to weaponize its laws and its law enforcement facility against its citizens?

3.      Can any democracy survive a corrupt and irredeemably evil political party which becomes totally and perpetually empowered? 

 

            In fact, these are the essential conditions which have now been set up in America by the 2020 election – the point where God finally stepped back in resignation.