there is only one answer
open up your Bible to the book of John
read it daily, all the way through each day
If you do, and actually care what it says, you will know what to do
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Please consider www.freedomworks.org and your local Tea Party .
Freedomworks offers a platform called FreedomConnector to allow you to easily connect with other like minded people both locally and across the USA .
Some very positive things are happening at Freedomworks to lower taxes,less government, leading to more freedom !
;^)
What a wonderful thread you started! Thank you!
I’m gaining comfort, myself, from reading the answers to your questions and concerns.
Why does it take money to serve in those capacities; or better asked, how much money does it take to hold those positions?
Are you saying that ability and time to do the job are insufficient qualification? That the primary qualification is financial?
If that's the case, and you lack the money, then your political problem is easily resolved - you aren't qualified. That doesn't mean you can't educate others.
-- Please help me to understand what it is that I am to do... --
Your family has priority. Don't gamble money you can't afford to lose on politics.
Echoing everybody else here pretty much.
Know God. Know yourself. Know your enemy. Fight for God. Fight for yourself. Fight your enemy. Never give up.
Encourage your children to have lots of children and to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
You asked: “What to do?”
Excuse the length, but there are lots of very helpful insights in these items below if you care to follow the links:
Amazon.com:
Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 [Hardcover] Publication Date: January 31, 2012
Charles Murray, the bestselling author of Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, this startling long-lens view shows how America is coming apart at the seams that historically have joined our classes.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307453421/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=onecos-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0307453421&adid=0WMHW2Y3JQPHGQWZNXQ3&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fonecosmos.blogspot.com%2F
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WSJ
February 4, 2012, 5:07 PM
Charles Murray Answers Questions on America’s Growing Class Divide
http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2012/02/04/charles-murray-answers-questions-on-americas-growing-class-divide/?KEYWORDS=Demetria+Gallegos
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Friday, February 03, 2012
Government Of, By, and For the Ungovernable
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2012/02/government-of-by-and-for-ungovernable.html
“[O]ur topic.. involves the limits of freedom. Much of Charles Murray’s Coming Apart — which is a must read — revolves around the same subject, which ultimately comes down to the question of how a people can remain free if they reject the virtues — i.e., the intrinsic limits — that undergird the very possibility of freedom.
Murray cites various founders and foreign observers who were acutely aware of this. Indeed, in order to not know it, you must have either attended graduate school or else be among the underclass victims of the toxic ideology of our academic elites.
This is indeed one of the striking conclusions of the book, that our elites, instead of preaching what they practice — i.e., the behaviors and attitudes that resulted in their own success — preach exactly the opposite.
In THE NEW CLASS: PROFITING FROM DECLINE [ http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/02/the-new-class-profiting-from-decline.php ], PowerLine links to a piece at Falkenblog [ http://www.falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/charles-murray-reiterates-willpower.html ] that relieves me of the need to lay the foundation:
“Murray argues the well-off should set a better example by not apologizing for their squareness, but rather, by advocating their lifestyle and scorning those who fail to live up to it — we need more of what is usually called ‘blaming the victim.’”
Nevertheless, the lower classes never stop hearing of “how great it is to be a victim, how noble it is to be poor, powerless, or discriminated [against]; to be wronged is the ultimate in righteousness.” But this is not something our hyper status-conscious elites would ever indulge in themselves:
“Alas, successful people are ashamed to assert they have better genetics, values, and habits — even though they quietly believe it to be true — and so are content to let the media and intellectuals push the delusional idea that success is like when Paris Hilton had sex on a digital camera and built a career out of it: luck, connections, and chutzpah, but no discipline, ingenuity, and perseverence. With such examples it becomes defensible to suggest most of the rich are like that — mere lucky hacks in the game of life. The flip side is that those who are unsuccessful are suffering for no fault of their own” (Falkenstein).
Speaking of Falkenstein’s monster, the whole thing is a weird and twisted academic experiment in reverse-prometheanism: a misguided attempt to make man better by making him worse, or transcendence via regression.
I know many successful liberals who are full of covert (and not so covert) narcissistic superiority, which they deny through assimilation of the liberal sensibility described above. There is nothing empathic or compassionate about them. They live their own lives in a conservative, even blandly bourgeois, manner, and yet, advocate an entirely different set of values for the unsuccessful.
These unsuccessful victims of someone else’s success function only as props in the liberal’s personal psychodrama. They have no interest whatsoever in understanding the actual behaviors that result in poverty or in success. Indeed, they need the poor in order to elevate themselves, which helps explain their dogged adherence to policies that are guaranteed to create more of them.
Murray attempts to distill the cardinal virtues that resulted in America’s unprecedented success — which for him are marriage, industriousness, honesty, and religiosity — and in so doing, show how unique they were to America.
In fact, this is something everyone once knew, both here and abroad. He cites an example from 1825, when a European observer wrote that “no government could be established on the same principle as that of the United States, with a different code of morals.”
Furthermore, our Constitution “can only suffice a people habitually correct in their actions, and would be utterly inadequate to the wants of a different nation. Change the domestic habits of the Americans, their religious devotion, and their respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter of the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government” (Francis Grund, emphasis mine).
How extraordinarily prescient! Yes, the ACLU is a strict adherent to the Constitution — the perverse Constitution that results from a complete rejection of the spirit and values that inspired it.
Murray cites various founders, such as Madison: “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.”
Franklin: “only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
Patrick Henry: “bad men cannot make good citizens.... No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue.”
Tocqueville: “travelers who have visited North America.... all agree in remarking that morals are far more strict there than elsewhere.”
Even Jefferson (not that his erratic thought process should hold any particular weight, except that he seems to be the perennial favorite of the adultolescent left): “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?”
One could go on and on. The point is, self-government requires first and foremost government of oneself. But with the symbolic ascendence of Obama, we have reached the dangerous tipping point of a government of, by, and for the ungovernable. Or, perhaps of the insufferable over the ungovernable, the former enabling the latter with a poisonous and destructive ideology that is guaranteed to produce more of the victims that justify the ideology.
Again, all of the above goes to the ninth of our Ten Universal Principles, which concerns the limits of freedom.
[ ] [ ]
Ten Universal Principles: A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues [Paperback]
Robert J. Spitzer (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586174754?ie=UTF8&tag=onecos-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1586174754
[ ] [ ]
I couldn’t possibly express it more clearly than Tocqueville, who is quoted by Murray:
“Thus, while the law permits the Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them from” doing so. The latter “must be regarded as the first of their political institutions,” for “Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.”
But as we have said before, leftism is quintessentially “the possibility of the impossible,” endeavoring always to bring about what can never be, through ideas and principles that should never have been.”
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“Charles Murray’s latest book Coming Apart addresses the same theme, noting that society is splitting up into classes based on their abilities, which are highly driven by bourgeois values. Over the past 50 years, the working class have lost their industriousness, honesty, religion, and respect for marriage, and he presents a bunch of data to bolster this argument (eg, less than 5% of college educated white women have children out of wedlock, but 40% of white women without college do).
This book is a straightforward extension of the main arguments in his two prior best sellers, where in Losing Ground he argued that the Welfare State is destructive to productivity and ethical development, and in The Bell Curve that society is sorting itself into a meritocratic class structure.
By focusing on white people and that portion of individual skill amenable to environment—willpower—he tries to avoid issues of genetics and racial politics that were a large part of The Bell Curve commentary.”
Excerpted from here:
Falkenblog
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Charles Murray Reiterates Willpower
http://www.falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/charles-murray-reiterates-willpower.html
I’ve read thru the thread thus far ( 50 some posts ) and I’d like to echo all of the “pray” responses.
There is strength and power in prayer. I know, preaching to the choir but sometimes we do need a simple reminder and sometimes just reading that short sentence is very uplifting to say the least.
For your consideration:
Ephesians 6:12-17 (NIV)
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
This is what was called upon me to reply for right now.
This is a fantastic thread and blessings to you for starting it.
I look forward to reading more replies and perhaps adding in a bit more myself.
You and I are the same age, and I too have three college kids (all boys). And I too live in a big city and have all the same concerns.
My response was to begin to prepare for some possibly very difficult times. This means having to learn how to put back dried white rice and pinto beans, vacuum-sealed in mylar bags and stored in food-grade plastic buckets (there are some great YouTube videos on this). This means putting back other basic foods like large jars of Peanut butter, raw/unfiltered honey, sugar, salt, spices, etc. It means keeping a lot of canned foods on hand and drawing from them occasionally so they never go bad (lots of canned foods easily have a shelf life of two years or more!) (SUGGESTION: Designate one night per week as "Eat from the Pantry Night" - *everybody* loves Ravioli and Denti Moore Chili!).
It means knowing the difference between dehydrated foods, freeze dried foods and MREs, and the proper use for each.
It means learning about guns and how to use them (if you Freep Mail me I'll give you some good, cost-effective gun/ammo recommendations so you don't have to invest too much time in this).
It means dedicating oneself to becoming more physically fit (I personally believe throwing Frisbee is one of the best exercises to prepare for difficult times - and it has the virtue of being enjoyable and CHEAP!)
It means developing plans and lists, and identifying criteria for "bugging out" if you have a destination (which you do). [HINT: The time to bug out is when you feel certain the dollar is about to become worthless - the reason is because this is when law enforcement will stop doing their increasingly-dangerous job.]
It means learning about basic sanitation.
It means understanding about how to filter and purify water.
It means obtaining first aid supplies and some good books on the subject (I highly recommend the books "When there is No Doctor" and "When there is No Dentist"!)
It means trying to gather with others who share the same concern and to begin networking.
I started doing these things about three years ago, and it was one of the best things I've done in my adult life.
Oh, and one more thing...it means hoping that you never have to use all this stuff! If, however, this disaster does happen, it means that, on the other side you and the next generation are going to be paying a *lot* less into the welfare extortion racket. It means you're going to live a better, more rewarding life.
What this nation is going through is analogous to feeling nauseous before you throw up. After it's all done and past the first thing you're going to say is ... "Hey, I'm feeling pretty good now!"
I run a disaster preparedness group here in Central Florida that gets together once a month to discuss and share knowledge on this subject. I'm also working on a book on disaster preparedness. Feel free to Freep-mail me with any specific questions, and I'll be happy to answer.
4 AM bump! ;-)