I have been encouraged and excited about the recent Tea Party gatherings around the country. We had probably a dozen or so in North Carolina alone. There is no telling just how large this movement is. The day after the Tea Parties, I purposefully looked at Yahoo! News to find any stories.....locating only one, which states the Tea Parties are Republican in nature and another odd story about Sarah Palin....not really about anything that has happened to her, but just reminding us all of how debilitating her situation is, politically... just in case we forgot. They have apparently taken on the job of reminding us, in addition to reporting the news.
But notwithstanding, this is no longer a debate about conservatism or liberalism. The Tea Party people scan both sides of that coin. Those who say it is between conservatism and liberalism are living in the past and such positions are not relevant to the concerns we face now, regardless of where you stand politically.
The real division is now between those who wish for United States sovereignty against those in favor of trans-nationalism. What is trans-nationalism? It's the consent to give up economic, legal and administrative sovereignty and giving it to an international organizational collective. Proponents of trans-nationalism liken their position as 'working well with others' and criticize others as 'isolationists'. In fact, both are false assessments.
Wanting national sovereignty is not equivalent to being an isolationist. There are degrees of those out there that do believe in isolationism. However, identification of those who wish the U.S. to remain sovereign is not isolationism. Likewise, 'working well with others' does not equate to giving up economic and legal autonomy to an international authority. Those that use that in support of moving toward global currency or international law courts, regulatory oversight, etc., are masking the consent to relinquish national determination with the virtue of cooperation, when there is no equating them. For example, participation in a neighborhood association does not equate to relegating your bank account, children's school, extracurricular activities and vocation to them.
Replacing the dollar, yen, Euro and other currencies with the SDR, Bancor or other new global currency will take our national monetary policies out of our hands and into the hands of the World Bank.
Signing our names on the dotted lines of international legal documents make us answerable to a world law court and our citizens under the authority of the same.
Creating taxes that are payable directly to an international body, like carbon taxes, will take away representative taxation. Those in favor of such taxes and fees will say we are still represented but on a global basis, will have a difficult job defending that position to U.S. citizens...at least those who still have some focus on things outside of their immediate circle of sufficiency.
The above all entail relinquishing our legislative, judicial and executive branches to a global authority, or at least make them subservient to it.
If relinquishing our sovereignty is the right thing, no argument has been made for it, other than disingenuous catch phrases and horrific warnings if we don't. I still remember Paulson and Bush talking about 'systemic risk' just last fall, with regards to the financial crisis. Some even predicted the declaration of Marshall Law if bailout money wasn't doled out immediately. I hear it all the time from Geithner, Bernanki and Obama. If we don't agree to their course of action, all hell will break loose, our homes will burn down and our pets will die. And this has been used by both parties. It isn't a partisan habit. It's a ruse to get us to either 'go along to get along' or scare us into compliance.
How did we get here?
I have a theory....Improvements in technology have been so exponential, it has changed the way we think, work and live our lives. We now have cable and satellite, which provide us with hundreds of channels of content. We have several 24 hour news channels, internet access to millions of computers around the globe, cashless banking....even the concept of remote controls, alone,.....have been introduced to make our lives easier, more convenient and to help us do more with less work. There are remote controls for ceiling fans, light switches, computer access....even smart homes where everything can be controlled through remote access. These things have helped make us complacent about things beyond our immediate circle...and haven't made life easier for us but created even more distractions to deal with, again, in our immediate circle. Technology has allowed us to cram in more in the same amount of time. We have families, homes, work....our immediate concerns....which are now 100% of our concerns, for most of us.
As far as national and even local affairs, we trust talking heads with ties or dresses, beaming over our flat screens, to provide us news, without critical thought. We trust our entire democracy in the hands of the inner-rings of two political parties and all we have to do is simply show up and vote for the candidates they hand pick for us. In fact, now we don't even have to stand in line. We can vote at home. Everything is made for our convenience and personal peace....and our liberties, freedom and self-determination are outsourced in the hands of authorities we don't even know much about or critically examine.
This is a reality that spans boundaries. It represents the situation at the national level, all the way down to local city halls, chambers of commerce, school boards, etc. Without a bottom-up approach of our involvement in the process, it will be left to opportunists and they will probably not have your best interests at heart, unless you have a lot of what they are after. And after they get it from you, you are no longer an interested party. But unless we all start taking an interest again in the process that was given to us and described by people like John Adams as a project like the world has never seen, it will be co-opted by others without concern for it. And the gift will be taken from us with no recourse outside of a repeat at Bunker Hill, which will cost much more than sacrificing a dinner at home to attend a local meeting or two.
Our democracy requires more than bloviating in coffee shops, internet blogs, media outlets or voting from home, every two or four years. It requires involvement from the grass-roots level. Participation in local precincts, districts, counties and states, so that actual real people outside of political machines can help pick and support candidates, long before the primary begins. This will mean real choices by the time the electronic voting booths do get dispatched. Otherwise, we are only voting for insiders predetermined by party leaders and as it is now, those party leaders are ready to sign away our autonomy as a nation. It also requires our abilities to see past party lines and stop trying to stretch our interpretations of everything that happens to fit our party's limited categories. Our political parties have been watching the house for us and the house is a wreck.
I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to this. But I recognize this in myself and find it imperative to change. I find it imperative to write this to others, even with my own complacency.
And the reason I haven't participated before is because I had a hard time finding relevance of the process with my own life. I have a family, work, my own home.....hard to see past that, particularly when I watch people cannibalize themselves on television over political issues. Seems like a circus, rather than a system. I know that is why you haven't been involved either.
On the whole, I am positive about our country. I think our system will work, if we work at maintaining it. If we don't, we will lose it completely. But, on the whole, even if we relinquish our autonomy, lose our nation and become one state of many in a world alliance, I still have hope. Keep in mind, I trust Scripture and I know how this will all turn out. I also have trust in the sovereignty of a God that doesn't sweat any of this. For those of you who are followers of Christ, there is no reason to assume this sort of involvement in your country's government is a tacit lack of trust in God's sovereignty anymore than to assume your personal responsibility is the same. Your responsibility in taking care of an incredible gift given to you is not in defiance of His providence, but a part of it. Likewise, those of you who do not believe as I do....we still are part of the same nation that was founded on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (the classical definition of happiness contrasted to the understanding of that word today). There is no reason to reject what I have to say simply because I come from an evangelical Christian background. You are also a fellow citizen of the greatest country in the world and along with me, we can strive to keep it that way and respect each other, without having to respect each other's differences of opinions. That's what makes this country so awesome.
I just don't want to see it crumble. And I watch it crumble daily. Those Tea Parties gave me hope. Those were real people. Despite the news stories, they are not expressions of Republican agendas. There were all kinds of people out there and they all had one thing in common......love for our nation and our constitution, in that our nation is 'by the people, for the people and of the people.' If you are like minded (and I pray you are), let's keep it that way....and get busy right where we live in finding the right people for 2010.
Let me warn you now: from watching people actually having done this (and succeeding), be prepared to face great opposition from within your own political party. They are used to deciding all the names for you and won't like to hear from you. But sometimes a little inconvenience is a great thing. One more thing....if you insist on watching the local news or even cable news for information, PLEASE don't make it your sole source of information or give them more credit than what is due them. Look into what is going on through several sources yourself. Learn to distinguish between news and gossip. I think if you do that, you will find that most of it is gossip. I used to intern at an ABC affiliate and I can tell you from experience, those people know how to report, but that doesn't make them even close to being an authority on any topic outside of journalism....and even then, I think some are shaky in that area as well.
For those with the fortitude and time to get through all that ranting, thanks for reading.
