Life

On January 14th of this year time Magazine ran a headline: 40 Years Ago Abortion Rights Activists Won an Epic Victory with Roe v. Wade: They've been losing ever since.
The article follows the Red River Women's Clinic in North Dakota, the last clinic in a state that is one of two that is trying to rid themselves of all clinics, and one of four where only one clinic is still open. According to the Time article, regulations are tightly restricting the clinics, and thus women's access to an abortion. The regulations are hard to fight and referendum, such as one that ordered the hallways be 5 feet wide, which those who do not work at the clinics do not realize the implications on the construction and shut down time, thus only pro-lifers vote for the regulations.
The article also states that the young are not as interested in fighting for what they think are their rights as the older generation is. To gain more steam, they have renamed their movement the Reproductive Justice Movement. To paraphrase their views: Pro-choicers say let us make abortion more accessible, pro-lifers say lets make it less accessible, while the new movement will say lets do away with unplanned pregnancies in the first place.
Also, lawmakers such as Rand Paul are working desperately for legislation in congress demanding the right to life for unborn children.
Recently there was the Gosnell case, a case in which an abortion doctor was found guilty of the murder of babies on whom abortion attempts had failed. The clinic in which the murders were committed was unlicensed, Gosnell claiming he was meeting a necessary need of the women who were unable to afford or have easy access to abortions, thus causing them to seek back ally ones, one of which, at least, went wrong with the mother dying. Many have said that the restriction of abortion will lead to the return of the pre-Roe days in which many women died of malpractice abortions.
Their argument assumes that a woman has a right to an abortion, which assumes that the fetus is not a child. It is a child, there is no argument, the constitution demands that children, as persons, can not be deprived of life without due process. While everyone feels a great deal of empathy for those women who were victims of rape, if it is murder in one instance it is also one in another. The Reproductive Justice Movement is unfortunately also falling short of the demands that a free and just society protect life.

Andrew C. Abbott

It Can Be Done

Cedar Lake Indiana – The Systems of Economics in countries change constantly.

In the 1930s if a man with a bar of gold in his pocket and a man with a bottle of liquor under his arm walked down the street together, the one with the liquor was a criminal and the one with the bar of gold was a good citizen.

In the 1970s if a man with a bar of gold in his pocket and a man with a bottle of liquor under his arm walked down the street together, the one with the gold was a criminal and the one with the bottle of liquor was a good citizen.

At one time one thing may be outlawed, at another time something else. In Europe, in some countries it is against the law to name your child Smelly Head, in America it is against the law to sell raw milk to you neighbors.

Today anyone arguing seriously for legalization polygamy would be laughed at, while “gay rights” is on the march. At one time there was fear that polygamy, through the push of activists, might become a legal institution. That is gone now, the battle is over.

Stopping the political trains that are rolling onward seems impossible. So did something like the United Nations at one time. We were once told man would never get off the ground in “flying machines.”

Ending things like the Federal Reserve can happen if men and women are willing to fight for it. Change really can happen, it has in the past. We are all the products of some revolution.

Monoliths can be brought down. It happens slowly, and that is how all large revolutions happen, through slow work by dedicated minorities.

Say we want change will do us no good unless we know what change we want. Progress is not useful unless we know what we are progressing towards. And the reformation cannot only be in government.

Government is the last symptom to change once the disease permeates the rest of the national body. People, communities must be reached with the Gospel of Christ, which is a part of the Great Commission. All things brought under subjection to Him.

 

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott

 

 

The Forgotten Man

Cedar Lake, Indiana – Quite often A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall do for D. D is the forgotten man.

We often forget that when we take from Peter to give to Paul, Paul suffers. In France the Supreme Court struck down the attempt to take 75% of the rich’s income through taxing. We may forget that the “1%” are still humans.

Not all men are equal in what they get out of life, but they are also unequal in what they put into it. In the book The Richest Man in Babylon, one chapter mentions that the men who the richest man in the city is attempting to teach how grow their wealth, do nothing, but wish that he would divide his success with them. The rich man had begun in their shoes, but through hard work had succeeded.

Everyone wants to help the poor people who have nothing, but The Forgotten Man is the one who must have some of his money taken from him to give to the others. While there are those that truly cannot prosper because of genuine circumstances that make it difficult for whatever reasons, there are also freeloaders on the system.

When John Smith, arrived in Jamestown in 1607 made a rule “He that does not work does not eat.” There had been those that had been building houses and growing food, while the others lived off of their sweat, thinking they were too good. When John Smith instituted his new rule they suddenly felt motivated to work.

The Forgotten Man is the man that often pays the burden for lazy men. It is easy to say that the poor man should be given a dollar by the millionaire, yet we forget that wage laborer that works for the millionaire loses the dollar; The Forgotten Man.

When a man works he should be rewarded for that. We believe in high grades for students who work hard, and low ones for those that do nothing. There is equal opportunity, but not equal outcome. The American Dream is that if you work hard enough, you can accomplish things. But if we take the dollar from the hand of The Forgotten Man, he cannot invest it, which may have allowed him to build a business, and thus hire the poor beggar, who we all feel so badly for.

There are ways to help the beggar, especially if he is handicapped, but not by forcefully taking the money from the millionaire. And if we still want to take the dollar from the millionaire, let us not forget The Forgotten Man.

 

Andrew C. Abbott

The Long and Holy War: part 3

In 1946 World War II was over. After many years of bitter struggle, Europe lay in ashes. All over the vast countryside bodies lay rotting in the steaming sun. London has been bombed into rubble. Tanks lay strewn about on beaches, useless black shells, lying as monuments to a war that has claimed millions of men. Craters and fox holes dotted hillsides and bluffs, weapons lay strewn about after a war that had spanned, in some way or another, from preparation to fighting, six continents, had finally ended.

The social atmosphere of the world was tense; the Cold War was already beginning before the last of the soldiers had returned home. With the end of the Second World War, the last gasps of European Empire were fading away. As the years rolled on, nations began to give up their territories and bring their men home.

The empire phase of history was over for the moment. However, the Holy War continued. In 2001 the world was made strikingly aware of the fact that the problems were still there when 19 hijackers took control of four planes and slammed them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Immediately President George Bush declared a global war on terrorism.

It is still going on. But what has the end of all of this been? Just recently there was the bombing in Boston, which, we are told, was done by Islamic Militants. But why, is the question that must be asked, why are two world, East and West, so antithetical to each other? Although only about seven percent of Muslims, as of 2005, consider themselves Radical, all those who are not intending to blow up Americans still have an Islamic mindset. But what is the outcome of the Islamic ideal?

The countries are poor and dirty, with high mortality rates in many places and unemployment rates at staggering levels. Women are treated badly, as evidenced strikingly in places like Egypt. They have little freedom, and are essentially property, while men can have multiple wives.

Billions of dollars has been poured into these countries for their oil, but it has not changed the life of the people of the streets of Islamabad. They are still poor. This is not because of any racial or ethnic grouping.

Men such as Alhazen, a Muslim man who lived in Egypt about a thousand years ago, were quite brilliant, Alhazen did studies in optics, which were never put to use by the nations and cultures there because of the lack of initiative.

Islam must take because often it cannot make. It needed Egypt, so it took it. The nations it took it often took to survive because of either overcrowding or famine. The sad truth of their societies is that they cannot exist indefinitely because of the lack of productivity. 

But for all of that failure Islam has made its way into the West. A million Muslims live in London alone, giving it the nickname Londinistan. The world, according to Wikipedia, is 23 percent Islamic.

On the other hand the Western World has prospered. From the time of Rome the west has done better. For the most part hygiene was looked upon as more useful and necessary, productivity was both encouraged and engaged in.

New instruments were made for navigation, printing presses were used for ideas, and optics, once discovered, were used.

Trade flourished and cities like Vienna were able to grow rich because of their hard work. Nations built massive amounts of wealth and prosperity through hard work and productivity.  There are hardworking Muslims, and there are lazy Westerners, however, the Western ideals, built on Christianity, of “Go to the ant though sluggard, consider her ways and be wise” have always triumphed over their rivals, even when those rivals looked as if they would destroy them.

The Long and Holy War will continue, it must, because two cultures cannot last upon the earth is eternal peace. It will not always be a war of guns, but it will always be a war of ideas. How long into the future the Islamic ideal will survive we cannot tell, but we can say with certainty that either it, or the gates of Hell, will ever prevail against true Christianity.

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott

The Long and Holy War: part 2

“Oh East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet, until earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat.” –The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling.

Iowa – In 1529 the known world was in crisis. The Muslim hoards were running rampant over the near and far East, they had taken Constantinople, and new invasions seemed imminent. But not only was the Christian facing attacks from without, but the Holy Roman Empire and the Church of Rome was in crisis.

The church had lost prestige and become humbled after a schism, and the black plague had swept across Europe. Christian Humanists like Erasmus of Rotterdam were questioning doctrines of the church.

The Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire were old and tired institutions, fraught with corruption. Pope Leo X was rumored to have said “We have the Papacy, now let us enjoy it.” The reformation had begun; the 95 theses had been posted on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral 12 years before. John Calvin was 20 years old. John Knox was 15. The Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire was afraid of war breaking out with the followers of Islam.

Vienna was under siege. The seat of the Holy Roman Empire, the home of the emperor was in danger of falling. Fear and confusion on the level of the fall of Rome was spreading across Christendom.

Sultan Suleiman I however, did not have the necessary artillery and men to take the city. Mining under the city walls did not work, the tunnels were either stormed and the men beaten back or they were blown up. After heavy rains and snows began to cause trouble for his campaign, Suleiman made an attempt to take the city by a massive frontal assault. They lost to the arquebuses and pikes of the Christians, and had to fall back from the attack. The Janissaries were becoming impatient, and the Muslims fell back from the city without a victory. After over a century of winning they had been stopped, the hordes could no longer advance.

About forty years later the great sea battle of Lepanto was fought, in which the Muslims also lost. The message was received; the followers of Islam were not invincible. Towards the end of the sixteen hundreds a move was begun towards colonization by the European Powers. What began as a quest for monetary gains and exploration in the new world, along with missionary endeavors, turned into a quest for empire.

Now the tides had turned, as the nations of the west began a race for empire. They became like Risk players snapping up all the territories and countries in sight. Nations from India to Nigeria were occupied by the empires of Europe.

However, as the empires continued to expand, they could not help but have friction. The Napoleonic Wars cost hundreds of thousands of men their lives as they fought all over the world, from the high seas to the back wildernesses of America.

However, prosperity in the Western Nations continued to grow. Trade, commerce, arts, paintings, poetry and technology all flourished. Even as the wars continued the modern age was coming quickly. However, the East lingered behind. As the nations of England, France, and the others continued to build empires, the Eastern nations became frozen in time. Battles such as the Battle of the Pyramids between Napoleon and the Mamelukes showed this vividly, as the French soldiers massacred their enemies, while not losing fifty of their own men.

The Long and Holy War continued, as the modern age drew near.

Andrew C. Abbott

The Long and Holy War: part 1

Iowa – In 476 Rome fell, and with it the last of the Western Roman Emperors. However, the Eastern Roman Emperors still sat in their gilded palaces at Constantinople, continuing the Roman traditions and still calling themselves Romans. After the fall of the Western Empire they began to expand themselves over the places that the other side of the empire had held. But in time the expansion was stopped by an army under the influence of a new religion. The Muslim hordes were exploding on the scene.

In 570 A.D a young boy named Muhammad was born. In 610, in a cave outside of the city of Mecca he began to have visions, which after being interpreted “properly” explained to him that he needed to begin a new religion. He ran around trying to convert everyone else in Mecca, but the people were unresponsive. So instead he went to a neighboring city called Medina and became its leader.

Muhammad soon began a war with Mecca and the rest of Arabia, and became the first leader to unite it under one man.

This new religion had 5 pillars:

·         The profession of faith

·         Daily prayers at specified times

·         Almsgiving

·         Fasting During the Month of Ramadan

·         A pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca¹

He was and is a Muslim who was one outwardly. There was, to them, only one god, Allah, all who worshiped another were infidels. Two years after Muhammad’s death in 632, the new leaders began to invade lands the borders of Arabia where they lived.

Although they were often not very unified, they began to advance Westward. In 732 they marched on France, but were thrown back at the Battle of Tours by the two handed axemen of Charles Martel. Martel’s grandson Charlemagne became the first Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas day 800 AD, in France, crowned by the Pope for services rendered him. The Holy Roman Empire, antithetical at its heart to Islam, was born. In the ensuing centuries the two states would battle long and hard.

And so the Holy War had started, between the people of God and the people of Allah. The wars continued, with the beginning of the crusades around 1,000.

There had been too much fighting among the Christians, and some church leaders gave the overly zealous knights and warlike kings a mission to retake Palestine, or the Holy Land, from the heretics.

Jerusalem was taken in the first crusade, and the land divided into four counties. However, once the Muslims unified after their defeat, they took inland the county, the county of Edessa, back from the crusading knights.

A second crusade was launched, but it was not successful.

The third crusade was launched by Richard the Lion Hearted, but he was so warlike he could not get along with the other kings, and so, although he could have ridden into Saladin’s camp alone, he could not take Jerusalem without help. The crusade fell apart, and Richard died not very long after, his brother John becoming king. While the Holy War continued, the Westerners were still advancing in social progress, through such things as the signing by John of the Magna Carta.

The fourth crusade did nothing, as the followers of Islam threw back several other halfhearted efforts of landless knights to win their way by capturing the Holy Sepulcher.

In 1453, the city of Constantinople, the bastion of Christianity, or so it was thought, still held back the Muslim hoards, despite many, many sieges and attacks over the centuries from people from many countries, including Muslims, Vikings, Mongols, and even fellow Christians in the fourth crusade when the people of Venice convinced the crusaders to attack Constantinople, who was their trading rival, rather than attack the Muslims.

To change that, an over 100,000 man army sat down before its walls. In this army there were Janissaries, children of Christians, taken when they were young, and brought up as Muslims. They were the most brutal fighters in the entire army.

They dug tunnels; the Christians turned the water course into them and drowned the diggers. The Muslims built a siege tower; the Christians put gun powder underneath it and blew it up. Finally, in desperation a massive frontal assault was begun. Somehow a door that was underground which was used to carry refuse out of the city was left open. The Janissaries found it, they poured in killing and burning. The emperor and the Patriarch of the eastern church were both killed.

Constantinople had fallen, and the Christians thought that, surely, the long, long Holy War was over. Cannons had been used to take down the walls of the city, the hordes were advancing and there seemed to be no stopping them.

However, growing up in Venice, at that time two years old when the news of the sack of Constantinople came was a little boy named Christopher Columbus. It was 1453, and a new phase in the Holy War was about to begin.

 

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott

Notes:

1: Ziomkowski 2006. pp. 74.

Boring Ourselves to Death

“It is my opinion, that Americans have a deep and unacknowledged boredom.”  English poet Rudyard Kipling.¹

 

Last night I watched the documentary Captivated, a film warning about the dangers of over consumption of media. The documentary explained how our brains our hardwired to focus on anything that moves; probably a reflex to protect us from danger. However, the screens move all the time, so we are always watching. And, while we think we are relaxing, the documentary explained, we are not. We are having brain exhaustion and draining while doing nothing. It explained that the average child consumes over 50 hours of media a week. Such amounts of excess brain stimulations is harmful for many reasons.

Media is not a real world that we interact with, it is something that is in front of us, a virtual world. We watch things we do not really enjoy, simply because we are glued to it. We are always so bored, and we think we watch, log on, or view because we are having fun.

The dangers are there and very, very evident. But besides the risks involved in such mass consumption, what is on the screen, what we are experiencing, is portraying worldviews that we really do not agree with.

Mass killings, where the object of the game is to destroy, to rob, to blow things up. Virtual war games which people spend hours of time playing, reminds one of the coliseums. Many Americans would not go to the Roman Games, but we will go to them in our virtual worlds.

“Man is lost and lonely in the postmodern world.”-Francis Schaeffer.

 

The real world is not a great place to live in the postmodern world. We have to get away from our decaying society, so we escape into a virtual world. It is easier; we can always start over if we mess up after all. In the real world we may be dead beat bums, but in the game world we feel that we are accomplishing something.

The Christians usually either run from the virtual world, which includes internet, or they embrace the madness. The Christian worldview-the true one that Scriptures lay down-calls on us to take all things under subjection for Christ. That includes everything, because the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof. (Psalm 24:1) So whether it is cows or computer clicks, all must be brought under the headship of the God of the universe. There are other things to accomplish than killing the most zombies or growing the most crops on Farmville. A world of 0s and 1s should not control us.

Mankind existed for almost 6,000 years without Facebook, we can too for a while. Staring at a screen usually accomplishes nothing.

To view the virtual world properly, we must look at every aspect of it from the viewpoint of how we can take dominion of it and use for the glory of our creator. If it is so distorted that nothing can be made of it then abandon it.

Television is not completely bad. Groucho Marx found it very educational. He said every time someone switched it on; he went into another room and read a book, maybe we should to.

Andrew C. Abbott

Notes:

1: From his autobiographical sketch Something of myself.

The Romeike Case

The Romeike Case

Iowa – Yesterday morning the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama Administration’s denial of asylum to the German family the Romeikes.

The Romeikes came to America in 2008, fleeing from Germany because they were denied the right to homeschool there. In 2010 they were granted amnesty here in 2012 that was overturned, yesterday, the second court ruling was upheld.

The court said that the Romeikes had not made a sufficient case, and that the United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment, HSLDA reported. The Administration made the argument that homeschooling is not a basic human right, and thus the denial of that right does not give a reason to grant amnesty.

Mr. Romeike is a Classical Pianist, who sold his beloved Grand Pianos to afford the flight to the U.S.

The case is one of shocking implications about real views of the current administration. Eric Holder, interestingly enough, the same man involved, although we do not yet know how closely, with the AP phone records scandal.

Any group that would suppress the basic human right of parents to decide how their children are educated is but a step away from the basic human right of free speech.

Such blatant defilement of the rights protected under the constitution, as basic inalienable rights, shows that this part of the administration at least, are not upholding the true American ideals, the Christian and constitutional ideals the founding fathers and the majority, at least, of Americans still ascribe to.

Mr. Holder has shown himself not worthy of the trust of the American people. Such men are a shame to the office they hold, and cast a bane on the great men who have hold and now hold public office in the U.S.

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association, (HSLDA) will continue to appeal this case, which may eventually go to the Supreme Court.

Andrew C. Abbott

EXCELLENCE

“There is nothing new under the sun, anything you do will always have been done by somebody else. But you can always do it better. You must always do it better. Do it excellently…There is no traffic jam on the extra mile.”-Gary Powers, CEO of Ortho Molecular Products, Inc.

Iowa -- We are in a cultural war. We live in a volatile time, when the massive states and cultures of the world are on the brink of collapse and the precipice of destruction. We are trying to save it. However, just as we would never fight a war halfheartedly, or at least I hope we never would, we must fight this war for the minds of men, the war of ideas, as desperately as we would anything else.

All those that fight on one side of anything against another side must be ambassadors. The ambassador must represent his country, his city, as a kingdom builder for Christ. He must do it excellently.

We live in a world of half-heartedness. Schools are full of halfhearted and unmotivated teachers. In business excellence is rare, mass production is encouraged, at the expense of everything else.

We need to be different. Zeal without knowledge and zeal without excellence will both fall to pieces.

When men fight to begin, in business, in politics, in church denominations, the new system must fight its way up. However, once the fortress is built it can be managed and often is managed by complacent and less than excellent men. McDonalds can make more mistakes than Joes Hamburger Joint; the Green Party must have many times the energy and initiative than the GOP if it is going to continue to climb.

For the beginners, they must be excellent. But do not forget that even once you grow, you must still be excellent. We are tired of half-heartedness, it makes us feel that we are not worth your full striving.

Excellence takes a lot of hard work, it takes diligence. It is through diligent excellence that men like a poor young man in law school with a rat trap of a car becomes president of the United States, as our own president is a testimony to.

Anyone can be average, it is exceptional to go a little farther, to work a little harder, and to be excellent. It is attained through diligence. That is how we excel, and that is how we stand before kings, not mean men.

 

Andrew C. Abbott

THE MORAL MINORITY

St. Louis. – It is hard sometimes for the little guy to keep fighting.

The little nation of Britain stood up against the great and mighty German Luftwaffe. Washington stood against the crown. Brave young resistance fighters died fighting Communist Russia. The 300 Spartans stood at the pass of Thermopile and said to the great Persian Army, “you cross these mountains over our dead bodies.”

William Wallace and his Scots battled it out fiercely with the tyrant king Edward, giving it everything they had, while being the forgotten minority left out in the cold.

The Moral Majority in America has ceased to exist; the days of the Moral Minority are here. But that is alright. Today they are getting laughed at, how many said the 300 Spartans would accomplish anything? During his time William Wallace was not seen as the great savior, today who has ever heard of Sir James of Lennox, the cowardly knight who refused to stand with him?

Politics is a marathon, not a sprint. Many people forget that. They come to the track, they look down its vast expanse, at the many that are plodding along, and they decide to take a new approach. They find the most popular track, they set themselves, and then they begin running as fast as they can. The populace thinks they are watching a sprint, but they are really watching a marathon.

The crowds love to watch men sprint, but no man can sprint for 26 miles. Once he gets past the grandstand he will collapse and the race will be over for him. Such a man will never accomplish anything great. It is the man that jogs that counts, not the man who runs on the most open lane to receive the applause of the crowds while he lives.

It is the man who jogs that wins. It is the man who receives boos for running too slowly, the man who is spit on because he will not look good to the crowd, he cares only for the final assessment as he nears the wire.

The laurel wreath of history only kisses the brow of the dead or dying hero.

We may not receive the applause in our day, but it is in the long run that the work must pay off.

Robin Hoods will always be scorned in their times, but it is the Sherriff whose grave we will all spit on. The race is long. Victory is not about the ratings. The sprinters are always forgotten, there are so many of them we could never name them. The crowds become lost in a sea of temporary wonder, and then another comes along with a different color jersey and their eyes and hearts follow him.

Victory is not in the smiles you win but in the miles you run.

It is worth getting booed if you take the gold in the end. The jogger is the man who will receive the great monuments to him, which state REMEMBERING THE GREAT MAN WHO WON THE WAR. There is no gold medal for the man that sprints, for him there is only a grave, its inscription will read He ran so fast, and looked so good, that he did nothing. The race is a lot longer than the quarter mile where the grandstand is.

We could sprint for the crowd, but what would we attain in so doing? Are accolades really worth it? Are our souls worth 30 pieces of silver? The true statesman leaves popularity to others, for him, the important thing is that he finishes the race well.

Our generation may not see a very great deal of “success” it may not be until our great grandchildren’s lifetimes that the tortes begins to catch up with the hare. The slowly plodding battle line of the moral majority however will continue to fight.

 

Through His Strength We Will Conquer.

Andrew C. Abbott

Food Fight: Which Side Are You On?

There is an interesting food fight going on.

There are two sides in a food fight, the governments and the green food advocates-the greens and the govs.

The greens would like to have little or no accreditation from the USDA, they say such accreditation is worth nothing, and that the current food system is dangerous for all of our health. They complain that the massive- in their opinion- over packing, of slaughterhouses where cows are grown to kill is immoral and breeds disease.

The govs say that to let anyone grow anything anywhere would breed massive epidemics, with people eating unknown and unsecured foods which have the potential to kill little children who consumed it. Accreditation is important, they say, because it protects from such things.

The greens complain that the massive, in their opinion over packing, of slaughterhouses where cows are grown to kill is immoral and breeds disease. They say that to grow a chicken with health problems, let it suffer for 5 weeks and then slaughter it is unkind and unfair.

The govs say that it is an efficient way of mass producing food in the modern era, with everything carefully sterilized, and inspected by agencies such as the USDA to be sure that regulations are followed for optimum health safety.

The greens say they would like to sell raw uncooked milk on their farm to their community.

The govs reply that that is dangerous for health, raw milk has killed many, and that it needs to be sterilized

The greens would like to hire their neighbor’s children to work for them on their farms.

The govs say that is child abuse.

The greens say they just want to have their farms in peace.

The govs say they are just trying to keep people safe from a salmonella poisoning epidemic.

There is definitely a food fight going on. And so, in the words of the old union song “Which side are you on?”

Andrew C. Abbott

Public Opinion

St. Louis -- National Politics are often like a weather vane, with the actors feeling the winds of public opinion and drawing their maps according to the way the ships would like to sail. If the people do not want to see a shoal or a reef in their way then it does not exist in politics.

Those that do not follow will lose their job, thus the leaders become the followers, wishing rather for ease and comfort then the slightest turmoil and difficulty, no matter how great the rewards.

When a patient is sick it is not always nor often that the cure is enjoyable or easy. When there is a man to whom his sickness is pleasure, health and happiness for him can never be a coexisting reality, the physician who takes away his sickness, which the patient perhaps does not think he has, the physician will be set upon as an enemy, no matter how dangerous the illness he cured was.

It is the same with politics, if a political malady is enjoyable to many an attempt at a remedy may be made by a few, a few who will be called radical, dangerous, or insane, they go against the norm, refuse to predict the wanted weather, but rather they tell the truth, and are laughed off of their stage.

All revolutions, however peaceful, begin by being looked on as comic acts, however, sometimes they are as necessary as a physician’s painful but helpful touch, like a leg that is infected being sawn off.

Principle is not always a very convenient thing, it is much easier to go with public opinion than anything else. Applause is easier to listen to than boos. We are a nation who values comfort, in everything from our chairs to our “work.” It is more comfortable to float with the stream than to go against it.

In America comfort and conform must go hand in hand, you cannot have the first without the last. He that conforms the best will have the most comfort. It is easier to walk in a crowd than to walk alone, the lone man does not have others to hide behind. A flock of sheep blown about by every shepherd that comes along feels more secure than a lone wolf raising up his voice.

Revolution is the cry of the lone wolf.

I close with a quote I saw on the wall of the Guilford Courthouse Battlefield Museum while there in 2012.

I hold it, a little revolution now and then is a good thing, and as necessary to the political world as storms to the physical.-Thomas Jefferson.

Andrew C. Abbott

The Federalist Papers

St. Louis -- In 1787, after the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, the delegates were by no means sure that they would be able to get the necessary nine states to ratify the constitution that they had drawn up.

In New York, a large and influential state, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay collaborated their efforts to write a series of 85 essays on the constitution to be published in the various newspapers of the state. Written about the constitution by men who had a hand in making it, these papers give us deep insight into what the founding fathers really thought about what they did.

Some of what they believed may be surprising to you. For instance, they did not believe that there should be a bill of rights to the constitution:

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous… Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?¹

Hamilton, Jay, and Madison believed that the constitution was to tell the government what it could do, and that any power not given to it was for the states respectively, or to the people.²

They understood that they could not hope that men would be good, since power is a corrupting force.³ Rather, they sought to place checks, balances, and restraints upon power, to be certain that politicians would not abuse it.

They also understood that no government was perfect, but that they had done the best they could.

A NATION, without a NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, is, in my view, an awful spectacle.⁴

An imperfect government was better than none at all. There would, they understood, be problems along the way, the journey might at times be rough, the going wouldn’t always be easy, but that was the American way, that we would get through it with hard work, by working together, by building a new nation.

Andrew C. Abbott

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Notes:

1: Federalist 84: Hamilton.

2: The Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution.

3: Federalist 51: Madison.

4: Federalist 85: Hamilton.

Trade, Not Aid

Kentucky -- American Policy is basically one of two things, aid or war, and sometimes both, but this was not always the case:

“Prior to 1863…American foreign policy was based mostly on the Washington/Jefferson ideology of commercial relations with all nations, entangling alliances with none. It was considered to be a virtueto remain neutral in disputes between two other countries.”¹

Anti-trade embargoes are a declaration of war. We are refusing goods to another nation, thus stopping the supply. That brings war. We fight the war, we crush our enemies, and then we rebuild them-with aid.

Every year we spend billions of dollars in foreign aid, while we are in massive debt around the world, and are running it up faster every day, and yet we have billions of dollars to throw around and give to other countries just because we want to.

America is 16 trillions of dollars in debt, to fix that problem Mr. President has begun something he calls “The Cut the Waste Program," cutting things like supporting the website of a group of park rangers who have a band called the Fiddling Foresters, and also the spending of millions of dollars on ink and paper to print things no one reads because it is already on the Internet.

However, we still spend billions of dollars on aid every year. If we want to cut the waste, we could do a good job of it by cutting the aid.

The job of the American government is to make this nation great, not other nations. If this nation is strong then the world is stronger because of it.

If we trade with other nations, we will make them and ourselves stronger. Relationships of trade are vibrant, living things, with both sides benefiting from the produce of the relationship.

Like a mill, in which water comes in and grain goes out, it becomes a productive society, building things and making things. Massive amounts of money shipped there become temptations for human nature to steal. While we recognize that not everyone who receives foreign aid abuses it, the money still belongs to America, not the world, while there is one person doing poorly here, we have no business nation building there.

Our job is to make this nation great, not someone else’s. And that will build a stronger, freer world

Trade, not aid, because trade is aid.

Andrew C. Abbott

Notes:

1: From an article: American Exceptionalism: From Gettysburg to Damascus by Thomas J. DiLorenzo on May 1, 2013.

An Old Cycle

"The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more."

Alexander Fraser Tytler

 

 

America is currently apathetic, which is leading to dependency, the cycles go on, from Rome to Greece to Baghdad to America, and yet the march of mankind does not slow nor cease.

 

Andrew C. Abbott

It is Our Fault

Kentucky – Recently a young man told me “I think to fix America we need to blow up Washington D.C and kill everybody in the government.” This idea is as disgusting as it is wrong.

Washington D.C is not what is wrong with America; America is what is wrong with America. Obama cannot sign a bill unless the Senate passes it, the senate cannot hold office unless the people elect it. The judges in the Supreme Court cannot sit unless the president appoints them; the president cannot hold office unless the people elect him.

The blame does not fall on the capitol, the blame falls on us. It is our fault. We cannot say that we are blameless if the nation is collapsing, it is not because the people at the top, it takes the people at the bottom to rot out a core.

Andrew C. Abbott