By
Pastor Roger Anghis
January 15, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
I have seen over the last 50 years a growing lack of willingness of the population to be involved in current events. My late step-father forced me to keep up on current events. He was a legal immigrant from Greece and served in WWI and WWII. He almost never talked about his native country because they had gone so far to the left. His new home was America and that’s what he talked about. He told me the proudest day of his life was when he received his citizenship. He knew from experience that the average citizen had to pay attention to what government was doing or the government would begin to ignore the people and do what they wanted to do. We are there!
Citizens no longer pay much attention to what our politicians do and because of that we have lost many of the rights and privileges that our Founders spilled their blood for. I remember thinking to myself about hearing some of the things that government was trying to do and thought that that could never happen in America. Then I woke up. It not only could, but it was happening right before my eyes. When I began to study how this was happening I found that most people no longer pay attention to what Washington is doing.
There used to be a day when men and women conducted their lives and businesses with honor and integrity. A man’s word was his bond. I’m old enough to remember the tail end of those days. One of my grandfathers only had a 4th grade education but he was a licensed, self taught electrician and engineer. He designed and installed all the irrigation systems 20 mile on each side of the Grand Coulee Dam, which he helped build. He never worked off a written contract. It was a hand shake. Many of his jobs were in the tens of thousands of dollars but he was never given the ‘short end of the stick’. Even the people he dealt with were honest people.
America has been known as the land of opportunity to the world. America always has been and will continue to be the land of opportunity as long as we, the American people continue to demand that our politicians, business owners and individuals alike live by the character examples set out by our Founders. It is only those character traits that will keep America the land of liberty. Without an honest character there can be no true liberty.
Here are a few quotes from the Founders concerning character and how they placed a man’s character above everything:
Andrew Jackson - Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.
Benjamin Harrison - The indiscriminate denunciation of the rich is mischievous.... No poor man was ever made richer or happier by it. It is quite as illogical to despise a man because he is rich as because he is poor. Not what a man has, but what he is, settles his class. We can not right matters by taking from one what he has honestly acquired to bestow upon another what he has not earned."
Daniel Webster - I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger.
James Madison - 'We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for Self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to The Ten Commandments of God. John Quincy Adams - Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
George Washington - “Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”
John Adams - "Judges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention.
Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men."
Noah Webster - "In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate -- look to his character."
Patrick Henry - Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation of infidels or idolaters should be a nation of freemen. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. 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; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
Sam Adams - He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections.
These men would have not stood for a member of the House of Representatives making the statement that they pay no attention to the Constitution when they write bills as did Rep. Pete Stark, a Democrat from California, did a few months back. Those words should have caused him to be arrested and tried for treason. No one did anything.
Our Founders designed a government that was to remain small. They knew that a large central government would end up being very controlling. We have allowed our government to become what our Founders did not want and even warned us about. Little by little we have allowed the government to encroach into our lives. They tell us what kind of food we can eat. They tell us when, where and how we can worship our God. They tell us what kind of cars we can drive. They tell us IF we can build a house on the land that we own. They tell us how big that house can be. All of these things were not part of the plans of the Founders. They were actually the things that they fought to be free of. They did not believe that any of those areas should be controlled by government.
The Tenth Amendment to our Constitution states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Deciding whether we should drink raw milk or pasteurized milk was never a part of the government’s definition of responsibilities, but they have taken that responsibility. Our First Amendment was designed to keep government out of our religious activities but now they tell us that we can pray here but not there and it has to be this kind of prayer and you can’t mention the Name of Jesus in it either. The government has no right nor does it have the authority to make that kind of a law, but they have taken that authority. But we’ve allowed them to take away our rights. We have seen our legislators grabbing a little more power with every session. I view every bill Congress proposes. I see one party, Democrat, that continually introduces bills that tax more, encroach into our lives more, regulate our private lives and our businesses more and push for a socialistic society. One person was talking to Ted Kennedy and stated that communism has never really been successful. Kennedy looked at him and stated: ’That’s because they haven’t had me to run it.’
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Before you get all over me about ‘bashing’ the Democrat party let me state a few things. First, I used to be a Democrat. I came from a long line of Democrats. But I paid attention to what they were doing and after Jimmy Carter realized that the Democrat party was NOT out for the benefit of the American people. It was for power. Power for the Democrat party. Second, the Democrat party has allowed itself to be taken over by socialists. Norman Thomas, a socialist who ran for president six times under the Socialist Party of America made this statement: “The American people will never knowing adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” (Emphasis mine)
How did this happen? The same way we had 70 members of the Democrat Socialists Party in Congress in 2008. All but one of them are in the Democrat Party. Sixty nine of them in the House of Representatives, where all the spending bills originate and one Independent in the Senate. We voted them in because we did not look at their character. We did not pay attention to who they are or what they stood for. We have an avowed Marxist in the White House. Don’t write me letters about that either. I won’t read them. He says he’s a Christian but the so-called Christian church he attended for twenty years taught Black Liberation Theology, which is now where in scripture and has its foundation in Marxism. He cancels the day of prayer at the White House yet holds celebrations for the muslim holiday Ramadan. Christians don’t celebrate muslim holidays while ignoring Christian holidays.
America must wake up. America must begin to hold their elected officials accountable to the Constitution. America will no longer be America if, in this next general election, we don’t begin to make some changes in Washington. Big changes! The NDAA bill passed and signed into law effectively eliminates our Fourth Amendment. Ninety three Senators voted for that bill. All ninety three should be impeached for violating the Constitution. Obama should be impeached for signing it. But nothing has been done. Now Congress is working on an even more dangerous bill, "Enemy Expatriation Act." Google it and see what you come up with.
Our nation was founded on individual freedoms, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Today the federal government is attempting to control us from the cradle to the grave ignoring the federal governments constitutional limitations. They tell us that we have to buy insurance, what kind we can buy and what kind of coverage we will have. If we are too old, you won’t get the medical care you need. That is NOT the America the Washington, Adams and Jefferson established.
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Are we seeing the last of the American experiment simply because people are too lazy to demand moral people of high character be elected? Yes! Will that trend continue? I hope not. I hope that what Obama has done to America and the threat to our great nation has become so obvious that we will look more closely at those we put in authority over us. If we don’t we might as well turn out the lights because it will be over.
I cannot help but think about what Daniel Webster said concerning the integrity of our nation. “I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger.” (Emphasis mine)
The fate of America is in our hands.
� 2012 Roger Anghis - All Rights Reserved
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Pastor Roger Anghis is the Founder of RestoreFreeSpeech.org, an organization designed to draw attention to the need of returning free speech rights to churches that was restricted in 1954.
President of The Damascus Project, TheDamascusProject.org, which has a stated purpose of teaching pastors and lay people the need of the churches involvement in the political arena and to teach the historical role of Christianity in the politics of the United States. Married-37 years, 3 children, three grandchildren.
Web site: RestoreFreeSpeech.org
E-Mail: editor@restorefreespeech.org
