By
Pastor Roger Anghis
December 16, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
Over the last few years we have begun to see a disturbing change in the America that I grew up in. I grew up in the 50's when American's still were proud to be Americans. Proud of what made America great. Most still had a strong work ethic. Most Americans would rather work for a living rather than accept a handout from the government. Americans still had pride in themselves and their families no matter what station in life they held.
The generation I grew up in, for the most part, believed that you had to earn everything that you got. I remember when I was around twelve years old a friend offered to buy me a new fishing reel because the one I had had broken and my stepdad would not allow him to buy it for me unless I exchanged some labor to earn the money. We don't see that mindset today. Our youth is being taught that the world owes them something. Our colleges teach that because the United States is a wealthy nation we owe the rest of the world most of our wealth. This is the typical thinking of a socialist. Obama talked extensively during the 2008 campaign about 'redistribution of wealth', a concept our Founders never considered. They believed that a man should be able to keep what he makes. They believed in small government. Thomas Jefferson stated: “I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” Concerning taxes he stated: " The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." Thomas Jefferson was a very learned man. He entered William and Mary at the age of 16 and was recognized as a prodigy, studying 14 hours a day. Through his life he accomplished many things, though not a perfect man he was quite influential. He was a scientist, a farmer, a philosopher, a linguist, an architect, a violinist, governor of Virginia, twice President of the United States, and a Great American Patriot. His belief in a man being left to establish himself and to become what he desires in his heart to be can only be accomplished when government allows the entrepreneur to do what he does best, create. Jefferson believed in small government. His opinion of government: "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
Today we have a government that has gone as far as telling Americans what kind of health insurance they must have but the government decides what level of care you will get. They are trying to tell us what kinds of food we can eat, after all if they are supplying the healthcare, what you eat will determine your health. They are trying to tell us what kinds of cars to drive, what to use for our energy. Obama has even stated that we have to keep our homes at lower temperatures in the winter and higher in the summer.
This is not the America I grew up in. We were free to do what we wanted, when we wanted. Our rights to be who we want to be are being taken away from us little by little. We have to have permission from the government to use our national parks. Our federal legislators are finding new ways to regulate everything we do. In a couple of years all cars will have to have 'black boxes' installed on them These boxes will also have GPS capabilities so the government will be able to track you wherever you go. Most smart phones now have GPS capabilities that you can't turn off. Wherever you are government will be able to track your every move.
We are taxed at every turn and we are being forced to pay for things that we don't believe in or support. Jefferson commented on the: "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
When I was growing up we learned to take responsibility for our actions. I remember the statement "You've made your bed, now you have to sleep in it." Now days we blame everyone else for our problems. We blame the environment we grew up in for how we act. We blame our parents, our siblings, our boss or whoever we can. We used to learn that it wasn't what happened to us that mattered, it was how we reacted to it. We even see our president blaming everyone else for the woes of this nation that he is incapable of fixing. Who is he going to blame over the next four years?
When I was growing up we learned to work for a living and it was imperative that we learned to be responsible with any project that we under took whether it was mowing lawns, shoveling walks, or simply running errands. We learned to do whatever we do in the best way we knew how always giving our best. Now days most people do as little as they can do earn a check. They don't know anything about their job and have no desire to learn anything about it. Forty seven per cent of Americans are now receiving some sort of government assistance. Some of it is legitimate assistance but way too much of it is people who believe that the government owe them a living. I'm sure you remember the Occupy Wall Street people this last year. Demanding free college education, free cars, free homes, free everything.
The concept that is being taught in most of our colleges and universities is communism. The professors paint a pretty picture of that but never tell and that communism has never been successful in any nation that it has been implemented nor does it tell the horrors of communism. There are about 50 million people that are dead because of that political ideology. If you oppose it, it will cost you your life and all you own. The system inherently fails because the government runs out of money, other people's money. Our capitalistic system has always succeeded because it generates cash flow instead of eating up cash.
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Our society has degenerated from a hard working self sufficient society to a gimmie society. A certain sign of the collapse of a society. If we continue down this road America will die a miserable death. But being the optimist that I am and even though I believe that we have not seen the worst of what Obama and his administration is doing to America, I do believe that we will recover. I believe that America will wake up, make a stand and refuse to allow America to be turned into the third world nation Obama wants us to be.
Make a promise to your kids that you will give them a world better than the one that our fathers gave us and then get to work doing just that.
� 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
