Saturday, September 05, 2009

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.


Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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“I cannot accept, your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”… Lord Acton

What will it take to convince Americans that the people we place in office ought to be of high moral character? I no longer think it is even possible. I no longer think Americans even care… as evidenced by the results of the presidential election, and numerous congressional elections, and even state and local elections around the country just last year.

We have become so accustomed to self serving, double-dealing, dishonest, greedy, callous, crafty, deceitful, duplicitous politicians that we now accept it as “normal”. What that says about Americans, as a people, is absolutely shameful. What it says about the future of America is terrifying!

I dare say ancient Rome was not as corrupt as America is today. We have managed to dumb down our populace, the voter base, the electorate, concerning what is expected of public servants, until we think nothing of electing to public office people of such low morals they ought not be allowed IN public, let alone serve in a public office. Nowadays, the use of the phrase “choosing the lesser of two evils,” when describing our choice of candidates, is in regular use… and we don’t even raise an eyebrow. Why? Because it is true!

James L. Buckley once said: ” What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.” He was spot on!

I am not surprised at the corruption of our politicians. How could I be? How could YOU be? It is we who elected them. It is we, the people of America, who bear the shame and the guilt for placing these people of low repute in offices that good men fought, bled, and died on foreign and domestic battlefields to secure for us. Do we not understand that we have disgraced our heritage? Do we not understand that we have brought shame upon our ancestors, upon our forefathers, upon The Founders of this nation, and… upon ourselves for not being good citizens and good stewards of this priceless jewel of a country?

Too long have we abrogated our singular duty to study the foundations of this country, the constitution of this country, the legal/judiciary system of this country, and, just as important, the government of this country, and… the way that government was intended to operate. We haven’t done any of this.

Our public education system has failed, utterly, in educating our young about their heritage as Americans. It has failed at instilling pride in our young as Americans. The angry cries of “nationalism” have drowned out “patriotism” until one is frowned upon for any public display of pride in America. There is something intrinsically wrong about that! In modern day America education has been devalued while ignorance is celebrated… even unto the voting booth! It is revolting!

Yes, I am angry. It is an anger born of frustration. I am frustrated with my fellow Americans who absolutely refused to see that substance does trump style every time. The percentage of the electorate who voted to place a man in office, primarily because of the color of his skin and, secondly, his eloquent way with words, have done America a huge disservice. The cost is going to be monumental, biblical, even.

One of the great men of the American Revolution, Samuel Adams, said this: “The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”

I would draw your attention to the last portion of the last sentence above: “… or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.” THAT is precisely where we find ourselves in America today. And we have no one, no one, to blame… but ourselves.

Are you ready for the years, immediately ahead, with tailgating scandals and stories of corruption and graft and the peccadilloes of powerful men unable to restrain themselves when let lose on an ignorant populace? You’d better be - for I am mighty afraid that is exactly where we are heading. The political shenanigans in Washington, to which we have, unfortunately, become accustomed, are, I’m afraid, only the tip of a vastly underestimated iceberg of such conduct. America’s ship of state is sailing directly into that iceberg.

J. D. Longstreet

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2 comments:

  1. When the left took Civics out of the Curriculum it should have been the red flag to the rest of the nation. Once upon a time in this nation young people (teens) were taught the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. That was replace with multiculturalism and cultural anthropology.

    We need to bring back civics.
    Bring back responsibility.
    Bring back decency.

    Otherwise all is lost.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HUMANISM's self-chosen disability

    Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication
    by man from his natural role as earth's Choicemaker,
    inevitably degenerate into collectivism; the negation of
    singularity, they become a conglomerate plural-based
    system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness
    of diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the
    selective creative process, they are self-relegated to
    a passive and circular regression.

    Tampering with man's selective nature endangers his
    survival for it would render him impotent and obsolete
    by denying the tools of variety, individuality,
    perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress.
    Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts
    are contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature's
    indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.

    Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just
    begins with a respectful acknowledgment of The Creator,
    The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever
    learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
    The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates
    the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and
    delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect
    cannot ascend and function at any level higher than the
    criteria by which it perceives and measures values.

    Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria
    self-denies man the vision and foresight essential to
    decision-making for survival and progression. He is left,
    instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive hind-
    sight, including human institutions characterized by
    averages, mediocrity, and regression.

    Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric
    predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent
    criteria. Evidenced by those who do not perceive
    superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting
    winds of the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires,
    appetites, etc., the mind becomes subordinate: a mere
    device for excuse-making and rationalizing self-justifica-
    tion.

    The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such
    instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude. The
    appetites of the flesh have no need of standards for at the
    point of contention standards are perceived as alien, re-
    strictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our
    physical nature itself depends upon a maintained sover-
    eignty of the mind and of the spirit.

    It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal
    and living Creator to traverse the human horizon and
    fill the vast void of human ignorance with an intelli-
    gent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded the
    prime tool of the intellect - a Transcendent Standard
    by which he may measure values in experience, anticipate
    results, and make enlightened and visionary choices.

    Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deserved-
    ly displace the ego-person from his predicament and free
    the individual to measure values and choose in a more
    excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the
    words of the prophet Amos, "...said the Lord, Behold,
    I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel."
    Y'shua Mashiyach Jesus said, "If I be lifted up I will
    draw all men unto myself."

    As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality
    and submit to the delusions of humanism, determinism, and
    collectivism, just so long will they be subject and re-
    acting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from
    others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect
    justice, find themselves weighed in the balances of their
    own choosing.

    "No one is smarter than their criteria." selah jfb

    Jim Baxter
    semper fidelis

    - from "2009 AD: The Season of Generation-Choicemaker"
    http://www.choicemaker.net/

    ReplyDelete

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