Egalitarian Economics
Our nation is an embroiled in an apparent economic meltdown. True to form, our government created the crisis, while the media feeds the frenzy with dire warnings. As a result, the stock markets at home and abroad are panicking. To add insult to injury, those who created this debacle have rushed in to save America from their irresponsible avarice. In other words, the political foxes are once again guarding the economic hen house. Governing by emergency is in full swing as a consequential election swiftly approaches. If you think this is a coincidence, then I have beachfront property in Nevada to sell you.
Difficult times reveal the character of a people and should serve to expose the fallacies of errant belief systems and unlawful practices of a nation. I say should, but we live in America and since when did harsh reality cause us to pause and consider our ways or reform our lives. Haggai, the prophet, declared, “Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; consider your ways… Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it (Haggai 1:5-9).”
Many think God’s judgment is a tad old fashion and out of touch with the modern era. I mean who expects people to believe that God Almighty would touch the economy to gain our attention before we slide into perdition. No, we pretend that we can lie, steal, cheat, defraud, kill babies, promote homosexuality, spread pornography, destroy marriage and continue to live high on the hog. We imagine there is no connection between our moral and spiritual state and the litany of woe consuming our country. Americans act as if there is no God, no objective truth, no transcendent and universal commandments, and no eternal accountability. Unfortunately, history will prove us wrong. How dreadfully wrong remains to be seen. Surely, our national pride jealousy guards our blindness and fuels our rebellion against heaven!
All the corruption suppressed for years by our government’s incestuous affair with government-guaranteed financial institutions is bubbling up and spilling over. And what is our response? Keep the status quo and put off for as long as possible the inevitable collision between our images of success crashing into the substance of our moral failings. In the process, however, our government is going broke playing god. In its mad pursuit of denying the cause, they scramble to remove its affects. Truly, it is a classic study in the science of futility.
Political parties robbed Peter, the American taxpayer, to fund Paul, their most favored charitable causes. To keep their constituencies dependent on the government dole, they unscrupulously finance their versions of racism, sexism, ad nauseam. Using taxpayer’s money as a safety net, Washington DC demanded financial institutions grant loans to people, in some cases, illegal aliens, whether they could afford them or not. It gave the appearance of equality as liberal compassion ran amok. Behind the scenes though, both political parties were seeking to secure votes by their largesse to the “poor,” while making their cronies rich in the process. Some of Barack Obama’s top financial advisors, such as, Frank Reigns, made tens of millions through this scandal. The Democrats received the lion’s share as their party members, such as Barney Frank in Congress and Chris Dodd in the Senate, oversaw this fiasco. There may be some Republicans who have partaken of this strange economic elixir as well. Only time will tell.
Egalitarianism is one of the illegitimate children spawned by relativism. Relativism believes all religions, philosophies, and ideologies have the same value and lead to the same place. These ideologies are partially responsible for this economic disaster. They stand in stark contrast against our Declaration of Independence, which states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
It appears our nation is destined to defy all three tenets of our national covenant. We violated the right to liberty, when we enslaved our black brothers and sisters. We added to our infamy by violating the right to life, through the sin and crime of abortion. Lastly, we seem determined to undermine the pursuit of happiness stipulation as well. Notice our Declaration allows for the “pursuit of happiness,” not the “guarantee of happiness.” The equality our Founding Fathers sought was based upon opportunity, not outcome. Influenced by egalitarian philosophy, today’s politicians seek to establish the latter through oppressive taxation and in this case, the bailout plan, and ignore the former prescribed by our Declaration.
Where has this economic folly led us? As of June 28, 2008, our national debt registered at a whopping 9.4 trillion dollars. Some estimates soar as high as 54 to 58 trillion. Every American baby that survives abortion commences life with a $35,000.00 to $150,000.00 indebtedness hanging about its neck like the proverbial albatross. The bailout plan, to avoid “economic Armageddon,” would add $6,500.00 more debt to each American family. Logically, the last occurrence needed when a fire rages out of control is to pour more of the same fuel that started the blaze in the first place.
Cycle of Democracy
Dr. Alexander Tytler, (October 15, 1747 - January 5, 1813) a Scottish-born British lawyer and writer once stated, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage."
Since America abandoned our Republic and has become a socialist Democracy, where do you think we register in this historical cycle? Bondage is no doubt banging at our door. Will America experience another Great Awakening that returns us to our Christian faith and heritage or will we experience national collapse?
In a nation that supposedly prizes freedom, we must come back to an important concept. It is known as the freedom to fail. For far too long, America has lived as if the wages of sin is not death. Our government, culture, Planned Parenthood, and their ilk have promoted a worldview that has not considered the consequence of removing consequences. Foolish thinking, faulty decisions, and wicked behavior demand consequences in order for humanity to learn, change, and grow wiser. Without consequences reflected in public policy, there is no incentive to repent or reform the evil of our sayings and doings. It is only when we experience pain that men have the sense to seek a doctor and find a cure to what truly ails them.
C. S. Lewis, author of The Problem of Pain, explains, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." A good friend of mine, Doc Johnson from Ohio expounds on this theme. He wrote, “It was C.S. Lewis who said that pain can be God's megaphone. God is willing to resort to a megaphone when we will not hearken to the whispers of our conscience. Pain may be our spiritual alarm clock, so to speak, to awaken us out of a spiritual stupor to hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.
After God gave His law to Moses and the nation of Israel, He pronounced many blessings for obedience. However, He also pronounced many curses for disobedience! In Deuteronomy 28, God promises:
In short, God promises psychological misery to those who disobey Him.
Harm is an inevitable result when something is used contrary to its design. If I eat pudding with a shovel and dig a ditch with a spoon, harm results - these objects are not designed to be used in such ways. Well, human beings are made in God's image - we were not designed to sin. For example, lie detectors work by measuring abnormal vital signs of the body. Lying wreaks havoc with our systems.
God created us with a conscience - con means "with" and science means "knowledge" - God created us with an inward knowledge of right and wrong, that not only informs us but punishes us with guilt for disobedience to God's commandments. We were designed to obey God. We were designed ‘for Thy (God's) pleasure’ (Revelation 4:11). Misery is the inevitable consequence of living contrary to our design and rebelling against God. Sin may bring temporary pleasure, but it is candy-coated poison. We cannot completely avoid the negative consequences of sinful choices any more than we can redesign our DNA. God designed us to be miserable when we are living in sin alienated from Him.
Hebrews 12 says that the Lord spanks us because He loves us and wants us to ‘be partakers of His holiness.’ Suffering teaches us to cling loosely to the things of this world and anticipate heaven when we will see Him face to face (1 John 3:3). Hoping for heaven makes us like Jesus!
There are many examples in the Bible of suffering as a consequence of sin: King Nebuchadnezzar was smitten with madness by God as a result of his sin. King David suffered much in his mind as a direct result of his adultery with Bathsheba and his unwillingness to restrain the sins of his children. Several of the Psalms are filled with verses of mourning, and at times, depressing self-pity, as he ponders the judgments of the Lord upon him for his sinful choices. Fortunately, King David responded appropriately to the Lord's chastening and discovered God's mercy when he repented of his sin and trusted in God for salvation (Psalm 51).”
Will America learn this same lesson before it is too late? God’s book of wisdom states, “A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment: for if thou deliver him, yet thou must do it again (Proverbs 19:19).” To bail some one out who refuses to change his thinking and behavior will not achieve deliverance from evil. Passing this economic package by rewarding criminal activity is only going to put off the certainty of having to repeat it in the future. With each bailout, however, the stakes for greater harm will increase.
Some believe this bailout is only dealing with 1 to 10 percent of our actual economic trouble. We have not dealt with the Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare crises. If true, America has yet to face 90 to 99 percent of our actual monetary problems. What will we do and how can we avert the “perfect storm” heading our way?
King Solomon grants some insight. 1 Kings 8:35-40 declares, “When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou afflictest them:
Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, that thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk, and give rain upon thy land, which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance.
If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpillar; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;
What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:
Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)
That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.”
Obviously, drought and famine would devastate an agricultural economy, as was the case in Israel. King Solomon, who represented the civil government, did not call people’s attention to his seat of authority and to a government bailout. He pointed the citizens to God, repentance, and humble prayer. America needs to repent of turning our government into our god, reject our government-as-savior programs, and return to the God of our fathers and His sound, time-honored principles. This is the only hope we have and the only one we need, if we will summon the humility and courage to flee from the wrath that is to come in Jesus’ holy name!