Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Obamanation

**To all Obama lovers, forgive my harsh words. I do wish the man well, and I ask that you read this open-mindedly.**

I have to admit, there are different sides of me when it comes to the reality of Obama soon being our President. Part of me is worried to death, part of me is hopefull that this will be a brick wall for America to run into, and start over returning to the ways of the Founders. Part of me just has faith in God. I realize that even if Obama is President, no matter how much he abuses his power, Jesus is King. Of course, I also wonder if Obama's life has much time ahead of it. I would not be shocked if someone takes his life in the next eight years.

Overall, I think that, despite socialism and anti-Americanism, I can handle an Obama Presidency. I guess that if I had the slick rhetoric skills of Obama, his money, support, and power, I might be tempted to abuse my power too. God in His infinite plan, put Obama here to be elected as our President for a reason, and I must trust His Will.

But my problem is that the American people are so ignorant to elect someone like Obama. Can our people not see we need less government, not more? Can they not see that we need a sensible foreign policy, one that, whether pro-war or anti-war is at least pro-America? Can we not see that socialism and communism does not work? Do we not understand the Constitution? It seems we have not realized these things. If we did realize these things, I believe that our President elect would not be Obama.

I know that we can not all of a sudden return to the ways of our Founding Fathers without some sort of catastrophic blow to our nation. We have simply drifted too far. But I am dissapointed in my fellow American's that we, of all people, have fallen for socialism. I would think that surely America would be a place where her people would not fall for such tyrannical government as socialism. I have been hopefull that we can sooner or later elect someone into office who would at least start returning us to a more Constitutional form of government, with a federal relationship between the states and their common central government. I would think that maybe we would start educating ourselves to realize that we are a mixed government, not a pure Democracy. I thought that we would eventually realize that we are a Constitutional Federated Republic, not a Socialized Centralized Democracy. If electing Obama is any indication, then we have apparently not realized these basic truths that founded this nation, and give us many of the gifts we benefit from even today.

I know Obama may sound good, but look at his policies. Is socialized healthare (excuse, "universal" healthcare), allowed in the Constitution? Is redistributing wealth an idea that Adam Smith would have supported? Is being friendly with terrorists, and stating who you want to bomb on national television really pro-America? Maybe some of the rumors about Obama are a smear on him, but if just half of them are true, he seems very anti-American, and anti-Christian.

God is in control, and He is still King. He may want Obama to destroy America for all I know. I would hate for that to be the case, but God has His reasons. People did not expect or want to see the Roman Empire to fall from within, but that is what happened. And the fading away of Rome is what in large part, over the course of some thousand years, help set up America herself. Interestingly enough, it was the Church that is in large part accredited to overthrowing the empire. The Church, with no real political power, overtook the greatest empire the world had seen, without war.

Now, under an Obama Presidency, the Church more than ever should be the Church. If the Church wants to get involved in the political system, the best way to do it is to be the Church. The most political thing the Church can do is to be the Church. Whether this restores America, overthrows America with the Power of the Gospel, or something entirely different, is in God's Hands. But the Church should not complain about an Obama Presidency when She has not done Her job. The Church has failed to show us what proper Biblical government should look like, and has failed to teach Herself government from a Christian perspective. Thus, our culture is not going to recognize the dangers of socialism. Our culture is not going to see the anti-Americanism and anti-God in Obama's policies. Thus, our result will be Obama himself.

If the Church is simply the Church - helping others instead of asking the government to help us, cleaning homes instead of searching them for Harry Potter, fixing our own marriages before asking the government to fix others, etc., then one of two things will happen. The Power of the Gospel will save our culture because our culture repents and follows the Gospel, or the Power of the Gospel will be a sword that our unrepentent culture cannot handle, and thus our culture will fade away like Rome, but the Power of the Gospel will give greater benefits throughout the earth.

All in all, I am dissapointed in America. We elected a socialist. That is unnaceptable for a nation founded on such principles as America was founded on. But maybe what we need is a brick wall to run into, and maybe Obama is that brick wall. Maybe the Church will get woken up. Who knows. I'm not too worried about an Obama Presidency itself. I voted my conscience, and let God deal with the results. But it is a little frightening that our culture would be so ignorant as to vote for Obama. May we wake up and smell the coffee. While we can.

What do you think?

God bless America

Pray for our Troops

God bless President-elect Barack Obama

November 5, 2008

Ryan Hampton

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some random thoughts on this blog.

The Founding Fathers were concerned with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They simply did not address whether the United States should have a capitalistic or socialistic economic paradigm. Capitalism and Socialism are both permitted by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Therefore, Socialism does not equal anti-Americanism

Regardless, Obama is a far cry from a socialist. Taxing less then 2% of the richest people in America a bit more hardly qualifies as socialism. This has been tax policy in the past and it is inevitable that it would have happened in the future, one way or another.

I cannot, for the life of my understand your argument that the president elect of the United States and 52% of the voting population are “anti-american”. Therefore, voting for Obama does not equal anti-Americanism.

Universal Healthcare is permitted by the constitution. I am surprised that more of the Christian church goers do not support universal healthcare. I don’t think Jesus would require that you have medical insurance in order to get treated

As for your concerns about abuse of power, the Constitution DOES have provisions that do not allow the President to abuse his power. Personally, I cannot understand how anyone can be legitimately concerned about Presidential abuse of power after the past 8 Bush years.

For your foreign policy concerns, We do need a sensible foreign policy. The best way to get there is to cooperate with other countries for the benefit of the United States and so using your terminology is “pro-America”.

Finally a word on true socialism, Socialism does not necessarily mean a Tyrannical government. Socialism is an economic structure that gives the people the power over the production of goods and services. It means the people who actually work the create something useful, for instance, cars benefit. It eliminates the investors.

Ryan said...

Thanks for the comment. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal, and that secure these Rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That when any government becomes destuctrive to these Ends, it is the Right, it is the Duty of the people to alter or to abolish such government..." Notice the "to these ends." How is Obama's policies simply securing our God-given Rights?

Obama can try to justify his tax policies all he wants, but they are again far from what our Founders intended.

Where is universal healthcare permitted in the Constitution?

Jerry said...

I would not even try to respond to anonymous because 1) just entirely too much instruction about history, politics, government, economics, and religion would be in order and it would take entirely too much time and effort and 2) he/she will not even give their name which may reveal something about the nature of their being here posting resposnes anyway.

Someone dissenting from your ideas is a good thing and can be quite educational for both sides of the debate, as both sides can learn from each other and start to form consensus, either on the one side, the other, or somewhere in between. However, it can also be a frustrating and time consuming thing.

As usual, good job Ryan.

Anonymous said...

Ryan,

Outstanding argument. Thank you for one of the best articulated and truthful posts I've read in this post-election quagmire thus far. I could not have said it better myself, and agree with your sentiments completely. Perhaps Obama will be the rude awakening America needs to shake the foundations back towards the original nation the founding fathers had in mind. Time will tell. God bless,

Kurt

Ryan said...

Thank you for the comments, Dad (Jerry) and Kurt!

author@ptgbook.org said...

God is the one who determines who our leaders will be. It may be that He is giving us a leader we deserve. We have a lot of sins in this country we need to repent of, and if we don't repent, we can expect trouble.

Ryan said...

True and good point.