SiriusCoffee

The Situation:
An elderly widow woman named Mrs. Tree lives up the street. She's had some health issues recently, and has been unable to maintain her yard. The grass is now over a foot long, and it's looking rather shabby.

Now, in a rather simplistic style, I will attempt to illustrate how various types of government will deal with this issue.


Scenario 1:
While driving down my street, I notice how bad Mrs. Tree's lawn is looking. Knowing her situation, and wanting to find some way to assist her, I grab my lawn mower, string trimmer, and rake, and head on over. An hour later, her lawn looking much better, Mrs. Tree thanks me profusely and I feel very good that I was able to help her out.

Acting without coercion from anyone by following the dictates of your own conscience is called Individualism.

Scenario 2:
I find out that, while I was at work, Mrs. Tree's recalcitrant son Jimmy broke into my house and stole $40. Apparently he paid $10 to Carl - who lives up the street - to mow his mother's lawn, then bought drugs with the rest of the money. Carl, the only witness to the event, chose to deny seeing anything when asked by the police.
Using the ends to justify the means, even if the goal is noble, is called Anarchy.

Scenario 3:
I'm sitting in my living room and hear a loud commotion outside. I open the front door to find a group of my neighbors standing there. One of them speaks up: "Hey, we all got together and decided that since you seem to have so much money, you can afford to have Mrs. Tree's lawn maintained. Give us $40." I figure if I don't comply they will make my life miserable, so I pull out my wallet and hand them a $50 bill, since that's all I have. They take the money and leave. The mob pays Carl $5 to mow Mrs. Tree's yard, and when he complains, they tell him that he's lucky to get that much. Nobody's quite sure what happened to the rest of the money.

The tyranny by a mob of people is called Democracy.

Scenario 4:
I'm sitting in my living room and hear a knock at the front door. I open the door to find a woman and a police officer standing there. The woman introduces herself as Karla, and says, "I have been appointed as the representative by your neighbors, who have decided that you need to voluntarily give $40 to the 'Support Neighborhood Yard Care' initiative." When I explain that I have no interest in volunteering any such money, the police office speaks up, saying, "If you do not hand over the $40 immediately, I shall be forced to arrest you, and you will also pay severe penalties."
Having no choice, I hand my $50 bill to the "neighborhood representative", who then tells me I'll get the $10 in change back via mailed check in 6 to 8 weeks.
The "neighborhood representative" pays $10 to Carl to mow Mrs. Tree's yard, and keeps the other $30 to cover administrative overhead. The $10 refund check gets lost in the mail.

Forcing people to pay for something they neither want or need is called Socialism.

Scenario 5:
I'm sitting in my living room and hear my garage door open. I quickly run down the stairs to the garage, where I find Carl rolling my lawn mower out the door. I ask him what he's doing, and he responds, "I was just up at the Worker Security office, and someone named Karla gave me $10 and told me that Mrs. Tree's lawn needed mowing. I told them I didn't have a mower, and they suggested I appropriate one. Knowing you were not using this one, I figured I'd use it." He then proceeds down the street with the mower.
Worried and frustrated, I wait several hours for the return of my mower. Finally losing all patience, I head off to Mrs. Tree's house.
I find my mower, abandoned and out of fuel, on Mrs. Tree's half-mowed lawn.

Appropriating others' means of production for the good of the community is called Communism.

Scenario 6:
I'm sitting in my living room and hear a loud commotion outside. I open the front door to find a group of my neighbors standing there. One of them speaks up: "Hey, we all got together and decided that, since you seem to have so much money, you can afford to have Mrs. Tree's lawn maintained. Give us $40." I reply, "I didn't agree to that, so go find your money somewhere else." They then start threatening me with bodily harm if I don't cooperate. In fear for my life, I begin to reach for my gun when a police office drives up. The police officer addresses the mob, saying, "You people are trespassing on this man's private property and disturbing the peace. You have no right to demand money from this man. If you don't disperse immediately, I shall be forced to arrest you."
The mob, under threat of punishment, soon disperses.

Protecting your rights with the backing of codified law is called Republicanism.

A good friend of ours – guest writer Lord Addison West – shares a legend that’s been passed down through his family. “The origin is unknown,” he tells us, “but its veracity cannot be disputed.”

“An economics professor said he had never flunked a student before but had, once, failed an entire class,” the legend begins. “That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.”

“The professor then said ‘ok’, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.”

“After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second test average was a D!”

“No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.”

“The scores never increased as bickering, blame, and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.”
“There are three caveats on the road to socialism:
1) The quality of all products and services will regress to the mean - no more good, better or best.
2) Eventually, you will run out of "other people's money."
3) Once you go over, it is impossible to come back."
“The more a government spends, the bigger it gets. The bigger it gets, the more people employed in the public sector. The bigger the public sector, the greater the percentage of voters who will vote to protect their government jobs, i.e., bigger and bigger government.”

It’s often poetic when such a simple principle defies the understanding of some of the world’s most complicated people.

from:

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(A letter from Pastor Chris Bayer 0f Church On the Rock, Gig Harbor, WA)

Subject: Special Note from Mongolia

Darkhan, Mongolia - November 4, 2008 - 10:30 AM
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Greetings from the church in Mongolia. They are praying for you and thankful that you would allow me to come and teach them about the Holy Spirit.

I'm writing from the future (15 hours ahead) and I wish I could tell you how the election is going but we're all going to have to find out together. I wanted to take a moment and share how the Mongolias view our election.

When I arrived last Tuesday almost immediately the people began asking me about our election and who I thought would win. I told them it was too close to call and then they wanted to know who I was voting for. For the sake of this email I won't get into that but they were especially interested in Barack Obama. They could not figure out why America would be interested in such a man.

(Before I continue let me make this clear. They were asking me, I didn't bring it up. They weren't responding to anything I said because I didn't say anything. They were responding from their own studies and reading and what they were hearing in the press.)

This really interested me. As they spoke I could tell they had keen insight into his ideology, philosophy, background, education, and proposals. And they all had the same question for me: "Do Americans not understand communism?"

Americans are repulsed when anyone suggests a major American candidate could have communist ideology. Mongolians, on the other hand, have lived for decades under communist rule. They know what it looks like, sounds like and how it is implemented. Thus, as they study Obama the question they have is: "Do Americans not understand communism?"

I asked what they meant and the leaders had quick answers. I won't take time to get into all they said but they were concerned about Obama's tax and redistribution policies. They worried about his plans for a national civilian police force and his underlying anger when anyone challenges his policies. They were very concerned about the chilling effect his people have on those who speak out against his policies. They are shocked by the virtual worship they see in people's eyes when they are around him. They have seen how his lawyers put pressure on television and radio stations to stop playing advertisements that he doesn't like and it reminds them of past communist strong arm tactics. They all wonder if Americans are simply blind to what's happening right before our eyes. These are not my personal feelings; this is what the leaders here are telling me.

The leaders wanted to know if Americans have gone so far away from the original intent of our leaders Founding Fathers that we are making a conscious decision to accept communism. (Most of you will be irritated with the word communism so let's use the word socialism.) They wanted to know if we are making an informed decision to accept socialism.

I told them that many Americans, especially the young people in colleges and universities, have been slowly indoctrinated in socialist ideology and have no idea what the Founding Fathers taught because our history books have been sanitized of their original principles of freedom. What amazes them is that in Mongolia, the children study the teachings of our Founding Fathers and look at America as the champion of personal freedom. They are concerned that if we are seriously thinking of electing Obama we seem not to know what the principles of freedom are anymore.

I asked them who they were hoping America would elect and they said John McCain. They said he had wisdom and experience. They said they felt he would defend America from its enemies and continue to defend weak nations from communism and tyranny. They also felt he would hold to the Founding Fathers ideology and wouldn't restrict American's freedom of speech. And they also felt that McCain would be a friend to Christians. (This is how the Mongolians see John McCain. I am not adding my personal thoughts.)

I thought you might enjoy hearing their thoughts.

As you prepare to vote I encourage you to vote for the candidate that best represents your desires for the future of our nation. Please exercise the right to vote that was paid for in blood, the right to a peaceful transfer of power every four years.

This is the first time I can remember that I will be on foreign soil to witness our election. I will let you know how the people in Mongolia respond to what happens in our great nation. I'm certain they will have plenty to say.

However you vote, may God bless each one of you and may God bless the United States of America.
Love in Him,
Pastor Chris

Recently a business acquaintance of mine achieved what millions of people are striving for – his U.S. Citizenship. One thing he has in common with this massive potential voting block of both legal and illegal immigrants is that he will be voting Democrat this election. Coming from Great Britain, he has a very Euro-centric viewpoint about the role the United States government should play in society. While he labels himself a fiscal conservative and social liberal, he fails to see how tightly fiscal and social policies are intertwined. Nor does he have a historical perspective to understand the vision of the Founding Fathers, and how much liberal social engineering has perverted that vision since FDR’s Great Society was inaugurated. He bemoans the growing disparity between the haves and the have-not’s, but looks to government to right the problems they created in the first place.

Mona Charen, in her article Top Ten Reasons to Vote for McCain/Palin, summarizes some of the negative consequences of an Obama presidency:

If Barack Obama is elected president and Democrats control large majorities in the House and Senate, the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate will move the country decisively in the direction of dying Europe — low productivity, high joblessness, low birth rates, high taxes, and limp foreign policies. The triumvirate will do this at a time when a vibrant America is more necessary than ever — with Iran seeking nuclear weapons, Pakistan teetering, al-Qaeda regrouping, China and Russia telegraphing hostility, and Iraq just barely emerging into the sunshine. This election has become about far more than John McCain versus Barack Obama; it has become about whether the United States will remain the champion of freedom — economic and political — or whether we will join the queue of formerly great nations now struggling to pay for all the social welfare “benefits” their aging and lazy populations demand.

Indeed, the benefits realized by my Euro-centric acquaintance in desiring to obtain his citizenship are readily apparent when compared with what he left behind in the UK. What he, and those “huddled masses” of potential voters don’t realize, is that when they seek to establish their failing foreign cultures here in the U.S., they unwittingly undermine the very structure that drew them here in the first place.