What Have I Done?

Over the years I’ve grown to respect many folks who don’t share my political or religious leanings; the expressions, exchange of thoughts and emotions are what make life interesting. I’d rather engage in conversation with someone who strongly disagrees with my point of view than with some milk toast fence sitter too afraid to have an opinion; what a waste of time.

That having been said, the last scene from The Bridge on the River Kwai comes to mind as I hear some of my friends defend or even jump on the band wagon, the progressive band wagon which is destroying America. Alec Guinness, more accurately his character, is standing below the bridge, that magnificent structure which could not have been accomplished without his help. He senses something is wrong, something which might interfere with the “grand opening” of “his bridge”. Over night the level of the river had gone down and, after having followed the exposed detonation wire, he takes his hat off as the reality of the situation hits him, “What have I done?”, a realization that all his efforts, altruistic as they were, have been aiding the enemy.

Unfortunately for us here in reality, falling on the detonator to blow up the bridge will not make the huge debt which has already been accrued go away. The admission that we might have made a slight error in calculating unemployment figures, a slight error in the overall effect of multi-trillion dollar deficit spending, a slight error in calculating the effects of Cap and Trade and the negative effect that will kill off incentive to grow the economy, the quality of health care once nationalized health care destroys private sector insurance along with government managed and rationed medical treatment go into effect; all these progressive alterations from the Founder's concepts for freedoms and individual liberties will be of no avail.

“But the sun is still shining…” as if the steadily eroding cliff we are standing upon will continue to support us forever. The solid ground of our foundation is cracking even as I write, “But the sun is still shining”. The sun was still shining while Noah built the ark, as the rains fell, Noah built the ark; even as the ark began to float there must have been some clinging to the idea that not too long ago the sun was shining. The damage will be so enormous as to place an entire nation into servitude, debtor’s prison if you will, to nations which are not our friends and in fact are our enemies.

Here’s the short clip from the movie which presents the idea I wish to generate, “What have we done to America, to freedom and God given individual rights. All we wanted to do was to help our fellow man and instead; we’ve shackled them with trillions of dollars in debt, have we made them permanent slaves? My God, what have we done?” (Apologies in advance for the required advertisement which precedes the movie clip.)

The concerns I have for America’s future have me more than a little unsettled as I watch what I consider ruinous if not traitorous leadership from both sides of the political spectrum figure out ways to spend taxpayer’s funds at break neck speed as if there were a bottomless pit from which to gather such funding. We don’t have the money! Stop spending money we don’t have under the delusion that it will miraculously manifest itself at some future date.

Many of my political beliefs are tied in directly with my religious beliefs; imagine that. The Plan of Salvation , the Plan of Happiness, call it what you will, “…is the fulness of the gospel. It includes the Creation, the Fall, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and all the laws, ordinances, and doctrines of the gospel. Moral agency, the ability to choose and act for ourselves, is also essential in Heavenly Father's plan. Because of this plan, we can be perfected through the Atonement, receive a fulness of joy, and live forever in the presence of God. Our family relationships can last throughout the eternities.”

Included in the American foundations of life, a fundamental building block for all the rights granted unto men is the idea of Agency, the ability to choose and act for ourselves. Agency, individual choice is part of our founding documents, from the Declaration of Independence on through the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This is what America is, a defined principle of the individual human as the most important part of society, not the society which governs the individual; and yet, as we are finding out, government has found a way to grow to a point where the individual with all his God given agency would seem almost an insignificant obstacle in the way of progress.

If we do not put a stop to the entitlement mentality, the idea that we can have something for nothing or that we can provide everything to everyone without having to pay for it then our experiment in self government will come to a screeching halt. I keep hearing how we will get all this money from the rich, those evil rich. Is this the America you want to live in, a place where you have to steal from your neighbor, take that which your neighbor earned through the use of his intelligence and hard work? Is this the land of promise that God saved for the righteous or is this the coming around of the prosperity cycle, that part where we have drunk ourselves into a stupor and deserve the bitter bonds which must accompany such riotous living?