Red Flag Warning: The Silent Slavery of the 21st Century

The Silent Slavery of the 21^st Century

M.R. Bradbury

  

            I am a Red* because I stand against slavery.  Just as the first Republican President stood four square against the insidiously life choking practice of human slavery in 1860, which brought on the U.S. civil war, today, millions of Americans join Lincoln in the unfinished fight against slavery in America. 

            I know. You are confused. Did not slavery end in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union victory with General Lee’s surrender to General Grant?  Moreover, did not the pseudo-slave practices leveled against the black man stopped in the 1960’s?  Are not civil rights for all?  Is there no slaves in America today? Are not these all true?

           

            Wrong. Thousands of citizens are permanently enslaved and continually sold into bondage every day. The results are just as insidious. Just as evil. Just as life destroying as the enforced slavery of black humans in our not so distant past.

            I am a Red because I stand against the silent slavery of abortion.

            Unfortunately, many millions of Americans believe the practice is just fine and dandy, to include the Democratic nominees for president and vice-president.  Additionally, it is morally bankrupt to privately disapprove of abortion of humans, while publicly supporting the practice of human slavery.  This is one of those deals you can not have both ways, especially when answering someday to the God of the Universe.

            Oh, you ask, what is the connection?  How can anyone be a slave by an act of abortion? What do you mean abortion being a form of slavery? How does abortion oppress a woman? Is not the woman just expressing her rights under the Constitution? The “discovered” right to privacy is a woman’s right, right?  Good questions, but the focus is on the wrong party. The slave is the aborted one.

            Slavery is the oppression of another individual who is powerless to fight back and win his or her equality over the oppressor.  I can hardly think of any less powerful individual than a weak, dependent, innocent living human soul in the womb of a woman bent on enslaving the human to her own selfish desires. The human life within the mother is in bondage. We now know everything a mother does can affect the very life of the human baby she carries. The mother can carry the human baby with care and love, taking all due diligence to ensure its well being, or the mother can abuse the human baby to the point where it is treated as just a non-entity, as property, and even ripped out from the mother just days before it could take a breath of air. 

            In the dark age of American slavery, that was the argument of southern slave owners. By God, they had the right to control their own destinies and property. No Yankee do-gooder from Washington was going to take their rights of property and self-determination away from them. Generally, those who bought into the slave system indeed were doing so to perpetuate a selfish way of life that produced wealth and abundance by the extraction of blood from black human flesh. The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott case of 1857 sealed the fate of millions of slaves, holding the black was not a citizen of the USA, but rather were just “…..articles of merchandise.”

            Recently the State of Kansas attempted to use the Dred Scott case in its filing of court documents supporting its anti-abortion legislation.  Of course the “pro-slavery” crowded browbeat the state into removing the case, but numerous articles have appeared supporting the logic of the former slavery case to abortion.  Lynn Wardle of CNS News wrote:

“Roe v. Wade is the 20th Century equivalent of Dred Scott v. Sanford – the infamous decision holding that slaves and their descendants were not and could not be “citizens” of any American state for purposes of the Constitution. Conceptually, the Roe abortion rule is like slavery; it de-humanizes and treats as chattel a whole class of humanity. As Dred Scott held that Blacks not persons entitled to constitutional protection, so Roe holds that unborn humans are not entitled to basic constitutional protection for their lives. As the Court in Dred Scott said that Black slaves are merely the property of their owners, so Roe said that an unborn human being is merely property belonging to her pregnant mother – which the woman can dispose of as she wishes. If, as Abraham Lincoln said at Coopers Union, the message of slavery is that a man is not a man if he is Black, the core message of Roe is that a human being is not a human being if she is in utero.”

            This argument was similar about the status of their human slaves as has been made about the human baby. They are just a blob of flesh. The unborn baby has no intelligence and produces no valuable output to society. To the southern white slaveholder, the ‘negro’ was nothing but property, a non-human, utilized until it had no economic life, and discarded as so much as unwanted garbage. The human life in the mother's womb is ".....articles of merchandise." More so as we've learned about the barbaric practice of selling of human organs from aborted unborn human babies. 

            To the modern slaveholder, the unborn human is no more than unwanted organic tissue, with the desire to remove and discard it. A human baby is an inconvenience. For many women, a unborn human is a product of the accidental convergence of a human egg and sperm cell.  It is an annoyance to the woman carrying it in her womb.  It presents a roadblock to good times, wealth, and abundance. Most of all it is her right to enslave. The big court said it was okay.  How could that be wrong?

            It is wrong because all forms of slavery are immoral. There is more to this form of modern day slavery insidiously waiting beyond the horizon. It is the increasing danger of enslavement by others in different ways.

            With the permissiveness allowed to enslave one group of humans comes the pressure to allow enslavement of other less powerful groups. Because we argue that one group of humans are somehow, of less value there may be other groups who represent even less value to society and likewise should be made slaves. Who might that be?

§  Senior Citizens older than 65;

§  Quadriplegic and accident disabled;

§  Mentally deficient humans of all ages;

§  Criminals of any age and regardless of crime;

§  Fat people;

§  Gays;

§  Jews;

§  Well…we know who needs taking down a peg…Reds…They are stupid and dumber than a urinal.

In July of 1854, Abraham Lincoln made an interesting mental argument in his personal writings:

“If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. – why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?-You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker?  Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly?-You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them?  Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.
            But, you say, it is a question of interest; and if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.” (Angle and Mires, p.156)

            Lincoln’s point is well made.  In every regard we cannot hold ourselves any higher in esteem than any other human, lest we ourselves discover someone else views us as worms in the dirt, and thereby enslaved. Even clearer is the idea with our interest in enslavement, others may arise who equally have an interest in enslaving us. Doing so, conclusively, of right, enslave.

            The woman who stands on her right to enslave her unborn child, for whatever reason, has devalued human life for all. And as being Lincoln’s Party A, might one day in her late 70’s find herself looking up a bright young doctor with a needle in his hand, ready to enslave her for a long time as Party B.

            The list of potential slaves in a crowded and increasingly hostile world could be quite long. If discarding an unborn human is no big deal, then why not a grown humans deemed worthless. Indeed, one dictatorial demagogue was nearly successful in silently solving his Jewish problem using the very same logic as the white slave holder and the modern abortion rights advocate. Worthless, sub/non-humans, were not worthy of breath. Therefore, he gassed a few million Jews. Doing it, conclusively, by right, and approved by a silent citizenry.

            And the silent slavery going on in the abortion clinics of America is not only enslaving the innocent human soul in the womb, but generating an economic enslavement that will doom America to third rate status within the next two or three generations.

            How you ask? Do the math and look at history. Since 1972 the reintroduction of slavery by the infamous Supreme Court decision, Roe Vs Wade, the total number of slaves between 1973 to 2011 was 53 million (www.guttmacher.org). Thus on average 1.4 million humans were enslaved by abortion.  A record of accomplishment we all can be proud of, eh?

            Now let us assume for the sake of my poor public education math skills the slaves were free at birth, expected to become wholesome citizens, and begin to earn incomes at age 18. Thus in 1991, the first 1.4 million slaves (placed into bondage in 1973), had they been free, would have become producing citizens.  For the sake of argument, let us assume most earned minimum wage, maybe making on average $12,000 a year.

So, 1,400,000 X 12,000 = $16,800,000,000.00

That is as single year loss of $16.8 BILLION in potential economic input for the American GPD just in the first year. What is the fiscal impact from slavery of this first cohort?

$16.8B X 43 years = $638.4 Billion.  

In simple math, the lost gross economic income comes to a staggering $638.4 billion over 43 years. But if you stop to consider those entering the workforce in 1990 should be hauling down an increased average of $30,000 by 2016 and you add in the compounding factor of interest, the economic losses related to modern abortionist slavery is potentially in the TRILLIONS! Again, just for the first year slave cohort.  Consider the other 37 years of abortion slavery!

I’m sure, by now, every economist and statistician worth their 2 Sample t-Test is running around yelling these numbers are bogus and certainly don’t represent what is actually happening as a result of the silent slavery. They would be right.  Some of the freed slaves would have died; some would be welfare cheats and be sucking off the public dole. Some would not invest their money in Wall Street. Others still would have run off to France and be flipping the bird at America. But some would be hugely successful like Mark Zuckerberg, born in 1984.   However, even if I am wrong by half, that is still a huge, gigantic, hole in the American and world economic system.

Then let us look at another American demographic occurring simultaneously with silent slavery. Think two words: Baby Boom. The rising tsunami that is heading on-shore is about the rip the financial moorings right out from under America. A huge wave of senior citizens is rushing to retirement will suck the life out of American workers of the next generation. Already for each retiree on Social Security it takes 3.5 full time workers to meet the current demand of Social Security retirees.  In just a few years according to GAO accountants, that number will have to be 5, then 6, then 7 and more. As the wave of baby boomers reach the magic age of 65 and demand their rightful Social Security and Medicare,  the burden of paying into the system will become a living hell for our children and grandchildren.  A payroll tax on middle class Americans of upward of 50% of gross income is just a conservative estimate.

So combine the baby boom tsunami with silent slavery and you have the ideal mix for an economic meltdown unlike ever seen in the world. Alternatively, some drastic change in what is found acceptable will be required. In other words, new forms of slavery.  Just take out a few worthless old geezers on the top end. Anyone care for some “Soylent Green”?

Some will doubt this pessimistic view. You can, they say, have your cake and eat it too. I think not. History is on my side.

In the early part of the 20^th century, the nation of France suffered under a horrible war, where the pride and flower of not just one but two generations were snuffed out in the trenches of World War I.  The loss of human life, both military and civilian, to the French nation was staggering. The bloody tally was 2.5 million French citizens no longer available to participate in their nation’s victory. A short time later, comparatively, an equally devastating second conflict swarmed over France, again resulting in the loss of millions of French youth and seniors.

 In the space of less than 40 years the once proud nation of France was laid waste and their most productive asset, its people, were gone. Just the loss of those few million souls was enough to relegate France to a second rate world power. Unable to protect their own national security interests their world influence dwindled to just a flicker of its former self. While today they flex a some muscle in the European Union, France is still anemic and weak.  No nation can lose the cream of its citizenry and do well in the end. By the way, the same held true to the Russians and Chinese. 

This enslavement practice has other impacts as well. In business, this is known as “Opportunity Loss”.  America is experiencing a WWI and WWII every year.  Currently, 2014, nine hundred eighty three thousand (980,000) humans became slaves. That is nearly 2,700 humans become slaves every day. Every life enslaved represents an enormous economic loss as well as a catastrophic brain drain. Out of 53 million enslavements since 1973, one can only wonder what might have been. Was an aborted human life destined to find the cure for aids? Maybe the human life would have invented anti-matter propellant. Perhaps the aborted human would have solved the question of why cataracts grow and blind millions in third world nations. Alternatively, maybe the slave human would have been the future inventor of interstellar human transport.  The opportunities and possibilities lost are the most damning aspect of the entire immoral abortion concept. 

The practice is completely preventable. Stop the slave trade. The Red’s dream is of emancipation of the unborn child, as well as, cherishing the life of every human. Red’s know America’s moral and economic future is with the choice of life.  Anything else is national suicide.

           

*Author’s note:  Originally written in 2004 as part of a set of essays entitled, Better Red Than Dead, explaining why he was a “Red” which is the common identity of those of the right or conservative political persuasion.  Those of the left or liberal/socialist political spectrum are Blues.  The essay was updated 2016 to include newer data and to further explore modern slavery concepts.
 

References

Angle, P. M. and Miers, E.S. (1992). The Living Lincoln: The man and his times, in his own words. Barnes and Noble Books. New York, NY.

Wardle, L. (January 23, 2015).   Roe v. Wade Is the Twentieth Century Equivalent of Dred Scott Case. Retrieved from: http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/lynn-wardle/roe-v-wade-twentieth-century-equivalent-dred-scott-case

www.guttmacher.org

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

Red Flag Warning: Response to Laura C Keeling’s poster about Jesus’ return

Some thoughts in response to Laura C. Keeling's Poster about Jesus' return show below.

General consideration. Typical straw man argument designed to generate a feeling of guilt by Christians.  All Christians eagerly await the return of Christ, but because all Christians hate brown-skinned, non-English speaking, Middle Eastern immigrants, all Christians thwarted Jesus’ return out of His fear of being crucified again by all of His followers.  The unthinking reader is to click ‘Like’ in agreement. Kind of like a universal public confession of sin. Painless and totally meaningless.

Hogwash. Here’s why Keeling’s missive is wrong:

1)   The moral condition of Jesus’ followers has no bearing on the second coming of Christ.  When the Father says it time, it will be done. Period.

2)   Having all followers of Jesus being sinless is not one of the prerequisites to his return.  Actually it’s impossible: For all have sinned. For all will sin. For all will keep right on sinning until the time of Jesus’ return.

3)   God does not change His mind.  Only on one occasion did God do an about face. This was in Exodus, when God decided to blot out the Jew due to their unbelief and start anew with Moses as his model. Moses begged God not to do so, and God relented from His wrath.

4)   God has made it quite plain that He hates those that worship a false god and idols. The Christian and Jewish God is not the same as the god of Islam.  As study of the Islamic god, Allah, would reveal this god has few of the character traits of God of the Bible.  Given that 99% of brown-skinned, non- English speaking, Middle Eastern Immigrants worship in the cult known as Islam to the extreme whereby the slightest negative word regarding their ‘prophet’ results in rioting and beheadings, no doubt God would hate this practice. He would love the people, but abhor their sin.

5)   Jesus was not crucified because of the color of His skin or inability to speak the common tongue of his day.  Those of His own ethnicity crucified him because His theology was radically different than the accepted view at the time. While radical, it still met every test of what it means to be a follower of the God of Abraham, Issac, Moses, David, Solomon, right down to Jesus himself.

6)   Hate is not necessarily a sin. It is how one hates and the action taken therein that may make it sinful.  From the NASB Exhaustive Concordance there are 93 instances of the use of the word “hate” within the Bible. Many of them are things that God specifically “hates”, therefore in general to hate something is not automatically a disqualifier for Jesus’ return, nor for His acceptance of a believer.

7)   Most followers of Jesus do not ‘hate’ brown-skinned, non-English speaking, and Middle Eastern immigrants. What they do ‘hate’ are the actions perpetrated by some brown-skinned, non-English speaking, Middle Eastern immigrants.  Further Christians should hate actions by any ethnic or nationality behaving savagely.  Christians should ‘hate’:

§  Peoples who perpetuate their religion or political theology at the point of a gun, who say, “convert or die”.

§  Peoples who persecute those who align with different views of religion and/or political thought.

§  Peoples who imprison in mass based on race, ethnicity, or political view.

§  Peoples who denigrate women and treat them as chattel.

§  Peoples who organize flash mobs for the purpose of sexually assaulting women.

§  Peoples who physically or sexually assault children.

§  Peoples who deny basic human rights to others different than themselves.

§  Peoples who standby while the above actions and others are perpetrated in the name of their religion or political belief.

§  Peoples whose barbarity is far beyond the pale of acceptable civilized behavior within the community of nations.

8)   Christians who hate these behaviors should use the Gospel of Jesus Christ to turn those who are willing away from such practices and embrace a theology more inline with the character of God the Father as revealed through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Non-religionist can do likewise in adhering to the golden rule of treating all with respect just as they desire respect.

We are doomed to the future of our pasts and equally our future will become our past, until the Lord of time comes, when He shall make all time new.

Red Flag Warning: I was Wrong.

I was Wrong.

During the presidential election of 2012 the Watchman wrote a blog entry entitled What I see in Mitt that I don't see in Barack (10.19.12). It featured an assessment of the two men running for the highest elected office of our nation and the leader position that is the most powerful one in the world.  I wrote about those aspects of the two men, Mitt Romney and current President Obama, comparing their qualifications and most importantly a judgment as to their fitness for the presidency. My conclusion:

"Lastly, but not completely as I keep finding more about Romney that I admire and less from Obama, I see Romney as a man of faith.  I am not a Mormon, but I am aware of their disciplined lives and their single-minded faith that God is God of the universe and we all must await His judgment. I see Mitt as a humble man before his God. I don’t see that at all in Barack."

However, I was totally wrong. Way off base. As it turned out, with President Obama holding on to his office,  Mr. Romney whom I regarded the better candidate, retired from the field of campaign battle, defeated and slunk back into the shadows of life.  I felt then and recognize today Mr. Romney was the better man for the job, yet he lost.  As the Eagles so eloquently sang, "Get over it".

Yet I can not do so, as my words back then come back to haunt me. I had concluded President Obama did not have, nor display the high character required of a national leader set on the world stage.  That aspect of the conclusion was spot on.  Since January 2013, he has continued to lead at the lowest possible level of acceptance by any modern measure. Where I was wrong in my assessment was the degree of his lack of character. Off by an order or so of magnitude!

The negative evaluation of his lack of character can be summed up in his response to the death of Justice Scalia. His avoidance of the Justice's funeral expresses the callowness of his moral values. It places on display for the entire world just how vacuous his inner core values. Petty and shallow. His absence transcends the death of the Justice, when we should rightly honor the man's service with focused attention on his record, instead, just like a immature child who stamps their feet to get attention, the issue becomes about the absent President.

His action, sets in concrete the certainty his legacy of disdaining basic values of our nation. To honor those who serve, even though one might not agree with their position or opinions. But this is not the first sign of the President's disrespect for American values.  His abuse of the executive order process is a finger in your eye approach to governance. Instead of working with the congress to achieve his goals, he appears to enjoy issuing edicts to circumvent the laws of our nation.  His unilateral recognition of Cuba and renewal of relations with the unrepetant communist nation is a thumb of the nose to American policy and former Presidential leaders who stood for freedom and liberty.  The President's big announcement the United States will take in so called 'refugee' from the Middle East without at least discussing the action with congressional leaders displays his contempt for that body as well as for the States that will be burdened to execute the care and settlement of the refugees. Adding to these examples, we observe a President who enjoys the game of racial division, class warfare, and disrespect for those who serve in law enforcement.  And then there is his fantasy last budget, filled with big promises of wads of cash for his pet projects, most of whom have spectacularly failed in previous efforts, but did enrich his supporters, and adds still more mountains of debt upon the $19T our nation owes to others. A man of character would not demonstrate such attitudes or promote with fanfare his low class actions.

So with realization of error, should we not all examine our decision on electing such a flawed individual and vow not to do so again?  Think before you vote.

The Watchman

RED FLAG WARNING: Assessment and Predictions

Assessment and Predictions
M.R. Bradbury, The Watchman

It is the end of the first fifteen years of the new millennium.  The human condition remains about the same as when the clock ticked past twelve those fifteen years ago. We still have widespread poverty, hunger, greed, corruption, barbarity, and hate.  At the turn of the century there was hope that maybe, maybe, we’d passed into a new age. One that would usher in a global community where one man respected another and all would rise to meet the challenges confronting our world.  Alas, perhaps, it was but a misbegotten dream, a folly of hope, and blind ambivalence to the true dark nature that mankind still harbored deep within the realms of his soul.

I remember the night of Y2K.  My daughter and her husband came to our house in case the feared meltdown of the PC world actually came about.  We all stood outside and having previously procured some fine cigars and bourbon, we proceeded to watch the sky come alive with fireworks and the sounds of many pans being beaten with metal spoons as the time approached.  When the clock on the TV banged out the countdown we held our breath, clutched our drinks, and steeled ourselves for the TV to go black.  But nothing happened. The TV still blared out the Auld Lang Syne as always.  Relieved that we were not relegated to the 1800’s, we toasted the New Year and New Century.   Then we noticed the old dead pine tree in the yard behind our house had caught fire from fireworks.   Such a great metaphor for the next dozen or so years hence, the old burned away with nothing to replace it with.

I share that story in light that life and love continues onward for each individual and despite the ways and waves of the world, we tend to live as we always have depending on our own efforts at survival.  Looking at the past year with that perspective, not much really has happened to affect how most humans live out their daily lives.  This is very true for Americans.  We have continued in 2015 to rack up every higher amounts of material stuff, that we use occasionally, but not necessary for our survival.  The amount of waste still being generated by the average North American household, including from those of the so-called environmentally aware, is staggering.  Our, myself included, rate of consumption of every possible natural resource from Al to Zn and every compound imaginable can only be seen as catastrophic for the long term sustainability of Earth and our existence. 

In 2015 humans continued to kill one another.  And be not mistaken, it is not the guns, bombs, knives, clubs or whatever tool used that is the cause of these deaths, but the true source of motive remains the angry hearts of the Cains against the Ables.   Boiled down it still comes to the basic premise that came between two brothers; hatred generated by greed, envy, jealousy, and the need to be honored over another.  In this past year we have seen one Islamic group rise to commit horror upon horror, all in the name of their god, sadly expending their resources and energies in a level of barbaric savagery not witnessed since Nazis gassed and burned Jews or the rape of Nanking.  And in so doing, not one bit of improvement in the lives of their own people have occurred, still living in mud huts with poor sanitation and hunger lurking just at the doorway.  The community of free nations with the power to stop the savagery has done little to nothing.  And like a metastasized cancer, this barbarity is spreading abroad in other Muslim nations, where the Muslim majority hide fearfully in their homes while the beasts run wild to destroy and extort fealty to their illegitimate cause.   The civilized world ignores this plague to their peril. 

The year of 2015 also brought into focus the tyranny of thought.  Who would believe in a nation wrought from a revolution that resulted in the most free society in world history would have children begot who disavow the liberties that so many have died to protect?  The rise of ‘safe places’ within institutions of “higher learning”, where unpleasant thoughts can be filtered out and no one must critically think about contradictory theory from their own held misconceived ideas, is a display ignorance, superstition, and bears resemblance to the dark middle ages of Europe where true progressive thought was crushed by petty tyrants only desiring to protect their personal fiefdoms.  The irony of the ‘safe place’, totally missed by those who clamor for such protections, is there is no safe place. None. Zip. Nada.  The minute one exits the ‘safe place’ they will be bombarded with civilization’s crushing realities brought on by the intolerance of human against human.  And those who champion the ‘safe place’ where they segregate from the mainstream of society, only further isolate themselves from reality and thus limit their ability to affect the very change they desire.  The word engagement is lost on this generation. The new word is withdrawal. They are abandoning the quest for change and hermit like hiding away in a filtered, digital game unreality.  Such leads those with corrupt hearts left unchallenged to grow as tyrants.

Lastly, but not necessarily in any greater importance than the others listed above nor those not commented upon, we saw in 2015 the continued practice of infanticide through the abortion of human children.  Planned Parenthood alone proudly proclaimed to have murdered 323,999 infants. How honored they must feel at such a ghoulish feat.  We have in effect conducted a WWI each year since 1972 with the same economic and cultural impact that the war had on all nations involved at that time.  It is pretty safe to conclude given such on going rate, we, and those nations that practice abortion, will never economically recover nor ever gain the moral greatness they once experienced. 

In 2015 the climate change acceptors rallied to foist off their doomsday predictions of a 1.7 degree C (3.06^o F) (1) increase in global temperatures in 120 years from now.  Their view is nothing less than the catastrophic end of all living life on the planet should this increase come to pass.  The hysteria was ratcheted up to a foaming frenzy at the big Paris enclave of climate change worshipers.  The result was another, yet another, agreement that could not be seen for all the smoke and mirrors that reflected a big fat nothing.  The real message was from those who have to those who have not, and in the end greenhouse gases will continue to pour forth every bit as much as it has from day three.  The truly tragic aspect of this wasteful attack on the windmills of climate change is missing those environmental disasters that are here now and must be address since anyone of them could result in far greater destruction occurring before we reach 2136. Things like ocean pollution where trash islands as large as Texas float about diminishing the life giving UV light critical to plankton, the keystone source of food for all sea life; Water sanitation throughout the world; Elimination of disease bearing insects; Soil fertility to improve crop production; Cures and antidotes for HIV and a host of other terrifying human diseases. These and others are far greater threats now, today, to humanity than a slight temperature rise far into the future.  If these current challenges are not resolved now, there may well be no one around in 2136 to read the thermometer.

So what holds for 2016’s for citizens of the Earth?  Tragically, humanity will experience more of the same we’ve seen in 2015. We will still see brother against brother, nation against nation, and one civilization against others.  Instant communication will continue to stir the caldron of fear and envy, pitting humans against one another.  Instability in economic, politics, religion, scientific, and cultural affairs is rising globally.  It is as if the tinder is dried and primed for the spark to ignite an all consuming fire, sweeping the good along with the bad and only after it has raged to a smoldering remnant will we know peace once again.

For us in America, regardless of who wins or loses in the great presidential race, not much will change in our daily lives. Birth, taxes, and death will continue to be the order of life, with material accumulation and consumption dominating the years in between birth and death.

We no doubt will redouble our efforts to watch what we say lest some sensitive being is offended and we are ‘outed’ as some kind of disgusting dirty thing to be banished from society.  Feeding at the federal, state, and local trough will continue, unabated, with treats and freebies doled out to whomever is the winning side.  Americans will continue to squander its inheritance with nary a thought to tomorrow or even the next generation.  The multitude of special interests will selfishly fight for their slice with accusations and recriminations, growing more discordant, radical, ugly, and coarse with each volley.   We will find the perennial victim classes continue their efforts at dragging down all to their sniveling level, denying those who can critically think and therefore flourish remain well within the clan, daring not to go against the victim tide, lest they too be “outed” or ‘Tom’d”.

We will at a year from now still be scurrying about like frantic ants trying to buy, buy, buy, buy, and buy more and more and more.  All because we’ve become so big, so massive, so gargantuan of an all-consuming hive of sloth, addicted to the next technical gizmo that sucks down resources like a black hole.  Will anyone stop in the middle of the world's largest outdoor store and scream out, ‘When will it stop?”

Well it will. Just like a baseball that is thrown hard will speed toward its target until inertia fails against the pull of gravity and it hits the ground, so will our human systems ultimately crash.  Reality has this nasty habit of occasionally rearing its ugly head and crushing the dreamers and apathetic.  Since we continue to fail to learn the lessons of the past, not only are we doomed to repeat them, but with each cycle the process become more horrific, with outcomes that numb the human conscious. In 2016 we stand just at the very near edge of something like this occurring. The stars and planets seem to be aligning in such away that the history we have wanted to avoid repeating is about to dump us into the next do-loop. We will be sucked into the great abyss with the rest of the global community, to slosh around in the blood and gore until we too are spent.  Those that survive will say, ‘Never again’, as once was said in decades past, only to do so again and again.

However, there is one outlier that could change everything.  There does remain some reason to hope the future predicted will not come to pass, at least not yet.  Hope remains in Christ Jesus.  Despite the trials and travails being born by Christians around the globe, even in the face of on-going persecution there is light in the darkness.   It is the light of the faithful to pray and obey.  The prayers of the righteous avail much and so by the millions we pray for the staying of the hand of evil by the power of God.  We obey his call to pray unceasing for the least sheep of the pasture who are hungry, cold, unprotected, and wounded. We can pray for the peace of God to come upon those misled into evil, to sooth their savage souls and to turn their energies toward aiding their fellow citizens.  We can pray the eyes of those who are blinded by their ignorance and selfishness will see the light of what is right and true, then make their decisions based on righteousness.  And Christians must pray for courage to stand and be known for who we are, sinners saved by grace and blessed to share the good news of Christ’s offer of salvation, honored to help restore the greatness of our people, and by our action lead them from repression, through redemption, and to restoration. 

Unto The King!

(1) https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html