Here were are, friends, in 2011 with the 112th Congress. Thankfully, two of the most disgusting words in recent years will begin to fade away: Speaker Pelosi. But is it all wine and roses now? Not by a long shot. Oh, to be sure, we have a number, albeit small, of freshman in the House of Representatives who carry the mantle of the TEA Party movement. There are, however, two strikes against them. First, they’re freshman. This means that while they may be the darlings of those of us who are true conservatives and want to turn down—way down—the squelch on government, they are the lowest of the low in seniority and, therefore, power. Second, they are the minority within the majority in the House and the minority within the minority in the Senate. You can paint it however you like, but the undeniable fact is that most of the Republicans who remained in power are part of the Old Guard, the elitists who got into power, got fat and lazy with the power and have simply become Democrat-Lite. They are the ones responsible for pretending not to care about the TEA Party movement and candidates, at best, or actively strove to hobble their efforts, at worst. As far as I’m concerned, they are more deplorable than a bald-faced progressive.
Having said all that, here are my thoughts on the Congress, old and new. A theme that constantly comes up with the President and the Democrats, as well as with MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and all the rest of the lamestream media, is “look at all the progress in the last two years, look at all the accomplishments!” Well, I do NOT consider the garbage that got shoved down our throats to be “progress”. That’s like a man raping a woman and then saying, “I got lucky last night.” (Please refrain from the typical “You’re diminishing the crime of rape!” –if you aren’t intellectually honest enough to accept the analogy for what it is, then you are not qualified to enter the discussion) Anything that moves us toward more government control, less independence, less freedom, more debt, more socialism in general does not qualify as a positive accomplishment in my book. Sarah Palin’s wordplay notwithstanding, I’d like to apply a word that many of you may not have heard before: DEGRESSION – noun, 1. A downward movement; descent; decrease by stages. This is precisely how I would characterize our society and what progressives have been doing to it, and I’ll debate anyone, anytime on this. So, when the President puffs up his nicotine-and-tar-filled chest and proudly proclaim how successful he has been, it rings quite hollow with those of us who understand that what he qualifies as “success” is actually destructive to America.
So, what of the new Congress? Well, a lot of the words sound good. But we’ve heard words before. Satan persuaded Adam and Eve to give up their birthright and plunge all future generations into the curse of sin and death, all by simply using words. Let’s look at a few of the initial movements. First, we have the temporary ban on earmarks. What is an earmark? It’s a ‘notation’, if you will, in a bill that allocates some of YOUR money to a pet project. In almost all cases these earmarks are never actually reviewed by Congress and in most cases they have nothing at all to do with the meat of the bill being passed. They are a way for your Representative to “bring money back home”. The initial thing that should anger everyone is that these are largely not even reviewed and that they are simply tacked onto another bill. I firmly believe that every bill should be self-contained and have integrity, meaning that the only ‘notations’ or amendments that should be allowed on a bill must be ones that directly affect the primary reason for the bill. If you want special funding to be approved for something, it darn well better be in its own bill or part of a specifically designated “slush bill” where all such pet projects are submitted. Also, for such “slush bills”, line item veto should be allowed. It disgusts me that such amendments as the repeal of so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” were slapped onto the defense spending bill. And, you know what? I don’t care if that means it takes longer to get things through Congress! If we learned nothing at all after this last embarrassment of a Congress, it’s that ramming things through, though arguably legal, is not ethical and certainly not prudent. On the subject of earmarks, Texas Senator John Cornyn (whom I voted for while holding my nose), said, “Most people think we need earmark reform—not a ban; that’s why our conference voted for a moratorium.” Excuse me? Who is “most people”? Any true conservative is going to say they need to be permanently banned. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander cautioned against reading too much into recent actions as having spelled the death of earmarks. These are our so-called Republicans! Clearly, we still have some housecleaning to do. Now, the other piece of this that is one of those “forest for the trees” moments is the idea of “bringing it home”. I’d probably have to do some self-instruction on our history to find out, but I’m wondering exactly when it became a primary function of our elected representatives to bring money home back to the states? The original intent of state Representatives and Senators was to protect the sovereignty of the states, look after the interests of the state and people of that state. In fact, the only money that was supposed to be raised for the federal government was to support the VERY LIMITED (called “enumerated” in the Constitution) mandate of the federal government. To boil that down, it included national defense and making sure the proper infrastructure was in place and maintained to keep the states unified and “playing nice”. In fact, any notion that the federal government was responsible to do ANYTHING for the people was only where it applied to ALL people EQUALLY. That’s what “general welfare” applied to. But liberalism/progressivism has profaned this to mean that the federal government is the be-all-and-end-all, over even the states. We slowly morphed from the idea that Senators would concentrate on policies that affected the state as a whole and how each state faired with the others at a national level and the Representatives would be more directly responsive to the people within each state, expressing more dynamically the will of the people as federal policies might affect them…or, more importantly, infringe upon their rights. What we have now is a twisted collusion between Senators and Representatives bent on taxing the blazes out of everyone for the purposes of “evening the playing field”, and then lobbying to bring a chunk of that gluttony home to their states, their districts.
Let me ask you something: WHY ARE WE LETTING THEM HAVE SO MUCH MONEY THAT THEY CAN EVEN LOBBY TO BRING CHUNKS HOME? Why are we allowing them to take more and more of the fruits of our labors only to then go begging to get some of it back? This is disgusting. I’ll give you a hint as to how we got here, two things. One was the liberal interpretation of the Constitution, particularly the “general welfare” and “commerce” clauses, to mean way more than our founders ever intended. The other was the expansion of what we call a “right”. We have reinterpreted things that were commodities to now be rights. The Declaration of Independence cites certain inalienable rights (these being given by God, specifically), to include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I could show you scriptures that support those very ideas. What I CANNOT show you, however, is anywhere in the Bible that says you have a right to health care or the internet or a car or a house. These are material things, created by people in a sinful world. In fact, I would argue that for devout, full-gospel, born-again Christians, that Jesus died to secure all three of those for us, completely separate from any need for a “benevolent and beneficent” government. He came so that we may have LIFE and have it more abundantly; He whom Christ has set free is free indeed; The joy of the Lord is our strength. These are all mainstays of a Christian walk, not dependent upon a government. Scripture says that if we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness then ALL else will be added. I can’t find a translation that says “seek first the kingdom of God and/or a well-formed government and then all you need will be added to you”…..nope, not in there. And when Jesus felt compassion for the multitudes on more than one occasion of speaking to them, I don’t see any mention of telling the disciples to send representatives to Rome to lobby for fish and bread or agricultural subsidies in order to feed the multitudes. In fact, He didn’t even send them to the Jewish governing body…they just took care of themselves. Just because you recognize need doesn’t mean it’s a right. And just because you recognize a right doesn’t mean you should be relying on government to take care of it….you should be requiring government to NOT INFRINGE UPON it. One last observation. Just because the “conventional wisdom” of the time says that something is correct doesn’t make it so. Jesus was quite explicit on so many occasions to rebuke the Pharisees (the Jewish leaders of the day) for creating “doctrine of men” that departed from God’s Word. Yet an entire people had grown so use to accepting that what the Jewish leaders said was acceptable or not that they actually called Jesus—who WAS the Word of God made flesh—a heretic and blasphemer! I would say that Jesus was definitely in the minority opinion in that day, but it didn’t make the Jewish leaders right any more than it made Jesus wrong. I draw the same conclusion today in American society. We have walked away from the Truth of God’s Word and we have walked away from the truth and wisdom (God inspired, in my opinion) of our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and embraced what I can only characterize as “the doctrine of men”.
We do not have a “religious test” for our elected officials…not legally or officially, anyway. But the prohibition against having such articulated as a part of the election process does NOT preclude or prohibit our INDIVIDUAL right to vote according to a set of principles that conform to a Biblical worldview. In fact, we are called to do that. Even if our elected officials aren’t Christian or live less than exemplary Christian lives (as is the case for all of us to one degree or another), if we seek out those who unashamedly and unwaveringly stand for those same principles then we are being good stewards of that which God has blessed us and we are doing well by the kingdom of God. We must support those people and we must encourage them to fight the good fight and not compromise when compromise means subjugating righteousness for unrighteousness. This goes as much for social issues as it does for fiscal ones. I am excited that we do have a stronger voice for these concerns in Congress now. But I’m under no delusion that they hold more influence on the behemoth that is our government than they actually do. We must not sit on our laurels, we must not fall back into reticence.
I watched the debate over the weekend between the candidates for Republican National Committee chair. For certain, Mr. Steele, the current chairman, has been a disaster and needs to leave. Nothing he said in the debate proved different to me. I was encouraged by some of the things some of the candidates said. Most used the right words, but I definitely got a sense in my spirit that some were genuine, some were not. Some let slip their true guiding principle, probably without even knowing it. Two things that concerned me? “We must raise more money” and “we must focus on winning”. Both of those dovetailed into a subtext of “we must win at all costs”. What most of you don’t realize is that means the Republican Party has been—and would continue to be—willing to support not-so-conservative candidates if only to get another “R” in the House or Senate. This is dead wrong. I don’t want a single person elected who is not fully conservative. In fact, I don’t want a single person elected who does not put Biblical principles first and the principles of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution second. What I will “settle” for is someone who at least is a strict constructionist where our Constitution is concerned and who is quite familiar and in tune with the writings of our founders. If they are not conversant with such things as The Federalist Papers, then I will tend toward distrust of them.
There are hard times ahead if this Congress is in any way successful in turning the ship. There are millions who depend upon government---and this is horrible. We must partner with our newly-elected people to succeed. That means weaning ourselves of dependence on government programs and “entitlements” and rebuild our local community reliance. Before pushing for any sort of initiative, be it social or fiscal, seek out scripture on it and prayerfully consider it. Then act. Elect people wisely, but do not put your reliance in people, because we all have feet of clay and we all fall down. Hold them, each other and ourselves accountable. We can turn this around, but it will take getting back to what inspired this nation.
