John 8:32

By studying the three graphics above it becomes very clear the link between Christianity, freedom, happiness and well-being. John 8:32
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

You see, yet you do not believe

Moses, Ten Commandments, inside Supreme Court courtroom
Moses, Ten Commandments, inside Rotunda, Library of Congress
On door of U. S. Supreme Court
On wall of Jefferson Memorial
Ten Commandments on floor of Nat'l Archives

In Rotunda of Library of Congress
Inside Lincoln Memorial
Inside Supreme Court
Inside Washington Monument
Moses, rear facade of U. S. Supreme Court

In Chapel of the U. S. Capitol
In front of the U. S. District Court Bldg

Christianity, America's foundation. Today, America's socialist Supreme Court, Congress and Government officials spew their lies about 'separation of Church and State' while all around them the truth is plain to see.

LBJ's bill on Christian speech, 'The Reason'

The History of The Johnson Amendment of 1954
And
House Resolution 235
Compiled and edited by Kasey Kelly
February 4, 2005

The First Amendment clearly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,…."

The Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act
House Resolution 235 was designed to revise the IRS code to remove restrictions placed on churches and non-profit organizations in 1954 by then-Senator Lyndon Johnson. Prior to 1954, churches and non-profit organizations had no such restrictions on their freedom of speech or their right to speak out in favor or against political issues or candidates.
The history of Johnson’s IRS gag order is instructive. It began with what some historians believe to be a fraudulent election of Johnson to the Senate in 1948. It has been maintained by both conservative and liberal historians that Lyndon Johnson’s election to the Senate in 1948 was won by massive voter fraud. Known as “Landslide Lyndon,” this aspiring politician was “elected” by only 87 votes. His challenger, Coke Stevenson, challenged his election and presented credible evidence that hundreds of votes for Johnson had been faked. Johnson, however, was successful in blocking Stevenson’s effort by the clever use of “cooperative” court injunctions.
In 1954, Johnson was facing re-election to the Senate and was being aggressively opposed by two non-profit anti-Communist groups that were attacking Johnson’s liberal agenda. In retaliation, Johnson inserted language into the IRS code that prohibited non-profits, including churches, from endorsing or opposing candidates for political office. In effect, Senator Johnson used the power of the go-along Congress and the IRS to silence his opposition. Unfortunately, it worked. Some in Johnson’s staff claimed that Johnson never intended to go after churches, only the two “nonprofits” in Texas. Nevertheless, his sly amendment to the tax code affected every church in America, and it is a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
The legislation proposed by Rep. Jones in the 109th Congress is designed to overturn Johnson’s vindictive gag order that now penalizes churches, churches that dare speak out against government policies and politicians that the churches may deem to be immoral or bad for America. There is no reason for this gag order to remain in effect, but Congress apparently thinks it must perpetuate bad public policy simply because it exists.
Organizations like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, People For The American Way, and The American Civil Liberties Union continue to claim that this Johnson gag order must be upheld to protect “church/state separation.” This is irrational and fails to take into account the entire history of religious freedom in the United States.
Throughout our nation’s history-both before and after the American Revolution-our nation’s pastors freely spoke out on the political and moral issues of the day. It was their duty and their right under the Constitution to preach against immorality and corruption in the political and the moral realm. Historian James H. Hutson, writing in Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, notes: “Preachers seemed to vie with their brethren in other colonies in arousing their congregations against George III.” And, as Hutson discovered, the House of Representatives sponsored church services in its chambers for nearly 100 years. These services only ended when convenient transportation was available to take Members of Congress home for the weekend.
It is interesting to observe that our Founding Fathers and our first elected officials didn’t have any notion of “church/state separation,” so vehemently endorsed by Americans United and other modernist groups. Our Founders valued religion and wrote the First Amendment to protect the free expression of religious beliefs-and the freedom to speak out on the moral issues-including those involving politics and politicians.
The disservice that Lyndon Johnson did to religious freedom has yet to be undone, but in the current session of Congress, H.R. 235 must be passed-to undo Johnson’s vengeful action against his political opponents. We need to finally exorcise our public policies of the sad legacy of Landslide Lyndon.

U. S. outsources military attack on Iran

Pentagon officials are planning on outsourcing to Israel a military attack on Iran nuclear facilities due to the fact they have neither the manpower nor a pro-American government to protect our country. Israel plans on using a new WMD, 'Blonde's with F-16's.'

We invaded Iraq for oil, mission accomplished

Some say we invaded Iraq for oil, if so, where's the oil? Considering the high prices we are paying for gas, I don,t think that's the case. If it is, I think we should consider surrendering before gas gets to be $8.00 a gallon.

Vegetable Road Kill

The FDA, due to rising prices in food cost has given the OK on vegetable road kill for human consumption if it is still in a fresh state. Test have shown vegetables to be perfectly safe for the first three hours. To be sure; it is best to witness the event or get an eye witness account of the time of kill.

The new Obama bill

If Obama gets elected, our money system will change to align the value of our bills with his higher taxes. Introducing the new Obama bill.

Angel Oak Tree

Largest and Oldest Tree east of the Mississippi. This great tree is located on St. John Island near Charleston, S. C.

This Day in History

June 19, 240 B.C.: The Earth Is Round, and It's This Big. Eratosthenes actually calculated the circumference of the Earth. Greek astronomer, geographer, mathematician and librarian. Eratosthenes calculates the Earth's circumference. His data was rough, but he wasn't far off.
Eratosthenes was an all-around guy, a Renaissance man centuries before the Renaissance. Some contemporaries called him Pentathalos, a champion of multiple skills. The breadth of his knowledge made him a natural for the post of librarian of the library of Alexandria, Egypt, the greatest repository of classical knowledge. He figured the circumference to be 252,000 stades. So how big is 252,000 stades? Depending on which classical source you trust, it's somewhere between 24,663 and 27,967 miles. The accepted figure for equatorial circumference today is 24,902 miles. Pretty darn good for a guy without modern measurement tools.
Eratosthenes went further and computed the tilt of the Earth's axis to within a degree. He also deduced the length of the year as 365¼ days. He suggested that calendars should have a leap day every fourth year, an idea taken up two centuries later by Julius Caesar.
Grade-school tales aside, it was thus known long before Columbus that the Earth was round and even how big it is, approximately. But it was just not widely known among the masses in 15th-century Europe. One reason is that Eratosthenes' very own library of Alexandria had been destroyed, and there was no complete backup of its data. Who knows how much information about the past was lost when the library burned.

Guns do what our government won't, protect law-bidding citizens

Walter E. Williams WND

Control criminals, not guns
Posted: May 21, 20081:00 am Eastern© 2008
Every time there's a highly publicized shooting, out go the cries for stricter gun control laws, and it was no different with the recent murder of Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, in a letter to the state congressional delegation demanding re-enactment of the federal assault weapon ban, said, "Passing this legislation will go a long way to protecting those who put their lives on the line every day for us. … There is no excuse to do otherwise."
Gun control laws will not protect us from murderers. We need protection from the criminal justice system politicians have created. Let's look at it.
According to former Philly cop Michael P. Tremoglie's article "Who freed the cop-killers?" for the Philadelphia Daily News (May 8, 2008), all three murder suspects had extensive criminal records. Levon Warner was sentenced in 1997 to seven and a half to 15 years for robbery, one to five years for possessing an instrument of crime and five to 10 for criminal conspiracy. Howard Cain was convicted in 1996 on four counts of robbery and sentenced to five to 10 years on each count. Eric Floyd was sentenced to five to 10 years in 1995 for robbery, rearrested in 1999 for parole violation and later convicted in 2001 for two robberies. If these criminals had not been released from prison, long before they served out their sentences, officer Liczbinski would be alive today. So what's responsible for his death: guns or a prison and parole system that released these three criminals? Tremoglie cites other examples of criminals, with convictions for violent crimes ranging from robbery and assault to murder, who were paroled and later murdered police officers.
A New York Times study (April 28, 2006) of the city's 1,662 murders in 2003-2005 found that 90 percent of the murderers had criminal records. A Massachusetts study reported that on average, homicide offenders had been arraigned for nine prior offenses. John Lott's book, "More Guns, Less Crime," reports that in 1988 in the 75 largest counties in the U.S., over 89 percent of adult murderers had a criminal record as an adult.
A few days after the murder of Liczbinski, Gov. Rendell told a news conference, attended by state elected officials and top law enforcement officials, "The time has come for politicians to decide. You have to decide whether you're on their side – the men and women who wear blue – or whether you're on the side of the gun lobby." Instead of saying "whether you're on the side of the gun lobby," Rendell should have said "whether you're on the side of the criminal and the courts, prosecutors, prisons and parole boards that cut soft deals with criminals and release them to prey upon police officers and law-abiding citizens."
If there is one clear basic function of government, it's to protect citizens from criminals. When government failure becomes so apparent, as it is in the murder of a police officer, officials seek scapegoats, and very often it's the National Rifle Association and others who seek to protect our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. We hear calls for stricter gun control laws when what is really needed is more control over criminals.
There are many third-party liability laws. I think they ought to be applied to members of parole boards who release criminals who turn around and commit violent crimes. As it stands now, people on parole boards who release criminals bear no cost of their decisions. I bet that if members of parole boards were held liable or forced to serve the balance of the sentence of a parolee who goes out and commits more crime, they would pay more attention to the welfare of the community rather than the welfare of a criminal. You say, "Williams, under those conditions, who'd serve on a parole board?" There's something to be said about that.

This Day in History

May 18, 1980. On this day Mt. St. Helens exploded. At 8:32 Sunday morning, Mount St. Helens erupted.
Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.

The price of stupidity

What led to our outrageous gas prices? The American voters! For the last 50 years at least 50% of the populace has voted for liberal socialist anti-American Democrats. Not only that but these same people took over the media and our schools. Most of these voters are middle and low income voters who suffer the most for this voting practice. Who was against Christianity being taught in our school. Who put insects, reptiles and animals over human needs. Who elected politician who voted against nuclear power, no offshore oil drilling, but supports everything that destroys America's Independence. Who pushed through converting food to oil when already there is a world food shortage, how insane. The democratic party has done more to destroy America's greatness because their core belief is based on Socialism. There is no Independence in Socialism. America lost the cold war against Communism. We let them become our teachers, politicians, judges and media Moguls.

Global Warming, no big deal

Just get a boat and enjoy it. One thing about Planet Earth, whether it's an Ice Age or Global Warming the earth has an self correcting system which will automatically swing the opposite way eventually. So enjoy all the new beachfront property free of all the commercial development. It's back to nature again.

LBJ censors Truth

LAW OF THE LAND: Pastors called to defy IRS censorship rules. New campaign challenges 1954 tax law banning speech on candidates' positions.
Posted: May 09, 2008 4:10 pm

By Bob Unruh© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Christian pastors should stop censoring themselves in fear of an "unconstitutional" 1954 provision in the IRS code that has threatened to eliminate their church tax-exempt status if they speak out against positions held by political candidates, urges a leading legal alliance.
The Alliance Defense Fund today announced a new initiative that will challenge the IRS ban on political comment from churches and their pastors.
"Churches have for too long feared the loss of tax exempt status arising from speech in the pulpit addressing candidates for office," the ADF's white paper on the campaign confirmed. "Rather than risk confrontation, pastors have self-censored their speech, ignoring blatant immorality in government and foregoing the opportunities to praise moral government leaders.
"ADF believes that IRS restrictions on religious expression from the pulpit, whenever the IRS characterizes it as 'political,' is unconstitutional. After 50 years of threats and intimidation, churches should confront the IRS directly and reclaim the expressive rights guaranteed to them in the United States Constitution," the group said.
The ADF said its program will "equip, protect, and defend pastors who wish to exercise their First Amendment right to openly discuss the positions of political candidates and other moral and social issues from the pulpit."
The group is encouraging pastors across the U.S. to "deliver a sermon along these lines in their own churches Sept. 28," which is just days before the 2008 presidential election, a debate that has been rife with moral questions.
Before 1954, churches freely evaluated the politicians of the day on moral issues without fear of retribution.
That year, Democratic Sen. Lyndon Johnson amended the tax code to add the threat of IRS action against churches if their pastors mentioned the positions of specific candidates from the pulpit, the ADF said.
"No official reason was given for the amendment, but scholars believe that Johnson offered the amendment to restrict the speech of a private foundation that supported a political opponent," the ADF said.
However, the prosecution of such limits has been based on religion, because the same restrictions do not apply to other tax-exempt groups, including civil leagues; labor, agricultural, or horticultural associations; business leagues; chambers of commerce; real estate boards; boards of trade; and other groups.
"The intimidation of churches by leftist groups using the IRS has grown to a point that ADF has no choice but to respond," said Erik Stanley, senior counsel for the ADF. "The number of threats being reported to ADF is growing because of the aggressive campaign to unlawfully silence the church. IRS rules don't trump the Constitution, and the First Amendment certainly trumps the Johnson amendment."
Pastors who want to participate can find information at a special page assembled on the ADF website.
"The government can't demand that a church give up its right to tax-exempt status simply because the pastor exercises his First Amendment rights in the pulpit. Groups like Americans United [for Separation of Church and State] intentionally trigger IRS investigations that will silence churches through fear, intimidation, and disinformation," the ADF said.
Mike Johnson, another counsel for ADF, told WND the goal really is to "take the muzzle off" Christian churches.
"We're reminding them that they have the right to openly discuss the positions of political candidates, and we're going to be there for them if there's a challenge," he said.
"There's a very aggressive campaign to unlawfully silence the church," he said. To opponents who want to take to court the issue over such First Amendment restrictions, he said, "It's time to have that test."
Ironically, the ADF said, to date there's never been a reported case of a church losing its tax exempt status for sermons delivered from the pulpit evaluating candidates for office in light of Scriptures.
"This may be because the IRS does not want to encounter the constitutional issues raised by punishing speech from the pulpit. … Unfortunately, many churches either accept the IRS interpretation of the code or simply avoid these topics altogether," the ADF said.
But the simple interpretation is that such speech restrictions violate the First Amendment, according to the ADF.
"The restriction excessively entangles the government with religion, violates a Church's right to free exercise of religion, and violates a church's right to free speech," the white paper said.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has stated that there is no compelling purpose for the government to extend a statutory privilege (like tax exemption) only on the condition that the recipient gives up a fundamental right (like free speech). In fact the opposite is true. The 'exaction of a tax as a condition to the exercise of the great liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment is … obnoxious,'" the group wrote.

Churches should have never accepted this Anti-Christ policy. Look where it has led us today. Was money more important than the Word of truth?

Southern weather forecast

Here's the forecast for today, June 14th : Hot this morning, and continued unbelievably hot with a chance of tremendous heat in the afternoon, cooling off to a great deal of hotness later in the evening, and down to just very hot tonight. A chance of rain if you see a thunderstorm. Tomorrow, searing heat in the cities, sweltering heat in the suburbs and hot as hell at the beaches. In other words, tomorrow's weather will be exactly the same as today's.

NOTE: Repeat this forecast every day for the rest of June, July, especially August and half of September. This forecast is more accurate than your local weather report.

This Day in History

On April 27, 1865 at 2am the steamboat Sultana, some seven miles north of Memphis, Tennessee, carrying 2,300 just-released Union prisoners of war, plus crew and civilian passengers, exploded and sank. Some 1,700 people died. It was the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history, more costly than even the April 14, 1912 sinking of the Titanic, when 1,517 people were lost. But because the Sultana went down when it did, the disaster was not well covered in the newspapers or magazines, and was soon forgotten. It is scarcely remembered today.
April 1865 was a busy month; On April 9, at Appomattox Couthouse, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered. Five days later President Abraham Lincoln was assasinated. On April 26 his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was caught and killed. That same day General Joseph Johnson surrendered the last large Confederate army. Shortly thereafter Union troops captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The Civil War was over. Northern newspapers rejoiced.
News of a terrible steamboat tragedy was relegated to the newspaper's back pages. In a nation desensitized to death, 1,700 more did not seem such an enormous tragedy that it does today.

Without God America will fall

By Tom Ambrose
February 27, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

While America continues its quest to seek salvation from politicians like Clinton, Obama and McCain, our nation is continuing its slide into the hellish abyss of government tyranny. At the same time, interestingly enough, the Christian church in America is becoming impotent and irrelevant.
Think I exaggerate?
According to a recent AP report published by ABC News citing multiple studies, "nearly half of American adults [are] leaving the faith tradition of their upbringing to either switch allegiances or abandon religious affiliation altogether," "mainline Protestant churches are in decline, non-denominational churches are gaining and the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing," "[o]ne in four adults ages 18 to 29 claim no affiliation with a religious institution," and "[t]he religious demographic benefiting the most from this religious churn is those who claim no religious affiliation. People moving into that category outnumber those moving out of it by a three-to-one margin."
The report also notes that "The majority of the unaffiliated - 12 percent of the overall population - describe their religion as 'nothing in particular,' and about half of those say faith is at least somewhat important to them. Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population."
For those of you who are tempted to blow off this report as the fiction of a globalist media conspiracy, consider this: In addition to America's descent into government tyranny, homosexual marriage is ascending to prominence, Christian couples are divorcing at a rate competitive with non-Christian couples, butchering babies in abortion clinics is still the law of our land, and prominent American church leaders continue to embrace sexual sin as an acceptable lifestyle choice.
With such an increase of evil, do you honestly believe the church in America is alive and well, never mind healthy and vibrant?
If the church is strong and well in America, then no doubt you will also have very interesting explanations for the progressive sleaze of the entertainment industry, the disgusting increase of child molestation in the church and elsewhere, the growing promotion and prominence of homosexuality in public schools and church pulpits, and the increasingly brazen attempts of government officials to censor and persecute both church pastors and homeschooling families.
If the church is strong and well in America, then why is the church not systematically using its vast resources to help those in need rather than supporting by their silence prominent pastors who are calling for "faith-based" government solutions? If the church is strong and well in America, then why have cesspools of filth and violence like Los Angeles and San Francisco continued to fester? If the church is strong and well in America, then why are morally corrupt Supreme Court decisions like the ones involving the Ten Commandments and other religious monuments, prayer in schools, etc. allowed to stand with little more than a peep from church leaders?
God didn't cause these things to happen, though He is obviously allowing them. I submit to you that the church in America, overall, is weak and weary - not strong, not well, not healthy. It has a diminishing voice because it has lost its integrity - its message has been watered down, and many of its leaders not only don't lead, but are themselves morally compromised. And, as the son of a traveling preacher, I personally have witnessed numerous churches across this country that don't even bother to welcome strangers, or when they do, it is often with a plastic smile: "Welcome ... glad you could visit us today ... the offering plate is over there by the door ... next!"
You know, my dad used to tell me that "when a fish stinks, it stinks from the head down." I'm beginning to understand the wisdom of that statement. Though our political leaders are responsible for the rise of lawlessness in our nation, ultimately the moral decay behind that lawlessness can be traced back to America's pulpits. One of our Founders, John Adams, surely understood this when he noted that "[o]ur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Surely, Thomas Jefferson would agree:
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Folks, the church in America needs to reclaim its God-given role of being light and salt to a dark and decaying world if the ugly boot of unconstitutional government is ever going to be removed from our throats. If we are to solve what is popularly referred to as "the vision thing" in our nation, it must start with the people and pastors of America's churches. It must start with humbly asking God for forgiveness for our moral lassitude and asking for His help. And it must continue with each of us daily seeking Him in Scripture and prayer.

We are the church - you, and I and every believer, as Paul notes many times throughout Scripture! The church is not a white box with chairs or pews that people seat themselves in once a week. When Paul laments persecuting the church in I Corinthians 15, for example, he is not talking about assaulting a building.

We must stop giving lip service to God and walk the walk. In particular, secret sins hurt all of us, be it sexual sin or anything else that places barriers between us and the sovereign, holy God. We need to repent of our sin, not glory in it as many of our nation's leaders now do. And we need to reach out to those who are lost, hungry and hurting, not waste our time courting sleazy politicians.
Only then will we ever have a chance to recover what is quickly being lost in America - our freedom and God's hand of blessing and protection on our nation.

Not the first time, remember Alan Keyes

Power of the press. I think that today people don't elect Presidents, the media does. If you are against their agenda like Ron Paul, Michael Savage or Alan keyes then you are a non-person. No recognition or coverage, just negative comments like you are too far to the right, too religious or a nut case; because of being too far right or having Christian principles. Most people don't think for themselves, they just follow what they are told. In 1996 and 2000 a Black man named Alan Keyes ran for President. Where was all the fanfare and praise that a black was running for President? Today if the media loves you, warning flags should go up.

Only C-5's will do

The wheels make the car. Here's a 2002 Z-28 with C5 Corvette wheels. They are the only wheels for a sharp looking Camaro.

Obama fills positions with like-minded appointees

How the replacement makeup of a Supreme Court under an Obama Presidency might look. Top row L to R: Rev. J. Wright, Nancy Pelosi, Charlie Rangel and Cynthia McKenzie. Bottom L to R: Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jessie Jackson and of course Louis Farrakhan.

On This Day in History

The FBI ends a 51-day siege by storming the Branch Dravidian religious cult headquarters in Waco, Texas. The day was Apr. 19, 1993.

Now the same time 15 years later the Government again attacks another religious compound with massive force. Also don't forget Ruby Ridge; Vicki Weaver shot between the eyes while standing in the door way holding her baby. Yeah, I know it was those kind of people. One day anyone for any reason might be those people. When it happens to you, you'll have a different opinion. The government likes to practice on religious groups, they figure they will be the easiest to terrorise.

Evolution is easy, just adjust the story to fit your theory

I guess most people readily accept evolution as fact because it's so easy to compare yourself with a cute little monkey. But even the monkey then would have to had come from something else. Sooner or later you get back to something like an earth worm which was at a certain point was top kid on the block. Then I guess somehow it figured out that this route is a dead end in evolutionary process so it didn't evolve anymore. That was OK because in the beginning that first one cell organism was smart enough that it evolved into many different things to insure one would make it all the way, even as far as a human. How very intelligent that first cell was.

This day in History

On this day in history, April 12, 1861 the American Civil War began, or as some would say the War for Southern Independence. Or maybe even, the War against Northern Aggression.

" If the Southern States hold no right of secession, then the secession of the thirteen colonies from Great Britain is invalid, and the revolutionary war to secure independence unlawful. In such case, we all remain as colonies, and are subject to the British Crown. The Secession of the Colonies, and the Secession of the thirteen States, can not be one good and the other evil, they are both one or the other. Similar conditions existed in both cases and both felt their liberties threatened."
--Thomas Guinn

Small town Americans cling to guns and religion

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them.
"It's not surprising then they get bitter. They cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Did the Truth slip out? Is there something wrong with people who believe in the first and second amendment? Or is there something wrong with "White People". Is his Church a Christian Church in name only. Why did he stay in Rev. Wright's Church 20 years? What Bible do they use? Add Michelle Obama's comments and the picture is becoming pretty clear. Face it, a conservative, God fearing person who loves America is something a socialist will never understand. Mind you, I said 'loves America', not it's anti-american government.

Going the way of Rome

Going the way of Rome by Joseph Farah, WND

"The budget should be balanced. Public spending should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt."
– Marcus Tulius Cicero 45 B.C.
Not long after making the prophetic proclamation above, Marcus Tulius Cicero, a Roman senator, was assassinated.
It's not always easy telling the hard truths.
It's not always safe.
It's not always profitable.
But tell them we must.
They say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I believe the U.S. is slouching toward Rome – and a Cicero is nowhere to be found.
Where are we today compared to the empire that lasted 500 years?
National debt: $10 trillion
U.S. federal budget over $3 trillion. That's 50 percent higher than it was in 2000.
Trade deficit: $58 billion
No meaningful borders, with record immigration levels and no chance for assimilation
Total breakdown of education system
No common faith or unifying moral principles that bind the nation together
Even age-old institutions like marriage and parenthood are being redefined
In a time of relative peace, our military forces are stationed in more than 100 foreign nations
And now America finds itself in an election year in which there are plenty of Mark Antonys but no Ciceros – no wise old voices of reason, common sense and good judgment.
The power of the state is on the rise, and the power of the people is on the decline.
We have our own versions of the Colosseum, albeit somewhat more humane. The American people are kept distracted by bread and circuses – NASCAR, the NFL, "American Idol."
Votes are being purchased by foolish promises of free health care and nebulous pledges of "change" and "hope."
There isn't much to believe in any more, so politicians invent new religions – like "global warming." If only we pay our tithes in "carbon credits," the gods of climate change will be merciful to us, we are assured. But if we do not reach deep into our pockets now and make sacrificial offerings, doom will be upon us all in the coming decades.
This was the nation that gave the world the concepts of self-government, removing the shackles from the people and placing them on the government, individual rights as unalienable gifts from God.
This was the nation that welcomed and rewarded personal achievement – recognizing that it was a blessing not just to the one honored, but to all.
Today the highest virtues are little more than meaningless, empty words – "tolerance," "diversity," "pluralism," "multiculturalism."
There is no right and no wrong. Up is down, black is white, left is right.
It's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world – except for Jesus.
Who would have believed the greatest and longest-lasting experiment in freedom and self-government would end like this?
Who would have believed a nation that raised up so many great minds of politics, science, business and philosophy could be so easily led astray?
Who would have believed a nation built of sacrifice and honor would give up its birthright for a mess of pottage?
Do I sound a tad pessimistic?
I believe I have every reason to play that note.
Yet, because I am an American, I remain hopeful our nation's better angels will yet prevail.
There's a remnant out there who will understand every word I write. It is in them my hope is kindled. It is in them – and the One they serve.

Rome went from Paganism to Christianity. America is going from Christianity to Paganism.