Who Do You Trust? Why Obamacare Needs to be Repealed
With so much debate in the political realm about entitlements, healthcare, fiscal responsibility and the economic crisis, what should be the proper American response? In an arena that is supercharged with opinion and emotion, where should we look for guidance as we formulate answers and plan our actions?
As Americans we should be guided by the wisdom of the founders as they wrote the laws and documents upon which our nation was founded, and has thrived since inception. The other place we need to look is the same place the founders went for guidance and wisdom, the Holy Scriptures.
First, we’ll look at the documents meant to run our nation. I realize that many in America today want to look to Europe to formulate new policies, as if they have achieved some superior level of governance. In fact, the opposite is true. While we have been guided for the past 235 years by the same system of government, France has had fifteen different governments. Brazil has had seven since 1822; Poland, seven since 1921; Afghanistan, five since 1923; Russia, four since 1918; and the story is similar for other nations throughout Europe, Africa, South America, and the rest of the world.
In 1831 the term “American Exceptionalism” was coined to express this phenomenon by Alexis de Tocqueville, a famous French visitor to America. He wrote, “The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.”
This is not to say Americans are somehow superior to other people, just that the wise system of government has been one that has needed no revision. We are not to be boastful, but rather thankful to God, as stated by John Adams who wrote, “It must be felt that there is no national security but in the nation’s humble acknowledged dependence upon God and His overruling providence.”
However, this nation has moved further and further away from any acknowledged dependence on God and His providence, and many in the mainstream only want to take us even further away. This nation has become arrogant and even flippant about God. Instead of looking to God and depending on Him to be our provider, we have increasingly turned to the government.
In ignorance, many have either decided to give freedoms away, or had them taken without knowledge, in return for their allotment of provisions from the government. Too many people cry out for the government to run healthcare, or give them money, food-stamps, social security and the like. Our government has gotten so used to handing out hundreds of billions of dollars of entitlements, it doesn’t even bother to police if people are obtaining them legally, nor does it seem to care that it hands them out to people here illegally. Repeatedly we are told from the left that people have a right to these things and so we must provide them. Just pay your “fair share” and shut up!
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with a temporary hand up in times of trouble, but it has gotten out of control.
The problem with this system we are creating is that it flies in the face of what the founders had laid out, and it is doomed to failure. In the end, we will be left with a nation that is unrecognizable. The danger is, if the government becomes the benevolent grantor and giver of our rights, it can just as easily take them away! By handing this kind of control over to the government, we will end up enslaving ourselves to them, instead of it being the other way around. Government was designed to answer to the people in this nation. We are the government. The politicians are just those we elect to represent our interests while they serve.
The founders signed the Declaration of Independence which states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…“
Our founders believed that God, and only God is the grantor of our rights. As such only He has the authority to take them away. They saw government only as a protector and enforcer of those rights given by God. Under that plan, God has blessed this nation beyond compare in all history. Since this nation went so far upon its foundation to honor God, we have been used to be a light to the rest of the world.
The first book of the Bible, Genesis, has a warning from history. It clearly demonstrates what happens to those who trust and turn to a government to be their provider instead of God. During a time of hardship Egyptians increasingly turned to Pharaoh, the government, for help and Genesis records the results:
There was no food, however, in the whole region because the famine was severe; both Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine. Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying, and he brought it to Pharaoh’s palace. When the money of the people of Egypt and Canaan was gone, all Egypt came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? Our money is all gone.”
“Then bring your livestock,” said Joseph. “I will sell you food in exchange for your livestock, since your money is gone.” So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, their sheep and goats, their cattle and donkeys. And he brought them through that year with food in exchange for all their livestock.
When that year was over, they came to him the following year and said, “We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land. Why should we perish before your eyes—we and our land as well? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh. Give us seed so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate.”
So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh’s, and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other. However, he did not buy the land of the priests, because they received a regular allotment from Pharaoh and had food enough from the allotment Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.
Joseph said to the people, “Now that I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you so you can plant the ground. But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children.”
“You have saved our lives,” they said. “May we find favor in the eyes of our lord; we will be in bondage to Pharaoh.” ~Genesis 47:13-25
In contrast to the Egyptians, the Hebrews also were experiencing the famine, but with different results. Genesis goes on the say:
Now the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number. ~Genesis 47:27
The Israelites received no allotment from Pharaoh as the priests did, nor did they sell everything they had waiting for their handed out portion from the government in return. How did they thrive? They followed God. They trusted in God’s provision and in God’s law, and in God’s authority. They were living in the same economic hardship that the Egyptians were living through, but with vastly different results. When things got tough, the Egyptians went to the government for security and walked away in bondage. The same government that sustained them did so at a price.
Our founders knew that government’s only role was to pass laws, a framework in which a free enterprise system would have to operate. The government’s job was never to run any industry. Now our government has taken over automotive companies, financial institutions, and healthcare. What happened when GM asked to be bailed out by the government? The government came in and told them they had to cut out entire lines of autos. No more Saturn, no more Pontiac. The government told them what cars to build and how to run everything.
Then they hijacked the healthcare industry in the largest overreach of the enumerated powers in history! This was a big power grab that many applauded because they are ignorant of our founders’ wishes and even the documents themselves. Our government was never to operate like this, nor were they ever to run an industry.
In case you feel that this is a one sided argument against the left, guess again. During another crisis, the tragedy of September 11th, our then Republican run government used the crisis to trounce all over privacy guarantees. The Patriot Act flies in the face of the protections and invasion of privacy set forth in the Constitution. It was supposed to be “temporary,” but as you may have guessed it has yet to be rescinded. Very rarely, if ever, are rights and freedoms restored once they are taken away. The abuse of power has to stop on both sides of the isle in Washington, but it requires an educated people who care and want government to move in the right direction.
To do this we must get back to the founding documents and government as it was intended by the founders. A small limited government that is accountable and reverent to the electorate, and a nation that is in turn, reverent to God. The Tea Party movement was the first grass roots movement to get this underway that had directly affected a national election and commanded the attention of every candidate in the nation. Of course they were criticized by the left since what the founders stood for flew in the face of the progressive liberals, but it was a step in the right direction.
If you are a Christian, you can not be in support of big government handout programs. It is in opposition to what we are taught in the Bible. God and only God is to be trusted for our provision. When you look anywhere else, it is idol worship and an apostate system of government. Obamacare must be repealed. You can not love God and that massive government program at the same time, they are incongruent.
Israel was to be used by God as a light, an example to other nations as to how following God’s system will bring about blessing and abundance. However in 1 Samuel 8, they demanded a King to be like other nations. Other nations were to be inspired by Israel, not the other way around! God warned Israel what would happen if they were to have a system of government that honored man instead of God.
But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”
Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.” ~1 Samuel 8:6-18
Israel got their king, as God handed them over to their own desires, and thus began the downfall of Israel. From that day on they have had wars and leaders who would turn them away from God and lead them in idol worship. Other conquerors would come in and take them away in bondage or lord over them, all because they wanted to be like other nations.
Revisionist historians will have you believe our founders were godless statists. Statism is defined as “the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty.” They were anything but! Benjamin Franklin said, “a nation that sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.” The founders were Christians who loved God. Ninety five percent of the signers of the Constitution were evangelical Christians. I could go into all their writings, but that has been covered in other posts on this site and others. Through their honoring of God in our system of government, we have been richly blessed. No other nation in history has had the luxury and abundance we have enjoyed as Americans.
However, now we are running to the government more and more to be the answer to our problems and asking them to dole out our provisions in return for our “fair share,” as Biden put it. The government in turn has increasingly looked to other nations in deciding lawmaking policy and inspiration in penning court decisions! We are a sovereign nation and we are gradually giving it all away piece by piece! America is the nation that has the same governing documents for over 200 years. Why would we want to be like other nations? Increasingly our leaders look to the socialist nations of Europe to formulate answers. Ridiculous! We have gone down the path of thumbing our nose at God too far and for too long.
Christians must stand against the takeover of the healthcare industry by the Obama progressives and other similar big government spending programs. Our nation must get back to its Godly heritage and our government shrunk back down to its appropriate size and demeanor.
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