Citizen Tom

Everything comes at a cost.  Old age comes at a cost, and the Baby Boom generation is now growing old.  The Baby Boom generation arrived in this world after World War II, between 1946 and 1964.  Relatively few of the Baby Boom generation have known the toil and sorrow that those who entered the world before us knew.   Previous generations fought for and maintained the order and security we now enjoy.  Previous generations led the great struggles and paid the price of their blood and sweat for the prosperity we now enjoy. 

So it is that the cycle now repeats itself (see here).  As the last of the Silent Generation (1925-1945) slowly and relunctantly relinguishes this life and the command of high offices, the Baby Boom generation finally assumes full control.  Unfortunately, many in Baby Boom generation are still unwilling to accept a simple truth.  Everything we do – every choice we make — has its price.

We have a democratic capitalist society; we live in a world filled with salesmen.  To sell themselves and their products, salesmen scheme to play upon our fears and lusts.  A salesman seeks to convince each of us that he, and only he, has the best way, and an easy way, to satisfy one of our desires.  

The worse tell straight forward lies.  You have heard their words.

• “Buy my skin cream.  I can make you look twenty years younger.”
• “Buy my investment kit.  I can teach you how to become rich.”
• “Buy my book.”  “I will give you the verbiage you need for a TOTAL TRANSFORMATION of your children.  In a mere minutes, I will teach you the right words to transform your difficult child into an obedient child.”
• “Vote for me.  I will declare and win a war on poverty.  I will protect your children from drugs.  I will bring sanity to rogue nations and inaugurate an era of world peace.  I have the record and experience required to be the President of the United States.  I have a plan……”

You have all heard these offers on the radio and television.  Once or twice you have even bought into them.  Then you learned and stopped.  But still you hear the commercials.  New suckers are always being born.  Lying salesmen can always find fresh meat for their schemes.

The Baby Boom generation is still fresh meat for the worse lying salesmen of all, lying politicians.  Lying politicians promote themselves as inestimably wise and competent.  They tell us they are good.  They tell us their intentions are pure.  With the sweet voice of reason, they ask us to trust them. In return, they promise to relieve us of all our burdens and troubles.  All we a have to do is let them ignore the Constitution and tax and spend as much as they want.

Because we trust such politicians, our world is unravelling.  In return for our votes, lying politicians made to us promises they could not or would not keep.  To solve the problem of poverty, they promised the easy solution of a minimum wage.  Then they allowed hordes of illegal immigrants willing to work at lower wages into the country.  They promised us free public schools.  Meanwhile they sent their children to private schools.  The promised us free roads, but they used our money to build roads for developers.  The promised us cheap loans.  Now they demand more money to “fix” a financial system that they broke.  They promise an inexpensive plan to cure every ill.  And with each failure, they asked for more power and more money to fix the problems their “free”, “cheap”, and “easy” solutions created. 

Thomas Jefferson lived a long life.  He too saw his society unravel.  Then he helped to lead the rebellion that ripped America apart from England.  As did so many others of his time, he boldly decided to rebuild country’s government anew.  Because of his experience, Jefferson acquired this philosophy about about rebellion.

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.  — Letter to William Stevens Smith (November 13, 1787), quoted in Padover’s Jefferson On Democracy (from here)

We have a choice.   We can demand that power be restored to the People, or we can accept the seemingly easy way out offered by lying politicians.  We can take responsibility for the conduct of our lives, or we can give control of our lives over to others.  We can be a Free People, or we can surrender our heritage and become the slaves of the elite. 

God gave us each a life that we might live, that we might learn to love Him and each other.  He did not give us life so that we might set up one of our own as our god. 

Psalm 49:5-9

   Why should I fear when evil days come,
       when wicked deceivers surround me-

   those who trust in their wealth
       and boast of their great riches?

   No man can redeem the life of another
       or give to God a ransom for him-

   the ransom for a life is costly,
       no payment is ever enough-

   that he should live on forever
       and not see decay.