Cities of Chaos

"Cities Of Chaos"


         
         Millions of people will never see a true leader at work.  We are a nation formed on democracy, a government by the people for the people.  Unfortunately, new breakthroughs in making money has made the former incumbent a staggering blow on the economy.  Then we seek a new leader to fix the problems that money cannot fix, and do so by electing those who spend millions of dollars of our money in campaigns that form empty promises.  Slander and gossip have become the rule for campaigning, and empty promises the fare that we are fed.  Promises, that the incumbent claim will be solved by spending millions of dollars, taking them to new heights of deception.  Instead of a true leader with vision and humility, more and more are buying their way into office.  Rather than being called by God, they are called by greed.  Rather than being lovers of God, they are lovers of money.  Rather than being true reformers, they are manipulators of the truth.  It is time to make a stand for what is right, true and worthy of praise.  Keep our promises to our neighbors.  Be consistent with interest rates charged on loans, be fair and impartial what we charge for medications.  Companies should show mercy and compassion and eliminate price gouging.  Bring morality back into our society, teach our children about forgiveness, love, and truth.  Bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ back into public speaking. 
         I am troubled what I am hearing from the poor about being treated differently than the rich.  How joyful I was when I heard that a city in the Northwest was making every vehicle on the road a flat fee of $30 for licensing, regardless of its value or age.  That is very fair and honest, and gives everyone a chance to benefit.  I recommend that creditors charge a flat interest rate of 12% for a credit card, 5% for a car loan, 6% for a house mortgage, 6% for a student loan, and 10% for all other loans.  I believe this will discourage price gouging, discourage bankruptcies, and stimulate the economy for buying.  I personally do not recommend the use of credit cards, unless they are paid off each month, but I believe that you can use these cards and lines of credit with discretion. 
         It is alright to give to charity as a tax deductible donation, but I recommend that you give out of kindness and love, rather than out of a tax deduction.  Remember that God loves a cheerful giver!   
         Love your neighbor as yourself. Be content with your wages! When you are angry, pray.  How can murder and violence solve any problem?  Judges should judge fairly and impartially.  Don't look at the person's economic status, race, or color.  Let the judgment fit the crime.  Don't take a bribe above your normal fee.  The same goes for lawyers! 
         So what is the reason behind this essay?  God has shown me that there is a need to look at our roots as a nation.  What are we founded on?  What do we stand for?  What is our role as "One Nation under God?"  I expect to offend a lot of you who are reading this, and I hope to bless many.  Please read this prayerfully and consider all, knowing this is done under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  There are many issues that cannot be specifically addressed in this short essay.  I believe that every issue that divides our country is important.  What is important to you is important to God.  Any issue that divides our country causes chaos within our states and cities, and no longer are we one nation unified under God, but we become cities of chaos.  "Where do wars and fights come from among you?  Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?  You lust and do not have.  You murder and covet and cannot obtain.  You fight and war.  Yet you do not have because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." James 4:1-3 (1)
         We are lovers of our liberty and our freedom.  Did Patrick Henry love liberty?  Did he not say, "Give me liberty or give me death?"
         "Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies?  No sir, she has none.  They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other.  They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains, which the British ministry have been so long forging.  And what have we to oppose them?  Shall we try argument?  Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.  Have we anything new to offer upon the subject?  Nothing.  We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.  Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication?  What terms shall we find that have not been already exhausted?  Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.  Sir, we have done every thing that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on.
         We have petitioned -- we have remonstrated -- we have supplicated -- we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and the parliament.  Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.  In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.  There is no longer any room for hope.  If we wish to be free -- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending -- if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight! -- I repeat, sir, we must fight!  An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
         They tell us, sir, that we are weak -- unable to cope with so formidable an adversary.  But when shall we be stronger?  Will it be the next week or the next year?  Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?  Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?  Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?  Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.  Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.  Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone.  There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.  The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.  Besides, sir, we have no election.  If we are base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest.  There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery!  Our chains are forged.  Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!  The war is inevitable -- and let it come!  I repeat, sir, let it come!
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter.  Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace -- but there is no peace.  The war is actually begun!  The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!  Our brethren are already in the field!  Why stand we here idle?  What is it that gentlemen wish?  What would they have?  Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery.  Forbid it, Almighty God! -- I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Delivered by Patrick Henry, on March 23, 1775 (2)          
         Who gives us liberty?  Many would say that we earned our liberty through the many wars that our family and friends fought on our behalf.  The wars gave us the liberty we now enjoy as a nation.  Others may say we enjoy liberty because of our unique Constitution and Bill of Rights.  I would say that we are given liberty from an even greater source.  Jesus gives us liberty.  Through his death, we are not held under a controlling law, but under the liberating grace.  But we must not let our liberty to cause us to hurt others.  Because when we use our liberty to hurt others, we are truly putting others under bondage for the sake of our liberty.  We have a statue to remind us every day of what true liberty means.  The inscription on this statue sums up our liberty: 
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled
Masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched
Refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the
Homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp
Beside the golden door." Emma Lazarus
         Because of the wonderful liberty we enjoy, many people do come from outside the United States looking for the hope that Emma Lazarus spoke of.  We are enjoying an increase in the number of Immigrants, the greatest, many say, in over 50 years.  Some people are concerned that we will lose our culture as immigration rises.  But others say that those who hate immigration are just plain racist, as immigration started before the early 1900's.  Immigration could be the core of American dynamics and the United States may not survive without them.  Skilled immigrants provide knowledge and skills, and unskilled workers provide labor.  Oscar Handlin wrote, "Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America.  Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history." (3) Perhaps our ancestors, the pilgrims were the first immigrants.          
         Many mighty may say, "It is a free country."  This is true, as we are given certain inalienable rights as Americans.  But I have one question about our freedom.  We can write what we want; we can say what we want and we can go where we want.  If people have something to say, they can give their opinions about everything from apple pie recipes to weapons permits.  We email, phone call, write and protest in front of the White House, our freedoms.  But if I am speaking about Jesus or God, then suddenly I am infringing on other people's rights.  I am offending somebody because I talk about salvation or the Bible.  How is it that if I come representing myself, then it is a free country, but if I come representing God, then I am infringing on other people's rights?  Friends, it should not be this way!  At work, I spoke with a woman about my faith in Jesus.  We were talking about social activities, what we do for fun, and other topics like that.  I asked her if she believed in Jesus.  We talked a bit, and I told her about my relationship with God.  Then later, I received a call from my employer.  The coworker was offended because I mentioned Jesus.  I told her that I was offended that she was living a contrary life, but didn't go around calling my employer to complain about it!  I told her that my faith is part of who I am, and I didn't break any laws by talking about it.  I did my job, did it well, obeyed their policies, and didn't gossip or slander anyone.  But she still found a way to complain about my personal beliefs.  Why is it that the non Christian has a voice, but the Christian is somehow treated as breaking some sort of unspoken and unwritten rule? 
         So what has happened to free speech in America? What does the Constitution say about free speech?  The freedom of speech and the freedom of religion are written in the same amendment.  Amendment I - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791. "Note Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  The original document was meant to be written as vague as it is to keep the government from putting excessive rules and stipulations.  To keep the government from mediating between religious disagreements and from taking authority over disagreements in the court system.  Historical commentator, J. Story writes, "The object, then, of the religion clauses in this view was not to prevent general governmental encouragement of religion, of Christianity, but to prevent religious persecution and to prevent a national establishment" (Commentaries of the Constitution of the United States, 1885.)(4)
         One value that both clauses of the religion section serve is to enforce governmental neutrality in deciding controversies arising out of religious disputes. Schism sometimes develops within churches or between a local church and the general church, resulting in secession or expulsion of one faction or of the local church. A dispute over which body is to have control of the property of the church will then often be taken into the courts. It is now established that both religion clauses prevent governmental inquiry into religious doctrine in settling such disputes, and instead require courts simply to look to the decision-making body or process in the church and to give effect to whatever decision is officially and properly made. (Commentaries, Watson vs. Jones 80 U.S. 679 (1871) (5)  This is the proper interpretation of the separation of church and state! 
         It seems that we are slowly losing our rights. Our rights are quenched under what is 'politically incorrect'. "The House version of a campaign reform bill may be 'sweeping', as the media tells us, but one thing that would be swept away is the right of independent groups to take to the airwaves with ads lobbying for their causes around election time.  This Shays-Meehan bill may be affecting you and I.  The truth is that free speech no longer has a strong core constituency in America.  The left wing people who fought for free speech abandoned that role in order to protect the underrepresented groups who might be harmed by free speech.  The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU has not given as much attention to free speech as it once did in order to protect the rights of diversity, such as abortion or gay rights.  A good example is a campaign to make a buffer zone to protect those who visit abortion clinics.  In New York city, a bill called 645-A would make it illegal for protestors near a clinic to hand out leaflets to anyone who does not want one.  It would ban oral protest and protest signs within 50 feet of an abortion clinic." (6)
         What does it mean to you when you think of a disabled person?  Some people view the deaf as "a linguistic and cultural minority with a rich and unique heritage."  Some people view obesity as a disability and try to say that reducing a child's weight is positioned as an illegitimate attack on the differently sized.  Words such as "overweight" or "fit" are put in quotation marks to isolate them as terms used by intolerant outsiders who want to impose their own standards and the idea that stoutness is a problem.  (7)
         These are just a sample of the out of strange interpretations that some people have used regarding freedom of speech.  It is banned if it hurts someone's feelings.  Is this what our forefathers intended when they developed the Constitution? 
         It seems that many people lack good sense when it comes to free speech.  They don't know how to use wisdom to keep from being extreme left, "I can't say anything because it will hurt someone."  Or extreme right, "I can say whatever I want even if it is untrue, harassing, or cruel."  Why can't more people speak with good sense?  Didn't President Roosevelt say, "Speak softly, but carry a big stick."?  In other words, speak, yes speak with authority, but speak with wisdom and truth and love.  Don't gossip or use evil speech when you talk. "For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of the foolish men; as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice (wickedness), but as bondservants of God."  1Peter 2:15-16.  "For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another."  Galatians 5:13-15 (1)
         When Patrick Henry spoke, he was correct that there was the need to stand up for the rights of this American people.  The British were about to go to arms against our forefathers, to bring them back into the bondage that they had left Great Britain for.  Our liberty was freedom from cruel bondage, and unfair rule.  This is what our government was based upon! 
         The truth is, that liberty has become a sort of by word in the hearts of many people.  If something goes to court, then we respond with bureaucratic rules that hamper the exercise of authority.  Teachers cannot discipline disruptive students because their parents might sue.  Doctors and nurses cannot provide optimum medical care, lest they be second-guessed by a jury.  This loss of interconnectedness is a legacy of the civil rights movements of the 6o's.  And many Americans have come to think they have a right to sue someone when anything bad happens. (8)  "Suing is a use of state power.  A lawsuit seeks to use governments compulsory powers to coerce someone else to do something.  Asserting individual rights sounds benign, like praying in the church or synagogue of your choice.  Sticking a legal gun in someone's ribs, however, is not a feature of what our founders intended as individual rights.  The point of freedom is almost exactly the opposite; we can live our lives without being cowed by the use of legal power.  The individual rights our founders gave us were defensive to protect our liberty.  Liberty, we somehow forgot, does not include taking away someone else's liberty." (9, pg. 23)
         Zeal without purpose is foolish, it is like shooting an arrow into the air without a target, or boxing into the air without an opponent.  Many militias are zealous in their efforts and teachings.  War is always on their lips.  Fear of war and infiltration is always on their minds.  There are times when war is very necessary for survival, and war is a part of our history.  We have fought many leaders and won.
         The Constitutional  Amendment II - Right to bear arms says,  'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' The role of the militia is to protect the state from war, such as an attack from a foreign army.  The militias of today actually mistrust the government.  It was meant to work with the government not to be an entity in itself. 
         I believe it is right for everyone of legal age to have a firearm. However, with this right come certain responsibilities.  It is our responsibility to make sure we keep our weapons well cared for and to protect children and pets from possible injury.  Above all, it is our responsibility to make sure our right to bear arms does not hurt innocent people.  For example, I know a woman who had an argument with a neighbor for being verbally abusive toward her and neighbor children.  She knocked on his door to talk with him, and he came to the door shouting, frightening her.  She slapped him and went home in tears.  Later on he said, "If you had been a man, I would have taken out my gun and shot you when you came to my door."  Does this kind of freedom, the freedom to bear arms give anyone the right to make a decision to fire a gun on someone because of fear? 
          So what can we do?  Ask the Lord for wisdom and he will give it to you.  Keep promises made to others, as it is in your power to do so.  Stay away from factious groups.  Look at the Bill of Rights for yourself, see what it really says.  Don't just believe what our leaders tell you.  Show forgiveness to others just as the Lord has forgiven you.  "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."    It has been three years since the World Trade Center was bombed.  It is time we come home, back to our roots.  Back to Christ, and back to our Constitution.  God is willing to hear our prayers, if we will offer them up.  We must repent as a nation and remember our humble prayers and cries for help of last year.  Without God, we are only cities of chaos.  With God, we are the nation we were founded on. 
         If we humble ourselves before God, then he will lift us up at the proper time.  God has promised that if we humble ourselves, then he is faithful and just to forgive and to renew our land.  "When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if my people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.  Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place."  2Chronicles 7:13-15 (1).           
         
Permission granted by the author to copy and distribute.

References:

(1) Bible quotes New King James Version, Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1985
(2) World's Greatest Speeches CD Rom V.1.0, Softbit, Inc. 
(3) U.S. News and World Report, March 11, 2002.  'The danger of strangers within". 
(4) Commentaries of the Constitution of the United States, 1885, J. Story
(5) Commentaries, Watson vs. Jones
(6) U.S. News and World Report, March 4, 2002.  "A gaggle of gag orders."
(7) U.S. News and World Report, March 25, 2002.  "Deaf to good sense."
(8) U.S. News and World Report, March 25, 2002.  "The common good."
(9) The Collapse of the Common Good, Philip K. Howard, Ballantine Books 2001