A Bittersweet Fourth
It’s just one day from one of our most cherished national holidays,
Independence Day. There will be parades, ceremonies, family
re-unions and of course, untold numbers of
fireworks
celebrations.
Are you feeling the same anticipation and jubilation as you’ve felt
in previous years? Or is there a certain foreboding beginning to
cloud what was once an unbridled national patriotism we celebrated
with abandon? There are quite a few major annoyances we’ll have to
overlook this year if we’re to enjoy the kind of joyous 4th of July
that is our tradition.
All of us in the working class are seeing our standard of living
come under duress due to the wild run up in
energy prices.
Many staples that contribute directly to our quality of life have
become less affordable, and most predictions reflect an outlook
without improvement. If you’ve been able to stand the news analysis
and debate programs, you’re aware that many aspects of our present
situation are self-inflicted! And many of our governmental
representatives are determined that Americans should continue to
suffer major economic setbacks because “oil
makes us sick, coal makes us sick,” to quote one particularly
high profile Senator.
Accurate assessments and arguments are being made all day and night
long in certain aspects of the media. They are so obvious and
apparent that I’m simply not going to insult your intelligence by
running through the list of available methods and locations of vast
energy resources that, despite idiotic claims to the contrary could
turn the situation around fairly quickly. For some reason, it’s
getting difficult to trust the assessments of people who were
instrumental in creating the situation in which we find ourselves!
If they have their way, energy prices will continue to spiral until
that magic moment somewhere in the distant future when alternative
technology becomes feasible. Maybe mother earth’s “fever” can be
brought under control!
Not so long ago, America recognized the source of its fantastic
natural resources. We, almost universally, realized that our very
existence was made possible by a string of most unlikely
coincidences our founders recognized as “Divine
Providence.”
At a time when many of the world’s formerly socialist nations are
beginning to dig themselves out of the poverty and blight of their
ruinous ideology, many in the U.S. are panting to adopt it! Let’s
nationalize
EVERYTHING. The oil industry, transportation, health care, you name
it; some want GOVERNMENT to control it. It’s obvious the worst fears
of the founders are beginning to play out. And some of us believe
they were inspired and led by God.
Our country needs to turn to God, not only for help with so many of
the nightmarish developments, but to help get rid of these arrogant
anti-God, anti-American politicians who are busily wrecking what
He’s provided. It must be an accident of evolution that America has
vast energy reserves within easy reach. But we care so much for the
earth that we’d rather see the whole country, including our children
and grandchildren suffer so these arrogant policy makers can strut
their vain righteousness.
This quote from
Abraham
Lincoln was included in our most recent monthly letter, but
nothing else sums up our current national economic and political
situation as well, so here it is again.
“We have been the
recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been
preserved, these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown
in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown; but
we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which
preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened
us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts,
that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and
virtue of our own…”
As we celebrate the 4th this year, we ought to bear in mind the
words and warnings of our founders, and hope it’s not too late to
turn this juggernaut around. We still have a tremendous amount to be
thankful for, and to celebrate. Don’t let this little tirade spoil
it. I’m hoping you won’t read it until the fifth! God bless America!
