Early Morning Thoughts

So far our trip to Massachusetts has been wonderful. We've already visited our elder daughter and younger son and their families and are now spending time with our elder son and his wife and daughter. Tomorrow we begin the final leg of our trip and head for N. Andover, Massachusetts to visit our younger daughter and her family. Our children have certainly been a blessing, but these nine grandchildren are God's special gift, living reminders that our lives have been truly fruitful. 

At the moment, though, I sit here in our hotel room in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, sipping a nice, hot cup of coffee and trying to be quiet. Dear Diane, you see, is still asleep. I, on the other hand, have been awake since 5 a.m. I've read the morning paper, a disappointing fish-wrapper called The Providence Journal, prayed Morning Prayer, checked out the "breaking news" online, and now sit in the dark basking in the glow of my iPad screen. And so I might as well share a few early morning thoughts with my steadily tiny audience.

The Second Amendment. I'll probably catch some flak for this one: a post by a deacon in support of the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution. Yep, I'm all for it. 

One of the few things that stands in the way of a government becoming totalitarian is an armed citizenry. This is why one should always mistrust the motives of politicians who want to disarm the people. 

George Orwell, a socialist who could never be accused of being a right-wing conservative, once wrote:

"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."

Our Founding Fathers recognized this as well when they included the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights:

"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."

There seems to be a lot of infringing going on these days, just as there are far too many politicians and others who aren't all that enamored of a truly free state.

You'll notice there's nothing in that brief constitutional statement about hunting or target practice. No, the Founders had just lived through a struggle for freedom, a War of Independence, in which an armed citizenry was one of the keys to victory. They knew full well that without that rifle over every fireplace the United States would never have been born.

The Danger of Elites. Have you noticed how those who seek power these days always claim that their overriding goal is to fix things they believe to be broken? In all humility they are determined to right the wrongs that the people umknowingly inflict upon themselves. Only they can accomplish this selfless task because they are so much smarter than the rest of us. Accordingly, their ideas and their decisions should be accepted without question. Although they'll never admit it publicly, they really do not like the idea of representative government. To represent the people is such a passive act, one that puts the people in charge, and we can't have that, can we? The elites, then, those an uninformed and lazy people inflict upon themselves, feel the need to impose their order on the rest of us. And we go along with it. We the people have rejected our sovereignty and become mere enablers of those who seek power. As Lord Acton astutely remarked, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This is borne out by today's elitists who believe themselves to be like little gods possessed of the right to oppress all who resist their efforts to right the perceived wrongs of the world.

And so we end up with elitists like Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York who doesn't trust the people to make even the most trivial decisions. He, the all-knowing all-wise super parent, tells us what we should drink and how much. He instructs mothers on how best to nurse their newborns. Nothing escapes his attention. And he doesn't simply tell us; no, he enforces his beliefs through regulation and law. We must obey because it's for our own good. And if we don't obey, we shall be punished. We see the same arrogance displayed at the national level by the administration's use of the IRS to punish those who simply do not share its statist ideology.

Ahhh. Dear Diane awakens, and it will soon be time for breakfast. Today we plan to visit a farm so our little granddaughter can enjoy the animals. Should be fun.