Bryan Fischer
Obama's platform: breaking the 8th and 10th commandments
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
President Obama's entire re-election campaign platform can be summed up in two words: greed and theft.
Despite God's command against lusting for the possessions of others — "You shall not covet...anything that is your neighbor's" (Exodus 20:17) — the president seems animated by a twitching, trembling greed for the wealth of others.
And he is determined to use the coercive power of government to take it from them by force, despite God's clear command, "You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15).
The president's approach to public policy is predicated on one premise alone: the involuntary transfer of wealth. But taking money from one citizen by force and giving it to another is robbery, and doing it under color of law does not make it right.
Even doing it with the consent of Congress does not make it right. Paraphrasing Walter Williams, God did not say "Thou shalt not steal — unless you can get a majority vote in Congress."
As Frederic Bastiat observed 160 years ago, when government engages in the involuntary transfer of wealth, that's nothing more than legalized plunder. There is nothing noble or laudatory about it. It is contemptible, evil and profoundly wrong.
As conservatives, we are not anti-government. We are anti-big government, we are anti-unconstitutional government, we are anti-unbiblical government.
American citizens will have no problem paying taxes to make it possible for government to carry out its two God-ordained functions: justice and national defense. Beyond that, "we the people" have delegated to Congress certain additional powers, in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, and the American people will have no problem paying taxes to support these legitimate functions of government.
But every freedom-loving American must give full-throated opposition to every program of the federal government which is not authorized in the Constitution. We have not, for instance, given to the central government the authority to run our nation's health care system.
The president's latest "jobs" plan — he has yet to explain how his plan would create a single job in the private sector — is driven by an angry, immoral and angry acquisitiveness for things that do not belong to him or to anybody but their rightful owners.
The president is whipping up sinister class warfare here, stirring up in ordinary Americans a smoldering resentment against productive Americans when he should be holding them up as examples of the limitless possibilities America offers.
It is a dangerous, un-Christian and un-American path he is walking, one destined to end in social unrest driven by a mindless contempt for hard-working Americans who have earned everything they have. It is undignified and worse for the leader of the free world to show such disdain for the segment of the American people that makes all his pet government programs possible.
The top one percent of wage earners pay 40% of all income tax revenue the federal government receives; the top five percent pay 60%, and the top 10 percent supply 70% of all income tax revenue the government receives.
It is reprehensible for the president to demonize the very people who are carrying his precious federal government on their backs. He should be thanking them, praising them and kissing the ground on which they walk rather than firing rhetorical rocket-propelled grenades at them.
No economic platform predicated on a violation of 20% of God's abiding moral law can possibly succeed. It is fitting for a socialist nation which openly disregards "the laws of nature and nature's God," but it is wholly unsuitable for the United States of America.
We can do better, and we must, before it's too late.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
September 21, 2011
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
President Obama's entire re-election campaign platform can be summed up in two words: greed and theft.
Despite God's command against lusting for the possessions of others — "You shall not covet...anything that is your neighbor's" (Exodus 20:17) — the president seems animated by a twitching, trembling greed for the wealth of others.
And he is determined to use the coercive power of government to take it from them by force, despite God's clear command, "You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15).
The president's approach to public policy is predicated on one premise alone: the involuntary transfer of wealth. But taking money from one citizen by force and giving it to another is robbery, and doing it under color of law does not make it right.
Even doing it with the consent of Congress does not make it right. Paraphrasing Walter Williams, God did not say "Thou shalt not steal — unless you can get a majority vote in Congress."
As Frederic Bastiat observed 160 years ago, when government engages in the involuntary transfer of wealth, that's nothing more than legalized plunder. There is nothing noble or laudatory about it. It is contemptible, evil and profoundly wrong.
As conservatives, we are not anti-government. We are anti-big government, we are anti-unconstitutional government, we are anti-unbiblical government.
American citizens will have no problem paying taxes to make it possible for government to carry out its two God-ordained functions: justice and national defense. Beyond that, "we the people" have delegated to Congress certain additional powers, in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, and the American people will have no problem paying taxes to support these legitimate functions of government.
But every freedom-loving American must give full-throated opposition to every program of the federal government which is not authorized in the Constitution. We have not, for instance, given to the central government the authority to run our nation's health care system.
The president's latest "jobs" plan — he has yet to explain how his plan would create a single job in the private sector — is driven by an angry, immoral and angry acquisitiveness for things that do not belong to him or to anybody but their rightful owners.
The president is whipping up sinister class warfare here, stirring up in ordinary Americans a smoldering resentment against productive Americans when he should be holding them up as examples of the limitless possibilities America offers.
It is a dangerous, un-Christian and un-American path he is walking, one destined to end in social unrest driven by a mindless contempt for hard-working Americans who have earned everything they have. It is undignified and worse for the leader of the free world to show such disdain for the segment of the American people that makes all his pet government programs possible.
The top one percent of wage earners pay 40% of all income tax revenue the federal government receives; the top five percent pay 60%, and the top 10 percent supply 70% of all income tax revenue the government receives.
It is reprehensible for the president to demonize the very people who are carrying his precious federal government on their backs. He should be thanking them, praising them and kissing the ground on which they walk rather than firing rhetorical rocket-propelled grenades at them.
No economic platform predicated on a violation of 20% of God's abiding moral law can possibly succeed. It is fitting for a socialist nation which openly disregards "the laws of nature and nature's God," but it is wholly unsuitable for the United States of America.
We can do better, and we must, before it's too late.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
