Dan Popp
Move over, Thelma; Louise is driving now
By Dan Popp
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.... – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
One sign of the disintegration of our society is that we can no longer even agree on reality. A person with one X chromosome and one Y chromosome may be a man, a woman, or a something-else'an.
So it's not surprising that we can't come to a consensus on the question, "How goes the republic?" It is the best of times: Trump won, the country is back on the right track, the Constitution will be re-enshrined, liberalism [sic] will fall – and it is the worst of times: Trump won, women will be chained to stoves and forcibly impregnated by uncaring Republicans who won't even pay for their abortions.
I'm writing this on January 20th, inauguration day. People are celebrating. People are protesting. But I think both of these are inappropriate responses to the situation we're in.
Jesus said, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?" (Matthew 16:2b, 3, NAS95) He warned his Jewish hearers of calamity because they did not choose to see the spiritual moment they were in (See Luke 19: 41-44). If we don't understand "where we are" in the timeline of history, we're in for a rough ride.
When President Obama took office, he said that Republicans had driven America into a ditch. Then he spent 8 years turning the ditch into a canyon and outlawing tow trucks. "We've got a big hole that we're digging ourselves out of," the Harvard grad explained. The Trump fans of today believe that Trump is about to turn things around. He'll build a wall around that hole, and before you know it, we'll be winning again.
So much winning.
I think the appropriate metaphor is that the bus called America has gone over the edge of a cliff. Obama was tooting the horn and swinging the steering wheel as we fell. Trump is standing at the back shouting, "This way, boys." But still we fall.
When did we go over the cliff? It might have happened during the Obama years, with our unpayable debts and unemployable "work" force. It might have been in 1973, when a few men in robes authorized the killing of unborn children. It could have been in the sixties when our employees in Washington made looting and dependency the hub of the national economy. It might have been when we "kicked God out of the public schools." It might have been when we started public schools.
Maybe the cliff edge was 1935, when we started the unconstitutional national Ponzi scheme that even FDR knew would eventually bankrupt the nation. Maybe it was when we decided that the rich didn't have the same right as everyone else to keep what they earn, and instituted the 16th Amendment, our third try at the income tax.
You could make an argument that it was all over when the Civil War seemed to settle the matter of whether States could leave the union they had formed. Or that the seeds of our destruction were sown with the founding of the Federal Reserve. Or with the founding of the republic itself.
Whenever it happened, we went Thelma & Louise on our future, hit the gas, and here we are. In midair, for now, falling fast.
When I've written in the past about God's judgment on America, I don't want you to get the impression that I think God needs to actively "smite" us. There may be floods and droughts and wars and epidemics, but none of that is necessary now. All God needs to do is sit back and watch. The consequences of our actions are unavoidable. The bus America is already falling. It would take a miracle for it not to hit the bottom with a big fireball.
Instead of "Where are we now?" let's ask the question a different way. What does America need most right now? I see cartoon images of President Trump in golden armor – a warrior, a champion, "winning." I see him clad in a Superman outfit. As if what the US needed most were a tough guy; as if our problems were caused primarily by outsiders, and not ourselves. I believe that what America needs most right now is repentance. And I don't see memes of Mr. Trump in sackcloth and ashes.
I didn't watch any of the inauguration festivities. I turned on the radio and caught part of Trump's speech – one line – in which he mentioned our "crumbling infrastructure." I wonder whether VP Pence or someone else will tell the new President that there is no Enumerated Power of Infrastructure. Whether you call it "stimulus" or "infrastructure," it's illegal. And We the People, the last line of defense for the Constitution, will not stop the illegal actions we like.
If America's problem has been that the wrong people were doing what they wanted, then the solution of course is to have the right people do what we want. Hail, Trump. But I see people doing what they want as the problem. The forms of the republic persist, but in practice we've had mob rule for a long time now. That's not going away. We're riding that one all the way to the bang.
If the opposite of Obama is constitutional government, and if Trump is not constitutional government, then he is not the antidote for Obama. One is Thelma, the other is Louise. The destination is the same.
© Dan Popp
January 23, 2017
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.... – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
One sign of the disintegration of our society is that we can no longer even agree on reality. A person with one X chromosome and one Y chromosome may be a man, a woman, or a something-else'an.
So it's not surprising that we can't come to a consensus on the question, "How goes the republic?" It is the best of times: Trump won, the country is back on the right track, the Constitution will be re-enshrined, liberalism [sic] will fall – and it is the worst of times: Trump won, women will be chained to stoves and forcibly impregnated by uncaring Republicans who won't even pay for their abortions.
I'm writing this on January 20th, inauguration day. People are celebrating. People are protesting. But I think both of these are inappropriate responses to the situation we're in.
Jesus said, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?" (Matthew 16:2b, 3, NAS95) He warned his Jewish hearers of calamity because they did not choose to see the spiritual moment they were in (See Luke 19: 41-44). If we don't understand "where we are" in the timeline of history, we're in for a rough ride.
When President Obama took office, he said that Republicans had driven America into a ditch. Then he spent 8 years turning the ditch into a canyon and outlawing tow trucks. "We've got a big hole that we're digging ourselves out of," the Harvard grad explained. The Trump fans of today believe that Trump is about to turn things around. He'll build a wall around that hole, and before you know it, we'll be winning again.
So much winning.
I think the appropriate metaphor is that the bus called America has gone over the edge of a cliff. Obama was tooting the horn and swinging the steering wheel as we fell. Trump is standing at the back shouting, "This way, boys." But still we fall.
When did we go over the cliff? It might have happened during the Obama years, with our unpayable debts and unemployable "work" force. It might have been in 1973, when a few men in robes authorized the killing of unborn children. It could have been in the sixties when our employees in Washington made looting and dependency the hub of the national economy. It might have been when we "kicked God out of the public schools." It might have been when we started public schools.
Maybe the cliff edge was 1935, when we started the unconstitutional national Ponzi scheme that even FDR knew would eventually bankrupt the nation. Maybe it was when we decided that the rich didn't have the same right as everyone else to keep what they earn, and instituted the 16th Amendment, our third try at the income tax.
You could make an argument that it was all over when the Civil War seemed to settle the matter of whether States could leave the union they had formed. Or that the seeds of our destruction were sown with the founding of the Federal Reserve. Or with the founding of the republic itself.
Whenever it happened, we went Thelma & Louise on our future, hit the gas, and here we are. In midair, for now, falling fast.
When I've written in the past about God's judgment on America, I don't want you to get the impression that I think God needs to actively "smite" us. There may be floods and droughts and wars and epidemics, but none of that is necessary now. All God needs to do is sit back and watch. The consequences of our actions are unavoidable. The bus America is already falling. It would take a miracle for it not to hit the bottom with a big fireball.
Instead of "Where are we now?" let's ask the question a different way. What does America need most right now? I see cartoon images of President Trump in golden armor – a warrior, a champion, "winning." I see him clad in a Superman outfit. As if what the US needed most were a tough guy; as if our problems were caused primarily by outsiders, and not ourselves. I believe that what America needs most right now is repentance. And I don't see memes of Mr. Trump in sackcloth and ashes.
I didn't watch any of the inauguration festivities. I turned on the radio and caught part of Trump's speech – one line – in which he mentioned our "crumbling infrastructure." I wonder whether VP Pence or someone else will tell the new President that there is no Enumerated Power of Infrastructure. Whether you call it "stimulus" or "infrastructure," it's illegal. And We the People, the last line of defense for the Constitution, will not stop the illegal actions we like.
If America's problem has been that the wrong people were doing what they wanted, then the solution of course is to have the right people do what we want. Hail, Trump. But I see people doing what they want as the problem. The forms of the republic persist, but in practice we've had mob rule for a long time now. That's not going away. We're riding that one all the way to the bang.
If the opposite of Obama is constitutional government, and if Trump is not constitutional government, then he is not the antidote for Obama. One is Thelma, the other is Louise. The destination is the same.
© Dan Popp
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.)
