The Problem with American Socialism and Religion

Why ARE so many Americans against Socialism? Simply Put (at least for me)... Freedom of Religion.


 We are a nation founded upon the freedom of religion. Our constitution was written with Christian principals, while at the same time, respecting other religions and putting no religion over state.We have a very fair separation of church and state.... as long as we have smaller, well controlled government. The problem comes in when the modern interpretation becomes Freedom FROM Religion.  The problem comes in as we let government take over more and more industry.


 Take education for example. Government created the Department of Education in 1979. This was not a complete takeover, as local and state school boards are still designing curricula, but it was just enough to intrude upon such things as school prayer, holidays and politically correct school textbooks.  Almost immediately upon government taking over education, we had people demanding that Christianity be removed in any form, from our schools.


 Ask yourself.... Are our children better off without God? Is the dropout rate better without God? Are our children smarter... kinder without God? Are the test scores higher without God? Are families stronger without Him?


Now we have government assuming a very large role in healthcare. How long before Catholic hospitals are forced to A) close or B) perform abortion? How long before the chapels in hospitals are removed? How long before you are told that your pastor can't come in to pray over you because your bedside neighbor MAY be offended?


Financial Aid - How long before your religious affiliation plays a role in getting a loan. Sorry we don't give loans for someone wanting to study theology or Creationism. Sorry our Christian Quota has been met.


Auto Industry - How long before we are told that we can't express our faith with a symbol of Jesus? When a Co-Exist becomes a requirement.


Gay Marriage - How long before churches will be sued over refusing to perform gay marriages?  Two Catholic innkeepers are now being sued for refusal to room a couple.  As well as a church camp, who is now counter-suing. (I'd like to point out that I have nothing against gay unions. As a secular issue, they have a right to love whom they wish and a right to benefits of their partners. My problem comes in when it starts impeding on the rights of churches to stand by their convictions.) Who will Protect the Christians?


I have NO problem with the separation of church and state. It makes perfect sense when government stays within the confines of their constitutional duties, but as government starts taking over state roles and spreads across industries, my religion become less and less respected and more and more vilified. Socialism in my mind is a back door way of removing our faith.


I have read that the Wall of Separation only applies to government but as the government continues to overreach into more and more areas of industry what will that mean for our Faith? What does a socialist America mean to our religions and the freedom thereof?


When does Faith become Don't Ask, Don't Tell?


Think it can't happen? Think I'm over-reaching? Look at our schools. High school seniors are being told that they can't include God in commencement speeches. Teachers are being fired for prayer groups. Children are being suspended for crosses. There was a time when that couldn't happen either.

Remember this....
If we take God out of the founding... Then we no longer have inalienable rights. If there is no God to create free men then freedom is a myth. How convenient for a controlling government



Ok, This has been on my mind and I'm not sure if I am being very eloquent so if anyone can elaborate or clarify my thinking...

Today isn't a celebration for what we're losing.... It's a fight. For our freedom. For our liberty. The socialist mindset is that tradition is insidious and holds us back from progress. For an American, tradition is a way to uphold and honor our values. Happy 4th of July!

Humility: the quality of being modest, reverential, with a lack of arrogance and contempt

I talk a lot of (respectful) smack about this man, our President, but I have to say that I love this picture of him. It shows a humility and a kindness that I think I've been missing from him. It shows a great father and someone not afraid to get down on a child's level. It shows a man not afraid of grass stains. :) I like the pure joy of a child unaware of who he is and the impact he has on our world. Beautiful and I want to see more of THIS while he is our President, even if our opinions differ.

How DO I Raise a Post-Racial Child in this Pro-Racial World?

Matthew and I were watching President Obama's speech this morning on The View. Matthew asked me why the President was on The View.  I told him that's a very good question.... He then asked "Isn't he too busy protecting us to be on this show?" Smart boy. It was a question I had asked myself just the night before. Surely, there is something that needs his attention right now. But the truth is, Matthew and I learned a lot about each other as we watched.... For every thing there is a season.


   This discussion led to a much more important discussion on race. Matt was reminding me how we had talked about Rosa Parks last year. He told me that it was so awful that people of color were forced to the back of the bus and told not to eat at the same counter as white folks. I then told him that he was absolutely right. I asked him if he remembered the story of Martin Luther King? He said that he did, but he didn't understand how he changed things as he did. I explained to him that Martin Luther King gave a speech and that in this speech he talked of his hopes for America. That he dreamed that we would one day live by the creed of our founding fathers... "we hold these truths to be self evident that ALL men are created equal" I explained to him that this was not a right given by men, but by God and that no man had the right to keep that away from another man. We talked about the meaning of "the content of their character". What does that mean to an eight year old? I asked Matthew what it meant to be a good human being. Matthew, in his eight year old way, told me that it means being nice and playing fairly, not lying and stealing, helping each other. We can all learn a lot from our children.


I catch myself saying... "We are past this. Why is my child noticing the color of his playmates skin suddenly?" I didn't raise him to see that way. It has become a topic of discussion in our house this year, this "post-racial" year. Why? Matthew is a smart child and he knows that mommy believes in smaller government. He knows that mommy believes that our freedom and liberty is being called into question. He hears on the television that this means mommy is a racist. Yet we have honest discussions about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglass and what they accomplished to make America a better place for all races. We not only talk about it, we live by it.  To be called a racist because I believe in EVERY man's ability to succeed without the government nanny, is ludicrous, to say the least. After all, it isn't just people of color who are suffering right now, many are. I simply believe that the burden of responsibility lies upon us, the individual, to help our neighbor. Passing it all on to the government isn't the solution. Teaching our children to help one another cannot be taught by paying ever increasing taxes, but by action. This nation was built on individuality and the the belief that man has exclusive rights to "self" deemed by our Creator. Let NO man put asunder. Politicians are playing a very dangerous game. They do so at the expense of every man, woman and CHILD, in America. We cannot stand for it. This game of race baiting and racial division is only a means to an end.


 Eric Holder says that "we are a nation of cowards" when it comes to discussions of race. HE is the coward. He is the one who can't see racism as a two-way street. My favorite passage from the "I have a Dream" speech" is this-
"In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
This tells me that Martin Luther King believed in what our forefather's promised. That he respected this experiment that we call America. This tells me that he wanted equality and FREEDOM for ALL mankind. Black, white, red, brown. Martin Luther King marched in peace. He saw the Writing on the Wall. He knew that he might die for his beliefs. HE was not a coward. And neither am I. 


I realize now that the conversation remains an important one. Although I don't want my children to notice color, I also have a responsibility to keep our history alive. The good and the bad of it all. Instead of hiding from the issue, I will discuss how we have grown from it as a nation. We are a better nation because of our struggles and our differences, not in spite of them. For those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

The Backwards Motion of The Sexual Revolution

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition".  ~Timothy Leary

        We are stronger than men in every sense and yet we strive to be equal. Why do we lower our standards? The sexual revolution did little to help women find their power. I would even counter that it took us backwards in our fight. Proving the point that we were nothing more than sexual beings. It gave us a false sense of control, but what it really did was give men a constant plaything with no reason to revere us. Sure we may not get pregnant but men could still use us to their abandon. They no longer had to restrain their urges until they were ready to become fathers and husbands.  Men took this opportunity to place the burden of responsibility squarely on our shoulders as women. The goal should never have been to equate us to men but to EXALT us as women. To give power to our evolutionary and God-given design as caretakers and nurturers. To honor our mothers and their mothers before them. Instead woman of the movement looked down upon the very woman that raised them, shaming those that were stronger and worked harder than any of us have ever had to.


How free are we when even workplace equality has thrown of the balance of our lives by making it virtually impossible for one person to provide for their family? So many women entered the workforce at once that it was a financial boon for corporations everywhere. They could pay us less AND lay off our husbands at the same time. They continued by lowering mens salaries instead of raising womens. We can no longer choose lightly to raise our own children without the sense of guilt and burden we feel by placing so much of one partners shoulders.

 How free are we when we feel a profound sense of guilt for choosing not to take birth control. We, even as married women, feel that we are socially irresponsible, if we choose to avoid the  chemicals and hormones that MAY not work for us. We are racked with guilt as feminist women look down upon a woman like Sarah Palin for having the audacity to give birth to a child with down syndrome. Surely a woman that "chooses" that could NOT be an intelligent capable woman to look up to! Further, they rail against her daughter as she takes, once again, a vow of abstinence, snickering at the ignorance of a girl thinking that she may control her own sexual urges. They talk of freedom of choice as long as its not that "Duggar" woman that dares to have 18 children in this day and age.


My father was the biggest pro-feminist of them all, I can assure you. He saw absolutely no reason for my mom to stay home to raise me after I was born. He demanded that she return to waitressing six weeks after I was born and she never sealed the hole in her heart. Where was her power?


My husband and I worked together for eight years to build our lives and home, so that we could be prepared to raise a child. When I decided to stop working to raise my oldest, my father told me that I should be "ashamed of myself" for putting such an undue burden upon my husband. I took my power and my moms, along with the grace of God and a whole lot of prayer and I made the decision that was right for US.


This isn't to say that we shouldn't have birth control or the right to "equal work, equal pay" Surely, we do. Yet we need to look into our mirrors and ask WHY we are more tired than ever before, less happy than even our own mothers. HOW is it possible that we can have it all,  yet we seem to have less? WHAT is our new place in this world? WHEN did this happen and WHO caused our turmoil?  We did, by forgetting our mothers and what the real struggle was about. I think the mistake came when we turned it into a social and political movement instead of an evolving , natural process of society. We let too few speak for too many 


We don't need to find our equality, we need to find our Power.

Let's talk about Race

 A response of mine to a forum on the President's healthcare policy.


I just hate this feeling of walking down the street and noticing color again. I hold the door open for someone and I think, "Does she hate my race?" I see underground videos of people like Van Jones and reverend Wright and countless others and it shocks me to know that they hide these deep seated feelings of resentment. I'm not saying that I don't understand, but I guess thats the point. I can never truly understand. I just think that harboring resentment is only letting it boil up inside of a person to the bitter end and it gets us nowhere. 


What I am trying to say is this. When a black man such as Van Jones says that the white man owes those that he oppressed, he is not saying that "all men are created equal" He is saying that The white man is to become the slave and the black (indian, hispanic, chinese) man the oppressor. Revenge is an ugly thing and needs to be set aside to make this a better world. Is that what Martin Luther King would have wanted? Is that what he meant by "I have a dream?" Does that sound like what Kennedy meant in his definition of a liberal? "Someone who looks ahead and not behind?" I don't want my sons to pay for the sins of the grandfather twice removed. I don't want them to see color as they walk down the street.  


So stop letting our representatives turn this into something racial. It isn't. And that is only used to incite anger. That is not change or hope for a better world. Believe me if they are allowed to do this to me, they will be allowed to do this to you.