thefourthbrother: the average one

The Problem with Politics June 15, 2012

Politics is defined as: 1)The art and science of government, 2) Public life and affairs as involving authority and government.

My definition of politics is: 1) The unchecked destruction of a free society by self-serving narcissists holding public office.

In today’s world, Politics accounts for nearly 2/3 of all newsworthy items reported every day, leaving the last third to be squabbled over by Hollywood and the lovers of tragedy. Stories of value and morality or anything good simply account for so little a percentage they are lost in the mess. Day in and day out it is politics, politics, politics.

Awhile back I wrote a post on how celebrity was a religion, but politics is every bit a religion as celebrity. There are people who eat, drink and sleep politics. Everything they write or talk about is politics. All the popular radio talk shows cover nothing but politics. Politicians and those who study and report on politics are huge celebrities themselves. It is a facet of society that is fast becoming a cancer.

The American public is solicited every minute for their vote. The other day I visited the CNN website to scan the headlines and front and center was a photo of Michelle Obama asking for your support for her husbands campaign. She was very pretty with an inviting smile and it is only natural that she should support her husband, but you know what I didn’t find on CNN’s website? Ads for the opposing party. You think the media is just a tad biased? I think the media is in love with Obama like flies are in love with you-know-what.

The Presidential campaigns are in full swing now with the candidates clearly defined for each party, and make no mistake, this is only a two party nation: Republican and Democrat; no third party will ever win the Presidency and everyone casting their vote for a third party candidate is simply muddying the water. So our choices are: Either Barack Obama (D), or Mitt Romney (R) for president. I confess that I don’t want either one to win.

The calls are already in full cry, “support your party, vote for your parties candidate!” So if I follow the advice I should vote for someone who I didn’t want in the first place because now they are the only candidate representing my affiliated party. The primaries are now over so quit crying over spilt milk and support your political party. Nice position to be in, much like having maggots eat away your dead flesh is an acceptable treatment. No thanks.

I have listed on this blog before why I will never vote for Obama and it has nothing to do with his skin color. I find myself unwilling to vote for Romney because of his religion, a cult with twisted and unholy teachings about God. I do not believe anyone can govern and not be influenced by their religion. So it becomes a question of how faithful is Romney to his Mormonism? I’m not sure I am willing to find out. How I will vote and whether I will vote at all still remains to be determined. I am also not one of those people who believes that the general public, if given clear choices, will make the right decision. It is not simply a matter of intelligence and if I believe the American people are intelligent – it is a matter of sin. A nation of people determined to live their own lives and make their own choices, without God, is a nation of people on the path of destruction. All the calls for political correctness and fairness and good deeds are worthless when those ideals are born out of disobedience to our Creator and Master. Self-serving ideas and ambitions do not a good nation make nor do they sustain that nation. We are witnessing the unraveling of America right now because the nation has turned from God and the founding principles that were based on Belief in Christ Jesus.

So the problem with politics is Biblical.

Do you remember the account of Noah and the flood? Do you remember the reason for the flood? Let me refresh your memory, just in case you forgot.

Genesis 6: 5 “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”

That was a time on the earth where mankind reveled in it’s rejection of God, governing themselves. Do you see anything in our government or headlines today that honors and respects God?  I don’t. How about…

Judges 21: 25 “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Doing what is right in our own eyes. Many people, I daresay, millions of people today live like this. They do what is right in their own eyes. The problem with this way of life and thinking is it is born out of sin. Only God can free us from slavery to sin and until we believe and repent and surrender to Him we are driven to sin, no matter how noble our efforts or good our deeds seem to us, they are utterly wicked without God’s guiding Spirit. Jeremiah 17: 9 tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” Are we to assume just because a politician spouts noble sounding rhetoric that his intentions are good? If we assume that we are fools. As I just pointed out, unless a person is changed by Christ and guided by God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, that person can produce nothing that is good  because it is born out of sin. Now are you starting to see the problem of politics? Our nation is right now purging itself of everything that honors God: the Ten Commandments, Crosses, Prayers in public, the name of Jesus. A nation that does this is corrupting itself and the politicians in power, if not actively participating in the purge, are allowing it to happen by indifference or ignorance.

We are very much like the nation of Israel thousands of years ago. This nation, like Israel then, doesn’t want God to rule. This nation wants a human “king” so that they are like all the other nations. We lift up our candidates as the best our society has to offer when nothing could be further from the truth. Our candidates are simply the ones with the most money to spend. Your average, middle class American will never be president in this country, regardless of their ability to lead and make shrewd beneficial decisions. It’s all about money and power and celebrity and talking a good campaign. And just like Israel so long ago, God is giving us what we want – but it comes with dire consequences. Let’s look at the account.

1 Samuel 8: 6 – 20: “But when they said, ‘Give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king’ . . . ‘but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do’ . . . when that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.”  (you will have to open your Bible to read the full account).

The problem with America is that we have not reached the point where we are crying out for relief from the king. We keep voting them into office and the policies get more disastrous year after year. I don’t know when or if that will ever happen; it may never happen and we are living the last days of American greatness – but until this nation falls to it’s knees and cries out to God and repents, our problems with politics will continue to eat away at our founding principles until they are no more.

We will then, truly, be like all the other nations.