As a Christian man, I believe there is more to life than just the physical. An atheist friend of mine often complains that, while many Christians do good things for other people (e.g. feeding the hungry), they always do it with the ulterior motive of "recruiting" those people to the church. I don't call that an ulterior motive, though.
You see, as a Christian, I believe that it is important to feed the body. But it is far more important to feed the soul and the spirit. The body is temporary, and physical food is even more temporary. But spiritual food lasts forever -- much longer than the body itself.
So the human body is far less important than the human spirit.
IN THE BEGINNING
The human spirit is of the utmost importance. And that is where the importance of the founding of America comes in. America was founded on the idea of freedom from England, but also the idea of individual liberty. Those who were living in the colonies were much more rugged, much more self-sufficient. The government did not give them what it gave to those in England, so they got used to making it on their own.
Then they found that liberty is like a great drug. That is, if you have a little, you want more. It is a first taste of freedom.
Remember when you turned 18 and just wanted to get out of your parents' house? That freedom. The open road. Your own place. It was invigorating. What about the excitement and pride when you bought your first car without a cosigner? Or your first home? It was a new, exciting world -- no longer would someone else's thinking dictate how you lived your life.
That's where our founders were -- they found independence, not only collectively, but also individually. Liberty. Freedom. Opportunity that would not be stifled by the will of another.
So they marched on and decided to make their liberty official. They determined that the oppression they had felt was a result of a government that ruled over them. So they decided to try it the other way -- they would rule over their government.
And it worked!!!! People had liberty rather than an overbearing government, and they were able to create their own prosperity and happiness.
What a victory for the human spirit!!!!
THE REGRESSIVE MOVEMENT
But then others started to lose sight of the beauty of this arrangement. They began wanting the government to do things for them, to give them stuff, to fix their problems. They lost sight of the beauty of self-sufficiency, and we began the slow march toward dependence once again.
FDR was the worst for this. The entire regressive movement was to blame, though.
In olden times, people depended upon, and were subservient to, their governments, in most societies. Individual liberty the way we tried it, the "noble experiment," was a new idea in the grand scheme of things. Progression is moving forward, and regression is moving backward. Because socialists who call themselves "progressive" desire to move in a direction where government acts more like a parent of a young child, I choose not to call them progressives, but rather, regressives.
So the Regressives sought to make people more comfortable -- or perhaps just less uncomfortable. They sold it as meeting everyone's needs. But what they didn't tell people was that, in order to make everyone equal in their outcomes, they would need to lower the outcomes of many. They left that out of the sales pitch, so people could envision a better life for all, even though that is not really what was being sold.
Ask anyone living on social security -- they are not rolling in dough. It is not a high-on-the-hog proposal. But that is what regressivism would bring to everyone. Then there's one problem -- it's easier for a retired person to live on less, with mortgages paid off and whatnot. But those in the Regressive Movement would have all Americans live this way, in their utopian ideal. It will necessarily bring down standards of living. But at the same time, everyone will have health care and food. Just not as much as they do now.
A GODLESS WORLD
This reflects a situation a far cry from where we started. You see, our country was founded because our founders realized an aspect of the human spirit they had never seen before. It was a coming-of-age of humanity.
But then Americans began to abandon God. In doing so, they forgot that they had spirits. They started to think that the physical body was the end-all be-all.
Regressivism feeds and cares for the body (minimally). But it ignores the spirit.
Our collective American spirit has long been in a state of atrophy. As a result, many Americans look at regressivism and envision a utopia. Sadly, that utopia will result in a lower standard of living for all, and a crushed spirit. Those who are controlling it will have a great deal of power -- after all, once you break a society's spirit, that society is easily controlled.
And that seems to be the dream of many in power right now who call themselves Liberals.
Traditionally, liberals want to go the new way, where conservatives want to hang on to the old. But our country uses the labels backwards. Our founders were liberals, but their positions are those which are now described as conservative (or, more appropriately, libertarian).
So we need to find a way to revive that spirit. We need to find a way to get the government to leave people alone again. We, as a society, are the 25-year-old that has given up on God, given up on finding a job, and chosen to live in his parents' basement, sitting in his boxers and blogging. (By the way, that's not me -- I'm 37, a tenured teacher, and sitting in the living room of my own house blogging. Fully clothed).
We need to encourage government to get out of the Robin-Hood business and get back to the tough love of a parent kicking their kid out. Guess what that kid usually does .... he finds a way to make it on his own. We need our society to do this.
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