I have been asked by many for my opinion on the several government scandals going on right now. I guess it is time that I say something even though I believe that most already know.
The scandals include: Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS, DOJ, NSA. Let us look at each.
Fast and Furious. Every nation has the right to protect its boarders. The Church does not disagree on this. She does teach that nations have certain obligations though when it comes to immigration. The most important being the political refugee. When one is being unjustly persecuted by ones government it becomes the obligation of another country to take that person if they request entry. We have that process and so are in compliance with Church teaching.
Governments have the obligation to protect the people from enemies (foreign and domestic) and from criminals of all kinds. By not securing the boarders, the US government is not protecting the US people. I fully support the fact that the US is an immigrant country. I fully support the fact that we continue to invite new immigrants. I fully support that there are laws governing who can immigrate. The laws are important and necessary today in a way that they were not in the past. We have our own criminals and “moochers” (people taking from the system like a bunch of greedy *&^$#^&* that they are) here already. We have no obligation to take on new ones from other countries.
The political environment surrounding immigration is just unthinkable and unjust. We know it surrounds getting votes. But now a many has died for those votes. Are the democrats that power hungry that they are willing to let a man die so they can get a vote? They have changed none of their policies in light of the death of a US citizen who died protecting our boarder. They still use the same political jargon of “undocumented immigrants.” NO! They are ILLIGAL IMMIGRANTS! If a man steals, we call him a thief. If a man lies we call him a liar (or a layer or politician works also). If a man rapes, we call him a rapist. If a man murders, we call him a murderer. In all these and many more examples we label a man according to his actions. And rightly so for Scripture says, “you will know them by their fruits.” If a person crosses the boarder without due process then he is here illegally and is by definition an illegal immigrant. Politicians, shame on you for playing word games that mislead and manipulate the political system for your greed.
More to the point of all this, a man died protecting his country. Worse yet, is that he died from a gun his own government supplied to the enemy. How many levels of “sick and wrong” is this?
Benghazi. Same problem. Political games. The fact is Islam says that Christians are infidels. They try to say they trace their religion back to Abraham and so have the same God, but then why would we be infidels if we believe in the same God. According to Islam, non-Muslims are to be converted, enslaved or killed. If I already believe in the one God with them, what is the matter with me believing in a different religion. Catholics, Jew and Protestants all believe in the same God and have gotten along for a long time. Why not Islam? Out of political agendas that have little to nothing to with truth comes the idea of a good Muslim and a radical Muslim. In my book any Muslim who believes the Koran that says I am an infidel is a radical Muslim. They may not act on it, but they do noting to stop others from acting on it.
Note that there is nothing in the Christian religion that says others MUST convert, be enslaved or die. We invite people to be Christian, we do not demand it on pains of being a slave or killed. YES! I know it was done at one time, but this was not a point of doctrine. Men did that. They were wrong. The Church has said they were wrong and has corrected the error. In Islam, it is different. It is their DOCTRINE that we are infidels. The Koran, by its very existence is evil. I am not saying to burn the Koran. There are a lot of evils in the world. The difference is that this evil is being called good. Evil must be called evil. Then we can protect ourselves from it.
At Benghazi, Obama let US citizens die without even lifting a finger to help them. Sounds like Jesus’ complaint against the Jewish priests of the day. To see people in need and not help them is just wrong, especially when they are one of your own and you have sworn an oath to protect them. Even after they were dead, there still was no attempt to protect American soil. It may be that help could not have gotten there on time to save lives, but there still needed to be a show of strength by protecting the Land. Nothing was done with the exception of a luxury trip to Las Vegas to go campaigning. How many levels of “sick and wrong” is this?
If there are not enough levels of sick and wrong for you so far, remember that Obama and Hillary used the death of Americans to boaster his election with the lie about the video. They used the death of Americans for their advancement to greater power… Sick and wrong!!!
IRS. Do I even need to say anything here? Obama had spewed vomit in the form of several speeches where he spoke on how bad the conservative party, tea party and anyone who upholds the constitution are. Then amazingly enough, the IRS, an arm of the government that has teeth, decided to go after and target these groups.
The government is there to protect and serve the people. We have seen twice in this article that they are failing at protecting us. Now we see that they are not serving us either. Rather, the government seems to have that old Catholic mentality of the people are their to “pray, pay and obey.” Well, not pray at least. Well, not obey either, at least not if you are Hispanic, they will give you a pass. Well, come on, not pay either, unless you are the evil rich. OK. What is true here is that they want us to be subservient, and docile to their evil plans of taking full control of this country and our lives.
It seems to me that the democratic stance of “never let a good crisis go to waste” needs to be implemented. The IRS that is hated and not trusted by a majority, has shown itself to be a domestic enemy that terrorizes the people. It is time to shut it down and eliminate it. When an entity or individual works outside the law, it is no longer part of the system and becomes a tyrant to be eliminated.
DOJ. I am not a lover of most of the media out there today, but I know it is necessary to have it. My problem is “When, Where, How, Why.” Where is it? I hear a lot of opinions and politics, but where is the real NEWS? Where are the FACTS?
Much of the news media today is liberal and out of touch with reality. They end up harming much of society that are not able to think for themselves. The weak-minded follow like sheep to the slaughter as the media push the social reform that sounds companionate, but in the end destroys personal freedom and establishes a two class society (the haves and the have-nots).
The media, when it works properly (that is for the sake of reporting and not the pushing of agendas), is the watchdog that keeps the government in check. It is a good thing. We need to know when the government is doing wrong so that we can correct it in the next election. But so many do not care that the government is doing wrong because they are the recipients of the wrongdoings. They are the recipients of the so-called entitlements. We can talk about that term some other time.
Needing the media as a check against the governments limitless power, they need to be and are protected by the 1st Amendment. This extends to their informants that lead them to the stories. Informants are important. We even have whistle blower laws to protect them. The good news is that as corrupt people get into government, good people also get into government. These good people find themselves in a predicament when things are not being done properly and when laws are being broken. Thank goodness that some have the courage to take the heat and reveal to the world what is going on so that it can be corrected.
NSA. This one is troubling indeed. Many today seem to have this idea that if you have nothing to hide then what are you worried about. It not a matter of having something to hid. It is about psychology and the fallen nature of mankind.
We have saying like “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” We know that people are week by nature. That is why we have laws. Granted, laws like locks, only keep the honest honest. But that is the point. We put policies, laws and procedures in place to keep the honest honest. The bad guy, he doesn’t care. He is going to do whatever he wants no matter what. We have prisons for him.
Think of it this way. We have rules and procedures for our accountant to follow. Why? Not because we do not trust him. If we did not trust him, we would not have hired him. We do trust him. At the same time we know human weakness. Money corrupts like power. Temptation can get the better of anyone, so we put rules and procedures in place to protect ourselves and the individual as best we can. Note that I said to protect the individual in addition to ourselves. We do not want to just protect ourselves. We want to protect others also. I do not want to see anyone go to prison. That is an evil and it costs me money in taxes to house someone there. We want people to succeed. Like training my dog or horse. I do not set them up for failure so I can punish them. I set them up to succeed so that I can reward them. To have my dog and horse succeed is much less stressful on me the same as when I set my accountant up to succeed, I do not lose money. Yea! That is a win win situation.
We have another saying, “Information is power.” We have all had someone hold something over us at some point in our lives. We know the power they have over us because they have information. That is why I have always taught that family dirt stays in the home. We do not air our dirty laundry. In particular, children will make mistakes as they grow. The Church understands this with the seal of confession. It is important that parents do not tell others what their child did. The home should be a safe place to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. When we share that information with others, a stupid mistake or a moment of weakness can harm a child’s future.
Think now about business. If you have their reward card, they will give you 5% off or what ever deal. Sounds good. I get an ID number and a discount. YEA! Really? Is business in business to give you discounts? They are in business to make money and they lose money when they do this. Like coupons, they use them to get you to the store and then you buy a lot of other things also. They take a small hit on one item and make a lot more money on the other items. They use these reward cards to study our buying behavior. There is a psychology to buying things and once they figure it out, they will manipulate us to buy what we do not need. So rather than psychological warfare, they do psychological commerce on us.
We have already seen in this article and know without me having written this article, that our government is about power. Democrat and Republican alike. Neither one is our friend. In the end, they are in bed together for the one cause of power and greed. Think of the power they have to control us with the amount of information they have on us. The IRS is already doing it. Terrorizing conservative groups.
This is not how they sell it though. They would not say, we are going to collect information on you so that we can control you. Rather, they say they are collecting data so that they can better protect us. Keep in mind that I am not safe when they have information on me. I am safe only when they have information on the bad guys. Target them!!! That is, after all, what they are supposed to do. Know who the bad guys are and collect information on them that will lead to our protection and their prosecution.
In the mean time, information on us may not have any immediate effects, good or bad. That is not what is at steak here. What is, is that human nature is weak and there will be someone at some time who will use this information to manipulate us for their own gain. It is information that if it were not there, they could not use. It is information that the government does not need about us anyway.
This is not about conspiracy theory or about being paranoid or anything of the kind. Rather, it is about simple psychology. We know human nature. We have seen human nature in action for many centuries, across many national, cultural, racial, gender, and age boundaries. It is always the same. This does not say that the human nature is bad, only weak. With policies, laws and procedures in place we try to set people up to succeed, not fail. Should not one of these policies be PRIVECY? In other words, if you do not need the information on me, you do not need the information on me, so stop collecting it and delete what you have.