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You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot permanently help men by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
~William J. H. Boetcker 1916
This project is dedicated to our children and our grandchildren so they will know with their faith in a saving Lord, there will always be hope. We want you to know the truth as we have been taught, not what is politically correct, not what is being said by so many who do not tell the truth. We love you and care for you and for your future. If you seek evidence of the truth about America, you will find it in the bookshelves of my library. If you seek both truth and redemption, you will find it in the Bible. So be strong, be fearless, be a Reformer and trust in God.
And to our family and friends to whom we trust and hold dear through many an adventure in life, we thank you.
~Gary Darling
America, Stop a Moment and do a Sanity Check!
Finding America This Isn't the Country I Grew Up In 10-6-09
I wish I was as smart as some of the people I associate with whether at work or away from there. I wish I’d taken my early education more seriously. For instance, the fellows I see weekend mornings at a little eating place on the side of Hwy 412 in our town of Siloam Springs. I am constantly aware their powers of deductive reasoning are frequently keener than mine.
One fellow - call him Dave - can readily discuss mechanical applications. That in itself isn’t unusual. But having listened to him one morning discuss how this part won’t last long with that part because their alloys “don’t like each other,” I asked what he meant. Without batting an eye he dove into the periodic table of elements that make up the compounds which can or cannot react favorably to other compounds, at least in his line of work. You see, David is a tow-truck driver. He makes his living pulling people out of ditches or cleaning up wrecks on the highway. He can also fix or make a replacement for just about any part on that truck of his. Why... how? Because he wants to know. He’s sent at least one son to college who became an engineer for an international company while do that.
Another fellow - let’s call him Joe - is retired. Like many of these guys, he’s Navy, then got a degree to teach school. Now he draws retirement and works part time just to have some extra spending money. He writes history of his family and this town we both grew up in and does it in such a way that he’s regularly published. He’s certainly a better author than I am, and he collects local antiques which he graciously allows me to make photos of or digitally scan to disks and share them so that, should his collections be destroyed, their image will always be preserved.
Some of these guys never finished school and others are career teachers at a couple of universities. One is a retired postman, another is an active firefighter. Another is a heavy equipment operator doing landscaping and ditch digging. Others do farming, haul junk or practice medicine. An environmentalist also sits among them.
They have diverse ways of dressing, of speaking, personalities so different that the chemistry of two fellows can, at times, be contentious. It's a universal fellowship of guys joined in mutual respect over coffee, eggs and toast. Anywhere else they are as different as, well, as a teacher and a ditch digger.
Here they banter with each other and often merge into an alliance of opinions and often strong differences. And, not surprisingly, it’s become more about politics as of late. But, it’s a different kind of politics.
It was once an occasional thing where they would spar over the democrats or the republicans, or the liberals versus conservatives. Not anymore. That’s disappeared. It's who’s running government and they don’t mean which party as much as wondering what happened to our elected representatives, what are they doing, where have they gone? They aren’t listening to us. They seem to be following something other than the oath of office.
The local guys are fervent about it! Washington isn’t listening to the people. Things are so out of kilter that you can’t pick out one specific thing in a day without learning that something else has changed and nobody is comfortable with it. This isn’t familiar American politics anymore. There aren’t any satisfying answers coming out of Washington. And we have lost our trust with most of them.
Overlay this with what we older folks were taught in civics class and you start to see the disparity, the lack of… well, America as it used to be, the things that made America great. It seems young people nowadays have no personal regard about how America was started. Hollywood and texting and photo sharing compete with designer clothes. A few young people seem to know what’s going on but I believe them to be a minority. And many of those, it seems, have a different political philosophy than their parents or grandparents.
I hate to admit it but it’s my generation that let that happen. People like me just sat on our blessed assurance that everything would turn out okay, that someone would come along and fix what needed fixing. There was always somebody who would step up to the plate and show light to the errant and that would be that. It didn’t happen.
Do I know what’s going on? And do I know how to fix it? Sometimes feel I do, or at least I know what worked at one time. I know what it was like before now. Let’s just put it back the way it was then, but logic tells me that won’t work. It’s a different world with different technology, different people running things, a lot of things. There are two things that must be done regardless of how it happens. The first is to recapture the vision of our Founders of America. I have a feeling they would see what's going on today and find some similarity to what they were fighting against. And there is no real Second to this - recognize that the Founders established America's cornerstone in the belief that there is a God. Not all founders believed in a personal God. But most believed in a saving God who would honor those who honored Him. It is these two attributes - the only ones - that give me hope. 10-3-09
For a Christian View, click here. [copied with permission] Fish & Flag symbol can be found here
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny."
~Abraham Lincoln, 1864
Lincoln's address at Sanitary Fair in Baltimore, Maryland. April 18th, 1864
<http://www.uwlax.edu/teachhistory/Old%20Grants/Grant1/EducationResources1/Foner.htm>
And from the book, Liberty and Tyranny by Mark R. Levin [2009]
There's more stuff ahead - Click Here!
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If you are interested, we welcome any help with historical and scriptural quotes and facts. Email at <sanity2010@gmail.com>
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