“Observations”©

Donald S. Conkey

Date: December 27, 2007 - # 952 - Making good choices at the polls (804)

Will the presidential election of 2008 match the nearly 90 percent voter-turn-out as it did in some Cherokee prescients in 2004? They could. And if they do Janet Munda, the county’s able elections supervisor, is prepared for it. She has already set up training schedules for the 2008 election year which begins with the presidential preference election scheduled for February here in Georgia.       

       With the presidential primaries about to begin on January 3 in Iowa we could be in for another year of wall-to-wall political coverage – coverage that will turn off many. And the 2008 election could well be the tipping point year for America’s envied way of life. This could be the year that Alexander Tyler’s 1795 prophesy will come to pass: the voters will vote for the candidate that promises them that their government will take care of them from the cradle to the grave, ignorant that such promises lead to bondage, governmental induced slavery.

       Tyler’s prophesy failed to describe the consequences such promises lead to. But another ancient leader, Mosiah, a righteous king, spelled out the consequences when “the voice of the people choose iniquity.” Said he, “And if the time comes when the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.”

       And what could possible be so iniquitous as to bring about the judgments of God upon a people or nation?

       America could turn from those principles of freedom the Founding Fathers embedded in America’s three foundational documents, many of which were borrowed from the Law of the Covenant, laws given to Moses by the Lord on Mt Sinai. Observers of today’s political conflicts see little semblance of the Godly leadership observed by Alexis de Tocqueville in America’s first 50 years of self-government.

       America’s current political turmoil reminds me of the days the Israelites became so fed up with the corruption in their government they went to their prophet Samuel and asked for a king. Samuel took this request to the Lord. The Lord’s response to Samuel was: “Hearken onto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should reign over them.” Clear unmistakable words that the Lord will give to his people that which they ask even if it leads to their self-destruction. The three major issues that destroyed Israel were corruption, excessive taxation and rejection of their God. Is America in the throes of doing the same thing – rejecting the God who gave them their freedom?

       While God was not directly involved in the creation of America as He was in the creation of ancient Israel America’s Founding Fathers nevertheless realized their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was indirectly directing their efforts to restore freedom to the world; using them, as God had used Moses anciently, to raise up a nation of freedom with a written constitution, something then unknown in the world.  

       The Constitution itself does not mention God but Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence alludes to His influence several times. In paragraph one Jefferson openly implies their new nation would be subject to the “Laws of Nature,” and “the Laws of Nature’s God.” In paragraph two he named their “Creator” as the source of mankind’s ‘unalienable rights’ and in paragraph four he references deity twice, first by “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World,” and second by calling for the “the Protection of divine Providence.”

       And the words of George Washington should be a reminder of the principles America must adhere to to continue receiving the Divine blessings that had led and protected him while winning an unwinnable war. Said Washington: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. … Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? …”

       As Americans prepare to elect a new president they need to choose carefully, choosing that individual with the integrity of a Washington, Adams, Jefferson, or Madison; those men who laid their lives on the line to establish freedom in America, then led the new nation through the agonizing years of establishing those freedoms all Americans now cherish, but could lose by choosing “inequitable leaders without character.”

       Remember “rights without responsibility” is not freedom; it always leads to bondage. Choose well!