Wisconsin and The Great Awakening

”[Progressives] have underestimated the good sense of the American people.
They broke faith with independents, Republicans, and their own rank-and-file.
They walked away from the foundational truths that made America the wonder
and the envy of the world.  The price of their infidelity will be high.”
—Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in April, 2010

What Paul Ryan calls “infidelity,” I call treason.  Whatever you call it, it stinks, and I smell its fetid odor wafting our way from Wisconsin these days.  (Link) and (Link)

Wisconsin, where Ryan hails from, has the dubious distinction of being closely associated with the early history of American Progressivism.  As such you might expect Wisconsin to be a hotbed of short-sighted, asinine, suicidal fiscal policies,  on a par with California and New York.  But the good people of Wisconsin have been largely too independent for such collectivist nonsense, and have by and large fought the good fight against the insidious progression of incremental totalitarianism—that is to say, Progressivism.  (Link)

A short aside from the website Discover the Networks: “Progressives endorse evolution (rather than revolution) a process by which society drifts gradually but inexorably toward statism.  To facilitate this evolution, progressives have sought, ever since their entry into the pages of American history, to infiltrate society’s power structure and its key institutions – the schools, the media, the churches, the entertainment industry, the labor unions, and the three branches of government [executive, legislative, and judiciary].”  (Link)

In any event, the protests in Madison, Wisconsin, are ostensibly caused by Governor Scott Walker’s (R-WI) attempts to rein in his state’s run-away debt.  The Power Elites are using it as an excuse to manipulate their “useful idiots” into participating in protest demonstrations.  I can picture aged radicals salivating at the prospect of blood and violence, and more blood and violence, in more and more places.  “Oh joy, oh bliss—the revolution at long last!.”  (Link)

Yeah, well, we’ll see about that.  Although God knows America has more than its share of clueless social malcontents, greedy entitlement addicts, and loopy liberal slackers, it also has a (much larger) number of hardworking patriotic taxpayers, who are fed up with the constant vociferous whining from those who prosper from feeding off of the taxpayer-funded government teat—whether it be through gaming the system, or through bloated union contracts.  (Link)

Many of us are struggling to keep our heads above water, financially speaking, and do not appreciate those who demand more and more of our cash.  Also, “we the people” have had a glimpse of what a NWO run by a Global Elite would look like, thanks to the arrogant, destructive 111th US Congress.  Instead of “Oh joy, oh bliss,” the sentiment of the day seems to be more along the lines of, “Screw you, and screw your revolution, too.”  (Link)

All of which has flown right over the heads of many in Washington D.C., who continue with their traitorous undermining of America’s sovereignty, and the handing over of our country to the UN, and other agents of the NWO cabal.  (How’s that Agenda 21 coming along?  Right on schedule?).  (Link)

To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton’s sage observation, “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions;” you might say that traitorous behavior does not cease to be treasonous because it has become fashionable.

Traitorous one-world globalist thinking is definitely de rigueur these days among America’s Progressives

And no doubt, traitorous one-world globalist thinking is definitely de rigueur these days among America’s Progressives (both left and right wing), who for the most part consider American patriotism to be quaintly déclassé. (Link)

Speaking of patriotism, my previous articles on atheism have drawn, dare I say, a spirited response, especially from atheists who assure me that they are patriotic Americans—conservative patriotic Americans.  I have never been one to pass by an opportunity to poke a badger, so here we go.

I certainly hold no personal animosity toward anyone claiming to be a patriotic atheist, and I have no doubt that they are sincere, but they can hardly believe in the same America that I do—one founded on principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence.

It is safe to say that if you omitted the following sentence from the Declaration you would rip out its heart: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  (Link)

“Unalienable” means God-given.  How can an atheist believe in unalienable rights?  They can only believe in man-given, or legislated rights, and that which is given by man, can be taken away by man.    (Link)

What about “all men are created equal.”  Such a statement is nonsense on a secular, atheistic level.  People are obviously not all created equal—we have different heights, weights, levels of intelligence, etc.  Thomas Jefferson was, of course, aware of this when he wrote the Declaration.  So in what sense did he mean we are all equal?  In a spiritual sense.  We are all equal in the sight of God.  That is nothing but foolishness to an atheist, who therefore believes in enforcing a cookie-cutter egalitarianism in order to achieve “social justice.”  Cloning would be just the thing.  (Link)

Why does the Declaration say that these truths are “self evident?”  Because at the time that the Declaration was written they were indeed self evident—that is, most people accepted them as being true.  Why?  Because of America’s First Great Awakening; a religious/spiritual revival that occurred in the years leading up to the American Revolution.  (Link)

John Adams (1735-1826), who knew a thing or two about the Revolutionary War, observed that the war part of the Revolution was only an afterthought, an effect, of the greater, more important spiritual Revolution that preceded it.  (Link)

In his words, “What do we mean by the American Revolution?  The war?  That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it.”  John Adams, who was among the most influential of the Founding Fathers, believed that the real Revolution was spiritual in nature.  Without a belief in God, there would have been no American Revolution, and no United States of America founded as a free republic.

How about the last sentence of the Declaration?  “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

For atheists, there can be no such thing as “Divine Providence” (“Providence” meaning God’s activity in the physical realm)—let alone such a thing as “sacred Honor”  Sacred means holy—without God nothing is holy, hence an atheist could not possibly posses “sacred honor.”

In fact, if you follow the nihilistic trail of atheism to its ultimate end, an atheist cannot posses honor in any form, as honor must spring from a free will, and atheism precludes free will—which is a God-given phenomenon (Calvinism notwithstanding).

In a Godless universe where nothing has any ultimate meaning, and the universe is a soulless, dumb, and pointless accident, where is such a miracle as free will supposed to arise from?  Monkeys?  (Link)

In any event, conservative atheists may sincerely believe that they are patriotic Americans—and I don’t doubt their veracity, or their declarations of love for their version of America (although technically speaking, love is no more allowed than honor under the bleak paradigm of true atheism).  Nonetheless, they cannot believe in both atheism and the America outlined in the Declaration of Independence—the America that I believe in, and will fight to defend.

To quote Adams again, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.  Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry [archaic: ostentation, affectation] would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.  Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate for any other.”  (Link)

One of the main reasons for the lack of a moral compass in America today is the ever increasing influence of secularism

One of the main reasons for the lack of a moral compass in America today is the ever increasing influence of secularism (i.e. atheism).  Adams was right, and although humanity has gained in knowledge and gizmos, and our culture has been transformed out of all recognition since Adams’ day, human nature has not changed one iota—what he wrote remains as true today as when he first penned it.  To believe otherwise is to engage in a naïveté similar to what Voltaire mocked in “Candide.”  (Link)

For a more recent observation on the topic, Rep. Paul Ryan said last spring “America stands for nothing if not for the fixed truth that unalienable rights were granted to every human being not by government but by ‘nature and nature’s God.’  The truths of the American founding can’t become obsolete because they are not time-bound.  They are eternal.  The practical consequence of these truths is free market democracy, the American idea of free labor and free enterprise under government by popular consent.  The deepest case for free market democracy is moral, rooted in human equality and the natural right to be free.”  (Link)

The Far Left’s answer to their lack of spirituality is, of course, rules and regulations

The Far Left’s answer to their lack of spirituality is, of course, rules and regulations.  Eventually, and always, it comes down to “having” to use force to implement increasingly Draconian laws—which stupidly, and arrogantly ignore natural law.  (Link)

America’s Second Great Awakening (which waxed and waned during the first half of the 19th century) is often cited as one of the main reasons for the Civil War.  I imagine Adams might have called the Civil War an “effect” of the Second Great Awakening.  (Link)

America’s Second Great Awakening came right on the heels of the first one.  There has been no Third Great Awakening—so far.  I would say that America is long overdue.  And after the Third Great Awakening—what then?  (Link)

Laus Deo.

Born in June of 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jim O’Neill proudly served in the U.S. Navy from 1970-1974 in both UDT-21 (Underwater Demolition Team) and SEAL Team Two.  A member of MENSA, he worked as a commercial diver in the waters off Scotland, India, and the United States. In 1998 while attending the University of South Florida as a journalism student, O’Neill won “First Place” in the “Carol Burnett/University of Hawaii AEJMC Research in Journalism Ethics Award.”  The annual contest was set up by Carol Burnett with the money she won from successfully suing the National Enquirer for libel.

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