5 Signs That We Haven’t Lost America Yet
After a week of depressing headlines, signs of life on the
American horizon
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back againMoonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rockBegin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airlineAyatollah’s in Iran, Russians in AfghanistanWheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicideForeign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie GoetzHypodermics on the shore, China’s under martial lawRock and Roll, cola wars, I can’t take it anymoreBilly Joel – “We Didn’t Start the Fire“
Benghazi, Boston bombings, the Gosnell trial, the Cleveland
kidnappings, the IRS targeting conservatives, DOJ snooping on the AP, war games
with Iran and North Korea, civil war in Syria…
Last week my ability to mentally process world events felt like a
cell phone when the data is throttled — it was almost too much to wrap my mind
around. Some days I fantasize about life as a low-information voter, not caring
about anything more important than what some Kardashian is up to. Barring sudden
brain malfunction, I’m not likely to experience that kind of apathy any time
soon, and the fact that you’re reading PJ Media tells me that you’re likely in
the same boat.
Instead of spending the weekend wallowing in all the terrible things
happening in the country and around the world, I decided to instead consider
many of the positive signs around us that all is not yet lost.
And so I bring you:
5 Signs That We Haven’t Lost America Yet:
1. We Are Raising Constitutionally Literate Kids
I don’t ever remember reading the Constitution growing up — or even
anyone talking about it. I imagine we must have perused it at some point during
a “social studies” class, but we certainly never studied it in any detail.
Thanks in large part to the Tea Party, now the Constitution, Declaration of
Independence, and Federalist Papers are again household names. Millions of
Americans are raising their kids with a deep understanding of our founding
documents and a respect for them that will certainly translate into public
policy eventually.
And we are just now beginning to see the maturation of the first wave
of an explosion in homeschooling that began in the early 1990s. Studies show that
homeschool graduates are far more likely than their public school peers to
vote, work for or contribute to a campaign, attend a protest, and contact a
public official about a policy issue. They also tend
to adopt heir parents’ beliefs, which tend to be very conservative
politically.
Is it possible that a young conservative resurgence is bubbling right
below the surface? I think it’s very possible!
2. Conservatives Reproduce More Than Liberals
The states that vote for Republican presidential candidates have the
highest
fertility rates. Utah families have 2.7 children each compared to 1.7 in
Vermont. Homeschoolers have 3.5
children per family (thank you, Duggar family, for raising our team
average!). One economist who looked at the numbers thinks that even the increase
in the Hispanics, who tend to have more babies and vote Democrat, cannot
make up for the deficits of the lethargic left. This is a numbers game, and
their obsession with abortion, birth control, and one-child families as a part
of their holistic carbon-footprint-reduction plan will eventually catch up with
them.
3. The Media Is Increasingly Democratic
Besides your parents, do you know anyone who relies solely on the
mainstream media for their news anymore? Recently, the Cleveland Plain
Dealer announced a switch
from 7-day to 3-day home delivery service in an attempt to cut costs. In
recent years the paper has degraded into little more than partisan hackery (with
above-average sports coverage), and it has obviously hurt their bottom line.
The way Americans consume news has changed and the Plain
Dealer hasn’t kept up. Gone are the days when the experts at the editorial
board could tell everyone in their circulation area whom to vote for. It’s hard
to believe that there was a time when voters relied on newspaper editorial
boards to choose their candidates. How absurd! Today, instead of a handful of
media elites controlling the flow of news, “We the People” can drive the stories
and help to create the narratives. The American people pushed the Gosnell story
out in spite of the MSM. Benghazi is still in the news despite the best efforts
of the MSM to cover it up. Social media, blogs, cable news, talk
radio, Plain Dealer – we don’t need you anymore. The gatekeepers are
gone.
4. The Church Grows with Persecution
This one is for the Christians. Since the very first days of
Christianity, the church has grown through persecution. Severe persecution by
Nero in the Roman Empire only made the church more determined and helped to
spread the growth of Christianity. In modern times, the underground church in
China has exploded under Communist persecution, and it is rumored that the
church is growing even in the brutal totalitarian regime in N. Korea. Though I
don’t foresee Communist atrocities in the U.S. anytime soon, I think a time of
testing is coming to the American church. We saw the first ripples with the
infringement on religious liberty in Obamacare, forcing religious organizations
and Christian businesses to provide contraceptives and abortion pills in
violation of their religious beliefs. Now we hear that the IRS has been
targeting conservative groups and individuals, including Billy Graham,
Samaritan’s Purse, and pro-life groups, some being asked to disclose the
contents of their prayers, as if the government ought to know that. Churches and
individual Christians who continue to defend traditional marriage now find
themselves outside of the mainstream of popular opinion and will likely face
consequences if they don’t enthusiastically embrace a lifestyle their faith
teaches is sinful.
Although this all sounds rather dreadful, there is good that can come
from it. In recent decades, the American church has been awash in excess,
entertainment, and theological emptiness. Pews have often been filled with
parishioners seeking a feel-good experience or a mildly entertaining worship
event. At a time when Christianity increasingly confronts hostility in our
culture, we will see the wheat separated from the chaff. Those who are in it for
their “Best Life Now” will beat a path for the exits, and the church, as always,
will grow with persecution — not with market-tested church-growth numbers, but
in faithfulness and obedience to Christ.
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10, ESV)
5. The Libertarian vs. Conservative Debate
In case you haven’t noticed, there is a bit of a civil war going on
in the Republican Party right now. Back in the days of “McCain for President,”
the divisions in the party were between the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and
the conservatives. The RINOs, who run as conservatives during the primary and go
on to govern as big-government statists once they’re elected, never seemed to
fully understand the principles of conservatism, limited government, or free
markets, except to the extent that those buzz words could help them win
re-election if sprinkled on their speeches.
With the ascension of the Tea Party, liberty is back in style and
it’s not kooky to be a libertarian anymore (though if you leave a 10-mile long
comment about auditing the Fed on my Facebook page, I’m still not going to take
the bait). Even card-carrying social conservatives (me included) are not ashamed
to say, “I have some libertarian leanings.” Saying the “L” word doesn’t get you
shunned from most social circles or even church circles these days (although if
you’re pushing legalizing weed at my Baptist church, there’s going to be a
problem).
More and more, the low-information RINO legislators are finding
themselves irrelevant in these substantive debates about the size and scope of
government. While Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are quoting Tocqueville and the
Federalist Papers, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and others of the old
Republican guard are busy tinkering under the hood of our behemoth federal
government as it spirals out of control.
Very soon the debate in the Republican Party will no longer be “How
big can we get away with making the government?” Instead, it will be “How small
can we get away with making it?” The RINOs have neither the experience nor the
intellectual heft to answer this question, as they only know the formula for
growing government.
Of course, the big-government Republicans still control the party.
They will fight and try to kill (figuratively, of course) conservatives and
libertarians who will wrest from them the power they’ve taken a generation to
accumulate. But their days are numbered.
So take courage, my friends. We haven’t lost our country yet. There
is much to be hopeful about, despite the bleak headlines.
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