Thoughts On Voting, Turning This Country Around

[Modified and expanded from a comment I left on fellow blogger and friend’s site, LittleMargaretNan]

Every day I feel more and more like a voluntaryist. I will write in Paul in November, unless perhaps (I still have many reservations and a conscience to boot) he endorses Johnson, and I may yet vote in crucial local elections (although this year, the choices are about as bad as they are on the national level), but after that I am not sure I can stomach another presidential election. Paul is a once in a lifetime candidate. We were lucky enough to have gotten him twice (no, thrice!) in that same span. Most others who are on the same page as him aren’t the type to run or to get noticed if they do run.

Remember, sitting at home is a vote of equal validity and purpose with voting for one of the major parties. Particularly if it is by choice and not mere apathy or happenstance. Change in this country will not come from one man at the top, though certainly it would help if someone as principled and courageous as Doctor Paul WAS at the helm. It will come from the bottom up when enough of us are truly ready. It may take catastrophe the likes of which fat and happy (dare I say dumb, also?) Americans have not witnessed or experienced in a century and a half. I am content to let the “benevolent” fascists (in all three branches of government, on both sides of the aisle, some of whom were once tea party darlings) win this time and perhaps the next, because it is inevitable and will only speed (though on the other hand, worsen) the day of reckoning. I am not happy about it, but I can live with it.

But more than just a popular uprising (Lord willing, peaceable) cropping up from desperation and necessity and spontaneity, there must be a spiritual awakening. There are many reasons for this, but on the practical side, people of all walks need to look back to — get this — THE GOLDEN RULE. Including (or especially, given their track record on support for overseas interventionism, AKA Crusades, and other not so Christ-like pursuits) Christians. We all need to be waking up to the fact that FOOLISHLY SELLING OURSELVES INTO SLAVERY (intergenerational debt), PLUNDER (excessive taxation), LOVE OF VIOLENCE (perpetual war and expansion of the police state), IDOLATRY (sacrifice of essential liberty for temporary security), DESTRUCTION OF OUR INHERITANCE (the effects of wealth redistribution and erosion of liberties), AND CHILD SACRIFICE (as I see abortion), in addition to being inhumane, are very ungodly.

No single president, likely not even if he had the whole Congress and whole Court on his side, could turn all of this around in time to either save our country, or prevent the election of his political detractors, if the people (believers or not) themselves, guided by God’s Kind Providence, are not awake and ready. And since, a society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves, there is never going to be the above ideal set of circumstances. It is an uphill battle all the way to the top. Human nature being what it is, it is much easier in the short run (which happens to be all the further most are willing to look) to not even attempt the summit, let alone the fight that follows on the plateau above. That is, until the resolve to do so is much more commonplace, which as I said, would require a major, and likely negative (and at this point inexorable) event.

Religious or otherwise, think on these words from Numbers 14:

That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there. Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”

But the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites. The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”

Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, O Lord, are with these people and that you, O Lord, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert.’

“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.’ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”

The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times— not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.”

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you—your bodies will fall in this desert. Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’ I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die.”

So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it— these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the Lord. Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.

When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly. Early the next morning they went up toward the high hill country. “We have sinned,” they said. “We will go up to the place the Lord promised.”

But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the Lord’s command? This will not succeed! Do not go up, because the Lord is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, for the Amalekites and Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the Lord, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.”

Nevertheless, in their presumption they went up toward the high hill country, though neither Moses nor the ark of the Lord’s covenant moved from the camp. Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them and beat them down all the way to Hormah.

and 1 Samuel 8:

When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”

Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”

Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go back to his town.”