day no. 17,521: make america

“No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service.” — Christopher Columbus 

Matthew 28:18-20

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

“Praise be to our eternal God, our Lord, who gives to all those who walk in His ways victory over all things which seem impossible.” — Christopher Columbus

day no. 17,520: satanic panic

“It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites." ― Thomas Sowell

Someone who says what is true and repents of what is true about himself is free of handles. He can speak openly and honestly about anything because he isn't afraid of the truth. He isn't worried about being maneuvered and he doesn't feel any pressure to say anything other than the truth. The only pressure he feels is to say tell the truth. He is free to feel more obligated to God than he is to his own safety. He is more concerned about offending God than he is about offending others. His only fear is falling short of the truth. He is not worried about any truth finally catching up with him because he walks side by side with the Truth every day. There are no skeletons in any of his closets and there is nothing anyone could bring to light that he has not already brought into the Light and confessed openly. He is forgiven, free, and confident before God and man. This is the best thing a man can do for others. It inspires confidence and is superior to the facade others build by telling lies and attempting to cover up past sins.

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” ― Thomas Sowell

We cannot do anything against the truth. Lying to people by telling them what you think they want to hear may get you what you want for the moment, but it cannot get you what you need in the long run. Peace and quiet, safety and stability cannot be purchased by corruption and keeping secrets. If you want to help others, tell them the truth. If you want to help others, tell the truth and show them how to be set free from the slavery of telling lies.

day no. 17,519: envy and greed

“I have never understood why it is 'greed' to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.” ― Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays

Theft is theft even if it is the government who is doing it. Envy is envy even if it is a law that enforces it.  You can be just as greedy to keep what is yours as you can be greedy to get what is someone else's. But stealing someone else's increase is just as greedy as withholding your increase.

When the position of the government is "money is evil and it corrupts everything it touches, so you best give it all to us for safekeeping" you should know you are being played.

day no. 17,518: equality and brutality

"The political left has never understood that, if you give the government enough power to create ‘social justice,’ you have given it enough power to create despotism. Millions of people around the world have paid with their lives for overlooking that simple fact.” — Thomas Sowell

You cannot enforce equality without brutality. You cannot guarantee an equality of outcome without ensuring a disparity of opportunity. If the government has been given enough power to manufacture outcomes, it has enough power to disregard outcomes.

"I cannot possibly conceive fraternity legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed, and justice legally trampled under foot. Legal plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have already seen, is in human greed; the other is in misconceived philanthropy." — Frederic Bastiat, The Law

Fraternity cannot be enforced without trampling liberty underfoot. Free people can have fraternity, but forced fraternity destroys liberty. DEI programs erode personal freedoms as they reward personal idiosyncrasies.

day no. 17,517: long cons and little men

"The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive." — Thomas Sowell

You can pass a law that two plus two equals five, but you can't force God's world to work that way.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." — Philip K. Dick

Reality is not left wing or right wing. It is not conservative or progressive. It is the indomitable will of God Almighty and it doesn't go away. Insanity is not a long term plan. Everything is going somewhere and sooner or later it's going to get there. There is a way to work with the grain and a way to work against it. There is a way to more competent at corruption than others and there is a way to be incompetent with character. In other words, some people are better at being bad than others and some people no good at being good. Politicians, somehow, are often both.

"No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems -- of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind." — Thomas Sowell

Since insanity cannot work, it must seek shelter somewhere were results do not matter. Washington is just such a place. Promises do not need to be kept and policies do not need to work, they just need to be lobbied for. So, as long as politicians keep promising to do better and continue to be reliably dishonest or incompetent in keeping them, they will always have job security.

Washington is where you want to go when you don't want to work and you aren't concerned about the outcome. Not working is what works best in the swamp. It is the land of long cons and little men.

day no. 17,516: promises and excuses

"When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it." — G.K. Chesterton

It is easy to have all of the answers when you don't have to answer for any of the problems.

It is easier to criticize than to construct. It is easier to tear down or edit someone else's ideas than it is to generate your own. It is easy to point out how the man in office is failing, but it is hard to be the man in office without pointing to all of the hurdles you have to hop over. 

“No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems—of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.” ― Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America: and other controversial essays

Politicians run for offices on promises and stay in office on excuses.

day no. 17,515: succors and suckers

“Men are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern.” — G.K. Chesterton, Utopia of Usurers

Honest men are, at this very moment, governed by liars and wise men are ruled by fools.

Dishonest men presented themselves as experts and honest men believed them.

Liars said they were being honest and wise men trusted them.

Do not be deceived, as bad as you know yourself to be in possibility many are in actuality. Those who rule are not different kind of men than we are, but they may have less self-control than we do.