Why should this be a Christian nation?

Talk about a hot topic, especially today. What does it mean, to be a Christian nation? Is this a Christian nation? We can run the gamut, from those who believe that everyone in this nation should be taught Christianity and Christian morality in public school, and that laws should be made to enforce Christian morality, to those who believe that the Founding Fathers weren't really Christians at all, and that the most important thing is to never make any law that supports any other religion's morality at all. (Unless it happens to also support the morality held by the person who is arguing the point, of course.)

Forget all of that for a moment.

There are a few very important things that Christianity in particular, more than any other religion, brings to the philosophy that created this nation and this nation's government. They won't be found simply by attending the right kind of church for the right number of years, or swearing your oath on a Bible instead of a Koran, or even being able to quote Bible verses without sticking your foot so far down your throat that you can kick your own a-.........butt. These are principles that are simple and easily observable in the Real World, yet, in the U.S. political party which has basically repudiated God altogether, at least one of the most important is being forgotten.

Human beings are corruptible.
Government is made of human beings.
Thus, government is corruptible.

I'm going to pick on Bernie Sanders again, because he represents the epitome of this claim. Business owners, he argues, can be corruptible, because their mission is greed. (It isn't. But that's another topic.) The government, on the other hand, can be safely trusted with any amount of power.

Let me give you an invaluable little tip about socialism. When socialists, even purveyors of "democratic socialism", use the term "the people", what they really mean is the government. This makes sense, actually, doesn't it? If the government officials are elected by the people, that means that they speak for the people, right? Therefore, they practically *are* 'the people'. What's good for them is what's good for us, because they are us.

The reason why this mindset becomes a problem, the reason why socialism in all its forms has never yet worked, is because it assumes that government representatives are able to represent The People purely and perfectly. However, each representative is his or her own human being, and human beings are corruptible.

Our government was set up the way it was in hopes of reducing and decentralizing power, because it was set up by people who understand the Christian notion that man is corruptible. They practically counted on corruption in politics. The reason for separation of powers was the hope that corruption could be cornered and countered, and not given the power it needs to metastasize.

This is similar to the dual-hydraulic system in automotive brakes. You could just have one brake line with one cylinder, to make your brakes work when you press on the pedal. Instead, you have two. Why? If you lose one brake line (this happened to me a few months ago, actually), you will have weak braking power instead of no braking power. The hope is that both lines won't go at the same time, and generally, minus deliberate sabotage, they won't. The Founding Fathers never assumed, as the Democrats do, that they could create a government with no failure points. They simply tried to design a government which could have failure points without destroying the whole.

Bernie Sanders is advocating for simpler, more streamlined systems with higher government control, more centralized, to reduce the number of steps between us and our government. He believes that it will be less expensive and easier to run a country if all citizens must answer to the Federal Government in as many parts of their lives as possible. The Federal Government gives you your health care. The Federal Government handles your college education. His problem is that he really does believe - or at least preach - as if the government is the only human invention that is incorruptible.

He isn't the only one on my hotseat today, as you may have guessed from my allusion to Bible verses. Obama has been using executive orders in an unprecedented way, to circumvent a Congress which he complains is "too slow" and may not believe that his way is the right way. He is basically doing the equivalent of speeding up automobile production and making vehicles less expensive by outlawing the dual-hydraulic system instead of, say, loosening Federal restrictions on which types of extra peripherals a car might contain or, perhaps, ending Federal taxes on auto manufacturing employees.

I'm sure it sounds like a great idea.... until the inevitable corruption hits, and someone has to slam on the brakes.

What makes Christianity important in this nation? One of the most important theological guidelines is, increasingly, one of the most neglected - human beings do not become incorruptible just because they work for the government.

Don't we know that by now?

The Sanders Contract

Free college! Crackdown on the banks! Bernie Sanders is gaining steam quickly, capitalizing on the anger of people who believe (not without reason) that they are being oppressed by the Corporations, the CEO's, the "1%". When the crowds form, though, they don't understand what Sanders truly stands for, and what they are truly signing up for when they support him.

Let's say that you live in a neighborhood with a few lower-income housing areas, a bunch of reasonably nice houses, and this one mansion up at one end. It is owned by a total jerk. He wolf-whistles at women when they try to jog through the neighborhood. He throws loud parties at night. His vehicle's engine has been modified to sound like a roar, and it grates on your nerves every time he drives by. He is making your neighborhood unhappy.

Now, if he were any of you, he would be taken down by noise ordinances and harassment laws. However, the government keeps granting him special privileges and special permissions, because he is rich, and he pays more through taxes than the rest of you combined. He is, to borrow the phrase, "too big to fail".

One day, a Federal agent comes to your door and offers to rid you of this problem. "I can initiate house inspections on his mansion whenever I please, and cite him for the silliest infractions," he says. "I can change the environmental standards to make his car modification illegal. I can even set caps on the size of house he is allowed to own, and change them at will."

Everyone likes this idea. He offers them a contract, and they barely glance through it before signing it. Now they'll finally get rid of the nuisance.

However, the contract contains these clauses. They give the Federal agent the right to initiate house inspections on any house in the neighborhood whenever he pleases. He can change the environmental standards on all cars in the neighborhood. He can set neighborhood-wide caps on the houses that everyone is allowed to own, and change them at will. In short, anything he is allowed to do to this jerk neighbor, he is allowed to do to you. A couple of people notice this and ask him about it. His response: "Oh, I'm sure that you will never have a big enough house or a loud enough car for this to affect you."

Do you trust him?

What is the alternative? Hillary Clinton is the one claiming that the jerk is too big to fail. What about the Republicans? Well, most of them are of one mind on the issue. Picture now a different Federal agent entering the neighborhood.

"Well, if we were to have the power to harass him in his home, we would have the power to harass you in your homes, and I don't think you want to give that away. If we could decide how big his house can be, we would decide how big yours can be. Do you really want to limit your ambitions? What we can do is to remove the government privileges which safeguard him from harassment charges and nuisance fines. No, it probably won't drive him out of the neighborhood altogether, but at least he will know that he has to behave himself, and it'll be better for all of you."

So here's the question, then. Are you so determined to "punish the rich", to hate the "1%", to see to the ruin of another human being (however justifiable it may seem), that you are willing to give the government the power to decide whether or not you will be the next target?

If so, then vote for Bernie Sanders, and may he have mercy upon you.