Fools

Fools value material things. They value things they take and things they earn. Yet, amidst their riches, they lack fulfillment. By contrast, the richest among us are the poor in spirit. They love their Creator, and they know they cannot earn the Creator's love. They know the Creator gave them life, gave them liberty, and gave them the right to serve by choice.

From Jeremiah Chapter 17:

5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
11 As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.

(King James Version)

What do you think? Will their new owners make General Motors and Chrysler to be as a tree planted by the waters and never cease yielding fruit? Or shall they leave those riches in the midst of their days and at the end be fools?

If you are President Obama, you may think the companies will prosper because the new owners really earned their shares ... that the rightful ownership of these companies vests not with the stockholders and investors who provided capital for their facilities and operations, but rather with the laborers who were paid to make the cars (and are still paid long after they stopped making cars).

I do not share this view. I am confident the companies shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. There are many reasons for this.

• Foremost, what the President did is unjust; it strains the law to achieve an end he will not declare - to take ownership of these companies from their investors and creditors and transfer it to his patrons - organized labor.
  
• Second, these transfers will bypass the good that would have come from reorganization in bankruptcy court, particularly in not voiding insupportable labor agreements that make legacy US manufacturers less competitive than foreign manufacturers that make cars in the US.
  
• Third, the companies will be told by government to make vehicles that buyers in the US have shown they do not want. This arises from the left's devotion to the folly that government mandated change from fossil fuel powered automobiles will influence the world's climate.
• Fourth, "easy come; easy go." Those who did not earn what they have do not keep it.

In just over three months of presidency, our Dear Leader has intimidated banks, bondholders, corporate executives and boards, and investors to embrace moral bankruptcy through some of the most outrageous transfers of wealth in history. He has colluded with Congress and the executive branch to debase our currency and to spend vast sums we do not have. He has pretended to listen to those who oppose his statist agenda, only to co-opt them and to misrepresent their views with the connivance of a media that shares his extreme views. He has set in motion forces that will impoverish not only our nation but the world. He has not been alone, but rather stands on the shoulders of thousands of moral pygmies that claim the right to take from you in order to give to others.

I dare say that Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin would scarcely recognize the nation that elected Barack Obama president. They first tried to form a government of confederated states, and then settled on a federal republic. They never imagined a Department of Agriculture, a Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a Department of Housing and Urban Development, an Environmental Protection Agency, nor a Department of Energy. Not once did they think the Interstate Commerce clause would be tortured into the right to tell a farmer that doesn't sell outside his home county what to grow. Imagine their views of WIC, Food Stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Prescription Drug Benefits, No Child Left Behind, Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, or the progressive taxation of personal income!

The founders of our republic went to war against a king who was far less intrusive in their lives than our national government. They risked their fortunes, their names, and their lives in order to free their fellow Americans from tyranny much less oppressive than we endure today. Truly, Americans voted into office the knaves who created the treacherous government leviathan, and Americans remained complacent when our institutions were perverted by secular humanists and statists. Americans tolerated a Supreme Court that has arrogated itself above its coequal branches of government. Americans accepted laws that extend far beyond the limits of the Constitution. Americans allowed our schools to revise our history and teach our children values alien to our culture. Americans tolerate more than 10 million foreign nationals who have invaded our nation against our laws.

Will Americans take back this great land? Have we the courage to expel every one of these usurpers? Or, are we the fools who, not loving our God-given heritage, allow it to slip out of sight, living our twilight years in a nation that belies the virtues of its very foundation?

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, "Peace! Peace!" -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Patrick Henry - March 23, 1775