Christmas Eve, 2011. What a year is passing, what a important year is approaching. We have barely withstood a steady assault on our liberties and prosperity by totalitarian "Liberals" trying legislate our freedoms away. November 2012 brings a critical decision point for the future of this nation: will we remain an optimistic America of freedom and opportunity, or morph into a collapsing European style socialist state of crushed spirits, denied opportunities and spiritually degrading government control. We have abandoned Iraq before we've shepherded them into understanding how a democratic republic is supposed to work and will, no doubt, watch as all the blood, toil, and wealth spent to establish a free and friendly people in that area of the world comes to naught. We are on the verge of doing the same in Afghanistan, where we a teaching an isolated, tribal people to look outside their village interests and consider themselves as Afghans, not just family/village clans, and to join the rest of us in a modern, inter-connected world. We strengthen and arm the enemies of our kindred spirit nation, Israel, and undermine her at every turn, despite the affection for Israel held in most American hearts (thanks to our present Administration). Our vacuous foreign policy and ambiguous treatment of both friend and foe undermines our own standing in the world and makes us vulnerable to those who would take advantage of our perceived weakness.
Closer to home, our economy is in shambles as the battle between a free-market and a government (command) controlled economy goes on. Oh, how I pray that the bonds placed upon our economy by big government (Statist, Progressive, Totalitarian) forces are loosed so that it might soar and we prosper again as we have before, leading the world in hope and opportunity. We have run up a tremendous debt that threatens to undo so much of the gains our people have made over the decades: building and creating wealth, new businesses and opportunities, jobs, security and prosperity for themselves and their children. The present Administration seems fixed on destroying the value of our dollar and the robbing the worker of the rewards of his efforts through heavy taxation and reckless borrowing and spending. Not necessary spending, but gratuitous, wasteful spending for wealth redistribution to feckless people that seems deliberately designed to buy votes, not enhance or protect the lives and property of those who earned it. So, many "helpful" programs created by the government seem designed to rob us of the ability to use our own resources as we choose to use them, and force us into using them for someone else's vision of what is best for us; trapping many into dependency on the government and not lifting them into self-sufficiency. I am deeply concerned by the growing restrictions on our freedoms, the increasing size and expense of government and its ever growing and strangling intrusiveness into our private lives. Our fore fathers were correct in recognizing that government was a necessary evil, that we impose upon ourselves for the benefit of all, but that it must be strictly limited and controlled or it will become an enslaving monster that can crush us. Unfortunately, that seems to be what is happening now. "That government that governs least, governs best." is still an eternal truism, as well as: "When people fear their government there is tyranny; but, when government fear the people there is liberty." I wish more Americans, more people everywhere, would recognize that the bigger the government grows, the smaller and more insignificant the individual becomes. Liberty demands giant individuals that are proactive in doing good for themselves, their families and their communities.
Those "giant" individuals are made by parents who instill proper values and developed strong character in their children. Values of integrity, honesty, self-sufficiency, independence, charity, selflessness and concern for others. Good parents rear good children, but they must be sustained by a community that shares those same values and reinforces them in school lessons, in religious services, and in everyday social expectations. I used to hear those values expressed as "the American Way" and sadly, either rarely hear it today, or hear it used in mocking tones. The American Way in my mind as always been the path of fair play, equal opportunity, and care and concern for the less fortunate, honesty in dealing with others and an expectation of justice in the courts of law. Sometimes, I've heard them called "the Protestant Work Ethic", where honest labor was a reward in itself. I wish I felt that more Americans still cherished it, but all too often I am impressed by our various media that it is scorned as passe or foolish. Abraham Lincoln warned us that no outside force could destroy us, but the seeds of our nation's destruction would arise from within, from a loss of those values that made us and for the respect of the law that preserves them. We need to work on rebuilding them again. We need to open the book that so many of purport to be our record of the words of God, the Bible, and study it as did our ancestors. It was no little matter that the first book Congress wanted to use tax dollars to publish and share was the Holy Bible, it is foundational to our entire Western civilization. When Joseph Smith Jr. (first prophet of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times) was asked how he governed such a great people (the City of Nauvoo, Illinois circa 1840) he answered, "I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves." Thus it should be with all democratic republics, when the majority will live by correct principles and choose to live righteously (not to be confused with self-righteously), to do good and deal honestly with others, government will be easy and at its best.
That brings us to the celebration of the season, the birth of Jesus the Christ, savior of the world. A little over two millennia ago the world was blessed by the birth of a boy who was the promised Messiah. As told to Adam, he would provide an atoning sacrifice for all those borne into mortality, that as Adam fell from life in the presence of our Eternal Father and inherited mortality by his and Eve's transgression, so he and all his descendents might return again to eternal life and the presence of our Heavenly Father. And so, in this season of joy, we celebrate the birth of the promised one, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, even Jesus of Nazareth. While unknowing shepherds kept watch over the Temple sheep; while believers in far away Mezzo-America prayed fervently for the Prophet Samuele's promised sign to appear, a child was born in the humble surroundings of a Bethlehem stable, and the world has been forever changed because of it. God bless you, my unknown reader, and all of us that we may be grateful and not wasteful of this greatest gift of creation. May the peace of the season, and the witness of the Holy Ghost comfort you and your loved ones, I pray in the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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