A Tipping Point and a New America

I believe that the 2012 election is a symptom of a new America.  Even if there are some minor shifts in ebb and flow, where economic reality smacks enough people in the face that Republicans could in the future eek out victories with a more talented politician than Mitt Romney, the tide has still turned.

What we have today, which is a different country, relates to years of erosion of this society and culture.  I'm saddened about it, but the answer never was in government or a particular political philosophy.  I would like a different government and political philosophy, but that would come only with people who thought the same way as I do.  That change will not occur without conversion.  The problem, as I see it, is that more conversions relate very much to the condition of the soil (Matthew 13---men's hearts), and we don't have the cultural infrastructure for that to improve.  All signs say that's only going to get worse.  People are listening less than ever.

A cross section of the Obama voter will help understand what has happened.  It's not hard to see.  Women voted for Obama by about 10% and men voted for Romney by about 10%.  There are quite a few more women in the country.  Then married women support Romney and single women Obama.  Again, you can see that single women put Obama in office.  The gullible and vulnerable to deceit are now a huge voting bloc in the country.  They are not swayed by substance.  We're talking about people who use "like" every other sentence getting their President.  These are the people swayed by the dog-on-the-car-top kind of arguments.  They are convinced by the picture of the President with his cool jacket walking on the New Jersey shore.  These are the voters with free contraception as a major policy point.

To understand the big picture, let me mention a little picture.  I don't live there, but the city of San Jose voted for a 2 dollar an hour increase in the minimum wage, from 8 to 10 dollars.  A very large number of people will receive a pay raise, and then a smaller but still large number of people will lose their job.  Prices will go up for everyone.  Two things here.  First, the people who voted for this are too shallow and superficial to comprehend that simple reality.  Second, people don't care so much about freedom and private property, as they do what they want only for themselves.  In the long run, more rampant poverty and then shorter lifespans.  Poverty is the greatest determiner of longevity in a country.  Less average annual income, smaller life.

It's easy to see how that a big number of Obama voters chose him with predominately an immoral reason.  Homosexuals want their way---he gives it to them.  Hispanics want little to no prosecution of immigration law---he gives it to them.  Union workers want to keep their job when their company cannot make a profit---he gives it to them.  People who don't want to pay for healthcare until they get really sick, want to get "insurance" after they get really sick---he gives it to them.  Environmentalists want to get paid for making solar panels that cost more to make than they do to buy---he gives it to them.  Men and women want to terminate a pregnancy, because the child is inconvenient---he gives it to them.  College students want their college paid for by someone else---he gives it to them.  Teachers want to keep working even if they can't do the job---he gives it to them.  I'm not saying that all of these people will actually get what they want.  It's not possible.  But with him, they're convinced they have a better shot at it.  So they bet on him.

We have government entitlements.  We have government education.  We have government housing.  We have government food stamps.  We have government jobs.  Now we have government health care. People will become even more dependent on the government and we have seen how that people cannot wean themselves off of this dependence.  When there aren't enough productive tax payers to fund it anymore, and so government service must be cut, you have riots.  That, among other reasons, is why in the next three months, gun and ammunition sales will be higher than at any time in American history.

We believe in the depravity of man, but the depravity has increased and the nation has sunk.  You know that when you hear this President talking that his words mean something different than what they sound like they do.  You can't believe what he says.  When he says he wants to work with you, he means he wants his way and he wants to take advantage of you.  He doesn't see the world like you do.

Churches have failed.  They have tried to get along with the world, and most will take this as a cue to do it even more.  You're hearing it all around.  Belief has diminished.  Pragmatism reigns.  Methods have become more important than God's Word.

Here's how to adjust to it.  Don't consider yourself to be in America anymore.  What you thought was America is not.  Think of yourself as living in a foreign country and you're a missionary.  Missionaries don't think they're going to change the government where they live.  They are working at seeing the people change.  That's our only hope.  Be a missionary in your own country.