I spent most of the day away from the news today. I had school to teach, then I made dinner, went to church, and was asked to visit a friend. When I did sit down to catch up on the day’s events, I found out that Barack Obama announced that he believes that Israel should go back to their pre-1967 borders. These borders would exclude places like the Garden of Gethsemene, Jesus’s tomb, and other sites that are important to Christianity – not to mention that it would leave Israel virtually indefensible.

I need to be clear here: I know that some nutjob says that the rapture is going to occur in two days, but he’s wrong: the Bible says that no man will know the day nor the hour of the rapture, and if it was on that day, that would make God a liar (I have a longer article on May 21 at Associated Content); however, the events described in the book of Revelation are near. I have a video that I need to review in the next day or so – it’s amazing, I’ve been a student of the end times for 15 years or so, but I still need to review the specifics every now and then. The events described in the Bible are being set up today.

The other thing that I think that it is important to point out is that God will not abandon Israel. Obama may think that he’s stamping out colonialism, but he’s really spitting in the face of God. God will not let the Jews be wiped out. In the book of Esther, the king signed a decree allowing people to wipe out the Jews on a certain day. Mordecai, Esther’s cousin, asked Esther to speak to the king, her husband, on behalf of her people. Esther was afraid to approach the king, because doing so uninvited could result in her death. Mordecai’s response was that she needed to speak up; if she didn’t tell anybody that she was a Jew, she would not escape unharmed. He added “For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish.” (Esther 4:14)

Those words ring true today. We cannot remain silent. I’m certainly no Esther. God has not called me to be a princess; I’m not famous or powerful. The only thing that I do have is this small voice. I will what little I can. I will warn the few people that will hear. God will deliver the Jewish people. The Arabs may look like they have the upper hand, but anybody that opposed God is a fool. Just like God delivered the Jews in Esther’s day, he will deliver the Jews in our time. We can either be for them, and God might spare us, or we can be against them — if you are against them, and you do not feel the repercussions in this life, be sure that you will receive them in the eternity to come. Even if you are saved and on your way to Heaven, you are not off the hook. Even Christians will gain or lose rewards based on what they do in this life.

I stand with Israel. I trust that God will protect them, even if he has to rain down a miracle to do so. I expect to have more on this in the future, after I look more into the subject. It may be in the form of an article; but I’ll post a link here.

I see so much of ourselves in this book. The financial struggles of the 1930s (although I think that we probably are faring somewhat better), the communists and radicals of the 60s, the loss of face from the 70’s, the corruption. We survived it all, because Americans woke up. The World War II generation worked hard in war then got their freedoms back. Reagan replaced Carter. The people rejected communism.

We have tough times ahead. But maybe we will get through it.

I saw Herman Cain on Beck today. He rocks. I pray that perhaps he is the Reagan that we have been waiting for.

The other day I started re-reading History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I read the abridged version last year, but this is a very difficult book, and I probably missed some information. Besides, there are many chapters that were cut out of the abridged version; I wonder why they chose to cut out some of the chapters, like the sack of Rome. Wouldn’t that be an important chapter?

I learned how to highlight in my Kindle for iPad (yay!) and I ran into a paragraph that was worth thinking about:

The native Caledonians preserved, in the northern extremity of the island, their wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valor.

Right before Rome started to decline, they had enlarged their territory about as far as they were going to go, with the exception of Britain. This area of the world was full of tribes that loved freedom. Gibbon said that they had “the love of freedom without the spirit of union.” Rome eventually overtook most of these tribes, with the exception of Caledonia. These people preserved their freedom.

We face dark days in America today. Many of us love freedom; but how much do we love freedom? Do we love freedom so much that we are willing to suffer the consequences of our own actions? Do we expect someone else to come to the rescue when our exercise of freedom doesn’t work out as we expect? If we truly want to keep our freedom, we need to be in the position to be free. Over the next few years, when the government will inevitably make spending cuts, we need to take this time to exert our freedom. We need to have an attitude of “okay, I see that you can’t afford to give unemployment benefits for more than a month; but I’m going to do my part to save so that I don’t get caught in too much of a jam.” “I know that the government has to cut back on food stamps for the poor, but I’m going to help out and give to my local food pantry so that these people don’t go hungry.” “I realize that the government can’t afford to send rescue helicopters out to the mountains to find me if I get lost while hiking in the mountains, but I either bought some insurance or I’m willing to take the risk.”

The Caledonians were not wealthy, but they were brave. They were willing to fight for their freedom. They weren’t willing to roll over and make compromises. When the enemy arrived, they fought back.

Whenever Americans say things like “oh, I know that on average, more people drown in bathtubs than die from terrorist attacks (a fact), but I still think that it’s okay to be photographed naked or have someone feel me up; it’s for safety” or “I have to fly and do what they tell me to; it’s for my job” then we lose freedoms. When people sue a company because they were too stupid to watch their step and slip on the floor, they’re helping us lose our freedoms. When people put their financial interests ahead of the interests of freedom, we’re forging our own chains. It’s time to start standing up for our freedoms like the Caledonians.

When I saw the pictures of the people celebrating in Times Square and in Washington DC, I was immediately reminded of something that I read about in the past week. I’ve been reading The Century, which I read when it came out more than 10 years ago, but wanted to read again, now that I’m a little more knowledgeable (and not in an aspartame-induced brain fog either). The book has some great photos and first-hand accounts. Anyway, seeing those people celebrating in Times Square reminded me of the pictures of people celebrating in Times Square after another American victory: the end of World War II.

I realized that people who are teenagers today have never really lived through a time when America was great. We have not had anything to celebrate in a long time. The last person to walk on the moon left before I was born. Our influence in tearing down the Berlin Wall happened more than 20 years ago. My daughter (who is 8 ) wouldn’t know what the Berlin Wall was. We haven’t gone over that in history class.

For the last 10 years, our nation has been through trying times. There was the September 11th attack. The economy suffered. We rebounded for a while, and then the economy went into its biggest tailspin since the Great Depression. No wonder teenagers don’t think that America is great! If you were eight when the September 11th attacks occurred, you’d be 18 now. Most kids aren’t really that politically aware before age 8; from their perspective, the United States may have once been good, but now we’re a nation who have given up our freedom to the Islamists, fight in wars that we don’t seem to be winning, doesn’t have enough jobs for the people that live in it, and may be on the verge of financial disaster.

America has been through tough times before. We practically lost the American Revolution, until we finally had a victory at Saratoga. When our Constitution was being created, we almost couldn’t get that together, until everyone decided to step back and pray for a few days. The Civil War and reconstruction was a difficult time as well.

The period from 1929 to 1948 was an intense time of trial for our country. First, we go from a decade of prosperity to a time when people can’t find jobs, and some are even starving. Then, tyrants start acting up in Europe, and although we stay out of the war for a while, we are drug into it when Japan attacked us. Many young men die defending freedom, while at home, mothers make due with ration cards and plant victory gardens, while leaving their children during the day to go to the factories to produce bombs and other war materiel. This was two decades of intense hardship. I read today that the birth rate between 1948 and 1953 (a five year period) was more than the past 30 years put together. People don’t want to bring children into the world when everyone is starving all around them. They want them to live a good life.

It almost seems as if we’re in a war. We had been losing. While the war to save our country is far from over, Osama bin Laden’s death was one victory. It was the first that we’ve seen in a long time. Maybe there’s more difficulty ahead of us. We’re going to have to introduce austerity measures in the government. We’re going to have to step up our charity towards others to fill in the gap. If we can do that, maybe we’ll win in the end, and push back the advances of the progressives and those that hate our country. After the Depression, after World War II, came the 50s, which were prosperous years for many. Maybe we’ll see our own prosperity once again, some day.

Glenn Beck announced on his show that 1 in 7 people in the United States currently live below the poverty level. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I happen to be one of them.

At Sunday at church I realized that for now, the lack of money was something that God wanted me to go through at this time of my life, and I wasn’t going to complain about it. To be honest, most of the time it’s not really that bad, at least for my family. God has blessed us with low expenses. They lowered our rent by nearly $250/month a couple of months ago, so that was a blessing. Our only debt is a car payment and student loans (which we currently don’t pay on). We haven’t had to cut gymnastics out of the things my kids are able to do… in fact, my earnings from the internet have finally reached the point where they pay for my kid’s gymnastics every month. A year ago, I was doing the same amount of work that I currently do for about $50 a month, so I’m really glad that has gone up.

So I realize that the poverty level in America is not the worst thing in the world. There are people in Mexico that live in houses made out of pallets with cardboard stuck between them. So I can’t give my daughter an allowance and some of my clothes are clothes that my mom bought for me when I was in high school, while others are t-shirts that I got for free. It’s okay. At least I have clothes, and my kids have food every meal. When my husband was a kid, his mom would have her kids share a can of beans while she went hungry.

I don’t want 1 in every 7 people in the United States to be low income, but at the same time, I feel less alone by hearing that statistic. The media and magazines (which I get for free using points that I get from various reward programs) tend to portray everybody as at least middle class. They give advice about how much your child’s allowance should be, or what clothes to buy your kids for back-to-school, or other tidbits of information that require money. You would think that everybody has extra money lying around for things like that. There was a question on Sidetick the other day about whether you are for or against school uniforms. Many people were for them, saying that it was good that the rich kids wouldn’t pick on the poor ones that couldn’t afford name-brand clothes. If you aren’t part of the 1 in 7 living below the poverty level, you may not realize that buying uniforms could be a financial hardship for some people. I didn’t go back-to-school clothes shopping. I bought my daughter one dress this summer. I’m glad I homeschool; we couldn’t afford uniforms.

Sometimes I wonder what we’re doing wrong. Both me and my husband have degrees. We both have started (or helped to start) businesses; if you asked me 10 years ago about people who lived below the poverty level, that’s not the profile I would expect. I suppose that if 1 in 7 of us are low income, then there must be a larger share of educated, hard-working people in that category then I otherwise would imagine.

I think that there were similar problems during the Great Depression. Although I know that there were situations far worse than what many of us are currently going through, if The Grapes of Wrath has any basis in reality. There were educated professionals living in poverty then too.

It would be nice if we were all living on Roaring ’20s kinds of income. I don’t want so many Americans to be struggling. At least I know that I’m not some sort of anomaly out there, and that our income is in the toilet because we’re not trying hard or something.

The Visigoths were once a strong people. They were one of the barbarian bands that contributed to the destruction of Rome. They eventually settled into what is now Spain. I’m guessing that they were a strong people at one point. However, they were divided after the death of the king. In their point of weakness, one of the Visigoth factions invited an Islamic general to “help”.

This Islamic general did a little more than help. He conquered the entire country.

Both Islam and Christianity try to win converts. Christians haven’t always been very kind in their evangelizing. Some rulers have tried to force their subjects to convert to Christianity or die. However, most of the time, Christians try to convert subjects through missions. Forced conversion is a perversion of the Christian faith. None of the original Christian followers (prior to Constantine) tried to force conversion through the sword.

Islam, however, has not been above forcing conversion, even from the start. Mohammad was a military general. Moslems try to convert through force, even to this day. Ask Christians in Islamic countries if they have freedom of religion. Hardly.

Countries that show weakness in the presence of Islam are eventually conquered. Just ask the Visigoths.

Today, America is showing weakness in the presence of Islam. Moslems attack the World Trade Center, and what does America do? We help them build a mosque right next to Ground Zero by sending a supporter of Hamas off on a fundraising trip. We tell everyone that Islam is a religion of peace. Our president bows to Islamic leaders, and calls the Koran a “holy book”.

The Cordoba Center is named after the city of Cordoba, where the Moslems transformed a Visigothic Cathedral into a mosque after they conquered the city. Is the name a message to other Moslems? If we learn from history, it seems that weakness in the presence of Islam could place us in the same position as the Visigoths.

I watched Cabaret last night in order to try to understand more about the Weimar Republic. The cabaret in the movie was an entertainment establishment of moral decadence. While many people turned to the cabaret in the movie as a response to the despair in the world around them, it’s likely that most of the people were not actually as deep into immorality as the people in the movie. This is apparent when the main characters take a drive out into the countryside, where the “good” people of Germany sing patriotic songs (unfortunately with Nazi leaders).

We see the Nazis duke it out with the Communists. One of the main characters remarks on how they would use the Nazis to get rid of the Communists, and then they would control them. We know from hindsight that it didn’t work that way. In fact, most people that were performers in the Cabaret not only did not control the Nazis, but were sent to concentration camps.

The movie is an interesting look at what the Germans were reacting against. I still want to learn more about that time period, especially if we are repeating the mistakes of the past.

Esther was in a position to speak up when her people were threatened with genocide. Haman had chosen to do the right thing, no matter what (which I wrote about last night); he didn’t have a voice with the king, but he did have a voice with Esther.

It wasn’t easy for Esther to speak up. She faced death when she approached the king uninvited. When she accused Haman of trying to kill her people, she could have angered the king, and again faced danger. She did speak up, because it was the right thing to do.

We might not have the voice that Esther does. I don’t have a radio show; I don’t have influence. We might be more like Haman, who could convince Esther to talk to the king on their behalf. Whatever our role, we may face difficulties and danger. We need to do the right thing and speak up in whatever capacity we have been placed into. There are no coincidences. God has us here, for such a time as this, to face whatever difficulties that come our way, without compromising or wavering on God’s word.

If you haven’t watched the video that I posted the other day containing the interview with the former KGB agent, I highly recommend it. It is 16 minutes long, but it will really show you where we are today and how fragile what we have currently is.

The question of the useful idiots is discussed in the interview, but I wanted to bring it up here.

First, what is a useful idiot? The term “useful idiot” was used in the old days of Soviet Russia. I hadn’t even heard of the term until the past year. It refers to people that support the cause of the Communist takeover, but aren’t in the power establishment.

People might choose to become useful idiots because they see the radicals winning, and figure that they better be on the winning side when the battle ends. They make this calculated move to further their own careers. For example, journalists, politicians, teachers, actors and directors tend to support the overhaul of America en masse. There are very few that stand with the Constitution and with the Founding Fathers.

So what happens to these useful idiots when Obama and his Weather Underground pals get their way and take over the country? Will they get the positions of power that they are hoping for?

Probably not, in many cases. It won’t be up to the masses to determine who gets the prime positions in this new society. It will be up to the people in power, like Bill Ayers, the Clintons, Obama, Al Gore, Van Jones, and the like. If you are not in with this group now, there is no assuming that you will have any part in leading the new Communist America. Dissent and complaining will not get you anywhere you want to be. It will get you into the modern-day gulag.

Years ago, my now-husband introduced me to the Dragonlance series of books. In the books, there is one recurring theme: “evil turns in upon itself”. Over the past several years, I have learned how true that theme is.

Think about drug dealers, the mafia, or gangsters. Do they peacefully interact? Or do they fight among each other, competing to see who will be top dog? Has one mafia member ever hurt or killed another in order to advance among the ranks? In my very backyard of Arizona, people end up kidnapped or killed because something goes wrong in their human trafficking operations. Heads literally roll through nightclubs right across the border because somebody is not happy with what is going on.

I know that I probably will end up in a death camp or something if/when this government takeover finally happens. I am way too stubborn. I can’t pledge allegiance to a godless government, nor can I renounce all that I believe in with all my heart. We already have people being denied degrees unless they renounce certain Christian principles, like the belief that homosexuality is wrong. I am thinking of one case in particular, but I think I also remember hearing of cases where scientists that didn’t believe in evolution were denied degrees (even if they were able to clearly articulate the theory… they not only had to know it, they had to believe it). I’m just going off the top of my head there.

The people that will survive will be the people that keep their head down and are willing to accept the new order. That’s not me. It also will probably not be most of the people that are supporting a Communist America, if they are expecting a reward for their efforts today.