What do you believe?

This post is meant to challenge you to examine what you believe, in a political sense.

A Survey of Beliefs

Question 1: Do you believe that we are endowed with certain unalienable rights, among which are the rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? 

Follow up: Where do those rights come from? 

Question 2: What should the role of government in your life be?

Follow up: What role does government play in your life now?

Question 3: What economic system best suits you?

Follow up: What economic system do we live under now?

Question 4: What about our country do you appreciate?

Follow up: What don't you appreciate?

Question 5: Do you attend religious services regularly?

Follow up: Explain why you answered the way you did?

Question 6: Do you believe that the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land?

Follow up: Explain? Should the Constitution be the supreme law of the land?

Question 7: Should an Article 5 Convention of the States be called to propose new Amendments to reign in the federal leviathan?

Follow up: Do you know what an Article 5 Convention is?

Question 8: Do you support federal congressional term limits?

Follow up: Explain your answer.

Final Question: Why do you believe what you believe?

Print these out and answer them or copy and paste them into a document, answer them and send them to the email address linked at the end of this blog post. You will find my answers to the above questions below.

 My Answers

1. I believe that our rights are not derived from any statute or from any other man made decree but come from God, who created us, our Creator, and as those rights are derived from the benevolence of a Supreme Being, they can no longer be taken away by man than can the air we breathe. When man acts to limit our God given rights, we are being subjected to the will of man and that is an affront to a Holy God. Civil government is ordained in the bible but it must not serve to limit God or His wishes for His people. Once government becomes oppressive of our natural rights, we must act to throw off such government. 

2. Government's current role is vast and sweeping, and as such, it forms a statist system that seeks to substitute its will for the consent of the governed. Many people are seeking a ruler to vanquish their perceived iniquities. Many want government to solve their problems. It can never do that because government is just a group of people and when we give that group of people the power to solve our problems, the inherent nature of the people comes to the forefront and government grows out of being a useful servant and becomes the master. Government's role should be to provide for our defense against enemies foreign and domestic. Execute the laws as outlined by the Constitution. Wage war against our enemies and negotiate the peace once we win. That's about it.

3. The economic system that suits me best is a free market system where people are free to buy and sell what they wish, with a small network of regulations(decided at the local and state level) and the only thing the federal government should do is keep states from imposing tariffs on one another. Our current system is a quasi Marxist system where the government, through regulation and force, imposes the will of a few moneyed donors and lobbyists on the rest of the country. There should be no federal regulatory state. I don't even think that most state regulations need to exist. If I want to buy my milk from my friends who happen to own a dairy before that milk is sent to a factory to be processed, why should the government care. I would be buying the milk with the foreknowledge that the milk had not been processed. It should be none of the government's business. No subsidies for any good or service should be provided. All businesses should pay one level tax rate and the only break should be a deduction for capital investment.

4. I appreciate our religious liberty, our freedom of speech, assembly, press and our ability to address our representatives for a redress of our grievances. I appreciate that I, as a Christian, am free to preach the Gospel, if I so choose(or at least I was appreciative of that). I appreciate that our country was founded on an idea that man should be free because our Constitution limited what government could do to usurp our God given rights.

I don't appreciate what we've become. We've become a country of selfish people who think that the government should solve their own pet problems. We've become hostile toward truth. We've become hostile toward our fellow man. We treat government as a charity, all the while forgetting that compelling someone into charity(taxation) is just institutionalized theft. We must give back those responsibilities to groups that actually care about the souls of people, not just their votes every two or four years.

5. This one has made the biggest difference in my life. I attend church services 3 times per week, if I can. I am so blessed to be in a bible believing, bible preaching church. A church shouldn't be a museum of saints, it should be a hospital for sinners. I had moved away from the church because I was repelled at what mainstream American churches had become. Not until I was asked to come to my current church did I reacquaint myself with the value of a body of believers supporting one another and keeping one another accountable to the words and teachings of God through the Bible.

6. I do believe the Constitution of the United States is the Supreme Law of the land and should be used as the measuring stick for all civil and criminal statutes. The Constitution must be the chains that bind the mischief of government. Our courts should heed the words written in our Constitution and subsequent amendments as the basis of all law under their jurisdiction. In order for that to happen, words must mean what words mean or we cease being a nation of laws and we become a nation of men. That is a recipe for tyranny. We see the slide toward tyranny right now. 

7. An Article 5 Convention of States should must be called. There is a movement under way in several states to do just that. We must reign in the federal government. Congress and the Courts have failed in their responsibility to hold the line on budget issues, on Constitutional issues and on issues surrounding the defense of our country. The only way to bind government is to reacquaint them with the citizenry they are supposed to be subordinate to. As such, a Convention of States must be called to propose several amendments, including a balanced budget amendment, a Congressional pay and benefits restructuring amendment, an amendment to limit the number of years spent in Congress(see below), an amendment to pull the Supreme Court back into compliance with the original intent of the founders and an amendment to make the Supreme Court subject to its own term limits(I propose one 20 year term, unless a term would expire during the last year of a lame duck presidency). Even ratifying just a few of these proposed amendments would go a great distance toward binding the hands of government so that they may no longer do mischief against the American people.

8. I think Congressional term limits are the single most important legislative reform that an Article 5 Convention must push through. We CANNOT and MUST NOT(sorry for yelling) allow elected representatives to keep making careers out of being in the House of Representatives or Senate. Our representatives were intended to be of the people, not above the people. Don't get me wrong, I want the best and brightest to run and make up our government, but they must do that with a servant's heart and the knowledge that their time in DC is limited. We currently have Senators in Washington, DC who have been in the Senate for over 30 years!(I don't use exclamation points often, and when I do, I mean it.) This cannot be allowed to continue. My proposal(feel free to send me your own, either by commenting or emailing me) is for term limits of a total of 12 years in both houses of Congress. 6 terms in the House. 2 terms in the Senate or any combination where the total doesn't exceed 12 years as an elected legislator in our nation's government. 12 years is three presidential terms. No more time in Washington is needed. 

To answer the final question, I believe what I believe because I'm a Christian Constitutionalist and I'm an American. My overriding belief is in the virgin birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. I know I couldn't enter heaven without calling on Jesus to save me and to be born again in my belief in His grace. And for all that God has bestowed on me, I am thankful. 

Rather than the trite line that many speeches are closed with, I close with this; God, have mercy on America. We, as a nation and a people, have turned away from your Word and from You. Please, have mercy on Your remnant. Amen.

Email me with longer responses or comment below. Share this post with your friends and use this as a tool for discussion. We need to keep dialogue alive. 

Find me on Twitter.

Fight For Principles, Not For Parties

Don't vote for a man. Vote on principle.

I've seen much hand wringing taking place over the last few days regarding the polling data that shows how bad a certain Combed Over reality TV star gets beat by Monica's ex-boyfriend's wife. It is no one's fault but those in the conservative intelligentsia and the so-called conservative/Republican media machine. The Orange Faced One could have been fully vetted when he threw his hat in the ring and roundly drubbed out for being the misogynistic, unprincipled boor that he is. Instead, he was dismissed and his rhetoric was encouraged by some in the media. I saw through him from the beginning.

He is just playing on people's fears and feeding a long dormant white power/populist nationalist movement that has now found their figure head. This isn't battle for a nomination. It is now a battle between good and evil. The forces of evil must be defeated. Last night, things became crystal clear to me as I spoke to a friend about the state of our nation and this presidential race. This election isn't about electing a Democrat or Republican.

Our nation is at a crossroads. I'm no longer just fighting for my candidate, Ted Cruz. I'm fighting for a nation that will respect our right to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am fighting for our ability to be able to send missionaries to all corners of the globe to tell people about Jesus Christ. A respected pastor said something to me several months ago that has stayed with me. The United States is the base for 83% of the world's missionaries and much of the world's charity.

I'm fighting for the ability of people to raise their children as they see fit, according to biblical principles and in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I'm fighting for people to educate their children without federal government intervention. I want a country where one income is enough for a family to succeed so that children can have a parent at home so that they aren't raised by a government school that isn't looking out for their individual interest. I'm fighting to end the federal Department of Education.

I'm fighting for a fair and flat tax rate that doesn't penalize success. I'm fighting for a business tax code that encourages companies to make things in the United States again. I'm fighting so that a small business isn't buried under a mountain of federal regulation. I'm fighting so that a farmer isn't treated better than the hardware store owner in the small town that he lives next to. I'm fighting for equality in taxation.

I'm fighting so that each state can become the laboratory of policy and democratic experimentation. I'm fighting so that Texas isn't treated to the same stupid laws and policy that New York is. I'm fighting so that Iowa isn't subjected to the same policy that Florida is. I'm fighting so that states that haven't adopted backward big government aren't forced to do so by an overarching, all powerful federal government.

But most of all, I'm fighting for each and every staffer and volunteer that has become my friend during the course of this campaign. I'm fighting for the church that I've found through this campaign. I'm fighting for my family and my friends. I'm fighting for the people that have given so much and asked little in return other than a chance to see their principles reapplied. I'm fighting so that my nephew and my young friends have the opportunity to live in a country more free than the one they were born into, rather than have to live with the decline of a nation, once the freest in the whole world.

I urge you to join me. I urge you to get involved. Don't just vote. Volunteer. You can even volunteer from home to make phone calls. Don't sit back and waste the opportunity to stand for principle. We finally have an opportunity to do just that.

Find me on Twitter.

Email me to find out how to get involved.

Join the Ted Cruz prayer team.

Christian Principles Matter

Christmas and the lead up to it has given me time to be contemplative about what has happened in my life over the last few 0months. I have found myself taking the high road in arguments more, perhaps reflecting the leadership of the Cruz campaign but also reflecting what I've learned from the pastor and members of Marion Avenue Baptist Church.

A bright light was shown before me the first Sunday I stepped foot in Marion Avenue Baptist Church. I've been going to church my whole life and knew that I was a Christian, but I didn't know how to actually be a Christian. I hope I don't lose you. I had slipped into thinking that Christianity was a works based faith rather that a faith based upon God's grace. The works come after the grace, not prior to. The work of a Christian is the work of trying, while all the time failing, to be more like Jesus. Perhaps the man that has had the greatest impact on my life in recent years has been Marlin Bontrager, just by asking me to come to church with him and his amazing family. Becky and Marlin have raised the most impressive bunch of children I've ever seen. I enjoy their company and I hope to call them friends for the rest of my life, no matter where God leads my life. Pastor Joseph Brown also must be commended for showing me that I can be both bold in my opinions and faithful to Jesus.

This has helped me to realize that I should not expect anything of anyone that I first wouldn't do myself. A great weight has been lifted off of my shoulders in realizing that faith only need be placed in God and not man. There is truth in knowing the peace that passes all understanding.

Christian principles are also the reason that I see the good in the campaign I've decided to invest my time and effort in. It has a trickle down effect. I see a noticeable difference in the way people that are backing this campaign deal with other people and the way people invested in other campaigns do. Those of us in the #CruzCrew will defend Ted and his family but we don't go out of our way to besmirch someone for being who they are unless they tell lies about Ted Cruz, his family or one of our many supporters. I will not hesitate to stand up for my friends and many involved with the campaign are my friends. Many other candidates' supporters, namely of the national Republican "front runner" see no need to have a foundation in moral or ethical principle. They only see the need to destroy the system. While I see the system as being fundamentally broken too, I also realize that there needs to be a principled plan to fix the system. Destroying something and hoping that someone has the right ideas to fix it just because you like the way that person talks to the people you hate(and hate is the right word) is a fool's errand. What someone says today must judged against what they have said in the past if they have shown no actual change of heart or conversion. If someone comes to God through Jesus, I truly believe they will change. If not, I see no real evidence of change.

Barrack Obama was elected on hopes and whims of people who saw him as a transformational figure with no evidence of him doing any of what he said. The current Donald Trump phenomenon is eerily similar in construct. A giant swell of support for someone just because "he fights" against the bogey man of political correctness in the same way that Barrack Obama fought against "corporate America" and for the "people". Political correctness is dispatched with the truth, not hot air and empty promises.

As a common saying goes, if I were put on trial for being a Christian, I would hope there would be enough evidence to convict me. I don't know if I'm there yet, but I'm trying. What is disappointing is the large number of people that spout conservative Christian views when running for office but show nothing of the sort once they are elected. We even see it with candidates that have had a modicum of success in years past that have now had the Ted Cruz light shown upon them. They are actually just big government social conservatives that are not interested in liberty or freedom. All they want is their world view to be imposed by government. As Christians, that type of thinking should terrify us. All we need is the freedom to worship and tell people of our faith though deeds and words. Having a President that believes in Jesus is important, even paramount, but I also think that same President should also know that government should be smaller and less intrusive. I think this is where the self centered big government social conservatives lose most voters. Ted Cruz is happy to take questions from atheist voters and will happily tell them they are free to worship, or not, of their own free will, but their free will stops at the point of someone else practicing their constitutionally protected rights. He will then tell them he hopes they choose to follow Jesus, but that must be their own decision and no one else's.

"But Huckabee, at his core, is a big government social conservative." Truer words have not be spoken. #Huckabee https://t.co/QdQRPhZuOk

— Matt Wells #CruzCrew (@bigredmatt1011) December 26, 2015

I have waited so long for a leader to actually turn us toward Constitutional government. Frankly, I think this election is more important that any of us actually knows. As Christians, we mustn't push our views by making the government do our biding, rather we must show people the way through being ambassadors for our faith in Jesus Christ and showing people His grace but we must also not be afraid to call out those who treat Christianity as a weapon for their own purposes. While we may have the armor of God, we can't force someone to believe. Belief comes through being born again in Christ, not the strong arm of the government. The government, when directed by just men, will allow His Church to regain its rightful place in American society through free will and Christian example.

All of this doesn't mean that we should slink away and not be involved in the process of electing our leaders. Quite the opposite is true. We must be quick to defend what we know is true and just as quick to call out wrong doing. We must be more discerning and less tolerant of injustice. We must elect leaders that will respect our faith, our churches and allow freedom and liberty to rule the land for all people. We can be both good Christians and advocates for smaller, less intrusive government.

Find me on Twitter (usually fighting off some leftist or progressive leaning Republican afraid their K Street money will dry up with the election of Ted Cruz)

Email me

tedcruz.org


#CruzCrew #CruzCountry #Iowa #iacaucus #Hawkeyes #Cyclones

Defeat the Progressive Mindset

Seeing a major American city be allowed to be torn apart makes me realize that people on the right side of politics have lost their will to call the left out for what they are. The political left doesn't love our country. The days of the John F. Kennedy Democrat are over. The leftist progressives have taken over and are following a Saul Alinsky like, Rules for Radicals inspired blueprint. This has been written and discussed before. It needs to be exposed at every turn.

Two Columbia sociology professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, in 1966 came up with a way to help hasten the collapse of the capitalist/market driven system and institute a collectivist system they saw as more fair. Cloward and Piven thought that causing crisis would make the poor rise up in unrest and violence. Through this violence, like we are seeing in Baltimore right now, it would make a heavy handed, state run system more palatable to the rest of society in effort to bring back order. The ground work for this has been laid out with a giant and unsustainable social welfare system. When the people that are dependents of the state find out that the welfare system is unsustainable, they will, in theory, rise up. At its roots, the Cloward and Piven strategy is just a way of pulling the wool over the eyes of the ill-educated masses and instituting a communist society.

Anybody with a scintilla of knowledge of world politics and government should know that full on socialism and its end goal of communism always fails. Those on the left will always say that it has been instituted poorly but no matter where and when it is tried, it eventually collapses. I'm afraid our current federal government's unfunded mandate is going to lead to this Cloward and Piven strategy becoming more and more true every day because too many people are unwilling to part with their "bennies".

The people on the right, conservative libertarians and conservatives, need to stop being afraid of being called every name in the book by the leftist media when they speak out. I don't care what I'm thought of by someone who dislikes me. Being called a racist, bigot, sexist or homophobe by people that are out to destroy the country should not matter. Wear their insults as a badge of honor. We need to push back against the Alinsky radicals. Alinsky thought that marginalizing the opposition would hasten their defeat. If we don't care what the left says, then and only then will we be able to effectively fight back. There is no room for compromise with this crop of progressive leftists. The only thing to do is defeat them.

In order to do defeat this progressive scourge in our country, we can use some of their organizing tactics against them. Show them, through other media channels, for what they are. They hate our country as it was founded. I'm not excusing America's foibles, but we have seen where we've went wrong and fixed it. Half of all this nation's war dead, 620,000, died to help end slavery and keep the Union together. If that isn't commitment to change for the better, I don't know what is.

I, for one, am done trying to convert the leftists in the country to the right way of thinking. Time is nigh for them to be defeated like the enemies they are. That's right...enemies. The left wants to remake our great, but faltering country into something that they see as fair but in reality would only benefit a small select group that would seek to remain in power. Some of the Republican establishment could be including in this group as well.

The principles are simple. Notice I said principles, not just ideas or bullet points. Our rights do not come from government because government is of man. Our rights come from our creator and cannot be infringed upon. Free markets work when given the chance. Spending cuts(not cuts to the rate of increase, you baseliners out there) work to free up resources for the private sector. The only federal department that needs shoring up is the Department of Defense. The rest of them need a severe haircut. The government needs to protect life and make sure that the individual is held above all others. What the feds don't need to be involved in needs to be left to the states as the laboratories of democracy and governmental ideas they are or could be. There is no room in the federal government for people that believe in control of the individual. If a state wants to allow something and another doesn't, fine. The feds need to stay in DC and keep their noses out of states' business. Federalism works when allowed. Finally, if a candidate for office isn't principled, do not vote for that candidate. If they fall away from their principles once elected, send them home.

I don't have all the answers needed to defeat the progressive left in this country but I also don't believe in sitting on the sidelines either. People that love this land should and need to be involved. Make sure Republicans' feet are held to the fire. Defeat Democrat politicians where ever and when ever they run. It needs to start now or we will see many more cities like Baltimore fall into chaos only to be folded into a more statist society. Lastly, a bit of prayer might not hurt either.

Find me on Twitter.