“USS America” Damaged and Taking on Water

(CHRISM NEWS/ JOHN LILLIS) America is like a great ship - an enormous ocean-liner from yesteryear. She is large, fast, well-equipped, and even has room for everyone willing to come aboard by our standards and to learn our systems, our culture and to provide their own talents and culture, where talents and culture are needed. This ship has state-rooms, suites, 3rd-class cabins and yes, even stowage. Our on-boarding procedure may well need updating and update it we shall, together, through a new and improved Congress -- not by the will of a single man or a single political party.

Our great and historic ship has a name, a named burned-in her hull by the blood of patriots, from the Concord Bridge to the Valleys and plains of Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively; burned-in her by the sweat of the great men and women who built our buildings and dams, skyscrapers and interstates; burned-in by the back-breaking toils of the farmers and the everyman committed to making a living and supporting his family; a name also burned-in by the mistakes of our paste, like the great blight of Slavery, Indian Affairs and segregation. All of these amazing triumphs and disappointing failures are the wages of our virtues and vices.

And yet she is still the greatest ship upon the vast waters of our planet and her name is the United States of America!

This ship, this so-called 'great experiment,' this last-Bastian of liberty and justice ought to still be run by a government such as expressed by Abraham Lincoln: Of the people, by the people and for the people.

Sadly, today, it is NOT a nation guided by the people for the people. No, our great ship has been hit by at least six major political and social torpedoes and she is listing to the Port...taking on water... in danger. These country-killing torpedoes have names:

• Political corruption and the "ruling-class"

• The removal of prayer for school and the public square

• A grotesquely overgrown Federal Government with extreme taxation

• Life Issues: Natural Family, Abortion, Euthanasia, and even the Death-Penalty when used as revenge

• A hyper-inflated welfare-state

• Unbalanced trade, slave-labor and foreign jobs

These torpedoes are the big ones and while we must recognize that there are other "torpedoes," other problems, these six, I am convinced, are the nation-killers, the ship-sinkers.

Thanks to God and a genuine American Spirit, it is not too late bail the water and make repairs our ship.

In order to bail the water, repair the damage and right our great ship, we must resolve to begin anew. Each and every one of us must resolve to start his or her own life anew; this is the time and now is the moment when we can work together as individuals, as families, as towns, as cities, as states and as a nation to do the necessary damage control and right our great ship, thus restoring our great nation. This renewal begins with each of us recognizing our Sovereign God and our working to be in right-relationship with Him. If you wonder what this means, please consult your Priest, your Rabbi, your Minister or Pastor for ways to begin this journey.

This journey to restoration will be neither simple, nor simplistic. There will be blood -- for the sharp edges of the damage already done and the repairs needed to it, will come at a price. To not do the work, shed the sweat, blood and tears, would spell disaster and the ultimate sinking of our great ship!

Nevertheless:

Given a role on our ship, I would work with the Captain (Congress) with this list of our greatest priorities:

1) Ensure Americans understand that there is no real difference between the people of the politics of either so-called "Party," (they are by-and-large men and women proven to be power-hungry, self-absorbed and always working for re-election rather than the people); furthermore, the current political parties have divided on moral and social lines such as: Creating a fascist state (meaning the marriage or socialism with capitalism), the death of the unborn, homofascism, godlessness in government, etc. Knowing this, people have to seriously choose a side or create a new party. Moreover, we need term limits in Congress and an interim moratorium on electing incumbents (which would be voluntary, but strongly suggested).

2) Immediately restore prayer to schools. Allow teachers and students to set aside 7-minutes per morning for private prayer-time and also allow after school clubs for those who wish to have faith-based clubs. We need to put the Ten Commandments back on display and relish the prayers which open both Congress and the Supreme Court. In short, we need to remind all that we are a 1st Amendment People: Free to exercise religion because we have Freedom Of Religion, not Freedom FROM Religion. All major faiths, (not contrived or contrarian, since “religion” means a bond with God, not against Him), can and should displayed and expressed in our pluralist nation.

3) Immediately commission the greatest minds at America's centers commerce and higher-learning and give them 3-years to create a working plan to radically reduce the size and scope of the current Federal Government; I envision a 21-year program to eliminate more than 400 wasteful Federal offices (thus allowing those working now to retire out of the system as it "draws-down."); I also foresee turning the larger ones, Constitutionally mandated offices, such as the Post Office, into better running organizations. Pay for the new government with a flat-tax that will replace all other taxes over three years: 18% to the Federal Government and 7% to the States on all sales. Abolish, by thirds, all other taxes at the Federal and State level so that in year four, the flat-tax fully replaces all others. This includes all income taxes, all property taxes and all soft-taxes such as cell phone, Internet and other services.

4) Uphold DOMA as the bedrock of our American civilization; and, like Dred Scott and many other horrific Supreme Court decisions of our nation's past, overturn Roe v Wade with a constitutional amendment stating unequivocally that Life begins at conception and that it is sacrosanct, not to be destroyed because of illness, disease, pain, suffering or for any other reason. This should help restore legal safeguards for all human beings, regardless of their physical location or state of health. This plan includes overhauling our Federal for profit prison system and abolishing the Death Penalty as a means of revenge killing while reserving the rights of the State to protect its people, when absolutely necessary.

5) Work to incentivize corporate and business charity; meaning, give the corporations and businesses actual and real tax benefits for creating living-wage jobs with full health and dental and vision benefits for the workers they hire and their families. Additionally, work to give larger tax incentives to the wealthy who create private, charitable institutions in the 150 largest cities in America; centers where there can be room and board, drug rehabilitation, vocational training, mental health counseling and educational programs.

6) Re-balance trade and stop the tsunami of foreign products and regress of our jobs; Americans want to work and corporations and businesses which return jobs to American soil should be given land and tax credits and have the threat of losing them held over their heads. We also have to solve the problem of one side of the aisle wanting to import free votes while giving-away America, while the other side of the aisle wants to continue to import slave labor in their ‘profit-only’ economy. This is where I would start. The problems of corruption, globalism and slave labor must be addressed aggressively, however.

Yes, our Country is like a great ship -- She is large, fast and well-equipped.

This great ship has a name, The United States of America. Her name was burned-into her hull by the blood of patriots and the blights of our past.

What will you do when called-upon to help save her? Will you jump overboard into a rugged-individualism and fend for yourself as they come for you and your family? Or, rather, will you band-together with God's people to bail the water, bend the sharp edges back into shape which were blown-into her and work to mend the tares in the very fabric of our lives?

The United States of America can and ought to sail again – sailing proudly because she is about the business of being good. Sailing at full-steam knowing she is working to safeguard all which is good and true and right!

Today, we are calling for all-hands-on-deck.

Will you answer?

#opinion