Texas Straight Talk

Lawrence — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:26:40 +0000

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We used to rely on the protection of Divine Providence in war; that was before our government decided enhanced interrogation offered better protection

I liked this weekly talk by U.S. Congressman Ron Paul so much that I could not resist posting it here. What the congressman says here certainly fits in with my personal insights into the pursuit of happiness.

There was a time when “In God We Trust” meant something to us

The fact that we have fallen so low as an “In-God-We-Trust” republic as to commit horrible acts of torture on political prisoners—or any kind of prisoners, for that matter, sickens me, while at the same time it inspires our enemy to fight us to the death to overcome our domination of their people.

It is clear to see for all who seek truth in life that such dastardly acts of cowardice by our nation will inevitably lead to our downfall. And so it should! Why will we fail? Because we say that as a nation we believe in God, that’s why.

Torture is always wrong, no matter what

Notice I said we say we believe. I did not say we believe. I didn’t say it that way because our actions show we don’t believe in God very strongly. If we still believed strongly as a nation, we wouldn’t feel a need to torture people to get information. Never mind who they are or why we torture them, and never mind the quality of information torture might yield. Remember what you have been taught all your life: The end does not justify the means.

Has the truth of this adage suddenly changed? Of course not; truth never changes; only people do. So, today, how empty is the phrase, In God We Trust? Apparently for the majority of our people, those words are all but completely empty of meaning.

Yeah, we still believe kinda, but the Moslems believe really

I hear it said that the people we have tortured recently are by and large Moslem terrorists who would like nothing better than to make us their prisoners and slaves or simply kill us to get us out of their lives. I would have to say that I agree with that statement, but, and this is a big BUT, I believe those who say that are right! When those people tell us they will prevail over us because they believe in God, while we only pretend we believe: they are telling us the truth. Kinda believing is what it is. Really believing is believing in the reality of that which is hoped for. That is a far cry from kinda believing.

The word believe has a strong meaning for a traditional Christian

The M-W Dictionary says it means to have a firm religious faith. It goes on to say a lot more, but for my purpose that is good enough. Faith is the key to believing. Saint Paul writes a lot about faith. His strongest and clearest explanation of faith for my purpose here is in his letter to the Hebrews. There Paul writes: Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 10:38-11:2 KJV).

For our instruction, Saint Paul goes on with a wonderful cataloging of the gifts of faith starting with Genesis down through the ages until his time. Open your Holy Bible and read that list for yourself. See Heb. 11:3-13, 17, 20, 24-31. Matt. 12:38-40 is the clincher, so to speak, but I will leave that to you to discover on your own.

When the Israelites believed and behaved, they always won; when they ceased to believe and turned away from God, they always lost. Will it be more of the same for us?

Their belief in God is so strong for many Moslems that they will willingly lay down their lives for their faith. They will also give up the lives of their women folk, and their children, whom they love every bit as much or more than we love ours.

Here’s a little history for your consideration

Our war fighting history is filled with incidents that prove that we always win when we fight while being mindful of the protection of Divine Providence.

How many battles and wars have been won by inferior forces solely because they put their trust in the Lord of all? Our War of Independence against the British comes to mind.

Let me see:

The British soldiers were, by a wide margin, the better trained of the two combatants. It could hardly be said that our soldiers, while trained, were in the same league as the crown’s soldiers. It was assumed the crown would win this war in short order against the ragged army we had assembled on short notice; an army based on the colonies militias.

The British had warships-of-the-line that had tremendous firepower. We had none. While the war was fought almost wholly on land, ships and ship travel were vitally important in those days. People travel up and down the eastern seaboard by ship when possible.

The British were well dressed for battle and for the weather in northeastern part of the country where the war was waged. Some of our guys didn’t have coats; some didn’t even have shoes. Can you imagine marching long distances in snow or freezing rain without a coat, much less without shoes?

The British had the latest armaments. We had whatever our men and young boys brought with them from the farms when they joined up. That’s right; when they joined up. Ours was a volunteer army. And the British? Well, not all of their fighting men were British. A good part of their army was made up of mercenaries. Only the officers were virtually all British subjects.

- Let me point out here that, since ours was a volunteer army, the men were free to quit the army and go home at the end of their enlistment period. Can you imagine the command skills combined with fatherly persuasion General Washington had to employ to keep his men happy enough to fight on and instead of going home? Not to leave when many of them didn’t have a coat or shoes to ward off the cold in the dead of winter in places like Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware required great sacrifice on their part.

The British had a wealth of very well trained and tried and true generals, and other command officers. We had few trained line officers. Our army had to rely on the judgment of one man. True, he was a towering man who stood out in any crowd. Still, it really was his integrity that gave him his great charisma, which carried him and the fortunes of America through the unbelievably tough times of America’s war of independence from the British Crown.

My fellow Americans, I have just one thing more to say. A lot of us do believe in God and the invincibility of his power and protection of those whom He calls His Own. We must stop the physical abuse of prisoners in our custody. We must or else all is lost for my homeland. I believe we can and will stop the tide of evil that has been unleashed by our leaders over the last half of the last century and has continued and grown in this century.

Now, read or hear what Congressman Ron Paul has to say about “enhanced interrogation.”