A LESSON AND A "HEAD'S UP" FROM HISTORY

Proverbs 29:30 says, “Where there is no vision the people perish.” But sometimes people perish where there is a vision.” Two Sundays ago, James Clyburn, the Democratic Majority Whip in Congress told the Democratic Caucus that the outbreak of Coronavirus in our country represented, “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” This reminded me that sometimes people actually do perish where there is a vision. A vision for “things” pertaining to a country and a people can be a good thing or it can be a terribly, terribly bad thing for a people and a country.

Those who founded our country and framed our system of government had a vision for America. They envisioned a small and limited government of the people, by the people and for the people; one that would safeguard national sovereignty and individual liberty and support an economic system of free enterprise. They also envisioned a government built upon a bedrock of virtuous principle. Two of the founders echoed the sentiments of them all: first John Adams, who said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Secondly, Benjamin Rush who said, “Without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”

The founding fathers and their fellow patriots saw their vision transformed into reality, and until recently generation after generation of Americans fought, thought and taught within the context of preserving what the founders and framers had envisioned for America and what they themselves enjoyed and cherished.

But sometimes, bad things come about because of someone else’s vision. Sometimes people by the millions suffer and die, societies are ruined and nations are toppled because of someone’s vision. Recent history is replete with examples.

Adolph Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly referred to as the Nazi Party, had a vision of establishing a Third Reich, transforming Germany into a Nazi state, and exterminating the Jewish people, etc., etc. and he achieved much of his vision. His vision threw the world into world war and caused incalculable suffering and misery to millions of innocent people in the process and for decades thereafter.

Lenin, Stalin and a handful of other Bolshevik communists envisioned turning the Russian Empire into an atheistic, communist collectivist system. They succeeded, and for nearly 70 years their horrible communist dream (Dream for themselves but nightmare for others) was kept alive via the communist government’s impoverishment, enslavement and terrorization of the people who “lived” in the U.S.S.R. Under Joseph Stalin alone, over 50 million civilians were starved to death, worked to death, tortured to death and executed to preserve his brutal, communist, thug-run government.

Mao Tse Tung and his cohorts had a vision for the restructuring of China that involved the overthrow of the nationalist, Christian led government. Their vision was to put all of that country under atheistic, totalitarian communist rule; and they did it. Then the nightmare began that continues to this day. More civilians died under communist tyranny and oppression in China than the millions of civilians who died in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin.

Fidel Castro’s vision of a communist dictatorship for Cuba came true in 1959, only five and a half years after he seriously applied himself to the fulfilling of it. Immediately the prisons began to be filled and the firing squads kept busy dealing with any dissent. Only 90 miles from Miami, Cubans have, for nearly 60 years been living the communist “dream” as an impoverished, third world, fear-filled kind of nation-penal colony under the ruthless rule of Fidel and Raul and their Marxist henchmen.

Marxist Pol Pot after becoming a communist in 1959, began envisioning the overthrow of the Cambodian government and the social engineering of the Cambodian people back into medieval conditions. In 1975, he along with his Khymer Rouge guerrilla army did it. In the process they turned all of Cambodia into one vast prison camp and killing field. Two million innocent Cambodians were killed between 1975 and 1979 as a result of Pol Pot’s vision to "restructure things" in Cambodia to fit his "vision."

All of the above happened in the last century, when over 100 million died; starved to death, worked to death or executed under socialist and communist governments. Another thing these dreamers had in common was the suppression and slaughter of Christians. This is the documented legacy of socialism and communism wherever it has dominated the government of any people. (Be reminded that socialism is the “gateway” governmental system that leads to full blown communism).

There have been lesser-known socialist/communist “visionaries” in the last century, who turned their countries into living nightmares of deprivation, despair and death. The list could go on and on. A present day “eyes-on” example is Venezuela, until just recently, the richest country in Latin America with the largest known oil reserves on the planet and a democratic government that was envied throughout the world. This all began to change rapidly when socialist Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999 and by 2013 had basically run the country’s economy into the ground. In 2013 Chavez died, and his successor, Nicollas Maduro has made himself a dictator.

Since 2015 Venezuela’s institutions have been a shambles and its economy has soared from an inflation rate of 19 to 20% at the end of 2015 to 946% (the highest inflation rate in the world) by 2017. Venezuelan society is in a state of daily chaos now, and Food and medicine are now almost unobtainable by the general population. Their crime rate has exploded to the degree that more murders are committed there now than in the most dangerous cities in the world. But Venezuela’s dictator and the rest of the country’s elites are doing fine.

To the political elite in socialist and communist countries all non-elites are simply the deceivable, dispensable, disposable, deplorable “masses,” who need to be dominated by themselves. To the Socialist, Marxist, Progressive elite, everyone else is little more than a “human resource” whose purpose for existence is to satisfy their own material and egotistical needs. Socialist and communist leaders who succeed in restructuring things in a country to fit their vision always do fine. But the people who wind up under their power never do too well.

Bear in mind that the vision of socialists and communists for a nation has historically depended upon the disruption and collapse of a nation’s economy. The crisis they covet is an economic one. They want it whether it comes by way of a war, a stock market crash or a pandemic. If an economy isn’t in trouble, they want to get it into trouble (Think of the Obama administration’s creation of trillions of dollars of national debt). If an economy gets into trouble they do everything they can to make the trouble worse (Think of Pelosi and her colleagues packing the Coronavirus Bill with hundreds of billions of dollars for everything from grants to the Kennedy Center to subsides to pay off student loans).

Whether real or imagined, socialists/communists (and their ideological ilk by any other name) know that a collapsing or collapsed economy creates fear, panic and chaos among people which creates all kinds of opportunities for them (socialists, communists, progressives, Democrats) to “restructure things to fit [their] vision. They know that such conditions can be used as justification for the declaration of a “state of emergency” wherein a policy of unprecedented, unlawful governmental highhandedness can begin; the end game being to bring a citizenry to its knees, stripped of their liberties, disarmed and at the mercy of a socialist/communist police state.

Last Sunday, when Democratic Congressman Clyburn told the Democratic Caucus that the Coronavirus Bill presented “a tremendous opportunity" for them to restructure things to fit their vision, he did two things: First, he revealed a mentality that was willing and eager to take advantage of a pandemic threatening the lives of millions of Americans for the sake of “restructuring things to fit” the “vision” that the Democrat Party has for America; the same mentality of former Chief of Staff to Barach Obama, Rahm Emmanuel, who famously reminded his fellow Democrats to “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” Secondly, Congressman Clyburn underscored the reality that Democrats actually do have a shared vision for America to which they are committed however much misery it may bring to their fellow Americans.

No doubt Clyburn’s and his fellow caucus member’s vision is close if not identical to Barach Obama vision for the “fundamental transformation” of America. It’s chilling to think about what all might be included in the “vision” that Clyburn was referring to. It’s chilling to think about when one considers the kind of thinking that goes on in the minds of those who have shared and continue to share this vision.

The Democratic Party it must be remembered, is the party that legislates continually in favor of the killing of unborn babies and just-born babies, favors euthanasia and supports gender-change operations for children with or without parental consent. These are the people who voted not many years ago to strike all mention of God out of their Party Platform – a published platform that all but mirrors the “Communist Manifesto.” It is estimated that at 50 to 70 present of the Democrats in congress have ties to the Communist Party. One of many online sources to find verification for this is: https://mariettaoh9-12project.com/2019-list-of-socialists-and-communists-in-congress/

Any vision for “the restructuring of things” in American that these people have in mind should be more than a little disturbing to anyone with a little knowledge of history and a grain of common sense.

The “vision” that the Democratic Party and their fellow travelers in media and our other institutions isn’t a new one. Its pretty much exactly the same vision as Hitler, Lenin and Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Fidel, Pol Pot and their ilk had for their countries. The vision of the leftists, liberals, progressives, Democratic Socialists and democrats (code names for socialist and communists) is a vision as far from that of the Founders and Framers and past generations as the night is from the day; as far removed and different as hell is to heaven.

Something to remember: At one time, the Germans, Russians, Chinese, Cubans Cambodians and Venezuelans who experienced the consequences of socialist communist overthrow, believed such a thing could never happen to them. Most Americans believe it can’t happen here. But it is in the process of happening here right now. (Please "share" this with as many people as you can on social media and elsewhere. Read it to your families and print off a copy to give to your pastor.)

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

—John 8:32