Cyanide, Socialism and Freedom

           Photo by Danilo Alvesd on Unsplash

Mom kept a vial of cyanide in her jewelry box. Perhaps it was a powerful reminder of her family’s escape from Latvia. Or she just wasn’t sure what to do with it. Its original purpose was clear; if bartering border crossings with soap and cigarettes went terribly awry---swallow the pill.

As a kid I didn’t understand the backstory. Pieces I never learned. My grandfather, Augusts Mitrevics, his wife Lidija and two children fled the Latvia they knew seeing the Latvia it would become. He was a famous theatre actor. Even has a page on IMDB. 

They erased him. A visitor to Latvia up to 1991 would find no record of my Grandfather. Though he appeared on postcards. Though he was a leading actor. He turned down their offer of summers in Siberia (and springs, and winters…) for the freedom of another country. For that he was shunned.

It’s hard to live with a boot in your neck and a gun in your back. They said that in Latvia, in 1978, as the freedom movement bubbled. When you don’t have freedom, you appreciate it. When its the air you breathe, you take it for granted.

I am next in line in a chain that escaped cyanide and socialism. Seeing life and liberty taken and given away jars me. Governors barring people from working to meet their needs is morally wrong. To tell people where they can go (shop, drive, celebrate) puts people in chains un-American. Yes, one says, ‘but these are only little links for your own good.’ No matter the size of the chain it’s still bondage.

The poison was a reminder. Pilgrimage to a new land. An imperfect place not fully home. A free country. Mom would have fought to keep it that way; grandparents too. The path forward is clear. Don’t swallow the pill. 

Obama And Our Downward Slide

"...and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them."---Margaret Thatcher

I sent my daughter a text: Sorry for the world that you will have to live in. The darkness has begun. President Obama was elected to his second term last night. If it were simply a difference in personalities I would not feel this way. It is four more years of debt increasing above the current 16 trillion. It is the ongoing devaluing of the dollar as we continue to print money. It is the hostility toward Israel and the friendships with the enemies of Israel. And of course it is the fleshing out of Obamacare. These will produce greater financial strain on the nation and stagnate an already dead economy.

My generation has had it relatively easy. There haven’t been any world wars in my time, no depression, no wide-spread famines and no dust-bowl (though we’ve come close). At this juncture I sense an American downhill slide.

It’s the slide that causes the greatest angst. A socialist president, four Supreme court appointees, and half a country which supported his election.

Tomorrow my plan is to recalibrate and find equilibrium. I will spend time in prayer. Tomorrow I will seek God’s perspective on this mess. The truth is that God is in control of all these things. Life has always been difficult.

So the people without understanding are ruined…Hosea 4:14

The 46 Percent Still Believe That Crap

That’s the point Rush made this morning. If (when) Romney wins with a margin of 53/46 that means that those 46% believe the anti-Romney propaganda. Certainly there are other reasons people may vote for Obama as well though there is no logical reason to do so. In my post on January 18, 2009, I asked

Will he establish and maintain laws that give dignity to life, or establish such laws which would greatly expand government funding of abortion(among other things.) Will he recognize Ahmadinejad and Hamas as terrorists, or invite them over for tea? Will personal freedoms be enlarged, or taken away?

Four years later and Obama has negatively fulfilled my predictions and I am not a professional pundit or prophet. Charles Krauthammer writes that,

“An Obama second term means that the movement toward European-style social democracy continues, in part by legislation, in part by executive decree. The American experiment — the more individualistic, energetic, innovative, risk-taking model of democratic governance — continues to recede, yielding to the supervised life of the entitlement state.”

Sadly still the country is divided. Many will vote for Obama like my employee that mimics rhetoric that Romney is for the rich, Ryan will take away Medicare, they will steal away the rights of women and gays.

The 46% will continue to believe lies and turn from the truth. As we become a nation of relativists and self-seekers we choose based not on truth but on what best benefits us. Sadly that blindness leads not to freedom but to chains and slavery. The minority fail to understand that there choice would lead to bondage in taxes and socialism and movement away from individual freedoms including the freedom to worship and speak as we choose. Let us hope that those with clearer vision will continue to be in the majority and that many will finally recognize that, as I wrote 3 years ago, the current emperor has no clothes.

Vietnam, the Cold War and Raising My Daughter

I work with a Vietnam veteran. Though the war was thirty-five years ago he still talks about it and hints about his experience there. The war in Vietnam is for me ancient history. Except for my co-worker I’ve no memory of it. My images of it are more from movies and John McCain then from the reality of it. When that war ended I was the same age that my daughter is now. Still I feel no connection to it.

My daughters’ generation understands little of history. This is a scary precedent. This generation has no larger framework to work through. If the Vietnam war seems irrelevant to me then what about WWII and the Cold War.

I stood in the freezer at work talking with a co-worker. Our parents and grandparents escaped Nazi Germany to come to America. Those roots and the lessons passed on to us from our parents colour our world view. What am I passing along to my daughter? A world view that promotes affluence and living without sacrifice? That was not our parents world but that became the experience for my generation.

I write in remiss. In a couple years I will have few opportunities to teach my daughter. I sense failure in providing scaffolding for this framework. It is in the context of history that we see the danger of world views such as Socialism and Marxism. In that same milieu freedom of religion and freedom from taxes and tyranny are evident.

Prior to dinner in our house we learn about a country and pray for it. Many of these countries are mired in government philosophies different than ours. The people are slaves to false religions and hollow philosophies. I sense I should explore these thoughts with my progeny while there is time. And I will spend some personal time learning recent history. If we understand our past we will know what we are up against in our future.