Ramon Arias | February 17, 2014
So, the American dream has changed from valuing hard ethical work efforts in order to enjoy the fruits of labor in exchange for “do not work and be happy, the government will provide for your little sweetheart.” After all, there are plenty of people to steal their hard earned money to pass it on to those who vote for the generous bureaucrats who dispose of other people’s money.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. said: “People shouldn’t have job lock…we live in a country where there should be free agency. People can do what they want. And what they’re saying here is — and the fact-checkers have already done this — the Republicans’ talk about losing millions of jobs simply isn’t true. It allows people to get out of a job they’re locked into because of they have health care in their job” (Emphasis added).
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. said: “What we see is that people are leaving their jobs because they are no longer job-locked. They are following their aspirations to be a writer; to be self-employed; to start a business. This is the entrepreneurial piece. So it’s not going to cost jobs. It’s going to shift how people make a living and reach their aspirations” (Emphasis added).
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim-American elected to Congress defended Obamacare on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” in an obvious denial of the Congressional Budget Office’ findings that the infamous healthcare is going to eliminate millions of jobs. He said, “We are going to have parents being able to come home, working reasonable hours. People are going to be able to retire. People might actually be able to cook dinner rather than have to order out and get some takeout.”
The White House Press Secretary Jay Carney blared the same sound claiming Obamacare law gives Americans a way out of a job they only stay because they get healthcare and an option to stay home to take care of children or retire. This is what he said: “CBO’s findings are not driven by an assumption that [Obamacare law] will lead employers to eliminate jobs or reduce hours,” (Emphasis added).
Many Democrats are preaching that any reduction in jobs would reflect the greater freedom the law gives Americans. Are they showing their desperation and doing what they do best in a masterful way by lying? They are defusing the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that made it clear that Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) is going to cost millions of jobs in the next seven years.
Notice these magical spell talking points from all who proclaim and are advocates for people to stop working, work fewer hours, retire, and “blah, blah, blah”, this is totally immoral. The sad part is that there are those who will take them at their word, just like millions have since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war against poverty. Since then, 50 years later, more than $16 trillion have been spent to that effort. It is self-evident that poverty won and the problem is not an economic one, rather a moral and spiritual one. What an appealing idea it is to receive subsidies from the generous nanny State, and why not! Let fools pay for all these utopian non-workers’ paradise, which would make Karl Marx envious. Let people leave the work force to sing “Rock-a-bye-Baby” to their kids or retire and be a couch potato while the kids learn the trade of becoming slaves to addictions, have babies out-of-wedlock or kill them in the mother’s womb because they are not wanted. Crime and violence becomes their culture and their hatred only grows toward those who pay for all they have; the class warfare rages on.
Americans from all walks of life, faith and politics must wake up and realize how the nation continues to be fundamentally transformed through abnormal “hope and change”. It is being accomplished by using people who do not care or are ignorant that they have been enslaved by unscrupulous evil people who think they can dominate others indefinitely to consolidate their dominance among the elite through political power and economic alliances. This is an old and tired dream of wanting to gain the whole world and become the daddies and mommies that people so desperately need.
The more humanist, liberal/progressive, socialist, and communist/Marxist the state becomes the more people become prone to laziness and the work ethic goes down the drain. Dog-eat-dog becomes the norm for society, and that, my friend, is what history teaches us. Fact: the more immoral a society becomes the greater the risk for violent solutions to take place.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) for sure was not a lazy person and had work in high esteem. He was highly recognized as the most prominent scientist in the world. Among his many titles he is known as “the First American” for his contribution in the formation of the new nation with a new experiment of civil government, and promotion of civic virtue. He became one of the prominent founding fathers. He assisted Thomas Jefferson in writing the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Let us pay close attention to his understanding of work and laziness. I selected the following thought from the many he has on the subject. Those who affirm Franklin was a Deist, one who does not believe God is involved in the day-to-day affairs of man, will have a tantrum because they know they are wrong but have to lie to misguide others:
“If we provide encouragements for Laziness, and supports for Folly, may it not be found fighting against the order of God and Nature, which perhaps has appointed Want and Misery as the proper Punishments for, and Cautions against as well as necessary consequences of Idleness and Extravagancy.
“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
“This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, etc. and in continual ill-humour.
“For my own Part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring Favours, but as paying Debts. In my Travels, and since my Settlement, I have received much Kindness from Men, to whom I shall never have any Opportunity of making the least direct Return. And numberless Mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our Services. Those Kindnesses from Men, I can therefore only Return on their Fellow Men; and I can only shew my Gratitude for these mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other Children and my Brethren. For I do not think that Thanks and Compliments, tho’ repeated weekly, can discharge our real Obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator.”
Any Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, and others who continue to ignore what Franklin and other founders understood about how to eliminate laziness and poverty will continue to be culprits in bringing the nation down to her knees and subdued into slavery. As I mentioned, the root cause of laziness, and poverty is moral and spiritual. No amount of laws and money can destroy the evil or malicious intent that is inside of each individual.
Benjamin Franklin understood that promotion of laziness, binds people to poverty and is a fight against the God of the Bible with consequences manifested in want and misery, “as the proper Punishments for, and Cautions against as well as necessary consequences of Idleness and Extravagancy.”
No doubt he knew what God’s moral law teaches on how to eliminate laziness and poverty. I’m sure he understood the Apostle Paul, who, in a letter said, “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
No amount of government programs has ever been effective in eliminating poverty because it is wrong. Assuming that once people are comfortable in getting their needs met and beyond, they will bounce back into the labor force is wishful thinking. Very few will reject more food, a better place to live, healthcare and finding ways to use money for addictions, they will never see these “benefits” as a way out to scape the slavery of poverty.
God did not create us in His image and likeness just to see us struggle and remain in poverty, or always depending upon the government in order to get by. It was God who made it clear in His moral law in Deuteronomy 15:1-11 how to deal effectively with the issue of poverty. We must make our goal to teach people the value of dignity and hard work from the biblical perspective. Then and only then can we see poverty shrink to low levels and every person can reach their God-given potential for the good of all.
It is the responsibility of all biblical Christians to lead in the effort to promote and create an environment in all areas of society where incentives motivate people to leave the chains of poverty. The war on poverty belongs to God’s people, and those who believe in the decency of work ethics. Consequently, a spiritual and moral reformation is overdue. If we are serious of winning the war against poverty we should work hard to end government policies that are antagonistic to the creation of jobs. Let us not fool ourselves, high taxes and mountains of regulatory laws, is not an alternative way to end poverty. Biblical morality, spiritual transformation by the renewing of the mind is the only way (Romans 12:1-2).
This is not the land God had in mind where laziness is greatly rewarded and productivity punished. This is not the vision of the forefathers, Pilgrims and Puritans, of a shining light to the nations and it should not be yours or mine.