When I was 10 years old, my dad realized a life-long dream - he opened a small country store. Our store didn't carry the usual small town necessities such as groceries and hardware it was a little more, well more....
My dad sold used military surplus, guns, ammunition, horse tack and animal feed. He also carried used furniture, sold hunting and fishing licenses and even had a few auto parts (used, of course). Basically, he sold everything a country gentleman could possibly need. When I was about 12, my folks moved up, buying a larger building in a neighboring town and expanding the business. They enlarged the feed section, got in more surplus and even installed a bakery case that was stocked daily with fresh bakery items from a bakery about an hours drive away. Dad built a wood stove and enclosed it with a steel "fence" (that was great for putting your feet on while warming up your toes) and had a few tables and chairs for the locals that spent a large portion of their time drinking coffee, watching CNN (the only news show on cable at that time) and discussing the events of the day.
I grew up listening to these colorful characters talk about the state of our nation. To be sure, each one had an opinion, which was forcefully voiced and more often than not, they didn't think too highly of their neighbors strong opinions. Even as a child I was fascinated with their differing opinions and assessments of our world. However, my innocent childhood formed in me the knowledge that things could never go really bad. I mean, we were a nation formed on biblical principles - with God being for us, who could possibly be against us. Besides, our nation did what was right and right always wins.
But I did hear the whisperings. A couple of the "old farts" would sit in the corner of dad's store and talk about unfathomable scenarios. They would talk about "big brother" watching everything you did, telling you what to eat and how to raise your children. They would discuss the death of liberty and the rise of socialism and, gasp, communism. They would talk about teachers indoctrinating children and parents sitting back and allowing hideous propaganda to be preached directly into the hearts of their children. They would talk while the others snickered. They were dismissed as wackos and marginalized as crazy "tin-foil hat" people. Nobody really took them seriously.
I admit that I too dismissed them as nuts. In my childlike mind, I reasoned that people would NEVER allow socialism or communism to gain a foothold in this great country. People would NEVER stand by while their children were being brainwashed with anti-family, anti-business and anti-patriot propaganda. Americans would NEVER tolerate some government bureaucrat telling them what they could and could not eat and how they would be allowed to discipline their children. NEVER. This was America for heavens sake!
As the years went by, my naivety was slowly replaced by the impregnable realities of the truth. The truth was that the men whom I had scorned in my youth had seen a future that my young eyes had been blinded to. They saw an apathetic, lazy, self-centered population that cared more for their own creature comforts than they did for the good of mankind. They saw an overreaching government that was poised to impose THEIR will on the people rather than being directed BY the people. They weren't "tin-foil" hat crazies, they were modern day prophets!
Now, I am not one to be swayed by the latest conspiracy theories or fall prey to outrageous claims of secret society world domination, but I am much more likely to see boogie men (and women) in classrooms and slithering serpents holding political offices and occupying benches across the nation. Gone is my childlike innocence. I have seen first hand the destructive nature of our government and the ignorance of our people. I have seen greed rewarded and honesty punished. I have seen a nation with its moral compass pointing south.
From time to time, I still enter small country stores where old men in work-worn clothes and dingy hats gather together to solve the problems of the world. I look for the ones in the corners that talk quietly amongst themselves, the scorn of the more rational old farts. I hear their outrageous claims and their far-fetched ideas and I wonder - are they really far-fetched, or are these humble, fervent men the most modern prophets of all....
Enola,
ReplyDeleteI guess I have become one of those "Old Farts"
I am one of the more "junior" members of a local old farts club at the tender young age of 45.
I listened to one story of how a ranch was raided by Mexican Raiders and the ranching family here in Texas was killed.
A local posse was formed and about 20 riders followed the trail. Among them was a 13 year old boy who could ride and handle a rifle. The boy and his father rode with the posse all the way down into the Rio Grande valley killing some of the bandits, then they rode into Mexico and the 13 year old boy shot at least three Mexican men himself.
This happened back in 1912. (thats what I call border security)
One of my close friends knew and old man about thirty years ago who was that "13 year old boy"
Hearing true stories like that make me think that maybe there is hope, and old farts like that set an example for the future.
There are absolutely some evil forces in the world that are either trying to destroy us or take from us what is ours. These people are in Russia, China, Iran and many other nations openly opposed to us and our way of life. But on a federal, state and local level most of the bad things happening are not the result of a grand conspiracy but rather a grand and universal ignorance and incompetence along with a healthy dose of dishonesty in those who are elected or appointed to run the bureaucracy. Our once great constitutional Republic is faltering and may already be doomed. Not so much by design but by lack of design or control. Our single biggest threat is our uneducated, uninterested, uninformed masses who will only wake up when they see the mushroom cloud over their city or their food stamps and welfare stop coming. We have voted in these fools and allowed them to pass the laws that are destroying us. In general we voted for them because they promised to tax someone else so they could give us free stuff. We passed the tipping point for sure around 2008-09 and probably before that where it is a impossibility to ever pay back the money borrowed or to be able to even make the interest payments. The only questions still unanswered is when it all collapses or will something far worse happen first. There is a very good chance that it will make the scenarios in the survival books look optimistic...
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, we cannot be as naive as those who choose or afford to stay uninformed, unaware and dumbed-down. Those "old farts" grew up in an age when people knew how to spell even the most difficult of words. They understand math and could tell when the weather was going to change and had instincts about life and people that were pretty darn accurate. They were also honest, hard working folk who helped their neighbors and community.
ReplyDeleteThe bible was on the desk of the teacher for instruction and correction for the unruly child. Discipline was respected and so were the teachers and parents.
When Henry Kissinger spoke those prophetic and very revealing words in the 70's - "Those who control the food, control the population. Those who control the oil control the nation." Those words he spoke in the 1970's are quite true today. The prices of oil and commodities, like the stock market, corn, pork bellies, coffee, gold, silver and the dollar are all manipulated and controlled - not necessarily for the benefit of the average working person.
If biblical prophecy is true - and it is - there will be a famine, even though we grow and ship food world wide due to high and going ever higher prices that will become unaffordable to many. More and more millions of people are on government controlled, slave welfare rather than working to earn their way and paid for by those who still have jobs.
Perhaps God was speaking of famine for the hearing of His word. That too is prophecy now coming true.
I do have great faith that there are many evil-doers, the wicked God speaks about whom He will send His great wrath upon in the last days. When one does their due diligence and looks much deeper into these shadowy, smarmy, satan-led individuals, and corporate entities where politicians and alphabet-governmental-agency employees (paid with taxpayer monies) make laws that devastate humankind, ruin the environment and food sources (Monsanto, Dow, and others)it becomes almost sickening how much corruption is in our country.
We have a great double standard when our leaders speak about human rights violations - pointing their fingers at other countries - yet blind to the devastation America has caused with our own human rights violations with never ending wars and bogus excuses that make billions of dollars for the chess masters moving the pawns on the chessboard of the world. With what we have spent on endless wars, we could feed the whole country, build a safe infrastructure, to say the very least.
I truly believe it is all by design and fully controlled - Whether by a just God who is sick and tired of His creation being destroyed, (whether the unborn, or the environment and everything in between) for the final battle between good and evil. Just as God used Pharaoh in Egypt (Book of Exodus) for His own purposes, I believe He is using these very evil for His own purposes now. America is now in her own "Egypt" and so are other many countries around the world.
Or by those who want to be their own gods to control everything, reduce the population so they can enjoy the kingdom of their own making and ushering in that kingdom everyday with chilling and human-spirit-crushing laws that are so very oppressive.
Thankfully, joyfully, we know Who has the final victory!! It is definately not those who worship evil.
I would add one thing more to the above - We all get the message that this is an election year where every form of "happy talk" promises are made while on the "trail of presidential hope-ful-ness" - more jobs available now, road to recovery happening, fewer unemployed (they don't count those who have run out of their unemployment checks and given up looking for pie-in-the-sky, more blah-blah-blah while saying very little).
ReplyDeleteThe mud-slinging is fierce and becoming moreso - it seems to be what Americans love and want most is nastiness and dishing the dirt. The dirtier the better. Bring it on. Shame on us. And the promises will be everything for everybody!!! This is, after all, an election year. Yes, and how many states are already bankrupt!
We always seem to fall for the same old BS. Same stuff, different day mentality. But what really counts is what we see only with our eyes.
How many buildings that once employed hundreds of people now have windows boarded up and parking lots empty, growing weeds? Yet Walmart builds bigger and bigger so we can spend what little is left for Chinese cheap.
It's not the false, endless blah-blah that we should be listening to. It's what we only see with our eyes that we believe. Voting is only more of the same no matter which "party" - appropriate name "party as that's what is happening, spending for the big, last party and the party joke is on teh America people. Party on!!!
Now, I am not one to be swayed by the latest conspiracy theories or fall prey to outrageous claims of secret society world domination"
ReplyDeleteMy only question is: when truth is stranger than fiction, and Truth rests in Jesus, how is all else, not possible?
is Bill Gates vaccine program hurtful or helpful?If you say hurtful who's to say that that is a outrages conspiracy claim to wold vaccination?
I just can't put a limit to man's evil possibilities. there are Napoleon's/Genghis Khan/ of the technological/financial age
Pardon my questions, I adore your site and agree with you 90% of the time.
Have you heard any of the following people lecture?
ReplyDeleteEconomist Marc Nuttle of the Debt Wall (and America is running out of time by the way)
Kevin Freeman who uncovered China's plan to take down the U.S. economy (which China actually put into a book)
Retired Lt. General Jerry Boykin on the dangers of Islam and Sharia law
Oh, there is a conspiracy alright! Seek to be informed