Lawlessness is overtaking our cities, our southern border is being overrun, and the president of United States has seemingly declared half of U.S. voters, "a threat to the very soul of this country."
Ominous bricks are being added to the wall of an emerging American police state.
We now learn that the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has officially categorized Trump supporters — the so-called members of MAGA — as "domestic terrorists."
Additionally, the FBI has formed a secret task force, seemingly non-partisan, but actually operates in unprecedented ways that depart from prior focus on cells, anarchist, militia and violence-prone groups. It now focuses on people who may be peaceful but identify with anti-government and anti-authority thinking. FBI sources acknowledge that these new categories and task force have been created to target MAGA and Trump supporters.
Not coincidentally, Hillary Clinton has reappeared just as this new information surfaces in a lengthy Newsweek article by William Arkin. In media interviews she labels Trump supporters a cult, and suggests that there needs to be "a formal deprogramming of these cult members."
The Patriot Act, enacted Oct. 26, 2001, created new laws and protocols to thwart another 9/11 external terrorist attack. Passed with some haste following 9/11, the Patriot Act also introduced what would become a slippery slope of internal political weaponization of the legal system, the FISA courts, and the three-letter federal agencies — resulting in American citizens being denied protection under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments.
Does this trajectory, unchanged, surely lead to a police state?
So great are the depth and breadth of America’s problems now that most people feel that the relatively free America, we took for granted, is now lost.
Because of the secular nature of the scribes of history, the more important and more consequential stories that account for both America’s rise and success into the mid-20th century, but also account for our decline and failure that ensued right up to the present, are unlikely to be told.
Let us accordingly reflect:
The original 13 colonies were founded primarily by Christians sharing a vision and disposition to live in freedom and pursue diverse opportunities they perceived as abundant in the Americas.
Because of their beliefs most of the early settlers were predisposed to work hard, be self-reliant, law-abiding, and tolerant.
From its constitutional Founding in the late 1780s right into the mid-20th century, America was uniquely respected among the nations of the world.
Its people were free and understood that their rights came from God.
As such, those rights were unalienable and couldn’t be taken away by the state.
No other nation was formed in such a way.
With that freedom came a general recognition that the combination of tolerance and the competition of ideas would lead to truth, solutions to problems, and the advancement of progress.
Everyone understood that such a society would have the best shot at success through competition and merit.
America became uniquely respected not only for its economic success but also for its moral stature emanating from its religious legacy, the accomplishments of the civil rights movement, and the enduring strength of a constitutional system protecting its citizens’ freedoms.
Morality and virtue have been not only the foundation of the American Republic, but they are also necessary for a society to be free.
In his Farewell Address of September 1796, George Washington declared religion was not only the source of morality, but it was also "a necessary spring of popular government."
John Adams who succeeded Washington as the second president, said, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is inadequate to the government of any other."
There should be little doubt that America’s present rapid decline has been quickening and is the consequence of a moral crisis.
We can recognize that this is true because when societal norms radically depart from those that have been respected for hundreds and thousands of years and when that transpires with unprecedented speed, something is happening that is beyond a rational explanation.
Evil spiritual forces are at work and in ascendance.
Most people hoped that once the whirlwind of radical change depriving people of their freedom during the so-called COVID-19 pandemic passed, that relative normalcy would return.
That has not happened; when God is driven out of the culture evil forces fill the void.
These forces and influence are manifest in people and now show up universally in the private sector, in education, the culture and throughout government.
There is an arduous way back for America.
The story of the prodigal son, the best-known parable in the Bible, offers insight.
America is very much like the prodigal son because we have not only engaged in and allowed immoral behavior to proliferate, squandered our inheritance, but have also betrayed our present and future progeny by running up an inordinate debt — $34 trillion and growing.
The turning point for America could be similar to that of the prodigal son, whose inheritance ran out from reckless indulgence, which reduced him to living with pigs.
His way back started with acknowledging what he had done, repenting of his sins before his father and then expressing gratitude for blessings of his family.
It’s not easy for elites in the public and private sector in America — who live in luxury and are removed from majority of the people — to acknowledge their failures and waywardness.
Such awareness can be driven by the people, who can more easily recognize that acknowledging failure and the need for God are the keys to spiritual revival, which will in turn open the way for America’s recovery and renewal.
Scott S. Powell, a member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China and senior fellow at Discovery Institute, is the author of "Rediscovering America," a new release in the history genre. You may reach him at scottp@discovery.org. Read Scott S. Powell's Reports — More Here.
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