Standing Tall

I recently said to a young politician, running for public office his first time, “politics is the most important place for charity and truth, and sad to say politics is a victim of political correctness. Christ told us to fear not (Psalm 37), learn to bow low to God, and stand tall before men.” I told him about my earlier exploits into politics, when I was in a room of politicians I felt like I was in a room full of snakes. Moses, at age 120, knowing that he would soon die, told Joshua and his successors to choose life. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may life (Deuteronomy 30:19).

From Noah's Flood (4090 BC) until the present, there has been thousands of years of anguish. Many are predicting the end of this “veil of tears”, the return of Christ on May 21, 2011. We know the Mayan calender predicts such, and so does the numbers we have been able to decipher in the Bible. Whatever, we trust the One in charge, “standing at the ready”. Once you are at peace with God, you do not fear what man can do to you, Heaven is your destination.

Six years ago, while I was down under my house at Wrightsville Beach, a blind man moves around quietly and carefully, I overheard a conversation from under the house next door. Two men were telling two girls about transporting illegal drugs to a military base nearby (Camp LeJune). One said, “your package is in the bottom of this cooler full of freshly caught fish and ice. If one of these pigs stops you, you have your fishing gear, and they are not about to put their hands in this cooler. Deliver the cooler to this address and you are paid for the transportation, there is nothing for you to worry about. Even if they were to find anything, you know nothing about it.”

I had suspected for some time that the house next to me was a den for drug traffickers, even more suspicious when someone told me there were police officers in and out of the place. Police officers in Wrightsville Beach have always been known for their drug dealing, it went on across the street from me in another house that I own, and when I reported it to a town alderman, my tires were immediately slashed. My next door neighbor, a stroke victim, sleeping very little at night, saw the police officer when he did the dirty deed.

I owned a very small camera which I could hide in the palm of my hand, that I used when traveling abroad. I would photograph the license plates of the cars next door, even paid for the development of the film. I sent copies of all of this, as well details of the overheard conversations to law enforcement. As usual, nothing was done. This is the cauldron of sorcery in which we find ourselves living today, was it any worse before the Great Flood, before Sodom?

One morning, 2008, before the presidential election, my doorbell rang. A well-known attorney's wife who I had met when she was a reporter for the local newspapers was at the door looking for a former tenant. The tenant had moved out of the house, stealing my furniture, of course, this is the type of person the Obama supporters were seeking for votes. I told the attorney's wife, “in living color”, what had happened with the person she was pursuing. The thievery of my furniture, turned over to police, insurance, and two lawyers, and my net return to date, zero. Recently another such incident, a pharmacist, one who you trust to compound your prescription, moved out of a house, taking all bedspreads, all towels, all blankets, all glasses, all trashcans, all bathroom rugs, and many other things such as shower curtains, chairs, utensils, all brooms.

The tragedy is that when one stands tall about petty thievery, lawyers and even law enforcement take the attitude “this is just the cost of doing business, you just expect this from young, dumb professionals.” The first tenant's father was superintendent of the state of Virginia's schools, Dr. Ira Trollenger. I trusted the realtor who put the pharmacist into my property, (it turns out that the realtor represented my tenant in a further transaction) even though I had paid him a nice commission for doing nothing except for exercising “due diligence”. In a time when American morality has been led, not by the poor and disenfranchised, but the insatiable greed of those who should know better. If you cannot trust professionals, who can you trust? Doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, realtors, those who have a license, those who have boards of ethics regulation, those on who the public must depend because of their monopolies. Where does the public go for relief? The saddest part of this dialogue is the fact that political correctness and political connections determine justice.

When everyone refuses to stand up, not even standing tall, against corruption, greed, gluttony, lust, laziness, sinfulness, we will just have more and more of it. It is time for tax-paying, god-fearing, hard-working citizens to stand tall and say “enough is enough”. Incrementally, day after day, month after month, year after year, schools have dumbed down students, hard working parents have gotten further and further behind in everything. The worst thing over-taxation has done to this nation is keeping mother, who must bring a second income, out of the home where they should be teaching children morals.

Politicians are only concerned with being reelected, because we have all been so beaten down, it is difficult to even get up anymore, let alone stand tall. Even a totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected, veteran, medical officer is ridiculed and no longer supported when seeking justice as he attempts to make a living. When law enforcement loses the support of the decent, voting, tax-paying public, their cause is lost. Does the church, the schools, the political parties, law enforcement actually believe they can depend on the criminal element to support them?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “Russia failed because Russia forgot God.” Let me speak as did Emile Zola, “dare to tell the truth, as I have pledged to tell it, in full, since the normal channels of justice have failed to do so.” I have earned the right to tell the truth, I may be the last one on Earth who believe in the justice of God, but one thing I know, the justice of God will always prevail. “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” (Psalm 37:25)