Metamorphosis

It was not as long ago as David Livingstone, the great English missionary who opened up dark Africa, whose heart was buried in Africa, and whose body was buried in Westminster Abbey. But I thought of him when I heard the noise of Victoria Falls on my trip to Zimbabwe, the great falls between Zimbabwe and Zambia, the great walls of mist, and even the rope bridges over the outlets, a memory beyond compare. Zimbabwe, once Rhodesia, once the bread basket of Africa, now because of the ruthless, reckless rule of Robert Mugabe, a nation in absolute chaos.

There are signs in bathrooms in Zimbabwe which ask you not to use Zimbabwe paper bills because they clog up the sewers. You see, in Zimbabwe, so much inflation, fiat dollar paper is worth less than toilet tissue. The inflation rate in Zimbabwe now, is 516 quintillion per cent, it takes billions of Zimbabwe dollars just to buy a loaf of bread.

America is heading in the same direction. In the Obama healthcare legislation fiasco one section legislates that you must report the expenditure of anything over $600. This means you must send in a 1099 if you have purchased an appliance, put a roof on your house, and certainly if you have purchased gold or silver. There will be millions of 1099 forms filed each year. The civil service employees hired to do the work, along with the purchase of the computers involved.

Some think we may be coming out of the recession, but others know that it was contrived, manipulated, so that the controlled, collectivist, totalitarian processes of government will have you right under their thumb. You hear all these advertisements about buying gold or silver, when the Great Depression hit in 1929, fiat paper money was backed up by gold. In 1933, FDR confiscated all the gold. The people, poverty stricken, depending on parity and staples passed out by the government. In other commentaries I have described the government of controls on everything legislated by FDR, his communist vice president Henry Wallace, and his chief adviser Harry Hopkins. It took WWII in 1941, to give any relief to the public. It is known that the present recession will last through a decade.

Fiat paper dollars was backed up by silver until Lyndon Johnson in 1968, Richard Nixon closed the gold window in 1971 (Until 1971, dollars could redeem gold at $45 an ounce. Yesterday, gold was selling for $1,500 an ounce, the gold reserves at Fort Knox have not been inventoried for fifty years. We do not know what is there.). Now, the American dollar is backed up by nothing, except the taxing power of the Congress. The dollar has lost most of it's buying power, the dollar of my youth is now worth about six cents.

Now, you are on your own! If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep becomes your downfall. The metamorphosis of the last fifty years is in reverse, a nation of beauty, opportunity, prosperity beyond dreams, a wonderful butterfly of delight has metamorphosed into an ugly, decadent caterpillar just trying to survive. Healthcare facilities, reception rooms filled with white-haired seniors, there because they had a right to free medicare. Parking lots at schools filled with expensive cars, driven by spoiled students. Fashion restaurants and department stores, bending and bowing to the clicking of plastic cards will become a memory of the past.

In the documentary, War on Kids, we compare the treatment of adults in prison with children in school. There is not much difference. Like patients in nursing homes, inmates in prisons, students in public schools are now suppressed by mind-altering drugs. Social children, who did at one time, enjoyed school, playing, freedom; are now just controlled pawns of the state. Schools want their money for their 180 days of education, prisons want to be paid for incarceration, nursing homes want to be paid for supplication, and you, if you are fortunate, will have enough left for survival.

Until now, all advertisements, everything in the world, kept you discontented for not having things. You spent on everything, saved nothing. At a time when Asians were saving 10-40% of their paychecks, American families, like America, were going in to endless debt. Most felt successful if they were above water in the hole which they had dug for them. Americans could not understand that the social security trust fund is just one big IOU, only government considers an IOU as an asset. The government wants everyone on the same communist level, everyone drawing an equivalent social security check. $600 billion has already been taken from the civil service retirement fund, and Mr. Obama is lusting for all retirement funds.

A recent survey tells us that parents who worked part-time while in school are the best providers. They know the true value of money, they know discipline and self-control. The Christian knows about conservatism. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

America and Americans have been captives of the world's philosophy of self aggrandizement. We want the latest styles, designer clothes, eating and drinking, even going into professional offices, places which flatter us. Many of my professional friends have said, “I want my patients or clients to say, 'he is the highest priced doctor or lawyer in town, but he is good.'” No one brags about the cheapest doctor, lawyer, or store. One of my aunts, who worked in an expensive ladies dress shop, said, “the women in town who wore the most expensive outer garments wore the most ragged underwear.” The gossip columnist Earl Wilson said, “there are three financial types: the haves, the have-nots, and the haves who have not paid for what they have.”

Until a recession, such as we have now, does the actual financial worth of individuals come to the surface. It is amazing how many homes in gated communities are on the market, because the snobs who lived there could not pay their mortgage. There was a clamor at the banks by members of the country club, when they received their assessment for the new county club building.

700 banks have closed to date, this year. Financial institutions are caught in a bind also, the chickens have come home to roost, whether the supposed best known family in town or the least known family in town. When the house or car is worth less than you owe on it, it is far easier just to walk away and hand the keys to the lender. My carpenter told he paid $40,000 for his truck, he owes $30,000 on his truck, and he could not sell the truck for as much as $8,000. He said, “if they want it, they can have it.”

Most government actions are not seen in the evening news, problems which affect the public, happen through government agencies. It is these government agencies that have killed small businesses and small farms, once the very center of employment and opportunity. Our family farm supported several families, sent them to schools and colleges, because of government regulations, excessive taxation, after my parents death, these farms disappeared.

When workers leave the farm, when employees cannot find work in small businesses or industry. They must seek living accommodations somewhere, and they must eat. This leads to government housing projects, food stamps, thrift stores, etc. Please God, the metamorphosis has not worked, bring back the day before government bondage, when a father could hold one job and support a family, when a mother could stay at home and care for her children. Morally, economically, spiritually, family facts, we had a better community, a better country.