Time to turn around

One of the biggest lessons that I learned in life is that when you are headed in the wrong direction, then you need to turn around and beat it back to the point where you got off on the wrong path and then get started in the right direction ASAP.

Here in Hickory, we are hurting because our manufacturing base has been decimated. We can see that totally wiping out this base with the rapidity and depth that it has happened has us at a real unemployment rate of around 25%. We have been put into this position by the actions of government and the Wall Streeters, who don't give a flip about the real people in this country. We are just pawns in their perverted game.

In studying economics, I do believe in the global economy, but not the way that it has occurred. Look at the ill-begotten effects of what has happened. We are enriching very few people, we are encouraging greed, we are sanctioning the use of slave labor in developing nations, we are consuming precious finite resources at an exponential rate, and we are wasting resources inefficiently in all of these processes. What is happening is mindless. We are not maturing as a species and if something is not done soon, we will suffer some truly serious consequences.

What is it going to take to wake people up? Anyone who is paying attention can see what is coming down the pike. The Jobless numbers going into the holiday season showed that the economy shed 85,000 jobs, instead of the usual result of adding jobs (Jobs gloom hits west’s recovery hopes). What will this mean in the upcoming months when companies typically pare their payroll.

We wouldn't need an idea of unions, if the government would just enforce the laws on the books. Most financiers look at the term "Social Justice" as a bad term. And if it is the Marxist terminology of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need," then I too am against this idea, because in reality it does not reward hard work and the pursuit of excellence. But, we do need Social Justice in terms of worker's rights when it comes to the individuals rights in a nation of, by, and for the corporatocracy.

Who is going to protect the individual worker's rights when corporations are married to the government and government is the final arbiter? Who is going to trust a Union that marries itself to entrenched interests and corporate-political governance? The individual worker is an afterthought in this system.

How does small business compete in this kind of system, when large multinational corporations own the government? Where will ingenuity come from? How will this not kill entrepreneurship?

We must demand the separation of these forces. We must create definite lines that cannot be crossed. Until we do this, we will continue to float down towards the abyss.

We have even seen this type of thinking become rooted in the thought process of our own local government. Local leaders obtain grants for family and friends through public funds and average citizens aren't represented on local boards and commissions. Existing businesses are told that they are going to be helped by our local government. In other words, we may just end up with a local version of "Too Big to Fail."

We have gotten too far away from our founding documents. We must reclaim them. We are being taught a lesson here. We were a special country defined by the freedom of the individual surrounded by the justice of natural law. Now all we have is a tangled morass of perverted process, which is leading to the destruction of all that we hold dear.

It is time to turn it around. We need to get back to justice. We need to reestablish the cornerstones, so that we can rebuild our foundation. We must become self-reliant. The government must get out of debt and get out of the way. The States must reassert their authority and stand on their own. The Federal Government needs to be caged and controlled. We must reestablish the relations of fellow man, instead of this perverted man-government relationship. We must demand fair trade. We must quit wasting resources and live with an eye towards the future; instead of today, today, today.

We can no longer afford to be myopic. We need to open our eyes and broaden our view. The world is simple and complex and sometimes we make the simple complex and the complex simple. But in the end, there is something in us that lets us know what is right and what is wrong. Many times we try to suppress and deny that innate knowledge, but you know where I am coming from. My faith is that at some point there will be enough of us to take charge and get everyone back on the right path.

May God Bless You on this Glorious Sunday.