Since late 2008, the United States has seen some extravagant crises turned into excuses to dramatically curtail liberty and turn the Constitution and the nation in general on its head.  Banks who had mismanaged their investors‘ money received cold, hard cash from our government in order to “keep the economy solvent”.  People who were the recipients of bad mortgages and were in debt they could not sustain got absolutely no relief while the fools who engineered the deals retained all of their wealth and power.  When it was discovered that some executives were contractually receiving commissions and bonuses while under the employ of one of the badly managed firms our government, ignoring hundreds of years of established law, passed an ex post facto/bill of attainder law attempting to confiscate the executives duly earned money.

Our government also decided to “bail out” two of the failing auto-makers by “loaning” them billions of dollars (of tax payer guaranteed loans from China) when even a 6th grader could have pointed out that those two companies were going to go bankrupt even with the “bail-outs”.  Now that these car makers are indeed going bankrupt (and the billions in loans to THEM ‘poof’ gone), random dealerships are being shut down across America with seemingly no rhyme or reason and people who held secured stock in these companies are being wiped out by the bankruptcy judge while those who held unsecured stock are retaining their shares of the company.  This is an absolute travesty of justice.

A “Stimulus” bill was passed numbering in the trillions of dollars that “had to be passed to avert economic catastrophe” months ago.  “If this money wasn’t released in a hurry”, we were told, “then the country’s economy would certainly collapse into depression.”  Well, the money was released, but only 5% of it has been spent, and yet here we are, granted with a high unemployment rate, but still the country functions.

Now, the latest and most bizarre of events is that when our military captures enemies on the battle field, the enemies must be read their rights as if they were arrested inside of our country. 

I could go on, but I think you get the drift.  Simple justice, common sense, and the natural law have been turned on their proverbial heads.  Liberty is being curtailed and the government’s size and power are being increased exponentially almost on a daily basis.

The upside is that some people are seeing these things and returning to God.  This goes hand in hand with my last entry I Don’t Need a Scripture for that.  People inherently know that the behavior of our government is bad - and they also know where to go to meet with other folks who know this stuff is bad - church!

These down turns are inevitable after great periods of prosperity.  Remember how great Israel was when they were defeating the Canaanites?  Remember how they backslid once the fighting stopped?  Remember how Israel was pretty righteous when David was in charge, but turned to false gods once Solomon started basking in the glow of their riches? 

Yes, these things are cyclic.  We had a really good run from the 90’s up to about 2008.  We even managed to maintain our incredible quality of life after 9/11/01, a giant hurricane, and while fighting two wars simultaneously.  Unfortunately, our country let it go to its head and now it is time to pay the price. 

My prayer is that the country humbles itself before God and we get this downturn put behind us in a hurry.