S.W.I.N.E.

Editor's Note: Only Mark is likely to understand where this came from, as he seems to be a Pogo fan, as am I.


I am a Member of S.W.I.N.E.










That stands for Seniors Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.

I stole the title of my organization from Walt Kelly's comic strip called "Pogo."

Back then the word "Seniors" was "Students," but I got older.

My church members tell me that I must think that indignance is one of my spiritual gifts.

Be that as it may (or may not), I do find myself being extremely indignant about those things that contradict my experience with, and understanding of, what our country is supposed to be and how it is to be represented in the world.

Raised the son of a United States Air Force officer, I was taught a great deal about the war we were involved in at the time (WWII), as well as the history of our country.

My father often read to me at night.

Sometimes he read adventure stories.

Often, he read to me the writings of our founding fathers.

Contrary to what you might have been taught in government schools (before they started taking so much federal money they were public schools...they are no more), our country was NOT founded as a secular nation.

The Declaration of Independence is VERY clear that our rights come from our Creator.

The Constitution is built upon that premise, and assumes those rights as untouchable by the government. Never mind that the government continues to seek ways to touch those rights.

Furthermore, the Constitution is constructed around the principles of religious and civil law laid out in the Old Testament.

Where did YOU think those ideas (that were considered by the rest of the world to be inappropriate for government) came from?

Why did you think otherwise? Could it be that you were taught that we are a secular nation in your evolving government school system?

Since we get our rights from our Creator, and since the majority of those who originated this great nation wrote extensively about Him, it bothers me when the principles they set out are disturbed.

It occurs to me that it makes sense to hearken back to why we were formed as a country and what was expected of us as a nation by our historical leaders, to measure whether we are keeping faith with that vision.

One of their very strong visions was for a centralized government that was minimally involved in the daily goings on of our society, that is: a SMALL federal government.

Other nations had (and have) strong central governments that kept citizens in constant check, even to the point that they told on each other whenever someone strayed from the path set by the government.

We were quite the opposite. We believed in individual freedom, manifested in the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution and the Constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and property.

A few things were placed in the government's purview: 1) to form a more perfect Union; 2) to establish Justice; 3) to insure domestic Tranquility; 4) to provide for the common defence; 5) to promote the general Welfare; and 5) to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

Those things that were not specifically covered by the Constitution were supposed to be left up to the individual states to determine for themselves.

As is the want of government, over the years the feds have usurped more and more of our freedoms and have become more and more involved, not only in the states' matters, but in matters of individual liberty.

This is an anamatha (a Greek word) to me, and causes be to react indignantly.

Thus, I am indignant when the federal government "nationalizes" private companies, "to keep them from going under."

They do this under the guise that if these large corporations fail, the country could be hurt and they are not supposed to let that happen.

Nonsense!

If a private institution fails, and if our country is affording the opportunities it is supposed to, another will come along to take its place.

While this might be temporarily painful, the end result will be a stronger nation, not a weaker one.

But the government as assumed the roll of mega-nanny and watches over us.

That is as scary as anything that was imagined in novels such as "1984" and "Animal Farm."

And that, my friend, is why I am a conservative and a founding member of S.W.I.N.E.

Wanna join?

It's free.