Why We Lose<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Dr. Randy White
 
I am going to utter what some believe should be unutterable:  Obama wins the upcoming election.
 
Already I've offended some of my listeners and readers.  I know there is a large group of people that believe if you say it, it will happen.  They will accuse me of being too negative, faithless, and of discouraging the committed.  Sadly, we seem to be a society that is unable to accept the reality of bad news.  Many of my politically conservative friends are so convinced that Obama is a danger to American that they cannot fathom how he could win...again.
 
But I predict he will win.  I may be completely wrong, but I will not be surprised if he wins with a fairly healthy margin, which will be fully unhealthy for the United States of America.
 
The reason Obama will win is because he represents the convictional beliefs of modern America.  This is not the America of your father's values and ideals, and certainly not the America of the Founders.  This is rather the America that believes it needs a helping hand, a boost, a system that enables success by giving a head start.
 
Obama represents the soul of America.  He voices empathy for "the working man" who has to labor under big (and thus bad) business.  He is able to voice the feelings of the common, run-of-the-mill American who lives paycheck to paycheck, always looking for a better way and a better day.  Somewhere in the last 40 years, this better-way, better-day came to be seen as possible only with the provision of Government.  Perhaps it was with the creation of "Head Start" that we began to truly believe that the Government could--and should--provide a head start to those who were struggling.  Now that head start is needed by college students, whose "plight" is voiced by Mr. Obama with passion.  Left out of the speeches is the fact check that shows that the reason for the plight of the student is the government intervention ("head start") that has caused college tuition to skyrocket, far beyond any other portion of our economy.  So Obama will express empathy for the college student with $60,000 in college loans by making more loans available, making college tuition increase, making the student more dependent on Government for yet another head start.
 
Sadly, friend, the days when the American spirit held a suspicion of government are gone.  Today, the common cry when help is needed is "Where is the government?"
 
Obama, regardless of his own life of unearned wealth and opportunity, also holds the heart of the main street American who looks at the rich and says, "He has no idea how good he has it."  All rich people, it seems, were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.  They've never worked early and stayed up late, never had a moment of stress, never knew what it was to be unable to buy their child the new shoes and put gas in the car at the same time.   The caricatures of the rich are ridiculously untrue, I know.  But that doesn't matter in today's America.  Perception almost always trumps facts in the human heart.
 
So Obama and the democrats will travel the country this fall, telling Americans what they want to hear:  "We came from poor stalk, our mom worked hard (dads will rarely be mentioned, because they were either abject failures or their riches will contradict the talking points), we were the first in our family to go to college, we couldn't have done it without the chance the Government made available to us.  We feel your pain, we are here to help, we are ready to provide for your children and your children's children.  We will not let them go alone, we will not leave you sick, we will make sure you are cared for in your old age." 
 
This will be the message, and it will be bought--hook, line, and sinker.  And Obama will win the election.
 
And government will grow.  It will "provide" all we need.  More and more, everything we touch will first be touched by government.  Prices may be held artificially low (so we will keep voting the Providers into office), but the cost of low prices will be an increasing government intrusion.  The government, touching everything we use, will have the power to tell us when to use it, how to use it, how much to use, and more.  The government as Provider will become the government as parent.  And far from stirring a revolution for freedom that such an arrangement should stir in the lives of the lovers of freedom, the America of today will continue to ask for more, and give up more, in order that their basic existence can be provided.  The change came slowly, and the frog in the kettle will be cooked.
 
How can I be so sadly pessimistic?  I am normally an optimist.  My glass is always half full.  As I read society and read my Bible, however, I am keenly aware that we are reaching the last days, in which, "…men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God," (2 Timothy 3:2–4, NASB95)
 
What can be done?  I'll give some thoughts on this next time.
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