Don Crawford

Don Crawford

President of Crawford Broadcasting and the voice of the STAND Podcast

THE LATE GREAT AMERICA

There was once a great democracy which existed in Greece. History termed that civilization the Athenian Republic. That civilization failed to survive.

Hear this about the fall of the Athenian Republic and democracy in general:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

Does that in a real way not sound like the United States of America today? Not only does America tax and spend like never before in history, but it spends much more than it taxes. In fact, the treasury which doles out these benefits has accumulated debt in access of:

$17 TRILLION

Talk about loose fiscal policy.

There are billions and billions of dollars in generous gifts and so-called investments doled out by the treasury of this once great country. Such a policy will produce a final collapse, financial collapse of this great country.
The average of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been approximately 200 years, some of course longer and others shorter. During those average 200 years, those nations followed the following sequences and stages in their development.
First, the nation went from bondage to a state of spiritual faith. The nation was controlled by another nation or nations, held captive, forced to live by the rules and standards of that conquering nation. During that time, in most nations, there was spiritual revival. Those humans held in bondage adopted faith. They were motivated by faith. They began earnestly a belief in a higher power which energized them and revitalized them as human beings. That spiritual faith produced an awareness of the potentiality for freedom and the possibility of a life without bondage.
The second stage of any civilization is the sequence from spiritual faith to great courage. Faith, real faith strengthened, produced an inner fortitude, a courage such as those held in bondage never had before. That spiritual faith produced a will to be free. Faith produced a courage to resist, rebel and confront the captors. Such courage generated by spiritual faith would never allow these born again human beings to be held captive.
The third stage of the growth and development of any civilization is that from courage to liberty. Those newly energized human beings by faith were determined to be free, to live free, to live in liberty and no longer in captivity. America was once like that, was it not? The original 13 colonies of this great country in the years 1600 through 1700 AD were subject to the British Empire, subjects of the king, ruled by him and a British parliament. They were subject to his laws and taxation. They were anything but free and ultimately without liberty. But then came the revolutionary era in the late 1700s, the courage to declare independence (1776), and to form a new Constitution, 1787 and to elect the President, George Washington, and a Congress with House and Senate. The old America had the courage to fight for liberty, to defeat the British and drive them out and the courage to form a new nation based on liberty. History reveals that much of liberty’s energy was fostered by spiritual faith. The early American revolutionaries were in fact people of faith, strengthened and encouraged by their belief in a Supreme Being and in most cases a Christian God from whom they derived the courage, the energy, the WILL to fight for freedom. Life without liberty was unacceptable. That took great courage and the early revolutionaries had that as a result of an extreme spiritual faith.
The fourth stage of any civilization is the stage from liberty to abundance. Hardly any nation in history has been more abundant than the United States of America. Our country is blessed with incredible resources. We can farm, mine, build and grow. Our great land is blessed with any number of climates and lifestyle possibilities. In a world often hungry, food in America is abundant. Where the world lacks clothes, we have many. In a world without shelter or water or heat or cooling, we have housing abundant. We have labored to make abundance happen, but nature has given us, we the people the opportunity to live in abundance like hardly any other nation in history.

The fifth stage of the development of any civilization is that from abundance to complacency. That is, we have begun to take for granted the abundance we have. We assume the basic lifestyle, the availability of necessities and with work and savings, luxuries, real abundance, the full life as much as we want. We seem to take so much for granted in America. It is as though we assume this abundance will go, last forever. That no matter our problems, or loose fiscal policy, or poor governance, or even threats from other nations the world over, like nuclear warfare, we the people, we Americans will continue to live in abundance and complacently, we take that for granted. We do, don’t we? It seems as though we become more complacent about our abundance every day. And so this complacency, this taking for granted begins the start of civilization gone downhill. No nation complacent can ever survive.

The sixth stage of any civilization now on the decline is that from complacency to apathy. We become, apathetic, dull to current conditions and especially threats. We delegate to others. We fail to standup having lost so much of that faith in humanity and the original courage to be free. We are apathetic to threats to liberty, even to life. A country loosens moral standards and the majority of citizens are apathetic to that moral decline. We tolerate it, turn our heads from it and go about the business of enjoying our abundance. We become apathetic to change, encroachments on our liberty for our complacency has made us apathetic to threat. The fabric of society loosens and the foundation for liberty spoils. We become a people no longer driven by spiritual faith, enabled by courage, or willing to do whatever is required to protect our liberty. We move yet another large step toward the end of our once great civilization. Much of that now happens in our America.
The seventh stage in the rise and fall of a civilization is that from apathy to dependence. We become dependent upon others. We become especially dependent upon government federal, state and local. Entitlements rule. It is now estimated that as many as one out of two American citizens are dependent in some meaningful way upon government of some kind, 50%! Such dependency destroys independence. We become dependent not only on government, but agencies, law enforcement entities, large churches, even larger corporations so that the individual seems lost, growing ever-dependent. And with that dependency, spiritual faith wanes and courage even more so. We seem to lose the courage to fight for liberty, to do whatever is required to sustain our freedom. Fiscal policy becomes even looser, debt increases, the poor are further marginalized and freedom tarnishes every day. DEPENDENCE IS A FACT OF LIFE IN AMERICA TODAY! That is telltale sign of civilization on the down and near the end. Is dependency not a real fact, ever-growing in our America today?
The eighth and final stage of the rise and fall of any civilization is that from DEPENDENCE BACK INTO BONDAGE! Back to bondage. No longer are we a people who will LIVE FREE OR DIE but rather a citizenry content to be dependent, satisfied to be controlled and willing, apathetically willing to have our liberties, our freedom taken, we lose the courage, the spiritual energy to fight back, to resist, to act by that old revolutionary energy to protect our freedoms and we complacently accept a new bondage. Witness North Korea. The new and aggressive Russia. Fanatic Islam including and especially ISIS. The near nuclear capable Iran. The compromise worldwide which erodes liberties and advances the threat of nuclear annihilation. Like its citizenry, a nation can lose its courage, certainly its spiritual faith, its moral structure and foundation and begin the slide, often rapid into the ash heap of once great world civilizations. Are, historians ask, we the people and our once great nation on that decline and at that stage? Does the possibility of another kind of bondage exist for us?

Let us be reminded that a nation which collapses because of loose fiscal policy, an absolute fact in America today, is always followed by a dictatorship. Scary thought, is it not? We the people can hardly conceptualize our country ruled by a dictator, or an oligarchy (the rule of the few). But is that not now happening in America? Rather than representatives in Washington, we have rulers. There are 435 of us, representatives in our HOUSE who seem to care little about us and do as they please. There are 100 senators, independent as can be, perhaps some who are benign dictators, even more indifferent to the American people. Rulers rather than representatives. And a President run amok. A man openly defying the Constitution, the Rule of Law, bent upon his own agenda no matter the people. And a Supreme Court, nine individuals who ultimately decide how we will live, what is right. Nine and nine only! So that, it is easy to say that we are already ruled by a new form of dictatorship, ruled by 545 people with absolute power to do as they wish no matter the people. That is a current, a modern definition of bondage. We live under the new bondage created by 545 people. We wait for them to tell us how to live. We watch them restrict and erode our liberties and we do nothing. We complacently accept this new bondage because we have lost spiritual faith in virtually every quarter of America, and we are becoming a people without courage, courage to resist, fight back as our forefathers once did in revolutionary times. We have indeed become apathetic, we accept dependence and entitlement and we are unwilling to sacrifice. We have seen as the historian Arnold Toynbee as said the rise of the great American civilization and now the fall, the decline begins. No nation, as Toynbee says, can ever survive the ravages of time, especially a democracy:

A DEMOCRACY IS ALWAYS TEMPORARY IN NATURE

Always. Our great American Republic built on democracy simply can not survive. It is only a question of when our great civilization ends, like all other civilizations in history built upon a Democratic foundation. For it is critical to remember, my fellow citizens that the average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. We the great America have survived and prospered for 240 years. The clock ticks and ticks faster the more apathetic and complacent we have become.

Those of us still energized by real spiritual faith and the courage, the will to fight believe there is time to change, change back from complacency, from apathy, from a willingness to accept dependence and to renew and revitalize our great civilization. There is time to make America great again, time to change, change leadership, values. But the change will be difficult and require sacrifice. The change back will require a very strong and tight fiscal policy. Belts will be tightened if in fact we have the courage to seek once again the old independence which made America great. We must rid ourselves of that sense of complacency and compromise, stand tall as individuals and require, demand that those who lead us adopt our values or best of all, we the courageous should lead. We should become one of the 545 rulers so that we can lead America, this once great civilization back to where it once belonged.

I pray that you will have that spiritual faith, that great courage, that love of liberty, that willingness to recreate the sense of American abundance for all and do whatever is required to make America great again. We must do everything possible as citizens to pursue and sustain:

LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

I believe we can and I pray that you will be enlisted, like me among the courageous, willing to fight the fight of faith once again, ONCE AGAIN, for:

GOD AND COUNTRY

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