Too Much Stuff and Not Enough God

December 8, 2002

by Bruce Walker

Every so often conservatives should remember why we fight Nazis, Socialists, Fascists, Communists and other liberals. Not for money. Government and all other institutional wealth is aligned us. Shameless flacks for Hollywood nabobs, parrots reciting the benefits of failed government programs, and oily lawyers sniffing for productive people to fleece - these leftists are in it for the money - we are not.

Not for fame. Nearly all conservatives work, sweat and weep ignored by the establishment left. Do you want fawning praise? Dream up the most offensive lie you can imagine against God, America or normal human relations, and then propound this lie in classrooms and government sponsored “art” projects. The more offensive, the better: the stronger the revulsion of sensible people, the more some people will believe that the lie.

Conservatives get infamy, not fame. Random and reckless shotgun blasts of CBS News or PETA or NOW savage the lives of people like Clarence Thomas, Linda Chavez, Robert Bork and Laura Schlessinger. Want to ruin your career quickly? Stand up for conservative principles.

Do we fight for power? If so, then we act fight oddly. Republican House members elected in 1994 who took three term pledges, with one single exception, honored those pledges. These Republicans did not have to give up their House seats; they would have been reelected until they chose to retire. Congressman Nethercutt, the single Republican did not honor his three-term pledge, won reelection in 2000 and then in 2002 by landslides. 

Although it may seem tacky to mention it, Paul Wellstone promised the people of Minnesota to only seek two senate terms (i.e. not to run for reelection in 2002) and he made this promise in both his two prior senate campaigns. He reneged. Wellstone was considered, probably accurately, the most honorable liberal in Congress, and yet his yen for power exceeded that of any conservative Republican. 

Why then do conservatives fight so hard? The cornucopia of America fills our stomachs, warms our hearths, keeps us healthy, and gives us more entertainment than is probably good for us. So why bloody ourselves in this ugly cultural war that is being waged against our values?

We are not fighting for “stuff” but rather because this battle is one that God wants us to fight. None of us knows how the personal battles we fight will end, except that all our battles will ultimately end in our death.

But conservatives understand how much of history was made by men and by women who had no idea how things would turn out. Did the men who were slaughtered in the skies over Germany or who died in the jungles of Bataan know that we would win the war? Did Washington or Jefferson or Henry know that our American Revolution would succeed?

The easiest course for Britain in 1940 was to accept the peace offered by Hitler, which would have left Britain in possession of the largest empire in world history. Why did Churchill stand up to evil? Not for gain! Victory in the Second World War insured the collapse of the British Empire. Alliance with Hitler was the most certain way to maintain a global empire. Besides, no one imagined that Britain would survive through 1940. 

Washington and Churchill fought for the sake of what is good and true. They fought because that light within each of us shone more insistently in them. Both men had wealth, fame and power already. They risked losing it all, not gaining it all, by standing up to evil. God, however, expects us to do just that.

Rock stars and sports heroes show just how awful money and adoration can be if these are sought without reference to the Blessed Creator, but countless humble and gentle souls, who go to Church each Sunday or to Temple every Friday evening, know what are true blessings even without money or power.

As we end up our own national Thanksgiving and prepare to enter a new year, let us remember that our modern, technological society can quite simply produce all the “stuff” we need. But “stuff” is nothing more than “fluff” which blows away in one single gust, just as the candle of our life flickers only until the time for its small light to end. Now, more than ever, amidst an ocean and within a galaxy of “stuff” let us recall that we have all the “stuff” we need.

Give thanks to God for “stuff” and for life, but most of all, give thanks to God for being God. Hell itself may be full of stuff (I imagine an endless shopping mall teeming with shallow people and see that as Hell), but Heaven is full of God.

_________________________________________

Bruce Walker has been a dyed in the wool conservative since, as a sixth grader, he campaigned door to door for Barry Goldwater. Bruce has had almost two hundred published articles have appeared in the Oklahoma Bar Journal, Law & Order, Legal Secretary Today, The Single Parent, Enter Stage Right, Citizen's View, The American Partisan, Port of Call, and several other professional and political periodicals.

Send the author an E mail at Walker@ConservativeTruth.org.

For more of Bruce's articles, visit his archives.