America: When Laughter Turns to Mourning

Fitful paroxysms followed Jay Leno’s announcement that Rick Santorum dropped out of the GOP primary race recently. The crowd was so excited that Leno actually had to calm them a bit before he could go on with his monologue.

The jokes that followed offered further humiliation for Santorum, but Mitt Romney wasn’t excluded from the mockery. Leno said that Santorum proved he hated women by his position on contraceptives which got laughs, but even more laughter rang out when Leno added that Santorum proved he hated men, when he came against porn.

Next, Leno named certain Hollywood liberals who were now turning against Barack Obama, but the big wave of laughter came on the punch line that declared, yet, one more liberal that has decided to come against Obama - Mitt Romney.

The battle for the hearts of Americans and one of its finest champions in decades, Rick Santorum, obviously did not end with laughter. Those familiar words of Christ saying “we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.” (Lk 7: 32) were not in vogue with the perpetual party set of the late night shows or pretty much anywhere in America. But why?

The battle of big bucks has taken precedence over the battle for hearts and minds. If as we were taught in early childhood, the blue of the flag stands for courage and loyalty, the red stands for the blood shed to keep us free and the white stands for the purity that exemplifies our purpose and our citizenry, this may be the day to finally change the colors. The white could become black for the darkest penchant for filth, porn and self-indulgence that history might imagine for any nation. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to change the white to green, but not for environmentalists, but bucks.

Barack Obama has loaded trillions in debt on the backs of Americans; he follows with a promise to raise a billion to get re-elected. Santorum rode in borrowed pickup trucks to campaign while promising to bring the dignity of decency back to the nation. That was followed by millions of dollars spent to smother his message by the Romney campaign. What follows this battle of the big bucks is a promise of more bucks, recovery and riches for a nation that is all but laughing Santorum out of town.

Should you have come to this article as one of my millions of returning readers, or if you have arrived here quite by circumstance, should you be waiting for a deep, detailed prognostication of the outcome of these recent events, here it is. America is headed for the worst time of ‘poverty and scarcity’ it has ever known. The battle of bucks will not end with more for everyone, but the greatest gain our future holds is in the numbers of broken hearts.

I was given this message during the Reagan boom times and it is now being fully asserted during the time when a single candidate is promising those times will be fully restored and surpassed. My message is simple and requires only two words, not so.

It has always caused me to cringe when commentators, politicians or leaders glibly use the term “super power” to describe America in their conversation. It is too close to a biblical term used to describe the future power that accomplishes bringing the entire world together under one roof by means of economic wrangling. This last days’ kingdom thinks it cannot be touched by any hazard or threat, but its pride is not just brought down by a fall, but it is completely annihilated.

“How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,” (Rev 18: 7-9)

Should that nation or world power be us or should it be that we are just part of it makes little difference. It is the course we are now set on that demands our deepest scrutiny. I will not insult Gov. Romney by saying he is the best of two evils, but I am forced to admit that this changeable man may be the best we have got for the moment and is a far sight better than the alternative.

The most frightening aspect of this election is that in the last election over sixty million Americans seem to have been stricken with temporary blindness and allowed one candidate to promise them the moon. They have since woken up to the reality that the only thing that made it to the moon is American sovereignty, solvency and common decency.

It may well be naïve to assume that one man can cause the nation to stand up as a moral force in the world once again. But experience being the natural corrective to naiveté, it is now easy to see that it has taken only one man to bring the nation to its knees. This is not a lesson too late for the learning.

“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, we have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.” (Mt 11: 15-17)