Ercille I. Christmas

Meet the Denizens
June 8, 2009
 

No, the “Denizens” are not our new neighbors. They are you and me.

Denizen: a person admitted to residence in a foreign country.

Citizen: a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it.

While Americans are still considered citizens of the United States, today they’re not all that certain about their status. Why is this? After all, our citizenship derives from being born on American soil (native-born), born to verifiable American parents (natural-born), or naturalized (having earned citizenship by legal entry). Most of us fit quite neatly into those categories, so what’s the problem?

Now I’m not referring to the ongoing search for proof that our new president is a U.S. citizen and, in fact, eligible to hold the office of POTUS. That determination will take a judge with “testicular fortitude,” to borrow an expression from the new secretary of state, or with the wisdom of Solomon.

My contention that citizens have become denizens – strangers in their own country – has to do with the increasing alienation our populace is experiencing, a condition created by their government, and also by the abdication of their duty as citizens to hold their government accountable. Many ordinary folks are feeling alienated, feeling that they are losing their birthrights.

Just who is this person making this contention? I am a proud, naturalized citizen of the US, the nation that I fell in love with, the nation that used to be governed by the Judeo-Christian principles upon which it was founded. I am calling on Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers to assist me in outlining the case for what I perceive to be, the descent of this nation into hitherto unknown social, financial, cultural and spiritual “change,” that I am finding hard to believe in. As President George Washington did, Thomas Jefferson also warned us, with words of wisdom, very prescient for these times in which we live.

We all now live in a country where the president travels to foreign soil and declares: “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” He has now further declared the US could be “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” When did this transformation take place? Is Sharia Law next? He does this when the U.S. is still in danger, threatened by fanatics of a religion that shall not be named, who have made their intentions to kill us, crystal clear. I felt confident in moving to this country, and becoming a citizen, that I would be living in a Judeo-Christian nation, and would be free to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Did I make a miscalculation? Why would the president try to downplay the roots of his country, or is he unfamiliar with those roots?

We all now live in a world where the president of Iran declares, without fear of consequences: “The American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own borders.” To emphasize his point, he is developing nukes with impunity. Then there is the “leader” of North Korea, brazenly firing missiles with the capacity to hit America. They both know that “interference” on the part of the US Ruling Class, is being limited to the lives of US citizens. Political impotence is not impressive to dictators.

As far as the president of Iran’s warning that American is coming to its end, he is very fortunate that I was not born here and therefore cannot legally become president. As president, instead of “tea and croissants” diplomacy, I would make sure he became familiar with the name Enola Gay.

I live in a U.S. where Bibles of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were destroyed by the U.S. Military establishment in Afghanistan, because of a complaint from a TV station and a group of atheists? Had that been a book of the religion that shall not be named, this never would have taken place. Wake Theo Van Gogh from the deep, deep sleep of the dead, and ask him how any perceived denigration of the religion that shall not be named, works.

Then I read a story happening right here in my backyard, where a preacher who was holding Bible studies in his home is probably going to be forced to obtain a “major use” permit in order to continue his Bible sessions. Is the so-called “hate crimes” bill – better known as the “Protection of Pedophiles” Act – Exhibit #666 in the unrelenting attempts to destroy the First Amendment rights of this Judeo-Christian land?

Thomas Jefferson said it best:

“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."

We have mortgaged our souls, our financial independence, our mental and emotional inheritance as a nation that used to have that “can do” spirit. How is it that about half of our citizens are not working and collecting a check for not working? How can we tax the other half into oblivion to support pet projects, bailouts for domestic and foreign companies, and programs that have proven consistently ineffectual?

I beg our legislators not to declare any more wars on domestic issues, any more deals, new or slightly used, in which We the People always lose. In the War on Poverty, poverty won. There are more kids living in poverty now than before the war was declared.

Again, Mr. Jefferson:

 “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.”

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

Dare I mention the war on drugs? Drugs won that war also. We now have more illegal drugs flooding the streets than when this war first began being waged. As for legal drugs, there is a bit too much synergy among the pharmaceutical, medical and political establishments. However, with the proposed nationalization of healthcare, we may finally win the war on drugs, legal drugs, that is. That victory could come about, If the proponents of “comparative effectiveness” have their way, and those old folks on drugs are “involuntarily terminated,” as they will be, when their prescriptions and/or high-cost technology treatments are discontinued. They will have ceased to be effective, “comparatively” speaking.

Patriot Carolyn is not going gently into the night of “comparative effectiveness.” She e-mailed her own analysis to the Ruling Class, listing the ages of the members, and highlighting in red those who fall neatly into the “comparative effectiveness” guidelines. The Ruling Class really is not concerned though. The members will be untouched by “comparative effectiveness,” courtesy of their shrewd, ironclad construction of a system whereby the members of this class, have their own health care, their own pension plan, and exemptions from laws that they pass, laws for the denizens to obey. That seems to me like a system of “comparative accountability!”

Thomas Jefferson warned.

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent,”

By the way, it is immoral for our elected representatives to actively encourage mass, uncontrolled “migration” into our sovereign country, by failing to enforce laws already in place for legal immigration. This immoral action is turning the citizens of our country into de facto denizens in their own land.

Speak, Mr. Jefferson:

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

“If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?”

I continue to pray that more and more of our population will return to learning the history of their country, to appreciate the great gift that God has granted this nation, its very birth against seemingly insurmountable odds. America is blessed beyond reason, and we are giving it up without a whimper, letting it slide into corruption, godlessness and venal behavior. I hope that We the People will have the courage and wisdom to avoid the temptation to replace the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with little gods, no matter how attractive the outer packaging of those gods.

For the last time, once more I call on the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson:

“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.”

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”

“Every generation needs a new revolution. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”

“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”