The Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project
By Pete Garcia
Every four years, we here in the United States get to vote for a new leader of our nation. This leader then, serves both as the titular figurehead of all that is America, but is also the director of the course and tenor our nation handles itself in both national, and international affairs…whether good or bad. Primarily, there are two political camps that vie for power in these four year cycles, and each side goes through the Primary elections to ultimately (through fratricidal attrition) come to rally around their candidate heading into the general election. Enter, Donald Trump.
I heard someone explain the other day on the radio, that Trump was a third party candidate, running on the Republican ticket. I imagine it would be similar to a Trey Gowdy, or Michelle Bachmann running on the democratic ticket, saying everything that liberals want to hear, yet, having a lifelong history of being a staunch conservative.
How believable do we think that person could really be? It is election year after all, and haven’t we seen this show enough to know that politicians generally say what they think we want to hear? Can a leopard really change its spots?
Now today’s article is my opinion. I am not famous, nor do I want to be. The platform I have each week to share what’s laid on my heart isn’t very big…and I am ok with that. But I don’t want to look back next December and wish that I had addressed this in some form or fashion on what little platform I do have, so that is what today’s brief is about.
Thus far, Donald Trump has built his entire campaign around making bombastic and populist statements that feed into the frustration average American’s have had pent up for the last 8 years under our current socialist regime. People are angry and here is this self-made man, spending his own dime, making statements like we are going to build a gigantic wall between us and Mexico, or halting all Muslim immigration, because he knows that’s what the average American is thinking. He said he would put a 45% tariff on all Chinese exports into the US…perhaps not realizing that whatever tariff we do set, is just going to be passed on down the line to the consumer.
Yet, Donald thus far, has offered ZERO details on exactly how we are going to do this, or when. So far, his only plan I’ve ever heard him say about any given topic, is that he is going to surround himself with the smartest and brightest people in any given field.
Donald Trump is a self-made billionaire…which everyone already knows. He is a shrewd and callous business man, yet, can come off as an ‘everyday Joe’ when mingling with the locals. I personally don’t take any issue with how he made his money, or what he spends his money on as a private citizen. But it is telling that he’s donated to both democratic and republican candidates in the past. He has lost millions, and made millions through bankruptcy, and has admitted as much in his first debate that he used the US legal system in place to do so. Yet, America is not a casino. America is not a luxury hotel. America is not just a piece of real estate. America, was once a dream.
Assessment
The United States of America was forged out of the blood, sweat, and tears of pilgrims and colonists, who braved the open seas to come to a new land, to start a new life, in a new world beginning as early as the late 1500’s. Prior to the European’s arrivals, native American’s, had once thrived up and down the eastern seaboard of America, as well as in Central and South America. But, the America’s would not spared be from their own series of pandemics (both natural and introduced by explorers) even before Columbus came. And the natives, who had once easily fended off the mighty Viking’s, now couldn’t even fend off the Pilgrims.
But once America began to be colonized in earnest (mid 1600’s), she became a refuge for those who were trying to escape the Old World and all of its religious and political oppression. But the late 1700’s, the colonists had organized themselves into states and into an Army, then fought off the then superpower of the world, Great Britain, and won their independence.
Since then, the United States expanded north, south, and west, and has grown into its own right, the dominant super power of the world. And while America has become the number one economy in the world (as well as the global reserve currency), she only has that ability, because of the ideological foundation she sits on.
The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution with its Bill of Rights, affords American’s the opportunity to pursue whatever path they choose to go down. These unprecedented freedoms, given not by man or government, but by God, was recognized and thereby enshrined inside the Constitution which forms the foundational cornerstone of how our government must function. Without them, our whole system will come crashing down.
Now, does Donald Trump have the freedom to run for President of the United States? Yes he does. But the office of the Presidency has within it, rules that govern what his role can, should, and must do. Article II of the Constitution summarized here:
1. Chief of State
This role requires a president to be an inspiring example for the American people.
2. Chief Executive
The president is the “boss” for millions of government workers in the Executive Branch. He decides how the laws of the United States are to be enforced and chooses officials and advisers to help run the Executive Branch.
3. Chief Diplomat
The president decides what American diplomats and ambassadors shall say to foreign governments. With the help of advisers, the president makes the foreign policy of the United States.
4. Commander-In-Chief
The president is in charge of the U.S. armed forces: the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. The president decides where troops shall be stationed, where ships shall be sent, and how weapons shall be used. All military generals and admirals take their orders from the President.
5. Chief Legislator
Only Congress has the actual power to make laws, but the Constitution gives the president power to influence Congress in its lawmaking. Presidents may urge Congress to pass new laws or veto bills that they do not favor.
6. Chief of Party
In this role, the president helps members of his political party get elected or appointed to office. The president campaigns for those members who have supported his policies. At the end of a term the president may campaign for reelection.
7. Chief Guardian of the Economy
In this role, the president is concerned with such things as unemployment, high prices, taxes, business profits, and the general prosperity of the country. The president does not control the economy, but is expected to help it run smoothly.
While I believe Donald Trump might excel at number’s 2 & 7, I think he would be terrible at the rest. That is my opinion from what I’ve seen of him since I’ve seen him in the public eye. Our job as voters, is to be as informed as possible to make our decisions based not on raw emotion or vague campaign promises (hope and change anyone?) but on past performance and potential. While we feel our votes don’t matter as individuals, when enough individuals feel that way, they become disaffected voting block who sit out the elections and allow someone else to decide for them, who will run (either directly or indirectly) their lives.
Trump is neither a Republican (conservative, limited government), nor is he a Democrat (socialist, liberal, big government). He is a Manchurian Candidate in the truest sense of the word, except he is not under some secret mind control program like MKUltra from the CIA, but rather, is 1000% capitalistic opportunist. He is in it for Donald.
If he were to win the Primaries, I think he would wreck the General Election and hand over the next four years to a Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, as incredulous as that might sound. From my understanding of the man, he doesn’t care whose ticket he runs on, he will simply use them to get himself in power, and then do what he always does.
Remember back in 2000, when he unsuccessfully ran as the Reform Party’s candidate and lost? He is about making money and accumulating power respectively. He might throw out conservative and populist ideas as catch phrases, but one need only look back at his past to see how he’s spent his time, money, and energies over the course of his life to see what he truly cares about. He cares about Donald. Here is what the late founder and Editor-in-Chief of National Review, William F. Buckley Jr. had to say about Donald Trump then;
Look for the narcissist. The most obvious target in today’s lineup is, of course, Donald Trump. When he looks at a glass, he is mesmerized by its reflection. If Donald Trump were shaped a little differently, he would compete for Miss America.
Conclusion
The Founders and Framers of the Constitution were wise beyond their years to know that governments, only ever want to expand, so that is why there were more limitations on what a government could or couldn’t do, then there were on individuals. And the philosophical and ideological foundation our Constitution and way of life rests upon, are largely Judeo-Christian. If as a society, we divorce ourselves from those principles, our Constitution (and our way of life) will necessarily and fundamentally change, for the worse.
While I am under no illusion to think that the problems America faces here in the 21st century can be solved overnight by electing the right candidate, we still have to live here until Christ returns. The question you must ask yourself then is, do I want another four years like the last eight? If you’re a Christian who actually reads and believes your bible, the answer is probably no. Our current administration is the most anti-God, anti-Christian, and anti-Israel I’ve seen in my 41 years short years…and probably in yours as well.
Our nation is in full retreat on many fronts, and the leadership at the top is struggling to make their idealistic world-views, match up with the realities they are facing. What was once deemed the Junior Varsity (JV) team by our administrator in chief, ISIS has been holding effectively and significantly holding a large and destabilizing foot print across the Middle East and North Africa. All the bloodshed and lives lost, and the gains that had been made in the past 14 years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, have largely been squandered as we have all but withdrawn from the region.
Our nation is quickly becoming fractured, as the administration pits one economic and ethnic class against each other. The full weight of the Federal bureaucracy is using the same heavy handed tactics that some third world banana republic would in confiscating land and silencing critics. The national debt is about to crest $20T, and nations around the globe are ditching the dollar at breakneck speed as the dollar begins to accrue the same fiscal weight as the Mexican Peso. Right is wrong, and up is down in our newly redefined 21st century America…and if you think Trump can somehow right all the wrongs of the past 8-16 years, you have another thing coming.
The truth is, the United States is either not in Bible Prophecy at all, or plays no significant role in it that we can discern. Either way, our seeming absence then is both glaring and disconcerting. We know we are in the season of our Lord’s return, we just aren’t sure when exactly that will be. We know that what God has already fore-ordained, will come to pass exactly as He sees fit. And while a vote for Trump does not equate in an atomic explosion of the like which devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, voting for Trump will wreck what’s left of this nation after eight years of the current administration. But while we are watching and waiting, we have to occupy until He returns…and might as well have a competent and God-fearing man in office while it last. Don’t sit out this election. Pray, study, speak up, and vote.
Even so, MARANATHA!