Great to be done with the 2010 elections. We had good turnout in Upshur county Texas and I hope you did too where you live. I had the honor of being an election judge in Upshur county and my Mother was one in Rusk county. My mother reported lines all day long at her polling booth in Rusk County. I just had a steady flow. While I won the honor of being first to turn in my ballots in Upshur county, my mother was last in Rusk. My box was only two blocks from the court house while my mother had to drive 20 miles to deliver her's.
We saw a lot of good things happen with this election. Republican party gaining over 60 seats in the house and almost picking up enough for control of the senate. Republicans won all the state and local races in Texas. Picked up a huge number of seats in the legislature.
What does this mean for our country? First of all by my action I believe in the election process. I believe it is God's way of selecting a ruler over our country. I believe the founders did the right thing in dividing power between many powers. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have a process in which we can quickly elect people to all levels of government to represent us at those levels.
At the same time it is a very corrupt system. Because many of us don't know who we are voting for, we are dependent on media to educate us. TV and radio can bring us advertising and news stories. But they are limited in time. Newspapers can give us stories but they are limited in space. The internet has become a great medium for learning about different candidates from many aspects. But we don't get that three dimensional feel of them. So most of us just do the best we can. Sometimes in local races we just have to talk to someone and find out if they know our local officials. As an Election judge, I have had the chance to meet some of the local candidates. I have had a chance to talk with my county commissioner and county party chairman. Both outgoing and incoming. I have had a chance to talk with two of the commissioners that were not in my precinct and the county clerk.
But because we have not had the chance to know a lot of these people, sometimes it is hard to vote on them. I know one person voted for someone because they knew where they worked. Even after getting to know my outgoing party chairman, I heard some stories over the weekend about that person that would make your hair stand on end. Then I heard stories about the person who told me those stories. So I don't know what to believe.
Where this is going. We have elected Republicans. The nice thing is the freshman class will have over 60 members. One thing we know about congress is the first thing they do with freshman is to put them in their place. We did not elect these freshmen to be put in their place. We elected them to go to Washington and make a difference. As I have pointed out before, this country is due a judgment from God. It is the job of the freshman to overt that judgment. If the establishment puts them in their place, then we have a big problem.
Then we have the problem of the senate. I have heard the stories of election fraud in two states that kept democrats in the senate seats there. Could that have been the difference between a Democrat and a Republican majority. It will make the process of repealing all the damage of the last two years very difficult. Then there is the man still in the white house. He can veto anything that he doesn't like coming from the congress. He has already shown that he cannot compromise with Republicans. He wants to them to compromise with him. Since Republicans still don't have the votes to override a veto in both houses, he does have the upper hand. We are looking at gridlock.
With all that is going on, the questions remain. Can we finish the job of transforming this country in 2012? Will the Republicans fall back into the malaise that they had in 2006 that caused them to lose congress. It is easy to say no to everything. Can you do something with the reigns of power that is productive? Will the media actually acknowledge what the Republicans are doing as positive? I still can't believe the media is talking about the Clinton Congress standoff that shut down government in 1995 as the Republicans fault. It was Clinton's fault for not signing the thing and keeping government open and working out a compromise later.
So does this postpone the rapture or accelerate it? Good question. I believe when Reagan was elected in 1980, God gave us a reprieve. Now that we have the mess in Washington, I don't think we do. I think the last two years set us up for the fall. When the Republican's win in 2012 and the nation collapses on its own weight the next year, the liberals will write in the history books about how the Republicans made the nation collapse.
So let's get the story straight. Since Eisenhower was president in the 50's, all but 12 years of it, the Democrats controlled congress. Reagan had a conservative majority for a few years when he came into office but Tip O'Neil was still the Speaker. During that time Nixon, GHW Bush and GW Bush were all moderate Republicans who actually accelerated spending during their time in office. Ford was a moderate Republican. Not in office long enough to do more then veto a few bills. The only conservative president was Reagan. He only got half of his program accomplished. Lower Taxes. He could not reign in Spending. Clinton got spending under control but look who was writing the budget. The Republicans. Bush talked about reigning it in but after 9/11 he spent billions on the military. With TARP, he showed his true colors and spent almost a trillion in one shot with the help of democrats in congress. Now our country is in a mess. The Democrats have never lifted a finger at any time to reign in spending. With the last two years, the country has seen their true colors with the massive stimulus bill, and the health care bill that together brought this country into trillions in debt. What is going to happen in the next two months as the lame duck congress goes into session. Hopefully all they do is extend the Bush tax cuts. But we all know better then that.
Will God delay his judgment? I hope so, but I don't think we did enough in Tuesday's election to do so. We are heading for a fall of the Republic.
