The Time is Nigh

              The times are tough, and I don’t think we’ve had even a taste of what is to come. This is one of the few times in my life where I will be absolutely elated if I am proven wrong. The world is an absolute mess- both socially and economically speaking. Here in our great country, Democrats argue with Republicans about what we should do to fix the matter. Most Democrats want the government to supply “bailout” money to anyone that may be hurting because of the credit crunch. Most Republicans seem to be the minority in voicing their correct assessment that government intervention leads us all on a perilous slope toward a socialist society. At what point did “we the people” allow the government to spend our hard-earned tax dollars in any way they so choose? I know we elect our representatives, but what is supposed to be a democracy is obviously not working. Government should be spending less and intervening less, but just the opposite has been happening since the end of the Second World War.

            I don’t have a PhD in political science, history, or anything close to it. I educate myself, and consider myself to be fairly intelligent. I don’t understand why so many people, who have plenty of history available to them for education, fail to see the problem with big government having so much power and control. This, I believe, is the fundamental difference between people that are for and against a government with more power than the people. The government of the United States was given permission by the people to govern and oversee the country and to work for the people. The primary reason for our declaration of independence from England was to be free from the hands of a big government. It seems that we are now trying to come full circle, with the only difference being that we are building our own big brother from scratch.

 It’s been said that all great societies, or empires, in the history of the world have gone through cycles of success that last a few hundred years. This would indicate that the US is on the back slope of one of these cycles, but in this instance as well, I hope it fails to come to fruition. An even larger picture is painted when one looks at the history of man as we know it. There are clearly 1500 to 1600 year cycles of man’s success and failure ever since the beginning of recorded time around 3000 BCE. I find it very interesting that the ancient Mayan calendar puts the “end of the world” at December of 2012 CE. This is roughly 1500 years after the fall of the Roman Empire. We could very well be on the precipice of tough times, indeed.