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Ten Commandments
by Edgar Steele
18 July 2005
"Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between Communistic Atheism and Christianity."
--- Joseph McCarthy (Senator, R-WI), in his famous address to the Ohio County Women's Republican Club (February 9, 1950). (Note: With the fall of the Soviet Union came the release of a torrent of documents, many of which corroborated virtually all of Senator McCarthy's charges in the early 1950s, though he inexplicably continues to be vilified in the eyes of most Americans.)
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
--- proverb
Recently, God was banned from America's courthouses. Imagine His surprise. Can't even get a fair hearing in the courts of the very country founded in His name.
The banning came in the form of the forced removal of displays of the Ten Commandments from courthouse hallways. But, the US Supreme Court's ruling didn't end there, not by a long shot. Despite some self-serving jargon in the Supreme Court's decision about applying the First Amendment's Establishment clause on a case-by-case basis, the Supremes quite clearly, though turgidly, also said that all forms of religious expression on all public grounds now have been banned - not just in the courthouses of America. Little girls don't get to say grace in private over their own school lunches, after all. Well, little girls (and little boys) should be home schooled, anyway, I suppose, given the disgraceful condition of all things administered now by government.
The Supreme Court's recent ruling in McCreary County vs. ACLU now makes complete America's official breaking of all of the Ten Commandments. How appropriate that this final breakage concerns an actual display of those Commandments. Perhaps the ultimate irony, in fact.
Naming the Ten Commandments has become like naming the Seven Dwarfs to most Americans: several come readily to mind, but it's that last two or three we have trouble putting our mental fingers on. Let's go through the list and see exactly how it is that America came to be the Godless, soon to be God-forsaken, country that it is.
I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
The removal of God from the schoolhouse, the courthouse and all other public venues now has made this commandment moot. It doesn't say "Thou shalt have no gods," after all, which is an entirely different proposition and precisely what the Supremes have stated. By definition, assuming that there is a God in the first place, then His being banned produces precisely the same result from His point of view as placing other gods before Him. Yet, oddly enough, most Americans claim to believe in God.
II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
No, we don't worship golden calves. But, we do worship money...and celebrities of every sort, the vast majority of whom are the least worthy of our admiration. You know who you are. Our TV sets have become graven images in every sense of the phrase and we tend to them with a religious fervor. Ultimately, we worship ourselves above all others. Secular humanism. If it feels good, do it. Admit it - this isn't a purely governmental failing, as this one is up close and personal with you, with me...with all of us.
III. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.
This goes on nonstop now, in all forums, both public and private. Again, television and other forms of media figure prominently in the propagation of blasphemy, not to mention profanity of every stripe.
IV. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
This doesn't mean simply going to church. Jesus reportedly said, if I remember correctly: "Wherever two or more of you gather in my name, I shall be with you," or words to that effect. I suspect there are a great many churches, packed with people each and every Sunday, into which Christ never sets foot. In fact, Jesus himself was a bit of a temple defiler - of course, finding money changers in the temple will do that to some people. I'm not even convinced that this means literally what it seems to say, either. At minimum, though, it certainly means that we are to regularly and repeatedly pause and reflect upon our origins, our effect upon others and our ultimate mortality. In other words, get ourselves into context with regard to the Universe. When was the last time you really paused and reflected upon your place in the greater scheme of things?
V. Honour thy father and thy mother.
American society, in particular, has become the one in which the old are disposable. Wisdom and accumulated knowledge are shoved aside throughout America in pursuit of youthful appearance, youthful exuberance and youthful stupidity. Again, Western media, particularly television, has played a major role. This repetitive pattern ought to be enough to cause us to throw out those TV sets. No longer are children merely children. They are subject to government fiat at all levels and for all manner of things: schooling, medication and behavior, foremost. Thus does our government sanction the supreme act of dishonoring both parents and families, in general. Is it any wonder that children no longer honor their parents? We quite simply aren't their parents any more, except when it comes to paying for them, of course. The very existence of CPS departments throughout America ensures the daily breaking of this commandment in all our names.
VI. Thou shalt not kill.
Except, apparently, in the name of oil, or global hegemony...or Israel. Why, we even kill our own as a means to the end of political manipulation of our own populations. The common markers of the false-flag terrorist event now are surfacing in the recent London bombings: conveniently-placed identification cards of the alleged perpetrators, all the perps allegedly dead, all surveillance cameras mysteriously turned off at the time, professional detonations pulled off by the rankest of amateurs... Come on, you know the drill by now, after Oklahoma City and 9-11, not to mention the Lusitania, the Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor and so many other frauds committed down through the ages in the name of expediency. And, if sending our best and our brightest off to die in some Arab hellhole isn't killing them just as surely as though you or I pulled the trigger, then I don't understand the concept. This, of course, does not include the children of our alleged leaders, who are neither our best nor our brightest, the very best proof of which is George W. Bush, himself.
VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Lots of us, but not nearly enough, manage to avoid committing adultery, though simply due to a lack of attractive opportunity, not steely self will. No fool like an old fool is the textbook corollary to this commandment. If Jimmy Carter was right about lust in the heart, then this is a commandment we all break on a daily basis.
VIII. Thou shalt not steal.
Except in the name of the State, of course. Just ask Ms. Kelo. And the logical extension of the Supreme Court's recent Kelo decision is positively frightening. What was it for which we invaded Iraq again? Lessee, now - no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam is in hand....er....oil? To make the Middle East safe for America's svengali - Israel? Both are forms of theft, of course. A raw material in the first place, the price of which has doubled since our invasion, which implies that wasn't the real reason. That leaves only Israel...again...always Israel...always, it seems. And now those...people...are calling for us to start World War III. Incredible. So, we're stealing the Arabs' liberty to make it possible for Israel to swagger ever more boldly around the block, it seems. And we're stealing from the taxpayer to make it happen. And we're stealing the lives of our children to make it happen. And we're stealing our own national soul to make it happen, make no mistake. Kind of makes the income tax, which so many consider to be outright government theft, or Enron, which exemplifies private theft, pale by comparison. Theft seems to have become the national pastime...after television's graven image, of course.
IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Is there anybody left who doesn't lie in the name of expediency? To the IRS? To obtain government benefits? At work? As our stock in trade (lawyers and judges come to mind)? To our families, even? Government now personifies the very definition of the compulsive liar: lying even when there is no need. Clinton's lies were legion. History will show that Bush's have made Clinton into a mere blip in the annals of official prevarication. Again, we all must answer guilty to this charge and, usually, on a daily basis.
X. Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Unless it belongs to Ms. Kelo, that is...or any one of us, for that matter, now that the Supreme Court has outlawed private property. Always a personal problem, now theft is a national pastime and an international mission of the American government, as the Iraqis have so tragically learned.
A recent poll disclosed that 72% of all Americans consider public displays of the Ten Commandments to be "appropriate." Why, even half of all those who never attend church joined in that belief. But, as is increasingly obvious even to the most stupefied among us, what the majority of Americans believes no longer matters. All three branches of American government now thumb their noses at "We the People" with impunity...and, increasingly, impudence.
Amazing, isn't it? As they say, the road to Hell is paved with the best of intentions. America's intentions always have seemed honorable and appropriate...until lately, that is. Now we officially have broken the last of the Ten Commandments as a nation. Some of us have struggled with some of them for our entire lives, but now it is official and complete. And we let it happen. And we let it continue to happen...day by day by day.
Every single day that we allow the rogues, scumbags, scoundrels and charlatans who have hijacked America to continue their tyranny of both America and, through her, the rest of the world, brings us one day closer to the final day of reckoning. And, biblical or not, that day will come to America. And, you know what? We deserve it. All of us. After all, what did I do today to change things? Well, I wrote and recorded this column, to be sure, but that was easy. What have you done?
New America. An idea whose time has come.
EDGAR STEELE
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