December 6, 2020

In the weeks and months leading up to December 7, 1941, there was a battle going on in Washington DC. The opposing sides were called the Hawks and the Doves; they were also called interventionists and isolationists. The battleground up to that point had been ideological. All-out war had been raging on both sides of the world: Europe was falling under the blitzkrieg of Hitler, and Japan had begun grabbing territory in a number of places. The battle in Washington was between those who thought America needed to get involved in Europe and those who thought not.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was leading the Hawks; he saw the wisdom of helping our allies in Europe both to protect them and to stop Hitler before He spread his mayhem to our shores. On December 6, the Japanese and Americans were in a heated negotiation in which the Japanese were looking for assurances from the US government that continued Japanese expansion in the Pacific would not be opposed by the US. Japan was promising the US that they had no designs on anything close to Hawaii, let alone our West Coast. Because the Hawks wanted to step in to help fight Hitler, they were desperate for a way to avoid a war on two fronts. They were willing to let Japan have a few islands in the South Pacific and some territory on the continent of Asia if they wanted to take it.

The Doves believed that neither the Pacific nor the European wars were any of our business. They may not have approved of some of Hitler’s policies (some of which were not yet known), but they pointed to lucrative business arrangements currently in place with many German companies. To declare war on Germany would not only cut off profitable trade with them; it would inevitably cost millions of dollars the US could ill afford as we were just climbing out of the worst depression the country had ever seen. The Doves were just as anxious as the Hawks to see some arrangement made with the Japanese but for different reasons. None of them cared if the little Emperor of a tiny island far away wanted to expand his territory, and they never imagined he had the military might or the temerity to attack the US.

The US Constitution and sound economic thinking were on the side of the Doves. From an emotional point of view, history may also have played to their hand. WWI had cost countless lives and dollars, and no one wanted to see a repeat performance of that costly event. President Wilson’s team had gotten around the Constitutional problem of using the US military for purposes other than strictly protecting our borders; the Doves did not want to see that card played again. The problem was then and is now that the President holds the trump card: only he can declare war. Congress must eventually approve funding, but the country can become deeply committed with just a declaration from the White House.

As everyone knows, all bets were off on December 7. Japan surprised both Hawk and Dove (though some were suspicious beforehand) by attacking Pearl Harbor. The December 8 declaration of war against Japan moved the Axis powers to declare war on the US. By December 11 the US answered in kind. WWII was now our war too. Some would say, macabre and it sounds, that the war was good for America; it lifted us out of the depression and set us up for the greatest period of growth industrially and economically the world had ever seen.

After we returned victorious, we kept the factories cranking and became the world’s most rabid consumer nation. While wonderful economically, consumerism is not necessarily an unmixed blessing. The social and cultural changes brought on by the war cannot be overstated. Women were suddenly incorporated into the workforce and became a necessary cog in the economic engine. This changed both corporate and family dynamics. While it is true that many women stayed home raising Boomer babies during the fifties, by the sixties the need to choose between career and homemaking drove more and more women into full-time employment.

The baby boom came to a screeching halt when birth control became not only readily available but nearly a necessity. The decoupling of sex from procreation also instigated the expansion of free love without biological consequences. Abortion on demand legalized by Roe v. Wade in 1973 encouraged the woman’s rights movement and further destroyed the meaning of “family.” In order to maintain the lifestyle that had become expected, two incomes were required. The “latchkey child” was born.

The industrial/technological race that had begun with the war effort continued and a little-known organization called DARPA (primarily a military outfit) brought the world-wide-web into being. Once computers and the Internet because ubiquitous, all our social structures changed dramatically. Children became attached to blinking screens and stopped reading. Social “networks” took the place of face-to-face relationships for young and old alike. Cybercrime developed encompassing everything from industrial espionage to pornography. The world grew very small.

Here ends the history lesson as I recall it; I may be off on a detail or two, but I stand by the general drift. Now the WHAMM. The world began a radical transformation on December 7, 1941. No one can say what might have happened had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor or had we not joined the battle in Europe. Perhaps we would have come to our present state without the explosive pressure of the military/industrial complex fueled by WWII. The fact is we got where we are in the same way a frog gets boiled: put him in cold water and turn up the heat; he will boil to death.

As Christians, we should be mourning many of the changes that happened since December 6, 1941. As Christians, we should be watching what is happening in our country today. I believe a Biden presidency will mark a declaration of war on the America that has existed for approximately three centuries. I believe Joe Biden will be a puppet for the forces of progressive ideology that want to fundamentally change America. If you think I am crazy, I think you aren’t paying attention. The progressive wing of the Democrat party is in control; they are saying openly that they want America to be dramatically different from what it is today.

Except for their policy on immigration, which sincere Christians might debate, the Democrat platform is largely unbiblical; parts of it are anti-Christian. As bad as that sounds to me, it is not un-American (except the anti-Christian part); the US is not a Christian nation. We are not governed by a theocracy, nor do I want that. What I want is for Christians to wake up and realize that the Judeo-Christian foundation of our nation is being excavated out from under us. If that is what the majority of Americans want, then that’s what we’ll get.

I don’t think a properly educated majority would want it though. I’m not even sure a majority of those who voted legally in the last election want it. However, because the last generation of school children were not taught history, and because they had moral relativism crammed down their throats, a great many people who are old enough to vote think they want what the progressives are selling. Add to that number the sizeable apathetic portion of the “moral majority” as it was once called, and you have the reason for our current situation.

There may be no way to avoid a Biden presidency. If the Senate falls into Democrat hands as well as the White House, the damage to the America I love will be substantial over the next four years. Obama had a pretty good run at progressive hope and change during his eight years, but much of that was undone by President Trump. Biden’s gang will start hacking away again with even more power if the Senate is theirs, but that too could be countered if a conservative administration follows in four or even eight years. Maybe the radical Democrat policies will scare enough people into voting them out in 2024; maybe not. I know God is in control, but so did some of the Israelites who ended up in Babylon for seventy years; they sat by the river and mourned their loss. I hope I don’t have to join them.

Related posts: Obama Is Not The Problem; And Freedom for All; The Right to Bear Crosses; America Held Captive