Equal and opposite reaction - Part 2

I

have noticed a repeated pattern of ebb & flow in American politics since my teenage years. Going back to the days of Jimmy Carter, when I was in my mid-teens, I began to pay attention to how politics impacted our daily lives. Under President Carter, we had gasoline rationing and a restriction on which days of the month each person could purchase gas. And we had gas station armed holdups in which the gun-wielding perp demanded that he be allowed to buy gas on a day that was not his scheduled day.

Democratic “freedom” is a sight to behold.

At about 16 years old, gas was the primary dynamic I noticed resulting from the election of a Democratic president. But, as the “Misery Index”indicated, there were many other horrible effects of the Carter presidency.

This quote from Ann Coulter describes what I have noticed since my teen years:

For the past four decades, American politics has consisted of Republicans controlling Washington for eight to 14 years—either from the White House or Capitol Hill—thus allowing Americans to forget what it was they didn’t like about Democrats, whom they then carelessly vote back in. The Democrats immediately remind Americans what they didn’t like about Democrats, and their power is revoked at the voters’ first possible opportunity.

I remember trying to explain this regular swing in political climate to a young man who worked for me when he expressed a desire to vote for Bill Clinton. I had underestimated the benefit of an opposing house of Congress keeping the Clintons in check, which allowed Bill Clinton to hold onto the presidency for two terms.

But the three-steps-forward (with Republicans) 51-steps-back (with a single-term Democrat) cycle has come up again. Ann goes on to say:

Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us two titanic Reagan landslides, peace and prosperity for eight blessed years—and even a third term for his feckless vice president, George H.W. Bush.

Two years of Bill Clinton gave us a historic Republican sweep of Congress, which killed the entire Clinton agenda (with the exception of partial-birth abortion and felony obstruction of justice)—and also gave us two terms for George W. Bush.

And now, merely one year of Obama and a Democratic Congress has given us the first Republican senator from Massachusetts in 31 years.

Although we Christians should not look to our political system as our savior, we should also not ignore the regular, repeating patterns that emerge from the political realm. Our hope is in the Lord. But our brains should be engaged enough to recognize and remember that we need to vote for those who would lead the country into freedom and prosperity, not the opposite direction.

Read Ann Coulter’s full article here - Ann Coulter: That Old Obama Magic Is Back.