Under The Olive Tree

The Inauguration of the 44^th President of the United States of America

If you haven’t read the transcript of the speech that President Barak Obama gave at his inauguration, then you have missed one of the great speeches of all time.

President Obama was quick to affirm and acknowledge what most of us understand by now, that we live in perilous times, times of challenge, times of change – a crisis embodying everything from all out “war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” to the consequences of “greed and irresponsibility”, and “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”

He correctly points out the results of this crisis, “Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”, and the foreboding future that this crisis herald’s.

He then goes on to challenge us all to rise to the occasion in following the Americans who have gone before us, some of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice of giving their lives for the realization of an American Nation which is “bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.”

He calls on all of us to rebuild and remake America, both spiritually and physically, in service and sacrifice, in our ingenuity and in our strength, in our determination and in our actions. He calls us with these words, “For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.”

He calls on public servants to lead the charge in establishing a government based on principles and integrity. And he calls on all of us to play our part in re-establishing America as the great world leader that it should be; the last defense against tyranny, the upholder of justice, the responsible friend of the needy nations and peoples of the world, and the home of freedom, tolerance and understanding.

He speaks of the average American citizen as being someone who reflects the greatest ethics of all of history when he says, “It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.”

He assures us that this quest and this endeavor are built on everlasting and enduring truths.

“At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

Personally, I cannot argue with any of his proclamations.

I do, however, have some observations.

“you cannot build a city of light on a hill with bricks formed of excess and depravity.” – Ossian

Hope and Virtue

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost.”

“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

“A Republic must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty.” John Witherspoon

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -John Adams

It is essential that we embrace hope – for without hope of success and hope of prosperity in our mutual endeavors – we will be shackled with the abrasions of our petty differences.

But what of virtue? – and what is virtue in our individual lives, in our families, in our communities, in our businesses, in our institutions, in our public offices, in our government, and in our nation? What indeed is virtue, how do we find it, how do we define it, and how do we keep it and teach it to our children?

You might begin by asking yourself a question about a procedure that takes place in this country on the average of over 4000 times a day – the abortion of an unborn human being. Would you personally consider this to be a virtuous act?

Perhaps your answer will be determined by how you view the object of this procedure. Now ask yourself whether or not you would consider the following case and the judicial rulings to be virtuous.

Pregnant Woman Who Shot Herself in Stomach and Killed Baby is Acquitted

October 19, 2006 by Paul Neal Mooney

Judge Dismisses Case Against Pregnant Woman Who Shot Herself in the Stomach and Killed Child

Before dawn on the morning of February 23, 2006, the same winter day that Tammy Skinner felt contractions begin - signaling the arrival of her soon-to-be born baby daughter - the then 22-year-old Tammy couldn’t sleep.
Tammy got dressed and, bringing her handgun with her, drove behind a grocery store into a dark spot. “I sat there for a while and told the Lord that my mind was not right,” Skinner reportedly told a detective.
The first time Tammy pulled the trigger, the gun didn’t fire. The second time Skinner tried to shoot herself in the stomach, the gun didn’t fail. Tammy’s full-term baby girl died as a result of the gun shot wound.
Next Skinner phoned the police from a car dealership and claimed that a man shot her in the stomach and pushed her out of the car. Later, Skinner changed her testimony and said that the baby’s father shot her. Eventually, Tammy confessed to a detective that it wasn’t the first time she had considered killing her unborn child.
According to the Virginia-Pilot, Skinner, now 23, was “charged in Circuit Court with producing an abortion or miscarriage, a felony charge that her attorney argues cannot be used to prosecute a woman who ends her own pregnancy.”
A lower court judge had already thrown out a charge of producing an abortion against Skinner, concluding that the law was not aimed at pregnant mothers who harm themselves or their yet-to-be born children. Yet the case was resurrected this summer when prosecutors went to a grand jury, who directly indicted Tammy Skinner in July.
A jury trial was scheduled for Nov. 2 regarding the case against Skinner.
But today Circuit Court Judge Westbrook Parker heard arguments in Skinner’s case, including a motion to dismiss the case, and decided to drop the felony charge against Tammy Skinner, effectively ending all prosecution against the underprivileged mother of two.
Tammy Skinner’s father has said that his daughter suffered from depression. Tammy, who spoke with Detective T.L. Cooper five days after the fatal shooting, told him she “did not have any choices” and “wanted to harm the baby.”

Remember, our new President has called the country to hope and virtue – and to follow Americans who have gone before us in answering this call to save our nation, and ourselves.

President Obama states that we have failed “to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”

Are there other difficult choices that we have failed to make regarding our humanity and our dignity – our integrity and our compassion – even our tolerance and acceptance. Have we traded having real virtues for counterfeits and easy solutions?

Real virtues are like anything else that is enduring – they have substance, and they can be defined, understood, even learned and practiced.

Before I continue, let me state that the tragedy mentioned above is no doubt a continual heartache for the family of this mother. Our hearts go out to them for the pain and suffering that they have endured, and will endure.

We can discuss the theory of virtue – but it is in our better interests to confront the issues in such a tragic event to see if we can learn from them, as a society and as individuals.

We all understand that if you take an infant – even just minutes after birth, and use a handgun to end that tiny child’s life – it is without doubt murder. Why then, with only hours to go before her birth, when this child’s life was snuffed out in the same manner – why was that not considered murder by our judicial system? In fact, it was not even considered to be an illegal abortion.

The answer is pretty simple really. If you concluded that this act was murder, then all the third trimester abortions performed in this country (about one every 3 days) would also be murder. Third trimester abortions terminate the life of infants who, when delivered – even under the most difficult circumstances, usually live to become fully functioning and healthy people. Even premature babies born at 24 weeks of gestation have a good chance of surviving. In fact most doctors and hospitals define the age of viability as being about 24 weeks of gestation. A baby aborted at 24 weeks would be considered the beginning of the third trimester.

If these third trimester abortions were considered murder – then you open the door for controversy as to at what point you will consider the pregnancy just a mass of tissue, and at what point you will consider the pregnancy a human being. In America this legal determination has been set at the moment of the child’s full delivery from the womb. That is why, until it was outlawed in 2003, the abortionist could partially deliver the third trimester baby – and then insert scissors and a suction tube into the baby’s brain to complete the operation.

Remember – we are trying to find out here if we are a virtuous nation of people – so let us proceed to find out what virtues are.

If you consult the dictionary – you will find that “virtue” has several meanings. In the sense that we are talking about virtue, and in the way it was used by then General George Washington, and in President Obama’s speech – it has somewhat of a compound meaning – and I would define it as “the capacity to act based on commendable qualities and traits”.

The capacity to act in the manner that will result in the recovery of our nation is based on our “better selves” – and the qualities and traits, although numerous – have for centuries been anchored in some primary virtues.

These might include honesty, integrity, sacrifice, the ability to take the initiative, thoughtfulness, carefulness, promptness, bravery, determination, justice, impartiality, reliability, prudence, trustworthiness, sincerity, and love. All of these are within the grasp of nearly any individual willing to practice and learn them.

There are many more attributes that would be considered virtues worthy of our attention, if we desired to see them acted out in our homes, and in our communities. In fact, these standards of behavior are contagious – and once practiced tend to elicit the participation of those in whom we place our trust such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, public servants, even stock market traders and politicians – and yes, even used car salesmen.

“He who walks with wise men becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” – the Ancient Texts

Think about it, look closely at the news - watch the actions of the rich and the famous, and the powerful. Ask yourself as you look around you if there are any among you who walk in virtue. In too many cases, the answer is no.

From gang members joining the Marines for military training to commit crimes on the streets of our cities, to members of the military in foreign lands being found guilty of abuse, rape, even murdering the people they have been sent to liberate and protect – the list goes on and on.

A mayor of a major US city admits that he lied to the public about his illicit sexual relationship with an 18-year-old – whom he also pressured into lying about the relationship to protect himself. He expects to stay in office. We turn on the news to hear of another mass slaughter on our school campuses, or a nearly institutionalized problem of students cheating on college exams. Our sons and daughters are comfortable with gratuitous violence, using prescription drugs to treat every imaginable “sickness” or problem, binge drinking, public sex, and ever increasingly brutal and degrading pornography. We have teachers taking sexual liberties with high school students, and priests using their office and influence for their own personal gratification.

In fact, we have abuses of every sort in every sphere of our daily lives – we live in a nation where virtue is not only scarce, but in many cases under attack by special interest groups and the media.

You may want to ask yourself, “Where are we heading?”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said while defending our new president’s economic stimulus package which includes increased monies for contraception and abortion, “Well, the family planning services reduce cost,” Pelosi answered. “They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”

Are these some of those hard decisions President Obama was talking about in his inaugural address?

You may believe that all of these things are being done for the sake of “children’s health and education”, but all we have to do is to look at history to find a different interpretation of what is taking place. What starts with abortion and contraception can easily evolve into government sanctioned mercy killing, euthanasia, and the elimination of those who are a burden on the State.

We have an outstanding example of the dangers we are facing, and that is the state of affairs in Germany leading up to World War II.

Hitler came to power in Germany when the people were desperate for a redeemer to deliver them from the shame and reproach of the restrictions placed on them at Versailles. Hitler was “pro choice” – and under his government, once abortion was legalized, there were nearly 500,000 abortions a year. But the interests of the State did not stop there – and it wasn’t long before policies of forced sterilization, and the killing of handicapped and hyperactive children were in steady operation as well. It wasn’t a big step from there to the extermination camps.

Believe it or not – all of these programs were considered “humane, safe and legal”. Physicians involved in these programs were called “protectors of the family”. The killing was called “a healing treatment” and in the case of hyperactive children, killing them by lethal injection was known as a “cure”. “The first panel to decide which children would be executed and which were not was called the “Committee for the Scientific Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Diseases.” The first killing centers were called “Children’s Specialty Institutions” and “Therapeutic Convalescent Institutions.”” (source unknown)

Once the State was operating in such a manner – the stage was set for a complete departure from sanity.

Hitler proclaimed a renewed and powerful Germany, calling down the spirits of the greater German people who had gone before. The people of Germany opened their hearts and their minds, but the spirits that they channeled in the euphoria of The Third Reich were anything but noble.

Hitler was fascinated with Wagner – who wrote an opera that Hitler identified with so completely that he had a painting of himself rendered as the hero – Parsifal. In his memoirs as Ambassador from Great Britain to Germany from 1937 to 1939, Nevile Henderson states, “I have alluded to my mission to Berlin as a drama. The year 1937 constituted its orchestral overture, of which the Wagnerian leitmotivs* were the disciplined tramp of armed men, ever louder and more multitudinous, and the ceaseless clank of heavy machinery forging guns and yet bigger guns, tanks and ever heavier tanks, bombers and still more powerful and destructive bombers. It was a somber introduction.” (*an associated melodic phrase or figure that accompanies the reappearance of an idea, person, or situation especially in a Wagnerian music drama – Merriam Webster)

“HITLER WAS ABSOLUTELY HYPNOTISED BY WAGNER’S MUSIC! He was getting the message! He was like a receiver for the message and he played the tune. He added the words and the bombs and the bullets to the tune and brought Hell on Earth!” - DBB

When speaking of Hitler and “the hidden source of his influence over his followers and their complete subservience to him” – Nevile Henderson stated, “Of the facts themselves there was no doubt. He had restored to Germany her self-respect and re-created orderliness out of the chaos and distress which had followed her defeat in 1918. It is true that the price that the Germans had had to pay was a heavy one; namely, complete loss of personal liberty, of independent thought, and of free speech. All were obliged to think, speak, and act as they were told to do or suffer exile or persecution.”

Under Hitler, Germany descended into a darkness that will continue to cast its chilling shadow on every future generation, until a time when mankind has passed away and is forgotten, or until a day of eternal redemption.

President Obama was sworn in on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln was. He rode to Washington on the same train. He invokes the leadership of past American Presidents and leaders – (like Hillary Clinton with Eleanor Roosevelt) – his relationship with the spirit world and the powerful spirits dwelling there, and his spiritual advisors - may be no better at getting it right for him then Hitler’s were for the people of Germany. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. We need to hope and pray that President Barak Obama does not have a nightmare.