Sometimes I let this fallen world get me down. Whether it’s the politics or the culture (or both), it’s occasionally my wont to focus on the negative.

Zeke loving it on the Pullen Park carousel in Raleigh: How could anyone be bummed out around this cutie pie?!

Honestly, it’s difficult not to occasionally fall down that deep, dark vortex of pessimism when hostility, division, narcissism, corruption, amoralism, nihilism, tyranny and a deficit of common sense seem to be the norm.

Or when the contentions that “there is no right and wrong,” “there is no such thing as objective truth” and “the Constitution is archaic” seem to be gaining traction, you know that (at best) the stability of our nation and (at worst) the perpetuation of Western civilization are both  in deep doo-doo.

The 3 Amigos enjoy checking out a freight car @ Pullen Park during our visit to the Capital City for Education in Action Day.

I mean, it’s hard not to get down when the feds are trying to their damned best to strip Americans of our right to keep and bear arms. After all, if I’m void of the ability and means to defend myself and my family, all other rights are meaningless, since they can so easily be infringed upon.

Or the executive branch’s hubristic attempt at trampling the rights of citizens to due process, which is enshrined in the 5th and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution. So, the killing of an American in the homeland should be cool, as long as it’s “appropriate.” All I can say is, “Don’t drone me, bro!”

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” — Albert Einstein

And then you have our Attorney General Eric Holder, the highest judicial officer in the land, arguing that it’s not necessarily a violation of a parents’ rights if the government were to (hypothetically, of course) outlaw homeschooling. As long as the law were to be applied equally to all citizens, he sees nothing wrong with such a legal argument.

“No nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge & values transmitted to children than the family does.” — Dr. Ron Paul

Whether it be the Red Guard, the young paramilitary communists Mao Zedong used during China’s Cultural Revolution; or the Hitler-Jugend, the revolutionary youth-group movement organized by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (a.k.a. the Nazis); history shows that seizing parental authority has dire consequences.

“When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’” Adolph Hitler said in 1933, “I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already. … In a short time (children) will know nothing else but this new community.’”

“This new Reich will give its youth to no one,” Hitler declared in 1937 (one year before the Nazis outlawed homeschooling), “but will itself take youth & give to youth its own education & its own upbringing.”

You can easily spot such power grabs by authoritarians throughout history. It’s scary that it ever happens, but even more unsettling that it always recurs in yet another place, in another time and by another despot, all while folks say, “Oh, calm down. That could never happen here.”

Houston, Zeke & Gabriel are so proud of the “types of ocean floor” model we made for a recent science lesson.

And then there’s just the tyranny of law. I mean, there are so many federal statutes (more than 4,000) that you’re certainly in violation of one of them at any given time. And somehow we’re supposed to keep up with it all while maintaining our liberty.

Case in point: federal anti-trust laws. If a business keeps its price the same as a competitor, that’s collusion; if the biz raises its prices higher, that’s price gouging; if the biz cuts the price, well, that’s predatory pricing. It’s a pickle, ain’t it?

But it’s not just the leaders, the lawyers, the special interest-groups, the political power brokers and cronies that make me wary. What about the some of the garbage the so-called the “intellectuals” are pushing?

Houston & his Stuffee camp out w/ brothers in the teepee Mommy picked up for cheap @ a kids’ consignment sale.

Example: There’s a school of thought in academia within the ethicist community that says infanticide is okay … but just up to two years of age. Whew, that sure makes me feel better! Man, who ever knew “after-birth abortion” would ever be an idea that any feeling human would entertain?

Here’s another: There’s a growing movement in higher education that’s pushing to normalize pedophilia. Seriously, I’m not lying. I know you think I must be mistaken, but it’s real stuff. Check out the insanity for yourself.

Having said all that, I’ve never been a defeatist and, overall, I’m a pretty positive person — always have been, always will. My parents reared me in an empowering way and in a freer time that instilled in my core the currently unfashionable truth: You can do anything, if you put your mind to it.

“Whoa, lugging all this cool stuff around is hard work,” Gabriel says of his Stuffee, & the beads & clapper Cousin Casey sent to the boys in a fun-filled Mardi Gras package.

Couple my not subscribing to the woe-as-me, always-a-victim mentality that pervades our society with my efforts to become a mature follower of Christ, and I actually have hope in these times that oftentimes seem so hopeless.

“I am your refuge & strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, you don’t need to be afraid of anything — not even cataclysmic circumstances. The media are increasingly devoted to fear-inducing subject matter. … If you focus on such dangers & forget that I am your refuge in all circumstances, you will become increasingly fearful. Every day I manifest my grace in countless places & situations, but the media take no notice. I shower not only blessings, but also outright miracles on your planet. … You have eyes that see & ears that hear, so proclaim my abiding presence in the world.” — From “Jesus Calling,” by Sarah Young

Here’s a more secular take :

“Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from human haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
— William Shakespeare

And most importantly, I already have a joy that’s so abundant and powerful that no man can tear it down. It’s a kind of empowerment and liberation that no hater can ever understand. Nor can he regulate, confiscate or legally banish it from my heart.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” – Galatians 5:1