How's It Working for You?

So, Mr. Quill Pig, how’s it working for you?

After all these years of bloviating, how many minds have you changed?

How many of your non-believing libertarian and anarchist friends have you attracted to Jesus?

How many Christians have you persuaded to reconsider their devotion to Uncle Sam?

How many of the people who friended you on Facebook will unfriend you before you decide you’re a menace to what you say you stand for?

What does it mean when your family members, every one of them, leaves the room when the conversation turns to issues of right and wrong and you get the floor?

I don’t know. Maybe I’m simply incurably dense. Or apostate.

I started this post because I wanted to ask Mr. God Bless America how it’s working for him. And I still think the question is worth asking.

After 9/11 we (I was all for it) were going to have a minor-league police operation in Afghanistan to catch Osama and bring him to justice.

Then we were going to send what Rush Limbaugh called “150,000 weapons inspectors” to Iraq to make sure Saddam wasn’t going to nuke us. Fifty billion bucks and we’d be greeted as liberators.

Well, eleven years later we’re still in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as God knows how many other countries, and not only is the bill rising, the amount of money being spent day by day is also rising.

How’s it working for you? If we were safer now, wouldn’t the bill be going down?

We’ve had three years of Barack Obama. How’s this for a sign of God’s blessing?

Now we’ve got the worst drought in fifty years. How’s this for a sign of God’s blessing?

If God were out to destroy this nation, what would he do differently? Corrupt leadership, tyranny, endless war, drought—what’s missing? Oh yes, disease. I don’t suppose autism and obesity, not to mention increased government spending to combat cancer, count, so we seem to have dodged that bullet, at least so far.

I’ve been buying silver coins to try to protect myself from the devaluation of the currency, but if the drought is killing the food supply, a piece of bread will eventually buy a bag of gold. What then?

What can the Quill Pig do to change the future? Why talk if no one is listening? What would change if they listened?

If I just shut up, I can stop alienating my family and friends and brethren in Christ. These are the people I’ll be depending on after the fertilizer hits the ventilator, so maybe it’s time to go along to get along.

Or is there a battle going on that’s worth fighting even if there’s no chance of winning it?

I hear a voice calling from the past:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

So, Mr. God Bless America, you’re right. It’s not working for me. I don’t think it’s working for you either, but you’re obviously happier with your lot than I am with mine. So go for it, buddy.

I’ve been told that if I won’t stand behind the troops I’m welcome to stand in front of them. If—maybe I should say when—that day comes, may God in his mercy put me in the sights of a sniper who can hit my aorta the first time. Then we’ll both be happy.