The evidence:

• Politicians barely even give lip service to true liberty. Most of those who do demonstrably have no understanding of the word.
• The citizens are whiny dependents intent on ensuring everyone is as badly treated as they believe themselves to be.
• Government at every level ignores the law almost at will.
• Officers sworn to “protect and serve” are frequently just another criminal gang fighting over turf.
• No conscious, competent citizen can live through a single day without breaking multiple laws, and the most intelligent person could never hope to understand even a small part of our laws even if he dedicated his entire life to the study.
• The job market is flooded with degrees, but very little capacity for thought.
• The looters vastly outnumber the producers.
• There is a real possibility that the President is not eligible for his office.
• Politicians and media are intent on importing as many illiterate, welfare-dependent foreigners as they can before the native Americans wake up to their treachery.
• The economy is in the toilet due to ubiquitous corruption and government interference. The government’s response? More corruption and interference. The people’s response? Demand more corruption and interference.
• Everything, everywhere is monitored, cataloged, and cross-referenced.
• China is on the rise and we can’t sell our country, our infrastructure, and our jobs to them fast enough.
• We are militarily over-committed.
• Every military victory is either pyrrhic, fleeting, or fraudulent.
• Our military is flooded with foreigners.
• The news media, those so-called guardians of freedom, are engaged in a constructive conspiracy to ensure actual freedom is never again experienced in this country.
• We murder our children, while crying about the trampled rights of frogs and cattle.
• Women and children truly rule over us.
• The family, the very core of our civilization, is under incessant attack from politicians, courts, the press, entertainers, and corporations.
• Everyone knows certain truths about sex, race, and religion, but if you dare to speak those truths, you will be fired, sued, shunned, and possibly even imprisoned.
• And on and on and on.

Let’s face it: America is dead and there is no other people prepared to take her place. It is too late to save her. Don’t bother asking how we can restore our rights. Don’t bother spending all your savings on a good man’s election campaign. Who cares who’s running the train when it’s already derailed? Forget all that. It’s a waste of your breath and resources.

Ask yourself this question instead:

How should we now live given our current circumstances and the likely course of future events?

Did I miss anything?

1. You’re a bitch
2. You’re shallow
3. You’re a slut
4. You’re a liar
5. You’re selfish
6. You’re not good enough

The last paragraph is especially good:

The bottom line is that marriage is just a long-term opportunity to practice loving someone even when they don’t deserve it. Because most of the time, your messy, farting, macaroni-and-cheese eating man will not be doing what you want him to. But as you give him love anyway — because you have made up your mind to transform yourself into a person who is practicing being kind, deep, virtuous, truthful, giving, and most of all, accepting of your own dear self — you will find that you will experience the very thing you wanted all along:

Love.

Numbers 7:84-86  This was the dedication of the altar, in the day when it was anointed, by the rulers of Israel: twelve platters of silver, twelve silver basins, twelve golden pans.  (85)  Each silver dish weighed a hundred and thirty shekels, each basin seventy. All the silver vessels weighed two thousand and four hundred shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel;  (86)  twelve golden pans, full of incense, ten shekels each, according to the sanctuary shekel; all the gold of the pans was a hundred and twenty shekels.

Each tribe of Israel made the same offerings regardless of size or wealth. A peace offering was a community bar-b-que, but Judah, with 186,000 soldiers, offered the same number and type of animals as Manasseh with 32,000 soldiers. This is indicative of Israel’s non-communist, republican form of government. Although Levi had a special role (and did not participate in this round of offerings), every other tribe had an equal voice and responsibility in the national government. The same principle is apparent in the annual half-shekel owed by every man of twenty years and older, whether rich or poor. Every man of Israel was a landowner, and, although not every man could be in leadership, every man had a say in how his nation, his tribe, and his village would be governed.

P.S. Here is an interesting thought. I have heard it taught that David was able to eat the bread of the Tabernacle without repercussion because he was also a priest, but of a different order. Being a foreshadowing of the Moshiach ben David, he too was a priest of the order of Melchizedek, which consists of a royal priesthood, men who are both kings and priests simultaneously. If Yeshua has made all those who believe on him to be both kings and priests, then this line of reasoning implies that all believers have the same (or parallel) responsibilities and privileges as the Cohanim. That does not mean that they are above the Law any more than David was. On the contrary, both priests and kings are held to a higher standard. I am not saying that this is a correct interpretation, only that it is a possibility worth considering.

Moses came down from Sinai to find the people worshiping and sacrificing to the golden calf, and God said, “Step aside, Moses. I’m going to destroy these people and start over with you.” Moses refused and appealed to God’s reputation to convince him not to destroy Israel. “What will the Egyptians think of you?” God honored Moses’ plea and spared the nation. (Exodus 32:7-14)

Although God had said that the only place authorized for making sacrifices was at the place where he would “put his name,” Elijah built an altar at the other end of the country. After he put the sacrifice on it and soaked it with water, he asked God to light it for him, and God did, sending fire from heaven to consume it, stones, water, and all. (1 Kings 18:18-40)

Why didn’t God push Moses out of the way and finish what he started? It’s not like Moses actually had any real power. Who is man that God should listen to him? Why didn’t he tell Elijah to go to Jerusalem for his contest with the prophets of Baal? Why did he honor Elijah’s disobedience in such a spectacular manner?

The truth is that neither Moses nor Elijah were actually disobedient. If you have been keeping Torah for long, then you have probably realized that there are times when you must break (or stretch) one law in order to keep another. For example, it’s good to work on the Sabbath in order to free a trapped animal or to heal an injured man or feed the hungry. That’s not disobedience at all, but sometimes it takes a great deal of wisdom to weigh the competing priorities. The same thing is going on in both of these stories.

In the Torah, God never named the specific place that would bear his name. It is possible that he could change the location authorized for sacrifices or even authorize multiple locations. There is some room for interpretation in that law (Deuteronomy 12:11). On the other hand, there can be no compromise with Baal or his prophets. We are not to tolerate them, and especially not in the land of Israel. That is God’s land, and they were interlopers. Elijah took the fight into the place they thought of as their own, rebuilt one of God’s altars and proved who was the real owner. He understood God’s character well enough to know which rule took precedence in that situation.

God gave Moses authority over and responsibility for the people of Israel. He was their judge, teacher, and protector. He was the man whom God used to free them from captivity. When they fought the Amalekites, Moses’ upraised arms enabled their victory. When they complained against God, his intercession saved them from destruction. Moses, by divine appointment and as a type of the Messiah, was a spiritual covering for Israel. When God threatened to destroy them, Moses was duty-bound to intervene even against God himself. His role as Israel’s leader took precedence over any possible role as the progenitor of a new people, and he honored God by putting his own life on the line to save his disobedient, ungrateful people.* “God if you will destroy these people, then destroy me too, because otherwise I will have failed them, you, and myself.” Like Elijah, he had a heart that understood God’s.

I pray that YHWH will bless me with such understanding, with such love, with such a relationship with him, that I will know how to obey him even when obedience seems impossible, how to honor his calling, his people, and his Torah. Barukh YHWH!

*What a great example for all leaders and husbands! Moses put his own life in jeopardy because his love for God and his people demanded it.

A word about the rights of fathers over their daughters…I wrote in A Commentary on Marriage in the Bible that a father always has the right to veto his daughter’s choice of husband. I no longer believe that to be completely true. Matot (Numbers 30-32) says that a father may annul the vows of his unmarried daughter still living in his house. I have had occasion since then to learn something of the life of an unmarried daughter who is not still living in her father’s house, and it seems to me that Matot should be taken literally on that point. If she left her father’s house with his consent and has lived on her own for many years, then she should probably be accorded the status of a widow or divorcee, responsible for her own finances, decisions, and vows.