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PDFDeMint, a powerful senator when he served, a devout Christian and proven conservative, says now is the time for courage.
He is calling on his former colleagues in Congress to take a different path, a courageous path, and defund Obamacare---even if they think it is the road less traveled.
Here's why he feels so passionately about it and how he feels Congress should defund it without being responsible for "shutting down the government."
I believe his call for courage transcends a political call---it is a call for courage to all people of faith and conservatives---a call to look beyond the easy road.
No one knows who wrote these words, but everyone knows what it means.
The easy roads are crowded,
And the level roads are jammed;
The pleasant little rivers
With the drifting folk are crammed.
But off yonder where its rocky,
Where you get a better view,
You find the ranks are thinning
And the travelers are few.
Jim DeMint is calling for Americans to take the rocky road, where you get a better view of reality.
Fox News' Gretta Van Sustern asked DeMint this week if he thinks it's wise for Republicans to risk a government shut down by insisting that no taxpayer money go to funding Obamacare.
He said, "If this is not worth fighting for, nothing is."
He explained that the discussion has been allowed to drift off course and the questions are not relevant.
"The relevant question," he said, "is will Obama shut the government down in order to save his failed law? It's unfair. It's unworkable. He's given waivers to Congress, waivers to big business, but not to the average American. So if the president chooses to shut the government down, it's on him."
DeMint said, "I think Republicans should fund the government, but they should not fund Obamacare."
He has been meeting with people in town hall meetings all across the country and feels his sentiments are consistent with a majority of Americans.
He says he believes a lot of Republican law makers will "change their minds" about funding Obamacare, "when they hear from the voters."
One Republican who needs to change his mind is Speaker of the House John Boehner.
Tea party activists held a rally outside of House Speaker John Boehner’s Ohio office this week, telling the Republican speaker that if he doesn’t use this year’s spending fight to defund the health care law, it will now be known as “BoehnerCare.”
“If he funds it, he will own it,” said Janet Porter, president of Faith2Action, one of the groups participating in the rally.
We will all find out what the Republicans plan to do when they return to Congress after Labor Day.
DeMint talked with Van Susteren about the appropriateness of the President's administration linking Obamacare to MLK and the civil rights movement saying, "It's hard to imagine that something that is going to be so harmful to America can be associated with the civil rights movement."
There's much more on the subject. You can read the entire article here.
It was something DeMint said at one of his town hall meetings that caught my attention and raised an issue that I think every person of faith and conservative must consider at this time.
He said while Republicans have taken dozens of "symbolic votes" to repeal Obamacare, "The real act of courage is if they get back in September and they pass a bill funding all operations of government except Obamacare."
The real act of courage.
Are there still those politicians who are willing to act in courage?
What was once called "public service" has now become a very lucrative career. The pay is very good at the federal level and the benefits are stunning. The ancillary opportunities to legally make additional money abound.
Is courage and conviction lost in this?
I have observed that too many politicians who are elected by the people and sent to Washington DC or a state capitol to represent the people, soon return home representing the government or at least the political party line of which they are a part. Sometimes that view is consistent with the people who elected the representative, in recent times, most often it is not.
Why?
Because it costs something, often politically and financially, to stand against the current---to walk the rocky road of conviction and courage.
Robert Frost has been quoted by many, including elected officials---at least when they are running for office.
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Sometimes making the right decision---taking the right path---standing in courage, is not vindicated except over a long period of time.
How many of us have heard of United States Senator Edmund G. Ross of Kansas?
Not many of us.
On the radio this morning, I'm talking about how a very unpopular vote he cast in the senate impacted America over the decades that followed. He was eventually vindicated and given honor that was due, but it was a long time coming. Please join me live at 9 AM, PDT or rebroadcast at 7:30 PM, PDT.
Long before Frost penned those words another writer said:
Jeremiah 6:16-20
This is what the Lord says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
I appointed watchmen over you and said,
‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
But you said, ‘We will not listen.’
Therefore hear, you nations;
you who are witnesses,
observe what will happen to them.
Hear, you earth:
I am bringing disaster on this people,
the fruit of their schemes,
because they have not listened to my words
and have rejected my law."
Our world is drowning in the new "ways" of secularism and relativism. There is a better way. America was founded on these "ways" and it can be restored by returning to these "ways." However it is necessary that people of faith "act in courage." And act now.
Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Informed. Be Prayerful. Be Bold. Be Blessed.