In 1776, an interesting year, a man named Edward Gibbon wrote a series of books entitled The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the final volume he explained his theory of the five reasons why the great Roman Empire fell. While you read the list keep in mind that it was written 234 years ago and described a period of 1,300 years before. Also ask yourself if any of them apply to today’s culture.

1. The Love of show and luxury.
2. A widening gap between the rich and the poor.(referring to wealth envy)
3. An obsession with sex.
4. Freakishness in the arts posing as originality.
5. Increased desire to live off the state.

Is our culture today greater than the Great Roman Empire? Are we stronger than they were? Are we prepared to stand up against the fall of our society? Benjamin Disraeli explained The Cycle of the Body Politic in the 1800s. It describes the progression of a society and has been proven to be true in many cases. Here is my summary:

- People start in bondage.
- From bondage they find spiritual truth which ultimately cannot be denied.
- Because of this spiritual truth people find courage.
- This courage causes them to fight for their freedom.
- Out of freedom comes an abundance of things and money.
- Abundance creates a lack of appreciation and selfishness.
- Selfishness turns into complacency. The lack of ambition to change a bad sitution.
- Complacency over time creates apathy. Not caring about the bad sitution altogether.
- Apathy breeds fear of the fellow man.
- Fear creates dependency on the state or someone who promises protection.
- Before long dependency will enslave the people and they're back to bondage.

We can look at the cycle of the body politic and see our country, can't we? We can debate where we are on this cycle. There are glimpses of each of these stages nationwide but none of them are as predominant as the last stage; the fifth reason why Rome fell. Dependency on the state. In America today, 4 out of 10 people are receiving governement assistance in some form. That's 40% of the people that are dependant upon the state. When that number reaches 51%, it's all over.

I think this video is the kick in the pants that we all need from time to time. This guy pulls no punches and he might just make you cry. He'll strip away ever excuse you had for not succeeding at whatever it is you want to do. Warning: This video may hold you accountable to yourself. Not everyone can handle such truth. Viewer discretion is advised.

Kidnapping is defined as: the taking of a person against his/her will, or from the control of a parent or guardian, from one place to another under circumstances in which the person so taken does not have freedom of movement, will, or decision through violence, force, threat or intimidation. Although it is not necessary that the purpose be criminal, since all kidnapping is a criminal felony, the capture usually involves some related criminal act such as holding the person for ransom.

If a child were taken from his parent against the will of the child and parent, and the kidnapper demanded the parent pay a ransom or risk never seeing the child again, according to the legal definition, would this be kidnapping? Sure sounds like it. What if we changed the word kidnapper to "family court" and the word ransom to "child support?" Somehow that makes it acceptable. But why? The action is the same. The pain caused and damage done to the family is no less severe. The only difference is the label they put on it.

And since it feels no different than a kidnapping, my reaction to it will be the same. I will aggressively pursue every avenue and devote every waking hour to getting him back home safely. Whatever, and however long,  it takes.

Daddy's not done fighting, son. I'm not going anywhere.

From my observations of people lately I'm beginning to see a common pattern, especially among the so called intellectuals. Most people have absolutely no ability to extract the simple details of a situation and apply simple common sense solutions. Instead, they use big words that they memorized from some text book at an overpriced and substandard school to trick less intelligent people into thinking they should listen to the garbage being spewed. They try to rationalize their stupid thoughts by confusing the issue and making it more complicated than what it really is. The people who don't understand the big words, what society would call the "uneducated," are the people who make the most sense because they don't have stupid ideas interfering with common sense.

Take a hillbilly from the mountains of Virginia for instance, when he sees a bear in the woods he runs. He doesn't analyze the situation and try to figure out if running would be stereotyping the bear or politically incorrect or if the bear will be offended. He doesn't check with his advisers to see if shooting the bear would go over well with his constituency. He doesn't first determine the political party of the bear before he makes a decision. Fancy rhetoric and nice suits won't help you in the real world when it your overpriced theories prove to be untrue. The only thing that will help you is to use regular old common sense. And that my friend, is free.

Ok, maybe you're not confronting bears every day so that might not apply to you. Try this one. The economy is in terrible shape right? It has been the only thing on everyone's minds for a few years now. We have thousands of educated professional men and women working in our government and not one of them can figure out a solution? Call me naive here but what if we tried not taking over 30% of the people's money in taxes before they see it? What if we stopped taxing everything they can possibly do with the left over 70%? What if we just let people keep their money and decided for themselves what they want to do with it? As for me, I'd most likely spend that money in the economy. Yes sir, I'd go straight to Wal-Mart like good Americans do. I'd pay some debts that would help me in the future. I'd probably buy a new car, new clothes, better education for my kids, my own health insurance. The common sense that should be applied here is nothing more than this: If you allow people to keep their money, they'll have more money. It doesn't require over complicating lessons on economics to see that.

I don't want to delve too deep into that subject so I'll stop there. Just don't think for a second that these people don't know the simple answer. They know very well that what I said will put America back on top again. So who is it then who doesn't have the common sense? Is it them? Or is it the countless zombies who watch this stuff go down and just let it happen because what the person said on TV contained bigger words than they actually understand? Was it because at the time they are wearing a t-shirt with the politician's face on it? If you listen to these people talk, and apply a little common sense, you can see right through them and the solutions become clear. But common sense is no longer common is it? From now on when I want someone to think about something with common sense, I'll use the term uncommon sense.

God bless America, and have mercy on the idiots.