The Path Chosen Wisely

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;

In the next couple of years the U.S. is facing a fork in the road analogous to that of Robert Frost's above. It will either confirm past choices by selling it's soul for the path of handouts and promises of security and Utopia, initially paved smooth by debt; with no evidence it will deliver; and every evidence that it will in the end be treacherous, or will it choose the narrow path, desiring instead to face in plain sight and head on the difficult realities of life that must be negotiated.

We do not make this choice in the blind. Recent history gives us some insight. We are currently living on a path made rocky by impossible to keep promises made to past generations in the New Deal, the centerpiece of which was Social Security. In the defense of that generation however, the choice wasn't as clear then as it is today, for they lived in a time not expunged of honor and reverence for God. It was not as unreasonable then to expect the promises of security be kept. But they had not traveled far down that path before the funds they had entrusted for their future were stolen under the dishonest and dishonorable guise of a "loan" by dishonorable and dishonest men for the purchase of more votes. For subsequent generations those promises have become a ticking time bomb with the explosion of its insolvency as certain as the setting sun. This should give us pause as it provides for us insight into what the well traveled and well paved by debt path holds as we are being asked, not only to continue in a delusional trust of those past impossible promises, but to double down on them by entrusting the same dishonest people with even more.

Our current times also give us some insight into the mindset of those we are being asked to trust. The ACORN videos provide a glimpse into a worldview held predominately by those most intent on garnering our trust, the left. The videos reveal a worldview devoid of honor and shame, and devoid of a moral compass. While defenses are mobilized by pointing at ACORN's good, at issue is the word good itself as defined by those with no moral compass. These videos reveal a clash in the opposing definitions of good as ACORN terminates employees it would have otherwise kept had the light of the traditional definition not been shined into its operation. How else does one explain so many taken in by this sting? The path hearkened to by organizations like ACORN and their armies of ilk organizations is one paved by "good" intentions.

We must also realize that organizations like ACORN are not the ultimate problem. There are many such organizations, political parties, and even so called churches that are operated and are interrelated by the same mindset. The problem occurs when people who know better entrust their futures, and the fruit of their womb and labor, to this kind of mindset.

In the next few years this path will be set, if it isn't already. If it is set, our future will be marked by promises upon promises, always qualified by an if; the if being based on some sort of forfeit of resources and liberty, as indeed we are today experiencing that very consequence of past choices. As today is proof of yesterday's promises insufficient, tomorrow will be proof of today's promises insufficient, all while we steadily descend into chaos, uncertainty and poverty. The path before us is much clearer than perhaps it has been for previous generations in history. Let us not be fooled as we move forward.

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.

Robert Frost