by Greg Allen

"Thou shall have no other gods before me." God sure must have thought it important to place such a commandment in the number one slot. If you believe in such things, "Other gods" could be the opposite sex, athletes, celebrities, your career, politicians, or just about anything.

There's danger in putting politicians, or anything else for that matter, on a pedestal.

C.S. Lewis once said: "The Golden Apple of selfhood, thrown among the false gods, became an apple of discord because they scrambled for." Although you may have to search deeply into Lewis's atoning words for meaning, it could very well apply to what occurred during the U.S. Presidential Elections of 2008 and 2012.

Many put their hopes in a man, the first black President of the United States. Although the President of the United States is no doubt considered the most powerful man on the planet, he's still just that, a man who's fallible. There's a danger in hanging our hopes on a politician who may or may not be ethical or moral. There's an inexhaustible list of politicians and world leaders who fit that mold of distinction, and have for eons.   

The mainstream media have, and continue to, put Barack Obama on a pedestal.

Politicians aren't deity, although some may think they are. They're just humans with elevated responsibility who are indeed fallible.

There's been an assault on conservatism by the progressive movement in America for the last hundred years. That infection, yes, I'll call it that, has infected both parties. They've tried to thrust their will on the masses for all too long, but I see an uprising stirring among the electorate.
   
Evidence shows the Obama administration knew all along millions of Americans would lose their existing insurance policies and doctors. If he said: "You'll probably lose your doctor and insurance policy," instead of the fabrication he told repeatedly, he would not have been elected.
   
Polls, no doubt, verify my theory of a pending political upheaval to come as demonstrated by the polling being conducted nowadays and the unfavorable statistics they reveal.
   
A growing public unrest is reflective in the story of an eight-year-old Indiana boy who took a pocket knife to school. Although the boy always carried it, never took it out of his pocket, another student made the principal aware of it. The police were called, but no arrests were made. The community was outraged to hear that an eight-year-old was even remotely being considered a "Terrorist." The community outrage was so great the local newspaper was inundated with letters to the editor condemning the school board, the superintendent, and the principal of the school for weeks. Many of those who wrote to the paper claimed there would be a turnover, come next election, of the school board and that would trickle down to the firing of the superintendent and possibly the principal.
   
Outrage is also reflective in the story of a middle school girl in Kentucky who refused to wear a badge around her neck. The device had a computer chip tracking device in it; she refused to wear it for religious reasons. Her reason was in reference to biblical text found in Revelation that refers to the mark of the beast.
   
The principal, in turn, suspended her. As the story goes, several students in protest threw their badges in a trashcan in front of teachers. In the face of such protest, the principal decided to scrap the program.
   
You might say: "Prosperity bred complacency in the past," but the vanishing of both is now a way of life. I'm hearing the phrase "People are getting fed up" far more.
   
George Will, a fellow syndicated columnist, has said more than once: "What I'm about to say is probably prophetic." I don't know if George has such talents, but I'll make some utterances of my own that may be prophetic in nature too.
   
I believe the Republican Party will retain their majority in the House of Representatives in 2014. I'm also of the opinion the Republican Party will regain a majority in the Senate as well. Along the way, some establishment Republicans, moderates so to speak, will lose their seats in the upcoming primaries because of voter outrage. Voters will have a tendency to lean toward "Political Outsiders" who have distaste for what Washington has become.
   
A lack of trust in certain politicians will be an emboldening factor for many voters, many of whom favored the Democratic Party in the past and no longer will. And it's a safe bet to say the Democratic Party won't hold a majority in Congress for the next 20 years, mostly because it will take them that long to regain the trust they've squandered with the public.


Greg Allen's column, Thinkin' Out Loud, is published bi-monthly. He's an author, nationally syndicated columnist and the founder of Builder of the Spirit in Jamestown, Indiana, a non-profit organization aiding the poor. He can be reached at 765-676-5014 or www.builderofthespirit.org.

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