Not Yours to Give

In honor of all us fortunate Americans receiving our "stimulus package" checks in the mail, I thought I'd post one of my favorite congressional speeches by one of my favorite congressman ever, Davy Crockett from Tennessee. Please take time to read this. You'll be enlightened and amused. It sounds much like our modern-day Davy Crockett, Dr. Ron Paul.

"Not Yours to Give" by Col. David Crockett

Everywhere I turn, folks are jumping around yelling, "Yippee! A check!" I just can't get quite that excited. To me, it feels like buying my own Christmas present, wrapping it, putting it under the tree for a year and a half, then finally allowing me to open it. It was my money in the first place. I would much rather have kept it originally than to have given Uncle Sam an interest-free loan.

As director of a crisis pregnancy center, I am asked quite often why we don't sign up for government grants under the faith-based initiative. Certainly, we could use the money. Well, there are many reasons, not the least of which being that I don't want a secular government supervising our gospel work at LMO . The government can never help a sinner find the right path; that is the duty of the body of Christ.

But, laying aside any arguments about the specifics of our work, I believe in general that the whole faith-based initiative is a complete insult to the founding fathers, and our U.S. Constitution. Our government has no right to take money for charitable purposes; that should be at our own discretion. I believe most people would be more charitable if they had more money to give. When you allow the government to make those decisions for you, you end up with abominable choices like Planned Parenthood and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) . I personally would much rather my money go to a church, missionary, crisis pregnancy center, or even in my pocket, rather than funding every debauchery under heaven.

If I'm going to complain about misappropriation of tax payer money for purposes not outlined in our Constitution (whether it be welfare, Social Security, MedicAid, education, subsidized insurance, rehab programs, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc - this list could go on for a Washington mile!), I certainly am not going to be a part of the problem, and partake of the funds that I don't believe should be "available" in the first place. [Please note: Uncle Sam has arranged it so that some programs, such as Social Security, we don't even have choices on!]

Shouldn't we all just raise our voices and say, "Thanks, Mr. President, but it's not yours to give," and then go and vote for someone who doesn't believe in stealing our money in the first place?