The Socialist Pendulum

Just when you think the pendulum is swinging back toward more conservative ideas, the European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers’ dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips. There appears to be no bounds to growth of government.

The governments in Europe have taxed their people about as far as they can go so to pay for any new entitlement scheme such as this they'll need to go further into debt. Western nations already have major debt and the sky has not fallen so what is the harm in just a little more debt? Of course this will inevitably lead to inflation which is really a form of hidden taxation.

It seems to me that there is a general sense among government authorities that the end is near so let's spend all we can while we can. This attitude is the fruit of materialism which denies the judgment of God and says, "If the dead do not rise, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!" (1 Corinthians 15:32, NKJ). It is an amazing thing when even unbelievers are acting like the end is near.

Despite strong resistance, maxing out on taxes while piling on as much debt as the government can get away with is the direction we are headed in the United States. A lot of people think that the Tea Party movement and general populist outrage over the excesses of our federal government will turn things around. I hope it will but I can see a scenario where a third party is formed which divides conservatives and allows the socialists to continue their schemes to rob workers of their pay and make everyone subservient to the elites running government.

There is a limit to how far God will allow the socialists to practice their corrupted form of justice. "Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth" (James 5:4).

The unchecked rise of socialism in the world is just one more reminder of how sorely we need Jesus to return. There is no reason why that Day couldn't be today.