Part II
Buzz: Good Morning America, This is the Buzz Lighthead Show! Now appearing to you every morning, for a whole hour, still shining a light on America. This morning we have a very special guest, Radio talk show personality, the shooting star in the Cable world, Rusty Armstrong, soon to sign with our own Network. Rusty, its seems like just months ago that you were standing up in the horse arena In the San Joaquin Valley, when you drew the magic number…
Rusty: The fickle Finger of Fate. I think my Father used his influence… That’s because it has just been four months. How are ya Buzz?
Buzz: I’m adjusting. Rusty, the first thing my staff said when we moved into our new studio, was let’s do an interview of Rusty while we can still afford him. You have electrified a sleeping giant of American middle class and blue collar workers with a simple message. We’ve been watching you, and still have to shake our heads every once in awhile. There is obviously much more to you than the kid that appeared on our story about the California farming crisis…
Rusty: Thank you Buzz, I guess. I’m having a great time.
Buzz: First of all, bring us up to date. What has been happening in your life?
Rusty: Well, as you have announced, I have been asked to host my own television show, thanks to you and the American people.
Buzz: All because you gave me what for!
Rusty: Right. It’s not fair is it?
Buzz: How do you live with yourself? You’re a nice kid and everything…
Rusty: It’s pretty easy these days. But you know life is not fair, ever. That was your message out in California. A lot of people were not getting what they deserved. That may be the greatest fallacy of all however, that people ever get what they deserve.
Buzz: I’ve heard you speak on this before. “Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.” That’s comforting… Like a bed of nails! More of your Christian upbringing, I guess.
Rusty: Partly, and I have actually studied religion abroad.
Buzz: Baptist? Or are you one of those…
Rusty: Yeah, Baptist. At least I was baptized… They teach that we all are blessed already by God’s Grace, or else it would just be another Flood or heavy flak coming down all the time. Thank goodness none of us ever really gets what we deserve.
Buzz: I’m a Christian, but I never heard that! Surely you are using hyperbole.
Rusty: Perhaps, but the point is that we believe that all good things come from God, including the many blessings this Country has received… And sometimes, when we are astray, bad things are allowed to happen to get our attention.
Buzz: So there is a sort of karma that works through after all.
Rusty: Kind of. Anyway, I’ve just been trying to get Americans to look back at our roots in this Country. We have abandoned the very Force of the Universe that made us the most powerful country in the world. Worse, we have consistently insulted Him. I’m fearing we are headed to the garbage dump.…
Buzz: You don’t tug on Superman’s cape!
Rusty: Or spit into the wind. Great song. I love Jim Croce.
Buzz: So right along with your displeasure with American political parties, and the Media, and Liberal Progressives, and the President’s Bailout program, you are out of sorts with the Spiritual condition of this Country. You even say the solutions to our problems are not political…
Rusty: At best, they are only partly political. We could all join you, Republicans and Democrats, in your theme song…
Buzz: Cum Bayah?
Rusty: Cum bayah m’ Lord! But we still would suffer from deep deficiencies. It’s going to take more than a song, singing peace and harmony. It would not last. Americans have lost their foundational concepts that built this Country. We could never have built our Country without them, and we cannot maintain it very long without them either.
Buzz: Without God. That’s the main concept. But everyone’s concept of God is so different.
Rusty: Well, they don’t have to be that congruous. Look at Washington and Jefferson and Franklin. About all they agreed upon was there was A GOD. They really had a very vague bond of liberal Christianity. It had been 150 years since the Pilgrims had established those tiny colonies based on strict Christian values. But there was an emergence led by Benjamin Franklin of Freemasonry, known to us as the Masonic brotherhood that required a man to accept the basic tenant of monotheism, and they pretty much ignored doctrine and practice, but required that all men who were leaders and politicians be a part of that basic pact. Theoretically, their exclusive brotherhood included Jews and Muslims. There is substantial Masonic symbolism even today in our National iconography.
Buzz: But many of us, like Catholics and Lutherans, are prohibited by our Faiths from belonging to such groups!
Rusty: The Masons were a secret society, and had their issues. I don’t necessarily endorse everything they do, but there is no doubt about it, they represent a tightly bound covenant to honor God. But it is a fairly pantheistic deity, as it was in the Colonial times. This is the religious cloud that pretty much founded this country. Still, It was blessed like no other, in spite of its imperfections. But Instead of making that covenant more inclusive, today we have replaced it with apostasy.
Buzz: Americans have basically said; “We got ours, now to heck with God.”
Rusty: Pretty much. And sadly, our children have been raised thinking it was a system that gave us our prosperity. But God could have, and has blessed many people… and different kinds of political and social systems; a theocracy like the ancient Jews and the Holy Roman Empire, or basic communists like the early church, or even kingdoms in Medieval France, all of which have enjoyed incredible rises to preeminence at various times in history. Kids today say a Pledge of Allegiance, to the Flag of the United States of America. It was wonderful experiment in the beginning, as a struggling Republic, but what ushered it to success was being “one Nation under God.”
Buzz: And today, they want to remove that wording, any mention of God.
Rusty: But that’s not the disease, that’s a symptom. It’s just a pledge. To a piece of cloth. And the flag was around long before the pledge was, and the words you allude to were added in the 1950’s. Regardless, that symbol grabs our hearts and represents many good things to many people. But it is not God. Unfortunately, the Government has become like a god to some. Inappropriately, many Americans and people in power think that it is the political system that protects us, feeds us, and provides our every need. That is God’s job. And ironically, the less we depend on Him, and the more we ignore Him, the worse shape we get in. Everyone admits our Country is in a contentious mess, with confusion and insurmountable debt, but we would rather go borrow more money, than admit we have had a spiritual meltdown and lost our way. And as long as we insult God, He will withhold His blessings.
Buzz: There is not enough money in the Universe…
Rusty: Not enough money to do what God did, just because we were somewhat aware of Him, for well over a Century. But Liberal Progressives are out to prove the opposite. They believe in borrowing, spending, intimidating, scaring, legislating, anything to get the results without the moral compass our forefathers used. If they could ever find that man-made formula, they could disprove the Spiritual foundations of our Country. And the Progressive overthrow of our Country would be complete.
Buzz: But there’s not enough time or money, if they went on for fifty years. They are bound to fail.
Rusty: The great, public test of their theories is unfolding as we speak. The only question is what will be left after they have had their way for too long. We will no doubt be left deep in debt… so unproductive and unable to even defend ourselves, we will be a fallen empire, almost a third world country, like Italy.
Buzz: Yeah that’s right, they were once the Roman Empire! And of course the Holy Roman Empire… I wonder if they ever felt themselves losing their big partner in the sky… So, Rusty, where does America go from here?
Rusty: I’m ready for the whole rodeo. Things are going to get very ugly. It will probably crash and burn. I’m ready to build something better, a better America. Something more Godly, and yet more tolerant and inclusive. But something that will never let the foxes in the henhouse again. If we get another chance, we can never lose our basic spiritual heart again. Our forefathers never imagined Satanists, Occultists, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists… fighting our values in court, competing on the air waves and Internet for the minds of our youth. America has become a multicultural soup that is so full of contradictions and impossible alliances that it cannot function. Many of the assumptions that were woven into our Bill of Rights and our Constitution cannot work in our present society. So our Senators and Congressmen just duke it out, frozen in gridlock, as a popular idealist leads the Country down a road less travelled. With all of the technology and communications and computers, and modern perfectionism, we still cannot govern ourselves as well as our grandparents did with none of it. It is the Tower of Babel all over again.
Buzz: I’m not following you there. Explain that. It seems to me we just need to go back to the good old days.
Rusty: There is no going back. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. We can never be as naïve or as primitive as the founding fathers. We also know of the dangers to their fragile system, and the pitfalls of a totally open society. Sure, we all believe in the basic American freedoms. But over the years we have so bound those freedoms because of modern circumstances, that those freedoms are barely recognizable. If you really think you are free, try putting a religious symbol on the courthouse grounds, or even the Ten Commandments. Try going into an airport terminal without a ticket. Try buying a gun, or even bullets. Americans are monitored, corralled, and restricted far beyond the vision of our founding fathers. Everywhere you go, the pleasures we once enjoyed are being limited or shut down. Beaches, camp grounds and roadside parks are restricted or closed, our children are treated like criminals if they pray in public, and our National heroes are now considered perpetrators and oppressors.
Buzz: What’s wrong with getting history right? Wasn’t F.D.R. blatantly unconstitutional, and Robert E. Lee a traitor?
Rusty: Those are pretty harsh words for men revered by a significant segment of our society. As Americans, we will once again be united when we learn to respect one another, and that includes each other’s heroes, and our elected officials, as flawed as they may be. Buzz, what we all need to know is that every man messes up and falls short in some degree, of the Glory of God. It is by His Grace, that we keep going.
Buzz: So you think I’m too disrespectful of Obama?
Rusty: President Obama. Our fairly elected, Commander in Chief. Just remember Buzz, every nasty thing you say about him, tomorrow’s youth will feel free to say about someone you support. And they will have learned how to spew venom and contempt for a fellow American from you. Every time we lose our respect for one another, we take an axe to the trunk of our National self respect…
Buzz: We are pretty bad, I’ll admit. All fell short, I guess, except our founding fathers…
Rusty: Even them. Have you ever read Thomas Paine’s Common Sense?
Buzz: Of course, Glenn Beck made me.
Rusty: Everyone agrees that he and his pamphlet called “Common Sense” was the inspiration of our original revolution and political system. Yet nobody has ever taken Paine to task about many assertions he made that totally excluded God’s Word from the equation. We pretty much founded our Country on one man’s common sense, and not prayerful consultation of God. One or two of his essays threw out loyalty to the king, peaceful resolution, and obligation of legal agreements. Americans adopted his ideas because he gave them the rationale to do what they wanted to do, which was to throw the tea overboard, stiff England and justify their desires of independence. He announced that it was a strategic moment in history that begged for action, as it was the perfect time for America to build her own Navy, while the necessary trees were still handy. It was naked opportunism.
Buzz: C’mon, Rusty, we’re talkin’ George Washington, Patrick Henry, the British were scoundrels!
Rusty: True, the kings of England had been corrupt and despotic, and they were less than admirable, but Americans had always prided themselves, just like Canadians, as Christians, submissive to authority and obedient to the Bible, which would have hardly justified their rebellion. We must look at ourselves… Look at our celebrated history. When our American “patriots” threw all that tea over the side into the bay, it was a punishable crime. Today we celebrate the “Tea Party” as if it were a heroic act. It was beyond protest, it was vandalism. Destruction of property. Much of the rub between the Colonists and the British military was over civil disobedience. If it was over unfair taxation, we would surely have had another war since then! But Americans were feeling their oats, becoming commercially independent, and saw better trade opportunities than those they were bound to as British subjects. Then Paine explained it away, and the rest is history.
Buzz: My history teacher never told me this… Where did you attend college?
Rusty: It was a private Jewish school. You’ve never heard of it. But look at Canada, and compare them to us. They enjoy much of our culture without the guilt of a bloody revolution, or a costly civil war. God gave to them out of obedience, what we took through violence. That is one reason why they look at us askance. We are the Anglo-rowdies of North America.
Buzz: Must be that Scotch-Irish blood… seriously, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. So our Country was just an excuse, a big mistake?
Rusty: No, but no one will argue that many good Americans refused to violate their faiths, and to raise arms against their king. And these Colonial Christians, anti- war protesters, today we would call them Conscientious Objectors, were rounded up, jailed, hung, shot down, and burned out or chased off to Canada. We started our Country on the deadly debate about the rule of law and Biblical authority, and the most devoted Christians lost. The men that won the American Revolution were certainly good men, but who cut their teeth on Paine’s Common Sense. They were not so devout as active Christians, as we think of them today. Thomas Jefferson, the mastermind of our Declaration of Independence, was a Deist. Jefferson believed that a creator god had made the world, then left it to spin without any active involvement from himself. This left room for men to seek their own destinies, without the cumbersome baggage of New Testament pacifism. He even published a book called “The Sayings of Jesus,” omitting all of his miracles and reducing Jesus’ words from Holy Scripture to a benign philosophy.
Benjamin Franklin, another of the Country’s greatest founders, was a sort of religious hybrid, and skeptical about the religious leaders of the day, so we don’t know what he really believed. It has been postulated that according to his upbringing he was sort of a Jewish – deist. Even Abraham Lincoln had issues with organized religion, and only cemented his beliefs in God after going through the American holocaust we know as the Civil War.
Buzz: Not exactly fundamentalists…
Rusty: Not even close. BUT, they had respect for religion and appreciated its place. They could not write a document without invoking the idea of a Creator, who gave all of us “inalienable rights.” But their god was an Ideal and predictable one, almost of human construction, of fairness and justice. Christians know that their Faith is a lot of things, but it is not fair or just, or predictable. Sinful men go to heaven. Rain falls on the just and the unjust. God gives his Grace away to whomever He wills. His only begotten Son takes the thief on the cross with him to paradise…
The founding founders put their faith in Christian generalities, such as the “Golden Rule” and yet more in something Jefferson referred to as “Natural Law,” such as; what goes around, comes around. Something more akin to the Buddhist idea of Karma. With traces of Old Testament influences like Reciprocity, An eye for an eye. Give and take. All mixed with ideas borrowed from Humanism like Motherly Love, Paternal authority, Human kindness, Equality, or at least common origins, and Survival of the Fittest. And a unique American instinct we now call Manifest Destiny. All useful, reasonable, Common Sense stuff. But actually, this will make some people mad, there’s no mention of inalienable rights in the Holy Scriptures.
The Son of Man and his disciples taught submission and good works, wherever you find yourself in life. Our rights as followers of Christ, come last. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness were concepts born out of the Age of Reason, not the New Testament. Life to a Christian is given and taken by God, freedom is in Christ, but it could conceivably happen to a slave, and followers of Christ are exhorted to seek wisdom, truth, love and many other things, but happiness is never mentioned as an ultimate goal, it is the consequential joy of knowing God and serving him. Revolution was never inspired by God. Judas the betrayer of Christ, was the revolutionist. We are to take up our own cross, not guns or lawyers.
Buzz: I’ve got to take a hard break here, hold that thought, and America, don’t touch that remote!
I’m calling an armed escort to get you out of here! I don’t want any blood in our Lobby… You are really a fried egg man, you keep talkin’ like this, it will do great by me, but it will cost you that contract… You are some piece of work… where are you from anyway?
Rusty: Don’t worry about me. I’ve faced much worse. I was born in a little town on the outskirts…
Buzz: We’re back America, Buzz Lighthead shining a light into the recesses of a twisted mind! Damn Rusty, you are crazy, and you make our system sound so worldly, so different from what many people have been taught! It seems obvious now that you mention it, that there is severe philosophical friction between Christianity and Thomas Paine and the founding fathers. But still, they were religious men, you say so yourself. Aren’t you splitting hairs? God is god to most of us.
Rusty: Yes, but to GOD, God is the great I AM. He is just one, and He never inspired the Declaration of Independence or the American Revolution. They were aggressively, unapologetically contrary to the teachings of Scripture. The religions that we all know and love and most of us practice today came through a series of religious revivals that happened decades later. You might say the next generations rebelled against the rowdiness of their fathers. Americans have no idea what pagans the American Revolutionists were.
Religion in the 1700’s was very abstract, most people were illiterate, churches were few, and dueling, gambling, prostitution, philandering and alcoholism were rampant. Many wealthy people and even the middle class had SLAVES, Black and White. Men were imprisoned for debt and relatively minor crimes. Only male landowners could vote. The President was actually selected by the Nation’s elite, the Electoral College.
Buzz: Sure, we know all that, but we had to start somewhere. We were still better than the British!
Rusty: Actually, we weren’t. The British strongly prohibited slavery, and were known to be much more humane in their treatment of the Native Americans. That is why the tribes fought for them. Even Native Americans understood the bond of a man’s word, and loyalty. Believe me, the last thing we want is the America the founders founded. It makes the Southern Confederacy look good. In fact Virginians, literally descendants of Washington and Jefferson, and in memory of their traditions and dualistic paradigms, contrived the Confederate States and were trying to return the Country back to those days. When the War Between the States was fought, is was as much about what direction the South would go; Whether into the religious reformation of the day, which demanded true freedom for everyone, a definite departure from the founding fathers, or return to the contradictions endemic in the old Deistic, permissive mindset. The Confederacy was the last stand for individual, supposedly sovereign States, who preferred to foster whatever ungodly evils like slavery or Indian annihilation that suited them and their electorate.
Buzz: I can see the mail now… The South is turning over in its grave!
Rusty: We had a bitter, terrible war to settle the question, and the Country ended up with historic reform. Even though the South won most of the battles, or made the North pay dearly, the North won the war. The Abolitionists prevailed, and American Christian religions mushroomed. The Country entered into a season of what we think of when we consider ourselves a Christian Nation. Soon, there was a Victorian war on drugs, alcohol, prostitution, child labor and a campaign for Women’s Rights. Coincidently, or NOT, that is when the greatest advances in technology were ever made, we call it the Industrial Revolution, and we enjoyed the greatest prosperity a single Nation has ever known, and America rocketed to world prominence and it’s unparalleled, relatively benign, leading role in spreading freedom and democracy.
Buzz: Man. So… our founding fathers were bad and the Civil War was good… I don’t wanna be you, as you walk down the street. Even if what you say is true, how does that help us now?
Rusty: It’s never too late. The same God of Moses and Jesus said; “If my people, who are called by my Name, will humble themselves, and pray and seek My Face, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Buzz, we founded this country on some good ideas, and some not -so- good ones, like, we have so much freedom, we tolerate other ideals and let prosper those who want to destroy our culture and way of life! So today, we only enjoy a whisper of the nation conceived by our founders. We made a great henhouse, and then let the foxes in to eat them. Jesus taught us to be as harmless as doves, but as wise as serpents. But the original American model was downright inconsistent and unjust and arrogantly vulnerable.
Buzz: So Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, all flawed. Who do you LIKE in American history?
Rusty: Buzz… Abraham, Moses, David, Paul and Peter were all flawed. That does not mean that they were not good men who tried hard and did some valuable things for mankind. They made worse mistakes than our founding fathers. But they are the messengers of our Faith. That is the lesson. No institution made by men will be perfect, or will stand forever, and none can compare to what God has in store for us in Glory. The bottom line is this; We are not to worship a system of government, or a Country. The best we can do is protect or improve it with God’s help. The worst would be to forget the role He has played, or exclude Him now, or restrict His blessings in the future, by reinventing America into a sterile, godless machine.
Buzz: But that is where we are headed. Most Progressives think religion is dangerous, and needs to be cleansed from our system, like a virus. They want religion taken off the airwaves, out of the schools and public places, removed from sight, they want our holidays to be rendered into perfunctory seasonal celebrations; No heroes, no religion, no native identity.
Rusty: And if they are successful, they leave our children with nothing worth defending. A soulless middle class with no cultural orientation, no moral compass. Look at China or Russia and you will see where that leads. It leads to Westernization by default, because the Western world produces all the styles, exciting technologies and entertainment, more bi-products of the wonderful creative genius of our people, who once had a partnership with the Creator of all. Who or what will they turn to, once that light has been extinguished?
Buzz: Hey, I shine the light on America… I know what you are saying. The world looks to us, and we give them Lady Ga ga…
Rusty: It’s never too late… until the Second Coming...
Buzz: Right. You are RADICAL! You’re gonna get me fired. That’s all for today, broadcasting Live from our New York studios! Good day America, see you tomorrow, when Lighthead will once again, shine a light on America!
Rusty: See you around.
Buzz: Yeah kid, good show. Good luck with that religious Cool-Aid. I hear you’re goin’ on Larry King. I’ll be watchin’ that one! We’ll have you back soon, and sick the Scientologists on you. That would be a good one! Or maybe I can line up a Catholic Bishop… I wonder what Billy Graham would say to all this…
Sandra, get Rick Warren for me, as soon as you can…
Rusty: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
Buzz: Anyway Rusty, vaya con Dios… where did he go?
What a weird guy. Sandra, check with the gate and see if Mr. Armstrong has left the building… he just …disappeared…
Did anyone else notice those scars on his arms?
He kind of gave me the creeps, must be an ex-con or something… he didn’t even wait for his bodyguards… I can't believe it, it was like I was in a trance... I hardly talked at all, I must be coming down with something...
What a religious fruitcake! And to think, they are giving him my old prime-time slot! That guy could start a cult! No inalienable rights…What’s happening to this industry? Deists. Sandra? What did the gateman say?
Sandra: Mr. Lighthead, nobody has seen him. But there are baby chicks running around everywhere in the lobby! It smells like a henhouse down here!
Buzz: Well, take these goons with you and wait for him downstairs. “Take up our own cross, not guns or lawyers…” what an idiot. Baby chicks? Where is their mother? Try to get a camera down there!
I guess… we just let the Fox … in the henhouse… or chicks in the Fox house… whatever. That’s pretty funny. Seems like I heard him mention something about chicken wings… what did he say, I wasn’t listening…
He just, ZIIIP, disappeared. Just looked down for a second. “…we take an axe to the trunk of our National self respect,” give me a break! I feel like I’ve just been drugged, or slammed, or invigorated, or turned inside out. I gotta call Beck… this is even weirder than him! Sandra! Bring me a copy of the show, uncut.
Beck’s got his Common Sense… But he’s got… uncommon sense. This guy Rusty… he’s a genius. Went to a private Jewish School… born in the outskirts… scars… Sandra! Forget the copy. I’m going home…
