Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., speaks during a Congressional Black Caucus press conference.
The latest Democratic brainstorm is a “got to see it to believe it” piece of legislation aimed at stopping wars around the world – by creating a Department of Peacebuilding.
How very forward-thinking of the left. Or perhaps, more specifically, how forward-thinking of Rep. Barbara Lee, the California Democrat who devised the piece of legislation, H.R. 1111, with the creative fortitude to begin its descriptive text with reference to our Founding Father’s vision for our nation, followed closely by quotes from the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution.
Only the boldest of Democrat could suggest the establishment of such a massively bureaucratic government venture by waving the very founding documents that pressed limited federal powers.
Points for Lee for the sheer impudence of it.
The bill then goes right into the number of war-related kills America has seen in the 20th century, as well as the number of deaths due to gun-related violence, murders, and child abuse and neglect – and their costs, as borne by each taxpayer.
“On April , 2012, the Institute for Economics and Peace released a United States Peace Index, which assessed peacefulness at the state and city levels and analyzed the costs associated with violence and the socio-economic measures associated with peace,” the text of the bill stated. “While violence within the United States had declined over the year 2011, violence and violence containment still cost the average taxpayer $3,257.”
The total cost for the entire nation to counter violence for that year was “conservatively calculated to be over $460 billion,” the bill went on. Thus, “violence prevention is cost-effective,” it concluded. And therefore, there is “hereby established a Department of Peacebuilding … dedicated to peacebuilding, peacemaking and the study and promotion of conditions conductive to both domestic and international peace and a culture of peace,” the bill stated.
The cost? This bill calls for “such sums as may be necessary” for the newly created department, including what’s needed for the various created offshoot offices to give out grant dollars to those schools and non-government groups desiring to be trained on all matters of peace.
The bill only has a handful of cosponsors – all Democrats, and more to truth, all the most leftist-of-left Democrats. And it’s probably not going anywhere near the full House floor for a vote, at least while Republicans still hold the majority. But that’s not really the point.
The larger issue is: Why do politicians always think they can solve all the world’s problems?
Lee and her Department of Peacebuilding supporters no doubt truly believe that simply spreading the word of peace – by getting together and sitting down in a group, identifying problems, rationalizing solutions, hashing out consensus and shaking hands on an agreement – will somehow, miraculously, bring about a peaceful coexistence among all of humanity. But that’s just naïve to the level of ridiculous. Not to mention dangerous; that’s the mentality the Obama administration touts on all its foreign policy dealings with even those nations that want to harm the West.
It’s that line of thinking that defies the truths about war and peace and the matters and motivations of human hearts. It negates the fact that true evil exists – and fails to recognize evil as the springboard for war. And it outright ignores common sense principles and biblical wisdoms. Take a look at this, from James 4: “What causes wars and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war.”
In Lee’s mind, and those of her cohorts, the solution to war is building a new government facility and creating a new federal bureaucracy and hiring new government workers who will talk and meet and give out taxpayer dollars so more government workers can talk and meet. But James 4 lays it out much more simply, and cost-effectively: “You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. Unfaithful creatures! … Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.”
It just doesn’t make sense that making a new federal department — and throwing money at a new government bureaucracy — will purify the human heart to the point that worldwide peace prevails.
Cheryl Chumley, a writer for WND.com and former news writer for The Washington Times, is also the author of “Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare Is Becoming Our Reality.” She may be reached at [email protected] or through her blog, cherylchumley.blogspot.com.
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