“One of the most dramatic moments of the Second World War occurred when the British army was helplessly stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk. It turned out to be one of England’s finest hours – and, oddly enough, a telling illustration of the urgent need for Christian apologetics in our day.

"The time was June 1940 and the place was Dunkirk. The British Expeditionary Force, sent to stem the Nazi advance into Belgium and France, had been pushed steadily back to the sea.

”>A pall fell over England. Hitler’s armies were poised to destroy the cornered Allied army. As the British people waited anxiously, a three-word message was transmitted from the besieged army at Dunkirk: ‘And if not.’

“The British recognized instantly what the message meant: ‘Even if we are not rescued from Hitler’s army, we will stand strong and unbowed.’ ‘And if not’ was found in the book of Daniel, where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego defied Nebuchadnezzar, putting their trust in God.

"The message galvanized the British people. Thousands of boats set out across the Channel in a gallant bid to rescue their army. And they succeeded. Nearly 350,000 British and Allied soldiers were saved from the advancing Germans.” –And If Not by Chuck Colson, BreakPoint Commentary, October 23, 1995

I went to a “green building” seminar a few years ago. The speaker began by saying, “Whether you believe in global warming or not, if you want to make money you’ll have to get on board with it…” The same thing is going to happen with this monstrosity called “Obamacare.” Already a new industry is springing up to help us all adjust to this new world order with brightly colored advertising showing wildly happy people enjoying all the new found benefits of government imposition. As soon as they get their lobbyists in place its game over for trying to scrape this diseased violation off our collective skin!

Let’s be honest here. There is also money to be made in opposition to all things Obama. A manager for a business lobbying firm remarked in response to Obama’s stunning re-election: “Not to worry, I built my house during Bill Clinton’s second term!” The Karl Rove wing of the Republican party recognizes this cozy relationship and are deeply antagonistic to those who seek to upset the apple cart … or the money changer tables. Perhaps they were the inspiration behind the “Ralph E. Wolf vs Sam the Sheepdog” Looney Tune episodes. After relentlessly pounding on each other’s flesh, Ralph and Sam clocked out at the end of the day with a matter-of-fact-see-you-tomorrow nod of the head ready to take up their “cause” in the next episode! But just as many long time Democrats fail to see how insidiously their party has been hijacked, so too the establishment Republicans fail to see how evil this threat is to our fundamental principles.

French economist of the 1800’s, Frederic Bastiat, in The Law, observed, “Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property. But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder. …men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. … It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.”

Obamacare hits a new low in the plunder of American property: it plunders in the form of taxation on commercial activity people may or may not want to participate in, but now, by some mystical slight of hand, will be required. My lawful labor and the fruit it produces is now being directed – by coercive force in the weight of law – to products and services that I don’t want and can’t afford. It is truly a brazen fundamental transformation of the just protection of law into an evil instrument of plunder!

Bastiat also taught that a consequence of this perversion is “erasing from everyone’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make the laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”

Federal lawmakers have lost the case for respectable law by the very fact they both refuse to read them before and live under the laws they pass. Now having lost American citizen’s respect for the law and the moral basis for it, the only alternative they have is coercion. Hello police state.

However much the events in Washington look eerily similar to Looney Tune episodes, we must not lose sight of the fact that “fundamental transformation” is a new form of age old idolatry. The choice for those of us who love freedom is clear: continue writing and selling newsletters, argue with idiots on social media, concede & wring our hands as we log hours on a website to nowhere, give money to the next noisy “neo-con” to rally our spirits, or quietly decide in our hearts to seek out like-minded men like the “men of Issachar who knew the times and knew what Israel should do.” And like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, we must ask ourselves are we the same calibre of men who, In God We Trust, declare before the king: even if God does not rescue us from your threats – to bow before your image – We Will Not!